Nemesis (29 page)

“No you don’t,” I snarled, zapping him again to stop him hitting me.

“Kay… Walker?” The mage had staggered to his feet.

“Give me a hand over here,” I said, attempting to drag Conner through the thick undergrowth. As tempting as it was to leave him out here for the wolves–well, centaurs–this was a matter for the council.

The magic burn had Ikor shaking so hard, he couldn’t walk in a straight line. Cursing under my breath, I tapped the earpiece. “Could use some help, Markos.”

I zapped Conner with second level magic again, and this time he shook so hard, it became doubly difficult to keep my grip on him. His eyes rolled back in his head.

The sound of hooves. I froze, automatically pulling on magic ready to defend myself, but it was just Markos, and the other two centaurs who’d been with him and Tryfon at Central.

“We’ll take him to your council, human.” Markos grabbed Conner and lifted him bodily into the air. Lucky for him he wasn’t awake enough to be aware of the indignity of being carried by a centaur. The other two centaurs kicked the thick undergrowth out of the way, and I ran ahead, back to the clearing. I had to find Ada and get Conner under close watch before the bastard pulled another trick. He’d used bloodrock solution, and no one had even noticed. How many times had the Conners got away with that? Might they even have impersonated centaurs?
Not Aric.
No way was that imbecile a good enough actor to pull that off.

My heart sank when I saw most of the council members had gone. The open Passage door swarmed with people leaving, while the remaining centaurs stood with weapons at the ready.

“What the hell’s going on?” I demanded of the universe in general. “Who was attacked?”

“The humans,” said Markos. “Speaking of whom–” He gave Conner a shake. The bastard’s eyes were half open. Damn. He’d be pissed with me.

Ada, who stood apart from the crowd, rushed over to me. “Kay, we have to go.” At least she sounded sober enough to run.

Before I could respond, a long, drawn-out scream vibrated through the earpiece–from Markos’s expression, I guessed the same noise came from his earpiece, too. Even Ada jumped.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“I don’t know.” The centaur fiddled with the earpiece, and I did the same. It vibrated in my hands, and my ears rang with the sound of the scream.

Ada made a strangled sound. “Did… who has the other earpiece? There were three.”

Oh, crap. “It was with the tech department, at Central, right?”

That scream…

“What? My brother’s there.” Ada sagged against me, the colour draining from her face. “Someone tried to steal it from them yesterday. Aric. I forgot…”

I looked from her to the Chameleon and back again at Ada. “Aric. Damn.”

The earpiece vibrated again, so intensely I dropped it. A deafening scream, followed by gasping, the sounds of someone in terrible pain.

“Shit.” I crouched down to search. “I can’t find the damn–”

My hand closed over the metal object as another scream rang out. Then sobbing. “Ada,” whimpered the person on the other end. “Please…”

Then the noise went dead.

Ada dropped to her knees, too. “That was my little brother,” she said. “Alber.”

ADA

The scream rang through my head, cut through me like a swinging blade. Alber.

Kay was speaking to me, saying something. I shook my head to clear the ringing in my ears.

“Ada. Ada. Dammit, we have to go.” He took my arm and pulled me to my feet. The strength had gone out of my limbs, the glow from the wine burned away.

“Come on, Ada.”

“By the gods, humans, leave–now!” The centaur had reared up on his hind legs, and kicked at a–
what
was that? A snarling bundle of smoky red fur and claws, moving too quickly for me to make out any more, and then it vanished.

Crap. It was the same as those creatures I’d fought in the Passages yesterday.

Kay swore. “Markos–”

“Get out of here!” Markos shouted, as the smoky creature slammed into him and knocked him back. What could possibly do that to a centaur?

And then Kay was steering me after him, across the leafy floor, through the opening in the rock and into the Passages.

The magic struck, cold and tingling under my skin. “Alber,” I gasped.

“I know.” Kay hadn’t let go of my arm. I pulled it free as my legs remembered how to walk again.

“Ada,” said Kay, walking alongside me as I strode ahead, right through the groups of council members scattered in the Passage. “Ada. I know. Here.” He pressed the earpiece into my hand, and I stared at him for an instant. “You use this. I’m going to see if I can pick up a signal.” He had his communicator out, hitting the offworld roaming button, but of course, Earth was unreachable out here.

“Alber,” I said into the earpiece. “Alber, please, please tell me where you are. I’m coming, I promise–Alber!”

Nothing. I pressed a hand to my mouth to stifle the scream building inside me. Someone was hurting my brother, and they could be anywhere, on any universe. I couldn’t move fast enough, even as I kept pace with Kay, who knew where he was going in this effing maze.

How
had this happened?

“Ada. I’m going to need you to calm down. You said Aric tried to get the Chameleon from the tech rooms? It might help us find him.”

I swallowed. “Yeah. The tech team said he threatened a few people. They locked the door for precautions. But Alber’s never been near Central.”

“Your older brother works in tech, though,” said Kay. “Is there any reason he might have given your younger brother the device?”

“No clue,” I said. “It was the only one left, Ms Weston said. Oh my God…”

The walls were closing in.
No. For God’s sake, not now.
I swallowed, hard, concentrated on breathing.

“You’re all right.” Kay’s hand closed over mine. “Come on. We’re going to help him.” I looked up at him, and his dark eyes gleamed in the blue light of the Passages. “I think Aric’s family’s involved. The Conners–they’ve been using the bloodrock. And if he knew about the Chameleon already… dammit, it doesn’t add up.”

“What?” I said, some of the fog in my head clearing. “The Conners? Aric’s family?”

“They were trying to cash in on what the Campbells left behind,” said Kay, speaking quickly, regarding me like he expected me to collapse. “On Valeria, they had Cethraxian foot-soldiers, the ravegens, creating diversions while they raided the Campbell place. Aric was looking for the Chameleon… but it does just the same thing as bloodrock solution, and they already had that. So why would he need it?”

“The solution isn’t permanent,” I said. “Wait–my brothers said someone threatened the Knight family, too. About the bloodrock. They were the ones who used to help Nell make the formula, and the Alliance confiscated all of it. There was none left.”

“Nell made it?”

“Yeah…” I stopped dead, the world tilting under my feet. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday. She was out, I assumed till late, but I never heard her come back. And–and I didn’t check on Alber this morning. He might have already been gone…”

Kay’s hand on my arm steadied me. “Ada. Focus. We need to move.”

One foot in front of the other. I concentrated on him, instead, his total calmness of manner despite our urgent pace.

“The Conners,” he said. “I caught two of them in Valeria yesterday. They handed themselves in to the police, confessed everything, but I’ve no bloody clue where the rest of their family is. There’s no way they can’t be involved in this, the timing’s too close to be coincidence. So now the police know, Conner had to strike first. But how in hell is
Aglaia
involved? Why would they need them?” He was tenser, more agitated with each step, and fighting to keep his cool. “Get your communicator. We’ll be in signal zone soon.”

He was right. I’d been listening with numb, detached horror. That wouldn’t do if I wanted to save my family. I hit the button to call Jeth with shaking hands, over and over again.

Finally, it connected.

“Ada? What’s up?”

“Someone’s taken Alber,” I gasped into the phone. “He’s hurt. I don’t know who, or where, but someone’s–they’re torturing him, Jeth.”

“What?”

I had to repeat it twice before it sunk in. “Shit. Ada… guys, be quiet!” he yelled at what I assumed were the other people in the tech office.

“I think it might be to do with the Conner family,” I said, and now, hearing his voice, I was properly sobbing. “They searching for something, after the Campbells, I don’t know what. Did Nell come back last night?”

“I didn’t hear her, but I was running late. Damn. Ada, where are you?”

“In the Passages, on my way back. I don’t even know if he’s on Earth!”

“Earth or Valeria,” said Kay, who was one-handedly typing on his own communicator screen. “Damn. Aric’s father lives in Neo Greyle half the time. He might still be there. The Enforcement Squads who arrested Aric’s cousins didn’t find him, but it’s possible in a city that size. Especially for a resourceful bastard like him.”

“God. Alber…” The communicator slid from my hand, and Kay’s hand shot out and caught it.

“You ask around the office,” he said to Jeth. “Ask if anyone’s seen Aric, or the other Conners. Do
not
leave Central. You might be another target.”

I didn’t hear what Jeth said in reply.

Kay clicked off my communicator and passed it back to me, digging in his pocket. “I have this.” He pulled out a rectangular metal object I recognised from Carl’s office. “A tracker. It can trace magic use… is your brother a magic-wielder?”

I nodded. “Mageblood.”

“I thought you told me that once. If he used magic, I can use it to trace him. On Earth, there are few enough magic-wielders that these things can trace an individual.”

Yeah. If he
was
on Earth. I pushed back the sob in my chest and concentrated on power-walking like hell itself was on my tail.

“Wait,” said Kay. “Your brother was at your house? Did he use magic there?”

“I–yeah. All the time. It drives Nell crazy.”
Walk, Ada. Don’t think.

“Then we can pick up his trace. We’ll have to use the hidden Passage near your place. It’s the quickest way, and it isn’t sealed.”

“It isn’t? Jeth…”

“Call him.” Kay paused, assessing the route, and then took off again down a side tunnel so fast I had to hurry to keep up.

I took out my own communicator, called Jeth’s number. “It’s me,” I said. “We’re headed to the house, through the Passages. If you can, tell someone what’s happening. Ms Weston. Our boss. Kay and I are going back home.”

“Yes,” Kay cut in quickly. “This merits an emergency call to the Alliance. I already sent an alert, but the connection’s limited in here. I don’t know if it reached them.”

“What he said,” I gasped, my legs protesting at the speed I pushed them to. “The Conners. We think it’s the Conners. Aric.”

“Dammit.” He swore in Karthonic, then English. “Someone
did
break into the tech room early this morning. Someone inside Central.”

“Ada.” Kay caught my arm. “The stairs–”

We’d reached the tunnel with the hidden staircase to the lower levels. Damn. I didn’t have any weapons at all. And neither did Kay.

We just had magic.

He nodded to me. “After you.”

In the lower Passage. Blood streaked the walls, old wyvern blood from the time I’d been chased through here. The stench of Cethrax was everywhere. Doors often opened to their swampland in the lower levels. God help us if there were any monsters about now…

One way back, and I took it breakneck pace. I all but held my breath the entire time, until we came to the door which had started everything. Kay shoved it open.

I ran, flat out, leaping clear of the fallen remains of the wall a chalder vox had destroyed, pelted down the street, to my house. The door hung off its hinges. A humming sound behind me made me spin around. Kay had activated the tracking device, and the air around it shimmered as he approached the door, frowning.

“Got it,” he said. “Magic signal–just the one. It’s definitely not yours?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t used it since.”

Kay tapped buttons on the device. “Should be able to trace it.” He pulled out his communicator and lined the flashing ends of each device together. “I’ve never done this before, but it should link to the GPS. Damn thing’s only ninety per cent accurate, but it should… Shit, it’s out of range. Offworld.”

I sagged against the wall. “You’re kidding me!”

Kay swore, hitting the device over and over. “Can’t get a reading. Wait a minute.” He looked down at the screen, then at me. “I can try… we need to get back in the Passages.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I think I can amplify this.” He indicated the tracker. “It’s dangerous, but we don’t have an option.” He shook his head. “The tracer in this is made of a magic-based source. I can use it.”