Veiled (9 page)

“No, the DLR,” the woman was saying. “What? Hang on, I'll check. How old are you?”

It took me a second to realise the woman was talking to me. “What?”

“I think about thirty?” she said into the phone. “Oh. Okay . . . Do you have any existing medical conditions?”

I stared at her.

“They want to know if you've got any existing medical conditions,” the woman said. “Oh, she was asking if you've got any chest pain?”

“No, I have a pain in my side, because someone just stabbed me through it. And you might want to forget that call and get out of here, because the man who did the stabbing is probably on the roof of this train.”

“What?”

The train was pulling into Stratford and the doors would be opening in twenty seconds. Stratford's not Pudding Mill Lane: the station was well lit, skyscrapers rose up around us, and another train was waiting to go on the other side of the platform. We were still at the edge of the station, but there would be staff farther in—the closer I could get to the main floor of the station, the more pressure there'd be for this guy to back off. Why was he even after me? The only explanation I could think of was that he wanted that focus I'd picked up last night.
Maybe he's planning to take it off my corpse.

The train stopped with a hiss. The passengers got off, filing out through the doors, heading for the stairs down. I followed them, hands in my pockets, head down. My side was hurting badly, but I didn't let it show and I didn't look up. It's hard to pick one person out of a crowd, especially from the back. All I needed was for this guy to hesitate for a few seconds and I'd make it out. I scanned through the futures—he wouldn't be aggressive enough to attack me right in the middle of a bunch of commuters, right?

Right?

Oh,
fuck
!

I jumped out of the way as a blade hissed past. The air mage was right on top of me. I'd lost my knife somewhere back in the last fight; I fumbled for another weapon but he was already aiming another spell and I dived for cover behind the struts at the centre of the platform. There was another
boom
, deafeningly loud and very close; the shock wave made me stagger as something seemed to punch my back.

Shouts and curses echoed from all around. We'd been right at the only exit and suddenly people were scattering, some running away, others standing and staring and trying to figure out what was going on. It would have been the perfect cover, except that the air mage was already there, stalking around to block my way out, another air blade low and by his side. He could see me and I backed up, keeping the platform struts between us. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted at him. “Just go away!”

He didn't answer, and I felt a trace of fear. Usually I deal with battle-mages by outmanoeuvring them, using my divination to avoid their attacks and putting distance between us. But air mages are the skirmishers of the elementalists, fast and light and agile. They aren't as strong in a stand-up fight as a fire or earth mage, but they have more than enough power to crush someone like me.

The air mage tried to circle around and I dodged again, keeping cover between us. If I couldn't outrun this guy, I'd have to outthink him. Was he after that focus? I glanced through futures in which I tested it. With the chaos going on around it was hard to be sure, but I thought it was getting his attention. Maybe he'd seen the auras of the items I was carrying—

“Oi!” a new voice shouted. “You!”

The air mage stopped and turned. It was the woman from the train. She was standing behind the air mage in the mouth of the exit tunnel, but instead of running she'd stopped and was pointing at the air mage and glaring. She still had her mobile phone to her ear. “You back off!”

We both stared at her. I think we'd both forgotten that the bystanders were even around. “You're the one who stabbed him, aren't you?” the woman said. “Well, I've called the police, so you better back off!”

I looked at the woman in disbelief. “Are you crazy?” I shouted. “Get out of here!”

“Yeah, you're welcome,” the woman said. She actually sounded offended. “Not like I'm helping you or anything. Now
you
”—she turned back to the air mage—“you going to beat it, or do I have to get serious?”

The air mage studied her for a second. Other people had turned to watch too, and for an instant everything was still. Then the mage flicked one hand and air struck out in a hammer blow. It smashed into the woman with the distinctive
crack
of breaking bones and threw her twenty feet down the tunnel, sending her rolling over and over to lie still.

Someone screamed and suddenly the platform was chaos, people running, dodging, getting out of the way. The air mage started advancing towards me again, glass crunching under his boots. “That,” I said tightly, “was not necessary.”

The mage didn't answer. He was still studying me from behind his glasses, and the air blade was by his side again. He'd obviously figured out that I was hurt, and he was intending to get in close to finish the job.

There.
To my right, people were running onto the train at the platform. Behind me I could sense a man in an orange TFL vest staring down at the activity, and he was next to the train's control panel. DLR trains don't have drivers, but they do have a manual override. All of a sudden I had a plan. “You know what, screw it,” I said. “This isn't worth dying for.” I pulled a pouch from my pocket.

The air mage paused, studying me. The pouch was the one I use for my condensers, padded to stop them from breaking. There was one left, still inside, a marble-shaped item about the same size and shape as the focus I'd found last night. I let him get a brief look at it, and then from behind me I sensed the TFL man hit the button and I moved.

The air mage's hand came up and another spell flashed down the platform. He'd been expecting me to run for the train, but I hadn't; I'd thrown the
pouch
into the train, and the shards of hardened air crossed paths with it midflight. It landed on the train floor and skidded, just as the doors closed behind it with a thump. With a whine of electrics the train started to move.

The air mage looked between me and the train. “Now what?” I said. I had to speak loudly over the rumble of wheels. “You can get me, or you can go after that focus. But
you stay to finish me and that focus'll be gone by the time you catch up.” I stepped back. “Which is it going to be?”

The air mage hesitated and I held my breath, feeling the futures swirl ahead of us. So many things could go wrong. He should have had just enough time to sense the magic from the condenser, but if he'd gotten a good enough look at that pouch before the doors cut his magesight off, he would have seen that it wasn't the right one. Or I might have guessed wrong and it was me he was after. Or maybe—

Then the air mage gave one quick shake of his head and started running down the platform. I scrambled for cover, but he sprinted right past, matching the train's speed and then leaping off the platform. The jump was impossibly high and graceful, arcing through the air to land with a
thump
on the train's roof. I had a last glimpse of him straightening, holding his balance easily on the rocking carriage, before starting to walk towards where I'd thrown the pouch. He didn't look back.

I watched the train pull away into the distance, running lights fading into the sea of neon. Only when I was sure that he wasn't coming back did I sigh and relax. I was hurting in a dozen places, and now that the adrenaline was fading away, I was realising just how bad the wound in my side was. Blood had soaked through my shirt and coat, and I was starting to feel light-headed.

I looked at where the woman was lying. She wasn't moving, and that was enough to kill any satisfaction I felt at having escaped. From a quick check I could tell that she was alive but badly hurt. I didn't have anything that could help her, and I could hear sirens in the distance; the paramedics were on their way and the police would be too.
Time to go.
I turned and limped away, looking for somewhere out of sight where I could gate home.

“H
old still.”

“Ow.”

“I said, hold
still
.”

I was back in my flat, lying on my side on the sofa. My shirt was off, and Anne was leaning over, studying me.

“You're sure it was just hardened air?” Anne asked. “He wasn't using something else as a missile?”

“I didn't exactly get the chance to—”

“Don't lift your head.”

I obeyed, putting my head back down on the sofa and talking to the floor. “Pretty sure. There isn't . . . ?”

“There's nothing in the wound. I just wanted to be sure.” I heard Anne sigh slightly. “You were lucky.”

“Doesn't feel like it.”

It was about fifteen minutes later. I'd gated home, called Anne, and had been lucky enough to get her on the phone. She'd used a gate stone to make the journey to my flat immediately.

Other members of the magical community have mixed feelings towards life mages, viewing them rather as they would nuclear reactors. They're good at what they do, but
you don't want to get close to one unless you're
really
sure it's safe. Given Anne's history, very few mages would willingly allow her within arm's reach. I never used to really get that attitude, but after last year, I think I understand it a little. I still don't share it though. I've always instinctively trusted Anne, and as soon as she'd arrived, I'd felt myself relax.

“I'm serious,” Anne said. Her sleeves were rolled up but she hadn't touched me. Anne can look at a living body and read its condition and injuries and state of health as easily as you or I can read a clock. “You were
really
lucky. The shard must have been almost flat—it went deep but it didn't have much volume. That's the only reason it didn't hit anything vital. An inch or two up or sideways and it would have penetrated the kidney or the bowel.”

“Is that bad?”

“What do you
think
?” Anne said in exasperation. “There's muscle damage, internal bleeding, and you've got some bacterial contamination.”

“Oh.” I paused. “Uh, can you . . . ?”

“Can I?”

“Fix it?”

“Of course.” Anne sounded surprised. “Did you think I couldn't?”

“Okay.”

“When you were stabbed in the casino it was with a sword, and it was a stomach rupture,” Anne said. I felt her hand on my side; she was touching the skin around the wound, but it didn't hurt. Soft green light glowed at the edge of my vision as Anne started to weave her spell. “
That
was hard. The thicker the blade and the more tearing it causes, the worse it is to treat—the really bad ones are the ones where the blade's serrated or where it was twisted and pulled out. Air blades are easy. They're nearly flat, and they're so sharp they're like surgical knives. Plus they just dissolve in the wound . . . Move your arm up.”

I did. “Would you have trouble with injuries like that?”

“Like what?”

“Where the blade's serrated or twisted.”

“Well, no. But it takes longer.”

I couldn't feel anything on my side. Anne was still using her magic, but I couldn't tell what she was doing. “Is there anything you
can't
heal?”

“Not really.” Anne's voice was absentminded. “I always think of it like a flame. As long as there's a spark left, you can build it up . . . There. Done.”

I looked down in surprise. The ugly gash in my side was gone. Blood was still crusted over it, but underneath the skin was clean and unbroken; I couldn't even see where I'd been hurt. “Wow,” I said. “I didn't feel anything.”

“I had the signals from your local nerves turned off.”

“Don't you have to worry about a patient suddenly getting up when you do that?”

“Actually, I was controlling your movements as well.”

“Oh.”

“You just didn't notice because you weren't fighting it. Could you get up and move around?”

I did. I felt a little light-headed, but no more. “Looks good,” Anne said. She didn't wait for me to tell her how it felt; she probably knew better than I did. “Oh, and you had some bruises and sprains, so I fixed those too. Some were from today and a couple looked like you did them yesterday evening. You didn't get attacked twice, did you?”

“No, the first time was a sparring match.” I worked my arm; it felt good as new. “Are all life mages this good at healing, or is it just you?”

Anne smiled. “I've had a lot of practice. Is there any food in the house?”

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I
showered and changed my clothes. I felt
really
good; I must have been carrying a bunch of minor injuries that I hadn't noticed until Anne fixed them. By the time I stepped out of the shower I could smell something very appetising coming from the kitchen and my stomach growled. “Wow,” I said as I walked in. “Smells good.”

“It's a stir-fry with tuna.” Anne was over the stove; she'd
washed the blood from her hands. “Sorry, there were only so many things in the fridge so it'll be a bit makeshift.”

“Knowing you, it'll still be better than anything I could come up with.”

“That's not saying much.”

I laughed. Anne never used to say things like that out loud, but she's a lot more relaxed around me these days. “There's a catch, you know,” Anne said.

“With tuna?”

“What you were asking. About whether I can heal anything.” Anne had turned to look at me and her face was serious again. “I have to be there. If I'm next to someone, I can bring them back, no matter how close they are. But if you bleed out, or if that shard had hit you in the brain or the heart . . .”

“I know.”

“This was why I wanted you to have a gate stone for my flat.”

“You've got one for here. It works out about the same.”

“What if I hadn't answered my phone?”

“I'd have had to think of something else,” I admitted. “But you're pretty good about that kind of thing.”

“That's because you never ask for help unless it's something incredibly serious.” Anne had been opening a can; now she drained off the water and poured the contents into a frying pan with a hiss. “Um, by the way, don't you have a set of armour?”

I sighed.

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L
una and Variam arrived just as Anne was finishing up; she'd called them and given them the news, which come to think of it was something I should have done myself. They took a little time catching up on the story, then once they were sure I was okay, promptly started critiquing my performance.

“So let me get this straight,” Luna said. “You have a set of imbued armour designed specifically to stop attacks like this one, and you left it at home.”

“Yes.”

“Because you forgot to wear it.”

“I didn't forget, I just didn't realise I was going to get attacked.”

“Even though you're a diviner.”

“. . . Yes.”

Variam and Luna shared a look. “You know,” Luna said, “I think that has got to be one of the stupidest possible ways to get killed.”

“Yeah, seriously,” Variam said. “What's the point of having armour if you're not going to use it?”

“It's
armour
,” I said. “I can't walk around London every minute of the day looking like I'm going to a SWAT raid. Anyway, I didn't think it was going to be dangerous.”

Variam stared. “You didn't think a police investigation could be dangerous?”

“Well, none of the others have been.”

Variam and Luna looked at me.

“All right! It was stupid, I get it. Look, you don't have to worry about this stuff. You can just throw up a shield whenever you feel like it.”

“Honestly, doesn't work as well as you'd think,” Variam said. “I can dispel anything that's magic, but not if they just shoot through.”

“And I can't shield either,” Luna said. “So none of us can really. Though I guess Anne can do the ‘healer's shield.'”

“Healer's shield?”

“You let them shoot you, then you heal yourself.”

“I'd rather not,” Anne said mildly. “It still hurts.”

Anne had made enough for about six normal people, which was just as well since I was starving—one of the side effects of life magic healing. I wasn't the only one, either. “I wish I could eat that much and stay that thin,” Luna told Anne.

“I don't really have a choice, you know.”

“Yeah, but you still get to pick how much goes into body fat. That would be
so
—”

“Okay,” Variam said. “I'm preemptively cutting you both
off before you start talking about your diets. What are we going to do about this assassin guy?”

Luna and Anne turned to me. “Right now, not much,” I said. “He's long gone and we don't have any way to trace him. I'm going to call Caldera in the morning.”

“What if
he
traces
you
?” Luna asked.

“Then we'll just have to see who finds who first.”

“Do you still have it?” Anne said.

I went to my desk and took out the focus, returning to the dinner table to put it down in the centre. “So that's the thing you nearly got killed for?” Luna asked, studying the green marble with interest.

“Looks that way. You guys seen one of these before?”

“If I had, it would have been on your shelves,” Luna said.

Anne had picked the focus up and was studying it curiously. She shook her head. “I don't recognise it.”

“I do,” Variam said.

Luna and I looked at Variam in surprise. “Really?” Luna said.

“You don't need to sound so bloody shocked.”

“You've seen one?” I asked.

“It was a different colour, but yeah, I think so. My master was doing something with it.”

“Doing what?”

“Dunno,” Variam admitted. “Wasn't paying attention.”

“You and Luna have a lot in common, don't you?”

“Hey,” Luna said to me, then looked at Variam. “Could you show it to him?”

Variam shrugged. “Got a lesson tomorrow. I can ask him then.”

Anne glanced at me. “Is that okay?”

I thought about it for a second. Variam can look after himself pretty well, and having the focus up in Scotland with his master would probably be safer than keeping it here. It did mean trusting Variam's master with the information, but it wasn't like the thing was doing any good sitting in my desk. “All right. Call us when you know anything?”

“No problem.”

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W
e talked a little longer, but it was past midnight and it wasn't long before everyone was yawning. Anne decided to stay over (she said she wanted to keep an eye on me). Luna wanted to go home but didn't want to cycle back this late, so Variam gave her a lift. By the time I went to bed, the aftereffects of the healing had sunk in, and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I woke up to a tickling feeling. Something thin and light was brushing the side of my face; I twisted away and buried my head in the pillow and duvet. There was a moment's pause, and I had just enough time to vaguely register a presence on the bed before something round and cold was shoved into my ear.

I woke with a yelp and opened my eyes to see a long face with red-brown fur and a pointed muzzle ending in a black nose. The eyes were yellow and less than six inches away, and they were staring right at me.

I glared. “Will you stop doing that?”

The fox pulled its head back and sat on the bed, blinking twice at me. “Alex?” Anne called from the kitchen. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” I called back. “Just Hermes.” Apparently satisfied that I wasn't going back to sleep, the fox jumped off the bed, trotted to the door, then looked back at me expectantly.

Hermes is a blink fox, a magic-bred creature with human-level intelligence and the ability to perform short-range teleports. I met him last year at about the same time that I ran into Richard, and after making it out of the shadow realm he followed me home. Ever since then he's dropped by at irregular intervals, expecting a meal. I probably shouldn't have fed him the first time.

Finding out the fox's name had been less straightforward than you'd think, since while blink foxes can understand human speech, they can't talk. Luna had wanted to name him Vulpix, but I'd put my foot down and gone to Arachne instead. After a private conversation with the fox, Arachne
had told me to call him Hermes, though she'd been evasive about how she'd found out. “Seriously?” I said. “You want me to feed you
now
?”

Hermes blinked.

Grumbling, I got up and dressed. Anne was already in the kitchen when I got there, cooking something on the stove. “Morning,” she said. “Hi, Hermes.”

“'Scuse a sec,” I said. Anne moved out of the way and I opened a cupboard, rooting through the cans. “You didn't see how he got in, did you?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Goddamn it.” I pulled out a can of cat food. “I have gate wards specifically to
stop
stuff like this.”

“Um, I don't think he wants the cat food,” Anne said. “He'd rather have some of the bacon.”

“How do you know?”

There was a soft
thump
. I turned around to see Hermes sitting up on the kitchen counter, tail curled around his feet. He was ignoring me and looking at Anne. “Just a guess,” Anne said.

“We don't have any bacon.”

“I bought some this morning.”

I glared at the fox. “Why exactly did you wake me up again?”

“Maybe he just thinks you sleep in too much.”