The Master Of Misrule Part 20

And ahead of him, a shadow was oozing slickly along the ground: a shadow of something that wasn't there. It was already dusk, but the shadow was a deeper black than shadows usually are, with two long, curving horns and a jagged spread of something that might have been wings.

Blaine followed the Devil along the road.

The shopping street fed into a nondescript housing estate. Most people appeared to be indoors, preparing for the approaching New Year's festivities. The yellow windows and blue flicker of television screens felt as distant to Blaine as the lights of an airplane winking overhead.

Soon the shadow had drawn him into a grid of increasingly lifeless streets. At the end of one, however, he could see people and movement, and a different kind of blue flicker. This one belonged to the flas.h.i.+ng lights of a police car. It was parked outside a corner house with boarded-up windows and a tumbledown roof. The two houses next to it were similarly dilapidated. The patchy garden at the back was quietly teeming with activity, which had drawn a knot of spectators onto the road.

The oily black shadow poured itself into a gutter and disappeared.

Blaine stood at a distance from the other onlookers. The low garden wall gave them a good view of the mounds of earth inside, and the comings and goings of the police officers and forensic team. In spite of the bystanders' mutters of dismay, their excitement was obvious as they watched a lumpy thing in a zip-up bag being put onto a stretcher.

Since the Arcanum, Blaine knew what death smelled like. He could smell it here, too. The faint, sweet stink of corruption ...

"They say it was a dog, digging, that found the body," somebody behind him was saying. "It's been buried for nearly a year."

"Shocking," murmured somebody else.

"That's modern life for you," agreed their friend. "Country's going to h.e.l.l in a handbasket."

"The neighbors can't b-believe their luck," the man nearest to Blaine observed. He was tall, wearing an expensive-looking coat, with a bony, hooked face and silver hair. "It's even better entertainment than TV."

Blaine looked closer. "I know you," he said. "It was before last Christmas. You came looking for Arthur White. My stepdad." He paused. "I'm looking for him, too."

"Then," the man replied, "it seems you've f-found him."

Blaine swallowed hard. His eyes flinched away from the thing on the stretcher, though it seemed to him that he had already known what it meant. A dull inevitability closed around him. "But-we're not in the Arcanum ... are we?" He knew, instinctively, that the man would understand his question, just as he also sensed that no one else would pay them any attention at all. For all intents and purposes, the two of them were alone.

"Not quite. But then, the unfortunate Mr. White never got as f-far as the Arcanum. I went instead, you see." The man gave a thin smile. "And I was doing very well, until my misadventure in the Four of Swords."

It was then that Blaine realized that the smell of rot wasn't blowing over from the sad, huddled body in the bag, or the freshly turned earth. It came from the man next to him. Glittering particles of dust still clung to his hair. He was the player whom Cat had freed from the statue in the graveyard.

You have brought a new player into the Game, and a new knight for my court.... That was what the King of Wands had told him. But the new knight wasn't Arthur. It was this man. It was this man, too, who had been lost in the Arcanum. All this time, Blaine had been chasing a ghost.

The scar along his arm began to ache and he pushed up his sleeve to trace its familiar line. The oily black shadow pooled at their feet and stretched out again. Arthur was dead. Arthur was dead. He didn't yet know what this meant or even what he thought about it. He felt light-headed and hollow. Nothing felt real-not yet.

"Tell me what happened."

"Your stepfather had arranged to sell me his invitation to the G-Game. He'd stumbled on something he didn't understand and had no use for, whereas I had been waiting for such an opportunity to c-come on the market for a long, long time.... And when it did, I took c-care to ensure mine was the highest bid."

The Knight of Wands began to walk leisurely down the road. The black shadow followed him and so did Blaine. The damp in the air had begun to condense, forming small drifts of mist.

"When Mr. White failed to k-keep our appointment for the sale," the knight continued, his voice gentle as ever, "I became concerned. That was when I went to his home and you were so k-kind as to inform me that the police were after him. My concern grew. The police and I ... Hmm, let's just s-say they have an ongoing interest in me.

"However, thanks to our enc-counter, I did have a lead. Or rather a line: Temple House, Mercury Square."

With a rush of sickness, Blaine remembered the quiet suburban street and the bench at the bus stop. Arthur's notebook, casually open to the sketch of his invitation card.

"It was not much to g-go on, but luck was on my side. I took a chance that Mr. White had g-gone to London, and managed to intercept him on his way to the square in question.

"I brought him to this place. I reminded him of our deal and requested my card. Unfortunately, your stepfather refused to listen to r-reason. He appeared to be in various kinds of t-trouble, and believed the Game was his only w-way out of it. His behavior was-well, unhinged. I regret to say that our subsequent d-disagreement grew violent."

"You mean murderous."

"Indeed. But you must understand that my search for an invitation to the Game has been long and d-difficult. It began with a card I won in a bet, and which was subsequently stolen from me. That was nearly t-twelve years ago."

Blaine clenched and unclenched his fists. For the first time, he understood the true nature of his intervention in the Game. He had set in motion the train of events that led to this man killing Arthur and joining the Game in his place. But there was something more. Twelve years ... a missing card ... and a man who murdered for the Arcanum.

He was struck by a new and terrible inevitability. It took all his strength to ask the next question. "That first invitation card. Did you-" The words clogged in his throat. "Did you get it back?"

"No. But an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ... and two bullets for a stolen c-card."

Two bullets ... a stuttering man ... was this the killer of Cat's parents? Blaine stifled a gasp.

"Mind you, when I finally obtained a new invitation, it was worth it," the Knight of Wands continued. "Even though I wasted months in my first move, l-lost in one of the Arcanum's labyrinths. The second move was more easily won; the next was the Four of Swords. But here, too, Fortune f-favored me."

He leaned closer, so that Blaine tasted a gust of rot. "I would offer c-condolences for the loss of your stepfather, but I doubt you need them. A 'vicious maniac,' I think you called him.... Would you like to hear how he died?"

Blaine backed away. "I-I-I don't know."

"Of course, it may be that you would have preferred to do the job yourself. But I can still tell you how he whimpered and sniveled and begged for m-mercy."

"I didn't want to kill him...."

Or only in dreams, thought Blaine, like when I was lost in the fog. No, I wanted to drag Arthur back to face what he'd done. I wanted him to suffer and be shamed and for the whole world to see. I wanted Helen to look him in the face and call him a monster.

The hollowness inside had filled itself, grown heavy and scorching. "I'm not some psychopath," he said hotly. "Not like you. Christ-what's so great about the Game that you're ready to butcher all these people just for a way into it? Once you're there, everything's a nightmare and a swindle anyway. You'd still be rotting in that graveyard if it wasn't for Cat. The girl you orphaned. But she's a Game Master now, she's a queen, she-"

Then he stopped. Appalled, he listened to the echo of his words.

"Cat, you say? Well, well. Perhaps I should have known, however brief our encounter. The family resemblance was s-striking."

The Knight of Wands laughed a little. "Life's rich irony! So many tangled webs ... and all their threads seem to l-lead back to this Game of ours." His voice grew brisk. "But now's the time to t-tie them up. Or cut them off, rather. I don't like to leave loose ends."

Fog rolled down the street, swallowing up all shapes and shadows, including the silver-haired man. Perhaps the Devil had spirited him away; perhaps he was the Devil himself. But Blaine no longer cared about the High Priestess's prophecy or the fallen angel he was supposed to release. Leaving his final move unfinished, and its angel unreleased, he blundered off in the direction he thought the knight had gone, thinking only of Cat: the loose end in a murderer's web.

"OI, MATE, SHOVING WON'T get you nowhere, all right?" said somebody ahead as they moved another inch toward the foot of the escalator. Two escalators were down at Piccadilly Circus, and late afternoon on New Year's Eve the Underground station was at a rowdy, jostling standstill.

As Cat trudged up the motionless staircase, the moving panels along the wall flashed with glittering blue wheels on a black ground. TAKE YOUR CHANCE TONIGHT! they invited. PRIZES FOR ALL! The silver heads from Misrule's coins seemed to wink at her, and she had to pause, suddenly breathless. "Please ...," she heard herself wheeze to no one in particular. Her abrupt halt nearly tripped up the woman behind. Cat began to mumble something-an apology or appeal-but the woman turned away, her expression blank and impenetrable.

Outside the station, Cat's disorientation only increased. She was out of the Arcanum, yet she felt she was moving through the landscapes of dream. Illuminated billboards s.h.i.+mmered under a leaden sky, flas.h.i.+ng words of promise: HEADS YOU WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE.

In front of her, winged Eros hovered, forever drawing back his bow. His body was slick from rain. The trickling of the fountain below the statue should have been a soothing noise, yet it set Cat's teeth on edge. Her eyes smarted at the neon signs. Every nerve was jangling.

She half expected to see two men and a woman, in dark clothes, lean and purposeful, emerge from the station's east exit. The card she was looking at should have been the Ten of Swords; it would have been fitting for her Game to end in the same way as it had begun. But when she had reached for her travel pa.s.s at the barriers, she had found a different kind of card in her pocket. An angel card. Her next, and final, move.

The Triumph of Temperance showed an angel with one foot on a rock and the other in a river, measuring liquid between two chalices. The landscape was bathed in the light of a setting sun. Her wings were red, and white lilies grew in the shade by the river's edge.

It struck Cat that the angel's face was similar to Justice's, though not so stern. Whatever was being balanced between her vessels, it involved a judgment of sorts. But how was such an angel to be released?

The trickling of Eros's fountain grew louder; Cat looked up from her card to see that his wings had grown, their aluminum feathers rippling with life. He-or possibly she-held out two vessels toward her. Cat blinked, and the statue was the boy aiming his bow again. He seemed to be aiming it at Lower Regent Street. The smell of lilies, a heavy, somber sweetness, and the sound of running water drew her down the road.

Cat followed Eros's arrow, but she did not know what to think when she reached the discreet black-and-green awnings of Alliette's. As she hovered on the pavement, a long silver car drew up to the entrance and a doddery old gent heaved himself out, followed by a younger woman whose luxurious mink stole failed to soften her gaunt frame.

Cat trailed after them, all too aware of what a guttersnipe she must appear. But when the couple went through the doors, the perfume of lilies grew stronger, and the concierge's eyes pa.s.sed over her with perfect indifference.

It was the same once she was inside. People looked at her without really seeing her. She drifted through the club lounge and the champagne bar, the first-floor gaming hall and up to the second-floor suites, listening to the click of chips and shuffle of cards, the politely social hum. There was none of the seedy exhaustion that permeated the Palais Luxe, and very little obvious excitement, either.

There was a fountain in the lobby, and Cat could still hear its gentle splas.h.i.+ng behind the background noise. The collective glister of all the mirrors and gilding and cut gla.s.s reminded her of Temple House. She looked through a door and saw four people playing cards around a green baize table. There were two men, one of them black, a woman dressed in white and a darker one in furs. But the woman in white turned to reveal a tanned, bony profile, and when the younger man laughed, Cat saw he was Chinese. None of them were people she knew.

The sweetness of lilies and murmur of water increased until she reached the stairs at the end of the hall. They led up to a private gaming salon that was closed for refurbishment. Paper had been stripped raggedly from the walls, and the floor was littered with builders' and decorators' tools. The only light came from a cheap desk lamp.

Bel was sitting on a chair by the fireplace, staring listlessly at something in her hand. She looked up as the door opened.

"Cat ...?" Her aunt blinked at her, bewildered.

She should have been more than bewildered, of course. Tearing hair and spitting nails, in fact. It had only just dawned on Cat that she had been gone overnight, without a word. But Bel's manner was like that of a sleepwalker who hasn't quite woken up.

"I wasn't feeling right so my manager sent me home," she explained vaguely. "I had a funny turn, they said."

"But we're not at the flat. We're at the casino."

Bel looked around in bemus.e.m.e.nt. "Oh ... I see. So we are. I could've sworn ..."

Cat drew nearer to the chair. Bel was wearing her croupier's uniform of tight black skirt and low-necked satin blouse, but she was in nearly as much disarray as her niece. Mascara had smudged down one side of her face, and there was mud on her skirt. The same mud was on Cat's jeans. Mud from the Eight of Cups.

Cat looked closer. Bel was holding something in her hands, stroking it over and over. It was a gilt-trimmed card, thick and richly colored. The Triumph of Eternity was pictured on the front.

"Where did you get that card?"

Bel didn't answer.

"Do you know what it is?" Cat's voice was harsh with fear. "Do you?"

But Bel shook her head and s.h.i.+vered and did not speak, her eyes gla.s.sy with unshed tears.

"Where did you get that card?"

"I dreamed it," said Bel at last. "And when I woke up, it was in my hand. I dream of it all the time, Cat. Every night it goes dancing through my sleep, in a shower of dark coins. At least ... it used to. Not so much anymore. I thought it was going to leave me be. I thought ..."

And this time the tears did fall.

Shudders of dread were running up and down Cat's spine. She was shaking so hard that she could barely speak. "In the swamp ... you begged me for forgiveness. Why?"

"What?"

"You were in the swamp with me. You remember. I know you do."

For just as the boundaries between moves in the Game were breaking down, so were the boundaries between the Arcanum and the ordinary world. Cat understood that now.

"I had ... I had a funny turn...."

Cat crouched by her feet. "Please, Bel," she said softly, helplessly. "Tell me how you found the card."

The invitation to the Arcanum turned this way and that, flas.h.i.+ng through Bel's quick croupier's fingers.

"It's not mine," she whispered. "It never was. I stole it from him."

After a long, echoing silence, Bel got up and stood by the window. Her s.h.i.+vers had stopped. When she began to talk again, her voice was tired but calm. There may even have been relief in it.

"I was eighteen. That's not an excuse, course it's not, because in lots of ways I was older than my years. Those ways were mostly the wrong ones, though.

"So I left for the city and didn't look back. My mum had died the year before; my sister Caroline was twenty-six and had her own family. Age gaps don't count for much when you're adults, but growing up, it felt like a world apart. Dad scarpered when I was little and Mum and Caro had done their best with me, but I ran rings round them like it was an Olympic sport.

"When I got to London, I had enough confidence for ten people. I'd come to find my fortune, see. And I got a job pretty quick, c.o.c.ktail-waitressing at a West End bar. They had these uniforms: silver lame, the skirts split up the thigh.... I thought I was the bee's knees.

"Anyway, there was a casino attached to the hotel next door, and sometimes the gamblers came round to us to toast their success or drown their sorrows, as may be. I'd only been working there a couple of months when I met Alec. Alec Crawley. He came in with a gang of bankers one afternoon. And the next night he asked me over to the casino, to help him win.

"Alec was always very charming, with this stammer that made everything he said sound gentle, somehow. He used to call me Red. Although he wasn't the obviously das.h.i.+ng sort, he had a way of looking at a girl like she'd melt quick as b.u.t.ter. He'd made his money in Russia, so the gossip went, and owned a club in Chelsea. The waiting list for members.h.i.+p was a mile long and it was only ever open three nights a week. The other nights he used it for business. I didn't ask what this business was.

"I wasn't his only girl, I knew that, but he saw more of me than the rest, and thought more of me, too, so I flattered myself.

"When Alec wasn't at his club or the casino, he spent a fair amount of time in these crusty old antique shops and libraries. Treasure hunting, he said. Occasionally, he'd drop everything to follow a lead, and dash off for a day or so, though he always came back bad-tempered.

"The other thing he did was Tarot cards. Time and again, I'd find him spreading them out on his desk, poring over them like a treasure map. They gave me the s.h.i.+vers, to be honest. Once I told him that fortune-telling was for old women and little girls. Afterward, I was afraid. He looked at me so coldly I felt as if someone had shoved ice down my throat. Then he laughed, and he said he'd already made his fortune, and was on the hunt for a new kind of gamble. The biggest wins were yet to come.

"I thought he meant poker. He took it seriously as any cardsharp.

"Anyhow, one night I was meant to be meeting him at his club, and he was late. When he finally arrived, he'd been out drinking with his buddies and had forgotten I was supposed to be there.

"However, he said he was celebrating because that day he'd found something he'd been searching for for a long time. He patted his coat pocket and smiled. It was a lucky day, he said. Then he gave me a kiss. You're the second of my treasures, Red.

"He told me to stick around to mix the drinks and so on for their poker game. I wasn't keen. I didn't much care for his friends and there was one who really gave me the creeps: this big, swarthy chap with fat hands. I didn't like the way he looked at me.

"So they drank and they smoked and they played their cards. Toward the end of one round, the swarthy man-Mathers, I think he was called-said he wanted to mix things up a little. Make the stakes more interesting, he said. 'Fine,' said Alec. 'What do you want to play for?' 'The Queen of Hearts,' Mathers said. And he leered toward me. 'I'll raise you my flashy new sports car. My car for your girl.'

" 'All right,' said Alec. And off they went.

"I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. Nothing. I just waited, this silly smile stuck on my face like it'd been chiseled there. I didn't know who I was anymore. It was as if some other poor chump sat at the bar and the real Bel was watching her from far, far away.

"Alec won in the end. Mathers chucked over his car keys like it was one big joke, though everyone could see he was sore about it. There was a lot of laughter. Old Alec winked at me. Ha-ha, no hard feelings.... And then they started another hand.

"When I brought him his next drink, I made it a double. He'd been drinking for a while, and was far too pleased with his winnings to notice. And I brought him another couple after that. Then I said I was going to bed. Alec stayed in hotels mostly, but he had an apartment over the club, too. When I said good night, I even managed to smile.

"It was near daylight when he came up. He was drunker than I'd ever seen him. Hardly able to stumble into bed. And when I was sure he was out cold, I reached into his coat. Just to see. I don't know what I was expecting: the key to a safe, a portrait of his dear dead mum.... G.o.d knows. What I found was a funny kind of card. There was a picture of a wheel on the front, and an invitation on the back. Something about a house and a temple, cards and coins. And I thought of Alec talking about his treasures, and how I was the second one, so I took the card, and left a poker chip instead. That's what I was worth to him.

"Then I walked out of the club and all the way to the station, still in my party dress and my sparkly heels. And I left the city and I didn't look back."

"But he ... Alec ... he came after you."