Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952)

by Jacka, Benedict

  Belthas was standing thirty feet away, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked relaxed. Of course, he had a lot to be relaxed about.

  About ten men from Belthas’s private army were standing in a loose semicircle on either side of Belthas, surrounding Luna and me. They were wearing body armour and carried submachine guns. The guns were pointed almost at the two of us so that we couldn’t quite stare down the barrels but could imagine very easily what it would be like. All of them were looking at us with flat, unreadable expressions. Seeing them up close in the light, they looked tough and competent. They did not look friendly or nice.

  Garrick was in the circle too. Unlike the other men, he was standing at ease with his weapon hanging from its sling, though I had the feeling he could probably get a shot off faster than any of them. Unlike the others, he gave me a nod. A few more of Belthas’s men were scattered around the lair, including two stationed at the tunnel leading out to the Heath.

  Meredith and Martin were there too, a little way behind Belthas. Meredith was sitting on one of the few remaining chairs; she didn’t meet my eyes. Martin was standing with arms folded, looking pleased with himself. All told, there were a little under twenty people facing us. None of them looked like they wanted to be our friends.

  Arachne’s lair had been the site of a short, vicious battle. A few of the sofas and tables had been smashed into firewood, and many more bore the marks of spells or weapons fire. Dresses and coats had been slashed and burnt, then gathered up and piled carelessly in stacks. The centre of the room had been cleared, the clothes and furniture shunted up against the walls.

  Arachne was next to the dressing rooms. She was lying motionless on the floor, her vast bulk still, watched over by two guards. Something glinted at the back of her head. At the sight of Arachne, my fear vanished in a wave of anger. I turned to Belthas. “Verus,” Belthas said.

  I stared at him.

  “I trust you’re feeling better?”

  “You’ve tried to kill me twice in as many days,” I said. “Drop the act.”

  Belthas raised his eyebrows. “You know,” I said, “there’s just one thing I’m curious about. How’d you know the monkey’s paw would pick Martin?”

  Martin stiffened slightly, looking from me to Belthas. “Ah,” Belthas said. “That was merely a matter of adapting to circumstances.”

  “And you just took advantage.”

  Belthas inclined his head.

  “So that’s why you ordered those assassination attempts,” I said. “You had Meredith and Martin to work on the two of us. But once Martin picked up that item, you didn’t need me anymore. He would have phoned you on … what, Saturday night?” I saw Martin start. “And by Sunday morning you had Garrick ready to shoot me. You don’t waste time, do you?”

  “I’m impressed, Verus,” Belthas said. “But you’ve misinterpreted events slightly.”

  “Why are we even talking to this guy?” Martin said.

  “Shush, Martin,” I said. “Adults are talking.”

  “Shut up,” Martin said with a sneer. “Me and Luna couldn’t stop laughing about you, you know that? Having something like this and being too scared to use it.”

  “How can you say that?” Luna’s voice was shaking. “I thought you cared about me! How could you do this?”

  Martin turned away with a shrug. “Martin, you’re stupid,” I said.

  “Yeah? Then how come we’ve got a bunch of guns pointed at you?”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re stupid. For a start, you keep saying ‘we.’ You’re not Belthas’s partner, you’re his minion. You’re stupid enough to use the monkey’s paw after I told you the truth about it. And you’re stupid enough to keep being Belthas’s minion and keep using the monkey’s paw even after being told that it’ll kill you. In fact, you’re so stupid that I can tell you all this to your face and Belthas won’t stop me because he knows you’re too much of an idiot to know when you’re being told the truth. He can just wait for you to get yourself killed without lifting a finger.”

  Belthas raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Martin had been listening with his mouth half-open and he started to say something or other but I turned on Meredith before he could finish. “And you. Lying really is a way of life to you, isn’t it?”

  Meredith stared at me. “Excuse me?”

  “That was what Belthas told you to do, wasn’t it? Manipulate me.”

  Meredith’s eyes narrowed. “Get over yourself.”

  “I trusted you!”

  “No, you didn’t. You never let me in—you don’t trust anyone. You’re the coldest man I’ve ever met.”

  My face twisted in a snarl. “As if you could—” Martin started to shout something and some of the men brought their guns up.

  “Quiet, please,” Belthas said, his voice cutting across the noise. He looked from side to side, eyebrows raised, until everyone had fallen silent. “I can understand you have reasons for disagreement but I think it would be best if you resolve your personal issues in your own time.”

  Martin glowered. Meredith looked away.

  “Now,” Belthas said once order had resumed. “Verus, I have an offer for you.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm,” Belthas said mildly. “As I was saying earlier, while your analysis is impressive, you’ve gone astray in one or two points. I haven’t given any instructions to kill you. In fact, I quite specifically instructed my men to make sure you were unharmed.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So those were the friendly kind of assassination attempts.”

  Belthas sighed. “Verus, you really should … how did Meredith put it? Get over yourself. Yes, your value was diminished once Martin reported his success. But do you really think that’s enough reason to order your death? I’m not a Dark mage. If I killed everyone who wasn’t useful to me, there wouldn’t be many people left.”

  I was silent. “Besides,” Belthas continued. “You’ve been of considerable assistance. It was due to you that we were able to capture Deleo. With her and Cinder on the loose, this would have been impossible.”

  “Feel free to express your gratitude.”

  “I’d be happy to. As I said, I have considerable influence with the Council. However, with that influence comes obligations.” Belthas gestured to the men around him. “It would hardly have been possible to arrange all this without some assistance. Fortunately, I was able to discover a Council member willing to act as a patron of sorts.”

  “Great. Who?”

  Belthas smiled slightly. “Come now, Verus. I’ve already explained that I’ve no wish to kill you. Who do you know on the Council who does?”

  I stared for a second—then my heart sank. “Shit.”

  “Yes,” Belthas said dryly. “Did you think he forgot?”

  I turned away. “Alex?” Luna said quietly.

  “Levistus,” I said. Things had just gone from bad to worse. I looked at Belthas. “So what? I was the price for his help?”

  “Actually, that’s quite an interesting story.” Belthas settled himself more comfortably. “I suspected from the start that it was Deleo and Cinder we were looking for, and given your past history, I immediately thought of you as the natural choice to find them. But when I suggested your name to Levistus, he was quite definite that you were not to be involved. Levistus is … less tolerant of unpredictability than I am.

  “It was the one sticking point in our arrangement. But we had only managed to acquire part of the ritual, and I knew that without Cinder and Deleo I would have no more success than they had had with that barghest. I needed one of them alive to interrogate and I was certain you were our best chance.” Belthas smiled again. “You played your role admirably.”

  I was silent.

  “Levistus, unfortunately, did not share my faith in your reliability,” Belthas continued. “Enough so that when he discovered your involvement, he ordered your immediate removal.” Belthas glanced sideways at Gar
rick. “Via someone whom I had been under the impression was working for me.”

  Garrick shrugged. “I was.”

  “I don’t believe your contract mentioned anything about freelancing.”

  “Didn’t say I wouldn’t, either.”

  Belthas sighed. “Yes, well. Smoothing that over took quite some work. Levistus assigned a second agent to the same task but fortunately you proved capable of dealing with that matter on your own. At least that unpleasantness at the factory had the advantage of persuading Levistus to reconsider. After some persuasion, he reluctantly agreed to a compromise.”

  I stood still. “A compromise.”

  “More a matter of reparation, really. You caused him a certain amount of loss in your last encounter.”

  “If he wants the fateweaver, he can get it himself.”

  “Interesting you should mention that,” Belthas said. “It was my first assumption too. But it seems that retrieving the fateweaver isn’t a priority for Levistus at the moment. Oh, he’d like it some day, but it’s not his primary concern. His grudge against you concerns the loss of his agents.”

  I hadn’t been the only one Levistus had sent to get the fateweaver. There had been two others: an earth mage called Griff and a bound elemental named Thirteen. Both had done their best to get rid of me and I hadn’t cooperated. “You know,” I said, “technically, I didn’t kill either of them.”

  “Ah?” Belthas said politely. “Well, you could raise that point with Levistus if you feel it would help.”

  I was silent.

  “I’m not explaining all this to you because I like the sound of my own voice, Verus. I’m doing it as a sign of good faith. You asked me a moment ago to show my gratitude. I did. I convinced Levistus to stop the attempts on your life, and believe me when I say it took quite some persuasion. What eventually changed his mind was realising that you still had something he wanted.”

  “Which is?”

  Belthas brought his hand from behind his back and tossed something to me, something small that glinted in the light. I caught it reflexively and looked down.

  It was a small cylindrical rod, made of glass, the same one I’d brought to the lair tonight. It was the focus I used to call Starbreeze.

  “He wants,” Belthas said, “a new elemental servant.”

  I looked down at the rod, then up at Belthas.

  “I’m sure there’s no need to spell it out for you,” Belthas said.

  “You want Starbreeze.”

  “Levistus does.”

  “You want me to call her,” I said, my voice flat. “So you can catch her.”

  “Yes.”

  “For Levistus?” I said. “You do what he tells you?”

  “Do pay attention, Verus,” Belthas said. “Levistus is acting as my patron in this matter. He’s been quite generous with his assistance. In return, when he asks a favour, he expects me to uphold my end of the bargain.”

  “What are you going to do with Starbreeze if you get her?”

  “That’s really none of your concern,” Belthas said. “Call the elemental here, and you and your apprentice will be free to go.”

  I remembered Levistus’s servant, the air elemental Thirteen. She’d been like and yet unlike Starbreeze, with all Starbreeze’s power yet none of her freedom, enslaved completely to Levistus’s will. The only expression I’d ever seen on her face had been surprise, just once, at the moment of her death. If Belthas were able to capture Starbreeze, the same would happen to her.

  “What did you do to Arachne?” I said.

  “The spider?” Belthas glanced back at her. “Stable, for the moment.”

  I looked across the room at Arachne. She hadn’t moved during the entire conversation, her eyes opaque and still, and I knew she was unconscious. Lying in the corner, with the guards watching over her, she somehow looked much smaller and more vulnerable. Most of the clothes around the room had been ripped or destroyed. The ones that had survived had been thrown carelessly in piles with none of the care that Arachne used.

  A wave of fury rose up in me. Arachne had never done any harm to anybody. All she’d ever done had been to sit here and weave her clothes. Her lair had been a peaceful place, a place where things were created. Belthas and his men had smashed their way in here and destroyed it, and now they were trying to do the same to Starbreeze too.

  “I hate to rush you,” Belthas said when I didn’t say anything, “but we have a schedule to keep.”

  “I’ll make you a counteroffer,” I said. “Let Arachne go. Then destroy the notes and the focuses you got from Deleo, and make sure nobody ever gets hold of it. Do that and I’ll keep working for you. Otherwise, I promise I’ll see you dead.”

  Several of the men laughed. “I’ll choose to attribute that remark to your stressful situation and not hold it against you,” Belthas said. “The elemental, Verus.”

  I looked him in the eye. “Go fuck yourself.”

  Belthas sighed. “Garrick, shoot the girl somewhere painful but nonfatal. No permanent damage from the first bullet, please.”

  Garrick nodded and raised his weapon, sighting on Luna. Luna’s eyes went wide and she scrambled to her feet. “Wait!” I shouted.

  “This isn’t a game, Verus.” Belthas said calmly. “Let me explain what will happen if you refuse. First, I’ll have your apprentice shot. It won’t kill her, at least not immediately. Then I will offer you another chance. If you still refuse, I will have her shot again. Then I will repeat the process. She will die very slowly and in great pain, and she will be crippled and insane long before her eventual death. At that point we will move on to you. Given your history, I doubt the same treatment will persuade you, but I’ll do it anyway, just to be thorough. And if at the end of that you still have chosen not to cooperate, I’ll have you killed. And then I’ll get hold of the elemental anyway. You will both have died for nothing.”

  The dispassionate, matter-of-fact way Belthas spoke made my blood run cold. Looking into the future, I knew he wasn’t bluffing. I looked between the other people in the room. Martin’s smile had vanished and he was looking a little pale. Meredith was still turned away and Garrick was watching me steadily. I knew I didn’t have any allies here.

  Belthas didn’t say anything more, simply watching with his pale eyes. I looked down at the focus, looking into the future. I could call Starbreeze, pretend to cooperate, order her to take us away …

  It wouldn’t work. Not only wouldn’t it work, it was exactly what Belthas was expecting. Meredith would have told him how we’d escaped from Cinder. As soon as Starbreeze was inside, he would seal the exits with walls of ice.

  The exits …

  Without turning my head, I looked for a way out. The tunnel entrance leading back onto the Heath was under guard by two of Belthas’s men and was at the far end of the room; too far. The passage leading into the storerooms was closer but it was a dead end. Even if I could make it, it would only delay the inevitable.

  That just left one way to run. The tunnel at the back of Arachne’s lair, leading down into the darkness, uncharted and deep. I didn’t know what was down there and I was willing to bet Belthas didn’t either. And it was only a few seconds away.

  But even a few seconds was too long. I’d be cut down before I got halfway. “Luna,” I said.

  Luna looked at me. I could tell she was afraid, trying not to show it. I didn’t meet her eyes. “Look away,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “Look away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” I said quietly, “I don’t want you to see this.”

  I felt Luna stiffen. She opened her mouth, staring at me, about to speak, then closed it again. Slowly, she turned to face the wall. Belthas nodded.

  I took the glass rod in my hand and stroked it with a finger. I’d had it for a long time. Starbreeze had attuned herself to it, touching it with her magic so that she could always hear my call. Hardly any elementals are willing to give a mage so much power o
ver them. It was a symbol of how much she trusted me.

  I wove magic through it, whispering, “Starbreeze, come.” Then I tossed it forward. The rod clinked on the stone midway between us, rolling to a stop. All of the men looked down at it.

  Belthas raised his eyebrows. “Is that it?”

  I closed my eyes.

  Focus items are limited things. The glass rod was designed for one purpose only: to carry a message on the wind. But like all focus items, the energy transfer is inefficient. Some of the energy goes into carrying the message, some bleeds off harmlessly, and some—just a little—is left in the item. Each time I’d used it, the energy reserve had increased slightly. It’s a tiny amount, so small that you’d have trouble even noticing it, but I’d been using the focus to call Starbreeze for years. Like saving pennies, it adds up.

  I can’t use offensive magic, not directly. But one thing I’m very good at is manipulating items and anything containing energy can, in theory, be persuaded to release it. It’s like throwing a match into a petrol tank. It might not be what it’s designed for but you can do it.

  The little glass rod disintegrated with a crack of thunder and a brilliant flash, the energy tearing the focus apart in light and sound. Men cried out, and as they did I was already sprinting. “Luna! Run!”

  I had one glimpse of the room, filled with chaos as the men fell back, blinded, aiming their weapons at unseen threats. I saw a shield of blue light go up around Belthas, saw Martin collide with a guard and fall. Luna had been turned away from the flash; it hadn’t blinded her but her reactions were slower. There were two guards between us and the tunnel. One was blinded; the other, quicker or luckier, was only dazzled and brought up his gun. I saw his intention to club me with the stock, ducked under the swing, put a web-hand strike into his throat that sent him to the ground choking, and ran on without breaking stride.

  It couldn’t have taken more than five seconds to make the dash to the tunnel entrance but it felt like an hour. I heard the shouts from behind me, saw the blackness of the tunnel mouth growing larger, expecting every minute to hear gunfire. Then just as I made it to the entrance, I heard Luna yell, “Alex!”