Chapter 9
It was charming laughter, but not nice. Farrell had never heard laughter like that; there was a dissolving sweetness in it, and the memory of many good times, and no kindness at all. Sirens, he thought, mermaids. It hung in the air like the smell of burning.
From where he stood, Farrell could not discern the man’s face in the darkness, but he heard his voice as clearly as if the two of them were across a chessboard from one another, or a sword’s length apart. “God a’mercy, and here’s poor Nicholas again, all alive-o!” It was a light, curling voice, the words airily poising their feet to dance, and something in the rhythm made Farrell think about the yellow-eyed man who had stumped like a falcon into Sia’s house at midnight. He had dreamed of the man twice since then.
“Arms, legs, senses, fancies, follies, and lovesome honey appetites, every one with me still,” the stranger announced cheerfully. “Now bless thy weazeny breech and lantern countenance, my sweeting, and may Nicholas Bonner present his unchurched compliments?” Farrell heard a small scuffle, apparently halted by an almost inaudible squeak from the woman, and then the wonderful soulless laughter again. “Nay, so, so there, dear duck—surely thy dam lulled thee to the roll of blessings awaiting for her who’s first to lie with springtime Nick, come all chilled and lonely out of old dull dark once more. Thy firstling will know the talk of all animals, thy second-born the cry of gold in the earth—hither, then, swiftly, for I’m cold, I’m cold.” For that instant there was such wailing sadness and terror in the voice that Farrell could not breathe.
Brush and twigs crackled again, but the woman called out in a tone mixing near-hysteria with a certain chattering imperiousness, “Away, touch me not, what are you doing? I mean, I have scribed the pentacle thrice round myself, what are you doing, you dumb dork?” And those were the first clear words that Farrell ever heard Aiffe speak.
The man did not answer immediately; when he did, his speech had already begun to alter, but the laughter continued to prowl in the shadow of each word. “Actually, one time is quite enough for a true pentacle. It’s a circle you’re to weave thrice, and then it wards off nothing a maid with such great lean shanks couldn’t outrun.” A single chuckle sprang past Farrell on soft paws, as though to take up its own independent life in Barton Park. The stranger went on, “Any road—nay, pardon, I’ll have it presently—anyway, the matter’s moot altogether, since your pentacle bites only ‘gainst demons and the like, and good Nick Bonner’s no demon. Not even Will Shakespeare ever called me that—and indeed he spent more time than most trying to devise a fitting name for me.” His voice had been husky as flame when he spoke first; now, with use, it was taking on color and suppleness like a new butterfly, stretching itself, basking in the moon.
Farrell sidled and crouched and skulked until he could see Aiffe facing him almost directly across a strange small grove of burned-out redwoods. Some forest fire had scorched the trees to standing charcoal, gutting them so that they looked like great, black, high-backed chairs dragged up around a table of air. The man was standing in their shadow with his back to Farrell, who sensed more than saw that he made as slight a figure as Aiffe herself and that he was naked.
Aiffe was recovering herself rapidly, forcing a bold dignity that Farrell had to admire. She said, “The pentacle’s there because I happened to be summoning a demon. If you aren’t one, you can just go back where you came from. I don’t want you.” She added several halting words in what Farrell assumed to be Latin.
The laughter flowered brightly between them, and Aiffe took a step backward, touching her face. The stranger said happily, “Dear squirrel, dear coney, dearest little partridge, it would take such priest-cackle as great Innocent himself never knew to send Nicholas Bonner around the block. I’ve not been for anyone’s bidding since Master Giacopo Salvini died at the stake in Augsburg—and there was a man had demons sweeping his hearth and currying his fine horses.” He whistled softly and chuckled again. “Ah, but forty men-at-arms came to curry him, and he’d not time to ask his lackwit niece what sweet Nick had promised her in the dark of the chimney corner. And with him went up the only words could ever command my spirit, and the rest is all freedom. Child, there’s jabber binds Lucifer to obey that wouldn’t do up a collar button on Nick Bonner.”
Even at that distance, Farrell could see that the thin girl was trembling, but she answered coolly, “You’re such a liar. Somebody sent you back out into limbo, or wherever you go, and you had to stay there until I called you. You’re nothing, I still want a demon.” Her voice was the lute’s voice, poignant and shifting, with coins and little drums in it, and a rubber-band whine.
The man dropped lithely down onto his bare heels, hugging himself and rocking as he cried, “Oh, well hit, fair on the mazzard, squash on the old beezer. What an excellent savory talk is this of yours, after all.” His own speech was fast shedding its daintily wicked music; Farrell could hear the vowels collapsing like pricked balloons, and the lilting drawl being overtaken by the concrete consonants of Cedar Rapids. Nicholas Bonner said, “Well, you’re wondrous foolish, but not altogether fool. True enough, the last flaming breath of Master Giacopo did consign his betrayer to such night and silence as had me near weeping to join him in cozy hell. Oh, he knew how to venge himself, no man better—I’d found that out while he was yet alight.” The same freezing, measureless despair blew through his voice for a second time and was gone.
“So if it hadn’t been for me,” Aiffe said. Farrell was too far away to read her expression, but he saw the difference in the way she stood, pushing back her heavy hair. She said slowly, “So you owe me one, don’t you? You really owe me a big favor.”
Nicholas Bonner laughed so hard this time that he had to prop himself with his hands to keep from falling over. “Now truly, that deserves my best effort at the local tongue.” He cleared his throat, still squatting in the moonlight with his hands flat on the ground, like a golden frog. “Kiddo, just by not being a demon I’ve done you a better turn than anyone’s had from me in a thousand years. Let me tell you, if you’d caught the notice of the humblest, feeblest, most wretched midge of a demon that was ever spawned—girl, the least of those would have swarmed up your two-bit charm like a ratline and swallowed you whole before you could wet your pants. Oh, we’re more than quits, take my word for it.”
“If I took people’s words for things, you wouldn’t be here,” she answered. “Just don’t worry about me, all right? I take care of myself, I can handle anything I can summon.” Her hands were closed at her sides, and she leaned toward the crouching man. She said, “I’ve used that spell three times, and each time something’s moved, somebody’s come to me. Not a demon—okay, I haven’t got that down yet—but I always get somebody. I’m Aiffe, you snotty dork Nicholas Bonner. I can make things move.”
Nicholas Bonner stood up then. His naked body cast a pale, crooked moonshadow behind him. Farrell watched it wriggle toward him past the blackened redwood stumps; when it touched his ankle, he was certain that he could feel himself connected to Nicholas Bonner, spine linked to spine, like electrodes. He tried to step away from the shadow, but it moved with him as if it were his own.
“Aye, so you can,” Nicholas Bonner said to Aiffe at last. His voice had turned thoughtful and cautious, and there was no laughter in it now. He said, “Indeed, you do have a sort of skill, and no denying it. But to what end, that’s the issue—to what end?” When the girl did not answer him, he continued impatiently, “Come on, sport, talk up. What do you want that you think a demon could give you?”