Beyond the door was a narrow corridor. A heavy sweet smel hung on the air, like the smel that hung about Jem’s clothing after he had taken his drug. Her hand tightened involuntarily on his. “This is where Wil comes to buy the—to buy what I need,” he whispered, inclining his head so that his lips nearly touched her ear. “Although why he would be here now . . .”
The woman who had opened the door for them glanced back over her shoulder as she set off down the hal . There was a slit up the back of her dress, showing much of her legs—and the end of a long, slender forked tail, marked with black and white markings like the scales of a snake. She’s a warlock, Tessa thought with a dul thud at her heart. Ragnor, the Dark Sisters, this woman—why was it that warlocks always seemed so— sinister? With the exception of Magnus perhaps, but she had the feeling Magnus was an exception to many rules.
The corridor widened out into a large room, its wal s painted dark red. Great lamps, their sides carved and painted with delicate traceries that threw patterned light against the wal s, hung down from the ceiling. Along the wal s were ranged beds, in bunks, like the inside of a ship. A large round table dominated the center of the room. At it sat a number of men, their skin the same blood-red as the wal s, their black hair clipped close to their heads. Their hands ended in blue-black talons that had also been clipped, probably to al ow them to more easily count and sift and mix the various powders and concoctions they had spread out before them. The powders seemed to glimmer and shine under the lamplight, like pulverized jewels.
“Is this an opium den?” Tessa whispered into Jem’s ear.
His eyes were raking the room anxiously. She could sense the tension in him, a thrum just under the skin, like the fast-beating heart of a hummingbird. “No.” He sounded distracted. “Not real y—mostly demon drugs and faerie powders. Those men at the table, they’re ifrits. Warlocks without powers.”
The woman in the red dress was leaning over the shoulder of one of the ifrits. Together they looked up and over at Tessa and Jem, their eyes lingering on Jem. Tessa didn’t like the way they were looking at him. The warlock woman was smiling; the ifrit’s look was calculating. The woman straightened up and swayed over to them, her hips moving like a metronome under the tight satin of her dress.
“Madran says we have what you want, silver boy,” said the warlock woman, raking a blood-red nail across Jem’s cheek. “No need for pretense.”
Jem flinched back from her touch. Tessa had never seen him look so unnerved. “I told you, we’re here for a friend,” he snapped. “A Nephilim.
Blue eyes, black hair—” His voice rose. “Ta xian zai zai na li?”
She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. “You are foolish,” she said. “There is little of the yin fen left, and when it is gone, you wil die. We struggle to obtain more, but lately the demand—”
“Spare us your attempts to sel your merchandise,” said Tessa, suddenly angry. She couldn’t bear the look on Jem’s face, as if each word were the cut of a knife. No wonder Wil bought his poisons for him. “Where is our friend?”
The warlock woman hissed, shrugged, and pointed toward one of the bunk beds bolted to the wal . “There.”
Jem whitened as Tessa stared. Their occupants were so stil that at first she had thought the beds were empty, but she realized now, looking more closely, that each was taken up by a sprawled figure. Some lay on their sides, arms trailing over the edges of the bed, hands splayed; most were on their backs, eyes open, staring at the ceiling or the bunk above them.
Without another word Jem began to stalk across the room, Tessa on his heels. As they drew closer to the beds, she realized that not al the occupants were human. Blue, violet, red, and green skin flashed past; green hair as long and netted as a web of seaweed brushed restlessly against a dirty pil ow; taloned fingers gripped the wooden sides of a bunk as someone moaned. Someone else was giggling softly, hopelessly, a sound sadder than weeping; another voice repeated a children’s rhyme over and over and over again: “Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St. Clement’s
When will ye pay me?
Ring the bells at Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch—”
“Wil ,” whispered Jem. He had stopped at a bunk halfway down the wal , and leaned against it, as if his legs threatened to give way.
Lying in the bunk was Wil , half-tangled in a dark, ragged blanket. He wore nothing but trousers and a shirt; his weapons belt hung on a nail peg inside the bunk. His feet were bare, his eyes half-lidded, their blue only slightly visible beneath the fringe of his dark lashes. His hair was wet with sweat, pasted to his forehead, his cheeks bright red and feverish. His chest rose and fel raggedly, as if he were having trouble drawing breath.
Tessa reached out and put the back of her hand to his forehead. It was burning. “Jem,” she said softly. “Jem, we must get him out of here.”
The man in the bunk beside them was stil singing. Not that he was quite a man, exactly. His body was short and twisted, his shoeless feet ending in cloven hooves.
“When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow”