Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series (14 page)

It was slow in coming, but at last it was there. The same freckled face – but the eyes were now tired, heavy from not sleeping. Andrew wore a filthy old coat and his hair was a mess. He hadn’t shaved for days; already a full beard was starting to grow from stubble, though Sam wasn’t sure if this was meant as a disguise. There were lines across his brow and around his eyes and mouth that hadn’t been there in the picture.

Then, abruptly – as soon as the image was there – it was gone, and what remained was just a pulsing white mistiness beneath Sam’s fingers. He pressed for the image once more, but it was as if a solid wall resisted him. Taking a deep breath, half unaware that he did so, Sam fell to studying this obstacle that so repulsed him.

He was the only Son of Magic and Time. If he couldn’t get past a mere shield…

Yes, he saw its weaknesses – typical flaws in typical spots. The slight failures where spells had been tied, tiny imperfections in its otherwise immaculate casting. This wasn’t the work of a human or even of an ordinary spirit. Truly Andrew’s friend was someone powerful.

Just in time, he decided against tearing it down. The process would have been laborious – one of many hard classroom tasks his mother had used to set, testing his endurance, back before he’d even known the other side of his parentage. And, once it was down, others would find themselves able to scry. That was something to avoid at any cost. If Andrew was going to be found, he had to be the first one there.

He began skirting the surface of the shield, probing for receptor spells, which, like a human body, could read the antigens on the surface of an attacker and detect how best to repulse it. Usually it was something he never did – to be declared to an enemy was to lose your best weapon. But he did it now, relying on Freya’s foresight for the shield to let him in.

And there it was. A receptor spell grafted hastily to the surface of the shield itself, exactly where he would have put it. Judging by the way other powers still clung to it in their various different shades of magic, more than one person had also run into this spell and been classified enemy.

But Sam opened himself wide to the spell and let it roll over him, felt it clawing through the depths of his magic to his deepest soul in search of proof as to who he was and what were his intents. And behind the spell, a conscious mind. Weary, battered by too many attacks – the same mind that had and was sustaining this cursed shield. He opened himself to it fully, whispering through the spell,
I am a friend. You know who I am and what 1 want. You know I want to help.

He felt the other consciousness stir. An old, old mind, fatigued from battle, yet radiating such determination, and such pain. Sam found himself wanting to be one with it, to comfort whoever it might be that felt such things. His sudden urge to murmur, like a kindly parent, ‘There, there,’ shocked every part of him that had ever claimed the name of Devil.

A whisper of thought, so relieved that he felt his heart lighten in sympathy. Suddenly the voice deepened, darkened.

Images flooded his mind. A square, a little café just visible behind the crowds of men and women trudging by. The crash of ice as it fell from the eaves on to the pavement below. Feeding his own strength into the other mind, Sam twisted the image in search of something, anything, that might suggest where this place was. At length he recognised a building near the café – large and bold as many Moscow buildings were.

The Museum of… of —

he urged. Under the stress of sustained contact the other mind was weakening.

Now he could see a sign. The Museum of Natural History.

Sam was already breaking free of the spell. The darkness in the little room became complete as the light faded beneath his fingers. Hardly had Peter risen to his feet, full of questions, than Sam was at the door, having switched on the light and snatched up his coat.

‘What’s the fastest way to the Museum of Natural History?’

‘Taxi, sir. The subway and trams take much longer.’

‘Run downstairs, order one. Tell him we’re going to the Science Museum.’

‘But sir, the Science Museum is —’

‘I don’t want to be followed.’

Downstairs in the hotel’s entrance, Sam listened. Now he gave the sounds of the neighbourhood his full attention, sending his thoughts through the streets to hear if there was something, however small, that was out of place.

‘It’ll be here in ten minutes, sir,’ Peter told him, emerging on to the icy front steps.

Sam frowned. ‘How many people do we have stationed around here?’

‘Four in Moscow, sir. A further seven are watching the Portals within a radius of twenty miles.’

‘And roughly how many against?’

‘About twelve in Moscow, and twenty in a ten-mile radius beyond, most of whom moved in this morning.’

‘There aren’t twenty Portals, though.’

‘They’re watching airports and roads, sir.’

‘Did they see me arrive?’

‘We don’t think so. There are more moving in every hour, and they’re getting more aggressive as their numbers increase.’

Sam bit his lip. ‘Order everyone we have to pull out,’ he said finally.

‘Sir!’

‘Tell them to make no secret of the fact that they’re withdrawing. And ask someone to book two tickets under the name of Luc Satise to London, earliest flight possible.’

‘Sir?’ Peter knew, as did Sam, that Luc Satise was probably the last name under which he should travel.

‘Just do it, please. Also we may need a fall-back plan, in case we get separated. I want Adamarus to get Andrew to London; but we must assume anything can go wrong. If it does, as many of us as are able must meet outside Kaluga railway station at seven tonight.’
I’m beginning to understand the enemy, whoever they are. Always one step ahead; their forces are forever moving a little faster than I can, and for every move I make a counter-move is already being played. So now we confound the enemy, make them think I’ve somehow managed to overtake them.

But will they fall for it?
 

The taxi was a cramped little vehicle driven by a grinning Estonian. It had arrived in just under the promised ten minutes, which was a warning in itself; Sam knew that taxis were always late.

‘Not the Science Museum,’ he told the driver as they screeched away from the kerbside. ‘The Natural History Museum.’

‘It’ll cost more!’

‘I’m loaded.’

‘Why are you taking your hockey stick?’

‘Because I’m a vandal who’s decided to smash up every treasure in the museum.’

‘Right!’

The taxi climbed the kerb in a U-turn, and a gaggle of pigeons shot skyward. Sam was soon reconsidering exactly what it was that could kill him. If any mortal might claim the distinction of terminating an immortal life, it would be this man. Peter, too, was giving the back of the driver’s neck some nasty looks. Two furry dice bounced against each other beneath the mirror, and a sticker on the rear windscreen declared that the driver was a fan of one of St Petersburg’s football teams.

‘It’s the fucking traffic,’ declared the driver cheerily as they raced through a red light. ‘Ten times worse than it was.’

‘Really?’ asked Sam weakly. At the next set of lights a lorry had to swerve to avoid calamity. Peter had gone pale – jinns, if Sam remembered, were easier to kill than immortals. The driver must once have been a kid who played too many motor-racing games – the kind where it doubled your score if you ran over the nuns.
Still
, he thought desperately,
any follower will be hard pressed to keep up
.

He kept watching the mirror even so, and extending his senses skywards.

‘I used to play hockey. Ice-hockey, I mean. I was counted very good.’

‘Really.’

‘What position do you play?’

‘Right back.’

‘You any good?’

‘I’m probably better at fencing. My brother teaches it. Fighting. Various martial arts.’

‘You got many brothers?’

‘Lots.’

‘Which one teaches?’

‘“Teaches” may be an over-statement. I get occasional crash courses. Usually without warning. Some of my brothers are temperamental.’

‘You fight them for real?… Bastard!’ This last was yelled at the driver of a red Saab, a businessman with slicked-back hair and a whiff of gangster about him, who’d swerved out of a side street and just missed them. ‘Lucky for him he didn’t fucking well hit us!’

As they approached the museum and the café nearby, Sam’s heart swelled with expectation. How many, many questions Andrew could answer.

He felt something. A tendril of thought brushing against his senses. He forced it back, feeling his stomach turn. Some enemy had sensed the passage of a spirit, and investigated. Who was it? Firedancer? Angel? Valkyrie?

‘They’re very near,’ he said softly.

‘What?’ demanded the driver.

‘You’re sure, sir?’ asked Peter, to whom, in Sam’s presence, any ‘demand’ was an unthinkable sin.

‘Yes. Very near indeed.’

But so were they. Swinging round a corner Sam could see the museum, then the café itself. As the taxi slewed to a halt he could distinguish Andrew sitting in the window, nursing a cup of coffee and looking as much tired as afraid.

Sam stuffed cash at random into the driver’s hand. ‘Keep the change.’ He sprang into the street, sword slung over his back, and ran towards the café. Behind him Peter struggled to keep up.

Outside the door Sam stopped. Even at a moment like this he knew to affect a leisurely stroll. Andrew looked up as he approached. His eyes widened. ‘You came,’ he said in a voice hoarse with not enough to eat and no sleep.

‘I came,’ replied Sam, sitting down. Andrew’s hands were clamped tightly around the coffee cup, his knuckles white. Around him Sam could see a faint shimmer of protective magic of the same kind drawn by whoever had written the shield.

‘So did they,’ he replied weakly. With a jerk of his head he indicated a couple of dark-skinned Asians staring unashamedly from a nearby table. They wore red. Red jeans, tasteless red shirts, dark hair, scarred faces probably made less so by a touch of magic. If they’d planned on staying anonymous, Sam didn’t rate their current efforts. Above them a speaker blasted out harsh electronic music. Beneath their coats, each doubtless carried a curved sword, short but deadly.

‘When did they get here?’

‘Ten minutes ago.’

‘How did they find you?’

‘I was a fool. I booked into a hotel a few nights ago and left my toothbrush there. Freya had warned me they could track you through a single item, like sniffer dogs.’

‘Shit.’

‘It’s worse,’ said Andrew. ‘I can’t move from the neck down.’

The level way in which he tried to speak was marred by a shrillness bordering on hysteria. ‘I… I can’t move,’ he repeated. ‘I took a sip of the coffee – I was a bloody idiot!’ There was none of the smiling young man in the picture; all that remained was terror.

‘It’s all right,’ murmured Sam, thinking of a thousand ways in which the Firedancers might have poisoned their unfortunate victim, and finding only a handful of possible solutions to this new problem.

Standing back like a dutiful servant, Peter finally spoke. ‘If Firedancers are here, others will be coming. The shield can’t protect against them.’

‘Who’s he?’ asked Andrew in a frightened voice.

‘A friend. Peter, I need a wheelchair here as fast as possible.’

‘A wheelchair?’ repeated Peter. ‘How can I get one of those, sir?’

‘Call an ambulance to the street corner, and when it arrives steal one. I leave the manner of the theft entirely to you.’

With some reluctance, Peter made his way out through the traffic to a nearby phone box, a warrior sent to do a criminal’s task.

Sam turned his attention back to Andrew. He had begun to sob quietly. The Firedancers wouldn’t attack in such a public space – no further than they had.

‘You
shall
be fine,’ he insisted as Andrew’s tears flowed faster. ‘There’s nothing the Firedancers can do that a Son of Time cannot undo.’

‘Damn Freya,’ whispered Andrew, unable to wipe his own eyes. ‘This is all her fault.’

Sam was tempted to agree, as apprehension jostled his lingering grief at Freya’s death. He said, ‘Where’s your stuff?’

Andrew managed to nod in the direction of his feet, where under the table a small bag held his possessions.

‘You got a passport?’

‘Yes.’

‘Under what name?’

‘My own.’

‘Ah. What nationality?’

‘American.’

‘Where will you be safe?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘You’re a great one for optimism.’

Somehow Andrew forced a grin. ‘Strange thing,’ he said, ‘but optimism is really easy to feel right now.’

‘A side-effect of my presence, no doubt.’

‘Oh, sure.’ But he looked slightly happier.

Across the road in the telephone box Peter was standing, head tilted to one side as he made his call. Then Sam’s gaze moved past the jinn, to where a pair of blonde women were striding down the street.

‘Shit!’

‘What?’ exclaimed Andrew.

‘Valkyries,’ Sam whispered.

Peter turned in the same moment, and his eyes widened as he too saw them. In one movement he slammed down the phone and ran from the box towards the café.

He burst breathlessly through the door. ‘The ambulance won’t be here for at least five minutes! What do we do?’

The valkyries were crossing the road, heading purposefully towards them.

‘All right,’ said Sam. ‘Peter, will you kindly take Andrew under the arm? Andrew, we’re going for a stroll.’

The jinn hefted Andrew up like a puppet. With Sam on his other side the American’s arms hung down uselessly and his toes trailed along the ground. Andrew found it hard even to stop his head from lolling. Evidently the Firedancers’ poison was still spreading through him, threatening him with unconsciousness. All eyes in the café were on the trio as they advanced to the door, two strangers supporting a limp doll. There was a scrape of chairs as the Firedancers rose to their feet.