Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952)

by Jacka, Benedict

  I waited until after dark, resting in Arachne’s cave as the hours dragged by. Arachne didn’t disturb me, leaving me to my thoughts; she didn’t ask what I was going to do but I think she had a good idea. Once the sun had set I went outside.

  The Heath was quiet and peaceful in the summer night. Distant chatter and laughter drifted through the darkness, the last picnickers and dog walkers lingering in the warm weather. The air smelt of grass and pollen, and the stars of the Summer Triangle hung overhead, bright enough to shine through the orange glow of the city. The traffic from the main roads around the Heath was a steady rustle, not close enough to be loud but a constant noise in the background. I stood in the ravine next to the entrance to Arachne’s cave and dialled the number on my phone.

  It rang for a while before picking up. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Will,” I said.

  It took only those two words for Will to recognise my voice. He was silent for a second, and when he spoke again he sounded sharp and alert. “What do you want?”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “Okay. Come by and we’ll have a chat.”

  “I said talk,” I said. “If I wanted another fight I’d just wait for you guys to show up for another of your assassination attempts.”

  The phone went briefly silent as I was speaking: Will had pressed the Mute button and I knew he was giving orders to find me. I started scanning the futures for danger, searching for the ones in which the Nightstalkers gated in. “Fine,” Will said. “Talk.”

  Will was buying time, probably hoping to keep me on the line while Lee tracked me down. “I’m sorry for what happened to your sister,” I said. “I know what I did back then was wrong, and if I could take it back I would. But I can’t. And killing me isn’t going to bring her back.”

  “This isn’t about bringing her back,” Will said. “You think I don’t know that? This is about making sure you don’t get to do it again.”

  “I haven’t been doing it again!” I snapped. “I’m not a Dark mage anymore! You’re trying to kill me for something I don’t want to do!”

  “Right, you’re a good guy now.” Will’s voice was sarcastic. “You think you get to walk away? You’ve had enough and now everyone should leave you alone?”

  “Yes! I walked out of that life! I’m not asking for anything from anyone, I just want to be left alone! It’s been ten years, isn’t that long enough? Isn’t there some point where you stop being the person you used to be and it stops being right to blame them for what they’ve done?”

  “No,” Will said. “I don’t care if you’ve been Mother Teresa. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, you deserve to die.”

  “Then how long does it take? Twenty years? Thirty? Fifty? You can’t keep blaming someone forever!”

  “Bullshit,” Will said without sympathy. “You’re just trying to weasel out of it.”

  I could feel the futures shifting and flickering and I knew Lee was searching for me. I couldn’t see him and the Nightstalkers arriving at my location . . . at least not yet. “This isn’t just about you and me,” I said. “Dhruv and the rest of the Nightstalkers—they’re your friends, right?”

  “Like you even know what that means.”

  “They follow your lead,” I said. “That makes you responsible for them. And if you keep leading them the way you’ve been going, then sooner or later you’re going to take them into a battle you can’t win. They’re going to die and it’ll be your fault.”

  “You mages think you’re so much better than us,” Will said. “We always get told we’re not good enough and you know what? It’s bullshit. There’s nothing we can’t do if we work together. You aren’t the first Dark mage we’ve taken down and you won’t be the last.”

  “And when you lose?” I demanded. “When you see your friends dying in front of you?”

  “If they get hurt it’ll be the fault of whoever hurts them,” Will said. “You know what, Verus? I’ll make you a deal. Come here on your own. You’re so worried about people getting hurt? Stop hiding behind them. Come here and stand in front of me and take responsibility for what you’ve done.”

  “So you can try and kill me again? No thanks.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Will said contemptuously. “You’re a rat. Keep running. We’ll catch you.”

  The futures shifted abruptly as something changed. I looked ahead and now I could see strands of danger. I couldn’t yet see a clear future in which the Nightstalkers homed in on me, but it was drawing closer. Whatever Lee had just done to track me down, it was working. “Listen to me, Will,” I said. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life. But it’s my life and I’m not going to let you take it. If you come after me again I’m not going to hold back.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you hold back or not,” Will said calmly. “We know what you can do. You can’t beat us, Verus. We’re better than you.”

  I knew I was running out of time. I didn’t have the time to figure out exactly when Lee would get a fix on me, but I knew it had to be soon and I couldn’t risk talking any longer. “You called me a rat,” I said. “There’s a saying about what happens when you corner one. Don’t come after me again, Will. If you do you’ll pay in blood.” I hit the End button on the phone and moved back into the blackness of Arachne’s cave, hearing the rumble as it closed behind me. I stood there in the dark for a long time, searching the futures for any trace of pursuit, but nothing came.

  * * *

  Ididn’t sleep well that night. Even though I was still tired from the days on the run I couldn’t relax, and whenever I tried to clear my mind and rest I’d find myself thinking of what I’d seen in Elsewhere: Shireen’s body on the stone, Rachel’s face as she stood over her, the black shadow hanging behind. At last I gave up and rose from my bed. I’d still been using the small side cave that Arachne had prepared for me and I went down the tunnel to the main chamber, listening to my footsteps echo off the rock walls.

  Arachne was there, working at one of her tables. It didn’t really surprise me that she was still up; Arachne doesn’t follow human sleep patterns and I never know when she’ll be around. Sometimes she’ll seem to be in her cave for weeks on end, and other times she’ll just disappear. I’ve never asked her where she goes—for all her hospitality, Arachne’s quite private—but I think it’s got something to do with the tunnels beneath her lair. “Hey,” I said as I walked in.

  “Hello, Alex,” Arachne said without looking up. She was concentrating on something, working with all four front legs at once. I could feel magic radiating from it, complex and layered. “Can’t sleep?”

  I shook my head, dropping onto one of the sofas. “Did that cache have the items you needed?” Arachne asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks for holding on to them.”

  “When will you be using them?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I see.”

  “Will and the Nightstalkers aren’t going to stop,” I said. “I’ve checked.”

  Arachne kept working. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?” I asked.

  “You’ve always been good at surviving, Alex,” Arachne said. “I think the reason you’ve been so good at it is that you focused on it completely. You didn’t have any doubt or hesitation; you just did what you needed to stay alive. Now for the first time you’re wondering whether you deserve to stay alive. Before you can face your hunters again, you’ll have to decide how much your life is worth.”

  I was silent. “Here,” Arachne said, shaking out what she was working on. “Come and take a look.”

  I rose and walked over, looking curiously at the outfit on Arachne’s table. It looked like some kind of black-and-grey uniform with mesh layers. “What is it?”

  “Armour.”

  “Who’s it for?”

  Arachne gave me a look. It’s hard to read a giant spider’s body la
nguage, but I had the feeling she was exasperated. “For someone able to see the future, you can be remarkably slow on the uptake.”

  I blinked. “It’s for me?”

  “The outer layer is a reactive mesh,” Arachne said, tapping the jacket with her left front leg. “It responds to impacts by stiffening to spread the force over a wider area, and it can adjust its angle to change a direct blow into a glancing one. Enough to turn a knife or a blade. It should resist most other low-velocity impacts, but once an attack gets fast enough it does become difficult for the mesh to react in time, and of course anything with enough penetration can still punch a hole. It doesn’t stop momentum either, so—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said, raising my hands. “Look, I appreciate this, but I don’t want you to do all this work for nothing. You know how I feel about armour—if you wear anything that’s not really heavy, an elemental mage will just blast straight through it, and if you do wear something that heavy it slows you all the way down. For someone like me the best way not to get hurt is not to be there in the first place.”

  “And how well did that work in the casino?”

  I scowled.

  “Your life is changing, Alex,” Arachne said. “I know you’ve always preferred to rely on evasion but things are different now. More and more you’re going to find yourself facing dangers that you can’t run from or hide from.” She tapped the jacket again. “You’re going to have to take risks. This will help you survive them.”

  Dubiously I lifted the material a few inches, feeling its texture. “Well, it’s light enough,” I admitted. “Is this going to do anything against a battle-mage?”

  “A direct hit?” Arachne said. “No. But against area-of-effect spells or glancing blows it’ll keep you alive against something that would kill an unarmoured human.”

  “Bullets?”

  “Lower-powered ones should be manageable. For higher-power shots it depends on the angle of impact. The mesh will try to reshape itself to curve projectiles but there’s only so much it can do.”

  “This is an imbued item, isn’t it?” I asked. Now that I was close I could sense the presence from the suit. It felt incomplete, as if it wasn’t fully grown yet, but there was definitely something there.

  “Yes, and on that subject, do make sure not to wear this at the same time as your mist cloak,” Arachne said. “They both have a protective purpose, but they do so in very different ways and the variation in mindset will cause problems. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but imbued items can be . . . possessive about their bearers.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, suppressing a shiver. “I’m not going to be using my mist cloak for a while.” I could still remember the weird stretched feeling, and it frightened me. The scariest part was that I hadn’t even really noticed what was happening. If Arachne hadn’t made me take it off, I didn’t know where I would have ended up, and I absolutely did not want to look into the future to find out. “Thanks for doing this for me.”

  “Don’t you remember what I told you last year?” Spiders can’t really smile, but I had the feeling that was what Arachne was doing. “After what happened with Belthas? You have my help whenever you want it, Alex.” She tilted her head. “You don’t ask for enough, you know.”

  “Old habits,” I said, and yawned. “You know, I’m feeling better. I think I’ll go to bed.”

  “Good night.”

  chapter 13

  When I woke the next morning I felt alert and refreshed. Although a few parts of me ached, none of it was enough to slow me down, and I knew I was in good shape. I was as ready as I was going to be. It took me a minute to remember what I needed to be ready for, and once I did that killed my enthusiasm. I lay on the rocky floor with my eyes open, staring up at the ceiling.

  There’s something weird about waking up the day of a battle. I knew that as soon as I left Arachne’s cave, I was going to walk into a confrontation that would end in blood. Death and violence were in my future . . . but as long as I stayed in bed or mooched around the tunnels, I’d be perfectly safe. I’ve run into this situation a few times as a diviner, and it’s always a bizarre feeling, violence and chaos alongside comfortable routine. It’s like having someone tell you that as soon as you step out of your front door he’s going to shoot you, but he’s not in any rush and he’d be happy to give you time to finish your breakfast and would it be more convenient if he came back tomorrow?

  I couldn’t sense Arachne’s presence, and searching through the short-term futures I couldn’t find her in the tunnels. I found a different presence, though, something close, and I raised my head to see the armour Arachne had been making for me. It was finished, and it hung from the wall, waiting. I rose and walked to the suit, studying it.

  When a mage takes up an imbued item for the first time, it’s a big thing. It’s not exactly an introduction, or an offer of partnership, or a challenge, although it’s got something in common with all of those. What it’s most like is a mutual test. The mage gets a sense of the item’s purpose, as well as its power and its sentience. In turn, the item sees the mage for who he truly is, maybe more clearly than any human could. If the item likes what it sees, it accepts you as its bearer, at least on a provisional basis. If it’s unimpressed, it’ll stay inert. If it really doesn’t like you . . . well, the less said about that the better.

  I reached out and placed a hand on the black mesh of the chest armour, and as I did I felt the item’s presence strengthen. I could feel it, and I knew it could feel me, too. It was different from my mist cloak; the cloak was subtle, difficult to detect even if you were looking for it. This was forceful and active, and I could feel it probing at my mind. In reflex I shoved it back; I’ve had a few too many bad experiences with mental control over the last year or two. The presence receded but didn’t go away. There was a pause, as though both of us were waiting for the other to make the next move.

  “I’m about to go into battle,” I said to the suit. “I don’t know how it’ll end, but I know how it’ll begin. I’m going to be outnumbered and probably outmatched as well.” I looked at the suit. “I don’t have any right to demand anything from you, but I’m asking for your help. If you decide to go with me it’ll be dangerous. Not just now, but in the future. Even if I survive this battle there’ll be others, and the odds aren’t likely to get better. I’m never really going to be safe . . . but it’s because I’m never going to be safe that I need the kind of defence you can give. I don’t know if there’s anything I could offer in return that you’d care about, but if there is, I will. Will you protect me?”

  The suit rested silently on the wall, watching me.

  * * *

  Variam was sitting on one of the sofas in the central chamber. He looked up and did a double take. “What are you getting ready for, a war?”

  “Something like that,” I said. The armour was lighter than I’d expected but it still felt strange. I’m not used to wearing anything with any real weight to it—most of my clothes are light and designed to let me move quickly—and in the new outfit my movements felt awkward. With each step I took, though, it got easier. I could feel the armour adapting itself to my movements, adjusting to my steps. Most of all, I could feel the item’s presence, like a passenger at the back of my mind. It takes time for an imbued item to decide whether to accept a bearer: throughout the battle to come, the suit would be watching me.

  “I’ve never seen you carry a sword.”

  “I don’t usually carry weapons, full stop.”

  Variam looked at me curiously. “Why not?”

  “Attitude, mostly,” I said. “If you carry a weapon it means that at some level you’re planning to use it. Leaving them behind reminds you that you’re supposed to be running first and fighting afterwards.”

  Variam pointed at the sword at my belt. “So what’s with that?”

  “Because right now I’m through with running,”
I said. I nodded towards the entrance. “Ready?”

  Variam rose and we began walking up the tunnel towards the surface. “Luna and Anne were asking about you,” Variam said.

  “Are they okay?”

  “It’s whether you’re okay that they’re worried about.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I guess I haven’t been doing that good a job of taking care of myself lately, have I?”

  We left Arachne’s cave and sealed it behind us. It was midmorning and the sunlight was filtering down through a bank of grey-white cloud. The air was humid and a little oppressive but I could still hear the chatter and calls of people around us. “We clear?” Variam asked.

  I scanned ahead. The futures of the nearby people on the park weren’t intersecting ours, at least not yet. “Clear.”

  Variam got to work on his gate. It was messy and although he tried to hide it I could tell that having an audience was making him nervous. I waited patiently; nothing’s more annoying than having someone distracting you when you’re doing a difficult spell. On the third try the orange flame solidified into an oval of light and an image of trees and grass appeared through it. I stepped through quickly and Variam followed, letting it vanish behind him.

  Richard’s mansion looked the same as it had when I’d arrived here three days ago. In fact it looked exactly the same, which was wrong; there should have been a big hole in the wall where Caldera had done her improvised building works. Looking down the grassy slope, I saw that the wall was smooth and unbroken again. Somebody fixed it, and I was pretty sure I knew who: Deleo. Although we could see down through the trees to the mansion, we were under tree cover and the branches would hide us from any viewers. Variam had chosen his spot well. “Well, we’re here,” Variam said, walking out behind me. “You going to tell me what the plan is?”

  I told him.

  “That’s it?” Variam asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “That’s . . .” Variam was silent for a moment.