"What haven't you told us?" Tomas said when Morgan turned back to face him.
Morgan stared at him. "About what?"
"I don't know, Morgan - whatever it was you didn't want to say in front of Anya and Belle."
Morgan took a deep breath, then let it out again. "Raphael brought one of the corpses to life, while I was locked in the morgue. Used it to speak to me."
Tomas nodded calmly.
Morgan perched on the end of the bed, beside the messy outline of Tomas's feet. "So that's normal then, is it? That's just run of the mill. Nothing to get too excited about."
Tomas studied him a moment, and seemed to decide there was a genuine question buried in there. "In a way. There's only one real source of magic. We all end up using it in the end."
"Death, you mean?"
"Life. Everything, every molecule on Earth, used to be part of something living once. The secret is finding a way to remind it. That's the source of all magic, 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.'"
"You know quoting poetry doesn't make it any less of a heap of shit, right?"
Tomas laughed. "That's all I know. I was just an operative, Morgan. I used the tools they gave me and I found the things they wanted. I left the philosophy to people higher up the food chain."
"People like Nicholson?"
"Yes. Nicholson ran the Hermetic Division. I was his first recruit - his only recruit for two years." He smiled a little, looking for once like he was lost in a pleasant memory. "We'd travel the world together, chasing rumours - a werewolf in Greece, the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. Most of them turned out to be nonsense, of course. The people at MI6 talked about shutting us down all the time, but we discovered just enough to keep them interested. And then Nicholson found out about the Ragnarok artefacts, and suddenly everything changed."
There was a long silence, Tomas staring blankly at the sagging mattress above him. Finally, he said, "They're supposed to be unspeakably powerful. Powerful enough to end the world. It was researching the artefacts that taught Nicholson how to conquer death, to bring someone back from the other side. And once the government knew about that, we got all the funding and all the agents we wanted." Tomas shrugged, as if it was no big deal.
"Raphael said he knew Nicholson," Morgan blurted, startled into confession by Tomas's honesty. "He said they used to be friends."
"Did he? Yes, I suppose that's possible. A contact gone bad - it would explain how he knew about the book."
But not, Morgan thought, how Raphael knew Nicholson was his father. For a second he thought about saying this to Tomas, then the other man carried on talking and the moment was lost.
"Nicholson trusted too much," Tomas said. "He wanted to believe anything was possible, and he listened to anyone who told him it was."
"But bringing people back to life - that is possible?"
"Oh yes," Tomas said bitterly, "that turned out to be a walk in the park."
Morgan looked at Tomas, and wondered how it felt to know you were dead. Was he glad they'd brought him back? He didn't seem it. "How did it happen?" he asked. "To you, I mean?"
"How did I die?"
Morgan nodded.
Tomas's expression twisted into outright pain. "I was buried alive."
"Jesus! That's... Fuck, that is not good."
"You don't have to feel sorry for me. It was my choice. It was part of the ritual to turn me into what I am. They put me in the ground while I was still breathing, and I let it happen. Of course, they were supposed to bring me back in three days, not twenty years."
"Giles told me I emit mortality," Morgan said, a non sequitur. Or maybe not.
"And do you?"
"Everyone around me dies, I know that."
"Your former partners," Tomas said, and at Morgan's frown, "They did tell me a little about you before they assigned us to work together."
"So do you think it's possible? Is it my fault they died?"
Tomas shook his head. "I don't know. There is such a thing as plain bad luck."
Morgan swallowed painfully. "But it wasn't just them. When I was twelve I got sent on a summer camp. Troubled kids, countryside, teach them the real meaning of life, some shit like that. It was me and Leon, my best mate, and late one night we were pissing around, climbing trees in the dark. We'd nicked some beer from the local offie, and we were fighting. You know, just having a laugh. I didn't mean to push him that hard, but one second he was sitting on the branch next to me. And then..."
Tomas's eyes glittered in the moonlight. "Were there other deaths?"
Morgan nodded, but his throat closed tight over the next words. He stood up, filled with a sudden restless energy that the small cabin left him no room to pace off. He peered in the mirror instead, at the dim shape of his reflection.
My sister, he wanted to say. And as if the unsaid words had summoned her, he saw a shape coalesce in the glass, her face floating above his right shoulder. If he turned around, he'd be looking right at her.
He was halfway through doing just that when the window burst inward in a shower of razor-sharp glass.
For a split second he thought it was an optical illusion, a fragment of the night that had fallen in with the shards of window. By the time it had resolved itself into a figure, swathed in black, it was already past him. And it was only as the door slammed behind it that Morgan registered the feeling of the figure's hand, light-fingered at the waistband of his trousers.
When Morgan fumbled there himself, he found nothing. The book was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
Tomas was sluggish with exhaustion. He tumbled out of the bed onto his knees, wincing at the jolt to his bones. By the time he'd scrambled to his feet both Morgan and the thief were gone, the door swinging open onto the dim corridor beyond.
Tomas's chest had been bare beneath the sheets but he didn't stop to dress. The door slammed behind him as he flung himself through it.
He had one second to scan the corridor, night-silent and dim - then, suddenly, window after window along its length smashed open and a swarm of black-clothed figures swung through. He recognised them instantly, or at least what they were: the same assassins who'd attacked him and Morgan when they first arrived in Budapest. The same black cloth concealed their faces.
And they moved with the same whip-like speed. By the time Tomas had fully registered their presence, they'd already gone, half of them to the left, half to the right. And he had absolutely no idea which of the identical figures had taken the book.
He saw Morgan dart though the sliding door to his right. All Tomas could do was turn left. One of them might catch the thief. One of them would have to.
He thumped his fist against the door of Belle and Anya's cabin as he passed, but there was no time to stop and see if it had any effect. Two more paces and he was through the door at the end of the corridor, wrenching it open with his hand when the automatic mechanism slid too slowly.
Three of them were waiting for him. They must have heard something of what he was by now, because they didn't bother trying to shoot him. Two of them grabbed his arms while a third clubbed him over the head with something hard and metal, probably the butt of a gun. Tomas's consciousness began to grey at the edges, and everything was slowing down.
It wasn't a good time to discover that dead men could still pass out.
Tomas was slumped on the floor, back against the wall and one of the assassins with a knife against his throat when his thoughts revved back up to normal speed. The man's wrist cracked audibly as he snapped it, and the knife fell to the carpeted floor with a muffled thump.
One of Tomas's arms was free now. He used its elbow to drive his other assailant's nose through the soft grey matter of his brain, and then he was able to stumble to his feet. The last intruder was already running, but Tomas couldn't follow him yet. He needed to check that neither of the two on the floor had the book.
He searched the dead man first, a cursory glance. His black clothes were tight enou
gh to show they held nothing larger than a shuriken and a silenced revolver. Tomas took the shuriken and left the gun, too dangerous to be caught with.
The other man was harder to search, writhing in pain and moaning with his broken wrist cradled against his chest. Tomas hesitated, then struck him hard at the base of his skull - possibly hard enough to kill, but he didn't have the time to be careful. There was no sign of the book on him, either.
Tomas cursed and sprinted down the corridor in pursuit of the last man.
Anya threw the door open, heart pumping with the panic of someone woken suddenly from a deep sleep.
The corridor was entirely empty. She looked to left and right a second time to make sure of it, but there wasn't a soul out there.
It was only when the cold breeze blew into her face that she registered what was wrong. Every single window was broken, the floor littered with fragments of glass. Lights glittered on them from outside the train, an unknown city passing by.
She pushed open Tomas and Morgan's door without knocking, and wasn't surprised to find them gone. It must have been one of them who'd woken her. She had a moment's paralysed indecision, then hurried back into her own cabin and pulled Belle out of bed. "Trouble," she told the little girl curtly.
Belle followed Anya back into the corridor, footsteps padding softly, like a cat's. Anya thought that, if it had been up to the men, they would have left Belle behind. For her own safety, or some nonsense like that. Anya wasn't that stupid - or that sentimental. Belle was the best weapon they had. The only weapon Anya had right now.
"Oh my lord," Belle said, when she saw the destruction outside. "What happened here?"
As Anya shrugged a pair of guards ambled into the corridor, stopping to stare in bemusement at the shattered windows. Anya grabbed Belle, pulling her towards the left-hand exit before they could start asking awkward questions.
She almost tripped over the first body. When she'd regained her balance, she saw that there were two black-clothed men on the floor, one curled into a foetal ball, the other propped against the door of the toilet. Blood had pooled around him, a dark stain on the grey carpet.
"Scheisse!" Anya said.
Belle looked around, wide-eyed. "Where are Tomas and Morgan? Do you think they've been caught?"
"Maybe. There must be more of these guys. Every window in that corridor was broken." Anya knelt down to hook her hands under the shoulders of the nearest man. "Open the door and take a look," she said to Belle. "Tell me if the guards are heading our way."
The man was a dead weight, pulling painfully at Anya's back as she heaved him upright, though she could see his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. He wasn't quite gone yet.
Belle remained where she was, eyeing Anya warily. "What the heck are you doing?"
"Cleaning up. At the moment, as far as anyone knows it's just vandalism. If they find these bodies there'll be all kinds of questions. Go on - I need you to keep watch."
Belle did as Anya asked, and Anya began laboriously dragging the first man to the outer door. It had an old-fashioned lock, thank god, the sort you could open even when the train was moving. Warm air blasted in along with the strangely comforting noise of wheels clattering over sleepers.
Anya braced herself against the doorframe as she hooked a foot under the man's body, looking away when he finally flopped out and down to whatever lay below. There wasn't much chance he'd survive the fall, but she'd been hardened to this work a long time ago.
The next man was already dead. He was nearer to the door and upright so it took less effort to drag him the last few feet. Just as well; she was already panting with exertion. Typical bloody men, she thought, leaving the women to clear up their messes behind them.
"They're coming!" Belle hissed suddenly, and Anya only just had time to kick the black-clothed body into the night before the guards arrived.
They looked at her then at the open door, and she slammed it before they could say anything. One of them, an older, greying man with the spidery red traces of alcohol abuse on his nose, growled something at her in Hungarian. She held her hands outspread in a gesture intended to convey both innocence and incomprehension. The guard shook his head, obviously not buying it, but his companion said something and after a brief, whispered conference, they moved away, towards the back of the train.
Anya sagged with relief.
"What now?" Belle asked.
"See what further trouble Tomas and Morgan have landed themselves in, I suppose." Anya rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the ache in her muscles.
She'd started massaging her bicep when the door to the toilet swung open in front of her. She stared in mute astonishment at the black-clothed figure and the shattered window behind him.
The moment of immobility thawed into action, the figure reaching inside his clothing, almost certainly for a weapon. Anya took a step back, bringing her level with Belle. The little girl slipped her hand inside Anya's as a spike of a knife appeared in the man's hand, reflecting nothing back but the blackness of his clothing.
Even with his face covered, Anya thought she could read his body language. It was dark in the little antechamber between carriages, and he was still disoriented. He wasn't one hundred per cent sure they were his targets. And if they weren't, he'd be killing an innocent woman and a little girl. But they were his targets, and Anya didn't think his indecision would last long.
Anya had never been much of a fighter, and she wasn't armed. Belle and her strange abilities were their only hope. She snatched a glance at the girl.
Belle returned it with a look of desperation. "I can't. I can't. I can't do it if I can't see their eyes."
The words seemed to finally end their opponent's indecision. His knife slashed a silver arc through the air. Anya dropped to her knees, feeling the blade pass so close to the top of her head that it must have cut through hair. The weapon reached the apex of its swing and slowed, and Anya used the second's grace it gave her to run for the door, pulling Belle behind her.
Tomas only knew he'd reached the end of the train when he ran straight into it. His body rebounded from the door that wouldn't open and barrelled into the man he'd been pursuing, who'd stopped in time to avoid his own collision with the wall.
There was a brief tussle, fierce and silent, until Tomas used his superior weight to pin his opponent to the floor. The assassin instantly changed tack, scrabbling inside his black robes for a weapon. Tomas had been waiting for that. The knife that came out left a jagged tear in Tomas's chest and then he'd trapped both his opponent's hands in one of his own, bending back on the wrists until the black-clad man cried out and let the weapon drop.
The man's mask shifted, revealing the outline of a smile. "End of the line," he said. His accent was American. More than that, it was startlingly familiar.
Tomas used his free hand to snatch the black cloth from his opponent's head. The face underneath had aged twenty years since he'd last seen it. The sandy hair was flecked with grey and the long, thin face seamed with wrinkles that radiated from his eyes and mouth with geometric precision. He was still recognisable, though, as the man who'd been his partner for the last five years of his life.
"Richard," he said.
The other man wasn't smiling any more. He looked thoughtful and a little sad. Tomas suddenly felt absurd, with Richard's hands and body pinned beneath him. He rolled off and to his feet, stooping to pick up the knife on the way. There was no point searching for the book; it was clear Richard didn't have it. No concealment was possible beneath the tight black clothing.
Richard rose more awkwardly, with an audible popping of joints. "Tomas," he said, "I was hoping to avoid you."
"Jesus, Richard, what are you doing here? What happened to you?"
"I wised up."
"What did the Japanese offer you?"
"You think I'd do this for money? You know me better."
"What am I supposed to think? Two days ago your allies tried to kill me. Did they tell you that?
"
Richard hesitated, and Tomas realised with a sick jolt that Richard had known. How was that possible? He'd been an usher at Richard's wedding. He'd thought they were friends.
"I'm sorry, Tomas, but I didn't have any choice - not while you're working for him."
"Giles? He's just a pen-pusher."
"I meant Nicholson."
"Nicholson's dead."
Richard laughed, and after a moment Tomas couldn't help smiling too. He could see the irony. "Actually dead," Tomas said. "Or have I been misinformed?"
"Probably, but not about that. I was there when they cut him down."
"From what?"
"The big oak crossbeam in his kitchen." There was a pause, then Richard added, more uncertainly, "He hung himself hours after they buried you. Did no one tell you?"
Tomas shook his head. He couldn't begin to imagine it. The Nicholson he knew liked life far too much to voluntarily end it. Nicholson had liked himself too much. "But what did Nicholson ever do to you?" he asked. "You were his blue-eyed boy!"
The other man shook his head. "I want to tell you. I want to believe you aren't hip deep in this yourself. But I can't take the risk."
"For God's sake, what's this about?"
Richard kept his mouth stubbornly shut.
"Then at least tell me which side you're on," Tomas said. "Don't you owe me that?"
Richard took a moment to consider the question. It was something Tomas had always liked about him, the way he never resorted to an easy answer. "It's pretty simple," he said finally. "I'm on the side of anyone who won't use the book."
He'd started moving before he stopped speaking. Tomas had expected him to move away, maybe try a dive through the half-open window. He hadn't expected Richard to run straight for him.
After a startled second Tomas made a grab for him. His fingers grasped nothing but air. Richard had fallen to the floor, a rolling dive that took him between Tomas's braced legs and through the door he'd been guarding.
Cold Warriors Page 12
