Cursed

“Do you know anything about it being tried?”

“God no.” Talisid sounded revolted. “In every instance I know of, the harvester went violently insane. If that was what they killed the barghest with, I’m surprised we didn’t find their bodies too.”

“Why’s it so lethal?” I kept my voice casual, as if from idle curiosity, though I didn’t expect Talisid to believe it for a moment. “Harvesting works on humans, doesn’t it?”

Talisid snorted. “If you can call that ‘working.’ It’s like ripping out half someone’s mind and injecting it into your own. Usually turns whoever did it into a deranged psychopath, though if they were willing to use Harvesting in the first place, most people probably wouldn’t notice much difference.”

It matched with what I’d heard. Magical power isn’t something that can be given away; it’s part of who you are. The only way to take a mage’s power is to rip out most of him with it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to merge that maimed fragment with your own self, and that’s if what you were taking came from a human. Trying to assimilate something totally alien, like a barghest …

“So now what are you up to?” Talisid broke into my thoughts. “Trying to track down the mages who did it?”

“Yup,” I said. “Anyone still searching the factory?”

“Empty.”

“Okay.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with that business on Hampstead Heath, did you?”

“What would that be?”

“Someone tried to settle a disagreement with military-grade weapons.” Talisid’s voice was dry and I knew he had his suspicions. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t.”

“Hm. Watch yourself.”

Talisid broke the connection and I dialled another number, and this time I had more success. It took only a few minutes to tell the story and fix a time for the meeting. I dropped my phone into my pocket and went back to Meredith. “We’re done.”

Meredith looked up from her coffee. We were sitting in a Starbucks, the late afternoon sun slanting through the glass of the shop front. “Did you find the guy you were looking for?”

“He won’t be here till tomorrow.” My meeting with Luna and Martin wasn’t until the morning either, meaning I had nothing immediate for the rest of the evening. “Want to get dinner?”

“Really?”

“Not much we can do for the rest of the day. Besides, we might as well relax while we’ve got the chance. There’ll be trouble enough soon.” Which was about to prove more prophetic than I would have liked.

There was a beat, then Meredith nodded, looking at me appraisingly. “I’d like that.”

Meredith wanted to go back to her flat, having been away for more than a day, and I went with her. Apart from anything else, the Dark cabal might be planning to take another shot at her, and if they were, her home was the natural place to set an ambush.

Meredith’s flat was in Kensington and Chelsea, a little west of Cadogan Square. It’s expensive even by London standards and I don’t go there much. As we turned into the street, I saw that it was lined with old white-pillared terraced houses. Once upon a time, sixty or seventy years ago, those would have been used by the gentry and their servants and families; these days they’d been converted into flats for rich professionals. Some things change, some stay the same. The sides of the road were tightly packed with lines of well-polished sedans and sports cars. I stopped on the patio of Meredith’s house, my instincts warning me to check the area before going in. The sun had set during our journey and as I looked from west to east I could see the colour of the sky fading from a deep yellow sunset to midnight blue. There was a scattering of people but the street was quiet with the coming evening and nothing set off my alarms. I followed Meredith inside.

Meredith’s flat was the top one of four, the stairs thickly carpeted. “I really need to change,” Meredith said. “Could you wait a few minutes?”

If there was anything messy about her appearance, it was more than I could tell. “No hurry.” Meredith disappeared into the bedroom. I knew what “a few minutes” meant in girl talk and settled down to wait. A moment later I heard a shower start up from somewhere past the bedroom and I added another quarter hour onto my guess.

Meredith’s living room was decorated in pale green, with tables and chairs of light wood, and a carpet lined the floor. A bookcase stood by one wall—the shelves were less than half full and most of what was there seemed to be boxes or CDs. There was a TV and stereo system, both new looking, the remote controls on the table next to a bowl of dried flowers. Two soft-looking white sofas were piled with cushions and the wall held a piece of artwork made of curves of black metal. The room looked nice but somehow I didn’t feel particularly comfortable. It was a room for receiving visitors, not a place where you could put your feet up and relax. I sat on the sofa and found it was as soft as it looked.