Phoenix was a true professional. She was the best cadet in our Combat and Weaponry class, with a freakish talent for shooting torpefiers. After her parents had been killed, she had dedicated her life to fighting the Inductors and had risked her life to save innocent civilians during our mission in London. I doubted many of the busybodies on the street could claim such credentials.
Riff took an eager step forward – but as soon as he moved, Orbit let out a little gasp and waved a frantic hand. ‘Stop, stop! Oh dear …’
‘What?’
‘You’re about to knock my trip wire.’
Orbit was our friend from London: a slender boy with gangly limbs and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles on his dark brown nose. He was training to be a gadgeteer, rather than a field agent, and he was a total whizz with machinery. Sometimes, I suspected he had enough brains crammed into his head to rival the entire NASA rocket science division.
Riff peered down at the trip wire. ‘Gee, thanks for warning us.’
‘You’re most welcome,’ Orbit said, utterly sincere. Then his eyes widened and he shook his head. ‘But my goodness, if you’d taken just one more step – oh, that might have been dreadfully messy …’
‘Yeah, I bet,’ Riff said.
I doubted Orbit’s trip wire was designed to cause any permanent injury. If Phoenix was a walking weapon, Orbit was a walking peace treaty. He was the sort of person who literally couldn’t hurt a fly – in fact, I’d once watched him rescue a cockroach from the cadet lounge instead of squishing it. But even so, he sometimes overlooked the more dangerous applications of his inventions.
‘Where are we hiding, anyway?’ Riff whispered. ‘I vote we jump out from behind Shakespeare and punch this tosser in the nose.’
I glanced at the stained-glass Shakespeare. It winked in the torchlight: a hundred different chinks of coloured glass, like the shards of a fractured rainbow. Shakespeare was holding a finger up to his face, frowning slightly, as if he couldn’t quite make his mind up about his next move.
You and me both, mister, I thought.
Phoenix sighed. ‘You really think that’s a decent hiding place?’
‘Nope, but it’d be hilarious.’ Riff punched the air, mimicking a collision between his fist and the Inductor’s nostrils. ‘To be or not to be, that is the … POW!’
‘But we couldn’t do that!’ Orbit whispered, horrified. ‘Imagine if we broke the glass! That exhibit is over a hundred and fifty years old, you know. It simply wouldn’t be right to vandalise it.’
‘I’m kidding, mate.’
‘Oh. Well, yes, of course I knew that,’ Orbit said, slightly too late to be convincing. He looked momentarily flustered, but then pounced on a fresh thought. ‘But you know, the production of stained glass is an enthralling process. Traditionally, it involves the addition of metallic oxide compounds to molten –’
‘Yeah, all right,’ Phoenix cut in. ‘I’m sure that’s all fascinating, but we’ve got to get into position. Everything ready?’
Orbit stared around the room, checking off various booby traps on his fingers. Following his gaze, I spotted a few more examples of his handiwork: in addition to three trip wires, a thin metallic disc sat on the floor and a silvery gadget hung from the ceiling. I suspected the gadget would drop a surprise on the Inductor’s head – perhaps a burst of artificial lightning, or a disorientating cloud of smoke.
‘Yes, I believe so,’ Orbit said, finally. ‘I’m afraid I can’t guarantee the disc-trigger will work – at least, not without a further round of testing under laboratory conditions – but the majority of traps should perform as designed.’
‘Good enough,’ I said. ‘Let’s move.’
In the past, Orbit had produced a pen that exploded into fake smoke, a device to override CCTV feeds, and a deck of cards that could temporarily blind an assailant with dazzling light. Even now, when he’d been forced to work with whatever he was carrying in his pockets, I didn’t doubt his gadgets would serve their purpose.
We hid behind the lifts, in a cavity of lino floor and shadows. The Inductor would have to cross the room to search our hiding place – and in doing so, he would surely trigger at least one of Orbit’s devices.
‘Imagine if we caught an Inductor,’ Riff whispered. ‘Dragon’d have to give us a medal or something, I reckon.’
I switched off my phone, plunging Level Six into darkness. ‘If we didn’t get a medal for London, we’re not gonna get one now.’
‘Oh yeah, good point. Maybe we’ll get bonus points for that exam tomorrow instead! I mean, we’re sacrificing valuable cramming time to catch this guy, so –’
‘Shut up, will you?’ Phoenix hissed. ‘I’m trying to hear the Inductor.’
Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. I strained my ears, fighting to hear movement from the floor below, but all I heard was my own nervous breath, and an occasional shuffle or huff from one of my friends.
To our left, the doors of the lift formed a cold metal wall. It was the most vulnerable part of our hiding place, but Orbit had draped a diagonal wire across the doors, linked to the silvery gadget on the ceiling. To our right, there was only the door of a maintenance cupboard. Nothing too fearsome, unless we were afraid of mops and vacuum cleaners.
We’re safe here, I told myself silently. So long as we stay quiet …
To my right, there was a faint thud.
It was a wooden sound, slightly awkward – like a broom falling over, or a picture frame slipping from a wall. I turned towards the maintenance cupboard, straining my ears. Had I only imagined it? The seconds stretched into minutes, yet there were no more sounds. Not even a creak, or a whisper.
Slowly, I began to relax.
‘You know,’ Riff whispered, ‘I still reckon we should’ve picked The Pirate’s Pizza Ship as R4. The waiters all wear costumes, which’d be a pretty good disguise. We could’ve set an ambush in the kitchen …’
Phoenix ground her teeth. ‘We’ve talked about this a million times, and you know it’s not secure enough. You want this Inductor to catch us?’
‘Nah, course not,’ Riff said, ‘but you’ve gotta admit all this “fleeing for our lives” stuff is hungry work. I mean, it’d be nice to grab a slice of pizza while we –’
The cupboard door exploded.
It smashed outwards: a roar of broken hinges and splinters. I yelped, stumbling aside, as the others staggered around me, instinctively shielding our faces from the blast. There was a sudden burst of light – and I saw in a rush that Riff had frozen, the end of his sentence still hanging on his lips. He closed his mouth with an almost comical gulp and turned to me, his eyes wide.
And that was when I saw the torpefier, pressed to the back of his skull.
The world was a jumble: splintering wood, chipped plaster, and a blinding light from the Inductor’s torch. The man shoved his torpefier closer to Riff’s head. ‘I don’t want to pull this trigger – but if I have to, I will.’
I was still disorientated, struggling to regain my balance. We had been stupid. We had been so stupid. We had booby-trapped the stairs, and the corridor, and even the doors of the lift. But this man was a sorcerer, and he wasn’t restricted to the usual means of climbing between levels. Down on Level Five, he must have stood directly beneath the maintenance cupboard and sliced a silent hole into the ceiling – using some kind of sorcerous gadget, no doubt – then levitated up into the cupboard. His ascent would have been utterly silent, if it weren’t for the thud of a broom falling over.
‘You hurt him,’ Phoenix snarled, ‘and I’ll blow your brains out.’
‘Without a weapon? I’d like to see you try.’
The Inductor’s voice was deep and hoarse, flavoured by a Kiwi accent. Right now, though, such details didn’t matter. All that mattered was his torpefier, cold and glinting. Its barrel pressed into the back of Riff’s skull.
Riff tried to dart aside, but the man grabbed him tighter. He pushed the torpefier closer, digging it deep into Riff’s
scruffy black hair.
‘Leave him alone!’ I took a sharp breath. ‘You don’t need him. Just let him go, and I’ll come with you. No one else needs to get hurt.’
I felt the others stiffen, about to object, but the man raised a gloved hand for silence. His gaze shifted slowly towards me and he raised an eyebrow. ‘You?’ he said. ‘Why on earth would I want you?’
The realisation hit me slowly, cold and brittle in the back of my mind. We had it wrong. This man didn’t know I was a Witness. As far as he knew, we were just a random bunch of HELIX cadets. But that meant there was something else he wanted …
‘Who are you?’ Phoenix snapped.
The Inductor stared at her, considering the question. With his spare hand, he reached upwards and yanked away his face. His features retracted from the flesh beneath – eyes and cheeks, beard and nose and lips – like gum being yanked from the bottom of a shoe.
As he pulled the Spectral Mask away, its sorcery dissolved. The false features flickered and vanished, until he held only a plain metallic theatre mask – like a decoration from a high school drama room. But it wasn’t the mask that caught my attention. It was the figure who stood before us, lips pursed, true face finally revealed.
The Inductor was a woman.
It wasn’t my mother. My mother was short and prim, with blonde hair. This woman was far too tall, far too young and far too striking. She looked Maori, with a long dark braid of hair, and no older than her mid-twenties. Slowly, she reached into her mouth and pulled out a tiny, blinking electronic device.
A voice modulator, I realised. We had studied them briefly in a Disguises briefing at HQ. These tiny gadgets clamped to the roof of your mouth, and could be programmed to raise or lower the pitch of your voice.
‘How … how did you find us?’ I asked.
‘I followed you,’ the woman said. Her voice was higher now, without the distortion of the modulator. ‘I waited outside your HQ and followed the first group of agents that left the building. That was you.’ She gave a slow, hard smile. ‘Guess you’re just lucky, huh?’
‘Why? What do you want?’
‘I need to talk to your boss,’ the woman said. ‘I need you to take me back to your HQ. The security scanner won’t recognise my magical signature, but one of you can let me through the door into –’
Phoenix’s eyes widened. ‘You think we’d let an Inductor into HQ?’ she said, incredulous. ‘You’re off your rocker, lady. You can shoot us if you like, but we’re not helping you through that door.’
‘An Inductor?’ The woman stiffened. ‘I’m no Inductor.’
‘Then who are you?’
‘My codename is Nephrite,’ she said. ‘I’m a HELIX agent from the New Zealand branch. And I’m here to deliver some vital information to Dragon.’
As proof, she pulled her HELIX medallion from under her shirt. It was a silver sphere, cast in the shape of the globe, with tiny continents etched on its surface. Every agent wore one, and I knew how its sorcery worked. When the globe was opened, it would beam up a 3D holographic map to help Nephrite find her way back to HQ.
Silence.
‘Well,’ Riff said, finally, ‘I reckon that puts a different spin on things.’
I took a cautious step forward, my throat tight. ‘If you’re a HELIX agent, why were you wearing a Spectral Mask?’
I didn’t have a high opinion of people who wore such masks. To mimic someone’s appearance, you had to steal part of their quintessence, which involved injuring or killing them. I had only known one other HELIX agent who wore a Spectral Mask, and he hadn’t exactly turned out to be a paragon of moral virtue.
‘A trio of Inductors tried to kill me,’ Nephrite said. ‘I fought back, and one of them was injured. To avoid future attacks, I thought it safest to take advantage of his injury, and borrow a bit of his quintessence for a while.’
‘Why are you threatening us, then?’ Phoenix asked.
Nephrite’s voice grew sharper. ‘I can’t trust anyone right now, and I need Dragon to listen to me. We’ve never worked together before, but this is urgent, and I don’t have time to muck around with pleasantries. I thought she might pay more attention if I had some … leverage.’
‘Hostages, you mean,’ Phoenix said.
Nephrite didn’t dispute the term.
‘What do you want?’ Orbit said, looking curious. ‘I must say, if you’re truly an agent of HELIX, you’ve chosen a rather unorthodox way to introduce yourself.’
‘Personally, I would’ve gone with a handshake,’ Riff agreed. ‘Maybe a high five, if you’re feeling snazzy.’
Nephrite ignored him. ‘I need to talk to Dragon.’
‘So give us your message,’ Phoenix said, ‘and we’ll pass it along when we get back to HQ. Don’t see why you need to visit her in person.’
Nephrite shook her head dismissively. ‘It’s top secret, completely confidential. I’m not trusting this to a bunch of kids.’
‘Hang on,’ Riff said, insulted, ‘we’re not just “kids”, we’re seasoned HELIX cadets. We can deal with delivering a message, you know. How hard can it be? I mean, if a stork can deliver a baby, I reckon we can manage to deliver a few sentences.’
‘Riff?’ Phoenix said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Shut up.’
Staring at Nephrite, I fought to keep my voice steady. ‘Put down the torpefier, and I’ll call Dragon. You can talk to her, see what she says.’
I met Nephrite’s gaze. For a long moment, the air was still, solidified by the weight of tension between us.
Ever so slowly, Nephrite lowered her weapon.
‘Dragon’s in a meeting,’ Phoenix pointed out. ‘She won’t want to be disturbed.’
Nephrite shook her head. ‘She’ll want to hear this.’
‘Uh … I dunno,’ Riff said. ‘I mean, she’s got every agent in the Aussie branch there, listening to her. This is her annual agency meeting, biggest event of the year at HQ. I don’t reckon she’ll be in the mood to listen to –’
‘If I don’t deliver this news,’ Nephrite said, ‘a lot of people are going to die.’
‘She’s inside HQ,’ Phoenix said. ‘There’s a sorcerous firewall, no phone or internet access …’ She spoke with a false ring of certainty, but her gaze slipped across to meet mine. I knew what she was thinking.
I reached up around my neck, where my HELIX medallion hung beneath my jacket. It was a silver globe, identical to Nephrite’s, but it had recently been modified. Now, it was no longer just a glorified magical GPS.
It was an emergency beacon.
Two weeks ago, Dragon had ordered the HQ gadgeteers to alter my medallion. The Inductors were hunting me in Europe, but Dragon had decided it was better to be safe than sorry. The tiny globe now included an emergency beacon, connected through sorcery to Dragon’s medallion.
It was only a short-range signal, but it was cleverly crafted to slip through the HQ firewall. If I pressed the button, Dragon’s own medallion would emit a single beep. She would hurry out of HQ into the street, and call me to check that I hadn’t ‘gotten myself blown up’ or something. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to respond if I had gotten blown up, but I supposed it was better to think on the bright side.
I pressed the button.
Nephrite studied my medallion with narrowed eyes. ‘What’s that for?’
‘To signal Dragon,’ I said.
‘And why would a mere cadet have a means to summon the head of the Australian branch of HELIX?’
‘That’s confidential,’ I said.
Nephrite glared at me. I glared at her.
A minute later, my phone buzzed. Dragon must have taken the lift down to the street, since there was no way she could have sprinted down the stairs that quickly. I picked up instantly. ‘Dragon?’
Dragon’s voice was tight with annoyance. ‘What is it, kid? Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ I said, putting her on speaker. ‘It’s an emergency, though.’
/> ‘I know that,’ Dragon snapped, ‘and it had better be pretty damn urgent! If there ain’t currently some form of demonic henchman dangling you from your ankles above a pit of boiling lava, you’ll wish you –’
‘Some Kiwi lady wants to talks to you,’ I cut in. ‘Says she’s a HELIX agent.’
Nephrite grabbed the phone. ‘Madam, you don’t know me, but my codename is Nephrite. I work for the New Zealand branch of HELIX and I –’
‘I don’t care if you work for the king of the goddamn universe.’ Dragon’s irritation crackled through the speaker. ‘You ever call me “madam” again, I’ll reach through that phone line and swap your kidneys for your eyeballs. Got it?’
‘Uh … yes,’ Nephrite said. ‘But you see, I’ve got urgent news from New Zealand and I think you ought to hear –’
‘I don’t give a tinker’s toss about your news! I’m trying to run a national meeting here, and I ain’t planning to interrupt it for anything short of a global apocalypse. Next time you fancy a chat, I’ll thank you to make an appointment first.’
Nephrite stiffened. ‘I’ve got four of your cadets here, and I’ve got a torpefier. If you won’t listen, I might be forced to take drastic action.’
A long pause.
When Dragon spoke again, her tone spiked like a stalactite. ‘If you’ve touched one hair on those kids’ heads …’
‘I don’t want to hurt them,’ Nephrite said. ‘Really, I don’t. But a lot of lives are at stake, a lot more than four cadets. I need you to listen to me – right here, right now. There’s no time to mess around.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It’s about an agent called Mariner,’ Nephrite said. ‘I’m his granddaughter, and I … well, I don’t know if you remember, but you worked with him a few decades ago on the Auckland job.’
‘Aye, I remember Mariner,’ Dragon cut in. ‘What’s the old fool got himself into this time, then?’
‘He’s been murdered,’ Nephrite said.
No one spoke. Finally, Dragon exhaled a breath so sharp that it spiked like a crackle of cellophane. ‘What happened?’
Deadly Magic Page 3