“Shut your mouth,” he said. “That’s my little brother you’re talking about.”
Gerald touched his mouth delicately with the back of his hand. The gesture looked just like that of an ordinary person, a ginger touch to assess the damage, but when he drew his hand away from his mouth it was healed, the splash of blood looking out of place on his unharmed mouth. It didn’t look like real blood now, somehow.
It looked like he was playing a game.
“Struck a nerve, did I?” Gerald asked from the ground.
“Obviously,” said Alan. “Is that what you came here to do?”
Gerald climbed to his feet slowly, not making any sudden movements, as if he wanted a wild animal to come closer to him.
“I came because I wanted to make a proposition to you,” he said. “I can’t do it with the demon here.”
They were watching each other the same way they had before, with magic and a knife between them.
“Aren’t you curious?” Gerald asked, after a long moment.
Alan’s mouth twisted into a shape a shade away from a smile. “Always,” he admitted. “Nick, do you maybe want to go work on your car? Just for a little while?”
“What?” Nick demanded. “No.”
He shifted his stance, braced against the wall as if Alan would’ve had a chance if he tried to push him physically out of the room.
“It won’t do any harm to hear what he has to say.”
“It’ll do you some harm if he fries the meat off your bones,” Nick countered. “I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
“I won’t be alone,” said Alan. “If Mae agrees to stay with me.”
He turned his eyes to Mae, and she started. She was almost shocked at being addressed, as if she’d been watching a play and suddenly one of the actors had spoken to her.
“I have to confess I probably won’t be much help,” she said. “My big plan to save Nick before you arrived was to toss a kettle at the magician’s head.”
Alan grinned. “You willing to defend me with a kettle?”
“Putting your faith in my awesome kettle-wielding skills doesn’t strike me as your brightest idea ever.”
“I think I could do a lot worse,” said Alan, and looked back at his brother. “Nick. He’s determined to talk to me, and I’d like to know what he has to say. You’ll be within earshot.”
“And what,” Nick retorted, “I’m supposed to come running when you start screaming?”
“Come running when I start shooting,” said Alan.
Nick’s mouth turned up at one corner, though whether that was at his brother or at the thought of shooting, Mae didn’t know.
“Nick,” Alan said. “Go.”
He looked at Alan and reached behind him, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword. The gesture might have been Nick seeking reassurance, Mae thought, like a child clutching at a favorite toy.
Or he might have been thinking of using it.
“I don’t like what you’ve done to me,” Nick told his brother, his voice ugly, and moved fast.
He went for the door and stalked out, slamming it shut behind him. The crash of the door was the only sound in the kitchen for a moment.
Then Mae moved past the counter to stand shoulder to shoulder with Alan as they faced the magician.
Gerald, clearly unimpressed by the awesome threat they presented, took a seat at the head of the kitchen table and stretched his long legs easily out before him.
“You seem to expect things from him that he can’t possibly give you,” he observed. “That’s almost cruel.”
“Yes,” said Alan. “I know.”
Mae sat down, leaning her elbow against the table and her chin against her fist and training her gaze on Gerald. She’d noticed that her mother’s clients often found a direct unblinking stare very disconcerting.
Gerald looked back at her, eyes bright blue and tranquil.
“Do you love him?”
“Who?” Mae demanded, then closed her eyes and cursed herself as she realized that Gerald had of course been talking to Alan.
When she opened them, Gerald looked a little amused. Alan seemed not to have noticed.
“Alan,” said Gerald, “do you love him?”
“It’s none of your business,” Alan replied. “But as a matter of fact, I do.”
Gerald tilted his head, giving Alan what seemed to be a genuinely sympathetic look. “That must be terribly difficult.”
“Don’t you love your family?” Alan asked mildly.
Gerald actually flinched. “No, I don’t,” he said. “But that’s not important.”
“Oh,” said Alan, soft, making it clear he knew he’d scored a point.
“What’s important is your demon,” Gerald told him, his eyes narrowing. “And what he’ll do.”
He clicked his fingers, and light came streaming in from unexpected places, under the back door when there was no daylight left outside, filtering like steam from the kettle.
“He never does anything like this,” Gerald murmured, “does he? His magic’s not for anything beautiful or kind. Do you know that storm he created in Durham killed two people?”
Alan was leaning against Mae’s chair, because it always took him a moment to stand up, and with a magician in the room they might not have a moment. She felt the single tremor run all along his body.
“Alan didn’t kill them,” Mae snapped. “And how many innocent people have you killed?”
Gerald nodded and smiled in her direction. Magic light touched his face softly, the rays gentle and playful as if they were the fingers of someone who loved him.
“People die so I can have my magic. People die so you can have your brother,” Gerald said. “We’re the same, Alan Ryves.”
“Are we?” Alan murmured.
When the light glanced off Gerald’s eyes, they turned a brilliant, dazzling blue. “I think so,” he murmured back. “We’re both willing to sell our souls for a price. And neither of us is stupid.”
“Who would you consider stupid?” Alan asked.
Gerald answered, “Arthur.” His mouth twisted. “My former ever-so-fearless leader. The one who put a demon in a child and then managed to lose it. He was stupid enough to unleash a demon on this world and never care about the consequences, but you’re not. Don’t tell me you haven’t had doubts.”
“Don’t waste your time telling me how I feel,” said Alan. “Get to the point.”
“I am not Black Arthur. I’m the one who has to deal with the mess he made. And I need you to help me.”
“To deal with Nick?” Mae demanded.
“I told you I’m not stupid,” Gerald said. “I can see Nick is trying. He owes you, doesn’t he? I can see he’s well-disposed toward you, and you.” He glanced at Mae. “And Jamie,” he said, his voice changing a little on the name. “That doesn’t change the fact that he calls down storms whenever he gets angry, and the death of half a world would not disturb him. How can you justify setting him free?”
“I can’t justify it,” Alan answered.
Gerald smiled. “You did it because you loved him, and you wanted to save him from Arthur. I can understand that. He couldn’t, though. If you told him how you felt, he wouldn’t even know what you meant. He’s not human.”
“I know that,” Alan said between his teeth.
“He’s a danger to all of us.”
“I know that.”
“He killed a couple of people by mistake. It’s only a matter of time before something worse happens, and it will be your fault.”
“I know that!” Alan shouted at him.
Gerald leaned back, loose and easy, still smiling.
“Then please,” he said, “let me help. I have a plan to save us all. Including Nick.”
Alan moved then, his warm weight against Mae’s side gone. He took the chair in between Mae and Gerald, his shoulder blocking Mae’s view of half of Gerald’s face. She could make out only one eye and the end of a smile.
“I’m listening,” said Alan.
“I could do it,” Gerald said. “I could call up another demon and bind Nick’s powers. I could make him as human as he can be, and you can keep your brother. Only he’d never agree to having his power stolen from him, would he? So I need your help. He’ll trust you. I need you to lead him somewhere deserted and trap him in a summoning circle for me.”
“Oh, you need Alan to betray Nick and then you’ll steal Nick’s powers and kill them both,” said Mae. “Great idea. Hey, can I come? I’ll bring a picnic lunch if you promise not to let blood get on the sandwiches.”
“She makes a good point,” Alan observed, speaking more slowly than Mae would’ve liked. “How could I trust you?”
“How could I trust you?” Gerald asked. “You can get your demon to kill me anytime you want. I’m trusting you because we both have a lot to gain by making this bargain.”
“I’d have a lot to lose, as well.”
“Would you?” asked Gerald. “Nothing that you won’t lose anyway, if you fail to keep the demon in check. Which you know you will.”
He leaned forward a little so he was totally obscured from Mae’s view.
“I know what you’re afraid of, Alan,” Gerald told him quietly. “But how many people have to die before you risk him hating you?”
Mae made up her mind and got to her feet.
“All right,” she said. “You can leave now.”
She could see Gerald’s face clearly now, lifted to hers and vaguely startled. She reached out, grabbed his hand, and hauled him to his feet. When his fingers curled automatically around hers, all the magic lights went out.
“I’d say you outstayed your welcome, but you never actually got a welcome, did you?”
She used her grip on Gerald’s hand to tow him away from the table. She felt perfectly prepared to get behind him and shove his horrible magic self every step of the way to the front door, but then Gerald decided it was too much trouble or that he’d said all he wanted to say. He pulled his hand away and made for the door.
He stopped on the threshold and said, “Alan.”
Alan was still sitting down in the middle of that shadowy kitchen, head bowed over the table. “Mae’s right. You should go.”
There was a pause. Mae looked defiantly at Gerald, Alan looked away, and Gerald looked like he was trying to find a way to make the winning move.
“In two worlds, he is the most dangerous thing alive,” Gerald said at last. “And you made him. I’ll be in touch.”
The kitchen door swung closed, and a moment later Mae heard the sound of the front door closing too, imagined a brief flare of magical light as Gerald went humming down the road, congratulating himself on a job well done, and left them here in the dark.
“Alan,” said Mae, kneeling on the floor by his chair and thus getting a look at his shadowed face. “Don’t listen to him. He’s lying to you.”
“He’s not lying,” Alan said. “Nick killed those people.”
“Sorry,” said Nick from the door, his voice toneless. “Am I interrupting something?”
He flipped the switch, and the kitchen filled with ordinary, non-magical light. Mae thought of Gerald saying that Nick would never think to use his magic for something beautiful or kind, and then reminded herself fiercely that Gerald was an idiot. Nick would think using his magic that way was crazy, and he’d be right. There was a perfectly good light switch.
Nick leaned against the door frame, arms folded.