Stealing Life

by Antony Johnston

  It was all Nicco had, all he could bargain with. “Come on, at least let me try. I’m doing my best, here.”

  Clarrum pursed his lips. Nicco could see he wanted nothing more than to smack the thief in the mouth, but if there was any kind of functioning brain in that thick skull he should see the truth in what Nicco said.

  “All right,” said Clarrum finally. “But you’re still a lying son of a squid.”

  Nicco exhaled with relief. Now all he had to do was get Xandus’ access code.

  “THIS IS SERGEANT Patulam calling from the Police Department. Get me someone in your secure records department.”

  BEEP

  “Records and customer security, how can I help you?”

  “Patulam, Police, major crimes. I need the security access code for a cell phone, and I need it right now!”

  “Sir, are you the registered owner?”

  “If I was, I wouldn’t need to call you idiots for the bloody code, would I? The number is...”

  “Sir, we can only give out access codes to the registered owner, or...”

  “Or the bloody police! Now just give me the code, the number’s 207212-578707!”

  “Sir, you’ll need a warrant issued by the court, I can’t just...”

  “And where in the fifty-nine hells am I going to find a judge sober and awake at this time of night? Listen to me! There is a smuggling operation going on right now, and I need that code to locate the drop, do you understand? The unit is owned by a major importer of drugs from Varn, and if you do not give me the code I will personally see to it that your face is splashed all over the news streams as the man responsible for letting eight million lire’s worth of purple creeper loose on the streets of our fair city!”

  The operator said nothing. Nicco worried he might have over-egged the hard cop act.

  “Sir... Sir, I have an idea. Why don’t I track it for you?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you see, that way I don’t have to give you the access code. But you can still get this smuggler. I’ll... I’ll be fired if I give you the code. I have two kids in school...”

  Nicco considered the option. He could push it, try to reassure the operator that he could protect him from the wrath of his boss. But of course he’d be lying. In all probability, he really would be fired. And maybe he really did have two kids in school.

  “All right,” said Nicco. “But by the watery saints, hurry up about it! The number’s...”

  “I got it the first time, sir. I have the location for you. Would you like it now?”

  Nicco nearly exploded. “No, I’ve changed my mind after all! Of course I want the bloody location now!”

  “Sir, there’s no need to shout. I’m doing everything I can.”

  “All right, all right. Please, just give me the location.”

  “It’s on the dockside, sir. The signal is weak, but it’s definitely there. The address is 873 Gutter’s Walk.”

  Nicco cut the line and turned to Clarrum. “Did you hear that?”

  Clarrum banked the skycar to the right, then hit the accelerator and sped north. “Loud and clear.”

  IT ALL MADE sense now that Nicco knew where he was going. The ocean scent had been strong, even over the assault of waxy golem flesh as they’d bundled him out of the groundvan. You could hear the sea just about everywhere in Azbatha, but it had been louder than usual because the sounds of daily life were muted; Xandus’ place was downstairs from the street, and that meant a basement. Plenty of those in the dockside warehouses. And of course, the docks themselves were all but deserted, the last eyesore of a dying industry. It was the perfect haven for a wizard who wanted his privacy.

  Nicco looked for the groundvan as they landed, but the street was empty. It had probably been a rental job anyway, especially as the wizard had used it to kidnap a man off the streets. Building 873 was just a few yards from a rusting dockside jetty and looked completely deserted, a dark, abandoned five-storey building of green-black sea stone, steel and shattered windows. Clearly, Xandus’ quarters didn’t extend above ground.

  “You sure this is the place?” Clarrum said as they exited the skycar, looking doubtfully at the derelict.

  Nicco looked around to get his bearings. He remembered his short journey from the back of the van, onto the street, through the heavy metal door and down the flight of steps. Outside, at least, everything matched. He even caught a faint whiff of wax.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Definitely. He’s in the basement, through that door.”

  “Then that’s where we go. You first.”

  Nicco approached the door. There was no control pad, and it was locked with a heavy steel padlock. “And how am I supposed to open this?”

  “Try knocking.”

  Nicco shrugged and did as Clarrum suggested. The metal rang, deep and hollow, as he rapped it with his knuckles. But no-one answered.

  “All right,” said Clarrum from behind him, “Stand aside.”

  “I doubt your blaster’s going to break this lock. That’s pretty thick steel.”

  “Who said anything about a gun?”

  Nicco turned to see Clarrum holding a metal construction pole, one of several lying abandoned at the base of the building from previous renovation efforts. The burly man grinned and shoved the pole between the latch and the door, then pulled down. Nicco watched, impressed, as the hasp slowly bent outward, levered away from the door by sheer brute force.

  It took a couple of minutes and as many breathers, but finally the hinges of the latch sprang apart. The door recoiled and creaked open. Clarrum dropped the pole with a loud clatter and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “After you.”

  Nicco pulled the door open and waited, listening for signs of movement or activity. All that greeted him was a stony silence.

  He entered the short corridor behind the door. It turned a couple of yards ahead, then turned again before opening out into a stone staircase. The torches that had illuminated Xandus’ room weren’t present here in the entrance—and only a dim light emanated from the steps. Nicco turned back to call Clarrum, but the big man was already standing behind him.

  “Something’s not right,” said Nicco. “I can’t see a thing.”

  The bodyguard grunted, and a small beam of light shone directly in Nicco’s face. Nicco looked down and saw a small keyring light in Clarrum’s hand.

  “Get moving, Salarum. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

  As Nicco reached the foot of the steps the thin beam of light from Clarrum’s keyring torch shone past him, moving over the wall at the far end of the room. A dim light emanated from the large fireplace in the back wall, filled with ashes and embers that glowed weakly. Something was definitely wrong, here.

  “Wait,” he said, and put a hand out to stop Clarrum moving forward. Nicco took out his phone and dialled Xandus’ number again.

  A high-pitched beep sounded somewhere in the room, echoing off the stone walls, the echoes and repeating tone merging into one high-pitched wail. And there, at the far end of the room, a small blue light on the floor. Nicco walked over to it, feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach.

  He bent down and picked up Xandus’ phone.

  “Clarrum, shine your torch around the walls.”

  Nicco heard Clarrum’s footsteps as he walked into the centre of the room. “What’s going on? Are you sure you’ve got the right place?”

  “Just do it!”

  Nicco watched in horror as the beam of light moved over the basement’s bare stone walls. No torches. No tables, no display cabinets, no rugs or ornaments or curious. No arcane symbols on the walls. Where he stood right now should have been a set of stone steps leading to Xandus’ makeshift throne. But there was nothing.

  The glow from the fire’s embers threw faint, shifting shadows across the walls. Clarrum’s torch beam moved slowly across the floor, around the walls, up and down the fireplace. Empty.

  Except...

  “What in the fifty-nine
hells was that?” Clarrum shouted. He swept the torch beam back to one of the far corners, past Nicco.

  “What?”

  “Thought I saw something...”

  Nicco’s fear rose as he realised what had happened. Xandus didn’t live here. He’d never lived here. It was an elaborate set-up, a façade for Nicco’s benefit. That was why he’d been blindfolded and knocked out—not because the wizard didn’t want Nicco to know where he lived, but because he was taking Nicco somewhere no-one lived, and Nicco would have figured it out if he’d been able to see the location properly.

  It had all been a lie. A big fat lie.

  “He left his phone here deliberately... it’s a trap of some kind!” Nicco pushed at the bodyguard, urging him to the exit. “Clarrum, get out!”

  “What’s going on? What on earth are you talking about?”

  He left the big man standing in the centre of the room and broke into a run. “Come on! Just get...”

  Nicco skidded to a halt on the grey flagstones. His path was blocked by a pale man with thick black hair, a neat black beard and piercing blue eyes. He peered through the gloom.

  “Xandus? Is that you?”

  The man said nothing. And then Nicco saw a second man approach. They could have been twins, but for the fact that this one had a gun pointed straight at Nicco.

  “Oh, no,” said Nicco. “Thinmen.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NICCO BACKED AWAY from the thinmen, collided with someone and yelped in surprise. He spun round and found himself face-to-face with Clarrum. Bazhanka’s man shone his torch beam past Nicco and peered at the thinmen blocking their exit.

  “They belong to this client of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” Clarrum said, addressing the golems. “Where’s your owner? We need to see him.”

  “I don’t think these thinmen speak, Clarrum. And one of them has a blaster...”

  The torch beam suddenly went haywire, moving erratically over the walls. Clarrum had dropped the torch. At the same time he lunged forward, twisting inside the reach of the thinman holding the blaster. He brought one open hand up into the golem’s face, pushing it back, then wrapped his other hand around its wrist, before delivering a sharp blow to its stomach with his knee. As the golem lost its balance, Clarrum stripped the gun from its hand.

  “Not any more,” he said, drawing his own blaster. “Here.” He tossed the thinman’s blaster to Nicco.

  Nicco had never liked blasters. He looked down at the weapon in his hands. “I don’t want it, why—?”

  Two shots rang out, the reports echoing off the stone walls. Nicco looked up to see the unarmed thinman fall to the ground with a ragged burn hole in its chest. Then Clarrum turned to the one he had just disarmed and shot it in the head.

  “Come on, let’s go. There’s nothing useful here.” Clarrum picked up his keyring torch and began walking to the steps. “Did you get his phone?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think it’ll tell us anything we haven’t already worked out. It’s a dead end...”

  Nicco stopped walking. At the base of the steps stood another two thinmen, their pale flesh glowing in the beam from Clarrum’s torch. Neither of them appeared to be carrying a gun.

  “Just shoot the buggers,” said Clarrum, raising his own weapon.

  Nicco looked down at the blaster again, feeling its weight in his hands. But before he could shoot, Clarrum let out a muffled groan.

  Startled, Nicco raised the gun and whipped around. “What’s going on? Who’s there?”

  He just had time to see a ghostly face, the features marred by a hole in its forehead, before he felt a heavy blow to his stomach. He doubled over, confused and gasping for breath. Then the face leered over him as he felt clammy hands lift him off the ground.

  The thinmen were still alive. Or whatever passed for life in a golem.

  It threw Nicco back. He sailed through the air and landed badly, his hip slamming into the hard flagstones. He cried out in pain and dropped the gun reflexively. Not that it mattered, if blasters didn’t stop them.

  Four of them. Xandus had four thinmen, Nicco remembered that now. He cursed himself for not remembering sooner, before they hit Clarrum. Where was he? The big bodyguard hadn’t made a sound after getting hit from behind. What had they done to him?

  Nicco scrambled back on his heels, scratching his palms on the cold, rough floor. Clarrum’s torch had fallen facing the back of the room, silhouetting the thinmen as they advanced toward him. Nicco’s head collided with the back wall, but the pain barely registered. He crawled sideways, heading for what he thought was the corner, but instead came up against the side of the fireplace. The thinmen surrounded him, slowly approaching from all sides. There was nowhere to run.

  So this was how it would end. Killed by mindless golems in the basement of a broken-down warehouse. Not quite the debonair death Nicco had hoped for.

  THE THINMEN STOPPED.

  They were about ten feet away. In seconds they could be on him, tearing Nicco’s head off. But they just stood there.

  Were they about to die? Had they reached their expiry date? If so, Nicco made a silent vow to start attending church, even if he had to go Turilum to find one that hadn’t been bulldozed to make way for a mall. But after a few seconds he realised the thinmen weren’t slowing down, or frozen. They just wouldn’t come any closer. Why not?

  Nicco slowly turned his head. Glowing embers in the fireplace warmed his cheek, and he smiled.

  He rummaged through his pockets for the scrap of paper with Xandus’ number on it. He was sure he’d put it back in his pocket after reading it to that security operator on the way here... Yes, there it was. He didn’t need the number any more. But the paper could still be useful.

  Nicco folded the paper and thrust it into the dying embers. Disturbed ash tumbled onto the hearth, exposing brighter remnants of the fire that had been left to burn itself out. Some of the embers fell onto his hand and scorched his palm, but Nicco gritted his teeth and held the paper against the ashes.

  With a tiny rush of air, the paper lit.

  Behind him, Nicco heard the thinmen grunt. He climbed to his feet and waved the makeshift brand at them. They backed away, staring at the small flame with fear in their inhuman eyes.

  Exhilaration overtook him. He laughed and walked forward, turning in a small circle to keep the golems away as he crossed the floor. They might have had orders to kill him—for all he knew, Xandus left them with orders to kill anyone who found the basement—but evidently, they had a fear of fire that couldn’t be overcome. Nicco told himself to remember this, to maybe start carrying a lighter everywhere in case Bazhanka’s thinmen ever got too close for comfort.

  He’d walked three steps when the paper burned out. Nicco and the thinmen both stopped dead in their tracks.

  Then Nicco leapt forward, starting a sprint toward the exit. Out the corner of his eye, a shadow flitted across the static torch beam—then came a muffled grunt as Clarrum slammed into one of the thinmen, tackling him to the ground. Man and golem both landed on the hearth with a dull thud.

  “The fire!” Nicco shouted. “They’re scared of the fire!”

  “I saw, thank you!” Clarrum grunted in response, before shoving the thinman’s face into the smouldering embers. It shrieked, a guttural sound that made Nicco wince, and desperately tried to crawl back out of the fireplace. Clarrum kept its struggling body down for a second or two before it threw him off with an inhuman roar and staggered back.

  Its head was on fire. The other thinmen shrieked and backed away as their brother floundered, spinning and stumbling around the room in panic.

  Clarrum scrambled to his feet and pulled Nicco toward the steps. “Come on!” he shouted. Dazed, Nicco let himself be dragged across the room.

  When they reached the base of the steps, Nicco suddenly remembered the gun. “Wait!” he said. But the big man had let go of his arm and was already taking the steps two at a time, heading fo
r freedom.

  The first thinman was now fully engulfed in flames. It collided with one of the others, and the fire spread to it instantly. Both golems shrieked and careered round the room while the other two backed away, trying to avoid them. It was like a perverse waltz, lighting up the room and making shadow plays even as they burned to death. Nicco saw the blaster lying on the floor where he’d dropped it. He ran to it, dodging between the erratic thinmen to avoid getting burned himself.

  He reached the gun and scooped it off the floor. But as he stood back up, one of the uninjured golems loomed towards him, some glimmer of its master’s instructions still driving its magical mind. Nicco raised the blaster, ready to shoot—it would slow the thinman down, at least—but before he could pull the trigger, a flaming golem smacked into the back of the other and knocked it to the ground, fire already licking its face.

  Nicco ran for his life.

  CLARRUM WAS WAITING by the skycar, breathing heavily and clutching his chest.

  “Are you all right?” Nicco said as he staggered to the car.

  The big man winced. “Think one of them... broke something.”

  “I got the gun they had, it might give us a lead on Xandus. You want me to drive?”

  Clarrum shook his head. “No... chance,” he said. “This is a Soarus... Bullet. Brand new. Just... give me a minute...”

  “I thought you worked with Bazhanka’s thinmen? I can’t believe you didn’t know they’re immune to assault blasters!”

  “Did you know?”

  “Well, no, but...”

  “So shut up.” Clarrum grimaced and held his chest again. “You think we... use them for target practice... or something? I never tried... shooting one before!”

  A metallic clang and guttural shriek interrupted Clarrum’s protests. Nicco turned to see one of the thinmen, flaming from head to toe, stagger out of the warehouse and head directly for them.