The Keepers were asking me questions. They were suspicious. I tried to hear what the questions were about or why they were asking them, but couldn’t pick up any details.
I shifted my focus to the beginning of the conversation. That was better. Now the Keepers were saying the same things in each future with only minor differences, the things they’d decided to say before my answers took them in other directions. I suddenly realised what the scene reminded me of: two police officers interviewing a suspect.
I strained my mental lens to its limit, trying to get the exact words. By concentrating and piecing together bits from parallel futures, I was just able to make out fragments.
“—where were—”
“—did you do—”
“—any contact . . . after—”
I shook my head in frustration. Useless. In every one of the futures, my future self seemed to ask the same questions. I focused on the answers the Keepers gave in return.
“—enquiries—”
“—was here—”
“—last . . . see her alive—”
I stopped dead. The futures I’d traced so carefully shattered, fading into darkness.
I stood motionless for ten seconds, then ran for the door.
chapter 3
As I ran down the street I skimmed through futures and searched the traffic, then changed direction to cut left down an alley that led into Camden Road. I ran straight out between parked cars into the middle of the main road. Horns blared as cars screeched to a halt.
A man wound down his window behind me and started shouting. His accent was so thick I couldn’t actually understand what he was saying, but he didn’t sound happy. I pulled open the door of the black cab in front of me with the yellow TAXI light above its window. “Archway,” I said before the driver could open his mouth. “I’ll pay you double if you get us there in five minutes. Triple if you make it in less.”
“All right, mate,” the driver said comfortably. “Not a problem.”
The taxi pulled around the car in front of us, the angry driver still shouting from his window, and we accelerated away north.
* * *
No one knows the London streets better than a London cabbie. At this hour with the crowds and traffic it would have taken me at least ten minutes to make the drive from Camden to Archway. The cabbie did it in less than half that.
Archway is an odd place even by London standards. A network of concrete shops surround the Underground station, out of which rises the squat ugly brown shape of Archway Tower. Two roads fork away northwest: On one is the sprawl of the Whittington Hospital while the other passes under Suicide Bridge. “There you go, mate,” the cabbie said as we reached the station. “Which street?”
I stared out the window, concentrating. We were at the junction around the old Archway Tavern, the ancient building forming an island amidst the A-roads. I looked up the hill to see the high arch of Suicide Bridge, marking the boundary between inner and outer London. I pointed to the right of the bridge, northeast. “That way.”
As soon as we left the main road the streets narrowed and emptied. Cars were parked everywhere, making it hard for the cab to move, and minutes passed with agonising slowness as I scanned through futures, watching myself explore different directions in an expanding web.
A tangle of futures flashed; combat, danger. “Stop!” I opened the door before the taxi had stopped moving and shoved a handful of notes at the driver. “Keep the change.”
The taxi had brought me to a housing estate. A long three-storey block of flats loomed above, walkways running along the top two floors with doors at regular intervals. An old decayed children’s playground was laid out in the courtyard in front, the swings rusted and the animal figures vandalised. The base of the block of flats was shadowed, blending into a small cramped garden. High walls shut off the view to the street and only a handful of lights shone in the darkness. It wasn’t late but the place had a dead feel to it. I moved at a fast walk, heading farther in. Behind, I heard the rumble of the taxi’s engine fade away into the noise of the city.
From the shadows at the base of the flats ahead came a sharp metallic clack.
I broke into a run. The sound came again, twice, echoing around the brick walls: clack-clack. I passed under the building, reached the pillars that were blocking my view, and looked around the edge.
The housing estate was a big long construction of dark brick. There were two ways in: a pair of double doors leading into a stairwell, and a small lift. To one side was the car park; to the other was a fenced-off area of trees and grass. A single fluorescent light was mounted on the wall, casting a flickering glow over the scene in front of me.
Three men were standing near the wall. They wore dark clothes and ski masks and carried handguns fitted with the unmistakable long metal cylinders of sound suppressors. Two had their attention fixed on the person by the lift, while the third faced the other way, his gun pointed downwards in both hands as he scanned for movement. I was out of his line of sight, but not by much.
Anne was next to the lift, slumped against the wall, and as I watched she slid down to crumple onto her side. “Check her,” the man in the middle said. He had a gruff voice and sounded English.
“Gone,” the one closest to Anne said. He still had his gun pointed more or less towards her.
“Make sure.”
“Three in the body. She’s gone.”
“Make sure.”
“Fuck that,” the shooter said. “You heard the guy, I’m not getting that close.”
The red digital number above the lift had been changing from 2, to 1, to G. Now the doors grated open as a mechanical female voice recited, “Ground floor.” The two men’s guns were pointed into the lift before the doors had finished moving, but it was empty. White light shone from inside.
The man at the middle looked away from the lift to the shooter. “I said make sure.”
The other man shrugged, then levelled his gun at Anne from less than ten feet away and started pulling the trigger.
I was already moving, but I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I’d gotten the little marble out of my pocket the gun had gone clack three more times. The suppressor muffled the shot so that the loudest noise was the metallic sound of the action cycling and the thud of bullets chewing through flesh. The man shot Anne a final time as I threw the marble, and the man watching their backs had only time to flinch before it shattered against the wall.
The marble was a one-shot—effectively a single spell with an activation trigger. This particular one was a condenser spell, and as the crystal shell holding the magic in stasis broke, mist rushed out to blanket the area in fog. The cloud was only about forty feet across and it wouldn’t last long, but for a minute or two anyone in that area was blind.
Except me. As I plunged into the cloud I flicked through the futures ahead of me, and by seeing the ones in which I ran into the men I knew where they were. The one at the back was the most alert and so I bypassed him, staying outside his field of vision. The man in the middle who’d been giving the orders was turned away, his gun blindly searching for threats, and it was simple to put two punches into the spot just below his floating ribs. He staggered, turning towards me and spreading his legs into a shooting stance, and I kicked him hard in the crotch and brought my fist up into his face. He went down.
I kept moving, getting to where the shooter had been standing over Anne, but he’d moved. I could hear his voice somewhere off to my right, calling to the man at the back. For the moment the men were confused, scrambling to figure out who was attacking them, but it wouldn’t last. Anne was lying huddled and still at my feet and to my right was the glow from the lift, filtering through the mist.
Then Anne took a ragged breath.
I looked down at her for one second before my refle
xes 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 i
n 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.
Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) Page 60