“This is it,” I said, “If I can get us past this, then there’s only the door to deal with.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s any kind of electronic locking mechanism, just an old fashioned one.”
“And I don’t have the key, but I’m counting on being able to pick it.”
“You’re counting on it?”
“Yeah, I mean… it’s no biggie.”
“No biggie?”
I scowled at him. “Okay, this isn’t gonna work if you’re just gonna repeat what I say in the form of a question. Just follow my lead, and make sure no one follows us in here. I’m only gonna get one shot at unlocking this thing.”
“What happens if you fail?”
I shut my eyes and listened to the ward, feeling my way through its internal workings, learning what spells had been used to build it. I almost wished I hadn’t. It turned out our Magister, the person in charge of our government, of our rules, had no problem in violating the Magus Codice. Like, at all.
“Uh…” I trailed off.
“What is it?”
“It’s probably better if you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
I paused. “Summoning demons is illegal, right?”
Axel stared at me, his eyes widening. “Yes…?”
“Okay, there may or may not be a demon hiding in this apartment. And it may or may not jump out of hiding and skin us alive if this thing triggers… so… let me concentrate. I’ve got this.”
I watched all the blood drain from his face. Demons were no joke, as I’d learned back at the Becket job. Containing them inside of objects didn’t violate our mage laws. Summoning them and keeping them as pets, did.
“We’ve also got five minutes before RJ reaches the roof,” Axel said, running his hand down his face. “Shit. None of this is looking good.”
“Okay, just relax and cover me.”
Axel took his position behind me, watching the way we’d just come through while I prepared myself to break the ward in front of me. I cracked my fingers, took three deep breaths, and then began drawing symbols in the air with my fingertips.
It was easy at first; the combinations weren’t difficult to follow. But it was like playing that old game where you had to tap an increasingly challenging sequence of lights until, eventually, it got too complicated and you just lost. Nobody ever won at that game. Ever. If you wanted to break wards like I did, though? You had to win; and you only got one shot. Otherwise the ward would trigger, and then a demon would come out to play.
And demons were relentless assholes, too—you needed a Demonologist’s help if you wanted to shake one off. There was no way around that.
I heard Axel speak, but his words didn’t register in my brain. I was too focused on what I was doing, too busy trying to make sure I didn’t get us both skinned alive. I should’ve told him to keep quiet, but then again, Axel was a clever guy. He wouldn’t have spoken to me unless he thought he really needed to.
I’d just missed an important piece of information. I knew I had. But I’d started the process, and I had to finish it.
The ward continued to whisper to me, and I followed its instructions with pinpoint accuracy. Not once did I break or mistake the lines I was supposed to trace in the air. I watched them manifest in front of me as tiny streaks of light that followed the path created by my fingers, only to disappear after a few seconds.
Then came the hardest part of all; the part where the ward refused to give me the last piece of its puzzle. This was a failsafe only incredibly talented mages could install in their wards. Most mages worth their salt could create combinations to make their wards more powerful, but only mages like Eliphas could install, basically, a fingerprint system into their protections.
With a deep breath, I was able to summon his essence up from inside of me and push it into my fingertips. It felt like a kind of tingle slowly moving from the pit of my stomach all the way up my chest, my arm, and into my hand, then into the finger I needed to use to draw in the last symbol.
I couldn’t see the symbol in my mind. Instead I let Eliphas’ essence guide my hand, to make it move as his would’ve moved. It was like forging a signature, it needed to be entirely perfect. And it was. As soon as the last sigil was in place, the ward’s potent wall that had once felt solid disappeared. I wasn’t sure how long we had until its power came back up, but I knew it wouldn’t be more than about three minutes.
And that was being generous.
I grabbed Axel’s hand and pulled him past the threshold, throwing myself at the door and pulling pins out of my hair to start working on the lock. “Count down from three minutes,” I said.
“What? Okay, two minutes fifty-nine. Two minutes fifty-eight.”
“In your head!”
“Right, got it.”
“That’s how long we have before that thing powers up again and I have to repeat the process to get out. I’d rather not have to do that, thank you very much.”
The lock was old, but tricky. It resisted my attempts at picking it way more than a regular lock would’ve. “Dammit,” I cursed, “It’s being difficult. This shouldn’t be happening.”
“Two minutes forty-three. What can I do?”
“Do you happen to have the key to this lock?
“No…”
“Alright, hang on,” I said, reaching into my clutch.
“What are you going to do?”
“Something un-subtle that could get us caught. Any objections?”
He shook his head, then went back to keeping a lookout. “None. You do what you’ve got to do.”
I reached into the bag and pulled out a small tube filled with blue powder. I hadn’t wanted to have to use this, but I didn’t see another way in. I couldn’t pick the lock, and I didn’t have a key. It was a puzzle that required finesse to solve, but I didn’t see a choice other than to use brute force.
“Stand back,” I said.
Axel stepped away from the door. I emptied the powder onto my hand, aimed it at the door handle, and blew. The glittering blue dust turned to lightning that streaked from my fingers and slammed into the door, causing the locking mechanism fill with electricity and break under the pressure.
The air reeked of burned metal and the lock was smashed, but the sound had been little more than an electric snap. I didn’t think anyone had heard. Sure, a big part of me expected the hallway to fill with Legionnaires right about now, but Danvers’ magic powders were undetectable to mage senses. They’d worked fine so far. Why would this one be any different?
I reached for the handle and gripped it. My heart was pounding so hard now, it was difficult to hear anything around me. It was like all the blood in my body was rushing to my head, creating a thrumming bass-line to go with this entire infiltration attempt.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Two minutes five,” Axel said. “Let’s hurry this up.”
Nodding, I turned the handle and pushed the door open. The air inside was cold, like a cave. It was dark, too. I couldn’t see a thing. Grabbing another spell from the clutch and blowing the dust into the air summoned a little ball of silvery light, taking my mind back to that night at Becket’s sanctum.
I remembered how the light had bounced off glass panels, old chalices, and metal surfaces making the whole place look like a dragon’s hoard. As the light moved deeper into Eliphas’ vault, I kept eagerly awaiting the moment where it would touch the drowned queen’s coins, her artifacts, wondering how brightly they’d shine, how their light would fill the room.
But that moment never came… because the vault was empty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Fuck.”
The word fell on the back of a sigh. My light was doing its best to find a surface to reflect off, but… nothing. There was nothing in there, only a hollowed-out chunk of black marble as cold as a refrigerator.
“This can’t be right,” I said, stepping past the door. “It just can’t be. Where is it?”
<
br /> “I don’t know,” Axel said.
“Where is it!” I yelled, but my voice didn’t carry into the deep—it was like the darkness itself was swallowing it up.
Already I was picturing the many different ways in which Asmodius could kill me. And not just me, but RJ, Danvers, Karim. The vault was empty. That meant I’d failed. That meant my life, as of right now, was forfeit.
Axel moved slowly up beside me, scanning the darkness that started to feel deeper the further in you went. I almost couldn’t see my ball of light anymore. When I’d summoned it, it had been as bright as a lightbulb. Now it was smaller than a firefly, aimlessly buzzing around until, eventually, it fizzled out and disappeared entirely.
“How is this possible?” I asked. “Why spend so much time and effort putting up a ward to protect an empty room?”
“I don’t know, but we have less than two minutes before the ward comes back up.”
“Fuck the ward! If I leave this room without Eliphas’ treasures, your father is gonna kill me. At least with the ward functioning I’ll have a demon between me and him.”
That seemed to shut him up. I couldn’t see his face anymore, not that I was looking at him. The only light available in here was the rectangle spilling in through the open door, and it wasn’t good for much except to know where the door was. I guess that was important, but I’d come here to find Eliphas’ treasures, and I wasn’t leaving without them.
“Izzy,” Axel grabbed my arm. “We have to go.”
I shrugged out of his hold and reached out to the Tempest, charging my body with magic. To hell with subtlety. Every good thief knew there often came a time when you needed to kick the door down in a hurry instead of trying to pick the lock.
This was that time.
The roiling, vicious power of the Tempest filled me, making my chest vibrate. My right hand lit up, coils of purple magic curling around it. I wound back my arm like a New York Yankee about to throw the best fast-ball of his career, and hurled a bolt of lightning into the darkness.
Streaks of lightning raced from my fingertips and screamed across the vault, lighting it up far better than the tiny ball I’d summoned a moment ago. I thought they would keep going until they hit the wall on the other side, but they struck something much, much closer to me than that. An invisible wall.
Axel shielded his eyes. The wall shimmered as my magic slammed against it, and through that moment of connection, I found myself able to feel just how fragile it was. I kept pushing, kept pumping my power into it, gritting my teeth from the effort until, the wall shattered into a million glittering sparks of light that fell like tiny hailstones onto the ground.
Panting, I pulled my hand back and snuffed the lightning out. The air was warm and charged with magic, and if no one had felt the magic stunt I’d pulled at the door a moment ago, I was sure someone had just felt that. At least the invisible wall was gone… and now there was something in the vault.
It wasn’t a dragon’s hoard. It wasn’t a mountain of gold coins, or entire stacks of priceless, ancient magical artifacts. It was a simple marble podium, about chest height. On it there were a number of shimmering gold coins, and next to them, a black box.
Axel put his hand down and stared at the podium. “How did you know you had to do that?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” I said, already walking over to the podium. “I was just pissed.”
“They know we’re here, now. There’s no way no one felt that.”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe? You just opened up—”
“—I know what I did, and I said maybe. Maybe the anti-magic wards in the ballroom are dulling the Legionnaires’ senses enough that they can’t feel what’s going on back here. I wish I knew, but I just don’t have an answer. We’re gonna have to roll with it.”
I reached the podium, rolling a ball of light into my hand as I arrived. On the podium were more of the drowned queen’s coins, eight of them in fact. I recognized them instantly. Axel picked one up and examined it like he knew how to tell a real from a fake. And maybe he did, for all I knew. My interest, however, wasn’t on the coins—but on the box.
It was a simple box. Not made of marble, like I’d thought, but old, black wood. It was in near perfect condition, with only the slightest of scuff marks and parts where it had been chipped. Carefully, I brought my fingers closer and closer to it. I could feel magic radiating from the box, like a field of heat that didn’t burn but only made the air around it vibrate.
I couldn’t sense any wards around the box itself, but there was magic at work around it. Probably a protection spell to keep it from decaying, especially considering that, carved into the box, were more of the same symbols I’d seen on the drowned queen’s coins. A ring of them surrounded a perfectly lined pentagram, inside of which I noticed another symbol; a half-circle with what looked like a series of towers rising to touch its rounded edge.
“Ashelor,” I whispered, “The shining city… this is hers.”
“The coins are real, too. But there’s nothing else in here. Where is it all?”
“I don’t know… but I think I can open the box.”
“There’s no time for that right now, Izzy. We have less than one minute before that ward comes back up. We need to leave.”
He grabbed my arm, and this time I didn’t shrug out of his grip. Instead, I opened the clutch bag, grabbed the box, and stuffed it inside. Axel picked up the coins and tossed them in, too.
When we were done, I shut the bag, turned around, and took a step toward the door… then I froze. Three people had entered the vault, their silhouettes breaking the light filtering through behind them. My heart lunged into my throat and stayed there, pulsing hard and fast. I knew exactly what was happening before any of them had spoken, and I couldn’t fucking believe it.
“Hello,” Rattigan said.
“You have got to be kidding me!” I yelled.
“Surprised? I am, too. I honestly never thought you’d make it this far. But we were rooting for you, weren’t we boys?”
Dolf and Randy chuckled like the dullards they were.
“Oh please,” I said, “You were banking on me getting this far. You idiots couldn’t break a ward even if I gave you the combination myself.”
“You know these people?” Axel asked.
“Axel, I’d like you to meet Rattigan and the Mystic Trio.”
“It’s Hartigan!” Rattigan yelled, his voice rising an octave. He composed himself. “But that doesn’t matter now… give me the bag, and I’ll give you the courtesy of a swift death.”
“That’s it? That’s your negotiating power? Man, you guys really do suck at… all of this, don’t you?”
“We got here, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, on my coattails. Why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re doing here? How did you even know this was happening?”
“We have friends in high places. Friends who knew we would be able to get the job done.”
“Tick tock,” Dolf said. They must have been listening in this whole time and knew how long we had left. How hadn’t we seen them?
“Right,” Rattigan corrected himself. “Give me the box, now.”
I stared at him. “No.”
“No?”
“No. In fact, you guys have three seconds to back off, otherwise we’re gonna have no choice but to carve a path through you.”
“And what makes you think we’re gonna just let you get out of here?”
“Because the last time we squared off I beat all three of your asses on my own. Do you know who the guy standing next to me is?”
Rattigan paused, flicked his eyes over at Axel, then back to me. “Of course, I know who he is. I’m not stupid.”
“Good. Then you know just how slim your chances of beating us are.”
“I’m tired of listening to this bitch talk,” Dolf groaned, then he wound back his arm and hurled a bolt of magic directly at me… and then it was on.
I pulled my
shield hand up just as his magic struck me and deflected his spell away. Axel stepped forward, firing a spell at Rattigan, but he was able to catch and deflect that one. I swapped hands with the clutch, holding it with my shield hand so I could attack with my sword. Randy was my target, and I charged at him.
He banked to the left and shot a streak of red lightning at me. I couldn’t deflect it, so instead I leapt into the air, twisting my body in such a way that the magic would streak harmlessly below me, and then landed again… on my high heels. Randy’s eyes went wide, stunned at what I’d just been able to pull. When I shot a stunning spell at him, he was too slow to block it.
Randy went down hard, slamming against the marble floor as sparks of lightning arced around his convulsing body. Axel struck Dolf with a spell that knocked out all of his senses. He staggered back, suddenly unable to see, or hear, or even speak, and eventually fell to the floor.
The only one left now was Rattigan, and he was trembling.
“What was the plan, Rattigan?” I asked, advancing on him with Axel by my side. “Were you seriously betting on trying to beat us?”
“I don’t need to beat you,” he said. “I only need to make sure you don’t get out.”
“How long?” I asked Axel.
“Twelve seconds…”
And that was assuming I’d been accurate in my three-minute estimate.
Rattigan grinned, his hands charging with magic, ready to attack and defend. The only way out of here was through him, and I had to do it fast. I glanced at my clutch bag, then I looked over at Rattigan, and I tossed the clutch at him.
“Catch!” I yelled.
Rattigan took his eyes off me and brought his hands up to catch the bag. I dashed toward him at top speed and smashed into him seconds before the clutch touched his fingers. We both tumbled to the ground and rolled until we were inches away from the ward’s edge. Axel had grabbed the clutch, and as he ran past me, he grabbed my hand and helped me negotiate my way to the other side of the ward with only milliseconds to spare.
Heart of the Thief Page 18