Heart's Blood - Softcover

GAIL DAYTON wrote her first story at the tender age of nine, and she’s been writing ever since. A RITA finalist in 2002 for Best First Book, she won a Prism Award for Best Fantasy with The Barbed Rose in 2007. She lives with her husband on the Texas Gulf coast.

1

GREY CARTERET WOKE in a foul mood.

One generally did when one woke lying face-down in a gutter reeking of things best left unmentioned, with no idea of how one arrived in said gutter. Particularly when one also woke feeling as if all the angels in heaven and the demons of hell had spent the entire previous night fighting across each of the 206 bones in one’s body. Even more particularly when such rude awakenings had been occurring with increasing frequency.

He groaned, which made the pain in his head crescendo with unfortunate familiarity, and he rolled over, which was worse. Every one of his battlefield of bones shattered.

Or they felt like it. Grey supposed they must still remain fastened together, since he could, after a fashion—the fashion of an ancient crone—move. He brought a hand to his face and wiped away the worst of the stinking muck, so that he dared open his eyes.

Nothing seemed to offer imminent catastrophe, given what his blurred vision could tell him. Little, save that he was in a dark, narrow, and more important, empty alleyway. So he shut them again.

He thought he ought to pause for a moment and count his blessings, since he apparently wasn’t in danger of dying in the next few moments. Not that he could stop it—death—in his current condition. Which led him back around to blessings and the counting thereof.

One, he was alive. Two, he was still reasonably well clothed, as it seemed he had retained his frock coat, which was a true blessing in the damp chill of a London October. Three, his bones were not actually—he didn’t think—broken, though his head felt decidedly shattered. The odd thing was, he didn’t remember drinking. Not last night.

Grey had decided, after too many recent mornings waking up like this, that he wouldn’t have any alcohol to drink. Not even a single "off to bed" brandy. He wouldn’t go out. He wouldn’t toddle around to any of his clubs. He would stay at home and work in his workroom. Had he changed his mind?

He would reason all that through later. The time had arrived to assemble himself and get the hell out of wherever he’d landed this time.

He crawled up the rather slimy brick wall beside him to a more-or-less sitting position, cracking an eye open again. He hoped the state of his vision was due to the lack of light in the alley, and not the state of his eyes. "I’ve lost another damned hat," he muttered.

"No, you ain’t."

Grey winced at the piercing voice right next to his aching ears, and turned to see his hat hovering a scant few inches beyond the end of his nose. Good thing he hadn’t opened both eyes. They’d have crossed.

He took the hat and settled it gingerly on his head. It hurt even his hair, but perhaps it would keep all the pieces of his head contained in a single whole.

"I got your stick, too," the same agonizing voice shrieked. "I watched ’em for ya, wouldn’t let no one pinch ’em, nor your coat neither. An’ I wouldn’t let ’em cosh ya nor shiv ya. I been watchin’ out for ya, guvnor."

Grey cracked open his other eye to acquire an accurate view of his walking stick. It took a moment for the two images to swim their way together and become one, so that he could know which stick to reach for.

The stick was attached to a surprisingly clean hand that sprouted from a wrist positively black with dirt. Grey squinted, trying to see the person beyond the hand and wrist. There was a checked cloth cap with a blurred face beneath. "Who the bloody hell are you? And where did you come from? You weren’t there before. I looked."

The silver-headed stick vanished, pulled back beyond Grey’s admittedly meager reach. "Wot kind o’ gratitude is that? After all I done for ya?"

The lad had a point. Grey assumed the creature was a lad, given the high-pitched voice and the trousers.

"Sorry," he said, since a gentleman never failed to offer apology when one was due—though everyone agreed Grey wasn’t much of a gentleman. "Foul mood. Bad head. Makes one a trifle cranky and forgetful of good manners." He took a deep breath so he could go on. "Thank you very much for watching over my person and my belongings."

"Weren’t nuffink."

"Now, give me my bloody stick and tell me who in blazes you are!" Grey couldn’t roar as he’d have liked to, given his head and the rest of his aching bones, but he did his best. It wasn’t as if he really wanted to know the boy’s name, except it seemed as if he ought to know who had done him such a favor.

"Cor, you ain’t got ’alf a temper." The boy eased a fraction closer and held the stick out, tip first, as if afraid to get any closer. Smart lad. Even if Grey wasn’t quite up to snuff at the moment.

"Foul mood. Remember?" He used the stick to haul himself to his feet. "Your name, young sir."

"Parkin."

"Ah. Parkin. Yes, thank you." Grey’s eyes were beginning to focus more effectively. The lad was tall for eleven, or maybe twelve. He had delicate features beneath the grime coating his face. Poor lad.

Grey had suffered the same affliction at the same age, though he’d finally grown out of it. Mostly. These days, women called him beautiful.

Men gave him a wide berth. Partly because he’d long ago taught himself to fight viciously with any weapon at hand, and to hell with so-called "rules of honor." Primarily, though, they left him alone because as magister of the conjurer’s guild, he was the most powerful conjurer in all of England.

Who couldn’t keep from waking in odd places with no memory of how he arrived there. At least this time he’d acquired a protector.

Grey searched his pockets, but they were empty of coin, as well as wallet or watch. He sighed. "I suppose it was too much to expect that you might have guarded my pockets as well as my person."

"If your pockets’re empty, they was emptied ’fore I found ya."

"Ah." Grey frowned. Parkin did deserve a reward for his faithful service. More than just a coin or two, if the lad was willing. "Whereas after I arrived and fell, literally, under your care, I lost nothing. Perhaps I should hire you to escort me back to my home."

"P’raps you should." Parkin swaggered a little. "But it ain’t coin I want. Wot I want is for you to make me your apprentice so I can learn magic."

"I don’t take apprentices." The instinctive response was out before Grey recalled that just this past summer in Paris, he had considered breaking his longstanding rule against apprentices. But that had been in special circumstances.

He turned to start hobbling down the dark, narrow alley, unable to stride away as he wished, due to his crumbled-up bones. "Go to the council hall. Take the test. If you pass it, they’ll admit you to the school."

The boy followed, offered support on the side opposite Grey’s cane. "No, they won’t," Parkin said. "Even though I have enough magic to have kept you hidden and safe half the night, they won’t let me in."

Grey gave the lad a sharp look. What had happened to his speech? "Of course they will. You’ll be admitted straightaway. That’s quite a good talent."

"I’ve been hiding myself for years now. It was simple to hide you as well. And they won’t admit me because—" Parkin tugged Grey to a halt—an easy task—and looked around. A broad-backed laborer stomped past the end of the alley. Otherwise the street was empty.

Parkin leaned in, stretched on his toes. Grey reluctantly bent his head to listen. He truly did not want to hear Parkin’s pitiful secrets.

"I can’t go to magician’s school," he whispered into Grey’s ear, "because I am female."

Astonishment shivered through Grey as he straightened to stare at the boy—the girl—No, she was a young woman.

He could see it now, the feminine nature of the delicate face. Her small frame didn’t boast many curves, but she was past childhood. He couldn’t see the color of her hair beneath the flat cap, but eyes of amber rayed over a blue outer rim gazed back at him beneath dark brown brows. She might be almost pretty if she weren’t so thin, and so dirty. Her true age was impossible to discern, but children aged early on the streets.

He wondered whether he ought to be offended that she’d lied to him, and decided against it. Offense would be expected, and he invariably did whatever was not expected, or he tried to. Though he supposed that could become expected. Besides, she hadn’t actually lied. She’d merely allowed him to assume.

Grey shook off the wandering thought and indulged his curiosity, another thing he did whenever possible. "If you’re not Parkin, who are you? Were you using magic just now to hide the fact of your gender?"

He walked on down the alley, able to do so a bit more efficiently now, though the pain refused to leave him. He hurt in every joint, every tiniest part of his body. If he wished to reach home sometime before the day’s end, and he did, he would have to find a cab. "Parkin" followed him, of course. She wanted something from him.

"Parkin is my family name. My Christian name is Pearl." She whispered the last, looking about her again for eavesdroppers.

They’d emerged from the alley into a slightly wider street, one a carriage might actually be able to pass along. They were near the Thames. Grey could tell by the reek of mud and rot and wet, and by the speech of the people clustering thicker on the street. Speech Miss Pearl Parkin had echoed until recently.

It was early, dawn barely beginning to lighten the sky. Grey usually saw dawn because he’d been up the whole of the night before, rather than waking to greet it. Had he gone drinking last night? What could he have imbibed that would leave him in such a state? He’d never had a hangover like this one.

A knot of people—idlers and children, the sort who slept in doorways—had gathered around one of the doorways off to the right, toward what appeared to be an even larger street. Grey paused, watching them because they were there, trying to get his bearings. Until he knew where near the river he was, he wouldn’t know which direction to take for home, or where to find a cab.

Miss Parkin planted herself in front of him. "I use magic to disguise myself, yes," she said. "When I’m not hiding myself altogether. If I were a boy, I’d go to that school. But I’m not, and I can’t, and now that my father has died, I need a way out of this place where he’s left me. But the only thing I can do is magic, and that will earn me nothing here but a short drop."

Grey firmed his lips to hide the effect her desperation had on his unruly heart. It was too soft by far, usually in what his family deemed inappropriate circumstances. He, and they, would prefer it remain cold and hard at all times, but he could not prevent it from reacting to the oddest things. Like Pearl Parkin’s plight.

He watched the gathering crowd, augmented now by people heading off to work with their baskets and carts and tools, who tried to pass and got caught up in whatever was happening.

Pearl clutched at his coat, trying to pull his attention back in her direction. She’d never lost it. His eyes might be turned toward the growing crowd, but all his attention—what he could squeeze past the regiment of drummers beating on his head—was focused on the dainty creature beside him.

"My hiding magic would be perfect for thieves," she whispered, her fingers digging into his forearm. "There’s some as ’ave—who have asked me to do it for them. I’ve put them off. I’ve hidden from them, but I can’t hide all the time. I have to earn my supper, don’t I? I can’t do that if I’m hidden, if I want to do it honestly, which I do. And if I give in to Nosey, I don’t know how long it’ll be till he finds out I’m a girl and—"

She shuddered, and Grey’s heart twisted. Or maybe the twist was lower, in his gut. He knew someone who had suffered that sort of insult at far too young an age. She’d recovered admirably, but the attack had left deep scars. He wanted to help this girl. But to take her as apprentice?

"Magicians can take female apprentices," she said. "I read the papers. I know about the lady Mr. Tomlinson took as his apprentice, even though he’s alchemist and she’s wizard. If he can take a girl apprentice, so can you. And if he can climb out of Seven Dials on the back of his magic talent, then so can I."

Grey wanted to help her. He did. But not that way. He didn’t take apprentices. He didn’t want to be in authority over anyone, hemming them about with rules. He paid no attention to rules himself, except for those immutable ones like gravity and inertia and conservation of magic. How could he be expected to impose rules on others?

"What are they doing there?" He indicated the murmuring crowd, and edged around Miss Parkin to hobble in that direction. Hangovers didn’t make you ache so much all over, did they? By the time he reached them, Pearl Parkin at his elbow, he could walk almost normally, or appear so. It still hurt.

"Toby’s gone to fetch the bobby," someone said in a confident tone.

Immediately, a good quarter of the crowd melted away, no doubt due to a disinclination for an encounter with London’s police representative, and Grey was able to move closer. Though not to shake off Miss Parkin.

" ’Oo are you?" One of the locals turned a suspicious eye on him. " ’Oo’s the gent?" she asked the general vicinity.

" ’E’s Magister Carteret," Miss Parkin said in her husky, pretend-boy’s voice. She pronounced Grey’s surname "Carterette," rather than the correct "Carteray." Oh, the woes of Norman French ancestry.

"Magister? Wot’s that? Some kind of fancy magistrate?" asked someone else.

"It means I’m head of the conjurer’s guild," Grey said, trying to infuse a soupçon of authority into his voice. "And one of the Briganti, the magicians’ police. What’s happened here?"

And how did Miss Parkin know who he was? That question should have occurred to him much earlier. He would have to ask it later, in the unfortunate event that there was a later with Miss Parkin.

The crowd parted like the Red Sea, exposing a sea of red.

No, not a sea. Not even a pool. Blood covered the murdered man’s naked, mangled body, but it had not flowed onto the stones of the street below him. He’d been tossed after his death into the doorway where he lay, like a broken doll.

Grey opened his senses—sight, smell, hearing, touch—and that other sense with many names. The sense that registered the presence of magic. He was a conjurer, attuned to the magical range of spirits, but he was able to sense the deep tones of the alchemist’s earth-and-elements magic. He could sometimes pick up the lighter range of a wizard’s herbal magic, though it was a strain. In the past few weeks, he’d learned to faintly hear, or feel, or—or taste the thick, coppery cry of the blood magic of sorcery.

He could taste it now. The faraway cry of innocent blood for justice. But overlaying everything else, over the soft booming of the stones beneath their feet, over the faint scent of herbs and talismans worn against illness, over the taste of blood that settled in the back of his throat, Grey could hear the loud, off-key, echoing blare of conjury twisted awry.

Rage surged up in a towering wave, sweeping away his aches, clearing out the lingering fog from his mind. Someone had used this man, his agony as his bones were broken one by one, and then his slow death as he choked on his own blood after the bones of his face were broken—used it in an attempt to call a demon. Spirits were not powerful enough, that this murderer thought he required a demon to do his bidding?

Grey’s hands hurt. He realized he’d closed them into fists so tight they began to cramp, the pain worsened by last night’s unremembered abuse. He wanted to find the murderer, this s...