Reserved for the Cat

Jonathon knew a little about firearms, as did most stage magicians, and he knew about the practice of cutting a cross into the nose of a bullet to make the soft lead spread more when it hit a target. He blinked. “Saint Andrew’s own blessed cross” was likely to be hell on earth for anything those bullets struck . . .

“She’s very good!” Ninette said, her eyes shining. “Really! I would feel ever so much safer if I knew how to shoot and had a gun!”

Jonathon considered this, carefully, and it wasn’t only supernatural entities that he was thinking about when he considered the dancer with a revolver in her hands. Earth Magic was also the magic of animal instincts. If he was an Earth Master, and he wanted to eliminate a pretty young dancer, one with many admirers . . .

“I am going to argue in your favor,” he said carefully, “if you both promise me one thing.” He turned first to Ailse. “I want you to make sure that she is deadly with this thing. She cannot afford to miss and she cannot afford to have it taken from her. Do you understand me?”

The Scots girl pursed her lips grimly. “Aye,” she replied. “An’ that I can do, if ’tis in her t’ be a shot.”

“And you—” He rounded on Ninette. “You must be ready to shoot to kill, without pause, without hesitation, if you ever have to take that thing out. There will be no time for second thoughts, no squeamishness. Whoever this is might well use someone—” He thought for a moment, then decided that being blunt was the only answer. “—might well use one of those men that throng your dressing room as an instrument. If that happens, there will be no question of guilt or innocence, no mercy. You will have to kill, or be killed. Or . . . worse,” he added with conviction. “The object might be to carry you off to much worse than simply death. And I do not mean mere rape.” Ailse went scarlet with embarrassment at the word, but he went ruthlessly on. “I mean dissolution. Terror. Horror, such as you cannot imagine. These magics that we use are primal forces and as such, they have all the raw power of the tempest, the volcano, the earthquake.”

He hoped—in fact, he prayed—that Ninette, child of Montmarte as she was, was near enough to the violence that could be in those streets that she would truly understand what he meant, and would be willing, able, to be just as violent to ensure her own safety.

Her eyes became very thoughtful, and a bit distant. He sensed she was looking deep into her memory. Her expression darkened, and he felt hope.

“I am no hothouse flower, M’sieur,” she said, quietly. “I am the—the cabbage grown on the windowsill of a garret, so that one might eat. There were Apache-gangs in my street. I have sometimes had to run home very fast to avoid the absinthe-drinkers, the hashish-smokers, the procurers with knives. I know how evil can wear a friendly, even a familiar face. Yes, M’sieur Jonathon. I can shoot to kill.”

The cat, silent until now, growled a little. A few of those limped home when I got done savaging their ankles, he added. I may not be a mastiff, but I can probably give her a moment or two more to aim.

“All right,” Jonathon said, with a slow nod. “I will make sure Nigel and Arthur have no objections. And I myself will go out and get you a revolver.” He eyed the monster in Ailse’s hands. “But not quite that big. You don’t have the wrists for it, Ninette. I won’t get you a ridiculous little lady’s gun, but I will get you something you can handle.”

“An’ the bullets!” Ailse said, instantly. “Cold Iron, Silver, and Blessed Lead.”

He raised his eyebrow again, and Ailse blushed. “I am an Elemental Master,” he reminded her. “I think I can manage. Even in so seemingly hardheaded and ordinary a city as Blackpool.”

It took relatively little effort to get the Silver and Cold Iron bullets. It was the Blessed Lead that proved to be the sticking point. There were not many churches, even in wicked Blackpool, that were willing to part with a bit of their lead roofing material when someone looking like Jonathon turned up and asked for it. Three times he tried, under various pretenses, and three times he was turned away with varying degrees of suspicion and hostility. And there was no helpful padre, well versed in the ways of Elemental mages, anywhere within the city limits.