Taken (24 page)

“Did you get him?” Variam called.

“No. Did you?”

“No! Every time I’m close they just—”

Horns were blaring from behind. I’d lost sight of the constructs but I could see a traffic jam in the mirrors; it looked like cars were slowing down to avoid something. Anne put the phone back to my ear and I heard Sonder’s voice. “—lex? Alex, are you there?”

“Sonder, we need some ideas,” I said. “Every time we’re about to hit these things they just gate out and I don’t know how long we can keep dodging them.”

“Um,” Sonder said. “Well, theoretically it should take a lot of energy to keep running that spell. They shouldn’t be as tough as normal constructs.”

“That’s great; how are we supposed to
hit
them?”

I caught a flash of movement in my right mirror. A figure was running along the right side of the motorway by the divider; as I watched it vanished and reappeared much closer. “Variam!” I called and pointed.

Variam pulled himself back up and I felt him aiming another fire spell. “Can you tell what their primary sensory input is?” Sonder asked.

“What?”

“Well, there has to be something that triggers their evasion routine. When they teleport away, is it based on visual data, auditory data, tactile—?”

“How in the name of all that is holy am I supposed to know that?”

“Um . . . You could try attacking them with methods that can only be detected by one type of sense. Then based on which ones they dodge you could—”

“Are you serious?”

Bursts of heat erupted in the path of the construct chasing us but it blinked away, getting closer each time. As it pulled level with our car I cut left into the middle lane, using the stream of traffic as a shield. I had to slow down to do it and for an instant the construct was roughly level with us, its head turned to look into the car as it ran. Variam focused his energy for another spell, aiming to blanket its area, and Sonder started saying something else over the phone.

The construct teleported into the car.

There was a chorus of screams, one of which might have been mine. Variam’s spell went off, the car swerved, and there was one frantic moment in which the car was on course to smash right into the side of a container truck. I pulled it back as the construct’s long arms came reaching around the passenger seat, grasping for Anne’s throat. Anne ducked and the fingers latched onto her hair instead; she yelped as the construct started dragging her back.

Variam was still standing on the backseat, half out of the sunroof. He turned and stomped on the construct’s arms. The first kick made it bend at an impossible angle; the second broke its grip. I tried to turn to help and nearly crashed the car; I couldn’t fight and drive the Jaguar at the same time. As Variam kept kicking at the construct and it turned its attention to him I hit the speed control setting, grabbed Anne’s hand, and put it on the wheel. “You’re driving!” Anne’s eyes were wide, but she pulled herself up, trying to watch the road ahead and the construct behind at the same time.

The construct got a grip on Variam’s leg and broke it with a snap. Variam screamed as the construct started to pull him in. I twisted to reach over into the backseat and jammed both thumbs into the construct’s eyes, trying to gouge them out. The construct couldn’t feel pain, but it reacted to the loss of sight, letting go of Variam and grabbing me. Its grip was like steel and I was yanked over the gearshift. “Variam!” I shouted as the construct forced my hands away and its dead eyes turned to focus on me. One of its hands went for my throat and I tried desperately to force it away. “Use the sword!”

Variam was crumpled in the corner of the car, his leg bent at a horrible angle, but as the construct started to drag me in he fumbled out the flat-bladed sword and channelled his magic through it. The inside of the car flashed orange-yellow, and I felt a surge of heat as the blade lit up with fire and Variam drove it straight for the construct’s body.

The construct vanished as the tip touched it. I fell onto the blade, felt it scorch through my clothes and into my arm, and pulled back with a gasp of pain. An instant later the heat cut off and Variam fell back against the edge of the car. My left arm was burnt but I gritted my teeth and scrambled back into the driver’s seat, taking the wheel back from Anne. “Help Variam!”

Anne climbed back into the rear seat as I checked the futures. As I did my heart jumped—the other construct was about to do the exact same thing. In a few seconds it would appear ahead of us and in one more it would blink in right on top of Anne and Variam. I held my left hand back without taking my eyes off the road. “Sword!”

There was an instant’s pause, then I felt the handle land in my palm. The blade was heavy and awkward to lift with only one hand. I kept my feet on the pedals and my right hand on the wheel and as the construct came into view ahead of us, I thrust the sword into the space the construct was going to teleport into.

The construct blinked in and out—somewhere else. I felt the gate magic redirect and instead of dropping into the passenger seat and onto the waiting sword the construct appeared five feet up, right on the Jaguar’s roof. The rushing air snatched it instantly off its feet and it went flying over the sunroof to hit the motorway behind. In my mirror I caught a glimpse of it rolling over and over behind us, and then the Toyota that had been following us hit it square on with a soggy
thud
. The construct’s head snapped back and it vanished under the wheels and was gone. From behind came the screech of brakes.

“Variam!” I called. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Variam said through gritted teeth. I could feel Anne’s healing magic working behind me but didn’t turn to look.

“Anne, where’s the phone?”

Anne sounded distracted. “I dropped it. Alex, I need to concentrate.”

I dropped the sword and bent down to grab the phone instead, driving blind for a second. “Sonder?” I said, straightening up.

“Alex!” Sonder sounded relieved. “You’re okay?”

“Not for long. These things are tearing us up.” Wind roared through the sunroof and I could see a traffic jam developing behind us. The constructs hadn’t reappeared but I knew they hadn’t given up and I didn’t think we’d survive another attack like the last one. “Ideas?”

“I don’t know! Um . . . Have you managed to damage them?”

“Well, we hit them with a car a few times but it doesn’t seem to have slowed them down much.” A sign went by overhead indicating a turnoff, and I pulled into the left lane, driving right-handed.

“Okay, so they’re not programmed to avoid physical impact?”

“No, they—Wait. When I was about to run that one over a minute ago, it
did
avoid it.”

“So they do—Alex?”

I thought fast. I’d managed to hit one with the Jaguar back in the car park. But when one had gated onto the hood, it had gated away again when I tried to run it down afterwards. But then that last one
hadn’t
gated away before being run over by the Toyota behind me . . .

Time. The one that had landed on the hood had had longer. “Sonder. How much energy would it take to do one of these teleports?”

“Um, a lot. That was why they stopped building—”

“Could it teleport and then teleport again half a second later?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure. I don’t think so. The construct’s internal energy reserves should need at least a couple of seconds to recharge between—”

“Perfect.”

“What? Alex? Hello?”

I dropped the phone onto the seat and pulled the car into the turnoff. It was a motorway layover, just a small enclave on the side of the road with a public bathroom, surrounded by woods. Nobody else was there. I brought the Jaguar to a stop and the engine died away with a fading growl. Outside on the M4 the cars swept past with a rush of air, the swooshing sound muffled through the car. “Anne,” I said. “Can Variam walk?”

“I need more time.” Turning around, I saw that Anne was bent over Variam, green light glowing around her hands as she held his broken leg. She was concentrating and didn’t turn to look. “Give me a few minutes.”

“Can’t.” I got out and pulled the passenger door open. Variam looked up distractedly and I held out a hand. “Grab on,” I told him. “I’m carrying you.”

“Wait!” Anne said. “He’s—”

“We’ve got sixty seconds until those constructs catch up.”

Variam’s face was pale from shock but he gave me one look and nodded. I reached down and picked Variam up with a heave; his fingers tightened on my arms and I knew it must have hurt, but he didn’t make a sound. “Bring the sword,” I told Anne as I hurried into the woods.

There was a small clearing just twenty feet into the trees. Bits of garbage were scattered around from previous visitors, and the glow of the motorway lights was muted. I set Variam down against an ash tree. “Your weapon,” I told Variam. “Can you channel through it when you’re not touching it?”

“I—yeah. Why?”

“When I call, do it.” Anne made as if to go to Variam, but I turned and blocked her. “No.”

Anne looked at me in frustration. “At least let me—”

“If you want to help him, keep your distance,” I said quietly. “I need you to do something dangerous.”

“What?”

“Bait.” I looked steadily at her. “These things are after you. They only attack us when we get in their way, and their targeting resets every time they lose sight of us. I need you to stand next to me and not move until I tell you.”

Anne looked from me to Variam, and I felt the two of them share a glance. Then Variam gave a small nod. I took the sword from Anne and walked to the centre of the clearing. The sword was oddly shaped and didn’t look like any weapon I’d seen; the blade was wide and heavy, broadening slightly from the hilt to the tip before narrowing abruptly to a blunt point. I walked to the centre of the clearing and moved the sword from side to side, feeling the weight of the blade. “Designed for cutting, right?” I asked Variam absently.

“Yeah.” I could hear the tension in Variam’s voice.

Anne moved beside me. “Do you trust me?” I asked her quietly.

In the shadows it was hard to make out Anne’s expression, but I could sense she was watching me. “. . . Yes.”

“Don’t move,” I said. “When I press down on your shoulder, get out of the way as fast as you can.”

Anne nodded. I took a stance in the middle of the clearing, most of my weight on my back leg with Variam’s sword held down by my side, and rested my left hand on Anne’s shoulder. She didn’t tremble but held still. Ten feet away against the tree Variam watched, tense. The only light in the woods was the orange-yellow glow of the motorway lights, broken up with the shadows of the trees. There was no sound but the steady
swoosh
of the cars. The air was cold and smelt of exhaust smoke and dried leaves.

I closed my eyes.

The flicker of gate magic came right when it was supposed to. I pushed on Anne’s shoulder but she was already moving, ducking down and away. As the construct blinked in, reaching out for where Anne had been a second ago, I called “Variam!” and thrust.

My plan back in the car had been to try to set up the constructs to teleport onto the sword. It hadn’t worked; the gate spell the constructs were using had a fail-safe preventing them from teleporting directly onto something. But after they teleported there was a brief window in which they couldn’t teleport again.

Variam channelled and the edges of the sword lit up with licks of orange flame just as I rammed the blade through the construct’s torso. It jerked and staggered but I was already turning and as the second construct blinked into view next to us I got it with a kick to the body that knocked it over. Turning back to the first construct I forced it back, pushing it with the blade. I could feel the heat radiating as Variam poured fire magic through the sword and into the construct. Its clothes were smouldering around the wound and as I watched they caught fire. The construct tried to teleport away but couldn’t and I kept pushing it back, feeling the sword go loose as the construct began to melt from the inside. The construct fell over backwards and I followed it down, took a two-handed grip on the sword, and dragged the blade out sideways. The construct kept trying to grab me, empty eyes locked onto mine, and I stabbed it again and again until heat melted its body and the scrubby grass and dirt it was lying on ignited.

I turned to see Variam with his hand raised towards Anne and the second construct gone. Anne was standing at the centre of the clearing again, looking around. “Get down!” I shouted and ran towards her, bringing the sword back for a swing.

Anne dropped instantly and the second construct blinked in behind her. I’d already started my slash and as I did I felt Variam’s fire magic flare to an inferno. The sword flashed white-hot, the heat scorching my arm and hand, and it cut through the construct’s neck like butter. The head and body ignited, falling in different directions, and the sword spun away and went into the earth with a hiss.

And suddenly the clearing was quiet. The light of Variam’s fire magic blinked out and the only light was the glowing remnants of the two constructs. I shook my burnt right hand and gave Variam a look. “Ow.”

“It’s dead, isn’t it?” Variam was still propped up against the tree and he looked very tired. “Anne, you okay?”

Anne nodded. “Let me have a look at you.”

“After we get out of here,” I said. “You can patch us up later.” I couldn’t hear any sirens yet, but after the mess we’d caused on the motorway I knew they wouldn’t be far away.

Neither Anne nor Variam argued. We limped back to the Jaguar, put Variam in, and drove away. As I did I realised my phone was ringing, and I took it out. “Hey, Luna,” I said wearily. The aftereffects of the fight were starting to kick in and it was suddenly hard to talk.

“Hey!” Luna sounded excited. “I’ve been trying to call you!”

“Sorry. Something came up.”

“I won the duel!”

“Good job.” A sign passed by overhead and I began signalling to take the turn that would lead us off the motorway, northwards back towards Fountain Reach. “Meet us outside the mansion in half an hour. We’ve got some news too.”