The Golem's Eye

all was another scent, a smoky one.
    Kitty shut the door, stole on the balls of her feet across the floor, hovered by the bed. She looked down at Jakob, her eyes filling with tears.
    Her first thought was anger at the doctors for shaving off his hair. Why did they have to make him bald? It would take an age to regrow it, and Mrs. Hyrnek doted on his long black curls. He looked so strange, particularly with the odd shadows thrown upon his face.... Only then did she realize what the shadows were.
    Where his hair had protected him, Jakob's skin was its normal swarthy color. Everywhere else, from the base of his neck right up to his hairline, it was seared or stained with roughly vertical wavy streaks of black and gray, the color of ash and burned wood. There wasn't an inch of his ordinary skin color left on his face, except faintly at the eyebrows. These had been shaved away: two little pink-brown crescents showed there. But his lips, his eyelids, the lobes of his ears were all discolored. It was more like a tribal mask, an effigy made for a carnival parade, than a living face.
    Under the bedclothes, his chest rose and fell raggedly. A little wheezing sound came from between his lips.
    Kitty reached out and touched a hand lying on the blanket. His palms, which he had raised to ward off the smoke, were the same streaked color as his face.
    Her touch aroused a response: the head turned from side to side; discomfort flickered across the livid face. The gray lips parted; they moved as if they were trying to speak. Kitty took her hand away, but bent closer.
    "Jakob?"
    The eyes flicked open with such suddenness that she could not prevent herself from jerking back in shock, colliding painfully with a corner of the bedside table. She leaned forward again, though instantly aware he was not conscious. The eyes gazed straight ahead, wide and sightless. Against the black-gray skin, they stood out pale and clear like two milky-white opal stones. It was then she wondered if he were blind.
    When the doctors arrived, bringing with them Mr. and Mrs. Hyrnek, and Kitty's mother clamoring behind, they found her kneeling by the bedside, hands clasping Jakob's, her head resting against the blanket. It was only with difficulty that they pried her free.
     
    At home, Kitty pried herself in turn from the anguished questioning of her parents and climbed the stairs to the landing of the little house. For many minutes she stood in front of the mirror, looking at herself, at her ordinary, unblemished face. She saw the smooth skin, the thick dark hair, the lips and eyebrows, the freckles on her hands, the mole on the side of her nose. It was all exactly the same as always, as it simply had no right to be.
     
    The mechanism of the Law, such as it was, swung laboriously into action. Even while Jakob still lay unconscious in the hospital bed, the police called on Kitty's family to take a statement, much to her parents' anxiety. Kitty recounted what she knew tersely and without elaboration, a young policewoman taking notes all the while.
    "We hope there'll be no trouble, officer," Kitty's father said, as she finished.
    "We wouldn't want that," her mother added. "Really we wouldn't."
    "There will be an investigation," the policewoman said, still scribbling.
    "How will you find him?" Kitty asked. "I don't know his name, and I've forgotten the name of the... thing."
    "We can trace him by his car. If he crashed as you say, the vehicle will have been picked up by some garage or other, taken to be serviced. Then we can establish the truth of the matter."
    "You've got the truth," Kitty said flatly.
    "We don't want any trouble," her father said again.
    "We'll be in touch," the policewoman said. She snapped her notebook shut.
     
    The car, a Rolls-Royce Silver Thruster, was quickly located; the identity of its owner followed. He was a Mr. Julius Tallow, a magician working for Mr. Underwood at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. While not particularly senior, he was well connected and a familiar figure around the city. He cheerfully admitted that it had been he who had unleashed the Black Tumbler on the two children in Wandsworth Park; indeed, he wanted it known that he was proud to have done so. He had been peacefully driving past when he had been attacked by the individuals concerned. They had smashed his windscreen with a missile so that he lost control, then approached him aggressively, wielding two long staves of wood. It was evident that they intended to rob