LITMIR.BIZ

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should be as well. But he knew it wasn’t. He’d seen its eyes flicker.

      There was a knock on the door. Nick hastily put the dagger back in its sheath.

      “Yes!” he called. The sheathed dagger was still in his hand. For a moment he considered exchanging it for the slim .32 automatic pistol in his suitcase’s outer pocket. But he decided against it when the person at the door called out to him.

      “Nicholas Sayre?”

      It was a woman’s voice. A young woman’s voice, with the hint of a laugh in it. Not a servant. Perhaps one of the beautiful young women he’d seen arrive. Probably a not very successful actor or singer, the usual adornments of typical country-house parties.

      “Yes. Who is it?”

      “Tesrya. Don’t say you don’t remember me. Perhaps a glimpse will remind you. Let me in. I’ve got a bottle of champagne. I thought we might have a drink before dinner.”

      Nick didn’t remember her, but that didn’t mean anything. He knew she would have singled him out from the seating plan for dinner, homing in on the surname Sayre. He supposed he should at least tell her to go away to her face. Courtesy to women, even fortune hunters, had been drummed into him all his life.

      “Just one drink?”

      Nick hesitated, then tucked the sheathed dagger down the inside of his trousers, at the hip. He held his foot against the door in case he needed to shut it in a hurry; then he turned the key and opened it a fraction.

      He had the promised glimpse. Pale, melancholy eyes in a very white face, a forced smile from too-red lips. But there were also two hooded men there: one threw his shoulder against the door to keep it open. The other grabbed Nick by the hair and pushed a pad the size of a small pillow against his face.

      Nick tried not to breathe as he threw himself backwards, losing some hair in the process, but the sickly-sweet smell of chloroform was already in his mouth and nose. The two men gave him no time to recover his balance. One pushed him back to the foot of the bed, while the other got his right arm in a wrestling hold. Nick struck out with his left, but his fist wouldn’t go where he wanted it to. His arm felt like a rubbery length of pipe, the elbow gone soft.

      Nick kept flailing, but the pad was back on his mouth and nose, and all his senses started to shatter into little pieces like a broken mosaic. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw and heard and felt, and all he could smell was a sickly scent like a cheap perfume badly imitating the scent of flowers.

      In another few seconds, he was unconscious.

      Nicholas Sayre returned to his senses very slowly. It was like waking up drunk after a party, his mind still clouded and a hangover building in his head and stomach. It was dark and he was disoriented. He tried to move and for a frightened instant thought he was paralysed. Then he felt restraints at his wrists and thighs and ankles, and a hard surface under his head and back. He was tied to a table or perhaps a hard bench.

      “Ah, the mind wakes,” said a voice in the darkness. Nick thought for a second, his clouded mind slowly processing the sound. He knew that voice. Dorrance.

      “Would you like to see what is happening?” asked Dorrance. Nick heard him take a few steps, heard the click of a rotary electric switch. Harsh light came with the click, so bright that Nick had to screw his eyes shut, tears instantly welling up in the corners.

      “Look, Mr Sayre. Look at your most useful work.”

      Nick slowly opened his eyes. At first all he could see was a naked, very bright electric globe swinging directly above his head. Blinking to clear the tears, he looked to one side. Dorrance was there, leaning against a concrete wall. He smiled and pointed to the other side, his hand held close against his chest, fist clenched, index finger extended.

      Nick rolled his head and then recoiled, straining against the ropes that bound his ankles, thighs and wrists to a steel operating table with raised rails.

      The creature from the case was right next to him. No longer in the case, but stretched out on an adjacent table ten inches lower than Nick’s. It was not tied up. There was a red rubber tube running from one of Nick’s wrists to a metal stand next to the creature’s head. The tube ended an inch above the monster’s slightly open mouth. Blood was dripping from the tube, small dark blobs falling in between its jet black teeth.

      Nick’s blood.

      Nick struggled furiously for another second, panic building in every muscle. The ropes did not give at all and the tube was not dislodged. Then, his strength exhausted, he stopped.

      “You need not be concerned, Mr Nicholas Sayre,” said Dorrance. He moved around to look at the creature, gently tapping Nick’s slippered feet as he passed. “I am taking only a pint. This will all just be a nightmare in the morning, half remembered, with a dozen men swearing to your conspicuous consumption of brandy.”

      As he spoke, the light above him suddenly flared into white-hot brilliance. Then, with a bang, the bulb exploded into powder and the room went dark. Nick blinked, the after-image of the filament burning a white line across the room. But even with that, he could see another light. Two violet sparks that were faint at first but became brighter and more intense.

      Nick recognised them instantly as the creature’s eyes. At the same time, he smelled a sudden acrid odour, which got stronger and stronger, coating the back of his mouth and making his nostrils burn. A metallic stench that he knew only too well.

      The smell of Free Magic.

      The violet eyes moved suddenly, jerking up. Nick felt the rubber hose suddenly pulled from his wrist and the wet sensation of blood dripping down his hand.

      He still couldn’t see anything save the creature’s eyes. They moved again, very quickly, as the thing stood up and crossed the room. It ignored Nick, though he struggled violently against his bonds as it went past. He couldn’t see what happened next, but something…or someone…was hurled against his table, the impact rocking it almost to the point of toppling over.

      “No!” shouted Dorrance. “Don’t go out! I’ll bring you blood! Whatever kind you need—”

      There was a tearing sound and flickering light suddenly filled the room. Nick saw the creature silhouetted in the doorway, holding the heavy door it had just ripped from its steel hinges. It threw this aside and strode out into the corridor, lifting its head back to emit a hissing shriek that was so high-pitched it made Nick’s ears ring.

      Dorrance staggered after it for a moment, then returned and flung open a cabinet on the wall. As he picked up the telephone handset inside, the lights in the corridor fizzed and went out.

      Nick heard the dial spin three times. Then Dorrance swore and tapped the receiver before dialling again. This time the phone worked and he spoke very quickly.

      “Hello? Lackridge? Can you hear me? Yes…ignore the crackle. Is Hodgeman there? Tell him ‘Situation Dora’. All the fire doors must be barred and the exit grilles activated. No, tell him now…‘Dora’…Yes, yes. It worked, all too well. She’s completely active and I heard Her clearly for the first time, speaking directly into my head, not as a dreaming voice. Sayre’s blood was too rich and there’s something wrong with it. She needs to dilute it with normal blood…What? Active! Running around! Of course you’re in danger! She doesn’t care whose blood…We need to keep Her in the tunnels; then I’ll find someone…one of the servants. Just get on with it!”

      Nick kept silent, but he remembered the dagger at his hip. If he could bend his hand back and reach it, he might be able to unsheathe it enough to work the rope against the blade. If he didn’t bleed to death first.

      “So, Mr Sayre,” said Dorrance in the darkness. “Why would your blood be different from that of any other bearer of the Charter Mark? It causes me some distress to think I have given Her the wrong sort. Not to mention the difficulty that now arises from Her desire to wash Her drink down.”

      “I don’t know,” Nick whispered after a moment’s hesitation.

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