Free Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud Page A

of home. You might let me out, you really might. I've served you heart and soul."
    "You have no soul," Mandrake said. "What did Bartimaeus say?"
    "I can't tell you, you're that young. It was rude, mind. Made my ears wax up. Well, he ain't coming voluntarily and that's all there is to it. Burn him and have done, I say. Can't think why you ain't snuffed him already. Oh, not back in that drawer again —can't you have mercy, you hateful boy?"
    With the disc wrapped and the drawer shut fast, Mandrake rubbed his eyes. The Bartimaeus problem was growing intractable. The djinni was weaker and more cantankerous than ever; almost useless as a servant. In all logic he should let him go, but—as always—he found the thought distasteful. Quite why was hard to say, since alone of all his slaves the djinni never treated him with anything approaching respect. His abuse was tiring, exasperating beyond measure. . . and also oddly refreshing. Mandrake lived in a world where true emotions skulked forever behind politely smiling masks. But Bartimaeus made no pretense of his dislike. Where Ascobol and company were emollient and fawning, Bartimaeus was as impertinent now as the day he had first met him, back when he was just a child, owner of an entirely different name. . .
    Mandrake's mind had drifted. He coughed and drew himself up. That was the basic point, of course. The djinni knew his birth name. A risky thing for a man in his position! If another magician summoned him and learned what the demon knew. . .
    He sighed; his mind trundled from one well-worn track to another. A dark-haired girl. Pretty. No prizes for guessing the djinni's guise. Ever since Kitty Jones had died, Bartimaeus had used her shape to mock him. Not without success, either. Even three years on, visualizing her face gave Mandrake a sharp pang in his side. He shook his head in weary self-reproach. Forget her! She was a traitor, dead and gone.
    Well, the wretched demon was of no importance. The pressing issue was the growing disruption caused by the war. That—and the dangerous new abilities appearing among the commoners. Fritang's tale of the egg-throwing urchins was just the latest in a long line of troublesome accounts.
    Since Gladstone, magicians had observed a basic rule. The less commoners knew about magic and its tools, the better. Thus, every slave, from the scrawniest imp to the most arrogant afrit, was ordered to avoid unnecessary exposure when out on his master's business. Some utilized the power of invisibility; most went in disguise. So it was that the myriad demons thronging the streets of the capital or rushing above its rooftops went, as a rule, unnoticed.
    But now this was no longer the case.
    Each week brought new accounts of demonic exposure. A flock of messenger imps was spotted above Whitehall by a squealing group of schoolchildren; magicians reported that the imps had been correctly disguised as pigeons—they should not have aroused suspicion. Days later a jeweler's apprentice, newly arrived in London, ran wild-eyed down Horseferry Road and leaped over the river wall into the Thames. Witnesses claimed he had screamed warnings of ghosts among the crowds. Close inquiry revealed that spy demons were at work in Horseferry Road that day.
    If commoners were being born with the power to see demons, the disruption that had lately plagued London could only get worse. . .Mandrake shook his head irritably. He needed to visit a library, look for historical precedent. Such an outbreak might have happened before. . .But he had no time—the present was difficult enough. The past would have to wait.
    A knock at the door; his servant entered unobtrusively, keeping well away from the pentacles on the floor.
    "The Deputy Police Chief is here to see you, sir."
    Mandrake's forehead runkled in surprise. "Oh. Really? Very well. Show her up."
    It took three minutes for the servant to descend to the reception room two floors below and return with the visitor, giving Mr.