It was Aubrey’s turn. He spat out a tiny spell, one he’d been thinking about since the experience in the pearl prison. It was a temporal spell, using some of the principles that had been in play accelerating time in the cells in which George and von Stralick had been trapped. If he could cast the spell on the falling coin, make its time go quickly, then...
‘Ow!’ George rubbed his forehead, then plucked the ten-mark piece from his chest. He shrugged and tucked the coin into his pocket. ‘Ten marks is ten marks,’ he said when he saw both Aubrey and Madame Zelinka staring at him.
A crash. Aubrey poked his head up to see that Manfred had dragged down the tall bookcase. Books scattered across the floor and Aubrey winced. Manfred vaulted lightly over the bookcase, using it as a screen. He poked up his head and Madame Zelinka pulled the trigger again. Manfred jerked his head sideways and then stared at the hole in the wall right next to him. He ducked, but not before a vase flung by George hit him. Heartfelt cursing from behind the bookshelf signalled that the Holmlander would be sporting a black eye tomorrow, if nothing else.
Madame Zelinka glared but didn’t pull back behind the sofa.
‘That’s Guttmann?’ Aubrey asked.
She glanced at him suspiciously. ‘I thought you knew Guttmann.’
‘I know him as Manfred. And I didn’t know he was a magician,’ Aubrey said. ‘Look out.’
A black shape, the size of an orange, darted out from behind the bookcase and flew straight at them with evil intent.
Aubrey dived left, Madame Zelinka dived right, and George ducked. The black shape sped past and went straight through the hole in the wall behind them before it managed to pull up and flit back at them. By that time, George had seized a large chunk of plaster in two hands. He swung lustily, connected, then staggered and dropped the plaster.
Aubrey scrambled to his friend. ‘George?’
George raised himself. Carefully, he edged his fingers under the plaster and lifted.
On the other side was an irregular black splotch. It looked like a giant inkblot from the world’s messiest writer.
‘Crude. He must have been in a hurry.’ Aubrey poked it with a finger. ‘Clay. Maybe a hunter golem of some kind?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Madame Zelinka dragged Aubrey back behind the sofa. George scuttled to join them. ‘Can we take him?’
‘Who? Manfred?’ Aubrey rubbed his chin and slipped back into the mercenary role. ‘What’s in it for us?’
‘Not being killed?’ George suggested.
Aubrey ignored him. ‘What does he want? And just who are you?’
‘He wants magic. A particular sort of magic’
‘But you were trying to buy magic from my firm.’
She frowned. ‘Of course. We purchase what we need to complement our expertise. And it’s our special expertise that Guttmann wants.’
‘Of course,’ Aubrey said hastily. This commerce in magic was new to him. He was working in the dark; he needed more information. ‘What sort of magic is he after?’
She gave him another suspicious look and Aubrey felt that this was her standard mode. ‘Does your firm deal with industrial magic?’
If I say yes, she’ll consider me a threat. ‘No. We specialise in weapons.’
‘I thought as much. Otherwise Guttmann would have approached you already to find his catalytic intensifiers and pressure chamber reinforcing spells.’
‘Not our business line at all,’ Aubrey said but something pricked at him. Manfred was after heavy-duty industrial magic of a very specific kind. Who was he working for?
Madame Zelinka went to reply, but before she could, a high-pitched whine came to them from Manfred’s hiding place. ‘What is that?’ she said.
Aubrey reached out. ‘Magic.’ As he hadn’t heard the spell, he didn’t know exactly what was going on but he could tell it was powerful and localised.
The whine became a hissing crackle. Then a blast of heat struck them. Aubrey closed his eyes and threw up an arm. A rending groan was followed by the sound of timber giving way, then a mighty crash.
George poked up his head. ‘Your bookcase is gone.’
Aubrey joined his friend. Then he leaped to his feet and raced across the room.
Manfred had escaped. Behind the bookcase a rough oval had been burned right through the floor. Aubrey found himself peering into the room underneath this one. It was a scene of destruction, with a mound of plaster and timber burying any furniture unlucky enough to be directly below.
‘And Manfred has gone as well.’ Aubrey straightened. ‘I hope he enjoys his black eye.’ He rubbed his forehead and found it was gritty. He peered at fingers that were brown with dust and white with plaster. ‘Any chance of freshening up a little?’ he asked a fierce-looking Madame Zelinka, who had joined him to peer through the hole in the floor.
She unbent and studied him carefully. ‘Perhaps. But not here.’
‘Why not?’
George pointed at the window. ‘Listen.’
The ringing bells of approaching police motorcars was the same in every country, Aubrey decided. ‘Agreed. Best not to be found here. Any suggestions?’
Madame Zelinka hurried for the door. ‘Follow me.’
Aubrey admired her preparations. She took them up three floors in the lift to a rooftop suite. ‘I always have a retreat nearby,’ she said before she opened the door. ‘One never knows when it may be useful. As today.’
Aubrey was grateful, and to judge by George’s sigh when he threw himself into the nearest chair, so was he.
After they’d each spent some time in an impressive bathroom, cleaning off the worst of the dust, Aubrey found that the mysterious Madame Zelinka served excellent coffee. Aubrey was willing to accept that any coffee in the world would seem good after the horror brew he’d nearly drunk in the Blue Dog.
‘I am pleased that you came,’ she said after they’d settled. The plush armchairs were a cunning combination of wood and velvet that looked dreadfully uncomfortable but defied that expectation by being supremely restful. ‘I would have had trouble without you.’
Aubrey nodded, but he had something on his mind. ‘You let me be thrown off the train.’ He inhaled the coffee tang and closed his eyes for a moment.
‘I had to. I would have been killed otherwise.’
‘Difficult decision,’ George said. He’d stowed away three small cakes in quick time and was eyeing an other.
‘Not really,’ Madame Zelinka said. ‘I would not be any use to the cause if I were dead.’
Aubrey sat back and groaned, internally. Another devotee to a cause. But he couldn’t help himself – he was curious about the strange, suspicious woman. She was restrained, competent, and her inscrutability made him want to know more. He drummed his fingers on the armrest and glanced out of the window. It had a view out across the city. He could clearly see the Academy with its grey buildings interrupted by a surprising amount of greenery, making it look like a park where someone had lost some government offices.
Should he tell Madame Zelinka that the man she knew as Guttmann was actually the Great Manfred, stage performer and Holmland agent? He gnawed on this, but decided to keep it to himself until he knew more about her. ‘Your cause has enemies,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes business causes enemies. Sometimes it is politics that causes enemies. Guttmann is trying to do some deals with industry, and industry is full of enemies.’