Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (117 page)

“Friends?” the gold-hair girl said in a London accent, and laughed.

“Do you know what he did?” the Indian boy said, addressing Luna and Variam.

“Yeah, actually, we do,” Luna said. “He told us.”

“And you're on his side?” Will said incredulously.

“So you're Dark mages too?” the Indian boy said.

“It's not about sides,” Anne said, speaking for the first time in her soft voice. All three of them turned to her, and she met their eyes. “We
are
his friends. And if you try to kill him we won't stand aside.”

I felt an odd choking sensation and blinked before shaking it away quickly. But Will and the other two looked off-balance, and in a sudden flash of insight I realised that they hadn't come in here prepared to confront anyone but me. Friends hadn't been in the script.

A customer approached, a middle-aged man with a balding head. “Um, excuse me,” he said. “Could I get—?”

Will and the girl turned to stare at him. The man trailed off. “. . . I'll come back,” he finished, and backed away.

“Is that what this is about?” the Indian boy asked me, gesturing around the shop. “Human shields?”

“Call it that if you like,” I said. “The question is, do you want to start a fight in the middle of them?”

Will gave me a look of utter contempt. “You really are a piece of work, aren't you?”

“Yeah, given that you tried to murder me I can't say I care much about your good opinion,” I said. “Now let's do a head count. You're outnumbered, outgunned, and in the middle of a crowd full of civilian witnesses. So again—do you
really
want to start a fight here?”

Will tensed. My precognition lit up and I closed my hand on the gun beneath the counter. He was about to—

The Indian boy grabbed Will. “Will!
No.
”

Will's lips curled but he didn't move. The customers seemed to be belatedly noticing that something was going on and a few of them had backed away, giving us some space. “I'm gonna fuck you up,” gold-hair girl told me and Luna.

“Try to send that ground fire at me or Alex,” Luna told the girl clearly, “and I will stuff it down your throat.”

“Bev!” The Indian boy caught the girl's arm, his voice urgent. “Don't! Remember the plan!”

Will shook the Indian boy off, but his face was controlled again and the moment was gone. “Big man, hiding behind kids,” he said, staring at me. “Why don't you come out on your own?”

“Because I'd lose,” I said. “Last time we tried that you beat me, remember?”

Will's lip curled. “Scared?”

“Actually, yes,” I said. “I'd rather not get killed if it's all the same to you. Oh, and while we're at it, what makes you so sure your sister's dead?”

Will had been about to snap something back at me, but that made him stop. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“The last time I saw Catherine, she was still alive,” I said. “How about this? You stop trying to kill me, and I'll do all I can to find her.”

Will stared at me. “That's bullshit!” the girl said angrily. “We know she's dead, we got told—”

“Bev!”
the Indian boy snapped.

I held Will's gaze. “Well?” I said when he didn't move. “How about it?”

For just an instant I thought I saw a flicker of doubt in Will's eyes, then he took a step back. “Come on,” he said to the other two and backed away, not taking his eyes off me. Gold-hair girl and the Indian boy gave us suspicious looks but followed. The three of them retreated to the door and pulled it shut behind them. The bell went
ding-ding
as they withdrew into the street, and they were gone.

chapter
6

T
he four of us stood silently, looking with our different senses to figure out what would come next. “Well,” Luna said at last. “I guess that could have gone worse.”

“They're going,” Anne said, looking at the wall.

“Looks like,” I said. I raised my voice, addressing the customers still scattered around the shop. “Sorry, everyone, we're closing. Going to have to leave.”

There was some grumbling, but the more perceptive of the customers had caught the tail end of the confrontation and had figured out that staying might not be the best plan. Once I'd finished herding them out, I locked the door and flipped the sign to
CLOSED
.

“They out of range?” Variam asked Anne.

Anne nodded. “They didn't slow down.”

“How did you know they wouldn't start a fight?” Luna said curiously.

“Remember when you jumped in front of me at the casino?” I said. “They could have swarmed you but they didn't. They just tried to get you out of the way.”

Luna frowned. “So?”

“Will's lot think they're the good guys,” I said with a sigh. “They weren't planning on hurting anyone except me. I think the way they were expecting this to go was that they'd show up, I'd fight them, and they'd defeat the evil Dark mage with their bravery and teamwork. Me having friends wasn't in the script.”
I'm still getting used to it myself.

“Do you think they'll listen?” Anne asked. “To what you said?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Meeting you guys threw them off, I think. They'll probably pull back and try to figure out what to do next.” I tapped my fingers on the counter, thinking. “I can see this going two ways. If they stop thinking of me as the enemy and start thinking of me as a person, they'll come back to negotiate. See what they can get.”

“He won't,” Variam said.

Anne frowned at Variam. “They might.”

“
They
might,” Variam said. “
He
won't.”

I didn't answer, feeling a twinge of unease. There'd been a moment where Will had hesitated. Wasn't there a chance he might listen? Logic said yes, but . . .

Something flickered in the futures ahead, and I took a glance. “Caldera's coming,” I said, and that made me relax slightly. I didn't really think that Will and his friends would come back so soon, but if they did, having another mage around would help.

“Keepers,” Variam said. “Always show up after it's too late.”

* * *

“H
ey, Verus,” Caldera said as I let her in. “So what's the rush?”

“We had some visitors,” I told her. “I'd like you to meet Anne and Variam.”

We did introductions. Variam gave Caldera a barely civil nod. Anne was polite as usual. “So what's up?” Caldera said.

“I'm looking for information on a group,” I said. “They're young, eighteen to early twenties, mostly adepts I think. New on the scene and aggressive, leader is a guy called Will.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Caldera said with a frown. “I thought you wanted to talk about Richard.”

“I think this
is
connected to Richard.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“That's”—I hesitated—“not something I want to go into.”

Caldera turned away with an expression of disgust. “It's personal,” I said.

“What do you think I am, directory enquiries?” Caldera said. She shook her head and turned to walk away. “You're having a laugh.”

“Wait,” I said. “This is important.”

Caldera paused, looking back with her hand on the door. “I've got a job to do, all right? You've got something to tell me, spit it out.”

“Let's trade,” I said. “I need to know about this group. Tell me, and I'll help you out with your investigation.”

“So you're going to tell me what's going on with Richard?”

“No. I told you, I don't know where he is.”

“Then what have you got?”

“I can help you some other way.”

“How?”

“Come on,” I said. “You're seriously telling me you can't think of anything a diviner would be able to help you out with? Try me.”

Caldera measured me with her eyes, and I knew what she was thinking: she was weighing up whether to trust me. Luna, Anne, and Variam stayed quiet, for which I was grateful. “All right,” Caldera said at last, and took her hand off the door. She walked up and gave me a challenging look. “I want you to get me into Richard's mansion.”

I stared at her. “Are you serious?” When Caldera only raised her eyebrows, I went on. “You want to break into a Dark mage's house? Do you have any idea just how many things could go wrong with that?”

“No, but you can make a list if it'll make you feel better.”

“If you're looking for interesting ways to commit suicide, why don't you just go interview Deleo? It'd be faster.”

“Can't find her.”

I hesitated, belatedly remembering that I
was
going to go interview Deleo that same night. I hoped Luna and the others were keeping a straight face. If I offered to bring Caldera along, would she accept that instead? No, bad idea, very bad idea. As soon as Deleo spotted Caldera she'd vanish, and that was if we were
lucky
. Given the choice between breaking into Richard's mansion and pissing off Deleo, I'd rather break into the mansion.

“So are you in or out?” Caldera said, mistaking my hesitation. “Look, all the information I've got says the place is deserted. And you're a diviner, aren't you? Aren't you supposed to be good at sniffing out traps?”

I really didn't like the idea. Diviners
are
good at sniffing out traps, and I'm good even by diviner standards, but it's the kind of thing you don't want to do unless you have to—there are a lot of things that can go wrong. On the other hand it's something I know how to do, and looking into the future I could see that Caldera wasn't going to be bargained down. “All right,” I said at last, not trying to hide my reluctance. “My help on a trip into Richard's mansion, in exchange for the information on the adepts.”

“I can get that to you in a couple of days.”

“Or you could give it to me right now.”

Caldera raised her eyebrows. “How do you figure?”

“Here's the thing,” I said. “I think you know how to do your job. And since these adepts are obviously connected to the rumours about Richard, I think you
already
looked them up.” I'd also looked into the future and seen fragments of her telling me about them, but I left out that part. “So how about it?”

“So what's stopping you from doing a vanishing act as soon as I tell you what you want to hear?”

“At some point we're going to have to trust each other,” I said. “And if you
don't
trust me, then you really shouldn't be relying on me to break you into a Dark mage's mansion.”

Caldera studied me for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine. Then we're hitting the mansion tomorrow morning.”

“Are you in some sort of hurry?”

“Aren't you?” Caldera stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

I took it. “Deal.”

We shook hands, and I felt the tension in the shop go away. “How do you know about these guys?” Luna asked.

“Ways and means,” Caldera said. She leant back against the wall and glanced at me. “Ready?”

I got a notebook and a pencil. “The guys you're talking about are an adept vigilante group,” Caldera said. “They got going about a month ago and they're calling themselves the Nightstalkers.”

I looked up from the page, eyebrows raised. “The Nightstalkers?”

“You listening or not?”

I started writing and Caldera went on. “The leader is named William Traviss and he's eighteen years old,” she said. “Time adept who can use haste. British-born, moved to the States when he was nine following the death of his parents. Only other family was an older sister, and she disappeared soon after. He grew up in the United States and picked up a police record to go with it, juvie stuff mostly. At some point—we don't know when—he started recruiting other adepts. His line was that adepts needed to stand up and protect themselves—we're being oppressed by the evil magocracy, band together and throw off your shackles, that kind of thing. Once he'd gotten a core group together, he moved back here and they started operations.”

“What kind of operations?”

“Small stuff to start. Recruitment, throwing their weight around. Then they started messing with Dark mages, targeting their operations, mostly with a view to rescuing people. Their big splash was Bristol. A Dark mage named Locus was running a major slaving nexus out of the inner city, buying and selling sensitives and adepts. The Nightstalkers took him on and actually won. Didn't kill him, but they messed him up pretty badly, and when he ran they broke all the slaves loose. They got a lot of converts from that.”

I closed my eyes briefly and looked away.
And the lessons they'll have taken away from that are that all Dark mages are evil, and that violence works. Great.
“And since then?”

“Word is they're looking for Richard.”

“You guys planning to do anything about all this?” Variam said.

“Like what?” Caldera said. “Get between Dark mages and a bunch of militant adepts?”

“Thought you were supposed to keep the peace?”

“In case you haven't noticed, Dark mages aren't exactly popular,” Caldera said. “Doesn't matter if there's a truce; no one's that motivated to get in the way.”

Variam looked away in disgust. “Look, I'm not saying I like it,” Caldera said. “But the Keepers do what the Council says. And as long as these adepts stick to going after Dark mages the Council couldn't give a shit. Some of them are probably cheering them on.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I said. “Come on, Vari. It's not like this is anything new.”

“Who are the others?” Luna asked.

“Second-in-command to William is Dhruv Chaudhury,” Caldera said. “He and William go back a way. He's supposed to be the brains of the group, comes up with the ideas. Magnetism adept, can create magnetic monopoles. Next up is Kyle Summers. Supposed to be a space magic user—not a gater—but other than that we don't have much on him. Seems to have some military background, though he's not much older than the others.”

“I guess that's Captain America,” I said to myself. “What about a life-drinker? Same age as Will, South American looks?”

“Oh yes,” Caldera said. “Jaime Cordeiro, otherwise known as Ja-Ja. We're very interested in Mr. Cordeiro. The Brazilian police were investigating him for murder, but he got out of the country before any charges were laid. Met William in the U.S. and followed him here. Suspected of life-draining, though nothing's been proven. I'd keep your distance from him if I were you.”

“What about the fire girl?” Luna said.

Caldera shook her head. “That's all I got. We know there are at least three others in the group, but we haven't got details. Our guess is they're new recruits that William picked up since arriving in the U.K. and they haven't been around long enough to pick up a reputation. Sorry.”

I took my pencil off the page and studied what I'd written. It read,
Will: Time/acceleration. Dhruv: Magnetism/monopole. Gold-hair: Fire/ground fire. Life-drinker: Life/drain. Cap. America: Space/? Chinese kid: ?/?
. “It's a start,” I said. I pushed the notebook over to Luna for her to read. “What's your take on these guys?”

“Short version?” Caldera said. “They're out of their league. They've been lucky so far but sooner or later they're going to piss off the wrong guy.” She looked at me with slightly raised eyebrows as if implying that I might know something about that.

“Call me if anything else comes up?”

“I'll tell you face to face,” Caldera said. “Tomorrow morning, remember? Don't be late.” She gave the others a nod and left.

* * *

B
oth Variam and Luna wanted to come with me to the meeting with Deleo, but in the end I took only Luna. It was dark by the time we left, and we took the Tube to our destination, the trains busy with people heading out for a night on the town.

The Old Truman Brewery is a complex of buildings near Brick Lane, spread over two blocks and surrounded by a strange mixture of trendy shops and decaying buildings. The brewery closed in the 1980s and was promptly converted into an arts and events centre, and nowadays it's a dense, confusing sprawl of brick and concrete, wide indoor spaces mixing with art galleries, bars, and fashion stalls. On Sundays it turns into a hipster magnet, thousands of twenty– and thirtysomethings in odd outfits swarming the place in search of food, clothes, posters, jewellery, and just about everything else. How busy it is on other days varies, depending on whether there's an event running or not. Tonight there wasn't one and the building was dark.

It was an odd choice of place for a meeting. At night the brewery's as deserted as any other event hall, and entry would be easy enough—the brewery's not much more than a giant concrete shed and so has pretty basic security since it doesn't have anything worth stealing. On the other hand, if you're looking for privacy in Central London there are better places to go and the closely packed buildings are perfect for an ambush. Ambushes aren't much threat to a diviner, but Cinder and Deleo aren't diviners. As we watched the building I explained all that to Luna.

“So why did they pick it?” Luna asked.

“Maybe they didn't have time to set up somewhere better,” I said with a frown.

“So does that mean they're busy with something?”

I shrugged. “Or they just don't think I'm important enough to be worth the trouble. I want you to stay out here.” I pointed over the courtyard to a crumpled car on top of a storage container. “That should do—you'll be able to drop behind the wall if something goes wrong. Watch the entrance and call me if anyone goes in.”