Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952)

by Jacka, Benedict

  “That’s not how it works,” Caldera said sharply. “If you—”

  “Look out!” I snapped and jumped back just as Will lunged for me.

  I’d seen Will in action enough times now to figure out that in terms of straight-up combat ability, his magic was a close match for mine. I could predict his moves, but he was so quick that all my divination let me do was keep up with him. He closed the distance between us in a flash, and if I hadn’t already jumped back he would have run me through.

  But while Will might be faster, Caldera had a lot less distance to cover than he did. She stepped into his way and Will slammed straight into her centre of mass with a thud. Caldera didn’t even budge; it was as if Will had run into a wall. She tried to grab him, but even though Will had to be hurting from the impact he was still fast enough to dodge aside and try to get past again.

  But they’d forgotten about Sonder. Sonder had kept his mouth shut in the conversation and stayed behind Caldera, but now he put out his hand towards Will, his face set, and cast his own time spell, similar to Will’s but inverted. The two spells met and cancelled each other out and all of a sudden Will was moving at normal speed. He stumbled and came to a stop, a look of surprise flashing across his face.

  Caldera hit Will in the chest. It was an open-hand strike, and she drove up off the floor with all her weight behind it. The impact lifted Will into the air and threw him the best part of ten feet, and he hit Dhruv on the way down. The two of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

  Caldera glared at the adepts, her hands low and spread. “Who’s next?”

  Will pulled himself up, gasping. He’d been winded and it took him a few seconds to catch his breath. “Shoot him!” he said, pointing at me. “He’s right there, just kill him!”

  Captain America and gold-hair girl had both been ready to fire when Will had rushed in, but the people in the way had made them hesitate. Now they both aimed at me, and as they did I sidestepped behind Caldera. Captain America tracked me with his gun, saw that Caldera was in the way, and checked his fire.

  Gold-hair girl didn’t. Red light flared around her hands and ground fire roared out. It was directed at me but hit Caldera instead, and Caldera disappeared in a flash of flame. An instant later the fire was gone. Caldera wasn’t. Her clothes were scorched and smoking but she didn’t even look scratched and I could see earth magic glowing about her, reinforcing and strengthening her body. “You,” she said to the adepts, “are starting to piss me off.”

  Several of the adepts took a step back. Will didn’t. “You cowards!” he snapped. “We’ve beaten mages before!” Without looking back he charged straight for me. After a moment’s hesitation the rest of them followed, and that was when things got really messy.

  The corridor dissolved into a melee, weapons and fire and confusion. Will was trying to get past Caldera, bullets and ground fire flashing out past them, and the hallway was a press of bodies and blows. There was too much going on and it was all I could do just to keep myself alive. Again and again I saw myself fall dead or wounded, stabbed or shot or burnt, and again and again I slid aside just enough that the strike would miss. The air heated from the fire magic, and bullets struck chips of stone from the walls. Caldera stood alone against the tide but the corridor was narrow and they couldn’t all reach her at once. They kept getting in each other’s way, and whoever was at the front would be focused by Sonder’s slowing magic and by Caldera’s punishing blows. One hit was all it took to send them staggering back, but as soon as they did another would move in to take their place.

  The Indian boy, Dhruv, threw a set of metal spheres into the air; an invisible field caught them and sent them spinning around him in an elliptical orbit, moving faster and faster before zipping towards me as though hurled from a sling. I ducked behind Caldera and they slammed into her instead, cracking off her hardened skin. “Stop doing that,” Caldera said through clenched teeth, aiming another punch at Will.

  “Some of us don’t have stone skin,” I said just as Captain America popped up around Will and fired at me point-blank. I was already dodging and the burst hit thin air; he fell back instantly, ejecting his magazine and reaching for a new one.

  “Find us a way out,” Caldera said over her shoulder, but I couldn’t answer; Dhruv was sending another volley at me from over Will’s head and this time he curved them in, attacking from the side. I had to dive sideways, stumbling for a second, and as I came to my feet another blast of flame engulfed Caldera.

  Ja-Ja was on her instantly. The life-drinker had stayed at the edge of the fight, lurking and waiting to strike, and in the second that Caldera was still blinded from the blast he struck. Green-black light flashed at his palm as he touched Caldera’s side, and even at a distance I felt a draining, tugging sensation, like being on the edge of a whirlpool.

  Caldera gave a roar that was half rage and half pain, and struck at Ja-Ja with the ferocity of a wounded bear. I heard the crack as her blow landed and Ja-Ja went flying down the corridor, but Caldera stumbled and went to one knee. She was up again in an instant and I knew combat reflexes were keeping her moving—you never stay down in a fight, you always get up as fast as you can—but she was swaying and I could tell she was badly hurt.

  Ja-Ja picked himself up. Caldera’s punch should have broken his bones but my heart sank as I looked at him and I saw that he was smiling. Whatever he’d taken from Caldera, it had been enough to let him shrug off the hit. “Tastes nice,” he said. “I could go for dessert.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Captain America snapped at Ja-Ja. He was still holding his gun, but he wasn’t aiming it at me anymore.

  “We said don’t hurt her!” Dhruv shouted.

  Ja-Ja gave Dhruv a contemptuous look. “Yeah, you were doing so great.”

  Will was hesitating, looking between Caldera and Ja-Ja. For the moment the adepts were distracted but I knew it wouldn’t last. One of the metal spheres Dhruv had been firing at me was lying on the floor, and I scooped it up. “Caldera!” I said sharply with a note of command in my voice. “Watch!”

  Caldera turned, hurt but angry, and Sonder did as well. Before Caldera could speak, I flicked the sphere back down the corridor. It glanced off the wall and through the archway down to the basement, and I heard the clack-clack-clack as it went bouncing down the steps. Caldera and Sonder stared for a second, then their eyes went wide at the same instant. I put my finger to my lips.

  “Keeper,” Will said, and all three of us turned to look at him. He was frowning at Caldera. “We’re not here for you. You and the time mage can go. We just want Verus.”

  Caldera looked back at him, then gave him the finger.

  Captain America raised his eyebrows; he actually looked impressed. Ja-Ja looked eager, and I knew he was hoping Caldera would say no. Will just looked pissed off. “You aren’t going to win this,” he said. “Get out of—”

  The nocturne came out of the shadows, homing in on Will like iron filings to a magnet. Its body was black smoke and blended into the darkness behind it so perfectly that only its blue-white eyes were visible. Will leapt back, eyes going wide in shock, but even he wasn’t quick enough and a tendril of darkness twined around his leg, yanking him off his feet.

  The corridor erupted into chaos, the adepts scrambling to get away from the nocturne or rushing to fight it, but this time I wasn’t watching. I grabbed Caldera’s arm and yanked at her. Even wounded as she was, it was like trying to move a rock, but it got her attention. “Come on!”

  We fled towards the stairs. Before we got out of sight I took a glance back and had one glimpse of Will on his back, slashing at the nocturne as it pulled him in. Captain America was kneeling and firing, gun flashing in staccato bursts, the nocturne reaching for him, and then we were racing up the stairs with the shouts and gunfire fading behind us.

  By the time we made it up to the second floor Caldera was staggeri
ng and I knew we wouldn’t make it out of the mansion in time. I made a snap decision and pulled a door open. “In!” Once they were inside I slammed it behind us.

  Sonder looked around, dismayed. We were in a bedroom, old and neglected, the bed covered in dust and the light dim through the grimy windows, and I realised that it was my old room. I hadn’t been intending to pick it but my feet had remembered the way. “There’s no way out!”

  “You’ll have to gate us from here,” I told Caldera.

  Caldera looked around and I knew what she was thinking. Gating is one of the more general elemental spells, but also one of the most dangerous; it works by creating a similarity between two points in space and to do it reliably you have to be very familiar with both the place you’re leaving and the place you’re going to. Caldera had studied the copse of trees on her last visit here; that was why she’d gated us there and not directly inside. She hadn’t studied this room. Gating from here would be risky.

  On the other hand, trying to make the run out of the mansion with a bunch of homicidal adepts on our tail would be a lot more risky. I felt the futures fall into line as Caldera made her decision, and she began the spell. “Cover me,” she ordered.

  I could hear the battle going on downstairs, and I didn’t know how much time we had. Nocturnes are semi-insubstantial and shooting them just draws their attention, but they can still be burnt and they’re still alive. If Will’s group could get organised—and unfortunately for me, they seemed to be pretty good at getting organised—then they’d be able to banish it. “I’ve got a forcewall,” I told Sonder, nodding at the door.

  “I can do better than that,” Sonder said, and raised his hand towards the door. For a few seconds nothing happened, then the area around the door seemed to twist and warp before suddenly reflecting our images back at us. Where the door had been was a mirrored sphere, radiating from the wall. I could feel the time magic in the effect but it wasn’t a spell I’d ever seen before. “What is it?” I said.

  “Stasis,” Sonder said, not taking his eyes off the sphere.

  I raised my eyebrows. Even slowing someone down as Sonder had done a minute ago isn’t easy, and a temporal stasis is supposed to be even tougher. Sonder had gotten a lot better over the past year. From below I felt a flare of life magic, the draining, tugging sensation of Ja-Ja’s spell, and there was a whining, rasping sound just on the edge of hearing that made both me and Sonder flinch. The stasis flickered briefly, then strengthened. “I think the nocturne just lost,” I said. “Caldera?”

  “Working on it,” Caldera said.

  Sonder and I glanced at each other, then Sonder focused again on his stasis and I started calculating probabilities. I couldn’t see any future in which the adepts got through the stasis . . . yet. I also wasn’t sure how long it would take Caldera to pull off the gate, or whether she could manage it at all. From the stairs I heard running footsteps. They paused briefly in the corridor, then started towards us. “Caldera?” I said again.

  “I’m working on it!”

  The footsteps halted. The stasis was muffling the sounds, but I was pretty sure they were on the other side. I wondered what would happen if they opened the door into the spell. I couldn’t see the answer from my angle; in all of the futures I could see, the stasis remained as it was, smooth and unbroken. I heard a distant banging sound.

  Then from behind I felt the catch as the gate spell took, and the portal opened behind us. Looking around, I saw the brown-rimmed oval hanging in the air, and through it someone’s living room. “Move!” Caldera shouted.

  I didn’t argue, jumping through and landing on carpet. Caldera followed and Sonder came last, backing through the gate, still holding his focus on the stasis spell. The instant he was through, Caldera let the gate collapse and I had one last glimpse of my old bedroom before the gate winked out and was gone.

  We were in the living room of what looked like a flat, an old sofa and armchairs surrounding a messy coffee table piled with books and letters. Dirty glasses and tea mugs were scattered around the papers, and one shelf was filled with bottles of spirits. It was a comfortable sort of untidy, the kind of room where it’s easy to fall asleep on the sofa. Through the window I could see London houses: we were on the second floor. I checked and rechecked the futures and confirmed that we were safe. No one was following us . . . at least not soon.

  “What the hell was that?” Caldera said.

  I turned to see that Caldera was glaring at me. “What?”

  “How long have you known that Will and his Nightstalkers have been trying to kill you?”

  “Since the last couple of times they tried.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “No.”

  Caldera grabbed at me, trying to shove me up against the wall. It caught me by surprise and Sonder jumped back wide-eyed, but Caldera wasn’t fast enough to catch me, at least not wounded as she was. I knocked her hand away and she stumbled past. “What were you expecting?” I snapped. “I met you three days ago and you’re a Keeper. You think I’m going to tell you everything?”

  Caldera rounded on me. “You put us in danger! You nearly got us killed!”

  “And you led us in there! Which part of ‘going into Richard’s mansion is fucking insane’ did you not follow, Caldera? Was I not clear enough?”

  “You should have told us!” Caldera still looked furious, but at least she didn’t seem about to lunge for me again. “We could have—”

  “You could have what? I told you going into Richard’s mansion was suicidal. I told you Deleo had the place warded and there was nothing to find. I told you we were staying too long and it was time to get out, and you didn’t listen! You didn’t pay attention to anything I said that didn’t relate to your bloody job!” I shook my head in disgust. “Mages like you treat diviners like we’re some kind of information feed. You ask us a question, we pull out the answer, and you forget about us. Well, we don’t always have the answers you want, but what we are good at is telling when something’s dangerous. So next time a diviner tells you that, try listening!”

  Caldera and I faced each other, glaring, until a cough broke the silence. We both turned to see that Sonder was raising his hand nervously. “Um,” he said. “Could we maybe talk about this quietly? Without the shouting and grabbing?”

  All of a sudden the tension ebbed away. Caldera swayed on her feet and I caught her shoulder, staggering a little as I tried to hold her up. I’m pretty strong, but Caldera wasn’t light. “I’m fine,” Caldera muttered, trying to push me off.

  “You’re not fine,” I said. “You need a healer.”

  “I could call Anne,” Sonder said.

  “That girl from the shop? Isn’t she ex-Dark?” Caldera shook her head. “I’m not letting her touch me.”

  I sighed. “Caldera, you might be an asshole, but you just got hurt because you stepped in the way of a bunch of people trying to kill me. I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay.”

  “Yeah, thanks for that.” Caldera dropped into one of the armchairs. “I’ll call one of the Keeper healers.”

  “Then do it.”

  Caldera gave me a look. “You aren’t supposed to be around.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “What, you’re not supposed to have non-Light mages around for medical care? What exactly are you afraid I’m going to see?”

  “It’s procedure, Verus,” Caldera said. She looked very weary all of a sudden.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Sonder volunteered.

  I looked at him for a second. I would have liked to stay, and despite everything I had the feeling Caldera didn’t really want to throw me out. But Caldera was probably right; if she was going to call in Keeper personnel they weren’t going to have much use for a non-Light diviner of questionable background. I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours by staying. I turned to go.<
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  “Verus,” Caldera said.

  I stopped and looked back. Slumped in the chair, Caldera looked weary but still alert. “Don’t go after Will. Stay away from him.”

  “That’s kind of easier said than done.”

  “They attacked a Keeper,” Caldera said. “This isn’t your problem anymore. Just keep your head down and we’ll take it from here.”

  I looked at Caldera for a moment. “I’ll give it a try,” I said at last, and walked out into the hall. The door to the flat was warded. I let myself out.

  * * *

  Ihad a lot to think about on the journey back.

  There’s a feeling you get when you’re under pressure: a kind of nonstop anxiety, where it seems as if you’re spending all your time reacting to one crisis after another instead of doing anything yourself. I’ve had that feeling before, and one of the things I’ve learnt over the years is that when you get it, it means you’re doing something wrong.

  I’d just nearly been killed three times in four days. The first time I’d been saved by Luna, the second time by Anne, and the third time by Caldera. If I kept this up, then sooner or later Will’s lot were going to catch me when I didn’t have a super-powered woman around to help me out. When what you’re doing isn’t working, you stop and figure out what’s wrong.

  What was I doing wrong?

  The first time, Will and the adepts had found me at the casino. The second time it had been at my house, and the third time it had been at Richard’s mansion. But looking back on it, I had advance warning each time. Before the casino, I’d met Lee on the rooftops, and I’d gone out anyway. I’d spoken to Will in the shop, and even though it was obvious they knew where I lived, I’d gone to sleep in my flat. And then, even knowing that they had a way to track me, I’d gone to Richard’s mansion. I’d used the annuller, which would have blocked most tracking spells . . . but I hadn’t known for sure that it would block their tracking spell. What I should have done was find an empty, quiet place and then look into the future for however long it took to confirm that they weren’t going to find me. Trying to make sure that something can’t happen is slow and frustrating work, but I should have spent the hours to do it and I hadn’t.