Alex Verus 5: Hidden (13 page)

Luna nodded, not taking her eyes off the scene at my back. Behind and above, Avis was still duelling with Onyx, the air mage a blur of motion as he wove through Onyx’s shots; he hadn’t yet noticed me and I wasn’t planning on giving him the chance. I pushed the door open.

The route Variam had told me about me led through the kitchens and out one of the side doors. It would have been nice if it had been unguarded, but unfortunately Jagadev’s the thorough type and there was a security man standing inside the anteroom. He didn’t carry a visible weapon but I could see a bulge inside his jacket. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said to the two of us. “These are the kitchens.”

“That’s all right,” I said. I’d slowed before opening the door and now I walked forward in a self-assured sort of way, obviously dismissing the guard. “I know where I’m going.” He wasn’t going for his gun; he couldn’t have been given my description yet. Good.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard said again, moving to block my path. I didn’t change course, and he held out an arm to bar my way as I walked into him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to—”

The guard’s arm blocked his view of what I was doing, and he had only an instant to react before I threw the handful of glitterdust right in his face. Sparkling flecks clung to his eyes, blinding him; he staggered back, hands coming up instinctively. The movement left his lower body open so I kicked him in the groin, then when he doubled over I hit him on the back of his head. He went down hard and I kept going; the whole fight had taken less than two seconds. Luna gave the guy an interested glance and followed.

We passed through the door and into a wide kitchen full of men and women in aprons. Steam and the scent of food filled the air, and between the din of cooking and the chatter of voices it was hard to hear. Someone shouted something as we reached the other side, but I didn’t turn to look and in only a second we were into the corridor beyond. The route Variam had given us was good, and although I’d been searching ahead to map our way it hadn’t been necessary. The corridor ended in a flight of stairs, and at the top was a fire door. I pushed it open and stepped out into the cool spring night.

We were in a Soho alley, the sounds of the city all around. Lights glowed from the street at the far end, a narrow window onto a brighter world. Music echoed down the alley, interrupted by a shriek. It sounded like excitement rather than pain . . . probably. “Vari,” I said as I trotted down the steps and turned right. “Two of us coming in cold.”

“Gating,” Variam said. From the end of the alley I felt a flicker of magic.

For his gate location Variam had chosen a hulking dark building at the end of the alley. The door was ajar rather than burnt to ashes; apparently even Variam’s capable of being subtle sometimes. “Taxi,” Luna called out as we walked in.

“You wish,” Variam said. The room was big and dark with metal racks along the walls and ceiling, and he was standing in a corner, the fiery glow of his magic lighting the gloomy interior. “We good to go?”

“All clear,” I said, shutting the door behind us. I’d been checking for any signs of pursuit, and while it was going to come, it was still a few minutes out. By the time they traced us here there’d be nothing but an empty room. “Calling Sonder,” I heard Luna say into her communicator. “Sonder, everything okay?”

“What?” Sonder said. He sounded distracted. “No, it’s fine.”

“Tell Caldera we’re out, okay? Oh, and have fun at the party.”

Variam’s gate bloomed and took shape in the air in front of him, a fiery ring leading into a place of trees and grass. I stepped through and let it take me away.

W
e gated through a couple of staging points, then returned to my shop. I’d already told Luna to stay the night, and Variam ended up staying as well; given the amount of trouble I’d stirred up, I had the feeling that it might be a good idea to take a few extra precautions for a while.

I tried raising Sonder on the communicator but couldn’t reach him. Synchronous communicators are supposed to have an unlimited range but the smaller ones don’t work that way in practice; apparently there are some engineering problems that haven’t been worked out. From looking into the futures in which I called them, I could tell Sonder and Caldera were at least still able to answer their phones. I couldn’t really think of anything I could do that wouldn’t risk making matters worse, and in any case I had the feeling it might be a good idea to give Caldera a bit of time to cool off, so I left Sonder a message asking to meet tomorrow. I checked the building defences, spent a while looking into the future for attacks, then once I was reasonably sure no one was going to try to assassinate us during the night I left Luna and Variam to argue over who was going to get dinner and went to bed.

Even then, I didn’t sleep. I could feel Elsewhere hanging somewhere between waking and dreams, and again I probed the futures in which I travelled there, searching for Anne. Again I couldn’t see any trace of her . . . but then I couldn’t see much trace of anything else, either. My magic is unreliable when it comes to Elsewhere. I’ve always been much better at physical divination than mental; it’s easy for me to see what’ll happen to my body, less so my mind. I’m not sure whether it’s because my talents lean that way or because mental divination is just more difficult. Whatever the reason, the pathways in which I visited Elsewhere felt like shifting sand, and I only felt blurred impressions before they closed off again.

I could just go to Elsewhere anyway. I could see what I’d find, try to find a way into Anne’s dreams . . . but I had the feeling that was a bad idea. My instincts were telling me that something very nasty could be waiting inside, and over the years I’ve learnt to listen to those feelings. Elsewhere is not a safe place, and I’ve pushed my luck there enough times. I didn’t want to risk it again.

I was still worrying over it when exhaustion caught up with me and I fell asleep.

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I
woke early and lay in bed for a few minutes looking out of my window at the sunrise, watching the light creep across the chimneys. When I was fully awake I headed for the bathroom and spent a while re-dyeing my hair. I’d never realised just how much work colouring is. When my hair was somewhere close to its natural shade I emerged into the kitchen.

Luna was sitting at the table, going through messages on her phone. “Morning,” she said without looking up. “Sonder says he wants us to meet at his flat in an hour.”

“Good.” I put the kettle on and started making toast. I wasn’t hungry—I don’t eat much when I’m worried—but fuel is fuel.

“Anything from Elsewhere?”

I shook my head, leaning against the counter. “I can’t see if she’s there, and I’m afraid to go poking around without a path to follow.” There aren’t many people I would have admitted the last part to, but I’ve come to trust Luna over the past two years. She’s one of the few people I’ve been to Elsewhere with, and she knows exactly how scary it can be.

“Why can’t you find her?” Luna said. “You found me.”

“Just because it works with one person doesn’t mean it’ll work with another.”

“Then why not her?”

I took the toast out from under the grill and began spreading butter on it. “Maybe she isn’t asleep when I’m trying to do it,” I said at last. “Anne can stay awake for days if she has to. Or maybe she
is
asleep and I just can’t reach her. Because I don’t know her well enough, because she doesn’t trust me enough, because there isn’t enough of a connection for us to find each other . . .”

I took the food to the table and sat down. Luna was silent and I knew she’d figured out the third possible reason, the one I hadn’t said out loud. You have to be alive to sleep. I finished my breakfast in silence, and Luna didn’t speak again. Eventually Variam appeared and we headed to Sonder’s flat.

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T
he meeting went a lot less smoothly than the last one.

Things kicked off with both Sonder and Caldera chewing me out. I’d expected it and pursued my normal strategy for dealing with angry people in a position of authority: avoid a confrontation, don’t commit to anything, and wait. Caldera gave up after only a few halfhearted threats. I think underneath the posturing, she was a bit embarrassed that I’d had to help Sonder out. More surprising was that Sonder actually seemed
more
angry about the whole thing than Caldera was.

“We told you not to come!” Sonder said for the third time. He was standing in front of his whiteboard, glaring at me.

“Strictly speaking, you said you didn’t
need
us,” I said, leaning back against the wall. I didn’t bring up how he’d needed bailing out within ten minutes of getting through the front door.

“You knew what I meant!”

“Well, I didn’t exactly. I mean, you did make it clear that you weren’t expecting to need any extra help, but we never discussed what we were going to do if extra information came up that changed the situation.”

“There wasn’t any extra information!”

“Sonder,” Caldera said from where she was sitting. “Let’s move on.”

“Yeah,” Luna said. To begin with she’d found it hilarious that Sonder and Caldera were reprimanding me, but the joke had obviously gotten old. “What about those apprentices? What did they say?”

The mention of Sagash’s apprentices was enough to get Sonder’s attention. “They . . .” Sonder hesitated. “It wasn’t any good.”

“Did they do it or not?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, they didn’t talk about Anne.”

“They recognised her name,” Luna said.

“Okay, they knew who she
was
, but I don’t think they knew anything else.”

“What else did they say?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Sonder said. “Something about a third apprentice—some other girl. It wasn’t Anne.”

“That was it?” I asked. “That was all you could see in the whole conversation?”

“There wasn’t anything else,” Sonder said in annoyance. “Anyway, you were distracting me.”

I held back my retort, feeling frustrated. Normally when it comes to timesight, Sonder’ll tell you everything you could possibly want to know—the hard part is getting him to shut up. He’d picked a hell of a time to start being uninformative.

“What about Sagash?” Variam asked Caldera. “You spoke to him, right?”

“Sagash claims he hasn’t had any contact with Anne since she left his apprenticeship,” Caldera said.

“Is he lying?”

“I’m not a mind mage,” Caldera said. “I was asking in my capacity as a Keeper. If Sagash
did
have Anne, he could have just told me. There’s nothing more I could do without a Council order.”

“Maybe there was something else he was covering up,” Luna said.

“He’s a Dark mage, of course there’s something he’s covering up. But there’s no evidence that it’s what we’re looking for.”

“Jagadev?” I asked.

“Stonewalled.”

“What about Crystal?” Sonder said.

“I got the latest report from the Crystal team this morning,” Caldera said. “I’ll read it more thoroughly later, but the short version is there aren’t any leads connecting her to Anne.”

“Can’t we just give up on Crystal already?” Variam said.

I had to hold back a sigh. The whole reason I’d explained where Sonder was coming from to Vari yesterday was so that he
wouldn’t
push Sonder about Crystal. Vari’s a good guy to have at your back in a fight, but he’s not a great listener.

“Crystal was responsible for the deaths of four Light apprentices over several months without anyone suspecting her,” Sonder said. “We wouldn’t expect to see any evidence that it was her, not easily.”

“Let’s go back to Sagash’s apprentices,” I said, looking at Caldera. “Luna found out a bit about them, but I guess you’ve got their files?”

“We’re not Big Brother,” Caldera said. “We don’t have files on every mage in the country.”

I looked at her with eyebrows raised.

“I know a
little
bit of
common knowledge
about them,” Caldera said with a scowl. “Sagash has three apprentices—Darren Smith, Yun Ji-yeong, and Samuel Taylor. First two are living family, third is an elementalist. The two boys have been his apprentices for at least one year, the girl at least six months, but those are lowball estimates.”

Luna stirred. “Wait. Elemental and living?” She looked at Sonder. “Wasn’t that what you saw when Anne was kidnapped?”

“Not exactly . . .”

“You said lightning and death magic.” Luna looked around. “Doesn’t that fit?”

“We don’t know that. They could—”

“They’re both guys,” Luna interrupted, and started ticking off points on her fingers. “They’re the right height and weight and skin colour. Their magic types match. They’ve got a connection to Sagash. Isn’t this making kind of a pattern here?”

“They said it wasn’t them.”

“And there’s no way they could possibly be lying?”

“But they . . .”

The argument went on. Variam and Luna were convinced that it had to be Sagash and his apprentices, while Sonder held out stubbornly. At last Caldera spoke up. “Enough. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

And this is where she tells us what to do again,
I thought.

“Sagash’s apprentices should be the focus of the investigation,” Caldera said, then raised a hand when Sonder started to object. “I know it’s not conclusive but so far they’re the closest match to our suspects and we don’t have any other active leads.” She looked around. “Variam, you’re with me—we’re going to try and track them down. Sonder, I’ll send you the Crystal report. Maybe you can get something out of it that I missed. Luna, Alex, you’re on standby. Once we find those apprentices I’ll call you in.” She gave me a look. “Ordering you to stay out of trouble doesn’t seem to work very well, so I’m going to keep you where I can keep an eye on you instead. Do you think you can manage not to start any wars with Dark mages while I’m gone?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said with a straight face.

The meeting broke up, Caldera and Variam heading out. Luna and I were following when Sonder broke in. “Luna? Can I speak to you privately, please?”

Luna gave him a curious look. “Okay . . .”

Sonder gave me a pointed look. I shrugged. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

I went out of Sonder’s flat and down to the first-floor landing. It was carpeted and well heated, and I looked out the window to see a carefully cultivated area of grass and bushes. The buildings were a doughnut-block design, with a small park at the centre where some children were playing, supervised by an equal number of adults. The buildings muffled the noise from the streets outside and it all looked very peaceful. I’ve always felt that Sonder’s flat suits him pretty well—well off and sheltered. I could have eavesdropped on him and Luna easily enough but didn’t.

After five minutes or so I started to hear raised voices. The volume rose, then cut off and there were rapid footsteps. Sonder’s door opened and Luna appeared; she shut it with a bang and walked quickly down the stairs. The silvery mist of her curse was lashing and twisting around her, reaching out to twice its normal length. I leant back into the wall and she pulled the tendrils in as she passed, then let them expand again as soon as she was out of range of me. “Didn’t go well?” I said.

Luna gave me a look from the landing below and kept going. I started to follow her down, keeping a careful distance. Luna’s become much better at controlling her curse, but there’s no point tempting fate. “What was that about?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Seriously?” Luna didn’t answer, and I shook my head. “Maybe not, but it sounds like I’d better.”

“He wanted me to leave you and be a Council apprentice instead.”

I stopped. “He did
what
?”

Luna had reached the front door; I was halfway down the last flight of stairs. “Told you you wouldn’t like it,” Luna said.

“What did you say?”

“I told him to get lost, what do you think?”

I stared at Luna. “Okay, screw this,” I said after a few seconds. I turned and started back up the stairs.

“Alex . . .” Luna said warningly.

“We’re just going to talk,” I called over my shoulder as I disappeared from her view.

When I reached Sonder’s flat I didn’t use the bell but banged on the door with my fist. I kept banging until Sonder yelled, “All right, all right!” and opened it. As soon as he did I pushed past into his living room.

Sonder followed, looking peevish. “Would you mind—?”

“Okay, Sonder,” I said, turning on him. “I am officially out of patience. Not wanting me around, I can put up with. Your whining last night—that was just annoying. But this? This is over the line.”

“What?”

“You know
exactly
what!”

“It’s not your business what Luna does,” Sonder said.

I took a deep breath, trying to control my temper. Sonder was still young; he couldn’t be expected to know how insulting it was to headhunt another mage’s apprentice . . . actually, screw that, he’d grown up as a Light apprentice and he had to know
exactly
how insulting it was. “If you have a problem with Luna being my apprentice, you bring it to me,” I said. “You do not go behind my back. Clear?”

“Well, what if the problem
is
you?”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“Maybe if you actually cared about her you wouldn’t be teaching her at all,” Sonder said. “You’d be finding someone else.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said, “but finding chance mage teachers isn’t easy. Especially not with Luna’s curse.”

“I don’t mean that! I don’t want you teaching her to be the same kind of person
you
are!”