Swan stepped back through the barrier to where his crew still held several semblances hostage. He raised his hand, and his team began pulling James Baring forward. Swan hefted his terrifying lantern.
No way in hell I was letting Baring get burned up like Bolan. I turned to my friends. “You with me?”
They didn’t even nod, just started toward Swan and his Shiguan crew.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Thus, every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic.
—Plato,Republic: Book X
Church,Lady, Cassius, Chuey, and I passed through the ward barrier at the end of Tin Pan Alley. Flames licked up the brick buildings on both sides of the street. In front of us, Swan and his Shiguan crew began to fall into a battle formation.
“Get behind us,” Cassius reminded me. “Set the strategy. Cut the bindings.” I shuffled back a pace as eight of Swan’s vestiges formed a staggered line ahead of him. We were outnumbered two to one. Didn’t matter. I couldn’t let him continue to weaken the ward, any more than I could let him destroy Tin Pan and the musicians who called it home.
Swan played bracing strokes and his vestiges started toward us with swords and staves and long knives. The thanatist staredover the main line at me, a look of amusement on his face. “You have no catalysts, Mr. Solomon. That could be a problem for you.”
The two vestige lines crashed together. My friends were overwhelmed and immediately gave ground, stepping back just inside the safety of the ward to regroup.
Swan smiled and motioned again for Baring to be brought forward. I screamed “no,” but Swan stroked his lantern and shot Baring’s semblance light into the ward. It erupted in a spray of golden sparks and drove the barrier back another few feet.
Swan then called for Marianne Faithfull.
As he set to strike his lantern again, a figure emerged from the far end of Tin Pan Alley behind him. She wore a flowing robe, an ornately painted red-and-yellow mask, and a headdress of flowers. The outfit reminded me of Bian Lian, the Chinese face-changing dance. The masquerader carried a lantern and bow.
“Form a second line,” Swan called. Four of his vestiges dashed to create a line between him and the masked thanatist.
I had no idea why this woman seemed to be helping us, but it gave me an idea. “It’s one-on-one now. Cassius, can you beat your man and get to the guy who’s holding the semblance?”
“I can,” he said.
“Good. Church, Lady, try to disable the other vestiges so I can cut their bindings. Chuey, if you can get some stank with that thing, try to take your guy’s hands off above the wrists.”
Chuey grinned. “I’ll show you stank.”
My friends stepped through the ward again and rushed the first Shiguan line, as near the awning of Andy’s Guitar Centre, beams of light crossed in the evening darkness—one from Sir Swan and the other from the masked woman. Streaks of amber and blue lit the French-terraced fronts up and down Tin Pan Alley.
Cassius parried a Shiguan woman, grabbed her by the coat, and shoved her back to me. I slashed her bindings with my khopesh before she knew what hit her. The centurion then rushed ahead and steamrolled the Shiguan holding Marianne.
Church flung a cudgel-bearing Shiguan to the road, and Lady pushed a man in a top hat over him. I hurried in and cut their bindings, too. Chuey almost took a sword to the chest, but danced around it and swung his macuahuitl down on the guy’s forearm, taking it clean off—the guy’s brass shield clattered to the cobblestones. I dashed in and snipped the bindings off his other wrist.
Cassius had begun leading Marianne back to the safety of the ward when Swan caught sight of him. He scraped his bow across the corner of his lantern, and a shrill rush of light hit Cassius in the back, throwing him against the hard stone of Hank’s Guitars.
The Bian Lian woman raised her bow and raked it savagely across her lantern’s darkwood frame rods. A flare of violet light pulsed out over the remaining vestiges, slamming them to the ground, thrusting my friends back inside the ward, and breaking against the barrier in shards of purple and black. The light sizzled in sparks across the cobblestone and up into the night sky. The acrid smell of burning stone wafted down the alley. Swan’s vestiges writhed and howled as their semblances tore free from their bodies. Marianne stood alone and trembling amidst the wreckage.
Swan stepped forward and grabbed her arm. “Let her go!” I screamed.
“Take the deal,” Swan replied. “Or else watch her burn, and realize the dimming of her memory topside, too.”
I stared into her pleading eyes. All I could think about was her breakout hit “As Tears Go By,” and the way Mama used to hum it around the house. I didn’t want to see Marianne’s semblance burned up, her music and memory fade. And there’dbe no moving on for her once her spirit was gone. But for all that, Brach’s war still threatenedallof London.
“I’m not ready,” Marianne pleaded, clasping her hands. “Please.”
I stood frozen, remembering this woman’s music filling my childhood home, as my friends waited on a command. Then, feeling shame for it, I mouthed the words “I’m sorry.”
Swan smirked, cut her bindings himself, and released her. Then he spun his lantern’s cylinder and played a haunting note. Marianne’s semblance dissolved, flowed like luminescent wind in and out of his lantern, and shot straight for the ward.
Chuey swooped up the shiny brass shield from the street, braced it against his shoulder, and stepped into the stream of light. The shield reflected the lamplight up into the dark sky above like a searchlight at a Hollywood premiere. When the light stream ended, Chuey tumbled forward to the cobblestone street, and all went quiet.
