Ptolemy's Gate

darkness. "And what" he said very quietly, "can you possibly know about that You haven't seen Bartimaeus for years. Have you?"
    Kitty edged back toward the river wall. The magician stepped toward her—
    A sudden hissing in midair; raindrops fizzed and steamed on something materializing above the water. A small orb, pink and shiny. Music sounded as of an orchestra far way. Mandrake drew back; he uttered a quiet curse.
    A faint round face, disrupted by crackles of static, appeared in the orb. A voice issued forth, similarly disrupted. "John! I've found you! You are late! Even now the musicians are warming up! Come quickly!"
    The magician gave a little bow. "Quentin. My apologies. I have been delayed."
    "No time to waste!"The face seemed to fix on Kitty for a moment. "Bring your girlfriend too. I shall save a seat. Ten minutes, John. Ten minutes!"
    The orb fizzed, blurred, vanished. Dark rain fell uninterrupted into the Thames.
    Kitty and Mandrake stared at each other. "It seems," the magician said slowly, "that we shall have to continue this conversation later. Do you like the theater, Ms. Jones?"
    Kitty pursed her lips. "Not much."
    "Nor me." He made an elegant gesture up toward the road. "We shall have to suffer together."

19

    Our raid on the Ambassador Hotel was planned with military precision and the utmost care. Just ten minutes' bickering in a phone box and we had the plan set straight.
    After leaving our master we'd flown speedily across London in the guise of starlings, crossing above the park where so recently I'd had my misadventure.The Glass Palace, the pagoda, the ill-omened lake—all glinted dourly in the last light of evening. Most of the illuminations were off; the normal crowds were absent, though small pockets of commoners moved here and there with unknown purpose across the grass. I saw police cordons, hurrying imps, an unusual amount of activity . . . then we were over the streets of St. James, and circling down to the hotel.
    It was an upmarket affair, a slender gray-stone house set among the embassies and gentlemen's clubs; a place both sophisticated and discreet, where foreign diplomats and princelings might rest their wallets while in town. It did not look the kind of hotel to welcome an invasion of five ragtag djinn, particularly ones as unsavory as Hodge. We saw hexes shimmering in the windows and a lattice of thin nodes upon the fire escape. The doorman, resplendent in lime-green livery, had the sharp-eyed look of someone wearing lenses. Caution was required. We couldn't just stroll in.
    The phone box was right opposite. One by one, five starlings flew down behind it. One by one, five rats hopped through a hole inside. Mwamba used her tail to brush away the worst of the cigarette butts, and we began our solemn conclave.
    "Right, troops," I said brightly. "Here's what I suggest—"
    A one-eyed rat held up a paw of protest. "Just a moment, Bartimaeus," it said. "What makes you the leader all of a sudden?"
    "You want the full inventory of my talents? Remember we have to capture Hopkins sometime this evening."
    "If hot air counted for anything, Bartimaeus, we'd follow you with pleasure." This was Cormocodran. His basalt-thick voice boomed about the phone box; the vibrations made my whiskers ripple. "Unfortunately, you're old and tired and useless."
    "We heard about your adventures as a mighty frog" Hodge added, chuckling. "Relying on the master to save you, scattering your essence like rain across the city."
    "It's hardly his fault, though, is it?" Mwamba put in sympathetically. Of all the rats, she was the most elegant and convincing. Ascobol had one eye, Hodge had a row of poison spines amongst his bristles, and Cormocodran, as always, looked more like a small, brick outhouse than anything else. As for me, my essence was playing me up again; there were some hazy patches around my extremities, although I hoped they were too small for anyone to notice.
    "Maybe not, but he's a liability on a job like this," Ascobol said. "Look at his outline now. All fuzzy."
    "He'll slow us up. He was lagging when we flew."
    "Yeah, and he'd be terrible in a fight."
    "Probably subside into a custard."[1]

[1] A custard: another technical term. Denotes a total collapse of essence while on the mortal plane. In the Other Place, of course, our essence is free-wheeling at all times and does not have to be bound in any particular shape.

"Well, you won't catch me scooping him up."
    "Nor me. We're not on babysitting