CHAPTER 20

“I ’lldevouryou, witch!” the twisted man shrieked.

I had no idea what he was, but I wasn’t stopping to ask. He sprang forward, his hands extended into black hooked talons. His eyes had gone huge and luminously pale, and the breath that gusted from his widened, sharklike mouth stank of rotting fish. He had way too many teeth and they wanted to meet in my flesh.

I didn’t want him getting those claws or teeth into my hands or face. I sidled quickly and put my left shoulder against the wall, bracing while I drew up my right leg and kicked out sideways at his chest level. My foot met the triangular delta of his pecs with a wet thump and he spat sticky ivory phlegm as his breath was jarred from his lungs. His arms flew forward and those ebony claws pierced the denim of my pants legs, nicking the flesh below as they dragged back down toward my ankle.

The—whatever he was—collapsed backward, flipping onto his back and then up again, hissing. He whirled, his hands outflung, trying to flay me as he spun closer, herding me into a corner.

It was hard to see the material obstacles in the dim room, so I dropped out of the normal and threw myself down, rolling forward through the mist and light of the Grey. The room was still there and still cluttered, but at least I could see it. And the thing pursuing me.

Grey walls are thin, but they’re solid enough for me when I’m deep in that world. I planted my foot against the nearest one as I ran toward it and took two long, driving steps up the wall, putting myself over the monster’s head. I flipped and dropped back down behind him as gravity grabbed hold, landing on my feet. The misty floor bounced and groaned as I hit it. I pulled back to normal.

The creature turned, gaping, and I punched my left elbow into one of his staring fog-lamp eyes. He fell back again, but this time he rolled onto his belly and tried to squirm away. I dove on him, pinning his wriggling, slimy body to the ground facedown. I snatched for his flailing arms and yanked them behind him, feeling one pop from the shoulder socket. He gave a gurgling scream and thrashed before going limp under me.

I didn’t trust him, so I didn’t move off, in spite of the smell that came from him. “Where is John Purcell?” I demanded, pulling on his arms a little more.

He yowled, “Don’t know!”

“Did you kill him, drive him away?”

“No! Master Purcell left me. He gone away and not come back,” the creature panted. I could see the hint of gill slits under his jaw.

“How long ago?” I asked, letting the pressure on his arms ease.

The creature sighed in relief. “I don’t know. Without the tide I can’t tell.”

“You’re a river creature, then? From the Thames?”

“Yeah. Master Purcell caught me and kept me for his slave,” he spat. “He paid a witch to give me this physog.”

I caught myself frowning at the term. “Physog?”

“Face! She made me look like one of you, damn her.”

I thought about that a moment. It had the pathetic ring of truth in anger. “What does Purcell call you?” I demanded, putting a little pressure on him through the Grey.

The thing fought against telling me, and I pushed harder on the magical compunction to answer until he made a bubbling sound and muttered, “Jakob.”

“All right, Jakob. If I let you up, will you swear not to attack me again?”

“I protect my master and what’s his.”

“I’m not looking for your master to do him harm. We have a friend in common who’s worried about him.”

Jakob wiggled, testing my hold, but I didn’t let go and he did himself pain wrenching at my grip on his arms. He gave up and flopped limp against the floor. “I swear. I won’t attack you. this time.”

I didn’t let on that I’d noticed the situational clause of his promise. I’d just have to stay out of this thing’s way if there was a next meeting—I had the strong impression he held grudges and didn’t like being beaten.

I let go and moved off him, getting distance between myself and the creepy aquatic creature.

He rolled onto his back as I backed up to a chair and sat to watch him. One eye was shut and swollen purple, misshaping his face even as he morphed back to the seeming of human. He cupped one hand over the injured eye and glanced at me from the good one, showing his needle teeth as they slithered back into his human mouth. Looking at him in the Grey, there was nothing human about the mutant froglike monstrosity with its shark maw and spine-clawed, webbed hands. I preferred to look at it in a more normal plane—which also held the smell a bit at bay.

He crouched on the floor with his knees drawn up and his chin resting on them. His arms circled loosely around his shins, the one a little lower than the other due to the dislocated shoulder. He glowered at me.

“Who sent you for Master Purcell?”

“An old friend whose business he tends.”

Jakob sniffed. “That’s nothing.”

“And that’s all you need to know. I need to know what’s become of Purcell and the business he was taking care of.”

The creature shrugged. “Some of them blood drinkers came in the night—late, as the river sang of the rising tide—and took him.”

“How long ago?”

“I can’t count your time—s’meaningless.”

Before I tried again, I considered: He was a creature from the tidal river. Sunrise and sunset meant little to him. But tides and moon phases would.

“How many high tides since Purcell was taken?”

He almost smiled. “Thirty-seven.”

Unless the Thames was a freak of nature, it had two high and two low tides per day. So Purcell had been missing for eighteen and a half days, give or take a bit. Financial investments and power rarely fall apart from a mere fortnight’s absence, so someone had done something beyond just grabbing Edward’s British comptroller. “Blood drinkers” Jakob had called them, so vampires were responsible; and since I’d rarely heard of the sanguinary brotherhood cooperating with humans willingly, it looked increasingly like the vampires of Clerkenwell had moved against Edward personally. “At whose instigation and why?” would be the next questions to answer, but that was going to be a lot tougher without tipping Edward’s hand.

If it wasn’t tipped already. There was still the matter of someone or something following me.

“Who sent them?” I asked, knowing vampires rarely acted on their own unless they were planning a coup, and even then they tended to gather cronies and work as a pack. I hoped Jakob would be able to tell me who was behind Edward’s problem so I could get back to worrying about my own.

“I dunno! Their king or queen, the little one—or whatever they call it, I s’pose.”

“Did the vampires take anything besides Purcell?” I asked.

“Papers.” Jakob flung his good arm toward a doorway behind him. “From the table in there.”

“What sort of papers?”

He giggled. “No idea. I can’t read your scratchings.”

“So you never did any paperwork for him, didn’t carry any of those things to anyone else?”

Jakob nodded. “I’ve done, but only to fetch and carry and pay.”

“To whom recently?”

He giggled again; it sounded like bubbles in an aquarium. “Y’think I know, or could say? One small-eyed, ugly face is very like another. Only the smell of your blood tells you apart.” He leaned forward, showing his teeth again. “Can you smell living blood? Would y’know the scent of one or another of you if I told you? The blood drinkers, they smell of their meals and their death. And you, you smell of. ” He took a deep breath through slitted nostrils. Then he pulled a face. “You smell. of water and gun smoke, death in steel, blood. and too much magic.” Jakob scooted backward. “I don’t care for your stink.”

“I could do without yours, too, frog-boy.”

He flashed his teeth but said nothing. A lot of magical bindings cease at death, but Purcell had been dead to begin with, so I wasn’t sure how the magic would hold up if Purcell was dead in a more permanent way. Would Jakob keep on thinking he had a master long after Purcell was nothing but an empty coffin and a forgotten name? I wasn’t sure.