Crimes Against Magic (10 page)

When I was certain the coast was clear, I continued through the building to the lifts. Getting into one of them was out of the question. There were enough cleaners and security staff inside the building to notice if one started to move when it wasn't meant to. 

But that didn't mean the lifts were a totally no-go area. 

The darkness inside the building was occasionally broken with wall lights, creating an eerie atmosphere. Shadows crisscrossed over one another, trying to claw back the darkness from the low level lights. 

The lift doors were surrounded by ornate bronze work. I took a few seconds to study the artwork. It really was quite beautiful. Dozens of figures carved into the bronze, most in full ancient armour, stood in front of their boats, waiting for whatever war the artist was depicting. 

I placed my hand close to the steel of the lift doors and noticed something in the carvings. On the opposite side of the waiting warriors was a huge walled city. Men stood on the ramparts, staring down at those before them. Suddenly I realised that it was a depiction of the battle of Troy, or at least the beginning of it.

Air rushed out of my hand, forcing the heavy lift doors apart and keeping them there as I peered into the darkness beyond. I closed my eyes briefly, aware that orange glyphs would be mixing with their white counterparts as I drew on the fire aspect of my magic. When I opened them I could see in the dark. The lift shaft was a mesh of orange and reds but I made out the lift itself a few floors below me, idly waiting for its next journey.

It’s probably a common thing to hate lift shafts, but when you're a thief sometimes they're your only means of getting from one place to the next undetected. They're drafty, dirty and full of things whose entire mission in life is to tear the skin from your body. It was why I spent a moment to take climbing gloves from my bag and put them on. 

I pulled a balaclava down over my face. The blueprints showed no internal cameras but I didn't want to accidentally walk into a cleaner and have my face plastered all over the news in the morning.

A quick jump later and I found myself holding onto the thick lift cable. Once I'd wrapped my feet around the cable and made sure my grip was iron tight, I began my twenty-two-floor climb. 

There was no way of telling how long it took, I wasn't about to wait for a second and take a look at my watch, but it felt like years. By the time I'd reached the top of the lift shaft my arms and shoulders ached and my hands felt on fire, cramped from how tightly I'd needed to grip. There was also another problem—the lift doors were closed. Jumping over to them would have left me with about an inch to grab hold of. An inch between life and death wasn’t big enough for me to take the risk.

I wrapped one arm around the cable and stretched out my free hand, palm facing the door. A jet of air exploded from it, ripping the glove to shreds before slamming into the door. I kept the gale focused on the crack between the doors, forcing them aside. Anyone outside them would easily hear the howl of the wind, but it was the quickest way. 

Once the doors were apart, I moved around slightly so that my back faced the now open lift doors. I pulled my feet up, planted them on the cable and launched myself back, twisting in mid-flight with a slight blast of air and landing beyond the lift doors as they began to close. I hit the thinly carpeted floor hard, but rolled, the back pack taking the brunt of the blow.

I remained motionless for a moment and listened for any signs of approaching life. It was soon apparent that I was alone. The information I'd received from my employer stated that the cleaners didn't normally get to the thirties until after midnight, and it was only quarter past eleven. But it was better to be safe than sorry.

The information had also told me that level thirty-two was as high as I could go. The next few flights would have to be done in the private lift or stairwell, both of which were armed with alarms, and wouldn't open without a key card. So no more climbing up lift cables, which wasn't the worst news in the world.

The plan was to disable the stairwell lock and use the stairs to gain entry to the restricted floors. 

Unfortunately I hadn't counted on the stairwell being guarded too. 

I peered around a corner and watched one giant of a man sat directly in front of the door some thirty feet away, a book in his hands and a stun gun at his waist. That was definitely not in the dossier from my employers. 

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how he hadn't heard me, and then I noticed that he was wearing headphones. He started tapping his foot to whatever beat he was listening to as he read his book. Listening to music probably wasn't one of his usual duties, but I was glad he had, otherwise that stun gun would probably have been pointed at me. 

I ducked back round and wondered how in the world I was going to creep past him.   There was a good chance he'd notice me from a few inches away, even if he was listening to music. Unless he was blind, and then he'd be sort of useless as a security guard.

I sat, cross-legged, on the floor and concentrated on my breathing. The space around me shifted and moved as I dragged all of the air away from the far end of the corridor. The guard's cough was the first indication that it was working, followed soon after by wheezing, as the air around him became thinner and thinner. He stood and cursed as he searched for something, and then a quick puff on an inhaler. All the while I kept concentrating, kept dragging all the air toward me, holding it in place just in front of me. I'd tried it out a few times, and it had gotten easier with every attempt. But it wasn't a quick bit of magic and required
a lot
of effort.

Footsteps sounded, as the now panicked guard walked toward me, each step accompanied with another wheeze. And then a second later, as he reached half way down the corridor, the steps stopped, before an almightily bang signified the guard crashing to the floor. 

The air rushed back down the corridor, passing over the guard as it refilled the void its movement had left behind. I walked to the prone man, rolling him into the recovery position and stole his card key from his belt. "Sorry, mate," I whispered.

After using the key card to unlock the door, I dropped it onto the floor. It would look like it had fallen out of the guard's pocket when he stood. Hopefully that meant he'd be in no hurry to raise an alarm. 

The stairwell had an oak banister, behind which, more carvings depicted warriors from different times—Greek warriors, Roman Legionnaires and even a few English War Bowmen, sat on the wall. If I'd had time, I would have taken a few to sell to Francis. Unfortunately I was in a hurry, so I was forced to leave the bounty alone.

I tore my gaze away from the splendour surrounding me and jogged up the next few fights of marble stairs, stopping outside the entrance to the floor I needed. 

The door pushed open without incident. No one was hiding behind it waiting to apprehend me in the act, so I stepped through and into a brightly lit corridor. Glass windows faced me, allowing me a peek into dark offices as I made my way along the floor to find my destination. 

Daniel's office was the largest on the floor. Easily two or three times any other. According to the blueprints he had his own private bathroom, too. The higher up the pecking order, the less you have to mix with those beneath you. 

I crept along until I reached the closed door. Daniel's name was painted onto the dark wood in a golden font. Instead of having glass windows that stretched from floor to ceiling down the length of the wall, Daniel's office windows stopped at about chest height, giving him a measure of privacy. At least his new employers thought highly of him. Not sure the same would be said tomorrow. 

His blinds were closed, which made getting close to the office a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. I sat next to the door and was about to fish out a snake camera from my bag, when part of the door exploded above my head showering me in wooden shrapnel. I dove aside, my ears ringing like bells, and glanced through the jagged hole now in the door. It was about a foot above where my head had been. 

"You're not going to kill me." Was the first thing I heard from him once my ears stopped sounding like a marching band was playing in them. 

"I wasn't
planning
on killing anyone," I shouted back as another round ripped more of the door apart, putting a hole at what would have been my stomach height.

"Don't lie! You're here to kill me and take my daughter. Well, you can't have her." He ejected a shotgun shell, instantly loading another.

I placed my open hands in front of the door, showing Daniel that I wasn't armed. "Wait! I have no idea what you're talking about."

Moving slightly had let me peer through the door and into the office, where Daniel Hayes stood, eyeing me suspiciously.

 "Just put the gun down," I said. "We can talk about this." I wasn't about to inform him that if he didn't, I was going to take the shotgun and put it where the sun doesn’t shine. 

I pushed the shredded door a little. His response was immediate. "Stay there," he screamed and fired at the door once more. "Try that again and you'll look the like the doorframe with my next round."

The wood resembled Swiss cheese. I was surprised it was still upright. 

I glanced through the closest hole, getting a good view of the obviously agitated Daniel in the process. The shotgun was still pointed at the door. His arms were beginning to wobble and sweat creased his forehead. 

"You going to let me talk to you?" I asked.

His answer was to load another cartridge.

"Your choice." I threw a small fireball through the hole. It moved with speed, until it struck the barrel of the shotgun, where upon it exploded. Daniel dropped the weapon in panic, which gave me the opening I needed to dive through the remainder of the door and fling a blast of air in his direction. It caught him square in the chest, driving him into the far wall with enough force to hopefully knock the fight out of him. 

I picked up the shotgun. "We done now?"

Daniel slowly made his way to an upright position. "You won't find her," he said defiantly.

"I'm here to steal a laptop, your laptop to be precise. No idea what the hell
you're
talking about." I emptied the shotgun and tossed the cartridges into a waste paper bin next to a large wooden desk, dropping the empty shotgun onto the desk. "How'd you know I was outside your door?"

He pointed to the carpet outside the office. "Pressure plates, I activate them when everyone's gone home."

That was pretty damn smart. I was impressed. "As it looks like this job has gone to shit, give me the laptop, I'll run off and you can go back to being crazy guy."

"What laptop?"

Alarm bells couldn't have begun ringing any quicker if they'd tried. "Your laptop, your old employers, Lionshead Pharmaceuticals, want it."

"Who the fuck are they?"

Now the alarm bells were going apeshit. "Your old employers. You worked there for ages. You left with some of their secrets." 

"Never heard of them. I'm afraid you've been given wrong information."

Or been set up.
"Who did you think was after you?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you shit, you're a thief. A thief who's currently still wearing a balaclava. How do you expect me to trust you?"

He had a point, and if I was set up then it looked like Daniel had been, too. He was definitely expecting trouble. I pulled off my balaclava and tossed it onto the desk. The expression that crossed Daniel's face wasn't good. "What?" I asked.

"Nate?"

"You know me?"

"Of course, I know you. Why are you here?"

I ignored his question. "How do you know me?" My heart raced, what was going on?

Daniel walked over to his desk and opened a drawer, removing a cigarette and lighting it up. He exhaled a moment later and I expected the sprinklers to go off. "I disabled them years ago," he said, anticipating my thoughts. "Occasionally I need a sly one."

"That's great, now how do you know me?"

"You're the one who got me into this fucking mess in the first place. I helped you get that damn psychopath Welkin, helped you get those people out. Then you vanished. What the fuck are you doing back here now?"

"I. Have. No. Idea," I said calmly. "I don't remember anything before ten years ago. Now can you start from the beginning, please?"

Daniel ignored my insistence. "Everyone thought you were dead. It would have been safer if you'd stayed that way. I guess they found you." Daniel turned to look out the window, when he turned back his face was ashen. "You know the real kicker? This whole fucking mess started over three thousand years ago. If it wasn't for that damn Priam, none of this would have happened."

Daniel raised his cigarette to his lips and his head exploded, covering me in gore. An eyeball flew past my head as he fell toward me. I caught him and blasted a gust of air under the desk, flipping it onto its side to use as cover. Wind sucked through the small bullet hole in the thick glass window. I looked down at Daniel. He'd known who I was and yet all I got were even more questions. I needed answers. 

But more than that, I needed to leave. Another gust of air left my hands and the desk shot upward twisting behind me as I ran for the still open door. I made it out of Daniel's office and back to the ornate staircase when a female voice sounded from behind me. "Hi, Nate." 

I stopped and turned, the voice was familiar. "Jenny?" I asked. 

She nodded once, and then shot me.

Chapter 11

1414, France.

The English archer, Thomas, had remained deathly silent since we'd left Soissons a few hours earlier. I'd expected a barrage of questions, but since leaving the city and the death it contained behind, he'd become mute. 

We'd walked at a steady pace, heading south and keeping away from major cities or towns. Two armed men covered in blood would cause us unneeded attention. It was a complication I didn’t need.