Stealing Phoenix (12 page)

Checking my appearance for a final time in the mirror, I was pleased with my transformation. A couple of elderly ladies came in and frowned disapprovingly at my display of midriff. Yep, I’d got it right.

Phee, we know you’re in the Barbican Centre.

How did they know? Or were they just guessing and hoping to catch me out? These questions mingled with my doubts as my brain went into spin cycle. Was I doing the right thing running like this? Did I have another choice? Leaving my soul-finder, even if it was for his benefit in the long term, felt like sawing off my own arm.

Look, cut messing us around and meet us. I’m standing by the shop on the ground floor.

Yeah, yeah, and his brothers were staking out the other exits. I wasn’t born yesterday.

Do you want me to beg?
He was getting angry with me—I couldn’t blame him. I had hit him where he was vulnerable, striking at his confidence dealing with girls, and I was sorry for it. He was perfect as he was and didn’t need to be shy. But he couldn’t be mine.
Can’t you just give me one little chance?

Sorry, no can do. Not in my world. His only chance was to keep away from me so my life did not infect his.

I took a final look at myself in the mirror. I could do this. Leaving the Ladies to head straight for the exit on the lower ground floor, I sent a final wish.

Be happy, Yves.

Big mistake. I stopped in my tracks. Yves was standing with his arms folded, his brothers either side, directly opposite the Ladies. He had tricked me into thinking him upstairs.

Nice. Like the new look.
He didn’t sound as if he liked it one tiny bit. He sounded fit to be tied down and given a dose of sedatives.

How did you find me?

Unique energy signature, remember?

I took a quick survey of my options. Back up and wait them out—but no they’d just come in after me. Go with them, and let the Seer hurt Tony tonight and then them when he came for me. Use my power on them—too many people and they would know to resist. A fourth option—make a fuss. They couldn’t haul a girl from a public place if I kicked up enough noise. Though I hated drawing attention to myself it sounded a pretty good moment to learn.

Don’t even think about it or Vick will have to do his thing on you,
warned Yves, who must have read my intentions from my furtive glances around the foyer.

Then a fifth option arrived, one none of us had anticipated. Unicorn and Dragon walked swiftly up from behind the Benedicts and passed them before they knew it.

‘Phee, great to see you!’ Unicorn said with false friendliness. ‘I thought we’d be late for the concert. Come along.’ He hooked my arm on one side, Dragon on the other.

Now it had come, I wasn’t sure I wanted this rescue.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Yves made to intervene, but Vick held him back with a speaking look. A brawl in the Barbican was not a good outcome for any of us.

‘We’re her brothers.’ Unicorn squeezed my arm painfully. ‘You won’t see her again. Sorry if her light-fingered ways bothered you. She’ll be punished for it.’ So Unicorn thought this was about a steal that had gone wrong. That made sense: why else would the three Americans be chasing me through the Barbican. He whipped the skirt from under my arm and shook it out. ‘She’s not got the stuff on her so I suggest you check the Ladies. She’s probably stashed it there.’

Dragon wrenched my arm behind my back. ‘Say goodbye to your friends, Phee. Sadly she can’t stay to play.’

I said nothing.

‘Go on, say it!’

‘Bye.’ God, I was so tired of bullying men.

The gold bracelet around Dragon’s wrist began to glow with heat. ‘What the—!’ He let go of my arm and shook the band off. It melted into a flat disc on the tile.

Yves gave him a challenging look. ‘No one hurts Phee.’

Wrong. They did all the time. But Yves had made a mistake and revealed that he was a Savant, which propelled this confrontation into a new dimension. Dragon sent an arrow of a look at the metal and glass sculpture hanging overhead a little way behind the Benedicts. With a rattle of bolts coming loose, it fell diagonally towards them as he pulled it with his power.

‘Yves!’ I screamed.

The three Benedicts threw themselves out of its path as it smashed to the floor, losing shape like a beached jellyfish, a mess of splinters and wire. The resulting commotion of screams and officials running to the site of the incident allowed us to slip away. Unicorn and Dragon shot out of the entrance onto the underground street before the Benedicts had time to recover their feet. At Unicorn’s hail, a taxi peeled from the rank and stopped to let us get in. I felt the urge to laugh crazily— my second ride in the back of a cab, so fast on the heels of my first. Boy, was I living it up.

Yves, are you OK?
I had to know.

Yes, just a few cuts.
He sounded relieved that I cared.
But, Phee, are you OK? Who are those men?

My brothers, maybe.
I hunched in a corner, head against the window as the taxi pulled away.
Goodbye, Yves. It would’ve been nice to know you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.

There was no need to be told that I was in dire trouble. Dragon and Unicorn chose not to mention it before the taxi driver but they were seething. Some of their reaction might have been down to post-battle adrenalin, but I knew that I had added insult to injury when I had warned the Benedicts, spoiling Dragon’s attack. The Community were supposed to stick by each other; I’d made my split loyalties all too clear. I could only hope they would not make too much of the fact that Yves had known my name and stepped forward to defend me. I dreaded to think what they would do with the knowledge that I had discovered my soulfinder.

The electronic clock on the taxi dashboard showed that it was still only six when we got out a street away from our temporary home. So early? I’d lived through so much today that I felt it had to be at least midnight. I shivered, horribly cold in my shorts. Unicorn had managed to drop my skirt during the scuffle—no loss to fashion but I’d had a few things in the pockets I would’ve liked to keep. Then again, the missing skirt was the smallest of my problems at the moment.

A sheet of newspaper tumbled-turned down the alley and wrapped itself around my legs. I kicked it away. ‘Do I go back to my room?’ I asked, not really expecting a reprieve.

‘You’re joking?’ mocked Unicorn. These were the first words we’d exchanged since getting in the taxi.

‘Oh, Phee, Phee,’ Dragon took hold of my arm again, ‘why did you do it?’

I wondered what exactly he meant. Get caught? Shout my warning? Fail in my mission?

‘After talking to you last night, the Seer knew something strange was going on. He sent us to keep watch on you and it was as well we did.’ Anger made the tendons on his neck bulge as he clenched his jaw. ‘You spent five hours in our enemies’ company.’

In what way were they enemies? To me, Yves had started out as just another mark.

‘Makes us wonder what you told them.’ He used his power to open the fire-door, not waiting for Tony to answer a knock.

‘I told them nothing! I escaped as soon as I could. There were three of them, Dragon, in case you didn’t notice!’

Heads quickly withdrew from doorways as we passed. No one wanted to be picked out for being too curious.

‘Three people who know all about us now. Three Savants. Three problems. And maybe more if they tell others.’

‘But there’s nothing to tell!’ I could feel that my protests were falling like cries in deep space—in the emptiness of Dragon’s heart, there was nothing to carry the sound. Unicorn was worse: his soul was stuffed with evil and cruelty. Being on the wrong side of him was to be a mouse in the paws of a vindictive alley cat.

‘Yeah, yeah, explain that to the Seer.’ Dragon shoved me up the stairs.

We reached the fifth floor. I was cursing my decision under my breath. I should’ve taken my chance with Yves; coming back hadn’t saved Tony but only made everything much, much worse.

Phee, I can feel you are upset. Speak to me.
It was Yves, trying to find me again. His telepathic message was faint as he didn’t quite know where to direct it. I couldn’t reply. Some telepaths can eavesdrop on the conversations of others and block them if they try. One of the Seer’s companions, a woman called Kasia, had these gifts and she was never very far from him. The last thing I wanted was Yves and his brothers to storm into a fight they could not possibly win.

Unicorn went on ahead into the Seer’s rooms while I stood with Dragon on the balcony. This must be what it felt like to wait for an execution. I was consumed by a strange kind of panic, searching for options while knowing that there was no escape. Yves’s voice whispered pleas but I had to ignore him.

Unicorn came back too quickly and nodded to signal that we could enter. I was alarmed to see most of the Seer’s hangers-on were leaving, only his core team of a couple of henchmen and Kasia remaining behind. I studied her quickly, hoping for an ally. I had had several OK conversations with her in the past months. A bleached blonde thirty-something with the prematurely aged skin of a heavy smoker, she wasn’t unkind, just very much under the sway of the Seer. I often wondered if he used his gift to plant the seed of adoration in his female companions, knowing that a normal woman would be repulsed by being close to him.

No one spoke as we approached the Seer’s throne. My knees were shaking—something I was sure everyone had noticed as I could barely stand.

Sprawled on the sofa, the Seer turned to me, his small, dark eyes as malevolent as the button features of a voodoo doll’s face and about as human.

Still no questions.

Unable to stand the tension, I gave a little whimper of distress, quickly swallowed.

He raised a finger. I was lifted into the air and let fall back to the floor, landing on my back, all the wind knocked from my lungs by Dragon’s mental punch to my stomach.

‘You betrayed us.’

I curled up, hands over my head. ‘No, no, I didn’t.’

Dragon’s next attack sent me spinning over the floor to crash into the wall like a squash ball. Pain slammed through my body.

‘You told the Benedicts about us and now the Savant Net will be aware of our cell.’

‘Please, I said nothing. I escaped as soon as I could, but I was tired and weak—I had to rest before I tried to break out.’

My excuses disappeared like raindrops falling on cracked, dry earth. I was never listened to, never heard in the Community; just a tool to be used. The Seer turned to Unicorn. ‘Did she have anything on her?’

Unicorn folded his arms. ‘Nothing. She was trying to evade them in the Barbican Centre when we caught up with her. If she managed to steal any items she must have dumped them.’

The Seer flicked his gaze back to me. ‘Did you?’

‘No, I tried.’ He glowered. ‘I really did, but they had a fail-safe mechanism, a kind of self-destruct. There was an iPhone and an iPad but both were destroyed.’

‘That is unfortunate,’ the Seer tapped his fingers on his stomach, ‘for you.’

I curled up even tighter.

‘So what do we do now, sir?’ Dragon asked, perhaps to distract him from thoughts of inflicting immediate punishment. Some flicker of brotherly sympathy might still glow in the depths of his heart like the light of a dying star. ‘And what’s going on? Unicorn and I, we were wondering why you wanted her to hit these men in particular.’

The Seer played with a gold ring squashed on his puffy finger. ‘I suppose there is no harm in you knowing. The Savant Net has recently come to my attention—and they have crossed some other Savants, business contacts.’

‘What is the Net?’ Unicorn frowned at me as I made to crawl out of the Seer’s eyeline. I lay still.

The Seer debated for a second if he was prepared to share information; he usually kept all knowledge to himself, aware it gave him extra power over us. This time he made an exception. ‘It’s an international organization, very loose-knit, a group of fools misusing Savant gifts for what they term “good” causes.’

Unicorn smirked; Dragon laughed; but for me the news was welcome. So there were good Savants? Gifts did not have to be used in the shadows like we did with ours? That was encouraging to know even if it was unlikely to help me.