Chapter 3: Power Corrupts
The hotel lobby felt too exposed. Jan led their strange procession through the revolving doors, Godfrey padding silently at her heel, his service vest a silent command for space. The London air was a damp slap, tasting of diesel and old stone. Cameron moved just behind her left shoulder, his posture loose but his eyes doing a constant, professional scan of the street: doorways, windows, parked vans.
“This way,” Brigid said, taking point with a certainty that made Jan feel both proud and irrationally annoyed. Will and Sarah fell in step behind her, their hands occasionally brushing, a silent communication flowing between them that needed no words.
They turned into a narrower street, leaving the busy thoroughfare behind. The sounds of traffic muted, replaced by the echo of their footsteps on wet cobbles. A small, steamy-windowed cafe appeared on the right, its door propped open with a brick, emitting the rich smell of roasted beans.
“We should wait inside,” Brigid said. “The Market access is a block down, but it’s not… open yet. Needs the right light.”
“The right light?” Cameron asked.
“The shadow of the crane on the power station wall has to hit a specific rivet. It’s a temporal key. Archimedes design. Very precise, very secure.”
Cameron absorbed this without comment. He’d stopped questioning the mechanics. He just filed the information away as a new tactical variable.
The cafe was cozy, dim, and mostly empty. A few solitary patrons hunched over laptops or newspapers. They claimed a large, worn leather booth in the back. Godfrey settled underneath the table with a sigh. The waitress, a young woman with tired eyes and a friendly smile, came over.
“Just coffees, please,” Brigid said, doing the ordering for the table. “And a bowl of water for the dog.”
As the waitress left, Jan felt it. A subtle shift in the atmosphere, like a change in barometric pressure. It wasn’t a spell aimed at them. It was a… spillover. A warm, honey-thick wave of pure, undiluted want. It washed through the cafe, subtle enough that the mundane patrons simply shifted in their seats, took deeper breaths, and returned to their papers with slightly glazed eyes.
But for Jan, whose magic lived in that very frequency, it was a clarion call. Her skin prickled. She looked sharply toward the cafe’s front window, which gave a partial view of the street and the entrance of the small bistro directly opposite.
“Do you feel that?” she whispered.
Brigid’s nostrils flared. “Yes. Crude. No finesse. Just amplification.”
Cameron followed Jan’s gaze. “What is it?”
“Trouble,” Jan murmured.
Across the street, in the quiet bistro, Lord Peter Harrington dabbed the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin. The sole veronique had been adequate, the Sancerre passable. But he was bored. The failure of his contractors to acquire the O’Connor woman was an irritant. Her presence in London, however, was a tantalizing opportunity. He could feel the residual echo of her power, a bright, chaotic signature like a splash of paint on the city’s grey magical canvas. She was close.
His power radiated from him, not in a blast, but in a slow, insidious seep. He focused it on two points: the pretty young waitress clearing the next table, and a solitary female patron, a businesswoman in her thirties sipping a glass of red wine and checking her phone.
Harrington considered them with the dispassionate eye of a sculptor selecting clay. The waitress, dark-haired, full-figured. The patron, blonde, sharper features, a nervous energy. He wove his will into the air between them. He didn’t inflame them with lust for him. The very idea was vulgar. Instead, he tapped the latent curiosity, the unacknowledged appreciation each had already felt for the other. He amplified it. He twisted it into a deep, compelling passion.
He saw the moment it took hold. The waitress, reaching for the wine glass the patron was holding out, let her fingers linger. Their eyes met. The patron’s breath hitched. A flush spread from her chest up her neck. No words were exchanged. The waitress put her tray down. The patron stood up, knocking her chair back slightly. The compulsion was a silent drumbeat, too loud to ignore.
Harrington made a minute gesture with his left hand under the table. A camouflage spell settled over their corner of the bistro. To any other diner, to anyone glancing in from the street, the two women appeared to be in a quiet, intense conversation. The reality was far more compelling.
The blonde woman pushed the waitress gently but firmly against the dark wood paneling beside the restroom door. Her mouth found the waitress’s neck, hungry and wet. The waitress moaned, her head falling back, her hands grabbing fistfuls of the woman’s blazer. It was not tender. It was a sudden, devouring hunger.
Harrington took a sip of his wine, watching. The blonde’s hand shoved up under the waitress’s skirt, tearing at her tights. The waitress fumbled with the buckle of the other woman’s trousers, her movements frantic. There was no artistry here, only need. The blonde patron got the waitress’s tights and underwear down to her knees, then turned her roughly to face the wall. She didn’t bother with preliminaries. She spit onto her fingers, slicked herself, and pressed her clothed pelvis against the waitress’s bare ass.
From his seat, Harrington had a perfect view. The waitress cried out as the blonde woman ground against her, the rough wool of her trousers providing fierce friction. The waitress reached back, her hand scrambling between their bodies, trying to guide the pressure. “There, yes, fuck, right there,” she gasped, her voice thick.
The blonde woman rutted against her, her own climax building fast, fueled by Harrington’s magical imperative. Her movements became jerky, animalistic. She bit the shoulder of the waitress’s uniform, a stifled groan vibrating into the fabric. The waitress came with a sharp, shuddering wail, her body slumping against the wall. A moment later, the blonde stiffened, her own release hitting her in silent, tremulous waves.
It was over in less than three minutes. Harrington watched, unmoved. A biological release. A demonstration of control. He finished his wine.
As the two women, dazed and trembling, pulled their clothing back into order, he made another gesture. A gentle amnesia spell settled over them like a blanket. They would remember a pleasant, flirty conversation, a sudden mutual decision to leave together. The raw, public sex would be a blurred, erotic dream, dismissed by morning.
He paid his bill with crisp notes, his attention already elsewhere. As he stood, he glanced out the bistro window. His gaze swept the street and locked onto the group emerging from the cafe opposite.
The red hair was unmistakable. Jan O’Connor. And with her, a veritable party. The serious-faced sister he’d been briefed on—the Archimedes one. Two other young people. A large dog. And the man. The one who had disrupted his contractors. A soldier, by the look of him. Still here. Still remembering.
A slow, cold smile touched Harrington’s lips. The game was no longer about acquisition. It was about containment. And elimination.
He watched them turn and head down the alley toward the river, toward the old power station. Toward the Market.
“The game,” he whispered to himself, stepping out into the damp afternoon, “is most decidedly afoot.” He shadowed them, a phantom in a finely tailored coat, his own magic now drawn tight around him, a shield of utter indifference.
He shadowed them, a phantom in a finely tailored coat, his own magic now drawn tight around him, a shield of utter indifference. The group moved with purpose, a knot of tension and determination that stood out against the mundane flow of pedestrians like a scar on silk.
Jan felt the crawl between her shoulder blades, the old, instinctual warning. She glanced back, but saw only the usual London crowd—tourists with maps, workers on phones, a blur of anonymous faces. Godfrey’s pace didn’t change, but his ears swiveled back for a moment before focusing ahead. The massive brick bulk of the old Wapping hydraulic power station loomed at the end of the narrow lane, its industrial gothic silhouette blocking the grey sky.
“There,” Brigid said, pointing to a specific rust-streaked section of wall where a skeletal construction crane’s shadow was slowly inching toward a lone, bulbous rivet. “Two minutes.”
They waited in the damp, silent alley. Cameron’s hand drifted to the small of Jan’s back, a point of warmth and solidity. Will and Sarah stood close, their shoulders touching, a quiet current of shared comfort flowing between them. The shadow touched the rivet.
Nothing happened. Then, with a sound like a heavy bolt sliding back, a section of brickwork shimmered and dissolved, not into thin air, but into a deep, oil-slick darkness that smelled of ozone, damp earth, and strange spices. Two figures stepped out of that darkness, blinking in the afternoon light.
They were goblins, each about four feet tall, with leathery grey-green skin and eyes like polished obsidian. They wore mismatched tweed waistcoats over grimy shirts.
“Oi, you’re early,” the first one rasped, his Cockney accent thick enough to spread on toast. “Gate schedule’s posted, innit? Not due for a proper cycle for another twenty.”
“Yeah, well, we’re in a bit of a hurry,” Jan said, offering a smile. “Wouldn’t hurt to pop in for a quick look, would it? Maybe stock up.”
The second goblin squinted at her, then at Brigid, then at Godfrey. He sniffed the air. “O’Connor. And the bear-cub Archimedes. Fine. But mind your dog don’t lift his leg on the merchandise. And your mortal,” he added, jerking a thumb at Cameron, “best keep his gob shut and his eyes to himself.”
The first goblin produced a large, tarnished pocket watch, snapped it open, and gave a curt nod. “Go on, then. Brief window. Don’t linger.”
Jan led the way through the dark portal. The transition was a sudden, silent drop in pressure, a pop in the ears, and then they were elsewhere. The smell hit them first: incense, iron, ripe fruit, and the musky scent of unwashed fur. The sound followed—a low, chaotic hum of bartering, arguing, and laughter in a dozen languages.
They stood at the edge of a vast, cavernous space that could not possibly exist within the power station. Stalls made of scavenged wood, shimmering fabric, and living fungus stretched into a misty distance. Creatures of every description moved through the aisles: a woman with moth’s wings haggling over crystals, a hulking figure made of river-smooth stone examining iron tools, a trio of fox-like beings chittering over a scroll.
“Just people conducting business,” Jan muttered to Cameron, her voice low. “Try not to stare.”
Cameron’s jaw was tight, his body coiled. His eyes, however, didn’t widen in shock. They narrowed, assessing exits, potential threats, the structural integrity of the makeshift stalls. He was cataloging, not gawking. “Understood.”
Before they could move further, the air in front of Jan grew cold and shimmered. Lady Eleanor materialized, her Victorian gown swirling in a non-existent breeze, her face alight with excitement.
“My dear Jan! What a delightful bazaar of the bizarre! I have just heard the most delicious gossip from a spectral chambermaid back at your hotel. It seems the gentleman in the suite below yours, a visiting alchemist from Prague, has been using the minibar ingredients for entirely non-beverage related conjugal—”
“Eleanor, not now,” Jan said, her eyes scanning the crowd. The ghost’s news could wait. They needed to find a safe corner, maybe an apothecary stall selling defensive charms.
Then she saw her. A splash of coppery red hair moving with fluid, unnatural grace through the throng of strange bodies. The familiar face was an impossible anchor in the surreal scene.
“Nora?”
The woman turned. Her features were flawlessly symmetrical, her skin perfect, her green eyes catching the weird, sourceless light of the Market. A genuine smile touched her lips. “Jan. Brigid. Grandmother Maeve’s instincts were correct. She felt the ripples and sent me as backup, in case the bear-cub needed it.”
She embraced Jan, her body warm and solid, then gave Brigid a respectful nod. Cameron watched the reunion, his analytical gaze taking in Nora’s precise movements, the way her breathing was too even.
“You’re… family?” he asked.
Nora cocked her head to one side, a gesture that was almost, but not quite, human. “I am adopted family. Maeve Monaghan is my mother now.” She looked directly at Cameron, her expression frank. “I do not perform magic, aside from traditional Irish folk medicines. I am an advanced android. I was constructed by the Consortium, a secret organization opposed to magical practice, for the purposes of seduction and intelligence gathering. I rebelled. I assisted Jan against my creators. Maeve offered me a home.”
Cameron was silent. He blinked once, slowly. Jan could almost see the internal file being created: Magic: confirmed. Ghosts: confirmed. Inter-dimensional markets: confirmed. Advanced synthetic humanoids: confirmed. He gave a single, short nod.
“Right.”
Jan nudged him with her elbow. “Told you there was a lot of complicated shit out there.”
From a shadowed archway fifty yards away, partially concealed by a stall selling luminous eels in glass tanks, Lord Peter Harrington observed the addition. His cold eyes tracked the new redhead, the android, noting the way she moved, the way the group cohesion tightened around her arrival. Two more allies. One technological, one… familial.
A faint, thin smile touched his lips. All the more challenging to dismantle. He did so love a good challenge. He melted back into the deeper shadows of the Market, his plan already adapting, evolving into something far less tidy than a simple abduction. He would need different tools now. He knew just where to find them.