Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (114 page)

* * *

I
swam up to consciousness slowly. As my senses returned one at a time, I became gradually aware of my surroundings: warm air, echoes in the distance, the presence of magic. I felt the touch of soft hands on my body, running from my stomach to my chest, and heard the rustle of movement. It was all very peaceful and I lay back, enjoying the sensations. Only after a few minutes did I open my eyes.

I was lying on a raised bed in a small cave. Soft light glowed from orbs set into the walls, casting a dim glow over the room. The cave had been stacked with rolls of fabric and bolts of cloth, but they'd been pushed to the far side to leave a clear space around the bed. The air was warm and dry.

Anne was sitting next to me. Her clothes were rumpled and her grey blouse was marked with dark stains that looked like dried blood, but her posture was alert and her hand was resting on my arm. Her face was more drawn than I remembered, and her red-brown eyes were watching me. “Alex?” she said in her soft voice.

I just looked at her. Somehow, I'd never noticed before just how beautiful Anne was. After the pain and violence of the battle in the casino, and the death and ugliness of the dream, she was something gentle and beautiful, and I lay quietly, taking in the sight.

“Alex?” Anne said again. Her hand tightened on my arm, just slightly. “Can you hear me?”

“I'm—” My voice came out as a rasp, and I had to stop and swallow. “Yeah.”

Anne's eyes filled with tears and she turned away. I looked at her, puzzled. “Why are you crying?”

Anne's voice was muffled. “Why do you
think
?” She paused a second then turned back, eyes still red but set in concentration. She touched her hand to my forehead, chest, stomach, and I felt the stir of magic against my bare skin as she spoke under her breath. “Brain activity is okay, respiration is okay, blood pressure . . .” She chewed her lip. “Still low . . . Do you think you can manage drinking?”

Now that I thought about it, I was really thirsty. “Yeah.”

“Just a little,” Anne warned me as she held a straw to my lips. I sucked it down greedily and was disappointed when she pulled it away.

“Hey,” I said weakly.

“I don't want to test the mend to your stomach,” Anne said. “I wouldn't give you anything at all unless I had to . . . You can have some more in an hour.”

I lay quietly for a little while. I wasn't wearing anything except my underwear and the bedclothes had been drawn back to expose my chest, but that didn't really feel all that important right now. “We're in Arachne's cave, right?”

Anne nodded.

“Who else is here?”

“Luna's sleeping through there.” Anne nodded at a solid wall. She smiled slightly, wiping away the last traces of tears. “She's going to be angry she wasn't here to see you wake up. She stayed up all night while I was working.”

“All night?” I glanced at the cave. “How long was I out?”

“Sixteen hours,” Anne said. “I could have woken you earlier, but you needed the rest.” She looked out into the cavern. “Arachne's in the cavern, and Variam and Sonder are getting supplies. I asked for some stuff from the flat and the market.”

“You've been up all night?” I asked. Casting spells for that long takes it out of you, especially on top of lack of sleep.

Anne shook her head. “There are biochemical processes that keep you awake. I can go a lot longer than this.”

I glanced at her clothes. “Uh, how did you get those bloodstains?”

Anne looked at me with eyebrows raised. “They're yours.”

“Oh.”

I was quiet for a little while as Anne continued to check over me. “How close was I . . .” I said. I didn't add
to dying
, but the words hung in the air.

Anne didn't meet my eyes, but her hand tightened on my wrist for an instant before moving to the side of my neck. “You don't want to know.”

“So remember when you told me that it felt like you didn't need to worry about me so much? I guess I kind of screwed that up, didn't I?”

Anne gave something between a laugh and a sob and dropped her head, her hair brushing my chest. “Don't . . .” She drew a breath and looked up at me. “Don't do anything like this again. Please.”

I smiled. “I'll work on that.”

Footsteps sounded from the tunnel, and Anne straightened as Luna walked in. She'd changed clothes at some point during the night and was wearing something less eye-catching. “Hey!” she said cheerfully as she saw me. “You're up!”

“You don't sound too surprised.”

“Well, yeah,” Luna said. “You had Anne with you.” She pulled up a chair, keeping her distance. The silver mist of her curse curled around her at the edge of my vision, marking the boundary beyond which she couldn't safely approach. “So how's it feel to be back from the dead?”

“A lot better than the alternative,” I said. I felt tired and fragile, but there was no pain and I could talk. Anne's good at what she does. I glanced between the two of them. “What did I miss?”

Anne looked at Luna. “Well,” Luna said, settling back into her chair. “You remember the firemen picking you up?”

“Not much else, but yeah.”

“They got you out the front door. They were bringing the hoses in and there was smoke everywhere. It was packed outside and I was worried those guys might still be around, so I stuck next to you and called Anne and Vari and told them to get moving. Then the police started setting up barriers and the ambulance showed up and the medics got to you. I was on the phone to Anne and she was giving me advice on what to do and she told me to let them treat you until she got there. They put you in the ambulance and I got them to take me too and they took us to the hospital.” Luna stopped.

I thought for a second, trying to figure it out. “The hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“Did they . . . discharge me or something?”

“Ah . . .” Luna said. “Not exactly.”

I looked around at the walls of Arachne's cave, puzzled. “Then how did I end up here?”

“Anne said not to tell you about that until you're better.”

I looked from Luna to Anne, eyebrows raised. “Let's just say we're lucky that Vari looks good in a uniform,” Luna added.

“Luna!” Anne said.

“Sorry.”

I sighed and laid my head back. “You know what, I don't want to know.”

“So did you see me against those guys?” Luna said. “Did you catch the bit where I blocked that fire wall with my whip?”

“From my angle it was kind of hard to miss.”

“Good! I was worried you were too far gone to see it.”

“I'm glad you've got your priorities straight,” I said dryly.

“So I saved your life back there,” Luna said, ignoring my comment. “Didn't I?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, really saved your life. You would have died if I hadn't been there, right?”

“Yes.”

“You looked really helpless when you were on the floor like that. You were just lying there sprawled out and—”

“Is there somewhere you're going with this?”

“So now do I get to be the master and you have to do what I say?”

I glared at her. “No!”

“Well, you know, maybe you're slowing down with age. Do you think I should start being your bodyguard?”

“You're going to have to work on your coverage if you're planning to take that up,” I said. “Where were you while I was fighting anyway?”

“I was in the bathroom.”

“Right. If I ever get killed when you're supposed to be protecting me, that'll make a great explanation.”

“So do you think any of the security cameras got the fight?” Luna said. “Because if they did I could show it to Vari and the others at duelling class.”

I couldn't help laughing, and Luna grinned too. “So,” she said, becoming serious, “who were they?”

My smile faded. “That's . . . a long story.” Talking with Anne and Luna had let me briefly forget everything from last night, but now it suddenly came back again.

The silence stretched out, and Anne and Luna looked at each other. “Well, I guess it can wait,” Luna suggested.

“I'll tell you,” I said. “Just . . . I don't really want to tell this story more than once.”

“We'll wait until Vari and Sonder are back,” Anne said. “In the meantime, you should rest.” She gave Luna a glance.

Luna nodded and rose. “I'll tell them.” She paused at the tunnel leading out, one hand on the rock wall. “Alex? Glad you're okay.” She disappeared.

* * *

“Y
ou've gotten careless,” Arachne told me.

“I know,” I said with a sigh. “Things have been quiet lately.”

“Not that quiet.”

“Okay, not that quiet. But the last few months it's been the subtle sort of trouble, you know? It's been politics I've been worried about, not assassins going after me right in the middle of a bloody casino.”

Arachne is about the size of a rhino and much taller, eight hairy legs running up to a black arachnid body highlighted in cobalt blue. Eight black eyes are clustered above a set of fangs that wouldn't look out of place on a sabre-toothed tiger, and she can scuttle at lightning speed. One glance at her would make most people would run screaming, but I have exactly the opposite reaction and I prefer Arachne's company to pretty much anyone else's. I was glad Luna and Anne and Variam had brought me here; it was probably the safest place they could have picked.

Arachne's lair is under Hampstead Heath. The entrance tunnel is hidden beneath an old tree and leads down into a huge circular cavern hung with a dazzling rainbow of clothes and fabrics. The walls, floor, and ceiling are stone, worn smooth from centuries of use except for a jagged patch around one of the side caves that marks the spot where someone was inconsiderate enough to set off some explosives last year. Anne had helped me into a robe and escorted me into the main chamber, and I was resting on a sofa, talking to Arachne as she sewed on her workbench. Anne was sitting quietly by the main entrance, and Luna had gone out to make a call.

“I still can't believe they attacked me out in the open like that,” I said. “It seems crazy.”

“From the sound of it this boy doesn't seem to care very much about risks.”

“I guess that's it, isn't it?” I said. “I've gotten used to dealing with professionals. They wouldn't take a risk like that; they're predictable. It's the bloody amateurs you have to watch out for.”

“Well, just in case you run into any more amateurs, I think you ought to wear something a little more protective,” Arachne said. Arachne's voice has a clicking rustle to it, not quite loud enough to be obtrusive but enough to remind you it's there. “I've been telling you that for months.”

“Yeah, yeah. You were right, I was wrong.”

“I hope this'll teach you a little more humility at least.”

“Look, I've already got Luna giving me grief me over this. I don't need it from you too.”

“It's good to be reminded of one's mortality from time to time.” Arachne can't smile, but her voice sounded amused. “Though perhaps in future you could find a slightly less extreme way of doing it.”

Voices echoed down the tunnel and Variam and Sonder arrived, walking down with Luna in the lead. As soon as Variam and Sonder saw me they wanted to know if I was all right, and it took me a while to convince them that I was, which led in turn to Luna giving Variam and Sonder another retelling of her version of the fight in the casino.

By the time it was done we were sitting in a rough circle on Arachne's sofas, while Arachne worked quietly off to one side. “So,” Variam said. “Who are these guys and how do we get rid of them?”

“I might have found out something about that,” Sonder said unexpectedly. “I was asking around and there's this new group showing up among the adepts.”

Adepts are the next step down from mages on the power scale; they can use magic but only in one very specific way. A time mage like Sonder can speed time up, slow it down, look into the past, and even do really weird stuff like kicking something out of the timeline entirely, at least in theory. A time adept can only do one of those things—they have one spell they can use, and that's it. They don't get the best treatment from mages and a lot of them carry a fair bit of resentment as a result. “They're supposed to be some kind of vigilantes?” Sonder said. “Or they've been getting into fights, anyway. I don't know if they're the same people, though—the ones I heard about are supposed to only have a problem with Dark mages.”

“What makes you think they're not the same ones?” I said dryly.

“But you're not . . .” Sonder began, then trailed off. “Oh.”

“What sort of fights?” Luna asked.

“I think they're supposed to be pro-adept?” Sonder said. “They attacked some Dark mage in Bristol a while back.”

Variam shot Luna a glance, frowning. “If they're so pro-adept, how come they were after you?”

Luna shrugged. “They weren't, they were after Alex. I just got in the way.”

“Okay . . .” Variam said doubtfully, looking at me.

I hesitated, on the edge of speaking. It would be so easy to change the subject, and for a moment I grabbed at the idea. Tell them an edited version, skate over the worst bits, and move on. For all the time that I'd spent with Anne and Variam and Sonder and Luna over the past year I'd never told them much about myself, not even Luna. And they trusted me—if I told them I didn't want to talk about it, they'd accept it.

Except . . .

Except that they
did
trust me. When I'd been hurt, they'd come without hesitation. Sonder and Luna had been at my side all the way through the search for the fateweaver and the attack on Arachne last year, and Anne and Variam had joined them after the events of last winter. Hadn't they earned the right to know what was really going on? And if they were willing to put themselves at risk, shouldn't I at least tell them why?