Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (125 page)

I could run, but that would just be making the same mistake all over again. They'd keep chasing, and I'd be burning energy running away, reacting to them instead of doing anything constructive myself. Instead I looked into the futures in which I got my mist cloak. There wasn't time to confirm that it'd hide me but it looked possible, and even if it didn't work I'd have a better chance behind my home defences than out in the open. I moved quickly across the rooftops to my flat, skirted the hole in the top, and climbed down to the balcony to let myself in. My flat was a mess. While Anne and I had been busy with Ja-Ja, Variam and Luna had been fighting off the rest of the Nightstalkers below. It looked like they'd made their stand on the top landing, and the walls and banisters were charred. I moved down the stairs, heading for my safe room.

There are three floors to the building I live in. The first floor is the shop, along with a small boxroom for storage. The third floor is the flat where I actually live, with my bedroom, living room, bathroom, and kitchen, as well as the way out to the balcony and the roof. The second floor has the main storage room, a spare room which I converted into a bedroom last year and which is currently being occupied by Anne, and another door which looks sealed off. It isn't—it's my safe room, and it's where I keep anything really valuable or dangerous.

I touched a spot on the door, said the command word, and felt the wards go down as I let myself in, shutting the door behind me. My safe room doesn't have any windows and with the door shut it was pitch-dark. I didn't turn on the light, relying on my diviner's senses to navigate. My mist cloak was hanging on a peg at the side of the room; I pulled it around my shoulders, feeling the magic in the item meld itself around me, then I stepped to the corner and waited.

It's easy to pick up magic items when you run a magic shop. I've been doing it for years and the size of my collection would surprise most mages . . . if I'd ever show it to them, which I wouldn't. Although the safe room was dark, I could feel the dozens of overlapping auras from the items, holding steady in an uneasy equilibrium. The contents of the room would have looked bizarre to anyone able to see them. There was a sword hanging on the wall, oddly curved and with a hilt sculpted into the shape of a crocodile. A pale green egg rested on a shelf, point up in apparent defiance of gravity. Three darts were clamped tightly into a metal holder with a lock on it, and a white-and-blue tube of lacquered wood carved with flowers sat on its own in the middle of the table, far away from everything else. Odd items with odd purposes, most of them useless except for the person or situation for which they were designed. But just a few were very useful indeed, and my mist cloak was one of them.

My mist cloak is an imbued item and actually alive, though not in a way most people would understand. It's weak by imbued-item standards, which makes it vastly more powerful than the one-shots I usually carry, and it does two things. The first is a type of adaptive camouflage, its colour changing to match its surroundings. It's not invisibility—you can be seen if you move, and in broad daylight you just look very unfashionably dressed—but in cover or shadows, it makes you pretty hard to find.

The second ability is more specialised and from my point of view much more valuable. A mist cloak hides its wearer from magical senses, turning them into a kind of black hole against magical detection. Very few other mages know that I have access to that particular trick and I work hard to keep it that way—I've done a few things which the Council would have nailed me to the wall for if I hadn't been wearing my mist cloak at the time. Now I was counting on it yet again.

Looking into the future, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the mist cloak was definitely doing something—the lines of my futures and the Nightstalkers' didn't automatically converge into combat anymore. The bad news was that combat was still possible, it just wasn't certain. I looked to see what would happen if I left the room and went back the way I came, and saw that the Nightstalkers were already here and heading in my direction. There were only three this time: Lee, Dhruv, and Captain America. I held my position and waited. After only a couple of minutes I heard footsteps through the wall, trying to be quiet.

One of the simpler uses of divination magic is short-range spying; you can look ahead into the futures in which you move closer to a target in order to watch them. People are unpredictable, so they have to be only a few seconds away, but as long as the environment is static it works consistently enough. My house was silent and empty, and the futures in which I opened the door were easy to follow. All three of them were there, standing close to one another. None had visible weapons, which was interesting. I knew Captain America and Dhruv would only need a second to draw them, but I could do a lot in a second. It looked like I wasn't the only one making mistakes.

“I can't find him,” Lee said at last. In the ambient light from the windows he looked nervous. He was right to be.

“You're sure he was here?” Dhruv asked.

“I think so,” Lee said, glancing around.

“Was he moving when you lost him, or did he just vanish?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Well, which spot did you lose him in?”

“I don't
know
,” Lee said, sounding aggravated. “I keep telling you, I just know the direction. You didn't give me time to triangulate.”

“He probably gated,” Captain America said. He had an American accent too, though I didn't recognise what kind. He didn't look as edgy as Lee but he did look alert.

“Diviners can't use gate magic,” Dhruv said.

“Didn't stop him before.”

“That was the Keeper,” Dhruv said. “And Lee said she wasn't with him anymore. Right?”

“No . . .” Lee said reluctantly.

“So.”

“Why were we fighting her?” Lee said. “I thought you just wanted Verus.”

“Because she wouldn't get out of the way.”

“We could have waited.”

“That was Will's decision, not yours,” Dhruv said. “You want to take it up with him?”

Lee was silent, but Captain America spoke up again. “He's got a point.” As he spoke he kept looking from side to side, watching each door in turn as he faced Dhruv. “And what the
fuck
was Ja-Ja doing?”

“It was the middle of a fight,” Dhruv said. But there had been a moment's hesitation, and I could tell he wasn't quite as sure of himself as he was acting.

“Yeah, and it was supposed to be against Verus,” Captain America said. He didn't sound happy. “What, we're killing everyone in our way now?”

“Ja-Ja didn't obey orders,” Dhruv said.

“Ja-Ja's a psycho.”

“He's our big gun.”

“Which doesn't
change
the fact that he's a fucking
psycho
.” Captain America's voice was hard. “He shouldn't be on the team.”

“As long as we can point him in the right direction, he's useful.”

“I'm not seeing that,” Captain America said. “Didn't he just nearly murder a Keeper? Isn't that a problem?”

“When did you get so picky?” Dhruv said in annoyance. “‘No problem that can't be solved by high explosives,' wasn't that what you used to say? You didn't argue about that bomb. And
you
, Lee. You think the Keepers would have gotten you away from Locus? You're here because of Will. Don't forget that.”

Both Lee and Captain America were silent. “Look, we'll talk about it back at base,” Dhruv said. “Let's check this floor and get out of here. Have you tried all the rooms?”

“Those two,” Captain America said. “This one's locked.”

“Lee?” Dhruv said. “Anyone on the other side?”

There was a pause and I tensed. “No,” Lee said at last.

“Can you get it open?” Dhruv asked Captain America.

Captain America hesitated and I held very still. I'd deliberately left the wards on the safe room down. They could have held the Nightstalkers out for a while, but they would have as good as told them that there was something in here to find. It would have taken them a while to break through, but I had no doubt they could do it eventually and once inside they couldn't fail to find me.

But right now they
weren't
expecting to find me, or they never would have had that conversation where I could hear them. For once I had the advantage of surprise, and I was done screwing around. My knife was hidden beneath the cloak, and if they forced their way through into this room I was going to kill them, simple as that. I'd promised Anne that I wouldn't, and back when I'd said that I'd meant it, but I'd rather break a promise than die and that was what it was going to come down to at this rate. I'd take Dhruv or Captain America from ambush, then I'd bring up the wards to split the remaining two, kill whoever was on the same side as me, then run. Will would be on my trail in seconds and the chase would be brutal and ugly, but I'd been pushed as far as I was willing to go. I watched the futures flicker before me, Captain America making the decision, and wondered if he had any idea how close he and his friends were to death right now.

“No,” Captain America said at last. “Not without the cops hearing.”

“Fine, it looks sealed anyway. Let's go.” Their footsteps started up again, trailing down the hall and then up the stairs. And then they were gone.

I waited for a long time, listening and looking ahead, but in both present and future the building was silent. I'd shaken the Nightstalkers. Now I had to figure out what to do next.

* * *

I
stayed in that room for the rest of the day.

My mist cloak could hide me from Lee, but it's not the best fashion choice for walking outside in broad daylight and while I waited for the long summer evening to end I called Luna. The phone rang for a while before picking up. “Hello?” Luna asked.

“It's Alex. You guys okay?”

“Alex!” I could hear the relief in Luna's voice. “We're fine. Where are you?”

“You first. Did you sort things out with the police?”

“Uh, more or less,” Luna said. “They kind of want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, I don't want to talk to them.” I could probably convince the police that the explosion hadn't been my fault—which was the truth, ironically enough—but I absolutely couldn't afford the distraction. “What did you tell them?”

“There wasn't much we
could
tell them. The house blew up and you and Anne were on the wrong side, then all of a sudden they came up the stairs and it was me and Vari holding the landing. I thought they were going to swarm us then all of a sudden they were gone, I guess they were chasing—” I heard a voice in the background and Luna's voice suddenly became muffled, as though she were talking to someone else. “Yeah, it's him . . . I don't know, how am I supposed—Fine, I'll ask, just shut up.” Her voice became clear again. “Vari wants to know what happened at the mansion.”

“Managed to avoid Deleo, didn't manage to avoid the Nightstalkers. Sonder was there and Caldera got hurt but we made it out alive.”

“Sonder was there? Why— Never mind. Are you okay? We didn't know what had happened until we got Anne's message.”

“I'm fine. Is Anne there too?”

“Yeah, we're all at my flat. Where are you?”

“Hiding.”

“Um . . .” Luna said. “Okay.”

“There's been a change of plans,” I said. “I'm not going to meet up with you.”

There was a moment's silence. “Why not?”

“Right now I'm using my mist cloak to shake them. That won't work if I'm with you guys. And Will and Ja-Ja have attacked a Keeper now. The Council is going to have trouble ignoring this.”

“Wait, so that's the plan?” Luna sounded very sceptical. “Hope the Council sorts it out?”

“I haven't given up on Elsewhere,” I said. “I was interrupted last time and I'm going to go back tonight. For now there's not much you guys can do. Just stay together and stay safe.”

Luna took a while to answer. “All right,” she said at last. She didn't sound happy, but she didn't argue. “Be careful, okay?”

We spoke for a little longer, then I talked briefly with Anne and Variam. Even over the phone, speaking to them made me feel better, like warming my hands at a distant fire. At last I said my good-byes and hung up, then looked at the phone. I wasn't happy either, and I knew why. It was because I hadn't really been telling Luna the truth.

I hadn't been lying. Waiting for tonight and the next visit to Elsewhere
was
a good plan, and it made sense to at least give Caldera a chance to see if she could keep her promise, even if deep down I didn't really believe that the Keepers were going to bail me out. But there was a second reason I was staying away from Luna and Variam and especially Anne, and it was because of a quiet dark voice growing at the back of my mind telling me that there was only one way this was going to end. I wasn't yet willing to follow that line of thought all the way through, but I knew better than to ignore it.

I stayed in my flat as the sun dwindled in the western sky, haunting the empty building like a ghost. The police didn't return and neither did the Nightstalkers, and I spent my time digging through the ruins of my bedroom, salvaging what I could. There's something unpleasant about having your home attacked, a kind of violation. I've had my flat invaded by various intruders before, including an assassin construct, two or three different Dark mages, and a particularly unfriendly shapeshifter, but none of them had wrecked the place so badly. Despite the damage I would have liked to sleep in my own flat, but common sense advised against it and once the sun had set I left my shop. I wondered how long it would be before I'd come back again.