Page 24

chapter twenty-two

A SLIGHTLY REGRETTABLE DECISION

The Marshals made up for taking nearly fifteen minutes to get there by being extremely busy and officious once they turned up. The remaining demons—only four of them, because Laura had taken out one of hers while Walden was facing the snowflake-creature—were swiftly and efficiently despatched by a double squad of KMVs. Someone who must have been Laura’s partner turned up and joined her, and all three hunting pairs switched into patrol mode: Laura and her partner ranging the street, a second pair checking in and out of shops and alleyways, and the third stamping their feet in the cold for a few moments before someone in overalls turned up and levered up a manhole cover for them so they could climb down into the dim underbelly of the city.

A dozen junior Marshals, less impressive than the KMVs, quickly set up a warning-tape barrier around orange traffic cones. Then they corralled the idiot pedestrians with phones and started running imp checks. Two academic magicians in winter coats with Marshal badges and high-vis armbands turned up; that would be the warding squad. Walden, still feeling rather stunned by everything that had just happened, watched not very intelligently as the two of them did a worse and slower job than she would have of establishing that the surprise incursions were definitely gone and shoring up the wards in range, all along the street. Of course, if you were a trained academic magician and you wanted a career where you actually used magic, there were plenty of jobs in industry and security that paid a lot better than working for the Marshals. The only thing that paid worse, in fact, was probably teaching.

Walden stood, and stood. She should have been completely exhausted. She should have been half-collapsed on the pavement. But the cool rush of power from the demon that she and the Phoenix had eaten, the demon that was now a part of them, was something between a draught of water straight from a spring in the Scottish Highlands and a slug of strong gin. She was fizzing. She could have set the city on fire. She could have buried all of Covent Garden under ice. She stared at nothing.

“Miss, you’re in shock,” someone said. “Miss, come and sit down.”

“Doctor,” said Walden automatically.

Then she was sitting on an uncomfortable metal chair, still in her black party dress and Mark’s warm wool coat, next to a van marked with the ancient Marshal coat of arms—sword and armoured fist crossed on a shining white shield. There was a folding table in front of her. Walden rested her hands on it. After a moment, a middle-aged man with dark brown skin and thinning hair sat down on the other side of the table. He had the bulky, sagging build of someone who had been heavyset and dangerous before he moved to a desk job, and could probably still punch an archdemon with reasonable force if he really wanted to. “Arjun Ramamurthy,” he said pleasantly. “I’m Chief of Incident Response for southeast England.”

Walden could see the rank stripes on his sleeve and the white-and-gold detailing at the collar of his jacket. “KMGC,” she said.

Knight Mareschal Grand Capus. Chief Ramamurthy inclined his head. “Most people don’t know the ins and outs of Marshal ranks,” he said. “And you, of course, are Dr Sapphire Walden.”

Walden tried to shake herself out of her daze. “Have we met?”

“Only in my files, Doctor.”

There was a pause. But it wasn’t really surprising. Laura had mentioned something, hadn’t she? The Order of Marshals keeps track. I could count them on my fingers. If your entire organisation had grown up over centuries for no other purpose than to battle demons, any sensible set of risk assessments ought to include ‘and here are the individuals whom we know have the capacity to perform higher-level demon summoning.’

This man was most likely Laura’s boss’s boss’s boss. Magical security for multiple counties, including a city the size of London, was not a small job.

“How can I help you, Chief Ramamurthy?” she asked.

“Our team hasn’t found any sign of an arcane array in the area yet,” Ramamurthy said. “Perhaps you have some idea why.”

“There won’t be one,” said Walden. “That was a wild incursion, not a summoning. Pure chance and bad luck—a random magical weakness in the area, and an opportunistic push by whatever demons happened to be close by.”

“Except that this is the second incursion crisis that you’ve found yourself mixed up with in the last two months, Dr Walden,” said Chief Ramamurthy. “That’s very bad luck.”

There was a chilly little silence.

“I’m not sure I understand you,” said Walden icily at last. She understood him perfectly.

“It’s late and it’s a cold night,” said Chief Ramamurthy. “And I’m very sorry to spoil your evening,” with a nod that took in the stupid black dress. “Perhaps we could continue this conversation in the near future. Here’s my card. I’d like to have a friendly chat about all this soon. Tomorrow, or over the weekend.”

“I may forget,” said Walden, taking the card without looking at it. “It’s a busy time of year.”

“Then the Order of Marshals will be in touch, Doctor—”

“It’s Arjun, isn’t it?” said another voice. Walden looked up sharply. So did Chief Ramamurthy. “Nice to see you, old chap, it’s been a while. Can I have a word?” The tone was plummier than usual for Mark, in a way that was plainly intentional, all Oxbridge and Whitehall, connected, knowing. His friendly smile and bluff, manly handshake were not received with notable pleasure by Chief Ramamurthy. But he still stood up to accept the handshake; and now Mark was on Walden’s side of the table, giving her a hand up, a brief warm squeeze around the shoulder. Mark was a cool, manipulative bastard, and Ramamurthy obviously knew it, and knew him ; knew him, despised him, and thought he couldn’t afford to offend him.

And where exactly had he been for the last forty minutes?

Walden couldn’t see Mark’s face, only his back in the casual blazer he’d been wearing under the winter overcoat. For the first time in some weeks, she thought: Who are you, Mark Daubery?

“Shall we?” said Mark a few moments later. “Tube’s just that way.”

“I probably ought to say good night to everyone,” Walden began.

“Everyone’s gone home, Sapphire.”

“Well, at least—” And she looked around for where she’d last seen Laura. Competent help in the middle of that surprise incursion had been very useful. She ought to say—thank you? Good night? Goodbye? Walden picked her way across the street, around the barrier of traffic cones and warning tape. “Hello,” she said.

“Scuse me,” said Laura to her partner, who looked frightfully young to Walden now she was up close. “I’ll be right back. We’re clear here, but don’t let your guard down. Stay in visual.” She turned back. “Dr Walden,” she said, and Walden frowned, because surely they’d parted on first-name terms.

“Laura, I just wanted to thank you for your help,” she said. “Can I—”

Laura grimaced, glanced up and down the street to check none of the other Marshals were in earshot, and then glared at her and said, “That guy? Really? That guy ?”

“Er—what?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Walden. “If there’s something I ought to know about Mark Daubery…”

She found she was half hoping for yes. Consultant, advisor, military stuff, the civil service hates me, it’s been a while old chap, and something the Chair of Governors had said, rather smugly, because it was a coup to get hold of someone like this for free— the highest levels of government. So Walden’s mental picture did have a few details filled out, despite Mark’s tiresome mysteriousness. He was not actual military—he would have mentioned a rank by now, they always did. Most likely he was somewhere between semi-unofficial and completely off the books. But he was certainly someone with power. What kind of power? Where? What was a person like that doing hanging around Chetwood?

But Laura didn’t announce a dark mystery. The disgusted look on her face struck Walden as simple distaste—the working woman’s distaste for the posh bastard—and perhaps even jealousy. Which was ridiculous. It was so petty . They’d agreed, hadn’t they? They’d said it wasn’t worth trying long distance. And if Laura had wanted anything else, she’d had years working with Walden to make herself clear. It wasn’t Walden’s fault that Laura Kenning had waited until the middle of a giant demonic incursion to turn out to be competent and beautiful and interested .

“Something you ought to know? Only what ought to be obvious to anyone with a brain,” Laura said. “I don’t… obviously it’s none of my business. Just, you know what you’re getting there. Or you ought to.”

“It isn’t any of your business,” said Walden coldly.

“Okay,” said Laura, chilly and judgemental in the halo of the streetlights. “Okay. Then I don’t think we have very much to say to each other, do we? Watch that fucking bird. It’s getting worse.”

“You should probably keep your uninformed opinions to yourself, thank you, Marshal,” said Walden. She had meant to say You looked fantastic out there and I can tell how hard you’ve been working and Is it Professor Rollins teaching you? and For heaven’s sake why don’t we have each other’s phone numbers? Instead she said, “I appreciated your assistance this evening. Good night.”

“Tube,” Walden said, seizing Mark’s arm as she stormed past him. “We’re going home.”

She was simmering with irritation from Leicester Square to King’s Cross. The Phoenix was at rest in her thoughts, its thirst for the world slaked with cool, delicious power. The Underground was crowded. Mark shouldered through crowds that made room for him in the way they never would for someone Walden’s height, and drew her afterwards. He even found her a seat on their eventual train home. “Sorry,” Walden said at last. “I’m being very poor company.”

“You’ve had a hell of a night,” Mark said. “Bad enough to have to handle all those demons without Marshals jumping down your throat for no reason at the end of it. I’ll see what I can do to get Ramamurthy off your back.”

“ Will you,” said Walden, feeling both dubious and contrary. It would be delightful if Chief Ramamurthy and his absurd suspicions went away immediately and she never had to think about them again, but she did not like how easy Mark made it sound. She wasn’t a stupid person. She had multiple university degrees. She did know what she was getting with this man. It probably wasn’t a good idea to owe him—good God, what was he implying— political favours?

Mark paused. “Or not, if you prefer,” he said. “It was just an offer. We both know he’s wrong. No reason someone that senior should waste his time investigating a dead end.”

“Oh, I see,” Walden said. “You’d be doing him a favour.”

“I try to see it as making life easier for everyone,” Mark said. “It’s the way the world works. I didn’t make it that way. Look, Sapphire, I’m going to be sincere for a moment.”

“I’ve reached the middle of the arsehole sandwich?”

An engaging, rueful grin. “Sure. Here it comes. I’m going to admit I did some snooping. Same reason Ramamurthy is thinking about it—you see a demon problem, you see a powerful invoker standing right next to it, you need to rule out the obvious. I know a bit about you. The American job offer, some other things. I’m not saying I’ve been stalking you—there’s not much that’s personal —”

“No,” said Walden. “I imagine the MOD’s file on me is mostly interested in my research history and my time abroad.”

“And how recruitable you are,” Mark said, smiling easily as if he wasn’t almost certainly sharing the contents of a database that needed security clearance to access. “Not very, in case you were wondering, barring a Third World War situation.”

“Funnily enough, I knew that already.”

“What I wanted to say is—I don’t actually meet very many people with principles. Serious principles. But I know you’ve got them. I don’t. Could never stick to any. But I respect it.”

“I seem to remember someone making fun of my career earlier this evening,” Walden said. “‘Teaching a niche A-level’—wasn’t that it?”

Mark shrugged. “Most people with principles are hypocrites on some level,” he said. “It’s just that the level is usually ‘money.’ Puts you a step ahead of the crowd, if for you it’s ‘not being bored out of my mind.’ If you really thought the best use of your time was, what was it, making a nasty world a little bit fairer for all the poor innocent children, then you could be teaching GCSE Maths in some sad inner-city comp, couldn’t you? But you love magic. It’s the magic that keeps you at Chetwood, not the money. So yes, Sapphire, for that, you have one arsehole’s genuine respect.”

“Thank you so much. I’m sure I shall treasure it forever.”

Mark snorted. “And you cut me down to size. I enjoy that.”

“Do you?”

The train rumbled through the December night. It was the slow train, following the old Victorian tracks and stopping at every country station, and there were not many other people left in the carriage. They could have claimed a table by now, but instead they were sitting side by side.

“Of course I do,” said Mark, smiling down at her, and then he took Sapphire’s hand and he kissed her again. He was still a very good kisser.

So she took him back to her flat, the wood-panelled Headmaster’s flat in Brewers Hall next door to the thaumic engines, which rumbled quietly to themselves in the otherwise ghostly silence of the empty school. And they had sex, which Mark was also good at. Sapphire rather wished she’d insisted on a gin and tonic first, just to relax a bit. It was hard not to be self-conscious. It had been a long time. She wasn’t someone who got terribly worried about how her body looked to other people—obviously not, or she would be going to the gym once in a while—but Mark was very fit, and, well, thirty-eight looked pretty different from eighteen.

He noticed, obviously, and went out of his way to be good about it—to be enthusiastic and good-humoured and charming about the whole thing, soothing awkwardness and uncertainty, letting Sapphire needle him verbally in a way he did seem to enjoy and which certainly made her feel better. He went down on her for a long time, and then said, “Listen, if this isn’t going to work for you, then I’d rather know what would,” which was really quite sweet of him, certainly above average in her experience of one-off hookups with straight men. He followed instructions well after that, and didn’t get awkward or insecure about digging the bullet vibrator out of Sapphire’s bedside drawer. All the benefits of age and experience, in other words. Perfectly nice sex. Very worthwhile. Scratching the itch, hopefully for good, Sapphire thought afterwards; finally, there’s that out of my system.

And it was late, and though she was out of the habit of sharing a bed, Mark was large and warm and not unwelcome company on a December night. Rolling over and going to sleep was much easier than the fuss of kicking him out and then sorting out her hot water bottle. It would probably be unkind to kick him out, anyway.

So morning came. Sapphire—Walden—was prepared for it to be a little awkward, in the way she remembered these things. But she woke up alone, in the dark. Her alarm clock said it was a little before seven; late for a school day, but much too early to be awake in the holidays. The bed was still warm, and she hadn’t bothered getting dressed again after they were done. Her dressing gown on the hook in the bathroom seemed a dreadfully long way away. She pulled the covers up tighter and tried to go back to sleep.

Possibly she dozed a little. Next time she paid attention to the morning, there was watery winter light visible around the edge of the curtains, and she could hear the shower running. It was already half past eight. She sat up.

Mark came in with wet hair and her faded old yellow towel around his waist a bit later. Yes, he’s good-looking, Walden told herself crossly. It’s out of your system, thank you. “Good morning,” she said.

“Morning,” said Mark. “Mistimed it, haven’t I? I was going to chivalrously bring you a cup of tea.”

“Coffee, please, if it’s on offer,” Walden said. “All in the kitchen—assuming you can work the press.”

“I think I can handle it,” said Mark.

Walden cursed herself afterwards, listening to him explore her flat’s little kitchen. Coffee, please —ugh, she blamed the towel round the waist. She should have got rid of him. She didn’t want him there anymore. A one-night stand with an attractive stranger was a reasonable enough response to a normal human urge. A one-night stand with a self-confessed arsehole whom you had to work with—thank God it was Christmas break and she wouldn’t see him for a week or two. She put on her elderly pyjamas and went and got her dressing gown, raggedy white towelling, decidedly unsexy. Then she opened the bedroom curtains and let the winter sunlight in.

She was still trying to think of an opening gambit for that was very nice thank you now please go away when Mark came back in with a mug of coffee— WORLD’S BEST TEACHER —handed it to her, and started putting his trousers on. “I’d better be getting on,” he said. “Mater expects the whole brood to come and kneel before her throne every Christmas. I assume you’re off for the holidays too. See you next term!”

Walden, torn between insulted That’s it? —yes, she’d gone out of her way to signal that the encounter was over, but was he not even going to try ?—and enormous relief, said the first thing that came into her head. “I’m going to call it. You do not actually call your mother Mater .”

“I might,” said Mark.

“No.”

“I could .”

“At this point you are approaching self-parody. I don’t believe it. I have known my share of posers,” said Walden, “and I also know that you went to school in the 1990s, not the 1890s. This behaviour, Mark Daubery, is a pose.”

“Posers? Oh, of course. I bet you were an emo,” said Mark.

“Not relevant.”

“Means you were. Point to Daubery.”

“As youth subcultures go, that one was a bit after your time, surely.”

“I always liked younger women.”

“Oh, do sod off,” said Walden, and took a sip of her coffee.

“Sodding off, ma’am,” said Mark. “Sorry! Sodding off, Doctor.” He rescued his nice wool coat from where she’d chucked it onto a chair last night and swung it over his arm. “Have a good Christmas, Sapphire.”

So that was the end of that. Here was Walden, alone in her flat, alone in her empty school, a week before Christmas Day. The coffee was fine. She showered afterwards. Getting dressed proved unexpectedly tricky. She hesitated over her usual skirt and blouse, then over the ancient band T-shirts and the cheap leggings that should have been thrown out years ago, and found herself wondering: Why don’t I have any non-work clothes suitable for a grown-up?

She wore T-shirt and leggings, defiantly, under a big warm jumper. She wandered through her flat, vaguely bereft, and almost went into the office to get a head start on planning for next term. She went and turned on the TV, flicked through iPlayer, got up and found her laptop and looked up how to sign up for other streaming services, and decided it was a huge waste of money really. In desperation, she wondered if the school gym would be open today.

Thirty-eight and alone. Thirty-eight and independent, successful, proud of the good work that she knew she did every day. In a few days she would be getting the train to Sussex, sleeping not in her childhood bedroom—thank God—but in the crooked little box room of the seventeenth-century cottage her parents had bought as a retirement project. And then she’d be yet another self for a few days, the Saffy that was, not even eighteen but thirteen, sloping around the house feeling pointless while Mum did battle with the cottage’s terrible plumbing and Dad worked on his garden. Church with the family on Christmas Day. Leftovers on Boxing Day. The dead week between Christmas and New Year. It was usually a bit of a relief when school started again.

It would probably be nice to see the whole family. Her older brother John had two children approaching their teens, both of whom were fairly sweet. Primary school age was not Walden’s preferred genre of child, but by age eight or nine they were basically sensible human beings, curious and interested in the world, not yet victim to the cruelties of puberty and therefore perfectly straightforward to talk to. And both of them liked Walden, in the way that children generally approved of an aunt who took them seriously and did expensive birthday presents.

Walden knew John wasn’t thinking of Chetwood for them. Her sister-in-law didn’t like the idea of boarding school. Come to think of it, John must be fifty next year. What a number! At Walden’s age, he’d already had the wife, the mortgage, the prospect of kids. None of those things existed in her life, or would. She had her career, her boarding school lodgings, and the Phoenix.

And someday she’d be fifty.

Oh, this was maudlin. She was Director of Magic at Chetwood School and there was one job here that always needed doing. Walden went into her office to fetch her kit—salt and chalk, a nice set of marker pens, a neat little dagger—and then went next door to tune up the thaumic engines. The last person in—Todd, presumably, with his toolbox, handling the mechanical side—had left the door on the latch, instead of properly chained and padlocked. Even with no students on site, that ran contrary to the risk assessment. Walden went to get her own key out of the box where she kept it in the kitchen next to the teapot, and locked the door again. She made a mental note. She would have to have a word with Todd after Christmas.