Jazz faltered. She gripped the strap of the bag and swore under her breath. Flashing the light around, she tried to de-cide her next step. Part of her thought Terence a dangerous man and did not trust anything he'd said. But there were so many other things to consider. Her life had been nothing but a terrifying puzzle since her mother's murder —a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. Terence clearly had some of those pieces. Then there was the fundamental question of her fu-ture. Her mother had wanted her to hide forever, but there was more than one way to hide.
Her pulse raced with indecision. She didn't want to de-ceive anyone, and she refused to betray the kindness of those who had given her a place to belong. But she had to think of herself. No one is to be trusted, her mother had told her so of-ten. And sometimes you can't even trust yourself. Jazz knew what she meant. Emotions could get in the way of the smart deci-sions.
She needed more time to think.
Slipping the bag from her shoulder, she glanced around. The torch picked out a square metal door, about three feet wide and waist high. The metal was rusted. Jazz went to in-vestigate. She paused to listen for any sound that might indicate she was not alone in the corridor, but the only sounds were the rumble of a train above her head and the steady drip of water from somewhere nearby. Then the muffled sound of laughter reached her. It came from the Palace, but there were two doors and thirty feet of winding stairs separating her from the United Kingdom. For the moment, she was alone.
Shifting the torch to her left hand, she grabbed the handle on the rusted hatch and pulled. The door jerked. Rust sifted down. She tugged it again and it slid to one side. Jazz shone the torch into the hole and frowned. Searching with the light, it took her half a minute to realize what it was she was looking at.
Though the pulleys must be just as rusted and any ropes rotted away by now, once upon a time this little three-foot-square box had been a lift of some kind, like a dumbwaiter in an old hotel. Whoever had built this retreat to keep bombs from raining down on the monarchy must have used the lift to bring down supplies and equipment. On the surface, it would have long since been covered over by something else. The mechanism was useless, but for the moment it would serve her well.
Unzipping her bag, she slid out the two framed photo-graphs and put them inside the rusty metal box.
The blade followed. She looked at it for several seconds, trying to make sense of the hole in the metal —big enough for her to slip her hand through—and the jagged teeth at the end of the thing. It might do someone a wicked bit of damage, but now that she studied it, the thing didn't really seem like a dagger or sword at all, rather a part of something else, some other. ..apparatus.
A screech of metal came from down the arched corridor.
Jazz thrust the blade into the old lift and slid the door closed as quietly as she could, pulse racing madly. She zipped the bag and put it over her shoulder, then pointed the torch down along the corridor in the direction of the sound —which had to have been the door that led to the spiral stairs down to the Palace.
"Nothing up my sleeve," a voice whispered behind her.
She spun around just in time to see something tumble to the stone floor. Her torch caught it as it struck the ground —a top hat with a thick brim. It rolled in an arc along the stones. When it came to rest, something moved inside. Jazz held her breath. A tiny rabbit poked its face out from inside the hat, sniffing querulously at the rust-flaked air. The little creature emerged, paused a moment, then darted toward the wall, where it vanished.
Jazz's throat felt dry. It had looked so real, not like a phan-tom at all. She crouched and reached for the brim of the top hat, but it faded out as her fingers passed through it.
She raised her torch and pointed it back into the darkness the way she'd come. The magician again.
She had seen him more and more frequently, and he seemed to be growing more tangible somehow. Yet like the rest of the spirits of old London that lingered in the Underground, he had always been just an echo, never showing anything resembling awareness. So if he was a ghost, either a manifestation of the resonance that past events had left on the city or actually the spirit of a person who had once lived, why did he show up more than the other ghosts? The other specters haunted the Underground, but it had begun to feel as though the magician haunted her.
A cough sounded from the direction of the Palace. Jazz swung her torch round.
"Who is it?" came a voice from along the corridor. The orange glow of a cigarette burned in the shadows. "Who's there?"
She sounded afraid. Jazz couldn't blame her after those men had discovered their previous shelter —after Cadge's murder.
"It's just me," she said, hurrying toward the other girl, bag over her shoulder.
"Jazz?"
"Yeah."
Then they were close enough to make out each other's face in the illumination of the torchlight. Leela stood gaping at her, cigarette dangling from one hand. The girl's exotic beauty transformed into a fool's grin and she rushed to em-brace Jazz.
"Fuck's sake, girl. We've been worried sick. Harry's out of his mind." With a laugh Leela stood back and looked Jazz over. "None the worse for wear, are you? Let's get you home, then."
The girl tossed her cigarette down and ground it under-foot. She took Jazz by the hand and hurried her back to the metal door, and they descended the spiral staircase to the United Kingdom's lair. When Leela opened the door at the bottom and they stepped out into the monarchy shelter, most of the others didn't even look up. Hattie and Gob were play-ing cards on the floor. Switch, Bill, and Marco were eating big bowls of pasta with red sauce at a round table. Off to the right, near the shelves of books that were their mentor's own personal library, Harry and Stevie were talking quietly, drink-ing from tumblers of whiskey.
"Harry," Leela said.
"Back so soon?" Harry asked as he turned. Then he saw Jazz and his eyes lit up. "Well, now, my pets, didn't I tell you she'd be back? Come in, Jazz girl! Come in!"
The others started calling her name. Bill remained silent, as always, but gave her a smile and a thumbs-up sign. Gob and Hattie jumped up and rushed toward her, but Harry beat them to her. The old man wrapped her in his arms. Jazz couldn't help smiling, and she loved the musty scent of his clothes and the dash of cologne he sometimes used. His stub-bly cheek scraped hers. Then Harry stepped back, holding her at arm's length.
"Let me look at you! Still in one piece. Good. Good."
"Glad to see you, Harry."
"Glad to see me, she says!" he crowed, looking around at the others. "We were worried sick about her, weren't we? I sent 'em all out looking for you, Jazz girl, but no sign of you at all. Even kept an eye on the police station myself, just in case they'd brought you in."
Stevie drifted up behind Harry during this speech. He had his arms crossed, betraying no interest in hugging her, much to her dismay.
"I told him not to panic," Stevie said. "You were off and running."