Shrike (Book 2): Rampant (10 page)

Taog points at his own name with a wry half-smile. "At least ye ken where to find me," he says.

"I'm considering handcuffing our belt loops together," I tell him.

After several hours of searching, we haven't turned up much more than Macy had, though for three list members, we find addresses. They may or may not be current, but it's more than a simple town name.

I understand what Granger is doing, I think. Taking out people who could have information about Britannia is a logical step for an organisation that's managed to stay out of the public eye for decades. A chill sweeps over me when I realise that this might not be the first time they've killed whole swaths of people in order to keep their secrets from leaking out.

I make a note to have Trevor look into it, see if any of Britannia's known operations were accompanied by a rash of killings. It might be nothing, but it's worth checking.

Then again, I'm not certain the police would even know what to look for. Britannia aren't exactly high profile, and as far as I know, they never made headlines until they tried to wipe out twenty percent of Scotland's population in one fell boom.

When seven o'clock rolls around, I leave Taog with the list and return to my flat to get ready for Magda's party.

I don a plain black dress Magda bought me for Christmas and pair it with black ankle boots with no heel. I arrive at the lounge just before eight, and Magda greets me with a tight embrace and three kisses, alternating cheeks. 

"I am so nervous," she whispers in my ear. "John Abbey is here with the other investors, and we are supposed to go into production in one month."

"So quick?" I've no gauge for timeliness in the fashion industry, but the way she says it makes me think it's a short timeline.

She nods. "They want my designs ready for the autumn/winter lines. Fashion week is in February."

"Not spring?" At my blank look, Magda laughs, and I drink in the sound like sunshine. It's rare for me to hear a real laugh these days from anyone I love.

"Spring and summer lines are displayed in September," she says. "It takes time."

I smile and pretend to get it, and she leads me into the lounge. I don't see John Abbey anywhere, but I do see Magda's new crew of designers. It gives me a glow of pride to know that she's gone from designer to label owner in the past year, and I can see from the strong set of her shoulders as she approaches them that she feels it too.

She introduces me to her team, and they begin to animatedly tell me about their ideas for the autumn. While I don't really follow some of their colour and texture talk, their enthusiasm is contagious.

I don't see John Abbey until the barman hands out glasses of champagne and Abbey clears his throat from behind me. He raises his glass as I turn, his eyes on Magda.

"We're so pleased to finalise our deal with the lovely Magda Kapuscinska. You're all well aware of her talent and ambition, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that we'll all be seeing her brilliant work on Edinburgh's people before too long." 

It's a short speech, and not a particularly good one, but Magda beams regardless. I clink glasses with her designer team, then with her. John Abbey doesn't come over to say hello to me, and it makes me wonder if he remembers seeing me at my company happy hour earlier this week. Maybe he'd had more than a few drinks by the time he turned up next to me.

The lounge is dark, and the music soft. After a while, it lulls me, and I fall out of conversation with Magda's designers. She's in deep conversation with one of the other investors, and I settle back on the plush sofa, swirling my champagne around my glass. There's a newspaper on the table in front of me, and I pick it up.

The front page is about the murders. 

This is today's paper, and news hadn't broke about Timothy Strand, but the cover story is all about the string of deaths Granger has wreaked on our population. It highlights them around a map of Scotland, most of them concentrated here in Edinburgh, but the few outside it stand out like drops of blood on a white floor.

Again my mind turns to the list, and I wish teleportation were one of my powers so I could hop from list member to list member all night just to make sure Granger couldn't kill anyone else. Each subsequent death makes me feel even more powerless. I know she's one of the top people in Britannia, and clearly one of the most dangerous. She beat me again last night. I can't let her repeat that triumph.

"Amazing what we can do, isn't it?" John Abbey's voice sounds right next to my ear, and I start, dropping the paper in my lap.

"We?"

He ignores my question. "Human beings working together make some of the most powerful forces on the planet. We can go to the moon, explore the deep sea, create beautiful art and architecture." His eyes linger on Magda, and a smile touches his lips.

My heart slows a little. "Aye, you're right."

"It's very good to see you again, Gwen."

He hasn't sat next to me; he's just leaning over the arm of the sofa, and his proximity is making my skin crawl. Is he drunk already? I know it's not unheard of for CEOs to be functioning alcoholics, but you'd think he'd keep it together at something like this.

His breath smells of champagne and peanuts, and I lean away from him.

"Aye, it's a pleasure," I lie, the reply belated and my senses all telling me something's wrong.

"Always good to see a fellow player."

"I beg your pardon?" I scoot over to my right, turning to face him full on. Alarm bells go off in my mind.

"Amazing what we can do," he says again. "Pull wool over eyes." He gives me a slow smile that churns the acid in my stomach, sends it crawling up my oesophagus. "Tug puppet strings." He gestures at Magda, and she falls to the floor in a heap.

My body explodes into motion. I'm at her side in a fraction of a second, fingers on her pulse, cheek by her nose. The fluttering of her heart is strong, and her breath flows smoothly against my skin. She's unconscious, but very alive.

My head snaps up to search out Abbey.

But he's gone, as I knew he would be.

We
.

He said
we.
 

Every firing synapse in my brain screams that it knows what he meant. John Abbey is part of Britannia. My gut tells me that it's even more than that, that he's the head of Britannia. He knows who I am; of course he does. For months I've been chasing after Granger's trails as if I can somehow outpace her, but they've known who I am all along. 

They've been toying with me. I'm the cat, but they've been leaving dead mice for me all over Scotland.

Someone's called 999, and I cradle Magda in my lap to wait for the paramedics.

She wakes after only a few minutes, her blue eyes staring up at me hazily. "Gwen?"

My muscles tense, and I hold her tighter. "All right, love?"

"Did I…" her throat bulges as she swallows, and she blinks several times.

"You fainted." Why she fainted, I don't know. A paranoid part of my mind flashes back to John Abbey's gesture just before she fell. Is it possible that he has powers like I do? Could he have affected her body from where he leaned over that sofa? Constricted her blood flow, triggered a collapse?

I'm not sure that's possible, but I'm a walking impossibility, and I can't get the notion out of my head.

That would change everything. 

I'm comfortable with the existence of preternatural strength and speed because I'm the one who has the bloody power. The idea of Abbey — or Granger — in possession of such abilities makes me want to sick up. I stroke Magda's hair while she orients herself. She wants to sit up, but I tell her to stay where she is. I want her checked out before she moves herself. I don't know what caused this. I ought to have been more suspicious of Abbey, with him popping up in our lives and giving Magda everything she ever wanted. But she's talented, and it's not the first time someone has shown interest in her work. I try to absolve myself. It doesn't help.

When the paramedics arrive, a pair of constables also pop through the door to make sure everything is okay. The medics ask me to move aside, and I back up a few paces but refuse to go farther. In spite of my worry, Magda seems fine. One constable I've seen several times over the past few months looks right past me even as the other explains that they were just on the street and came when they saw the ambulance. I keep waiting for his partner to recognise me, but he walks past me several times to talk to Magda's designers and doesn't give me a second glance. Maybe my mask does more than I give it credit for. I watch him place Magda's champagne glass in a bag for evidence when one of her designers tells him she only had one glass of champagne and seemed fine before it.

There are any number of plausible explanations for her collapse, any that, without John Abbey whispering in my ear about the power of people working together, could explain it. She got too hot. The excitement triggered something in her post trauma. Her clothes were too restrictive. She's anaemic. Anything. 

But I know what I saw, and I know what Abbey said to me. 

He's wriggled the tendrils of Britannia into my life, knowing full well Magda's relationship to me. 

I tell the constable at my side about Abbey and how he vanished immediately as Magda fell. He jots something down on a notepad. I'll have to talk to Trevor, and I hate the idea of telling him about another highly placed business person being involved in a conspiracy.

It's enough to make a person paranoid.

Or in my case, more paranoid.

Either way, I'd stake my newly minted portfolio's meagre value on my absolute certainty that no one will find John Abbey if they search.

He's gone.

I don't want to know what he's planning, but it's my job to find out.

ten

Taog is asleep when I climb through his window.

The sight unnerves me, more because I haven't seen him sleep without me in weeks than anything. He's turned on his side, and his mouth hangs open, his breath shallow as if his nose is stopped up. I don't want to disturb him. I also don't want to return to my empty bedroom and stare at the ceiling all night. Magda's being held overnight in hospital for observation, along with two of her designers who reported feeling woozy.

Taog stirs when I step from his windowsill onto the floor. He blinks, wincing into the light of his lamp. "Did I fall asleep? What time is it?"

His voice sounds thick from sleep, and he sniffs, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"Just after eleven," I tell him.

"At night?" He reaches for a tissue and blows his nose. 

I sit down next to him on the edge of the bed. "All right there, Taog?" On impulse, I reach out one hand and touch his forehead. It's warm, but not hot, though his skin feels dewy with moisture.

"Aye, I'm fine." Taog leans his head back against the headboard and swallows. "Maybe fine isn't the best word. I don't feel well."

"I can see that." 

"Did you just get here?" He sniffles again and dabs at his nose, his eyebrows knitting together as if the action perturbs him.

I tell him what happened at Magda's little party, which chases the remnants of sleep and grogginess away from his face. "They think Magda just got overheated and passed out, but they're analysing her champagne glass anyway."

I've no idea how long it takes for a toxicity screening to come back, so I won't worry about it until later. 

Taog's phone bleats. He reaches over, tugging it out from underneath a dog-eared copy of The Woman in White on his bedside table. He frowns at the screen and answers.

"Tasha?"

I can hear the fear in her voice even through the mobile.

"Taog, there's someone outside my house." 

I'm on my feet in half a second. Taog meets my eyes. 

"Can you see them?" He asks the question in an even voice, and I nod my approval.

"Just a silhouette."

"Did you ring the police?"

"I called you first. I don't need any bobbies skulking around my home."

If Tasha's concerned enough about the contents of her house to ring Taog before the police, then I wonder exactly what she's gotten into. She's a hacker, and a damn good one. She works for a tech company by day, doing their web security and protecting them from corporate espionage, but by night she's Gu Bràth's line on Britannia, trying to hack the emails of any person we've connected with the organisation. She hasn't had much luck, mostly because folks who are part of illicit terrorist rings don't generally use the Given Name, Surname email address formula. Tasha's also on Granger's hit list.

"Address," I say.

Taog rips the flyleaf out of his book and scribbles it down, handing it to me. "Tasha, I'm going to keep you on the phone. Gwen's coming."

Two minutes later, I'm fully transformed from Gwen Maule into Shrike. I've my route down now, skirting Leith Walk in favour of abandoned closes and rooftops I know don't conduct the sound of my footsteps much. I've learned to be quiet. My footfalls seem to be coming lighter and lighter as if my mastering my agility has somehow subtracted some of my body's mass.