Then Anne took a ragged breath.
I looked down at her for one second before my reflexes kicked in. I knelt, got my arms under her, and lifted her up. Anne cried out in pain as I did, and the men’s voices suddenly fell silent. I knew what was coming and hauled Anne into the lift.
Clack-clack-clack went the silenced guns, along with a crunch as bullets tore into the brickwork where I’d been standing. I hit the button inside the lift marked 2. With my arms holding Anne I couldn’t reach the button without jolting her as well, and she cried out again. “Doors closing,” the mechanical voice said loudly.
The men outside heard that and knew what it meant. I felt them shift their aim to track the sound and I stepped right. Clack-clack went the guns, followed by a spannng! as a bullet ricocheted around the metal interior of the lift, missing me once, twice, three times before dropping to the floor. The lift doors ground shut and I felt the shudder as it accelerated upwards.
I had a few spare seconds to look over Anne, and as I did my heart sank. There were a half dozen holes in her pullover and around them the grey wool was turning reddish black. My shirt was already wet with her blood and she was sprawled in my arms with her head back, her breath slow and rattling. I don’t know much about first aid, but she looked bad.
The lift decelerated and came to a stop. There was a wait that felt like an hour but could only have been two or three seconds, then the doors ground open. “Second floor,” the recording said clearly. “Please mind the step.”
Whoever had designed the block of flats had obviously worked to a clear set of priorities. Unfortunately, while cost, size, and low-maintenance had made it to the top of the list, aesthetics, good escape routes, and shelter from gunfire hadn’t. The lift came out at one end of a walkway with a concrete balustrade and a railing. Twenty flats were spaced evenly along the walkway, and at the far end was another lift. The walkway was a dead straight line with no place to hide and thirty feet below was the concrete of the car park. I’d never make it past all twenty flats and to the other lift before the men behind caught us. And if I went back down I’d run into them even faster. Unless I could fly, there were no other ways out.
Well, if we couldn’t get out, we’d have to get in.
I moved quickly along the walkway from door to door, scanning the futures. Flat 301-locked. Flat 302-locked. Flat 303-double locked. Flat 304-I stopped and flipped the mat to reveal a key. There’s always one.
From the stairs behind came the sound of pounding feet, and I hissed between my teeth. These guys were fast. I set Anne down as gently as I could and moved back to the stairs. The entry to the stairwell was a swing door with no handles that opened both ways. The walkway was narrow and I knew that the landing behind the door would be narrow too. I braced myself against the railing, listened to the feet pounding up the stairs towards me, and just as the man on the other side reached the top of the stairs I stamp-kicked the door as hard as I could.
My foot encountered the door from one side just as the man reached it from the other, and there was a judder and a satisfying crunch as the door was introduced to the man’s face. The door came off better in the exchange. The man staggered away, the door began to swing back towards me, and I kicked the door again.
This time the man didn’t have any momentum to keep him upright and the door smacked him off the top of the flight of stairs. I had one glimpse of him going down the stairs in a whirl of arms and legs, the second man’s face turned upwards, eyes startled as he saw what was about to hit him, then the door swung back towards me and I darted back to where I’d left Anne.
I could hear shouts from the stairwell but I knew I’d bought myself a few more seconds. The key turned in the lock and I carried Anne inside, gritting my teeth as she made an animal sound of pain. Those bullets had torn her up inside. If we kept moving I’d be killing her just as surely as those men.
The flat was scattered with dirty clothes and bits of audio equipment, but it was empty. I kicked the door shut, muffling the noises from outside, then carried Anne into the bedroom and set her down on the bed as gently as I could. Her skin had gone an ashen colour and the whole front of her body was soaked with blood.
Anne should be dead. She’d been shot in the body seven times and even if I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds I know that’s not something you’re supposed to walk away from. But she wasn’t dead yet and that gave me a bit of hope. Whatever had kept her alive this long, maybe it could last a little longer.
As I looked at Anne I realised there was some kind of magic working around her, something subtle and hard to see. But I didn’t have time to take a closer look and Anne was too far gone to hear anything I could say, so I left her there and went up the carpeted stairs.
The flat had two levels, and the bedroom on the upper storey had a window that looked down onto the walkway from which I’d entered. I pressed myself against the wall, and as I did I saw the men through the glass, coming out from the stairwell. They were moving more cautiously this time, their guns up and scanning the length of the walkway. The first one looked to be moving stiffly from where I’d hit him, and the second had a bloody nose, but it wasn’t slowing them down much. They looked at the empty walkway and conferred.
I’d known as soon as I saw the walkway that the only place to hide had been in one of the flats. Unfortunately, it looked like the men had figured that out too. As I watched they seemed to come to a decision and moved to the first flat along, 301. One covered the walkway while another worked on the lock. The door opened and they disappeared inside.
They were searching the flats.
Crap.
What should I do?
I could use a gate stone. In my left pocket I had what I call my GTFO stone, a gate-magic focus that’s keyed to a safe house in Wales. Gate stones aren’t fast, but I was pretty sure I could make it out in time.
But I couldn’t bring Anne with me. My magic can’t affect the physical world without a focus, and even with a focus I’m terribly weak. A few months ago I’d tried to take the body of a humanoid construct through a gate stone portal, and the body had ended up in three pieces. That hadn’t mattered for the construct. It would matter a lot for Anne.
As I looked through the futures I saw that the men would take no more than two minutes to search each flat. The men were three flats away. Two minutes times three meant that I had six minutes to come up with something.
So far I’d been hoping that if I put the men off balance and stung them enough they’d pull back to regroup. As I kept watching I saw that it wasn’t going to work. These guys were too tough and too committed. They were planning to kill both me and Anne and the longer this went on the better the odds that they’d manage it.
Below, the men came out of 301 and moved to 302. Again they went to work on the door, and again they slipped inside.
I was running out of time.
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. .”
Taken av-3 Page 5