by White, Gwynn
She could see Alfie lying in the weeds, less than five yards away. He was on his back. It looked as if his eyes were open. As a matter of fact, he looked dead, but after a moment she saw him twitch and shiver.
“Alfie? Alfie!”
He shuddered like a child having a nightmare. His mind was gone somewhere he could not hear her.
Dave brushed past her. He had not stayed where he was told. “Dave! Stop! Don’t—” She grabbed his smock, lost her grip.
He hit the circle, rebounded, bulled through. He almost reached Alfie. But he was slowing, like a man who’s been shot and only realizes it when his body gives out under him. He looked back at her, as if in reproach, then sat down, curling his arms around his knees and putting his head down sideways on them. When he was little, he’d sit just like that on the hall stairs all night, waiting for their father to come home. She’d get up in the small hours to drag him to bed and find him lying on his side, still curled up in a ball.
“Dave!”
He didn’t move.
53
Mihal
At The Same Time. Belfast
Mihal crawled out of the closet and dragged himself across the carpet. He switched on the bedside light. Sat on the edge of the bed. It was a canopied ocean of fluffy quilts. He had asked for somewhere quiet to prepare, and the Countess of Dublin, Lady Sauvage, had provided him with a room at the Griffin’s Eyrie, the best hotel in Belfast.
His hands stank of magic. He could still hear the last thing Greta had said to him after Val’s rambling, drunken phone call. Bring him back, she’d said. Not Come back safely. Bring him back.
He buckled his arms belt on. It had been a present from Greta a few years back, a broad hint that he should be more of a ‘real man,’ childishly fascinated with pointy sticks and things that went bang. Why had she married an incurable and then tried to turn him into a knight? Why had she married a Russian and then started an affair with a Irishman? Why, why … No use wondering.
Voices came through the connecting door. He hesitated, then went through to the Countess’s suite.
The Countess was not there. Instead, two strangers were bullying Colin Argent. They’d backed him up against the mantelpiece, too close for comfort to the roaring fire.
Mihal coughed. “Where’s Lady Sauvage?”
The older bully had a face that had seen it all and not thought it worth writing home about. He produced an expression that was probably meant to be a smile. “You must be the IMF chap. I’m sorry to say there have been some new developments.”
Mihal looked at Colin Argent, who shook his head angrily. “I’m having a drink, if you’ve no objection to that.”
“Mine’s a G and T,” the older bully said. His colleague, louche in jeans and black leather jacket, watched Argent crashing bottles around on the drinks cart. “Good of you to come all this way,” the older man said to Mihal. “Only I’m afraid you’re now superfluous to requirements. Don’t take it personally, will you?”
“Would you mind telling me what authority you’ve got to make that statement? I’m currently employed by the Sauvage Corporation as a consultant, in keeping with British temporary employment law, section five for foreign nationals sworn to other corporations or entities. So I believe you need to take your concerns up with Lady Sauvage.”
The man laughed. “Smooth. No go, though. Lady Sauvage’s been unavoidably detained at Belfast Castle.”
Mihal remembered spying a hilltop castle from the window of the corporate jet that had brought them to Belfast. A spiny fortress, quickstone ravelins grown wild. Hard enough getting in there, let alone out.
“MI5. Counter-espionage section. Sperling,” the man said. “This is Norton.”
“Honored,” Norton grunted. He was young but fleshy, head shaved to disguise a premature bald patch.
Colin Argent raised his glass in an ironic toast. Turning to Mihal, he said, “I didn’t want to disturb you while you were working. Maybe I should have. They say Guy has been arrested—I don’t believe it, of course—arrested for murdering Michael. They framed Piers, and now Guy. They’re determined to destroy us.”
Mihal said nothing. As far as he knew, MI5 was the nearest English equivalent of BASI’s loyalty police. Which meant they were capable of saying dogshit was ice cream, and beating you up if you didn’t want any.
“It’s quite true,” said a new voice. For the first time Mihal saw a fair-haired young man sitting in the window seat, his boots crossed at the ankles. “There’s to be an official announcement at ten o’clock. Until then, the news of Sir Guy’s arrest is strictly embargoed. Which is why we’re asking you both to remain here and refrain from using the telephone. Sorry.”
Mihal found he was thirsty, after all. He moved to the drinks cart, scooped some ice into a glass, and poured a splash out of the first bottle that came to hand.
The director of the conciliation department, Wulf Bohrman, had allowed him to come to Britain precisely because of Guy Sauvage’s counter-coup. It was a chance to get in on the ground floor of the new Sauvage regime, Bohrman had decided.
So much for that.
Mihal sat down in one of the buttoned leather armchairs by the fire and sipped his drink. It turned out to be whiskey. He hadn’t eaten all day. His head swam.
“What’s that?” Sperling said, jerking a thumb at Mihal’s arms belt.
Mihal drew out the polished ash dowel he’d spent the evening working on. “Not pointy. See?”
“It’s a magic wand,” Norton said. “Put it away before I shove it up your arse.”
Mihal managed a fairly convincing laugh. “Wands used to be the standard vehicle for spells,” he explained. “Now, of course, they’re giveaways, so we rarely use them. This one’s specifically designed to counter an existing spell. It can’t hurt you. I’m here to help, not to harm anyone.”
“We whipped you lot in the War,” Norton said, predictably. “Magic didn’t save you then. Want to give it a go?”
“You know, I’m kind of hungry.” This was not bravado but simply an attempt to duck the looming confrontation. “Any chance of room service?”
“I’ll serve you.” Norton started towards him.
The man in the window seat intervened. “Don’t fuck him about. I want to hear what he’s got to say.” He swung his legs to the floor and strode across the room. A neat little knot graced his head. He stopped at the telephone stand and flipped through the vellum leaflet beside it. “Light meals, desserts, nine-course dinners … would a club sandwich do you? I had one for lunch, they’re rather good.”
“Sounds great,” Mihal said warily.
Room service was efficient. Not ten minutes later, the sandwich arrived on a plate so fine that Mihal could see the firelight through its rim. It was indeed good, the bacon perfectly crunchy, the tomato flavorful, the white bread lightly toasted, with a side of potato chips. He polished it off, wiped his mouth on damask, and looked up. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” the fair-haired knight said. He gestured to Norton, who leered and hit Mihal in the head.
54
Leonie
At The Same Time. Dargan Marsh Power Station
Leonie squatted on the hill of rubble, her Myxilite across her knees, doggedly eating a chocolate bar. She had no feeling left in her arse and not much more in her hands. She could see Alfie and Dave lying in the weeds beyond the nearest cooling tower. She and the other Ravens had all tried to reach them. None of them could break through what Wicke had dubbed the ‘Wall of Fear.’
I’m sorry, Dave, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Sorry I thought you weren’t up to this soldiering game. When push came to shove, you were braver than me.
The sleet was turning into snow, settling on the rubble. Out in the weeds, it would be settling on Dave and Alfie. Alive or dead—or worse than dead …
You were the bravest of us all, and look where it’s got you.
But that was a load of old cobblers. Who was it, after all, th
at had got him into this?
Me, it was me. I’m sorry.
With two men down, this was no longer a spree. Wicke had been sent back to the Rover to get on the radio and call in backup. The consequences for the rest of the patrol didn’t matter any more. Leonie had to stay here to explain the situation to whoever showed up, although it would likely take at least an hour, even if there happened to be a unit in the area. Thus they were down to three bodies, including her.
Neal, with his gimpy ankle, was on stag at the digger. Lance-Corporal Boogan had set off to do a circuit of the towers and find out if the Wall of Fear went all the way around.
If we had a rope, we could try to lasso them and drag them out of it. If, if …
Popping the last square of chocolate into her mouth, she stiffened. Was that Wicke, back already? But the figure walking through the snow was the wrong size. And now she heard the noise of an engine in low gear.
She slid off the rubble and took cover.
A man came walking backwards out of the snow, guiding a lorry with its headlights off. It passed between her and the towers. Heads moved above the sides of the open back. And another lorry, more men walking alongside. And another.
The procession seemed ghostly, a magical apparition to go with the Wall of Fear. Gooseflesh squeezed Leonie’s scalp.
One of the lorries angled away from the others. She ran after it and met it at the digger.
Lance-Corporal Boogan jumped out. His eyes burned hot in his greened-up face, blaming her. “It goes all the way around.”
“Where’d this lot spring from?”
The men getting out of the lorry, aiming rifles into the snow, wore white peaked caps. Sauvage-green smocks, white belts, white vinyl hobnailed boots, and white scarves, helpful for any terrorist seeking a target. Pointyheads, Ireland version. Governor Griffin’s liveried police. Armed with rubber bullets. Their rig had metal sides, buttressed with sandbags, open to the snow. That’s what the pointyheads drove around in up here—a mobile platform, they called it. One step up from a cattle lorry.
A plainclothes swung out of the cab, paunch belted in, drunkard’s nose a blob between hat and muffler.
“Around the other side,” Boogan said. “Front gate. The pointyheads are setting up a siege.”
“Any of you lot got a rope?”
“Maybe in the staging area—” a young pointyhead offered.
Leonie urged them towards the cooling towers. The plainclothes tagged along at the back of the party. They clumped up behind the nearest tower.
Snow had collected in the folds of Dave and Alfie’s uniforms.
“There’s my men,” Boogan said grimly. “Any ideas?”
“We could form a human chain,” Leonie said. The pointyheads were going to be no help. They were just local boyos who’d ended up wearing the Griffin’s colors instead of balaclavas and camouflage. The only difference up here was which street you happened to be born in. They were terrified, and they hadn’t even touched the Wall of Fear yet. “Have a go,” she needled them. “If you’re not craven, prove it!”
“I know this is above your pay grade, lads,” Boogan said. “It’s above mine. It’s magic, what done for those boys. But I’m not going nowhere until I recover their bodies, and neither are you!”
“You shouldn’t have been here in the first place. You’ve compromised the element of surprise,” the plainclothes said.
“What element of surprise?” Leonie said. “They knew we were coming! They knew! What else did they put this shit up for?”
The plainclothes raised a bushy eyebrow, which was more or less all she could see of his face above his muffler. But all he said was, “Back, lads, back. Establish your positions. Snow’s getting heavier.”
The pointyheads retreated. Leonie was the last to follow. She tacked around another group of policemen unspooling a roll of barbed wire in loose loops.
“You lot are as useful as chocolate teacups,” Boogan told the pointyheads, giving voice to her own feelings. But she could not understand why he looked at her again in that blaming way, until he said, “Bloody MI5! Couldn’t organize a piss-up in a pub! Left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing, not half!”
The plainclothes frowned at him, then turned to Leonie. “Hal Brakespear.” He nodded curtly, highborn manners dictating that he treat her as a woman, not a soldier. “MI5.”
Leonie felt her mouth trying to drop open. She fought for control of her expression. Thanks to the muffler wrapped around the bottom half of his face, she had not recognized him. Now she did.
“She’s MI5, too,” Boogan chipped in.
Brakespear’s eyes narrowed. “Really,” he said neutrally. “Miss?”
“Spline,” she said, giving her father’s surname, the same name she’d given the Ravens so they wouldn’t know she was Dave’s sister. “MI5.”
She waited for him to recognize her. She recognized him all right. He was one of the traitors who’d betrayed the king to the ROCK. So he’d been in MI5 all along …
Apparently he didn’t recognize her. But he didn’t believe her, either. “Better come back with me and report,” he said.
“I’m not leaving …” my brother.
Alone, Leonie ran back towards the cooling towers. She pushed down the barbed wire and plunged over it, ripping her jeans. She was going to have another go at the Wall of Fear. The only thing between her and Dave was fear. It was mad that that alone could keep her from saving him.
She halted in the gap between the towers. The whirling snow limited visibility. But she could see the weeds where Dave and Alfie had lain.
An acute sense of vulnerability pulled her into a crouch. Tears stung her eyelids.
The terrorists had, of course, known they were there all along. They must have been watching and waiting in silence, and the moment Leonie turned her back, they must have stolen out and dragged their prey off into the darkness.
Dave and Alfie were gone.
55
Mihal
At The Same Time
Mihal’s head hurt. His whole body hurt. The floor lurched. He was in a moving vehicle. He inhaled the smell of wet wool coats; rubber floor mats; the tang of gun oil. He opened his eyes.
He was lying in the far back of an estate car. Streetlights slid past. The upper storeys of decaying brick buildings. A gable end abloom with graffiti.
His hands were cuffed together in front of him.
The young blond knight leaned over the back seat. “Sorry about that,” he said. “One feels it’s sensible to take precautions with magicians. I’m glad Norton didn’t hit you too hard. Did I introduce myself? I don’t think so. Andrew Lackland.”
“Mihal Zalyotin. I’d like to sit up.”
Lackland reached over the seat and helped him into a sitting position. “The cuffs will come off when we get there. If you’re telling the truth about what this does.” He displayed Mihal’s wand.
“Why would I lie?” Mihal said.
“People do,” Lackland said. “You must have noticed. For profit, for pride, for love, out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Or because there’s something they believe in that matters more to them than the truth.”
Mihal licked his lips, tasted flakes of dried blood. “You’ve got the advantage of me. You know that I’m sworn to the IMF, but I don’t know who you’re sworn to.”
“They say magicians are never loyal to anyone but themselves,” Lackland said. “True, in my experience. That’s why our late king had to go. But we were talking about me?” He shrugged. “I’ve spent my whole life lying. Pretending to believe in this system. Assenting to our great national lie that we’ve still got power and influence, when the Wessexes have spent the last forty years pissing the once-great British Empire down the toilet.” Pause. “I was in the Navy for a while. I only ever set foot on shipboard once, but that was for a cruise in the Indian Sea. Around Cape Horn and ho! for the East. Those waters used to be ours. So did India. Not any more.”
It had been fifty years since the Pharaoh kicked the English out and established his abominable dictatorship over the subcontinent. Mihal marvelled at the way people could hold onto grudges older than they were.
“The Egyptians have factory ships the size of floating cities. Five thousand low-caste workers to each ship, catching and processing fish. We boarded one once. Have you ever seen the low-caste Egyptians? Not the chaps with necklace tattoos. The lower castes have the heads of animals. Literally. Men’s bodies, dogs’ heads. Or jackals, or cows, or leopards. They’re bred. The Egyptians call it forging.”
“Yes,” Mihal said. “It’s not magic, actually. It’s a type of fancying. We don’t know how they do it. Fancying should not work on human beings. It doesn’t, in this part of the world.”
“They are bred without free will, without any desires other than to serve the Pharaoh.” Lackland shuddered.
The car swung into a turn. Leaving the streetlights of the city behind, they sped into the dark.
“Our tolerance of the Pharaoh and his empire is an abomination,” Lackland concluded. “‘Oh,’ we say, ‘live and let live, as long as they don’t bother us.’ No wonder our so-called Great Houses have lost their sanctity. Oswald Day would have made a fresh start—a new era of chivalry …”
“The IMF also regrets Lord Day’s death.”
“Shut up, you glib piece of shit, or I’ll shoot you.”
56
Val
At The Same Time
Val waded through snow-frosted nettles and almost blundered into barbed wire. Mere yards away, another mobile platform drove past with its lights off.
He unlidded his second sight. His spell traced a wobbly line inside the barbed wire, a rope of knotted Latin: trepidatio, fear, repeated over and over. He’d used this one all the time when he was working for Flambeault in the East.