Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (132 page)

What do you want?

I wanted to survive. For Will and the Nightstalkers to be gone. For Anne and Variam and Luna to be safe and not to have any sins on their conscience.

So, then.

I wasn't strong enough to defeat them on my own.

Is it the first time?

It wasn't the first time I'd gone up against enemies able to beat me in a straight fight. Belthas, Vitus, Onyx . . .

How did you survive?

Each time, I'd survived by making sure it
hadn't
been a straight fight. Mostly, I'd done the same thing . . .

And suddenly the plan was laid out before me, as if it had been written down in a book and hidden away until it could just now be opened. It was simple and brutal and I'd had all the pieces I needed for days. But until now, I wouldn't have been willing to do it. Maybe this was what I'd really been waiting for, the reason I'd been running from Will all this time. My old instincts hadn't been gone; they'd just been buried, covered over with the habits and memories of happier times. Will and the Nightstalkers had cut through those, worn me down to the point where I was willing to do whatever it took to survive.

I looked up at Variam. “Will you help me?”

Variam nodded.

“I know you've been practising with gate magic,” I said. “Can you bring someone with you?”

Variam hesitated for a second. “. . . Yeah, I can do it. How fast?”

“Speed's not an issue,” I said. “I'm going to need to get somewhere and I won't be able to take a car or a train. Lee'll be tracking me and if I'm out in the open they'll home in on me before I get there.”

“Okay. Where to?”

I took out a notebook and wrote down the location, sketching out a map before tearing out the paper and handing it to Variam. “Here,” I said. “You'll need to go there to study it so you can make a gate safely. Choose a staging point. More than one would be better.” I tapped my pen on the map, picking out two areas. “These probably have the most cover, but farther away is fine as long as you're not too far from the building. Just don't go inside.”

Variam frowned as he looked at the map. “I can do it but how's this going to help?”

“If we're lucky it won't have to,” I said. “I'm going to have one last try at talking this out. Come back tomorrow. One way or another, it'll be settled by then.”

* * *

W
hen I want to find something out, I usually use my divination magic. On the other hand, I've been around long enough to learn that even though divination can
theoretically
find out anything, sometimes doing things the mundane way is more efficient. In this case I wanted to find out someone's phone number. I don't have the contacts or the resources to get that kind of information but I know people who do. I had to call in a favour, but it didn't take long.

At the same time, I was watching the futures for danger. I wasn't wearing my mist cloak anymore, and as soon as I stepped outside Arachne's cave Lee would be able to pick me up again. I needed to know how fast he could do it and so I spent several hours path-walking, trying out one future after another.

As usual, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that Lee couldn't instantly home in on me. It would take time, and the more I kept moving the slower it would be. I'd been paying close attention to that conversation I'd overheard between him and Dhruv and Captain America, and I was fairly sure his magic only gave him a direction, not a location. To narrow down the distance he'd have to triangulate from multiple points.

The bad news was that while it would take time, once the process started it was also more or less inevitable. As soon as he picked me up he could just keep on closing in, getting a more and more accurate fix with each attempt. I could delay it as long as I kept moving, but sooner or later he'd catch up. Worse, the Nightstalkers weren't stupid. If they noticed I was moving in the direction of a place they'd been to before, they could take a guess and jump straight to it. That was how they'd tracked me down to my shop so quickly after the fight at Richard's mansion.

And the last problem was that it wasn't predictable. The trouble with divination magic is that it's only one hundred percent reliable if you're dealing with systems that are one hundred percent deterministic, which human beings aren't. At any point Lee might change his mind and start searching for me in a different way, or have a sudden flash of brilliance and guess exactly where I was, and unless I was watching closely I'd have no way of knowing. On top of that I was about to do something guaranteed to get their attention.

Well, it wasn't like this was more dangerous than anything else I'd done lately.

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.

* * *

I
didn'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 language, 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?”