Nine of Wands Read online

  ‘Speak Spanish?’ she asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Solo en restaurante.’

  She smiled briefly and shouted down the passage. ‘Mijita! Te necesito!’ She gestured to the table. ‘Please sit.’

  I pulled out a chair and sat down. Mercedes went to the sideboard and lit two candles. They burnt like torches, not candles. More magick. Behind the crystalware was a selection of dark bottles. She picked one up and said, ‘Manzanilla?’

  I know that word. Manzanilla is a beautifully crisp yet floral and salty sherry. Perfect for this time of day. ‘Gracias.’

  She filled two glasses and put them on the table. Wonder of wonders, she also brought out an ashtray. She lifted a glass and said, ‘En Paz. In peace.’

  It was the magickal offering that would bind us as host and guest, to come and go in peace. It could be broken, but even the most devious and powerful magickal creatures abide by the rules of hospitality; the consequences of breaking them can be frightening. Truly frightening. I lifted my glass. ‘En Paz. Gracias.’ It was a very good sherry, and I made a mental note of the brand.

  Her daughter appeared. As well as leaving the knife behind, she’d brushed out her hair and added eye shadow and lipstick. She’d also swapped the sleeveless top for a loose, long-sleeved blouse. All of these changes made her look smarter, yes, and also younger. I revised her age down to about nineteen. She took a stool near the archway and her mother asked her (I think) if she wanted a drink. She shook her head. Mercedes turned to me and smiled. ‘Sofía,’ she said. ‘My little girl.’

  Sofía rolled her eyes. ‘Daughter, not little girl.’

  Mercedes ignored her and lit a cigarette. I decided to wait. She spoke rapidly in Spanish and Sofía frowned. She said something back, and Mercedes pointed to the Hammer.

  ‘Dio!’ said Sofía. She drew a breath and said, ‘Why is an English Magus standing outside our home, and why is he carrying a gun?’

  I looked over my shoulder, towards the street. ‘Mia novia. En Bellegente. I was waiting for her.’ I looked at my watch. ‘One more hour.’

  That threw them. I pointed to the business card. ‘Mi Padre es Alfred Clarke. Mia Madre es Mary. Villa Verde.’

  Sofía’s eyes lit up in recognition and she smiled her open, trusting smile. Her mother buried her nose in her sherry and lowered her eyes.

  Sofía pointed to the sideboard. ‘Señor Clarke find this for us, also the table. Mother needed one of the right size. It fits.’

  That sounded exactly like Dad, and if I’m not mistaken, that sideboard had once sat in the Villa Verde. Mother is not keen on dark oak.

  Mercedes drew on her cigarette and crushed it out. She reached over the table and took my card. She held it at arms length and muttered something, then reached under the black crepe cloth and pulled out a small fabric purse. She carefully extracted an elaborately ornamented pair of gold pince-nez and squeezed them on to her nose.

  ‘Special glasses for the clients,’ said Sofía. ‘They match my mother’s Gitano costume.’

  Gitano … Romany. Gypsy. That figured. Everything here was set up for your average New Age / Old World fortune telling gig (with cannabis on the side, if the ashtray was anything to go by). And yet there was so much magick, it had to be more than that.

  Mercedes finally got my card in focus and jerked back. ‘Madre de Dios! You are Inquisidor.’ She was appalled, and frightened, probably for good reason.

  I serve the King’s Watch of Great Britain, and we’ve been keeping the King’s Peace in the world of magick since 1618. Before the Reformation, the same job was done by the Inquisition of St Michael. It still is in most Roman Catholic Countries (except France).

  Mages can earn mundane money in all sorts of ways, but gaining benefit from magickal action is a big no-no, as is Divination – magickal fortune telling. It’s okay to charge other Mages, but not the mundane public.

  I held up my hands. ‘I am on holiday with my girlfriend. I am visiting my parents. I have drunk your wine. I am here in peace.’

  Mercedes understood me, but Sofía translated anyway. I’d come to the conclusion that the daughter had no magick, or so little that she’d never be donning Mercedes’ gypsy sandals to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

  Mercedes forced a smile. She spoke, and Sofía said, ‘Then please, a reading, so that we understand each other.’

  Sofía looked a little worried as she relayed the words, and crossed her legs defensively. Mercedes spoke again. ‘Mother never uses the magick unless the client is magick also.’ Sofía and Mercedes both nodded to reinforce the message. I’ll tell you for free that they are not very good liars.

  I meant them no harm, so I smiled back. ‘Of course. It would be an honour, but my time is limited.’

  Mercedes nodded. ‘Three cards only. The past, the present and the future.’

  It was time for a cigarette.

  Mercedes reached under the table and pulled out a domed chest that fizzed with magick. The wood was almost black with age, and the brass fittings had rustic engravings that generations of polishing had worn to bare outlines. There was no clasp or keyhole.

  She placed the treasure chest on the table and worked the magickal lock. She lifted the lid towards me, so that I couldn’t see inside when she rummaged for something. She pulled out a packet wrapped in royal blue silk. ‘For the English. Mijita?’

  Sofía got up to move the chest, closing but not locking the lid, and placing it on the sideboard. While she was there, she poured herself a drink.

  Mercedes unwound the cloth, opened it out and spread it out on the table, leaving the tarot cards in the middle. She took the deck and fanned it out, face up towards me. ‘You know these cards?’

  ‘No. I have never had a tarot reading. Ever. I have only been a Mage – Magus – for six months.’

  She shook her head. ‘No matter.’ She swept up the deck. ‘First I clear the cards.’

  While she shuffled, Sofía went to the archway and unhooked a curtain that cut off all the light from the passage. Sofía returned to the sideboard and, with a lot of effort, toned down the enchanted candles. So she did have some magick. Job done, Sofía returned to her stool and watched closely.

  Mercedes placed the cards back on the blue cloth. ‘Please. Pick up the cards, close your eyes and think of where you are now in your life, then shuffle them well.’

  Now there’s a challenge.

  I took the deck and held it for a moment. The cards were warm in my hands with the pulse of Lux, and I closed my eyes. Where to start? Mina, of course. I pictured her happy smile, the one she’d thrown over her shoulder when she entered the salon, red scarf glinting against her white tunic.

  I thought about the Villa Verde and my parents, then my mind drifted back, over the Pyrenees and across the English Channel to London, to Merlyn’s Tower, home of the King’s Watch. We’ve got a lot on our plates at the moment. I felt something like sparks coming off the cards, little jabs of heat that tingled rather than hurt, and I let them take me where they wanted. I saw the flash of a Dragon exploding, the darkness of Dwarven Halls, and then the lawns of my home, Elvenham House. Great birds, gods in the form of Ravens circled over head while I shook hands with my ancestor. He’d just given me a message, a message that there was old and dangerous magick in circulation. That magick was in a book called the Codex Defanatus, and its owner was the one who’d been trying to kill me. Probably.

  I stopped shuffling and opened my eyes. Mercedes gestured for me to spread the cards in a big fan, face down, from right to left. When I’d done what she asked, Sofía spoke. ‘Close your eyes again and imagine a mirror. Look in it and move your hand across the cards. When the image is in focus, take a card.’

  I only look in the mirror when I’m shaving or on parade, so the image I got was my RAF uniform. To my alarm, the mirror shimmered and took on a life of its own: the me in the mirror pinned a new medal on its breast, the MC I’d picked up last week. It brushed its hand down the sleeve and
looked at me. I jabbed my hand down on to a card and opened my eyes.

  ‘Turn it over.’

  A rather dashing chap in armour, plunging ahead on a horse greeted me. Knight of Swords, it said. In his right hand, he wielded a big sword.

  Mercedes laughed and spoke in Spanish. Sofía laughed, too, before translating. ‘What else would the heroic pilot see in the mirror? The card is what it seems: the Knight rushes in to save the day. But that does not mean it is false. You are a confident man, Señor. Not everyone is a hero in their own mirror.’

  ‘My mother would have something to say about that.’

  A flinch of pain flashed across Mercedes’ closely guarded face. She understood well enough without waiting for a translation and motioned for her daughter to move on.

  ‘Close your eyes again,’ said Sofía, ‘and draw three cards towards you, face down.’ I did as I was bid, and Mercedes gathered the remainder together before putting them aside. ‘The mirror in your mind clears the cards,’ she said. ‘Now we see more clearly into the past, the present and the future.’

  I nodded to show that I’d understood, and she turned over the first card.

  Two small children, boy and girl, staggered through the snow, the boy on crutches, just like I’d been after the helicopter crash. Behind them, a church window was lit by five golden pentacles.

  ‘I need say nothing?’ said Mercedes.

  ‘No,’ I replied. I pointed to the girl, her head covered by a shawl. ‘Mia novia. Mina.’

  When we’d met, I’d been on crutches, and we’d been desperate, yes, but we’d made it. I pointed to the church window. ‘Is this world of magick?’

  ‘Si,’ said Mercedes, then amplified her answer in Spanish.

  ‘Your entrance to magick has clouded the cards to what came before in your life. You have found a new home.’

  Mercedes turned the second card and the Devil stared back at me, sitting on a big pillar to which he’d chained a naked young couple, a pair of junior demons, judging by their tails. They also looked a bit like Adam and Eve to me.

  Sofía was primed to say something, but Mercedes stilled her with a gesture. The older woman frowned at the card and shook her head. She cast a glance at the ceiling and muttered something to herself. She shook her head again and looked at me. ‘This card, it is not Satan. This is all of the gods and Spirits and Dæmons of the world.’

  She switched back to Spanish and Sofía listened carefully. ‘The elevated ones have hidden the cards from us. They have drawn a veil that I – Mother – cannot see through. Perhaps we can see where your road goes next.’

  Mercedes turned the last card.

  ‘Nine of Wands,’ she pronounced.

  On the card, a rather bruised looking chap with a bandage on his head clutched a wooden staff. He was casting a wary eye over a thicket of eight more staves behind him.

  ‘This is yet to come,’ said Mercedes. ‘Sofía?’

  Without prompting, Sofía said, ‘You will face many battles, many struggles. Perhaps there will be a … betrayal? You will need to stay strong. Very strong. No matter how bad things get, you must keep going.’ She looked at her mother. ‘Si?’

  ‘Si. Gracias, Mijita.’ Mercedes ran her fingers across the cards. ‘You have not much magick, Señor Conrad.’

  It was a statement, not a question. She’s not the first to say it, and I’ll no doubt hear it again before next week’s out. She paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately in Spanish.

  ‘You are in the shadow of the gods. That shadow hides much. You should come here again. Perhaps I can help more if we have more time. You should go now. She will be waiting.’

  I looked at Sofía, who didn’t look happy. Something in that translation had bothered her.

  ‘Would it be right to offer your mother payment?’ I asked.

  ‘Not in coin.’

  I stood up and retrieved the Hammer. ‘Gracias, Señora, Señorita. I shall tell mi Padre you like his table.’

  Mercedes looked down and put the four cards I’d chosen into a neat pile. ‘I do not think he will remember us. Via con Dios, Señor.’

  Sofía pulled back the curtain, and I blinked in the light. She escorted me to the street gate, and I shook hands before turning round to find Mina watching me from the payment counter in the salon.

  ‘Who was that girl?’ she asked when I’d finished admiring her blood red gel-coated nails. ‘She had nice eyes, like you.’

  ‘Mine are blue.’

  ‘No. The shape, not the colour. Open. Friendly. I thought you were going to a bar to watch the cricket, not make friends with the local women.’

  ‘So did I. I was not expecting a house of magick.’

  She stopped and looked back down the street. ‘Here? In that house?’

  ‘I’ll tell you over a drink. We should have time before the mayor turns up. He’s always late.’

  I finished my story as my parents were greeting the owner of the restaurant. I drained my beer and said, ‘There’s at least one mystery here.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘How did Mercedes know that I was a pilot? I gave her my Watch Captain card. It says nothing about the RAF on it.’

  The dinner was a great success. Every so often, I caught Mina staring into space, and I knew her thoughts were in India.

  When the cards were brought, I couldn’t help a little shiver of flashback to Mercedes’ reading room. Dad and I left the combatants to their bridge and adjourned to the terrace for cigars. I took out a fifty Euro note and put it on the table. ‘I met some old clients of yours, Dad. They did me a favour, and I wondered if you could get them something. Anything but flowers. They’ve got enough of those.’

  Dad took the note with wide-eyed curiosity. ‘Who on earth is that, and how come they did you a favour?’

  ‘Mercedes and Sofía. I don’t know their last name.’

  He blinked. ‘Don’t remember them.’

  ‘They live…’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he interrupted. ‘I’ll look them up when I get home. Now, tell me about that phone call from the Indian bloke. Mina’s not looked right since.’

  The sun was beating down again, just a brightly as it had yesterday but dulled by the tinted glass into something bearable. Around the railway carriage, phones and laptops were being abandoned as travellers gave up the struggle and began to take as much of a siesta as the ultra high-speed train from Valencia to Madrid would let them.

  Mina did not look sleepy. Tired, drawn and hurt, yes; sleepy, not at all.

  She was hefting her iPhone in her hands, staring at the blank screen and touching the button occasionally to wake it up, but not unlocking it. It’s a Plus-sized iPhone. She needs two hands to hold it comfortably, and her new red nails stood out against the black glass. I love looking at her hands. So nimble and delicate compared to mine.

  Her eyes were still on the dead screen when she finally spoke. ‘I still don’t know, Conrad.’

  ‘Know what, love? Whether to call him or whether to go to India?’

  ‘Either. Both.’ She looked up and blinked. The whites of her eyes shone out from the shadows of her face. She’d rubbed the makeup off her nose, and that was shiny, too. Her lip trembled. ‘It doesn’t matter how ill she is. She will try to marry me off to one of the Guptas. Probably the gay one with the ludicrous moustache.’

  Mina’s life is both simple and very complicated. Her parents were pioneers, the first from their families to leave India for England, and I know that Mina visited a lot when she was younger.

  Then her eldest brother was shot dead, and her father died shortly after his child, while he was locked up in prison, on remand for drug smuggling. In the same attack, Mina’s face had been beaten to a pulp with the butt of a handgun. I’ve seen a picture, and believe me, you don’t want to.

  While she was in hospital, her mother had fled to Mumbai and hidden her shame behind the shutters of her family’s estate. Not her late husband’s family. Her own. Arun, the othe
r brother, had already emigrated to America by then.

  With her face still in bits, it was no wonder that Mina had clung to the only man who had any time for her: an Englishman called Miles Finch. He loved her. He loved every broken bone of her. I know that because I knew him, and I know that Mina didn’t love him quite as much, and that made her guilt even worse when he was murdered by the same scumbag who’d killed her brother and smashed her face in. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep in the early hours, I hold her tight and I wonder if she’s clinging to me like she clung to Miles, and that she’ll see that for herself and leave me.

  That’s why her life is simple: no ties.

  It’s very complicated because she drank in the importance of family with her baby milk. It’s in her bones, and they ache every time she looks round and sees only English faces.

  I leaned forwards until her face had gone out of focus. ‘You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Say it anyway.’

  ‘Go. For my sake.’

  She leaned back. Her delicately shaped eyebrows plunged into a frown. ‘For your sake? Why?’

  ‘Because you’ll regret not going so much that it will me hurt me.’

  She put her phone down and wrapped her hands round mine. Even in the heat of Spain, they always felt cold to me. She fiddled with my Troth ring, the one that Odin had given me. I felt it pulse lightly with magick.

  ‘I will talk to Arun,’ she said. She rose from the seat and hitched up her jeans. Collecting her phone, she gave me a smile. ‘This is a conversation for the corridor, not the carriage. You’ll still be here when I get back, won’t you?’

  ‘Always.’

  I watched her sway up the carriage and push the button for the doors.

  Madrid was sticky-hot and dirty after the Villa Verde and the air-conditioning of the train. We could have gone straight home from Valencia, but we’d travelled via Madrid for a reason.

  We’d left the UK with an important parcel to be delivered to the Israeli Embassy, containing an enchanted diamond. That diamond carried the magickal fingerprint of its creator, and it was our only definite clue in the hunt for the Codex Defanatus, that compendium of Works which was wreaking havoc across the magickal world.