The House at Cobb End Page 2

  Chapter Two

  “That Edwards is a git,” Jonas puffed, slashing at the overgrown grasses with a cane.

  “And you’re his superior,” John pointed out. “You could have simply ordered him to—”

  Jonas made an irritated sound in his throat.

  “You’re intimidated,” John accused.

  “I am no such thing,” Jonas slashed a bit harder. He seemed to have some sort of vendetta against the grass. “But the man controls my housing, too, you know. And I very much like where I am at the moment.”

  “As opposed to an attic garret?”

  “Precisely.”

  They topped the hill, which was steeper than it had looked in the housing office, Jonas puffing a little harder now. He saw John noticing and scowled. “It’s what happens when you get promoted. Too much demmed paperwork, not enough time in the field.”

  “Well, you’re in a field now.”

  “Yes, but is it the right field?” Jonas asked, looking about. He’d dressed for the occasion, all country squire tweed except for the long silk aviator’s scarf blowing dramatically in the wind. Fair enough—he’d flown them around all morning looking for the right set of topographical features. But the aviator goggles and scarf, along with the fluffy dandelion on his head, did make him look slightly mad.

  “I think so,” John said. “I didn’t get more than a glimpse in the office, but the river’s in the right place. And it was called Cobb End, and this is Cobb Hill…”

  “Doesn’t necessarily follow, old boy.”

  “I know that,” John said irritably. “But without an address, it’s the best I could do. And the damned man wouldn’t give me one!”

  “Of course not,” Jonas said, like someone who already had a perfectly comfortable flat waiting for him. “It’s not only war mages who use protective housing, you know. What if one of our adjutants' went rogue and told someone the location? Can’t be too careful where families are concerned.”

  Which was the point, Pritkin thought. He’d assumed that his on-again, off-again relationship with the Circle was in jeopardy when he’d decided to marry. He wouldn’t risk his fiancé’s life for a job, even if the Circle did know far too little about some of the things they hunted. They were just going to have to fend for self, however unfortunately that might play out--unless he found this house, of course.

  Which, ironically, they were making as damned difficult as possible.

  “We could get back in the air,” Jonas said, “take another look ‘round.” He sounded oddly hopeful. And adenoidal.

  John slanted him a look. “You have hay fever?”

  “No,” Jonas said stoutly.

  “Your eyes are red and you’re breathing like a freight train.”

  “My eyes are the same color they always are, and I’m breathing this way because you dragged me up this blasted hill! Now, is it here or not?”

  “It’s here,” John said. He was sure of it. But the area was larger than he’d recalled, nothing but flowing green grasses and nodding wildflower heads, picture-postcard pretty under a gentle afternoon sun. And no damned help at all.

  Not that he’d expected it to be easy. A portal system linked approved residential areas directly to HQ, as well as to popular areas around Britain, allowing people to enter and leave their homes without ever being seen in the vicinity. And the environs around them were heavily warded to prevent stray tourists from accidentally stumbling across them.

  Of course, if one was outside the portal system, it worked rather well on mages, too, John thought, as a smug butterfly flitted past his nose.

  And then he heard it.

  “I don’t know why you can’t live in town with everyone else,” Jonas was grumbling, poking at the air with his walking stick. “Nature!” It was disparaging.

  “I like nature,” John murmured, tilting his head and trying to recapture that elusive sound, just a note on the wind.

  “Yes, but does it like you?”

  “Normally,” John said, wishing his friend would be quiet and let him concentrate. Instead, the impatient war mage released a torrent of cacophonous magic that assaulted John’s ears like nails down a blackboard, and sent the poor butterfly wheeling into the air. Damn it!

  “You see?” Jonas gestured, as his reveal spell revealed exactly squat. “Nothing.”

  “Perhaps we should split up,” John said tightly. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

  “And where would you suggest I go?”

  “Back down,” he waved a hand. “Toward the river.”

  “But you said it was at the top of the hill!”

  “I may have been mistaken.”

  “Do you mean to tell me I trudged all the way up here for--”

  “You trudged up here because you wouldn’t order a certain officious clerk to do his job,” John reminded him, which won him a squinty-eyed glare. But it also resulted in his companion stomping back down the hill, in a manner that made it clear that he was unlikely to stomp back up again.

  That was all right. If John was correct, this wasn’t a problem Jonas could solve.

  He didn’t bother going any further, since it wouldn’t help. Instead he sat down, the rough bark of an old tree at his back, and closed his eyes. And listened.

  He always found it odd when people talked about the quiet of nature; to him, it was louder than any town, with thousands of creatures chirping and buzzing and hissing and slithering and eating and mating on the hillside that was their world. To one with ears to hear, it was deafening. It was also irrelevant, at least to his current search, and after a few minutes John managed to filter it out.

  There were human noises, too, the harsh shrill of a train's horn, the distant metallic snick-snick of some kind of farm equipment, and the sound of inventive cursing from Jonas. Who had reached the river again judging by the frenzied splashing. John smiled. And then he filtered that out, too.

  For a while there was nothing else, just the wind in his ears and the smell of grass and good English earth in his nose. He extended his senses, not straining because this was not something force would help, but just mentally touring the area. Unlike Jonas’s attempt to bludgeon his way through the hillside’s defenses, John melted into them. This time, there was no painful flash to sear his mind, just the soft shushing of grass as his sense form waded through it, feeling it brush against him now, thigh high, a warm, dragging caress.

  Before long, he was smelling honey. And then more than smelling; it was a taste, a burst of sunshine on his tongue. He licked his lips, enjoying the delicate flavor, smelling the clover that had fed the bees, feeling the warmth of the sun on their hive through long summer days. He chewed the comb until his jaw was stiff with it, until the wax softened in the heat of his mouth, until it released the last of its sweetness.

  Until it came again, that single note on the breeze.

  It was as delicate and fleeting as a whisper, blown along like a leaf and as ephemeral as the air that carried it. But John had heard such songs before, and he knew the way of them. He waited until it was closer, a sweet chime, like the taste of honey distilled, but with a faint plaintive appeal underneath. And then he sang a single note back, not a word, not even a thought, more of a question mark in musical form—

  And it had barely left his lips when a song, full-blown and loud, exploded around him in a cacophony of excitement. Little trills ran up and down his spine, into his ears, and across his tongue like small bursts of happiness. It warbled at him, so fast and so excited that he couldn’t keep up, much less find a break in which to—

  He stumbled. Which was fairly surprising as he hadn’t realized that his body had been following the lead of his senses. Not until his shin barked up against something solid and unyielding, blocking his path.

  It was a fence, old and weathered and draped in swathes of honeysuckle. Golden coin sunshine flickered down through the branches of several old apple trees, dappling the boards and the verge of a path leading up to them. I
t took him a disoriented moment to realize that he’d skirted half the hillside, ending up almost completely opposite from where he’d begun, where the grasses and genteel decay had hidden the little tableau.

  Not that anyone would have expected to find a fence there, as it was busily guarding…absolutely nothing. At least, nothing that John could see, besides a tangled bit of undergrowth and a few more scraggly apple trees. But there was something there, nonetheless. Something glowering at him from the space between the trees. Something strong with resentment. Power. Anger. Challenge.

  And underneath that, a great and powerful sadness, hopeless and dark, that hung in the air like a dirge.

  “Any luck, then?”

  John jumped slightly at the sound of Jonas’s voice carrying up the hill. It sounded like the braying of a donkey for a moment, as harsh and discordant as the magic the man had used a few moments ago. Until John’s ears adjusted back to human levels, and he swallowed and answered.

  “Not yet. And you?”

  “Nothing. John, are you sure—”

  “No. Now that I think of it, I may have misremembered the area.”

  “You misremembered?” John looked over the side of the hill, to see an outraged little war mage with wet trouser cuffs waving a grass-tipped cane. And spouting something John didn’t bother to listen to because he was busy listening to the fence, which was still burbling happily. It would be the easy part—or at least, it would be, if Jonas would ever shut up.

  “Yes, I know. My apologies,” he yelled down, with no sincerity at all. “Do have a nice flight back.”

  Jonas cut off mid-sentence to glare at him. “A nice flight.”

  “Good day for it,” John grunted, tugging at a heavy stone that had been pushed up by one of the apple tree’s roots, shoving the fence slats out of place.

  “You aren’t coming?”

  “No. I thought I’d stay for a bit, go over it again. Best to be sure, you know.”

  “You could make sure by coming back to the office and checking the book again,” Jonas said suspiciously.

  Bollocks. “Yes, but that would require dealing with that benighted fool Edwards, and I find I’m no longer in the mood.”

  That, at least, was true.

  “No longer—” Jonas broke off with an oath. “And I wasn’t in the mood to go trudging ‘round the wilderness, either, before you dragged me out of my office!”

  “We’re fifteen minutes from Stratford, not the middle of the Sahara. And it was the loo. You need to get a sight spell, Jonas.”

  “What I need is to get my head examined. Every time I listen to you--”

  “Yes, thank you for the help,” John said brightly.

  Jonas didn’t bother to reply to that. John waited another moment, but he didn’t hear any more cursing. And when he crept quietly to the side of the hill again, his annoyed sometimes employer was nowhere in sight. John heaved a sigh of thanks, stripped off his coat and squatted down beside the fence. And got to work.