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1.
Alan was nervous.
Nick knew his brother better than anyone alive, and he'd never, ever seen Alan display any sign of being afraid or uncertain. Until today.
It was enough to make Nick start to feel nervous, too. Which was, he told himself, ridiculous. Going to spend Christmas with family was nothing to be nervous about. Lots of people did the same.
Of course, most people actually knew they had family. Nick still didn't know what to think of the fact that Alan had never mentioned Mum's sister until two days ago. He did know Mum had never mentioned her, or seen her for the past ten years at least. Nick would have remembered something like that.
Mum's sister probably wasn't insane. Maybe that was why, although Nick didn't think much of a woman who'd avoid all contact with her sister simply because she wasn't always in her right mind all of the time. Nick knew he'd never abandon Alan, no matter what might happen to him.
Perhaps Alan was worried about what Mum was going to do.
"We're almost there now," Alan said. Saying something just to break the silence, Nick realized.
"Looks like a nice neighborhood." It did, too. They'd never live in a neighborhood like this, where everyone knew each other and called the police at the least sign of trouble. Nick didn't mind not having any neighbors to talk to or borrow a cup of sugar from, but he suspected Alan did.
"Yes." Alan shot him another worried look.
"What?" Nick asked.
"There's something you should probably know before we go in there," Alan said.
2.
Nick had always known Mum didn't like him, but he'd never been able to figure out why until they moved back to London. He didn't really remember ever having been in London before. Alan did, though, and he'd told Nick about it.
Alan told Nick about lots of things and Nick did his best to remember them all, even if Alan didn't mind repeating himself. Nick sometimes wished he had some stories to tell Alan, too, only all the stories he knew had been told to him by Alan - or Dad, only Nick guessed Alan already knew all of Dad's stories, too.
Mum was the only one who never told Nick anything. She just looked at him sometimes, as if she blamed him for everything that ever went wrong. Alan had told him that wasn't true, that Mum didn't really blame him for anything, only Nick knew that this once, Alan was wrong.
Nick had told himself it didn't really matter that Mum didn't like him. So long as Alan liked him, that was good enough for Nick.
This Christmas, he'd promised himself, he'd find Alan the best present ever.
It was two weeks before Christmas when the knock on the door came.
Mum and Dad looked at one another, and then Dad got up and walked to the door, slowly. They'd only been living in the house for five days - not long enough for the magicians to have found them already, although they could never be sure. All it took was one person spotting them and following them.
Dad opened the door - just a little bit at first, but then it was thrown wide open so that they could all see the person standing in the doorway. It was a woman Nick had never seen before, with long black hair and pale blue eyes.
"Olivia, please." Dad sounded sad, like he knew something bad was going to happen and couldn't do anything to stop it from happening.
"Give me back my child," the woman said.
3.
The last room down the hallway didn't have a magician in it. Alan paused in the doorway, uncertain of what he was supposed to do. Dad had told him he'd only run into magicians and their demons in this house, but the boy in the room looked far too young to be a magician, and he definitely wasn't sixteen yet, which meant it was as good as impossible he was possessed by a demon.
He did not seem to have noticed Alan, which was a relief. It meant Alan didn't have to decide whether to kill him yet.
It was odd, though, that the boy didn't seem to be doing anything. Dad had taught Alan how to be patient and be really quiet for long periods of time, but Alan knew that he wasn't like most kids. He sometimes wished he were, or that he had a friend, or a brother.
After Mum had died, he didn't think that last was ever going to happen.
If he didn't go back soon, Dad would come looking for him. Dad would know what to do. Dad always knew what to do. Meanwhile, Alan'd just have to stay where he was and keep watch.
The boy was sitting in a chair, facing away from the open door, so Alan couldn't see his face. The chair was the only piece of furniture in the room, which struck Alan as a little odd. All the other rooms he'd seen so far had had all sorts of expensive-looking furniture in them, and shelves filled with books. There had been desks in most of them, to provide the magicians with a place to study.
"Alan."
He was lucky it was just Dad. Although Dad could sneak up on pretty much anyone, Alan knew that he'd been distracted, thinking about the boy in the chair. Surely he must have heard Dad?
Perhaps the magicians had cast some sort of spell on him. Alan had no idea why they'd want to, but the explanation made more sense than anything else he'd come up with so far.
Dad looked into the room and closed his eyes briefly, as if what he had seen hurt him in some way.
"Are we going to take him with us?" Alan asked. It would be Christmas soon. Alan thought it would be nice to have someone else besides Dad to celebrate it with. Besides, they'd come here to rescue someone from the magicians. Alan didn't see why they couldn't rescue an extra person, now that they were here anyway.
"No." Dad put a hand on his shoulder. "What's in that room is a thing, not a person, no matter how much it might look like one. It should never have been. Now go, I'll finish this."
Alan went.