“What’s that mean?”
“It means that we’ve discovered some things about the girl that were not clear before. It seems that she is under certain protections, legal and otherwise. I would like to begin by taking down the network of defense around her, unobtrusively, quietly, one might say invisibly. And when she is vulnerable, that will be the time to take action. Until then—”
“Cautious,” said Binaud, standing up. “Too cautious, Marcel. It’s a big fault. You need to be decisive. Take action. Find her, acquire her, and bring her here. But have it your own way; I won’t overrule you this time.”
Delamare rose to shake his visitor’s hand and see him out. When they were alone, his dæmon flew to his shoulder and they stood at the window to watch the Chief Justice bustle away, one attendant carrying his briefcase, another holding an umbrella against the snow that had just begun to fall.
“I do dislike being interrupted,” said Delamare.
“I don’t think he noticed,” said his dæmon.
“Oh, he’ll be aware of it one day.”
* * *
* * *
The man coming from the railway station was moving quickly: in less than a minute he was almost at the tree, and as soon as he got there, the other men struck. One stepped out and swung a heavy stick to strike him at his knees. He dropped at once, grunting with shock, and then the other man was on him, chopping down with a short club, striking his head, his shoulders, his arms.
No one uttered a word. The victim’s dæmon, a small hawk, rose into the air, crying and fluttering violently, and kept falling down as her man weakened under the blows.
But then Pan saw a flash of moonlight reflected on a knife blade, and the man from the mail depot cried out and fell, but the other attacker struck again and again, and the victim fell still. Pan heard every blow.
The man was dead. The second man stood up and looked at his companion.
“What’d he do?” he said quietly.
“Cut my bloody hamstrings. Bastard. Look, I’m bleeding like a pig.”
The man’s dæmon, the mastiff-cross, was whining and writhing on the ground beside him.
“Can you get up?” The killer’s voice was thick and muffled, as if he was speaking through catarrh, and he had a Liverpool accent.
“What do you think?”
Their voices hardly rose above a whisper.
“Can you move at all?”
The first man tried to push himself up. There was another grunt of pain. The second man offered his hand, and the first managed to stand, but it was obvious that he could only use one leg.
“What we gonna do?” he said.
The moon lit them all brilliantly: the killer, and the man who couldn’t walk, and the dead man. Pan’s heart was thumping so hard that he thought they must be able to hear it.
“You stupid sod. Couldn’t you see he was holding a knife?” said the killer.
“He was too quick—”
“You’re supposed to be good at this. Get out the way.”
The first man hobbled back a pace or two. The killer bent down and picked up the dead man’s ankles, and hauled the body backwards and into the rushes.
Then the killer reappeared and impatiently beckoned the other man forward.
“Lean on me,” he said. “I got half a mind to leave you here on your own. Just a bloody liability. Now I gotta come back and deal with him meself, and that bleeding moon’s getting brighter all the time. Where’s his bag? Wasn’t he carrying a bag?”
“He never had a bag. He never had nothing.”
“He must’ve done. Sod it.”
“Barry’ll come back with you and help.”
“Too noisy. Too nervous. Give us your arm, come on, hurry up.”
“Oh Christ—be careful—aargh, that hurts….”
“Now shut up and move as fast as you can. I don’t care if it hurts. Just keep your bloody mouth shut.”
The first man put his arm around the killer’s shoulders and limped along beside him as they moved slowly beneath the oak tree and back along the riverbank. Pan, looking down, saw a patch of blood on the grass, shining red in the moonlight.
He waited till the men were out of sight, and then prepared to jump down; but before he could move, something stirred in the rushes where the man’s body lay, and something pale and bird-sized fluttered up, falling and flying up again, failing, dropping, but with a last burst of life making directly for Pan.
He was too frightened to move. If the man was dead…But this dæmon looked dead herself—so what could he do? Pan was ready to fight, to flee, to faint; but then she was right there on the branch beside him, struggling to stay there, almost falling off, and he had to reach out and catch her. She felt icy cold, and alive, but only just. The man wasn’t quite dead.
“Help,” she whispered raggedly, “help us—”
“Yes,” he said, “yes—”
“Quickly!”
She fell off and managed to flutter down to the rushes. In a moment Pan had flowed down the trunk of the oak and bounded across towards where she’d vanished, and found the man lying there in the rushes, still just breathing, with the dæmon pressing herself against his cheek.
Pan heard her say, “Dæmon—separate—”
The man turned his head a little and groaned. Pan heard the grating of bone against broken bone.
“Separate?” the man murmured.
“Yes—we learnt to do it—”
“My lucky day. Inside pocket. Here.” He raised a hand with enormous effort and touched the right side of his jacket. “Take it out,” he whispered.
Trying not to hurt him, and fighting the great taboo against touching another person’s body, Pan nosed the jacket aside and found a leather wallet in the inside pocket.
“That’s it. Take it away. Don’t let them get it. It’s all up to you and…your…”
Pan tugged, but the wallet wouldn’t come, because the jacket was caught under the man’s body, and he couldn’t move; but after several seconds of difficulty, Pan got it free and pulled it out onto the ground.
“Take it right away…before they come back….”
The pale hawk dæmon was hardly there now, just a wisp of white shadow fluttering and pressing herself to his flesh. Pan hated seeing people die, because of what happened to their dæmons: they vanished like a candle flame going out. He wanted to console this poor creature, who knew she was going to disappear, but all she wanted to do was feel a last touch of the warmth she’d found in her man’s body all their lives together. The man took a shallow, rasping breath, and then the pretty hawk dæmon drifted out of existence altogether.