Druids Sword by Sara Douglass Page B

caution.
    “Then you’re working for me,” Weyland said. “Now open up, damn you!”
    There was a long silence on the other side, then, just as Weyland raised his hand to bang on the door again, he heard the rattle of keys.
    A lock was turned, then another, and then one more, and, achingly slowly, the door creaked open an inch.
    “I haven’t got all night,” Weyland said, and pushed at the door with his shoulder.
    There was a startled yelp on the other side as whoever had crouched behind the door was pushed onto the floor, then Weyland was in a dark corridor. He groped along the wall, hoping that the fools had at least had their establishment electrified, found a switch, and flicked it down.
    Light flooded the corridor from a bare bulb hung high.
    A thin man dressed in drab clothes was slowly rising from the floor, his hands fluttering at his trousers as if to brush from them the dust collected during his fall, his bright black eyes wide with fright and fixed on Weyland. His dark hair was slicked back against his skull, his face was swarthy and marked with old acne scars, and his mouth curled as if wondering whether or not to snarl.
    “So this is what you look like all grown up,” said Weyland to the imp. “Which one are you, then?”
    “Jim,” said the imp, now fully risen, “and quite independent, thank you.”
    Weyland regarded him. He’d first created the imps almost a thousand years ago as a means to control Noah and Stella—Caela and Swanne as they had then been. But during the last life Weyland had come to love Noah, and had set the imps free in London, tired of them and the agony they’d inflicted. This was a decision Weyland had regretted when the imps became the servants of Catling, draping her hex about Grace’s wrists. Every so often over the past three hundred years Weyland had occasionally sent his senses out scrying for the imps, seeing what mischief they were about, but he hadn’t bothered himself with them otherwise. They’d simply faded into London’s turgid underworld after the Great Fire, where no doubt they had created some limited mayhem, but not any major troubles, so far as Weyland could make out.
    “Private investigators, moreover,” he said. “What do you investigate, Jim? Gutters? Sadnesses? Despair?”
    A muscle twitched in Jim’s throat, and he edged past Weyland. “We’re entirely respectable.”
    Weyland sneered.
    “If you’ll come through,” Jim Philpot said, nodding to a doorway at the end of the corridor.
    The other imp sitting at a wooden table in the back room had just picked up a bread-and-dripping sandwich from a plate. There was another plate with a half-eaten sandwich pushed to one side; evidently, Weyland had interrupted their evening meal. As Weyland entered, the imp put his sandwich down and stood warily.
    “You must be William,” said Weyland, noting that the imp was identical to his brother, save that hisface was slightly rounder and even more pockmarked.
    “Bill,” said the imp, wiping his hands on his stained vest and then holding one out to shake hands.
    Weyland ignored it. “I need you to do something for me.”
    Jim and Bill shared a glance.
    “He said he’d pay,” Jim said.
    “Money?” said Bill.
    Weyland, who had been inspecting the contents of a filing cabinet, turned around. “I’ll pay you in violence, if you like.”
    “We’d prefer money,” said the imps together.
    “Well, if you insist. What are your rates?”
    Bill told him, and Weyland raised his eyebrows. “I’ll pay you half that. You’re worth no more.”
    “We’re very good,” said Jim.
    “We can creep anywhere,” said Bill.
    “Discover anything for you,” said Jim.
    Weyland grunted. “I need you to display some manner of delicacy. Think you can manage it?”
    The imps grinned, showing unexpectedly white, good teeth.
    “Has Noah a lover?” said Bill.
    “Do you need photographs?” said Jim.
    “No! Not Noah,” Weyland said, and the imps glanced knowingly