“Then you’re hardly in a position to be asking questions, are you, your lordship?”
Wesley’s eyes narrowed further. It meant nothing good if his driver had suddenly decided to become impertinent. “Tell me exactly what’s going on.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what you mean,” said Mercier pleasantly. “We’re in the Earl of Blanshard’s very nice car, going exactly where he wants you.”
“Are we?” Wesley said dangerously, as his mind quickly ran through his options. “Because I’m beginning to suspect you’re not the earl’s driver.”
“I’m afraid I am,” Mercier said, with unsettling sincerity.
The car turned a corner, under an archway, then abruptly stopped. Wesley glanced to the right, and found the brick wall so close he couldn’t have opened his door. On the car’s left was the ominous empty dark of the alley, and ahead, through the windshield, the headlight beams illuminated more bricks in the darkness, a bend at the far end where the alley seemed to trail away beneath a building.
“Oh, look at that, you’ve taken me to a deserted alley. How original.” Wesley began to work the cufflink free from his shirt. First chance he got, he was jamming it into a neck, or perhaps an eye socket. “Whatever you have planned, it won’t work. I have no friends to speak of and my only family is distant and would love to see me dead. There’s no one to extort if you kidnap me, and I make a particularly unsuitable victim.”
He palmed the cufflink and waited. He was prepared to be yanked from the car. He was prepared for someone to have a gun.
He was not prepared for Mercier to burst into flames.
Chapter Six
A cry escaped Wesley as the man behind the driver’s wheel lit up like a human match. Fire erupted along Mercier’s arms, up his shoulders, enveloping his entire head.Realfire, its sudden heat almost unbearable in the enclosed space.
And then Mercier turned to look over the backseat at Wesley, his face unburnt within an aura of flame. “Get out of the car, Lord Fine.”
Wesley bolted.
He threw open the backseat door that wasn’t hemmed in by bricks and rolled out, hitting the stones of the alley. Cold wet air slapped him in the face, a pungent burst of piss and wet ashtray that was downright welcome after the heat of the car—a heat that Wesley still couldn’t explain.
He scrambled up to his feet. They were in something that was half alley, half underground car park. The path ahead was dark beyond the headlights—did it lead back to Fenchurch and safety? Was it a dead end?
Behind Wesley, a car door slammed. “I didn’t say leave,” said Mercier.
The alley was suddenly bright as a bonfire as flames burst into life at Wesley’s feet like Mercier had touched a lit match to invisible gasoline. The flames rose up and out, curving like serpents until Wesley was standing in a ring of fire as high as his thighs.
He raised his head in shock.
Christ, Mercier himself wasstill on fire.
Right. He’d been kidnapped by—by a magician. A street performer. A criminal capable of tricks. Wesley balled his hands in fists and raised his chin. “What are you playing at?”
Mercier’s lips quirked in an unpleasant smile. “Do you really still think I’m playing?” He had a small glass bottle in his hand, and as he spoke he uncorked it. “Are you telling yourself I’m a circus performer or some other rot?”
Somethingpoured out of the bottle—like fog, but moving too fast, spilling out like an ethereal cage around him. More tricks, more illusions, literal smoke and mirrors, that was all this was.
“What else would you be?” Wesley snapped.
Mercier popped the cork back into the bottle. “I’m not with the circus.”
The flames encircling Wesley rose higher, nearly to his waist. The heat was intense enough to hurt, as sweat drenched Wesley’s brow and his heart pounded in his chest.
“You’re mad,” he said tightly. “I don’t care for plays or performances and I have no desire to be in one. I demand you stop your tricks and let me go. We’re a stone’s throw from Fenchurch—you won’t get away with this.”
“I do, in fact, get away with this,” Mercier said. “But go ahead and call for help if you’d like.” He gestured at the insubstantial cage around them. “For all the good it will do you. These flames won’t go out with water, and no one can hear you now.”
Mercier took a step closer. Wesley instinctively tried to move back, but there was nowhere to go unless he went through the flames. Flames Mercier had somehow lit—that he was somehow controlling—
No, no no, that was all impossible. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” said Mercier. “I’m just the opening act.”
