He cackled and ignored me until we reached the table. We eased into our seats and kept an ugly silence while we fell on the food Michael had ordered. Meat pies, salad, bread, and beer vanished and I didn’t even taste it. Marsden and Michael did theirs in with equal speed, though they seemed to enjoy it more. Marsden finally leaned back and patted his mouth with his napkin before holding up his glass for a refill.
As we waited for the new round, Marsden put his hand out on the table palm up. “C’mon, girl. Show it me.”
Glowering, I brought the little metal puzzle out of my pocket and put it on Marsden’s palm.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“It’s a puzzle my dad used to carry around. This guy seems to think it’s important.”
“It is,” Marsden said, fidgeting with the puzzle. He didn’t bend his head to look at it. It wouldn’t have done any good, but the effect of him scrambling the puzzle with deft fingers while he kept his head tipped back and his wrecked eyes turned toward the ceiling was still unsettling.
He grunted and scowled. “Here,” he said, forcing it back into my hands. “You’ll have to do it—it only likes you.” He put his hands over mine.
I wasn’t sure why he said it liked me—objects rarely have any “feelings” about people one way or another—but this one did seem to. fit me better than it had him. Maybe because it had been my dad’s, but I doubted that was the only reason. Where or when had my father gotten it? Somewhere in the Grey? But he couldn’t have. He would have said something about it in his journal. And it seemed to me he’d always had it, as far back as I could remember.
Marsden’s cold, dry touch guided my fingers. I repressed a frisson as the metal links slid into positions I’d never seen before, making low, sure clicks with every change. The little puzzle gleamed pale blue until something fell into place. Then it blazed gold and settled down to a dull humming in my hand that felt like a fistful of bees. Yet another strange link between my past and the present.
It didn’t look like a key—actually it looked more like a mutant fork or a lock pick—but the satisfied sensation it gave off left me with the conclusion that it was pleased with its current shape and ready to do something. I wouldn’t call it alive or sentient, but the odd, flat prong I now held did seem. ready for something, even eager.
The thought left me uncomfortable. My dad had never made such a configuration with the puzzle that I’d seen. If it was something only I could do. was that a sign of the direction in which Wygan was pushing me, of the purpose to which he’d already bent me? I didn’t like that. It stunk of Fate and Destiny and a lack of free will.
I pressed on the last puzzle piece that I’d moved and bent it back until it clicked again. The golden glow drained away, and the whole thing faded back to an inert collection of metal parts as I shuffled the surfaces around and wondered what it was meant to do. Or I with it. Besides the useless drivel Marsden had spouted on the dock, that is.
Michael had watched it like a hawk does a mouse.
“Did you see something?” I asked.
He hesitated. Then admitted with a drooping head, “No. I was hoping. ”
“Haven’t you seen enough uncanny stuff for one day?”
Michael shrugged. “Not so much, really. I mean. there was Will—that thing that wasn’t Will—and the Tube station. Everything else is just creepy stuff you and this guy have told me.”
He was trying to forget the extent of the weirdness and I wasn’t sure that was wise just yet. “That’s not enough to convince you something strange is going on?”
“Oh, I’m convinced! It’s just. y’know. if there’s vampires and witches and stuff, it might be fun to see—”
“Don’t think it, boy. That lot’s fun like being thrown off a cliff,” Marsden said.
The waiter brought our drinks and we set to them for a moment, each in our own thoughts. Or at least Michael and I were. Marsden somehow gave the impression of watching us both.
Michael shot him a nervous glance. “Why do I feel like you’re staring at me.?”
Marsden snickered. “More perceptive than I’d have credited. I’m wondering what we shall do about you.”
“We who?” Michael demanded. “Do what about me?” He turned a furious expression toward me. “Who is this guy, anyhow? How do we know he’s not with them?”
Marsden patted at the air with one lazy hand. “We’ve been through that already.”
“Not with me you haven’t!” Michael snapped.
I sighed. “He’s not with the enemy. But that doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy, either,” I added, giving Marsden a sharp look.
Marsden almost smiled. “You’re getting smarter. But I am not going to do you any harm, boy. You’re a bystander in this—like your brother.”
I almost choked on my beer. “You two-faced rat bastard,” I muttered.
He made a little shrugging motion on one side. “All right. I admit I don’t give a tinker’s about this missin’ brother, but the lady here says she ain’t leaving without ’im. The sooner she’s gone and out of reach of certain people, the safer we all are. So. I’m for finding that brother quick and gettin’ shut of the lot of you.”
“Yeah? Well, isn’t that lovely of you?” Michael sneered.
“Michael,” I started, “he’s a lying, manipulative, sneaky—”
“Rat bastard,” Michael reminded me.
“Yes. But he knows the lay of the land and I don’t. I don’t know where to start looking for Will.”
Michael glowered at Marsden. “He does?”
“Probably.”
“Of course I do. Mind, I don’t say I know where he is or who’s got ’im, so don’t get shirty ’bout that. But I have an idea where to start lookin’. ”
I hated having to cooperate with Marsden. I knew I couldn’t trust him; he had an agenda and I wasn’t sure it had changed since we’d left St. Pancras churchyard. But he was the only resource I had left.
“Where should we start?” I asked.
“The Greek sisters,” Marsden said.
CHAPTER 35
Michael had, of course, wanted to go see these mysterious sisters at once but as it was growing later—and deeper into the most active part of any vampire’s evening—both Marsden and I quashed that idea. The sisters, Marsden assured us, would be as easy to find and interrogate in daylight as night and far safer. Michael found a place along the canal to moor the boat after dinner and the two of us readied for bed. Marsden slipped away during our inexperienced scrambling about in the dark, but much as I didn’t trust him, he’d had ample opportunity to rat us out to the vampires and hadn’t. So whether he was telling the truth about Wygan or not, he was at least not working against me at the moment.
I slept worse than I had in years. Quinton never did return my call, and that along with the exertions and revelations of the previous days made me miserable and woke me in a foul mood at an ungodly hour. I went up on deck to get a break from the tiny, shared space of the boat.
A couple of hours later, as I’d hoped, Marsden turned up at the canal side, alone. Unexpectedly, he was carrying a canvas sack that clanked. He stopped at the edge of the towpath and tapped on the side of the boat with his cane. “Here,” he called to me as I sat on the stern rail, watching him. “I need a hand with this.”
“What is it?”
“Hospitality, my girl. As we’re likely to be keeping to this. floating cigar tin for a while, it occurred to me we might be in need of food.”
“And you brought some?” I asked, surprised. Unalloyed generosity didn’t strike me as a Marsden trait. So far, when he’d offered anything, it had been for his own reasons and advantage. Even keeping me and Michael out of the hands of the demi-vamps had been in service to his plan to bottle me up somewhere until whenever he felt it was safe for me to rejoin the world of the living—or semi-living—whether I’d liked it or not.