Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (82 page)

The man they'd left outside would spot me if I went out the front. What about the back? I moved downstairs, through the glass door at the back that read
FULLY AIR CONDITIONED
, and out onto the balcony.

The balconies at the back of the flats were a forest of satellite dishes and TV aerials, facing south onto the lights of London. Each balcony was identical, a rectangular hollow of brickwork sticking out into space, one for each flat. I closed the door softly behind me and ducked down behind the balustrade of the balcony of flat 304. A moment later, I heard a creak and movement as one of the gunmen opened the door to the balcony two flats down, in number 302. He glanced quickly around and withdrew back into the flat.

They were being careful. One man outside to make sure I couldn't sneak out; two men inside covering each other as they searched room to room. I could try to hide but it would be risky. They were ready for someone ahead of them.

But they weren't ready for someone
behind
them . . .

The plan flashed through my head in an instant and I spent a precious minute checking for flaws, searching through the futures in which I tried it. As I did I realised there was blood in all of them. No matter what I did, in the next five minutes someone was going to die.

Well, I'd just have to make sure that someone wasn't me. As I made the decision I felt my mental gears shift. I stayed crouched, hidden in the shadows of the balcony of flat 304, and waited.

There was another creak, closer this time, as the door to the balcony of flat 303 opened next to me. Footsteps sounded, soft on the stone, as the man scanned left and right. He was less than ten feet away but the lip of the balcony hid me from his view. He saw nothing, turned, disappeared inside.

As soon as he was gone I stood and pulled myself up onto the balcony lip before stepping out onto the railing. A cold wind brushed my hair and I took a hold of the drainpipe between the balconies. The gap between was only a few feet. To my right I could see the glow of the night city; the white-yellow cluster of the West End and the double strobe of Canary Wharf in the far distance. I took a deep breath, then before I could think too much about the drop to the darkness below I sprang across. My foot slipped on the opposite railing and my heart lurched, then my clutching hand on the drainpipe steadied me and I dropped down into the balcony of flat 303.

It was only a small change of position. But now instead of being in an area the men hadn't searched, I was in an area they
had
searched and thought was safe. The man had left the balcony door open, which made my job easy. I slipped inside into the living room and pressed myself against the wall. From above I could hear the sounds of the men going through the upper floor.

I've always had an aggressive side but oddly enough I've never been comfortable with fights. One of my martial arts instructors once told me that the strongest attitude to battle, and the only truly strong mental stance, is to face your opponent with a smile and say “Go on, hit me with your best shot! I can take it!” I've never been able to do that. Human opponents scare me too much. When I was a child, the bullies I faced were always bigger and stronger than me. Then I awakened to my magic and found to my dismay that nothing had changed. The weakest of elemental mages could swat me like a fly, and I could never, ever face a battle-mage in open combat and live. For the longest time I thought that made me a coward.

But gradually I learnt there were other ways to fight. I'm no good as a duellist or a warrior. But I'm very good as an ambush predator. Stealth and surprise are natural to me, and if I'm a coward I'm a dangerous one.

The men above finished their search and came back downstairs. They didn't give the living room a second glance; they'd already searched there. As the first man passed by I drew my dagger but didn't attack. Predators take the hindmost. The second man passed, turning down the corridor towards the front door, his back to me.

I came out behind the man, and my left arm snaked across his throat to drag him off balance as my right hand drove the dagger up into his lower back. He made a funny choking sound and I stabbed him twice more.

The man in the doorway turned back and his eyes went wide as he saw me killing his friend. He brought his gun up and sighted. The man I was holding was struggling, trying to get away, and I let him pull me a little way around to give his friend a clear shot.

The man in the doorway advanced a step, steadied himself with his gun aimed two-handed at my body, and fired twice:
clack-clack
.

You can't be faster than a bullet, but you can be faster than the hands that guide it. Just as the gun fired I twisted the man I was holding to bring him between me and the gun. The bullets sank into flesh with a harsh double
thud
. Slowed by the suppressor, the subsonic ammunition didn't have the power to go all the way through his body. The man I was holding jerked as the bullets hit him, and his muscles convulsed. I left the knife sticking in his back and reached over to close my right hand on his gun, then using his body as a shield I aimed at the other man and started pulling the trigger.

The gun went
clack-clack-clack
, the bullets making louder sounds as they tore through walls and threw out sprays of plaster. The other man dived for the kitchen and I tried to track him but the hand clutched over the gun spoiled my aim and he disappeared from sight. Before he could lean out for another shot I backed into the living room, dragging the dying man with me, feeling his struggles becoming weaker as the lifeblood pumped from his body. I clawed another condenser from my pocket and threw it into the hall; it shattered and filled the flat with a gush of grey mist. I ripped my dagger out, letting the body fall, and made it out onto the balcony before any more gunfire came. The fog hid the railing and the drop below but my magic guided me across and back into flat 304.

Anne was still lying on the bed. The sheets were smeared with drying blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped for the moment and as I came back into the bedroom her eyes flickered open and tried to focus on me. “Anne,” I said quietly. “Can you move?”

Anne's eyes were hazy with pain. “There are still two of them,” I said. “I've slowed them down but in a few minutes they'll be coming after us. Can you make it out of the building?”

Anne drew in a ragged breath. “Holding . . . together.” Her skin was paler than it should have been, and I had the feeling she'd lost a lot of blood. “Can't move. Break apart . . .”

I tried to work out what Anne was saying, then I looked into the futures in which I carried her away and my heart sank as I understood. She'd managed to stabilise herself, but it was taking all she had to do it. Another journey would tear the wounds back open. I might be able to lose the men but Anne would be dead before we got anywhere safe.

I could stay and fight, make a last stand in flat 304, but the odds didn't look good. I knew that the last two men were still coming and it wouldn't take them long to figure out where we had to be. I might be able to take two armed men—maybe—but I couldn't protect Anne at the same time.

For a moment I hesitated. I can make snap decisions when it comes to my own life, but risking someone else's is harder. Then I shook my head and pulled out my GTFO stone. It had been a river rock once, worn smooth by flowing water, and I'd carved a rune into either side. “Do you know how to use gate stones?” I asked.

Anne gave a tiny nod.

“It'll get us somewhere safe,” I said. “But I'm not strong enough to make a gate for both of us. I need your help.”

Anne's eyes met mine, and I could see she was afraid. Activating a focus is no danger for a healthy mage. But in her condition . . .

There was a
thump
of movement from the flat next door, and Anne closed her eyes and nodded. As gently as I could, I slid one arm beneath her legs and the other beneath her back, then placed my gate stone in her hand, our fingers interlaced over it. Her skin felt cold. I concentrated, then spoke words in the old tongue, channelling my will through the focus.

Gate magic is easy for elemental mages and hard to impossible for everyone else. It works by creating a similarity between two points in space, briefly linking them across a two-dimensional portal. A gate stone is an item which is metaphysically tied to a specific location. You can use it to gate to a place you haven't seen, or make a gate when you otherwise wouldn't be able to use gate magic at all.

As I focused a flickering oval began to form in the air, waxing and waning. I concentrated, pushing with my will, and the oval solidified into a shape five feet high and two feet wide, big enough for a child to step through or a man to squeeze through. Beyond was a dark room, cold and unlit.

Then Anne's fingers tightened over mine and I felt a surge of power run through into the focus. The edges of the gate portal shifted in colour from a translucent grey to a soft leaf green and the portal doubled in size, stretching from floor to ceiling.

From out on the balcony I heard the
thud
of someone landing from a jump. The gunmen were following and we were out of time. I lifted Anne off the bed and rushed for the portal.

This is the dangerous part of a gate spell: maintaining your mental concentration on holding both ends of the spell while also doing the physical work of stepping through. If you mess it up the gate closes while you're halfway through, with results I'll leave to your imagination. Anne cried out again as I lifted her, and the power coming from her dimmed. The portal shrank, and for one terrifying moment I was heading for the gate too fast to stop but too slow to make it through. Then Anne recovered, a final surge of power threw the gate out to full size, and we were through. My foot came down on tiles.

As soon as we'd made it the energy pouring through from Anne shut off. The green light flickered and died and the gate winked out behind us, casting the room into pitch-darkness. I couldn't see, but with my divination magic I don't need to. I picked out the route through the kitchen in which we'd landed, noticing the futures in which I stumbled over chairs and avoiding them, and guided us blind to the corridor and into the bedroom beyond. I set Anne down on the bed as carefully as I could, then flicked on the light switch. We'd come into a plain room with a deserted guesthouse sort of feel, and the light that made it through the window splashed upon trees and grass before fading into the vast black emptiness of an unlit valley. The only sound was the soft
shhhhh
of a river outside. We were in the country.

I moved through the house, switching on the heat and lights, before returning to Anne. Lying on the bed she looked very small and very still, her black hair spread out on the pillow like a fan. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I left her and with a horrible sinking sensation realised it had all been for nothing.

Maybe it had been the extra effort of the gate stone; maybe it had been the final shock of moving her that last time, tearing her wounds back open. But whatever reserve Anne had been drawing on to keep herself alive, it had been used up. She was dying. I stood over Anne, looking down at her still form, and felt helpless. With my divination magic there's so much I can find, so much I can do—but there was nothing I could do about this.

As if she could feel my gaze, Anne's eyes flickered open. Her breaths were shallow and she had to try twice to speak. “Need . . .”

I crouched next to her. “Need what?”

Reddish-brown eyes looked into mine. There was fear there, and desperation. “Take my . . . hand.”

Anne raised her hand off the bed. I reached for it—

And my precognition screamed a warning. Instantly I sprang back, coming to my feet in the centre of the room, tense and balanced, ready to flee.

Anne's arm was still reaching out towards me, trembling slightly, then her strength failed and it fell to hang off the side of the bed. Her head was turned towards me and I caught a flash of something that made me stop. Pain, yes, but more than anything she looked ashamed.

“Can't . . .” Anne's soft voice was quick and ragged. “Nothing left. Please . . .”

I stared at Anne and saw the choice branching ahead of me. If I stayed where I was Anne's breaths would come slower and her words would become fainter and soon, in only a few minutes, those red-brown eyes would close and she would die.

But if I took her hand . . .

If I took her hand I'd be struck down by some kind of magical attack, something I'd never seen before. It would be fast as lightning and there wouldn't be a thing I could do to stop it. In the futures I saw myself crumpling, then blackness.

“Alex . . .” Anne said softly, and her eyes were pleading. “Please . . .”

Every instinct I had was shouting to stay away. It wasn't as if Anne were my apprentice. I wasn't responsible for her and it wasn't my fault she was hurt. And she'd just tried to . . . actually I didn't know
what
she'd tried to do. My divination magic can only see what my own senses would perceive, and all I could see down that path was darkness. For all I knew taking her hand would mean we'd both end up dead.

It wasn't my problem. No one would blame me for leaving her.

I looked at Anne, seeing the slim dying body, the fear and shame and desperate hope in her eyes, and walked forward. I had to fight myself to do it; my danger sense was screaming at me with every step. I reached down and took Anne's hand from where it hung limp.

There was a green flash and the strength in every part of my body vanished at once. My hearing cut out, my vision went black, and I couldn't see or sense or feel. I never felt myself hit the floor.

chapter 4

I
woke up very slowly.

I felt awful. My muscles were like water and my head was dizzy. I felt like I'd caught a fever, starved for two weeks, then gotten the worst hangover of my life to top it off. As soon as I realised how bad I felt my first reaction was to try to go back to sleep.

I stayed like that for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. What finally pushed me awake was realising how hungry I was. I opened my eyes.

It was morning and bright sunlight was streaming through the window. There was something odd about the quiet, and it took me a moment to realise what was missing: the background hum of the city. I wasn't in London anymore.

I was in a guest room with plain white walls and I was lying in a bed. I was still wearing my clothes but my shoes had been taken off, and looking to one side I could see that the contents of my pockets had been neatly stacked on a bedside table. The room was familiar, as was the sound of the river outside, and a moment later I realised where I was: my safe house in Wales. I just wasn't sure how I'd got here.

Then I remembered. Anne; the taxi; the battle and the gate. I tried to pull myself up and failed. My muscles were ridiculously weak; I couldn't even sit upright. My body felt different too, lighter.

Footsteps sounded from the corridor and I looked up to see Anne's head poking around the door. She vanished and reappeared a second later holding a tray.

Anything I'd been planning to say went right out of my head as soon as I smelt the food. My stomach growled and I realised I wasn't just hungry, I was ravenous. “Um,” Anne said. “I think you should eat—”

I didn't quite grab it out of her hands but I came close. The food was oatmeal and fairly bland, not that I cared. Anne went back to the kitchen and got a second bowl, which lasted about as long as the first.

As I was starting on the third bowl I felt the stirrings of a spell and glanced up to see Anne reaching out towards me. As I looked at her she stopped. “May I?”

“As long as it's not whatever you hit me with last night.”

Anne flinched as if I'd slapped her. I shook my head. “Sorry, didn't mean it like that. Go ahead.”

Anne placed her hand against my shoulder. A faint green glow, the colour of new leaves in spring, welled up around her hand to soak into me. I could feel it spreading through my body but I couldn't tell what it was doing.

As I ate I studied Anne out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a white T-shirt that left her long arms bare, and her skin was a healthy colour again. The bloodstains and bullet holes in the T-shirt were very obvious but she moved without any trace of pain or stiffness. In fact she looked a hell of a lot better than I felt.

I finished up the third bowl. Now that I'd taken the edge off my hunger, it was a little easier to think. Anne was still working her spell through the touch of her hand, and I could feel a faint tingle within my body. “What are you doing?”

“Ah . . .” Anne said in her soft voice. “I'm rebuilding your reserves.”

“How?”

“Your body converts food into energy,” Anne said. “I'm . . . speeding that up. You'll feel better soon.”

“Okay,” I said. “Look, don't take this the wrong way, but unless my memory's going you stopped seven bullets with your chest last night while I only got a few bruises. So could you explain why you're looking the picture of health when I can't even get out of bed?”

Anne made as if to speak, then went out of the room, coming back with another two bowls. She put them on the table and sat on a chair, not meeting my eyes.

I started on the next bowl. “You're not very used to talking about this stuff, are you?”

“Sorry.”

“Well, if you want to eat too and don't fancy oatmeal, there should be something in the kitchen.”

“I don't think it's there.”

“It's in the cupboard under the sink.”

“I know.”

“What's wrong?”

“I . . . already ate it.”

“You can't have eaten all of it. There was three days' worth.”

Anne looked embarrassed.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Sorry,” Anne said again.

I looked at Anne's slim figure in disbelief. “Where do you put it all?”

“I used too much last night.” Anne brushed her hair back, looking down at the floor. “I burnt all my reserves. Muscle and fat. It took . . . quite a lot to rebuild them.”

I looked at Anne a moment longer. “You're a life mage.”

Anne nodded.

“That was how you survived those injuries,” I said. “You were repairing the damage from the bullets.”

“But it's hard,” Anne said. “When I heal someone else, some of the energy comes from me and some comes from them. When I heal myself I can't . . .” She trailed off.

I stared at her for a second, and then it clicked. “Was that what you did to me? You took energy from my body and used it to keep yourself alive?”

Anne nodded again. She didn't meet my eyes.

Well, that explained why I felt so terrible. I'd never been life-drained before and I shivered a little as I remembered the feeling. Having the strength drained out of every part of your body at once is a uniquely nasty experience.

Anne still had her eyes downcast, and I realised suddenly that she felt ashamed. “Ah, relax,” I said. “Don't beat yourself up over it.”

Anne looked up in surprise. “You're not . . . ?”

“Well, I feel like crap,” I said. “But all in all, I'd rather feel like crap than have you dead. Be a bit of a waste after I went to all that effort. Just try and take a bit less next time, okay?”

“I'm sorry,” Anne said again. “I was—”

“I'm kidding,” I said. “And you can stop worrying, I'm not going to report you to the Council.”

I saw Anne relax a bit. Life-draining is outlawed by the Council—it's too close to the forbidden technique of Harvesting—and in her position she'd be in serious trouble if accused. “Thank you.”

“So I'm guessing this is why I'm so hungry?”

Anne nodded. “Your body stores short-term and long-term energy. I . . . took most of it. You've been burning body fat all night.” Anne hesitated. “You, um, might find you're a bit lighter.”

I lifted the covers and looked down at myself. “Huh. You know, you could make a lot of money in the weight-loss business.”

“Everyone says that.” Anne sounded faintly exasperated. “You're supposed to have
some
fat.”

I noticed with mild surprise that I'd eaten the last two bowls of oatmeal without realising it. “You can read bodies, right?”

Anne nodded.

“How am I doing?”

“You're fine,” Anne said at once. “You'll need to eat about three times as much as normal for a while but your body will tell you that. Just be careful for a day or two while your energy reserves build up again. But you could get up now if you wanted.”

I suited the action to the word. My legs felt a little wobbly and there was a lingering weakness in my limbs, but I was feeling better and managed to stay on my feet. My phone was on the table, and looking at it I saw that it was past ten. “Ah hell,” I said as I remembered my appointment with Sonder. “I'm supposed to be somewhere.”

“Wait!” Anne said in alarm. “You can't use a gate stone already. You need to—”

“I'm all right,” I said. “I just need to make a call.”

*  *  *

O
nce I was in the corridor and out of sight I took out my phone and saw that I had four missed calls. As I did, I saw that my hand was shaking. I leant against the wall and closed my eyes. It wasn't the physical drain that was getting to me, not really. I've been hurt before and I'm used to it. It was the memory of last night.

Killing with a knife is much more personal than with a gun. A gun is detached, clinical. Aim, squeeze the trigger, see the puff of red. Even looking down at the body afterwards it doesn't really feel like you did it. A knife is different. You feel the impact as the blade goes in, the warmth of the blood on your hands, the struggles of the man you're holding. It's harder to shut out.

I didn't try. Instead I ran through the events of last night, deliberately replaying the battle in the flat step by step. One after another I thought about the choices I could have taken and the other ways the battle could have ended. I thought about the men killing Anne or killing me and compared that to my memory of stabbing the man in the back. If I had to do it all over again, would I make the same choice?

Yes. I would.
As I decided that, the memory loosened a little. It wasn't any easier, but facing it, understanding it, made it bearable. I stayed there for another few minutes, then once I was calm again I tapped a stored number on my phone.

The phone rang once and was picked up on the second ring. “Alex?”

It was Luna's voice, anxious and hopeful, and hearing it pulled me the rest of the way back to the world of the living. Suddenly I was awake again. “It's me.”

“You're okay?”

“I'm fine.”

I heard Luna sigh in relief. “It's him, he's okay,” she called to someone else, then came back to the receiver. “Where have you
been
?”

“Long story.”

“I called last night and I thought you were just asleep. Then I met Sonder this morning and he hadn't heard anything either! We've been worried sick.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I got held up.”

“Don't scare me like that. I was afraid you'd been kidnapped again or something.”

“No, I—Wait, what do you mean ‘again'?”

“You know, like with Morden.”

“That happened
once
.”

“And the time with Belthas.”

“I got caught that time because I was going after you.”

“No you weren't. Anyway, what about—”

There was the sound of someone else clearing their throat. “Oh, right,” Luna said. “Where are you?”

“Wales.”

“Wales?”

“Wales.”

“Why are you in Wales?”

“Three men tried to kill Anne last night. There was a fight and we evac'd to the safe house. Has anyone come after you or Sonder?”

“Tried to kill—? No, no one's come after us. Alex, what have you been doing?”

“Good.” The weariness in my limbs wasn't going away and I realised Anne had been right. I didn't have the strength to use a gate stone yet. “Listen, I'm going to be laid up for a few hours. I want you to work with Sonder on those reports. Get as familiar with the information as you can.”

“Are you going to be here?”

“No, I'm going to be following up on something else. Have you got any classes today?”

“Just one. It finishes at five.”

“Good. When you're done go to Arachne's and ask her to fit you a dress. Ask her to find me something too while you're at it. I'll meet you there, but I might be late.”

“You're finally getting a better wardrobe?”

“No, we're going to a party.”

“Oh,” Luna said. “Something
really
dangerous.”

“As long as I don't have to arm-wrestle you to make you go this time. Now put Sonder on, I need to ask him something.”

“Say please.”

“Just do it.”

“Sonder!” Luna called. “Alex wants to talk to you. He says he's got a date tonight and wants some advice on what to wear.”

I rolled my eyes. When Luna took the formal oath of apprenticeship, she swore to obey me “without question.” Luna's way of getting around this has been to follow orders to the letter but add some creative misinterpretation. I heard the clunking of the phone being put down and picked up, then Sonder's voice. “Um, hello?”

“Ignore Luna,” I said. “Listen, I need you to do me a favour.”

“Oh,” Sonder said. “Okay. Sure.”

“Three assassins tried to kill me and Anne last night in Archway. I'll send you the address. I need you to look around and find out whatever you can about those men. One's dead but two got away and I need to find them. There'll be police lines so it might be difficult to get in, but do what you can.”

There was a moment's silence. “Do you think there's a connection?” Sonder said at last. “I mean . . . right after you were asked to do the—the other job. It's a bit of a coincidence.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

“Do you think it's the same person?”

I frowned. “I don't know. What I really want to know is what linked them to me.”

“That's why you want me to find out about those men?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I'll try. And I'll take Luna through the files.”

“Thanks. See you tonight.”

*  *  *

I
found Anne in the kitchen washing up. There was a stack of plates on the dish rack, and I could see from the empty cupboard that she hadn't been exaggerating about how much she'd eaten. I guess every kind of magic has its quirks. I sat at the table, not letting myself show how much of a relief it was to get off my feet—I could feel my strength returning but slower than I was used to. “Okay,” I said. “So who do you know who wants you dead?”

Anne turned to me, face troubled. She was drying her hands with a towel and it would have been a peaceful domestic scene but for the bloodstains on her clothes. “I don't know,” she said. “I've tried to think of anyone but I can't.”

“Offended any Dark mages lately? Made any new enemies?”

“I don't think so.”

“What about that girl from duelling class?”

Anne looked surprised. “Natasha? She's just a bit nervous about me and Vari.”

I thought it had seemed a bit more serious than that but kept my feelings to myself. Besides, I couldn't really see an apprentice sending gunmen. “Well,
someone
wants to get rid of you,” I said. “And they weren't kidding around. Those men were no joke.”