Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (46 page)

The leverage was enough to break the construct’s grip. Its hands flew apart, air flew back into my lungs, and before the construct could recover I kneed it in the groin with the strength of panic and slammed both palms into its chest. The knee to the groin did nothing but the palm strike sent it stumbling backwards. Its legs caught on the rope to the magic item section and it went over, its head slamming into the floor with a
crack
. It started to get up immediately.

I staggered through the door into the hallway, gasping for breath. The woman was there, looking at me with wide eyes, and I gestured and rasped, “Up!” The woman turned and ran up the stairs, I followed, and as I scrambled upwards I heard the construct come through the door right behind us.

Constructs are made things, a physical body animated by magical energy. The most powerful ones use the bound spirit of an elemental, but even the weakest can be deadly because they’re so persistent. They don’t feel pain, they don’t get tired, and they can’t be bought off or bargained or negotiated with. Once a construct’s been given an order, it’ll follow it to its own destruction, and it’s not harmless until it’s completely destroyed. I’d been fighting for less than a minute but already I was gasping for breath, my limbs heavy and tired. The construct hadn’t even slowed down.

The woman raced up the stairs with me right behind her. The construct reached through the banisters, grasping for my ankle, and missed. The extra few seconds were enough for me to reach the landing. The woman was there and looking from side to side. I rushed past her into my living room. “Hold the door!”

The woman hesitated. She was small, frail-looking, with long dark hair. “I can’t—”

I slammed the door behind her just as the construct appeared at the top of the stairs. “Learn!”

The moment’s breather had given me time to get my brain working. Weapons weren’t going to hurt this thing—the only way to physically destroy it would be to literally tear it to pieces. But I’d picked up an item a long time ago designed specifically for this. Now where had I put it?

My bedroom’s just through the living room, separated from it by a connecting door. I pulled open a desk drawer and started rifling through. There was a thump as the construct hit the living room door and out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman recoil, then throw herself desperately against the door and slam it closed again. I rummaged through the drawer: knives, tassels, jewellery boxes, marbles, figurines, carved stones, bags of powder, vials, clear plastic boxes filled with everything from dried flowers to Russian dolls. Wrong drawer. I yanked open the next one. Counterspell ingredients, no. Gate stones, no. Notebooks, no. Wands—

“It’s coming through!” the woman shouted from the living room, her voice high and panicked.

“Hold it a second,” I told her. Fetishes, no. Crystal holders—wrong kind. I moved on to the next drawer.

“I can’t!”

There.
Beneath a sheaf of handwritten papers was a needle-thin stiletto made of gleaming silver. I snatched it up and moved back into the living room. The construct had stopped hitting the door and was simply pushing. The woman was being slid back as the door was forced steadily open, the carpet scuffing up beneath her heels. “Let go!”

The woman jumped back almost as soon as I spoke and the door flew open. I’d been watching the futures and I knew exactly how the construct would come through the doorway, its hands up, grasping blindly. I let the door breeze past my face, saw a flash of the construct’s emotionless eyes as it came in at me, then I ducked and the thing’s hands swept over my head. The construct ran straight onto the stiletto, the blade piercing its stomach.

The construct’s eyes seemed to flash. Sea-green energy wreathed its body, pouring out into the air, soaking down through the floor, then the energy cut out and the eyes went dead. It was over in an instant. The construct dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

And everything was quiet.

I stood still, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. The construct lay motionless and a scan of the futures confirmed that it wouldn’t be getting up. I kept looking, searching for other threats.

“Is it dead?” the woman asked at last.

I opened the window and stuck my head out, looking down into the street. I could see movement at the far end near the corner, but no one was approaching. I scanned through the futures, checking to see if police were coming. The fight had been noisy, and there had been shots fired, but I couldn’t find any trace of a future in which police cars
arrived. I gave a silent thank-you to the rain and to the fact that most Londoners don’t know what gunshots sound like.

“What
was
that thing?” The woman’s voice was shaky. “How did—?”

I held up a hand. “Wait here. Don’t touch anything.”

The shop downstairs was a mess. Shattered glass and merchandise were scattered across the floor and a cold wind was blowing away the smell of gunsmoke. I checked to see if either of the bullets had gone through the construct and into the wall behind (they hadn’t), then got some plastic sheeting from the stockroom and tacked it over the broken window. It didn’t do anything to keep the cold out, but it blocked line of sight. With that done, I locked the door and hid the gun. The adrenaline rush of the battle had worn off, and I knew that if I did what my body was telling me and sat down, I’d go to pieces. Experience has taught me that the best way to get through postbattle shakes is to walk them off, so I went back upstairs.

The woman was sitting on my sofa with her knees together and her hands clasped, shivering slightly. She didn’t try to speak as I knelt over the construct and gave it a quick search. I came up empty, as expected; mages don’t send construct assassins out with identification. The wounds hadn’t bled or oozed. Most constructs are basically a big energy battery with a simple guidance program and this seemed to be one of the more basic types, an outer shape wrapped around a jellylike storage material. At a glance it looked similar to the ones I’d seen made at Richard’s mansion: a short-range design, without the intelligence or stamina to operate for long on its own. That suggested whoever had sent it was close by. The stiletto had been a one-shot designed to disperse a construct’s energy pattern. It had worked perfectly. I’d have to get another.

I was avoiding looking at the woman. I sat on the chair facing her and met her gaze.

It’s hard to describe just what made her so incredibly
beautiful. She had near-black hair, long and slightly wavy, falling down her back and framing a diamond-shaped face with slightly tanned skin and dark eyes. She was small, only a little over five feet, but with such perfect proportions that you wouldn’t realise it unless you stood right over her. She wore dark clothes that looked so simple that they had to be very expensive, and a single ring on her right hand. Somehow, though, neither her clothes nor her features seemed to matter—they were the adornments of a painting or a picture, not the real thing. What made her so captivating was something else, not so easily named: the way she moved, the glance of her eyes, the manner and sound and form. All I wanted to do was sit and gape. If I’d let myself fall into her eyes, I think an army of constructs could have battered down the door and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“What’s your name?” I said. I’d meant to say
Who are you?
but found myself changing my mind at the last second.

“Meredith.” She leant forward a little. “Thank you so much. You saved my life.” Her dark eyes shone with a hint of tears. “Without you I wouldn’t have had a chance.”

I felt my face burn and wanted to look away. A less polite but more vocal part of me spoke up with several suggestions as to how she could show how grateful she was. “Don’t worry about it. Where did that thing come from?”

Meredith shivered. “I don’t know! I was just—” She covered her face with her hands and started to cry.

Somehow I found myself on the sofa next to her, my arm around her shoulders, speaking quiet reassurances. Meredith hung onto my sleeve and kept crying. Gradually her tears ran dry and eventually she excused herself and vanished into the bathroom. She was gone for ten minutes and when she reappeared she looked a bit more composed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go to pieces. I’m not usually like this.”

“It’s okay, you just had a shock. I did a lot worse my first time.” Was that true? I couldn’t remember. “Feeling better?”

Meredith nodded. “Yes, thanks. I must look terrible.”

“Really, you don’t.”

Meredith returned to the sofa, sitting down naturally next to me. “I’m sorry for all this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was trying to find your shop and then that … that thing started chasing me.”

I glanced over at the construct’s body, still lying on the floor. Meredith followed my gaze. “I’ve never seen one before. I heard stories but—”

“It’s an assassin,” I said. “Programmed to go after you. It only attacked me when I got in its way.”

Meredith shivered. “It’s horrible. There … won’t be any more?”

I shook my head, and Meredith sighed in relief. “Do you know who sent it?” I asked.

“I don’t know their names. I was so afraid they’d come after me. I heard it and I just wanted to find you and—”

“Why me?”

Meredith looked up in surprise. “But you’re famous. Everybody knows about you. You fought all those Dark mages in that battle in the British Museum. And you can see the future.”

“Um …” That took me aback. I’m definitely a lot better known since that business with the fateweaver but it was the first time I’d heard the word
famous
. “And you thought I could help you?”

Meredith clutched my arm. “Please don’t send me away! I don’t know if they’ll try again. I know it’s a lot to ask but can’t I stay here? Just for tonight?” Wide dark eyes looked up at me pleadingly.

I’m not sure I could have said no even if I’d wanted to.

A
nd that was how, an hour later, I found myself lying on my bed with Meredith on the sofa in the next room, about ten feet away. The house was quiet but for the sounds
of the city. I could hear the shouts and calls from the restaurants one street over and the hum of traffic from the main hub of Camden Town.

I found myself listening for what Meredith was doing. I couldn’t quite hear her breathing and I wondered if she’d moved. Maybe I should have offered her the bed. No, that wouldn’t have been smart. All of my items were here. But still …

I shook my head sharply in frustration. What was wrong with me? I’d even found myself wondering if she might come through into my room—

No.
Stop being stupid and think.
Who was she? She obviously wasn’t a normal. An adept or a mage? It was the kind of thing I would normally have asked but for some reason I hadn’t. In fact, I hadn’t taken any of my normal precautions.

It’s rare for there to be a woman sleeping over in my flat. Like, once-in-a-blue-moon rare. I could say it’s because I’m a diviner and it would be sort of true—being able to know another person’s secrets doesn’t do wonders for a relationship. I could also say it’s because I suck at romance and that’s definitely got something to do with it—I’ve never been good at knowing what to say to women and my lifestyle hasn’t given me much chance to improve. I could say it’s because I used to be an outcast from both mage factions and that sure didn’t help.

But if I’m being honest the biggest reason is that I have serious issues with trusting people. Since I was young, every time I’ve put my trust in another person and depended on them, it’s ended badly. Sometimes very badly. I first learnt magic as a Dark apprentice in a society where everyone was a predator and giving away the wrong piece of information could get you hurt or killed. Things got worse before they got better and by the time I got to relative safety it was burnt into me to treat everyone as a potential enemy. I don’t like it—it’s not natural to me—but it’s an ingrained habit and it’s
saved my life at least once. Even if I don’t have any reason to be suspicious of someone, or even if I’m actually
trying
to be trusting, there’s a part of me that stays on guard, always alert.

So I didn’t fall asleep. I dozed, but that wary animal instinct stayed alert, listening for movement from the living room. And when Meredith’s phone gave a muted buzz, I was awake instantly. I heard the sound of her picking up and the murmur of her voice, then her footsteps crossing the room and the creak of the door.

I swung my legs off the bed and moved to the connecting door, my bare feet silent on the carpet. The living room was empty and I could see the blanket lying ruffled on the sofa. The door to the landing was open and I could hear the sound of Meredith’s voice from below.

I crossed the living room and slipped through, the planks of the landing cool under my feet. Through the banisters, I saw a flicker of movement: Meredith was below, in the hall, her head down, speaking into her phone. “…have much choice!” Her voice was pitched low and she sounded scared and angry. “You said they wouldn’t come after me!”

The other person replied, an inaudible buzz. Whatever they said, it didn’t make Meredith any happier. “Don’t give me that! Did you know this was going to happen?”