When the end to this relationship came, it would come when Paul du Mond chose—and in the manner of his choosing.
With a smile, he sat down at his desk, removed an engraved invitation from the waiting basket, and selected a piece of rich, cream-colored paper with Cameron's own watermark.
He dipped a pen into the inkwell, thought for a moment, and wrote the first word of Cameron's gracefully worded refusal of yet another dinner-party.
"I'm going to need you to go into the city for a few days."
Once again, the Firemaster's study was shrouded in darkness although it was a bright afternoon outside, and Cameron himself was nothing more than a darker form amid the shadows of his chair. Du Mond simply nodded.
"You'll take the private carriage," Cameron continued. "You'll be bringing back a quantity of packages for me, and I want you to have somewhere safe to keep them until you return."
That meant he would be picking up occult and Magickal supplies; otherwise he would have brought them to the apartment instead. But Cameron had greater protections on the railway carriage than on the apartment, now. In the past, that had not been the case, but since the accident he could not go into the city to renew the apartment's Shieldings himself, and he did not trust Paul to do so. Now, when he dared not take the risk of an enemy tampering with his belongings, he had Paul use the carriage as his storage-depot.
That was fine with du Mond, since the carriage was infinitely more convenient and comfortable than the small buggy he would otherwise have used. In a downpour, the buggy was decidedly damp and cold, and du Mond did not have the Elemental Mastery required to make it otherwise.
"There are a number of things that will be arriving by train, so I will need you to remain in the city until they appear," Cameron went on. "You'll use the apartment, of course, and I trust you'll find ways of amusing yourself."
The sardonic tone of his voice said without words just how he expected Paul to amuse himself. It tickled Paul's fancy to know that Cameron hadn't the least idea how far his assumptions were off the mark. Not that he wouldn't have the kind of amusement Cameron assumed, but the style would be vastly different from Cameron's own.
Perhaps when he had broken free of Cameron, he'd make his amusements permanent...
Then again, perhaps he'd better not. Slavery was illegal, no matter what the Chinese slave-dealers believed.
Too bad, too.
"These will be complicated errands, and they may take the entire week to complete, so I will not expect you to return for at least five days. If it looks to you as if you may be staying longer than a week, send a messenger, but otherwise don't bother."
Cameron didn't mean a human messenger, of course; Paul had mirror-mastery enough to send a message that way. Paul nodded. "Your correspondence is completely up to date," he offered. "I'm ready to leave."
"Good, then anything that comes in during the week can wait until you return," Cameron replied promptly. "I've already sent down orders to have the carriage ready; it will be waiting for you down at the siding at any time after two."
That meant, of course, "Be down there at two on the dot." The telegraph on Cameron's desk let him communicate with every stationmaster up and down the line and with the switchyard in San Francisco. The track would be clear of traffic at two, but probably not at two-thirty or three. If he wanted to get into the city rather than sit on the siding for hours, it behooved him to get himself down there and on that carriage at two, precisely.
He nodded again.
"That should be all, then, unless you have any questions." Cameron's voice told him the Firemaster had already dismissed du Mond from his thoughts and was on to other things.
"No," Paul replied, and took himself out. He wondered, as he opened the door to the landing, if Cameron had noticed the absence of the word "sir." Possibly. But just at the moment, subservience stuck in du Mond's throat, and he could not bring himself to offer the word to someone who looked like a creature in a circus freak-show.
Now that he was out of the office and he could read the face, he pulled his watch from its vest pocket and checked the time—which was set every morning by the big clock in the hall, which in turn was always set by railway time. How like Cameron! It was barely one-thirty. He would have had just enough time to run upstairs and throw a few things into a bag, if he had not already packed.
As it was, he was able to go upstairs at a leisurely pace, get his valise, and make his way to the elevator without breaking into an undignified trot. The elevator deposited him at the siding-platform just as the train-carriage itself backed into view, huffing and hissing. The brakeman saw him and waved to him; he waved back. He made it a point to be on friendly terms with these men, who knew nothing of Cameron's Magickal activities. For one thing, the engine was a creature of Fire, and Paul was quite certain Cameron had a Salamander on board to see that all went well with his precious vehicle, which meant the Salamander could spy for him, too. For another, these men had it in their power to make his trips to and from the city less comfortable than they could be. They did not have to report difficulties with Paul back to Cameron; they had ample means of revenge in their own hands. They could "forget" to take on water for the carriage when they took it on for the engine; they could "forget" oil for the lamps or fuel for the stove. They could "decide" that they were not comfortable with the margin between scheduled trains, no matter what Cameron decreed; they could wait at the switch for hours until a "safe" margin occurred, with Paul sitting in a cold, dark, velvet-upholstered box.
Paul did his best to be cooperative and undemanding, which was the best way to deal with them. Rail people often preferred cargo to passengers; cargo didn't make difficulties. Paul acted like smiling cargo, which seemed to suit them.
The engineer applied the brakes, and the wheels emitted their metallic screaming. As soon as the train had squealed and screeched to a full stop, he swung aboard, throwing his valise up onto the top step ahead of him. That earned him a grin of approval; the one thing a railroad man hated worse than anything was a wasted minute. Paul had barely time to open the door into the carriage itself when the train was in motion again.
None of the lamps were lit since it was still brilliantly sunny, but a small fire was going in the stove to take the chill off the car, and Paul saw with approval that refreshments had been stowed in the proper places. Good; a whisky and soda would be just the thing right now, with perhaps a cigar and a light snack.
But first he checked the safe, cleverly concealed in the sideboard.
As he had expected, there was a slim, pale envelope containing his instructions, and a packet of banknotes. He raised an eyebrow when he saw that in addition to the banknotes there was a supply of gold coins. Evidently some of the people with whom he was to deal did not trust paper money.