Veiled

by Benedict Jacka

  “Gun!” someone shouted.

  “Drop the—!”

  Magical auras filled the room, overwhelming to my sight, air and fire and death and water. I couldn’t see the spell behind Vihaela’s green light; she took a step back, eyes going wide in fright, then the snakes lashed out with a piercing shriek, casting a hellish glow. Guns fired, deafening in the enclosed space. There was too much going on, and I could sense danger but it wasn’t matching up with the spells Vihaela was using. One of Vihaela’s snakes hit Slate; his shield was already up and the green light splintered into shards. A construct was in the middle of firing when an air blade severed its shoulder; I caught one fleeting glimpse of the arm pinwheeling, no blood from the wound, the fingers still tightening on the trigger to send a bullet into the floor. Then all of a sudden my precognition screamed, images of pain and death and blackness flashing in front of my eyes. Someone was about to kill me and I didn’t know who or how, but I could see the futures in which I lived and that was all I needed to know. I dived left, twisting; something tugged at my shoulder and I heard a splintering thud. I hit the floor hard, pain jolting through my side, and rolled left. I came up to my feet . . .

  . . . and the battle was over. Vihaela and one of the security men were down. One of the constructs had been cut to pieces, its body parts scattered across the floor; the other was thrashing, headless, its remaining arm thumping erratically against the wall.

  “Cease fire!” Haken shouted. “Cease fire!”

  I looked left and right. The attic room hummed with magic, a dozen shields and protective spells brushing against each other. No one seemed to be paying attention to me. But someone had just nearly killed me. It hadn’t been Vihaela—I’d been watching her. The constructs had been in my field of vision.

  That just left the people who were supposed to be on my side.

  Whatever had caused the threat on my precognition, it wasn’t around anymore. Trask moved up to the thrashing construct and aimed a hand downward; there was the blue flash of a water spell. The construct went still and silence fell.

  “No movement,” someone called.

  “Rick, you okay?”

  “Yeah,” a muffled voice said. It was one of the security men. “Just tripped.”

  “Slate, Lizbeth,” Haken said. “Check her.”

  Slate was staring at Vihaela’s still form. The Dark mage was lying facedown, crumpled against the wall. From a glance through the futures, I knew she wasn’t getting up.

  “Slate!”

  Slate started. “Yeah.” He and Lizbeth moved forward. Even though Vihaela looked out of it, the two of them treated her with wary caution. Lizbeth raised her hand, and I saw the grey flicker of a protection spell, then she cautiously kicked Vihaela’s ankle. Lizbeth frowned.

  “Is she out?” Haken asked.

  “Yeah, you could say that,” Lizbeth said. She straightened and looked at Haken. “She’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “As in, not alive.”

  “Are you serious?” Haken demanded. “Check her pulse.”

  “I don’t need to. Living people do this thing called breathing. You don’t believe me?” Lizbeth nodded at Slate. “Ask him.”

  “Slate?” Haken said. There was a dangerous tone to his voice.

  “Well, I didn’t fucking do it,” Slate said defensively.

  “What are you getting in your deathsight?”

  Slate hesitated.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Haken spun around. “Which one of you did this?”

  No one answered. The other mages in the room avoided meeting Haken’s gaze. Behind him, the bodies of Vihaela and the two constructs lay still and silent on the floor.

  | | | | | | | | |

  “I didn’t hit her that hard,” Slate said again.

  Lizbeth passed a weary hand across her face. She was leaning against the wall. “Will you stop saying that?”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Trask?” Haken said. “Give me something I can use.”

  The security men had all been shooed away, and it was just the mages—me, Haken, Slate, Trask, Abeyance, Lizbeth, and Cerulean. Abeyance was using her timesight, Cerulean had faded into the background, Trask was kneeling over Vihaela’s body and examining her, and everyone else was arguing.

  I listened with half an ear. I was less interested in the argument than in what I’d found in one of the walls: a pair of bullet holes. There was nothing especially remarkable about them . . . except for the fact that they were in the side wall, and Vihaela and her two constructs had been against the far wall. By my estimation, from the angle the bullets had entered, the only place they could have come from was the group of Council security and Keepers.

  Which was highly relevant, since I was pretty sure those two bullets had been fired at me. I’ve been shot (well, seen my future self get shot) enough times to recognise it. That just left the question of who’d done the shooting . . .

  “Nothing,” Trask said.

  “What does that mean?” Haken said.

  “Don’t have a cause of death.”

  “Then what do you have?”

  “Stomach bruising.” Trask pointed down, then moved his finger up. “And a shot to the leg.”

  “She got shot?” Lizbeth looked hopeful. “It was their fault then . . .”

  Trask was shaking his head. “Why not?” Haken asked.

  “Muscle wound,” Trask said. “Missed the arteries.”

  “What did you hit her with anyway?” Lizbeth said to Slate.

  “It was just an enervation bolt.”

  “Well, those are dangerous.”

  “I know how to do my job, all right?” Slate said. “Was the same thing I hit those guys downstairs with, and they’re fine, aren’t they?”

  “People have died from enervation spells . . .”

  “She’s a fucking life mage,” Slate said. He gave Vihaela’s body an angry gesture that seemed to imply that her death had been a personal insult. “You have any idea how tough they are to kill? They’re like frigging cockroaches.”

  Lizbeth shrugged. “Didn’t seem that tough to me.”

  Haken put a hand over his eyes. “Abeyance?”

  “I’m not getting much,” Abeyance said. She’d stayed out of the argument. “Best guess is the bullet was from a burst aimed at one of those constructs. What took her down was Slate and Lizbeth’s spells, but I can’t tell what killed her.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t tell?” Haken said. “The more recent an event, the easier it is to timesight it, right? So why can’t you see?”

  Abeyance shot Haken an annoyed glance. “There’s interference. A shroud maybe, or spell static. It’s not as though I have lifesight—I’m not going to be able to tell you the exact moment she went from alive to dead.”

  I ran my fingers along the bullet holes, then turned around, crouching slightly and angling my head to look back along the line they’d come from. I tried to remember who’d been in that position. It hadn’t been Vihaela or the constructs. Hadn’t been Haken or Slate, either. Coatl had been downstairs. That left Trask, Abeyance, Cerulean, and the Council security.

  More to the point, no one seemed to have noticed anything. No one had said anything about my dive sideways, or about any shots going in my direction. That meant that either they’d seen it and said nothing, or there hadn’t been anything to see. The first was technically possible, but seemed like an unreasonable risk. I didn’t believe that everyone on the Keeper team wanted to kill me, which leant me towards the second option. It was always possible that the shooter had just hung back and taken a shot while all eyes were turned on Vihaela, but even in the confusion, that seemed unnecessarily dangerous. With the number of magical senses around, there was too great a chance that someone would notice. The simplest explanation was that it had b
een done in such a way that no one had been able to see anything at all.

  Assuming that logic was correct, it gave me one very obvious suspect. And if they were a traitor . . .

  I looked at Vihaela’s body. Wait a second. Could that be it?

  The others were still arguing. I crossed the room and knelt; Trask gave me a glance, then rose and stepped away. Vihaela was lying on her front, head turned towards me, eyes closed in death. Her face was drawn and still. I blanked my mind, put all thoughts of who Vihaela was out of my head, and simply looked at her.

  She looked young. I’ve seen a lot of Dark mages, male and female, and Vihaela didn’t really fit. It’s hard to say exactly what it is, but there’s something about a Dark mage’s looks that marks them. Maybe an apprentice . . . no, I wouldn’t even have pegged her as an apprentice. Not enough force. She looked like someone who’d had things done to her, instead of the other way around.

  I thought back, remembering what I’d seen of the fight. In the few seconds I’d seen Vihaela alive, how had she looked? She’d looked afraid. Startled and frightened.

  But looked at another way . . .

  Yes. I couldn’t prove it, not yet, but I was sure I was right. I looked up. Slate was still arguing with Haken, something about giving the report to Rain. Cerulean and Lizbeth had been watching me; Cerulean glanced away, Lizbeth didn’t. I was pretty sure I knew who was working for White Rose, and I knew how they’d staged this. What was I going to do about it?

  Accusing them openly . . . bad idea. I didn’t have enough status here, and I didn’t have any hard evidence. I could report what I knew up the chain of command. That was the dutiful thing to do, and what I was getting paid for.

  Problem with that: I didn’t know who the people above me were working for either.

  So let’s find out.

  “It wasn’t Slate,” I said.

  Slate frowned. Haken turned to look at me. “Say that again?”

  I rose to my feet. “I know who killed her,” I said. “It wasn’t Slate.”

  Slate gave me a suspicious look. This obviously hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. “Okay,” Haken said. “Then who?”

  I glanced around the room, letting my eyes pass very briefly over everyone in turn. “You might want to hear this in private.”

  Haken wasn’t stupid. His eyes narrowed as he realised what I was saying. “So who?” Lizbeth said.

  I didn’t answer. “Rest of you, clear the room,” Haken said. “Wrap up downstairs.”

  “Seriously?” Lizbeth said.

  Haken looked at her. Lizbeth gave us both a disgusted look, turned on her heel, and walked out. Cerulean, Slate, Trask, and Abeyance followed. Abeyance lingered, looking curious, but when Haken waited pointedly, she shut the door behind her.

  I listened to the footsteps going downstairs. Haken put a hand into his pocket and red light glowed. A shroud focus, possibly more . . . so that was why I’d had so much trouble eavesdropping on him. “This had better be good,” Haken said.

  “It was Vihaela.”

  Haken stared at me for a second. “You think it was suicide?”

  “No. I’m saying Vihaela killed her.” I nodded down at the corpse.

  “We don’t have time for—”

  “Think about it,” I said. “What did we actually see? We saw someone who looked like Vihaela walk through the gate. Then the fight kicks off and there’s no time for anything else. She’s dead before she has the chance to talk.”

  “You’re saying that wasn’t her.”

  “You remember the briefing. Vihaela’s supposed to be the freaking death queen of White Rose. She shouldn’t have gone down this easily. White Rose uses fleshcrafters, remember? Perfect duplicates of whoever their clients want. If you were a Dark mage and you had those kinds of resources, wouldn’t you make some body doubles while you were at it?”

  “She used magic—”

  “Did she?” I asked. “Did your magesight actually see her cast any spells? Because mine didn’t. Yes, those green snake things looked scary, but they didn’t register as battle-magic, did they? Everyone was just so keyed up to fight that they reacted as if they were.”

  Haken frowned at me for a second. “You’re saying they were faked.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. There had been exactly one person in the room who’d had the ability to create that convincing a show. I wasn’t openly accusing him, but there was only one way it pointed . . .

  “What killed her?” Haken said.

  “Here’s how I think this went down,” I said. “Vihaela’s on the other side of that gateway. She knows we’re waiting, and she’s got her body double ready. But she knows it won’t hold up under any kind of stress. So she makes sure the girl won’t be around to answer any questions. She uses some kind of spell before this girl steps through the gate. Time delay, maybe a triggered effect—but whatever it is, it was meant to make sure that this girl didn’t survive the encounter. She was dead from the minute she stepped through.”

  Haken was silent for a few seconds. I knew he was going through what I’d just told him, checking it to see if it held up. “I’m going to make some calls,” he said at last. “Don’t tell anyone what you just told me. Understand?”

  I nodded. Haken walked out.

  I started to follow, then paused. I turned and looked back. The girl’s body was lying on the floor, alone in the room, still and lifeless. She hadn’t been involved in this at all, not really. She’d been a pawn, prepared and sacrificed. It was so utterly casual. They had treated her like one of my one-shot items, expended to produce a desired effect. Just like Leo.

  Fuck these guys. The depth of my hatred surprised me. All of a sudden I didn’t care about the long-term consequences. I just wanted to see White Rose go down. I took out my phone and started making some calls of my own.

  | | | | | | | | |

  Haken called half an hour later, giving me instructions to meet him at the office where we’d planned the attack. He didn’t offer any explanations, and I didn’t ask.

  The house was mostly empty now. Some Council forensics teams had arrived and were starting to go through the rooms, but most of the mages and security men had been called back to headquarters. It made sense really. The mission had been to bring in Vihaela, and now that Vihaela was apparently dead, things had ground to a halt. Outside, some yellow tape had been used to block off the alley, and bystanders were craning their necks to see if anything interesting was going to happen. I got a few glances, but no one challenged me on the way out.

  I took a taxi to the office block and went inside. Night had fallen, and the building was dark and empty. My footsteps echoed up the stairwell as I climbed. When I found the door, I stopped and unslung my bag. I hadn’t worn my armour today, but I’d brought a light backpack. Reaching inside, my fingers brushed against soft cloth before closing on a stone attached to a chain. The item I took out wasn’t much to look at: a smooth-cut rock on a thin chain, teardrop-shaped and dull grey. But it wasn’t a rock, it was a fire-hunger stone, and I’d primed it before leaving the house. I checked to make sure it was still charged, then hung the chain over my neck, tucking the stone inside my shirt. I pushed the door open and walked in.

  Haken was at the far side of the office, next to the windows. The lights were off and he was only a shadow in the gloom. Fire mages can see heat—it’s not quite the same as seeing in the dark, but it’s pretty close, and a fire mage can manage just fine with no light at all. Haken turned to me as I wound my way through the tables. The only light was the reflected glow from the street below the window: I could make out the lines of his face, but I couldn’t see his eyes. “Thinking something over?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I tilted my head. “Made up your mind?”

  Haken looked at me for a second without answering. “Ready to go?”
r />   “Where to?”

  “White Rose’s base,” Haken said. “Maybe. I’m going to need you there to confirm it.”

  I shrugged. “Easy enough. How do you know where to go?”

  “Can’t answer that, I’m afraid.”

  “Then mind telling me why we’re going there? Because it doesn’t seem like the safest possible vacation spot.”

  “Our mission hasn’t changed.” Haken said. “If what you’re saying is true and Vihaela’s at their base . . .”

  “Then we still have to bring her in?”

  Haken nodded.

  “If we’re doing something like that, wouldn’t it make sense to bring some backup?”

  “This is recon,” Haken said. “If you’re right, then I can’t trust the others on the team.” He looked at me. “I hope you haven’t discussed this with anyone else.”

  I kept a straight face. “No.”

  “Good.” I felt Haken look me up and down. “Is that really what you’re wearing?”

  “You don’t like my clothes?”

  “Thought you had a set of armour?”

  Funny thing about lying—the less often you do it, the more effective it is when you do. “Golem damaged it,” I said. “Besides, we’re not there to fight, right?”

  “I guess not,” Haken said. He took a breath and straightened. “All right.” He turned to one side, and a minute later light bloomed as a fiery disc appeared in midair. The glow backlit his face, casting it in red and black. The disc shifted, becoming a ring. From the back, the gate was opaque; I walked around it to see that it led into an empty building. Haken stepped through and I followed.

  We gated through three more staging points, each one another building. The air felt different in each, and I had the suspicion we’d just taken some very brief overseas holidays. Gating through staging points is a standard mage trick—it makes it much harder to track them—but usually they’ll only use one or two. Four is getting to the point of paranoia. Haken really didn’t want to be followed.

  The last gateway took us outside, into what felt like the country. My feet came down onto grass, leafy bushes blocking my sightlines. Haken stepped through behind and cut off the gate instantly; he’d muted the glow this time, presumably to make us harder to spot. The air was cold, and looking up, I could see a black and overcast sky. There was no light reflected off the clouds: wherever we were, we were a long way from any settlements. “What can you see?” Haken asked, his voice low.