Nemesis (30 page)

I nodded frantically. “Do it.”

“I’ll need you to be there, Ada, in case it goes wrong. If anything happens, go back to Central, go to your brother. Get the addresses of all the Conners’ places, they can have people sent in. Then–Ada, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to let Ms Weston know. About the deposits on Aglaia, even. Everything.”

I swallowed. If it helped get us out of this nightmare… but the possibility of anything happening to Kay, too…

Back in the Passages, he hit the button on the tracker again. And then he turned to face me. Looked me right in the eyes. The breath punched out of my lungs. He was risking his life to help me save my brother.

My hand gripped his like that would express what I couldn’t in words, as the magic swarmed around us in a blur of red, and his hand was wrenched away.

***

KAY

Awareness flooded me like an electric charge. Even though I’d become accustomed to the way magic felt, this was different. A heightened sense.

The light cleared. Ada watched me from the other side, eyes wide, hand outstretched where she’d let go as the magic hit both of us.

“Can you feel that?” she gasped. “It’s Alber.”

I shook my head, slightly dazed. Magic left blurred imprints on my eyelids, but a sensation tugged at me, coming from deeper in the Passages. Like a radio signal, but one I felt rather than heard.

The tracker. I’d tapped into the tracker… but Ada shouldn’t be able to feel it, too.

“You can absorb magic,” I said, as it hit home. “You can feel the tracker, because you were touching my hand. Somehow it transferred over.”

“It’s that way.” She pointed with a shaky hand.

And once again, we struck out through the Passages. I cursed this damned maze for having no shortcuts. Nothing we could do but move as fast as humanly possible. Ada’s face was set, and I hoped it wouldn’t turn to panic. But she held it together.

Once we were out of the hidden Passage, I led us through a shortcut to the Valerian door that led to an alley, and pushed it open. The tracker-sense deepened instantly. So it was true. It came from Valeria.

Apparently, being arrested wasn’t enough to keep the Conners out.

I’d thought the door was under guard, but the quietness gave me the sense that something was wrong. I gestured to Ada to stop as she caught up.

“Hold on. I can go invisible and–”

“Try and transfer it,” she said quickly, grabbing my hand. “If the tracker works–”

Of course. I shook my head, amazed she could think clearly, and tuned into the Chameleon’s energy. Instantly, the effect took hold. And both of us vanished.

“Holy hell,” said Ada’s voice. She gripped my hand. “Come on.”

I stepped through the door to Valeria, Ada at my side.

***

No one guarded the doorway. The alleyway was as deserted as before, even though I’d told the police about it when I’d caught that ravegen.
Something’s wrong.

It became apparent what, exactly, when we reached the street. It was all but deserted, but the few people about headed towards smoke rising from the east.

But that wasn’t the way we needed to go. Someone had caused a hell of a distraction to drive everyone far away from the doorway entrance, which meant there were people here who shouldn’t be.

The Campbells’ place was unguarded, though the police tape remained. But anyone could force a lock, even on a building like this, if they had magic on their side. Once we were properly inside the grounds, I saw the limp bodies of several people in Enforcement Officer uniform. Fury surged through my veins. We’d got here too late.

The magic level rose without warning, the static in the air buzzing so intensely it was like standing next to a speaker set to full blast.

Ada gasped in alarm. “What was that?”

“No clue. We’ll find your brother.” I knocked open a window with a subtle magic shot. Nobody appeared to be inside, but a building that size could hide anything. Lucky I remembered the way to the stairs.

Our path was blocked by… a screen? The image of a forest path covered the space where the stairs should be, as if a piece of reality had been torn away.

A doorway. It took a second to grasp it. Someone had
opened
a doorway. To Aglaia.

“Shit,” I said.

Ada’s hand gripped mine tighter. “What the hell?” she whispered.

The doorway extended from floor to ceiling, leaving no way around. Underneath, something gleamed cold and black, and the magic under my skin buzzed in response. They were using a source to power it.

The last time I’d been near a source like this had been when the Campbells had taken Ada. Every drop of blood in my veins turned to ice.
Not again.

“Other stairs,” I said, calmly as I could. “Come on.”

We backed downstairs and hurried down the corridor to the other staircase. As we reached the third floor, the tracker pulsed more insistently than ever. Ada’s brother was in one of these rooms.

“That one,” I whispered to Ada, turning visible again to point at the right door. “Set your brother free, now.”

Footsteps sounded and I quickly turned the chameleon effect back on. Magic sparked from where Ada was still invisible, knocking open the door. She disappeared inside, just as two men came around the corner, both smartly dressed and armed with Valerian-style guns. Magic-based weaponry, and highly illegal. I moved so I was between them and the open door. No way in hell was I letting them near Ada and her brother.

“Blasted woman won’t say a word,” one of them was saying. “Not one. We’re gonna have to try something else. How long will that thing hold open?”

“Not long,” said the other.

The first man cursed. And then dropped like a stone as I punched him in the temple, an instant knockout. As the second man spun around, searching for the target, I knocked the weapon from his hand and caught him in a chokehold.

“I’m not playing games here,” I said. Quietly. “You’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on here right now, or so help me, I’ll kill the pair of you in a second. Don’t think I won’t.”

His legs spasmed as I squeezed his throat.
He tortured Ada’s family.
He’d get no mercy from me.

“For starters, what’s that door for?” I released my grip slightly and he gasped for air.

“Shit! It’s that ghost! Gav was right!”

“You have three seconds.” I twisted his arm, in such a way that indicated I knew exactly how to break the joint and put him in a world of pain. He wailed, and I tightened my grip around his throat, just long enough for a warning.

“It’s so we–we can take this tech through from here. We needed a source, our dad needs a source, and it’s the only one we haven’t tried.”

“For what, exactly?” Damn, how many Conner kids were there?

“I don’t know!” he howled. “Stop. Please stop!”

“Tough shit,” I said. “What have you done with Nell Fletcher?”

“On Aglaia,” he sobbed. “She’s on Aglaia. Helping. She makes… disguises.”

Shit. “You need those disguises. Why?”

He sobbed again. “To infiltrate the councils… offworld.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, let me get this straight. Your family’s after sources. You arranged the assassination of the centaur king?”

“My sister went to talk to the centaurs, in disguise.” He sobbed again. “She killed the king–when he guessed she wasn’t her.” So he must be Aric’s older brother.

“Where did you get the bloodrock solution?”

“West Office. They confiscated it.”

“And the door? How did you do that?”

“Magical fairy dust, I haven’t a clue. We stole everything West Office had.” His voice rose in pitch as my grip reflexively tightened. “My father took some of it with him, said it was ob-obsidian or something.”

“How the hell did you open that doorway?”

“Magical fucking fairy dust. Let go of me!”

I kicked him, and he whimpered. “No screwing around,” I said. “Do you know how they opened the doorway? With a magic source?”

“Yeah, yeah, it all looks the bloody same, doesn’t it? I just turned on the machine, it’s supposed to link up with a source on the other side.”

Goddammit. This was worse than I’d feared. And he was dead right that all magic sources
did
look identical. He was no magic-wielder. But I was getting an entirely different vibe from the doorway than from any other sources I’d been near.

“Why Aglaia?”

“Nobody claimed their source yet.” He squirmed in my grip. “If the Alliance gets hold of it, they’ll bury it underground where no one can ever use it. It’s a freaking
amplifier.
They’re rare as hell and my dad needs it.”

“To do what?”

“Sell, what else? The Alliance’s new laws crippled us. A source will get our family out of debt.”

“Or it might blow you up,” I said coldly. “I’m not impressed. Didn’t you learn from what happened to the Campbells?”

“They were deluded,” choked the guy. “They wanted to destroy the Alliance, they didn’t care who got in the way. We want to build things. To change. Upgrade. Wynn’s already proof it works on non-magic-wielders. Why shouldn’t people from Earth have magic, same as everywhere else?”

“That’s not for you to decide,” I said, adjusting my grip. “Not by stealing a dangerous source from a contentious world. All that’ll do is bring an army of pissed-off centaurs on your tail.”

“They don’t have magic,” he said. “It’s no use to them.”

I gave him a shake. “Still not impressed. Isn’t the bloodrock enough? You got that from here?”

“Campbell’s kid gave it my uncle, yeah. So what? It’s not potent. The power drains out of it within minutes.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Who else used the bloodrock?”

“Just… my father.”

So no one else was running around in disguise… but someone must have impersonated one of Aglaia’s council on more than one occasion. Even the centaurs. I couldn’t think of any other way they could have found out about the source.

“Who killed those Enforcement Officers? And distracted the others?”

“My sister. She used the last of the source to attack one of the Alliance’s bases.”

Damn.
So she must be a magic-wielder.

“And Aric? Where’s he?”

“Went after Wynn, through the door. He brought the woman. And the boy.”

“And you? What did your father tell
you
to do?” The words came out before I could stop them, though I knew the answer already.

“To make them talk.”

Magic surged into my hands, crackling in lightning waves made ever-strong by the presence of the open door. The second level shot had him on the floor, convulsing.

“Still think magic’s so great?” I raised my hand again, and an answering sound kicked up in the background, a roaring in my ears, a surge of adrenaline and fury. He’d kill me if I let him go. He’d kidnapped and tortured a teenager. Who else was here to stop them?

I let the invisibility drop, so he could see my face before I struck him dead–

A noise behind me. Ada and her brother came out of the room, him half-conscious against her shoulder. She stared at me in abject horror, and for an instant, an image rose up of a cliff’s edge, and her on the other side, slipping further and further away, out of reach.

“Kay,
stop!”
Her voice was louder than the roaring, louder even than the magic crackling around me. My gaze dropped to the limp form of the guy I’d zapped. He wasn’t moving.

Reality slammed into me like a wave. Her guardian was trapped in Aglaia. Which was still under attack. And the door wouldn’t stay open forever.

I dropped the magic, shaking inwardly as I moved away from the fallen Conners and towards Ada. I shoved the thoughts away. There’d be time enough to think about what I’d almost done later.

“I have to get through that door,” I said. “Nell’s somewhere there. I’ll save her, you get your brother out.”

“No way am I leaving,” she said, without looking me in the eyes. “I’ll do what I damn well like.” She pulled out her communicator and punched buttons. “Jeth. I’ve got Alber, he’s at the Campbells’ place on Valeria. Get someone sent over there now. I’m going to…”

The magic started to fade, the buzzing from the door reduced to a faint hum. The door would close any second now.

“You can follow later, but you have to keep your brother safe. I’ll find your guardian. The door’s about to close.”

She glanced at her brother. Then back at me. She nodded. Once.

And I ran. I left the Conner brothers, pelted for the stairs, at the rapidly disappearing doorway, and flung myself through it.

KAY

I rolled over on the rough ground of the forest, firing up the invisibility again just in case.

Ada’s guardian was held hostage somewhere here. There had to be a clue… though the tracker wouldn’t work if she wasn’t a magic-wielder.