“All right.”
I let out a breath as I watched her stalk away across the plaza carrying the Ash. That had gone better than it might have.
Now it was my turn.
I pushed all thoughts of what might go wrong ruthlessly out of my mind and strode towards my apartment.
Chapter Sixteen
Nothing ever went according to plan.
When I pushed through the door into my office, Galena Sunstone was perched right on the edge of my sagging couch. She was sitting upright, but something about the tension in her back told me she’d been waiting here a while.
Depths! What did she want? I couldn’t deal with any more anger and recriminations. I had failed with her ghosts, but I had bigger things to worry about. I hadn’t been the one who had triggered whatever it was that had transformed them. That had been the priest of Gwillan. She could take it up with what was left of his body.
Her perfume filled the air like spilled vinegar. It made my sore nose itch. I held back a sneeze. She turned to look at me as I came through the door. There was something odd about her eyes. They had that clouded-over appearance of frozen, winter puddles. She had been taking something, and I didn’t think it had been strictly medicinal.
She stood, smoothing her dress and small jacket. It didn’t help. She looked like I did after a hard night’s maging, all creased and stained. I could hardly criticize. I looked like a rag doll caught in a tug of war between two stray dogs. But I had never seen Galena Sunstone look like that before.
“Mr. Thorn—”
“I don’t have time,” I interrupted her. “I’m sorry things went wrong, but I told your husband it wasn’t easy to get rid of ghosts.” Particularly not ones that behaved like that. “I have work to do.”
Her tongue slid across her gold lip paint, coming away with a smear. She didn’t seem to notice.
“I need you, Mr. Thorn.”
I stopped, eyeing her. She looked nervous. Shit. She’d better not be coming on to me. That was a complication I did not need.
“And I need you to leave.”
She didn’t move. I wondered if I was going to have to manhandle her out the door.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “That thing … Those ghosts … No one else will help. I’ve asked at every temple in the city.”
It was a decent sob story, but I had heard better, and it wasn’t the most flattering thing to be told that you were the literal last choice after everyone else had said no.
“I told you. Move house. You can afford it.”
She stiffened so much I thought her spine was going to snap. “It is my home, Mr. Thorn. I will not be chased out.”
I could sympathise with that. I wasn’t looking forward to being evicted tomorrow morning, either. That still didn’t make it my problem. I would save my sympathy for people who couldn’t afford to buy my entire apartment with their loose change. I shrugged.
“I am prepared to pay you a very large sum of money, Mr. Thorn.”
Shit!
She pulled a small cloth bag from under her jacket and tossed it onto my desk. It made an unnecessarily loud thump as it landed.
I opened it. Most of the time I was paid in pieces or oars. This bag held shields. I even saw a crown in there. Lady of the Grove. That was a lot of money. A lot of money. That would be my rent for the next year. No eviction, no sleeping homeless on the street.
And it would take time I didn’t have.
Damn it all to the Depths.
I took the bag and locked it in my safe, shoving a handful of pennies into my pocket on the way. Everyone had a price. I guessed I’d just found mine.
“I won’t be there early,” I said. “I have another job to do first, and I’ll have to prepare for yours. I need you to get every piece of silver you own and stack it in the basement. I’ll need arevena flowers — fresh, preferably — and charcoal, too.” I didn’t know how much good any of those would do — they had bothered the ghost-beast thing, but they hadn’t stopped it — but I would grab at any driftwood I could reach. “Then keep out of the kitchen and basement until I’m done. All right?”
“Thank you.” Her glassy eyes were wide.
“Don’t. Just go.”
She left slowly, almost drifting like a ghost herself towards the door.
I headed up to my workroom to grab the quartz egg, trying to bring my focus back to Benny’s rescue. Get it wrong, and I’d end up in the cell with Benny. We could be executed together. It would be the kind of thing poets would love, the bastards.
I was half way back down the stairs when I felt the deadening vacuum of Ash picking away at my magic.
I swore, stumbling back, and pushed the egg behind me, desperately trying to keep it out of range.
The Ash Guard had come for me. Cepra damn Galena Sunstone! She had slowed me down, given Captain Gale enough time to get backup and Ash. I wished I had never heard the name Sunstone. I cursed as I scrambled up the stairs. I tripped, slamming my knee into a riser, and rolled about in agony.
Still limping, I pushed further up. Maybe they didn’t have the building surrounded yet. Maybe I could get out the window at the back. It was a drop, but I could cushion my fall with magic, assuming they weren’t too close with that damned Ash. It would be just my luck to leap out and find my magic failing half way down.
I stopped.
Why were there no voices from downstairs? Why no footsteps pursuing? They must have heard my performance on the stairs. I could, when I let my eyes unfocus, see where the Ash was eating away at the raw magic no more than six feet away, but it wasn’t coming any closer.
I took several slow breaths to release the tension in my chest and slow my pulse. The Ash Guard would know I could feel their presence. Why would they give me the chance to flee? This didn’t fit together.
I hesitated. Something else was going on.
This was how I got myself into trouble. I couldn’t leave things alone. They itched at me.
They’re waiting for you down there, you idiot, I told myself. They know you’re dumb enough to come down. They know they don’t even need to bother chasing you. Get out of here while you still can.
I couldn’t.
I wasn’t completely stupid. I returned the quartz egg to my workroom where I hoped the apple tree wood on the floor and walls would isolate it from the effect of the Ash. Then, I cautiously made my way back downstairs.
By the time I reached my office door, my magic was gone. It was hard to explain the absence of magic to someone who had never had it. It felt like walking naked into the midst of the cannon and musket fire of a battlefield, but without the advantage of putting everyone off their aim with your dangling bits. You were vulnerable in a way you weren’t used to feeling, and it was frankly uncomfortable.
There was no one in my office. Not on the couch or by the desk or waiting behind the door to smack me over the head. Where were they? Out in the street? Surrounding the building? Why?
A half choke, half gulp drew my attention to the couch. I took a couple of steps forwards. On the floor, pressed up against the side of the couch, almost invisible in her stillness, was Sereh.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
She was supposed to be waiting in the alley, ready with the Ash to shield Benny’s escape from any prying mages. Something must have gone wrong. My heart thudded as my mind ran through the possibilities, each worse than the one before. They were onto our rescue attempt. They had moved the execution date up, and we were already too late.
Instinctively, I reached for magic and felt nausea again under the influence of the Ash.
Sereh looked up. The dark skin of her face was streaked with tears. I froze. I hadn’t seen Sereh cry since she’d been a baby.
“What is it?” If someone had hurt her, I was going to tear this fucking city apart and let the Ash Guard try to stop me. I should never have sent her out there alone. Benny would kill me, and if he was already dead, he would come back and fucking
haunt me. That ghost-beast-monster would have nothing on Benny’s fury.
You stupid turd! I had said I would keep Sereh safe. I hadn’t even tried.
But she didn’t look hurt. I took a step closer. She still had the Ash, which meant that no mage could have harmed her and the Ash Guard hadn’t tracked her down.
There were plenty of dangerous things in Agatos that weren’t mages or the Ash Guard.
“I can’t do this, Uncle Nik,” she said. Her voice was often a whisper, but this time it seemed drained of something vital. I stopped.
“What is it?” I said quietly.
Her face crumpled. A sob escaped, and her hand shot up guiltily to cover her mouth.
“It’s too much.” She squeezed her eyes shut and more tears slid from her eyes. “Dad. Everything. I can’t do it.”
It took me a moment to process what she was saying, and then guilt hit me like a runaway carriage. What the Depths are you doing, Nik?
I had been thinking of Sereh as a miniature psychopath, but she wasn’t. She was just an eleven-year-old girl with an overdeveloped need to protect her father and an unnerving way with a knife. I had been treating her like she was a block of stone and expecting her deal with things even I wasn’t dealing with.
My mistake could have fucked this whole thing up.
I crossed to her and crouched, careful not to touch her. She might be fragile, but she was still the most dangerous person I had ever met, and that included the three high mages.
“We’re going to sort this out,” I said, although I had no idea how. “You can stay here. I can do it on my own.” I would have to leave the Ash somewhere and hope no one discovered it. I would have to come back for the spell. It would make everything tighter and increase the risk of failure. But I couldn’t put her through any more of this. “You could even go and stay with my sister until this is all over.” Mica was a sucker for hard-luck cases. She would take Sereh in, and no one would fuck with her there.
Sereh shuddered and her eyes hardened. I didn’t see her move, but her knife was suddenly in her hand.
“He’s my dad.”
I could see her pull herself together through an effort of pure will. I recognised that. It had been how I had kept going so many times when I had still been living and training with my mother. And because I knew it, I knew exactly how brittle a thing it was. The wrong hit, and she would shatter into pieces.
I studied her face, the drying, forgotten trails of tears, the hardness in her expression. I wasn’t going to be able to dissuade her, not without breaking her.
“All right,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Same plan.”
With growing apprehension, I watched her unfold herself then head out, her back stiff, her shoulders squared, and her movements uncharacteristically jerky. I swore under my breath.
You just had to make this tougher, didn’t you? I told myself. You just had to.
The City Watch headquarters, beneath the sheer cliffs of the Leap, was an intimidating place. Heavy, discoloured white walls rose three storeys, broken only by barred windows. Two watchmen stood beside the solid wooden doors, watching the open plaza. Stalls had been set up around the plaza, against the cliff, but none of them too close to the headquarters. The Watch would have plenty of time to retreat behind the doors and hunker down if anyone should try to storm their building.
Not that I was planning to run screaming at them waving a spear or musket. We mages were sneakier than that.
I had left my mage cloak behind — there was no point in drawing unnecessary attention — and now I waited in the shade of a coffee house awning on Bad Luck Way, watching people come and go across the plaza. The spell in the quartz egg could take me to the Watch building unobserved. Depths, I could probably dance across the plaza with my underwear on my head and not be noticed under the influence of the spell. But I only had a minute of it, and I needed to save it for as long as I could.
Someone cleared their throat behind me. I craned around and saw a waiter hovering behind my shoulder.
I raised an eyebrow.
He straightened. “You must order if you are going to sit there.”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Even so.”
Arsehole. I leaned back easily. The waiter wasn’t as tall as me, but he was more muscular. Either the coffee here weighed a lot more than it should, or he spent too much time exercising in front of a mirror. I could take him with magic if I had to, but I couldn’t afford a scene. Galena Sunstone had paid me well. I could afford a coffee. Depths, I could probably afford the whole menu. But when you were used to being poor, you resented any unnecessary cost, even if you temporarily had money.
“It would be rude to order before they arrived. I don’t like being rude.” I shifted slightly to face the waiter more fully and treated him to a wide smile. He recoiled. I guessed a split lip, swollen nose, and bruises didn’t inspire confidence.
I’m nice, I projected. I’m reliable. I’m a desirable customer.
Some mages claimed to be able to influence thoughts with their powers, a wave of the hand in front of someone’s face to change their mind, but I certainly couldn’t, and they couldn’t have been that good at it, because they had never managed to influence me to believe it. The waiter’s eyes dropped to my stained, wrinkled clothes, and his lips curled in distaste.
This wasn’t working, and it was drawing attention. That was exactly what I didn’t need. I reached into my pocket and slapped a couple of coins on the table.
“Torian coffee. No spices.”
With a barely disguised sneer, the waiter scooped up the coins and retreated.
My stomach really didn’t want coffee right now. It was too tight, and I was too tense. I just wanted to get this done. I turned my gaze back to the plaza.
Come on. All I needed was … yes. That. Three men had emerged from a nearby alley and were heading for the City Watch headquarters.
I pushed away from my table, jumped to my feet, and hurried away from the coffee house.
“Hey!” the waiter called after me. “What about your coffee? What about your friend?”
“I guess he’s not coming,” I called back.
The men I was after were fifteen yards ahead, and while they weren’t rushing, they were definitely heading for the Watch building. As casually as I could, I used my longer stride to close the distance on them. My plan was to apparently join the group, staying a pace or two behind, so I wouldn’t stand out, then slip anonymously away under cover of the spell. I knew where Benny’s cell was, and I knew how long it would take to reach it. I had a spell prepared to spring the lock, and if everything went according to plan, I had enough time left afterwards to spirit the pair of us out of sight before the spell wore off.
Because everything always went according to plan.
I caught up with the men by the time they reached the middle of the plaza. One of them gave me a curious look over his shoulder. I replied with a confident, friendly nod.
Just going the same way you are. Nothing to worry about.
My attempts at mental manipulation weren’t any more successful this time, because he frowned.
“Just heading for the Watch.” I indicated my clothes and my bruises. “I got attacked.”
That must have been enough to convince him, because he turned back to his friends.
Maybe there was something to this mind stuff, after all. As long as you said it out loud with a sufficiently confident tone.
The watchmen on the door didn’t pay any attention as I followed the group in. We joined a short line in front of the main desk.
I licked my lips nervously. The men I had followed in might not remember me well enough to give a description, but the watchwoman on the desk would be another matter. Watchwomen and -men were trained to observe and remember. There were tricks to it, and any member of the Watch would pin me like a bug on velvet: tall, dark-skinned, thin, bruised. There was a reason they were called watchwomen and watchmen. Wh
en Benny went missing, it wouldn’t take a genius to associate that description with Benny’s mage friend.
Here goes.
I let a little magic slip into the quartz egg, triggering the spell. Magic spread from the egg like a sudden mist springing up on the water of the bay. I let my eyes unfocus. With my magical vision, I saw a shifting aurora of colour centred around me, but reaching through the room, enveloping everyone around me. My eyes wouldn’t stay on it. In a blink, I was out of my magical vision.
Huh.
Three seconds. I hoped this was working the way I wanted, because I didn’t have time to test it. Four.
It was suddenly hard to breathe.
Just do it.
I strode away from the line and headed for the cells, stepping around a watchwoman who was wandering across the passage. She shifted the other direction without looking at me.
This was actually working. Who’d have thought? Screw you, everyone who had ever said I was a crappy mage! All right, Mica had actually imbued the quartz, but I had designed the spell, and I would probably have got there eventually.
Ten seconds. Fifty left to go.
I stepped into the hallway that ran in front of the cells. A couple of watchmen sat at the table where Silkstar’s mage had been the first time I had visited Benny. I would have to extend the spell to cover both the door and Benny, or the watchmen would notice. The spell wouldn’t make me and Benny invisible. It simply made us too boring to notice. An obvious escape attempt could be enough to overcome it. When you’d been stuck guarding a cell for hours, you must fantasise about someone trying to escape. I didn’t want to end the day with a dozen spears jutting out of my body.
Fifteen seconds. I was already behind schedule. I hurried over to Benny’s cell and reached for the lock.
The cell was empty.
I stood there staring at it for too many valuable seconds. The cell had been cleaned and tidied. All signs of Benny were gone.
Idiot! Of course he wasn’t here. These cells were for those who had just been arrested or who were awaiting trial. Benny had been convicted. Condemned men wouldn’t be kept here. How did I not know that?
Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel Page 19
