Alex Verus 5: Hidden (27 page)

I slammed into Ji-yeong at full speed. Her sword flashed up and pain flared along my face, but I was heavier than her and my momentum carried us both over the edge. When you fall your first reaction is to grab something and Ji-yeong’s arms went reflexively for me, but her fingers were locked around her swords and the blades scraped off my armour. We fell apart, accelerating, and with my left hand I snapped the item I’d drawn from my pocket.

Life rings look like small hoops of metal and glass, woven in a twisted circle. As the ring broke the spell within it activated, expanding to engulf me in a bubble of air magic. The spell lightened my body, steadying my motion, and suddenly I wasn’t accelerating anymore, just sinking at a steady rate of ten feet per second. I started carrying life rings after an incident a couple of years ago involving a burning building; when you have to make a quick exit from somewhere high up, it’s useful to be able to fall like a feather.

Ji-yeong didn’t have a life ring. She fell like a rock.

A human body hitting a hard surface makes a very distinctive sound, a kind of
snap-thud
. The impact drives the breath from the lungs so there’s no shout or cry. I landed a few seconds later, touching down gently; the life ring’s magic lingered a moment longer, then dissolved into the air. One of Ji-yeong’s swords had bounced towards the wall. I picked it up, testing the edge to make sure it hadn’t been dulled or chipped, then walked over.

Ji-yeong had fallen forty feet onto flat stone: crippling if not fatal for a normal human. Life mages are tougher, but even so they’ve got their limits. Ji-yeong was lying flat, legs twisted in a way that suggested multiple broken bones, struggling to breathe. In my mage’s sight, trails of green energy twined frantically around her body and limbs: I couldn’t make out the details but I knew what they were doing. I leant over and placed the point of the sword under Ji-yeong’s chin.

Ji-yeong’s eyes came open, hazy with pain. “I know you can regenerate from that,” I told her. “Try anything and I’ll drive this sword through your jaw and into your brain. Clear?”

Ji-yeong had to try a few times before she managed to speak. “Okay,” she said in a raspy voice. She had to keep her head still to stop the point of the blade from breaking the skin.

I straightened up, moving the sword away. “Where’s Anne?”

“Windmill,” Ji-yeong said with difficulty. “Crystal.”

“That was where she was
then
. What about now?”

“Don’t know . . . Crystal . . . moving her. Sam’s shadows.”

“Through a gateway?”

“Doesn’t have gate stones . . . Foot.”

“To where?”

“Keep.”

That had been more than half an hour ago. Even on foot, Crystal would be back at the keep by now. “How much does Sagash know?”

“He doesn’t.”

I dipped the sword towards her. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!”

“You’re telling me none of this showed up on the sensors?”

“Crystal messed with them.” Ji-yeong’s words were clearer now; she’d already begun to recover. “I looked. There wasn’t any proof, that was why . . .”

Why you wanted to take me back instead. Yeah, you might not want to remind me of that little detail.
“Where’s Sagash?”

“His lab. He went in after he got back from the party.”

“What’s he working on?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t tell us about research. Stays in there for days. Doesn’t tell us why.”

Ji-yeong was watching me closely, holding very still. I couldn’t sense any deception, and from the futures it looked as though she was going to cooperate, at least for now. Blood was dripping from my chin; that last slash had scored along my cheek. I brushed it off, leaving a messy red streak along my hand. “Crystal found us. How?”

“A focus. Time magic. She didn’t—”

“Where in the keep is she taking Anne?”

“I don’t know—”

“Bullshit. Maybe Crystal didn’t trust you with her plans, but you’re smart and bored and you just told me you had nothing better to do than figure out what they were up to. Give me your best guess.”

Ji-yeong hesitated. I twitched the sword again. “All right,” she said. “Wait. The sub-basement.”

“Where?”

“The northeast corner. There’s a backup—Sagash used it, for experiments, before he moved up to the second floor. It’s got the most defences.”

“What kind?”

“Shadows. Fixed attack wards. And barriers, and locks.”

And Crystal and Darren and Sam behind them.
I felt a sinking feeling. I couldn’t get through that.

I looked down at Ji-yeong. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but it made her flinch. Her cuts had all stopped bleeding and she was breathing smoothly again, but she couldn’t move, not yet. “Who else is in the keep?”

“I don’t know about anyone else. I swear.”

“Are we going to have any more trouble?”

Ji-yeong hesitated. “No?” she said at last. She sounded as though she was hoping very hard that was the right answer.

I looked down at Ji-yeong a second longer, then turned and ran, heading towards the stairs up and the long winding path that would take me back up to the castle.

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I
kept running until I found an empty building, then hid in the shadows and path-walked, sending my future self racing back the way I’d come.

Nothing. The windmill was empty. I couldn’t find any trace of Crystal or Anne, and Darren and Sam were gone as well. The skies above the castle were clear. Everything I could find confirmed what Ji-yeong had already told me: They were back in the keep.

Fear and worry nagged at me but I pushed them back, trying to focus. Crystal had Anne. What was she going to do with her?

She’d want to use her in her ritual, the same one that Vitus Aubuchon had been midway through when we’d stopped him the last time. I didn’t know what details Crystal might have added or changed, but I was absolutely sure that it would end with Anne’s death.

How fast would Crystal do it?

I had the ugly suspicion that it would be soon. So far, Crystal had kept this whole scheme a secret from Sagash. Doing all this right under Sagash’s nose in his own shadow realm could not have been easy. No matter how good Crystal was at double-dealing, she’d want to finish this quickly, before Sagash caught her out.

And that meant I didn’t have long. Hours, maybe.

What was I going to do?

I paced, walking back and forth in the shadows. My bruises from the fight still ached, and pain pulsed from the shallow gash along my face. I could fight my way into the keep, try to break Anne out. It was the classical heroic thing to do, and it was pretty much guaranteed to fail. If I was strong enough to take them all on by myself, Anne wouldn’t have been captured in the first place.

I could sneak in. Bypass the shadows, find Anne . . . except that finding Anne would also mean finding Crystal. All that would achieve would be to start a fight in the heart of Sagash’s fortress. And again, inevitably, I’d lose.

I made a sound of frustration, putting a hand to my forehead. No matter how I weighed the odds, I couldn’t see how I could win this. On one side was me, and maybe Anne if I could find her. On the other side was Crystal, Sagash, Sagash’s apprentices, Sagash’s constructs, and God only knew what else. This was his place of power, where he was strongest.

I could try to call in help from the Council. This was exactly the proof that Sonder had been looking for, and if I could get the message out that Crystal was here, then the Keepers would force their way into this castle if they had to burn down the whole shadow realm to do it. But to get a message out,
and
convince the Keepers I was telling the truth,
and
have them get in here . . . even if I could do it, it would take too long. By the time the Keepers arrived Crystal would be gone, and Anne would be dead. If I wanted to help her I’d have to do it myself.

But how?

Maybe I was looking at this the wrong way. I couldn’t beat Sagash and Crystal with brute force, but that’s not what I’m good at anyway. What did I have going for me?

Knowledge. I knew that Crystal had been behind all this from the beginning. She must have been watching Anne, using her pawns to operate at a distance, staying hidden away in Sagash’s shadow realm where she was safe. The last time Crystal had done this, she’d abducted targets from the Light apprentice program, and she’d drawn the Council’s anger. She’d learnt from her mistakes; this time she’d waited until Anne was out of the program and alone.

But she hadn’t done it with Sagash’s help. If Sagash had bent his full power towards capturing Anne, he could have done it faster and better. Crystal would have known that, yet she’d kept it secret from him.

She wouldn’t have done that without a reason . . . and I had a suspicion of what that reason might be. The technique Crystal and Vitus Aubuchon had worked out had never been designed for sharing. Crystal might have some sort of research agreement with Sagash, but she wanted to keep the rewards to herself.

Sagash probably wouldn’t be too happy about that.

Maybe I didn’t need to break Anne out. Maybe I just needed to break in.

I walked out of the shadows to the doorway, where the sunlight painted a yellow-gold box on the stone, then knelt on the floor and started going through my pockets. I could probably find an entry to the keep with just my divination given time, but time was something I didn’t have—I needed to get in, and fast. What did I have that would help?

I was still carrying Ji-yeong’s shortsword. It looked like a low-power dispelling focus, probably designed to cut through energy shields like Darren’s and Sam’s. It hadn’t been much use against my armour, but it should work fairly well against the shadows. I set it to one side.

My dispelling and stun focuses I set aside without a second glance. Glitterdust, ditto. Two forcewalls, two condensers, a healing salve . . . I should patch up that slash, the bleeding would be annoying. I unscrewed the jar and smeared the paste along my cheek where Ji-yeong’s blade had cut me; it stung and itched. I closed the jar and went back to searching.

Combat knife, microlight, picks, my phone, Darren’s phone. I went to the pocket with my other one-shots. Signaller. Flash flare. Three gate stones. Pouch filled with . . . dispersion dust? Why do I even carry this stuff? Trail pouch. Probes. Alabaster cat—how did that get there? That’s right, I’d stuck it in my pocket while talking to Luna a few days ago. Designed to summon cats, but it worked on dogs . . .

. . . would it work on other canines too?

I stared down at the little alabaster figurine, looking into the future to see what would happen if I used it. Minutes stretched out. Nothing . . .
There!
A flash of excitement went through me and I focused on the figurine, channelling my magic through it.

Calling an intelligent creature is harder than calling an animal. A summoning focus doesn’t have the power to compel; the most it can do is send an invitation. I kept the flow of magic to a thread, a gentle suggestion, and waited.

Five minutes passed, ten. I stayed sitting on the stone floor. After a while, I closed my eyes.

The flicker of space magic came from my left, then to the right. A pause, then it came again, alternating between directions. The switches were irregular, unpredictable. I knew I was being watched and didn’t move, letting my observer get a good look. At last I spoke. “I’d like to make a deal.”

No answer. I opened my eyes to see the blink fox half hidden behind one of the pieces of machinery. Hidden in the shadows, its reddish coat looked grey, and its pointed muzzle was tilted down to the stone. Amber eyes reflected the daylight back at me, sharp and watchful.

I moved around to face it, keeping my motions slow and careful. The fox tracked my movements, unblinking. “I know you can understand me,” I said. “I’m guessing you’re wondering if this is some sort of trap and I’m here to catch you. I’m not. I’m a mage from the outside world, from London . . . come to think of it, you might not know where London is. Never mind. Point is, I’m trying to get out of here, along with my friend, and I could use some help.”

The fox didn’t respond. “I’m guessing you aren’t especially thrilled to be here,” I said. “Sagash’s apprentices want to catch you . . . or recatch you? Whichever, I’m sure there’s a reason you’re not hanging out with them. And I doubt this castle is all that nice a place to live. It’s kind of lonely and I imagine you get a bit sick of pigeons. If I get back outside, I could take you with me. Once you got through to the other side of the portal, you could blink off and go wherever you liked. Not like anyone could catch you, once you had space to run.”

No answer. “So?” I said. “Interested?”

The fox looked at me.

“Is that a yes or a no? Help me out here.”

Silence.

“Okay, I know you can’t talk, but could you give me some kind of feedback? Bark once for yes, twice for no, that kind of thing?”

The fox gave me a look.

“Fine, no barking. All right, let’s try this another way . . . I’m guessing you’re at least a
little
interested in getting out of this shadow realm. If you’re not, then just walk off.”

The fox turned its head towards the shadows, paused a moment, then turned back to me again.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Will you help me out?”

No response.

“What’s the problem—you don’t think you’re getting offered enough? Well, while we’re here there’s not much I can give you, but . . . I could give you a place to stay, if that’s what you’re looking for. Might even be able to help you find some others like you. You’re not the only blink fox out there.”

Again the fox didn’t move, not obviously, but something about its posture looked a little more alert. “So what do you say?” I asked.

There was a pause, then the fox trotted forward, emerging from the shadows and into the light. It moved with the trotting, doglike-catlike gait of city foxes, agile and quick. Now that I could see it clearly I was surprised at how big it was. Orange-red fur covered its back and sides, becoming dusty towards the haunches; the ears, legs, and tail were black with reddish patches, and splashes of white covered its throat, undermuzzle, and tail tip. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could make out a few traces of blood in the white fur of its throat. It sat, tail curled around its feet, and watched me.