Carry On

We reach the back wall, and I’m ready to turn around, but Baz continues through a doorway I didn’t even see. I follow him down a free-standing spiral staircase with a loose rail. By the time we get to the bottom, I’m dizzy.

Then we’re in the basement, I think. It’s like a cavern—much larger than the room above us, with an even lower ceiling, and dim blue lights set into the floor, like at the cinema.

It’s hard to tell how many of them are down here, because I can’t really see, but I feel like I’m in a room full of people. There’s electronic music playing, but it’s so soft, it sounds like it’s coming from far away.

Baz stands at the bottom of the stairs with one hand in his trouser pocket, scanning the room like he’s looking for a friend.

They could just set on us now, if they wanted—the vampires—and tear us to pieces. We’re hopelessly outnumbered, and we wouldn’t have time to cast any good spells. I don’t even have my wand on me, though they don’t know that. (Baz knows. He couldn’t believe I left it at Watford.) (I was in a hurry!)

I could take on some of them with my sword, but probably not all.

I could go off. And then, who knows what would happen?

Baz starts walking. The clothes are less posh down here. Are these the down-on-their-luck vampires? How do vampires get down on their luck? Even though we’re in the basement, everything and everyone is clean. I don’t know what I was expecting. Bloodstains? Blood cocktails? It looks like most people down here are drinking gin. I see bottles of Bombay Sapphire on the tables. Someone makes eye contact with me and holds it, so I let my magic come to my skin—I just think about it overflowing. He looks away.

We’re so deep into the cavern now, I’ve lost track of where the door is. Baz pulls on someone’s sleeve—a man almost twice his size. “Nicodemus,” Baz says, still not asking questions. The man flicks his head behind him, and Baz lets go.

We walk on, till we get to a row of pool tables.

Baz stops. He pulls a pack of fags from inside his jacket, then lights one with his wand. Everyone standing at the table jolts back. Baz takes a deep breath—the end of the cigarette glows red—and blows the smoke out over the table.

I didn’t know he smoked.

“Nicodemus,” Baz says, still puffing out smoke.

Then I see him—Ebb. A rougher, rangier Ebb. With his blond hair slicked back. He’s wearing a suit, too, but it looks cheap, and there are popped stitches on the sleeve.

He smiles at Baz and eyes him up and down. “Well … look at you. Aren’t you living the dream.”

Baz inhales again, then languidly meets Nicodemus’s stare. “My name is Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. And I’m here to talk to you about my mother.”

“Of course you are, Mr. Pitch.” Nicodemus is practically whispering. “Of course you are.”

Nicodemus grins again, and I see the gaps in his smile; his eyeteeth are missing. His tongue is pushing at one of the holes.

The other men who were at the table with him have backed away, leaving the three of us alone now in the dark.

“What do you want from me?” Nicodemus asks.

“I want to know who killed my mother.”

“You know who killed her.” His tongue pushes into the gap, worrying his gum. “Everyone knows. And everyone knows what your mother did to them who were there.”

Baz brings the cigarette up to his mouth, breathes in, then drops his hand, flicking ashes on the floor. “Tell me the rest,” he says. “Tell me who was responsible.”

Nicodemus laughs. “Or what? Are you going to bite me?” He glances down at the cigarette. “Am I supposed to think you’re your mother’s son? Going to set us all alight? You haven’t killed yourself yet, Mr. Pitch. I don’t think you’ll choose today.”

Baz looks around the room. Like he’s thinking about how many vampires he could take with him.

“Tell him the rest,” I snarl. “Or I’ll kill you.”

Nicodemus looks over Baz’s shoulder at me, and his grin sours. “You think you’re so invincible,” he says. “With all your power. Like nothing can beat you.”

“Nothing has yet,” I say.

He laughs again. It’s nothing like Ebb’s laugh—Nicodemus laughs like nothing matters; Ebb laughs like everything does.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll tell you. Some of it.” He lays his cue on the table. “Vampires can’t just walk into Watford. We can’t go anywhere uninvited. Except home. Someone came to me—a few weeks before the raid—wanting me to broker a deal. That’s what I do to get by. Make deals, introduce people. Not a lot of work out there for a vampire who can’t bite nor a magician without a wand.”

His tongue slides compulsively between his teeth. “The pay was good,” he says. “But I said no. My sister lives at Watford. I’d never send death to her door, not unless she wanted it.” He turns his jack-o’-lantern smile on Baz again. “I wonder if you were part of the plan, Mr. Pitch. Hard to believe the magicians have allowed it.… Why do they keep allowing it? What are they hoping to do with you?”

“Who was it?” Baz says. I don’t think he’s blinked since we walked in here. “Who came to you? Was it the Humdrum?”

“The Humdrum? Yeah, it was the bogeyman, Mr. Pitch. It was the monster under your bed.”