Burned (30 page)

‘It’s a Minkowski box, or close enough,’ I said. ‘Can’t promise more than that.’

‘Time?’ Rain said to one of the security men.

‘Fifty-five minutes, sir.’

‘It’ll take us nearly that long to make it back,’ Slate said. ‘I say we get the fuck out.’

Rain looked at Trask. ‘Are any of the other teams still engaged?’

Trask shook his head. ‘Nothing on the comms.’

‘All right,’ Rain said. ‘Tell everyone to fall back to the regroup points. Anyone who can’t regroup, withdraw on their own. We are
leaving
.’

Slate nodded and turned, disappearing into the darkness. Trask put one hand to his ear and began issuing orders. Caldera looked around to see that I’d moved. ‘Alex?’

‘I’m coming,’ I said absently. While Rain had been talking I’d moved to the site of my brief, abortive battle with Ares. On the floor was a small pile of ash and charred cloth. I knelt down, running my fingers through the remains.

Caldera walked over to me. ‘Alex? You okay?’

‘More or less,’ I said. I’d been hoping against hope that my mist cloak might have survived, but as I looked at the remains I knew that there was no way. Imbued items aren’t like machines; you can’t replace their parts. They’re either alive or they’re dead. My mist cloak was dead.

I’d been trying to avoid using my mist cloak for some time. I’d made the mistake of relying on it a little too much a couple of years ago, and I’d nearly been lost for ever. Ever since then, I’d steered clear of it when possible, going out with my armour instead. But looking at the charred remnants, the first thing I felt was a sense of loss. My mist cloak’s saved my life more times than I can count. Even that time two years ago, it had only been trying to protect me, in its single-minded way, and it had protected me one last time now.

‘Come on, Alex,’ Caldera said. ‘It’s just a cloak.’

I got to my feet and walked away, Caldera at my side. I didn’t look back.

The journey back was quicker than the journey in, but there was also more of a sense of urgency – we were on a clock, and everyone knew it. The marker lights placed at the top and bottom of each ramp showed us our way back, but between them we were plunged into blackness. I had to take point again, guiding us back from one island of light to the next. Not all the lights were deserted either; I found men clustering around several of them, in ones and twos and threes, mostly Council security who’d become separated in the fighting and had pulled back to the lights to wait for rescue. They joined up with us as we passed, swelling our numbers.

One of the first people we picked up was Landis, and I felt a little relief as I saw him standing at his ease in the light, fiddling with some contraption he’d been carrying in his pocket. ‘Landis,’ I said. ‘You’re okay?’

‘Hmm?’ Landis glanced up. ‘Ah, Verus. Where did you get to?’

‘Where did I—?’ I shook my head. ‘What happened with Vihaela?’

‘Oh, her. Was a bit of a sticky situation there for a while.’ Landis stuffed the gadget into his pocket and fell into step beside me. ‘She does know what she’s doing, doesn’t she?’

‘That’s one way of putting it. What happened?’

‘Well, we were in the middle of our little difference of opinion when she made her apologies and left.’ Landis looked thoughtful. ‘Honestly, I have the feeling she was just trying to slow us down.’

We kept moving, picking up people as we went. Rain was constantly on the comms, giving orders and coordinating. From time to time someone would call out how long we had until the gate cut off. Forty minutes, thirty-five, thirty …

‘Alex,’ Caldera called from behind me. ‘Hold up.’

I stopped and retraced my steps. Rain was in the middle of a small crowd, illuminated by half a dozen lights, and he was on the communicator to someone. ‘Can you figure out your position?’ he said. ‘Yes … Look for the lights. Can you see the lights?’

‘What’s going on?’ I asked Caldera quietly.

‘One of the units got cut off,’ Caldera said under her breath. ‘They managed to hold out but they lost their bearings in the fight. They’re somewhere near but we don’t know where.’

Rain listened a little longer, then cut the connection and looked at Slate. ‘How long have we got?’

‘Twenty-seven minutes.’

‘Verus? How long back to the gate?’

‘Only three more ramps,’ I said. ‘Five minutes if we run.’

‘We can search,’ Slate said.

‘We don’t have time,’ another Keeper said.

‘Yes, we do!’

‘Can’t risk everyone for one security team.’

‘There’s long enough—’

‘Not if something goes wrong.’

‘Enough,’ Rain said. ‘Slate. Do we have any way of reliably tracking them?’

Slate was silent. ‘We could try,’ he said.

Rain stared at Slate, then past him into space. The others fell silent, watching Rain. I felt the futures shift, then settle, and Rain looked back at Slate. ‘We pull out.’

Slate looked at Rain angrily. ‘You’re going to leave them?’

‘They knew the risks when they took the job.’ Slate started to answer and Rain made a negative motion. ‘Discussion’s over. Lumen, Trask, get everyone moving. We’re heading out.’

I sighed. I was burned, tired and aching. I really didn’t want to do anything more today. ‘Rain,’ I said.

Rain paused, looking back at me with a frown. ‘We don’t have time for—’

‘I’ll find your guys,’ I said. ‘Caldera can guide you the rest of the way. Just leave the door open.’

There were arguments. Caldera objected and so did Rain. I shrugged it off and walked into the darkness.

It was a relief to be on my own again. Divination magic is solitary by nature, and in a lot of ways being alone is a diviner’s natural state. It’s just so much
easier
to look ahead when you don’t have a bunch of other people talking and moving and messing up your carefully laid-out future paths. Other mages can understand the theory of how divination works, and they can try their best not to disrupt you, but even the best of them can’t compete with simply walking off by yourself. So what if I was enveloped in darkness? To my eyes, the mass of noise and chaos following Rain’s Keepers stood out like searchlights against the void. It didn’t take me long to find the missing Council security – they were hardly any distance away at all. I headed down the nearest ramp on a path that I knew would take me to them.

But despite the time pressure, I didn’t hurry as much as I should have done. I was tired – not just physically, but mentally. Yes, I was carrying muscle strains and burns from my fight with Ares, but those were superficial; the problem was something deeper. I’d lost too much, been on the run for too long. I felt rootless, unattached.

I came to a stop at the foot of the ramp. Up ahead were the Council security men I’d come to find. To the left and to the right was only emptiness. I found myself wondering what would happen if I just wandered off, sat down somewhere and closed my eyes. The gate would shut behind me and I’d be left alone. I wouldn’t have to worry about Levistus, or assassinations, or politics. Peace.

Of course, Luna and Anne and Variam would still be out there. Just because I was gone, that wouldn’t stop the resolution from being passed.

And then there were those three men. There are more than enough mages who treat other people’s lives as expendable. If I left them here, I’d be as bad or worse.

I shook off the lassitude and walked forward to meet up with the men I’d come to find.

The three Council security were happy to see me, to say the least. One had taken a bullet in the fighting – probably friendly fire from a stray round – and needed help to move. There was a brief argument where the younger of the three men almost-but-not-quite suggested leaving the wounded man behind so that we could escape. I made it clear that we had plenty of time to get him out the normal way, and thankfully the third man (a sergeant who’d managed to keep a level head despite the suffocating darkness) backed me up. The sergeant and I each slung one of the wounded man’s arms over our shoulders, and we set off, the younger recruit leading the way, his eyes white as he tried to point his gun and torch in every direction at once.

I’d left Rain’s group twenty-four minutes before the gate was due to close. It took me three minutes to find the missing security men, four minutes to get there and one to get them moving. The journey back to the gate took twelve minutes, pushing ourselves but not so much so as to risk an accident. We made it through with three and a half minutes left. Plenty of time.

A cold line slid along my skin as we passed through the veil, and then we stepped out into dazzling light. We were back in our world.

Light and noise overwhelmed my senses. I’d spent so long in the darkness and silence that it felt as though a crowd of people were yelling and shining spotlights in my face, and I put my free arm up to shield myself. As my ears and eyes adjusted I realised that the basement was packed with Keepers and Council security, and they
were
yelling. I tried to step back into a defensive stance, but it was hard with the wounded guy’s arm around my shoulders, and I braced myself to dodge.

‘Hey!’

I turned to see Caldera grinning at me. A medic and another guy took charge of the wounded man, and Caldera clapped me on the shoulder, making me stagger. ‘You really are something, you know that?’ Caldera said.

‘What did I do this time?’ I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the shouting.

‘What?’

‘What are they yelling at me for?’

Caldera stared at me. ‘They’re cheering.’

I blinked. Come to think of it, the voices didn’t
sound
angry. Looking around, I saw what I hadn’t noticed at first, that the people looking at me were grinning rather than scowling. The mood wasn’t angry – it was happy. ‘Why would they be cheering?’

Caldera gave me a disbelieving look. ‘Seriously?’

Slate and Trask pushed their way through the crowd towards me. Slate was shaking his head. ‘Are you fucking serious?’ he said. ‘You actually found them?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘Why?’ Slate said.

I shrugged.

Slate shook his head again. ‘Frigging diviners.’ He walked away.

Trask started to follow, paused and looked at me. ‘Nice work,’ he told me before going after Slate.

‘What happened to Ares?’ I asked Caldera.

‘Made an early exit. He’s already gated back to London.’

‘What about the attack? Wasn’t there a small army headed right for here?’

‘Coatl told me,’ Caldera said. ‘Those guys didn’t have any magical support. Elandis’s unit tore them apart. After half of them went down, the rest turned and ran.’

‘What about—?’

‘Alex,’ Caldera interrupted. ‘We won, okay? It’s over.’

The sergeant who’d been helping me carry the wounded man came up to me. ‘Mage … Verus, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Your man okay?’

‘He’ll live, thanks to you.’ The sergeant offered me his hand. He was about forty, with a compact build and piercing blue eyes, and he wore a black beret. ‘Never introduced. Sergeant Little.’

I shook the man’s hand. ‘Alex Verus. Glad I could help.’

Sergeant Little nodded. ‘We lost two men today. Without you, it would have been five. I won’t forget that, and my men won’t either. You ever need help, you call us up.’

I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Thanks.’

Little nodded again, and gave a tip of the hat to Caldera. ‘Keeper.’

‘Caldera,’ a voice said from behind us. We turned to see Rain. ‘We’re leaving in ten minutes. Get everyone ready.’

‘Got it,’ Caldera said, and left.

Rain gave me a slight smile. ‘Enjoying being hero of the hour?’

‘Honestly, it just feels weird,’ I said. I still didn’t understand why all of a sudden everyone was happy with me. ‘I didn’t do that much.’

‘You guided us in, grabbed the relic single-handed and then went back to rescue a few men when you could have just led us out. Seems like plenty to me.’

‘I spent half that trip doing basic divination and the other half running away,’ I admitted. ‘Doesn’t feel that impressive.’

Rain shook his head. He doesn’t smile much, but he was smiling now. ‘You want some kind of reward or something? I’m already going to be writing this up in my report, but if you’re looking for something special…’

A reward from the Council? Now that was a weird thought. ‘I don’t think—’ I stopped as an idea occurred to me. ‘Actually, now you mention it, there is one thing…’

We gated back into Keeper HQ to an enthusiastic reception. Medics and life mages came rushing out to lead the wounded away, on foot or on stretchers. Mostly, though, people were cheering us, or laughing and joking. There’s a rush to surviving a combat operation, a kind of euphoria. The Council security squads had taken losses, yet all the same, I had the feeling that this had gone better than they’d expected.

Maradok was waiting for us at the centre of the room. His gaze rested on me for a moment with no visible surprise, and I wondered if Ares had already delivered his report. Then Maradok’s eyes fastened on the box in Rain’s hands. I walked up to Maradok, a step behind Rain.

‘Councilman,’ Rain said.

‘Captain Rain,’ Maradok said. ‘Congratulations on your—’

Maradok stopped as Rain turned and passed the box to me. I stepped forward and smiled at Maradok. ‘Hello, Councilman. I believe I made you a promise.’

Maradok looked at me, his blue eyes expressionless.

I took another step forward. Maradok reached for the box but I held on to it. ‘And if you send any more assassins like Ares after me,’ I said in a low voice, ‘then I will mail them back to you one piece at a time.’

Maradok’s hand stayed on the box. So did mine. ‘I think this matter should be considered closed,’ I said quietly. ‘Don’t you?’

Maradok looked at me. I looked at him. I felt the futures shift, then settle. ‘Very well,’ Maradok said.

I let go of the box. Maradok started to turn away. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘One more thing.’

Maradok paused. ‘And that is?’

‘I think you owe me an apology.’

Maradok looked at me unemotionally for a few seconds. ‘Don’t push your luck.’ He turned and walked away.