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They made muted noises of agreement. Even Mae seemed cowed at this point, though it was Jamie who gave Alan his number. Alan looked a bit crestfallen but accepted it, and at least after that they were finally rid of the interlopers.
Nick left to get the last boxes while Jamie was still writing down his number, and by the time he emerged from the house they were gone. Nick went around the car so he and Mum would not have to come within a yard of each other.
He looked at Alan, who was standing gazing into the open boot of their car, at something in one of the boxes. When he noticed Nick looking, he smiled a small, strained smile.
“I think that’s it,” Alan said. “Come on. Looking forward to London?”
They swung into the car. Nick let Alan have first s.h.i.+ft. He was the better driver, but he was only sixteen and it would be a year before it was actually legal for him to drive. It was better to get out of Exeter, where some people knew that, before Nick had his turn.
“Well,” Nick said as Alan gave him a stern look over the top of his gla.s.ses and Nick rolled his eyes and buckled his seat belt. “Let’s examine the events of the past twenty-four hours in Exeter. Ravens in the kitchen, snakes in the living room, demon marks on you, magicians sending us stupid messages, and at the end of it all you got the boy’s telephone number.”
Alan tilted his head as he considered this and then laughed. Nick leaned his forehead against the car window, and the engine purred soothingly to him.
“Let’s get the h.e.l.l out of here,” Alan suggested.
After an hour on the M5, Alan’s leg started to ache, and they switched places. There was never much conversation while driving because of Mum, so Nick looked straight ahead and Alan stared out at the rolling green ground, going for miles on both sides of the road. Nick glanced over at him a few times, wondering if that message was bothering him or if the demon mark was hurting him.
“You all right?” he said eventually.
Alan took a moment to answer. When he turned, Nick saw that half his wavy hair was sticking up from being pressed against the damp window.
“Yeah,” he said. Nick’s amus.e.m.e.nt was cut short when Alan went on, “I was thinking about Mae and Jamie. It’s just — they both seem so great, and we know what’s going to happen to them. It’s terrible, that’s all. I hate it.”
Nick frowned out at the road. “Why do you care? You barely know them.”
“I know them well enough to feel sorry for them,” Alan said. “Anyone would. I mean, don’t you feel bad for them? A little?”
He looked at Nick with a testing, expectant air. Nick didn’t know what to say.
He felt angry with them. If it hadn’t been for them, Alan would not be marked. Nick did not think that expressing this would go over well, though.
“I don’t feel anything for them.”
That answer made Alan look so unhappy that Nick almost wished he had told him about the anger. Alan said nothing, though; he only turned back to the window, biting his lip.
Nick glanced in the rearview mirror to check on the distance between them and the car behind, and caught his mother’s reflected eyes. In the mirror they looked even colder than usual, as if she was staring at him from under ice. Her lips were drawn tight over her teeth, giving her beautiful face the appearance of a skull that still had eyes to stare. She looked at him as if she hated him, but she always did that.
Nick bared his teeth at her in a silent snarl and turned away from the mirror.
Alan read out the directions Merris Cromwell had given him as Nick tried to work around the London lunch hour traffic. Nick didn’t like Merris much, but since Alan had helped her at the Goblin Market last October, they’d never had to crash in shelters or hostels while they looked for a place to stay. Nick wasn’t sure if she had contacts everywhere or if problems simply slunk away in the face of her formidable efficiency.
If the Market had been a magicians’ Circle, blasphemous though the idea might be, Merris would have been the Circle’s leader.
She was connected even though n.o.body knew where she came from, rich even though n.o.body knew where she got her money. Nick thought she might be the only person in the Market hiding as many secrets as they were.
Nick looked at a map and took a detour by Westminster so Alan could get a preview of the doubtful delights he would soon enjoy. They pa.s.sed the square-spiked silhouette of Westminster Abbey, and stone saints peered down at them while Alan began to tell himself interesting historical facts, because Nick didn’t care. The spire of Big Ben and the curve of the Circle went by in a smooth line, and as Nick turned the car into less traffic-choked channels, Alan gave a happy sigh and started talking about dinosaur exhibits in the Natural History Museum.
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Nick. “The demons can have you.”
He was glad that Alan seemed so pleased. Nick had not really remembered London, and looking around it now, with old and new buildings jostling each other at every turn and no street empty, he was feeling a distinct sense of foreboding.
Demons liked cities. Cities meant victims, and London was teeming with bodies for the taking. Nick thought he might have made the wrong decision choosing this place, but it was too late now.
Camden town opened up into a broad gray road, with a small cinema on one side, some restaurants and a gray building that said AMERICAN METHODIST CHURCH in large metal letters outside. A fine drizzle started as they drove up one of the narrow side streets and stopped in front of their new home.
The drab brown front of the house made it look as if it had been built from rusty spare parts. Someone always put lace curtains in the windows of dreary houses, and Nick was unsurprised to see the curtains making their attempts in every window of this place. There was a china garden gnome on the doorstep, wearing a desperate, crazy smile.
“It’s not so bad,” Alan said.
“You never take me nice places anymore, baby,” said Nick, and was mildly gratified by Alan’s ring of laughter, like a living bell that had been caught by surprise when it was struck.