“I get it,” I said shortly. My head was still whirling as I put everything into place.
Belthas glanced at Meredith, then leant forward, placing his elbows on the table. “Then with that in mind, perhaps you would be interested in hearing my offer.”
I knew what he was going to say. “Your offer?”
“A simple contract of service. At present Meredith and I are the only mages opposing this group, and to be frank, we could use some assistance. You’ve already proved your ability. I would like to hire you.”
“To do what?”
“Find the Dark cabal. Stop them.”
“I’m not a battle-mage.”
“From what I understand, you’ve acquitted yourself quite well against opponents who are.” Belthas raised an eyebrow. “I’ve read the reports of the fateweaver incident. The uncensored reports.”
“Then you know I don’t get into fights if I can avoid it,” I said. “If you’re looking for someone to kill these guys, I can’t help you.”
Belthas shook his head. “Force is not in issue. I have enough influence with the Council to deal with the cabal in any direct engagement. What I need is an investigator. Someone to find the Dark mages and discover what they know about Jadan’s method. Once we know that, we can move in.”
“You can move in,” I said. Belthas nodded and I thought fast. “And in return?”
“As I said, I have some influence with the Council. I could assist you in any endeavours with them, should you require it. If not, I can promise future service. I would of course insist on paying for your time as well, if only on a token basis. Would ten thousand pounds a day be reasonable? In advance, of course.”
I had to stop my eyebrows going up at that. Like I said before, mages don’t value money all that much. But they still use it as a sense of scale: that much per day meant that the favours he was promising were significant. Of course, if this job would put me in the sights of a Dark cabal, they’d have to be.
“There are some things I’d like to know first,” I said.
“Of course.”
“Meredith was on her way to see me when she was attacked. Why?”
“We had already identified you as a potential ally,” Belthas said. “I delayed approaching you in the hope that we could resolve the matter without spreading the information any more than was strictly necessary. It seems Meredith decided on her own initiative that the priorities had changed.” He glanced at Meredith, who nodded after a second.
“What are you going to do with this technique if you get it?” I said.
“I would prefer knowledge of its existence suppressed if possible.”
“And if it’s not possible?”
Belthas frowned. “Then the task will be considerably more difficult. However, I see no way to avoid that risk.”
I fell silent. Belthas waited patiently for my answer. Looking into the future, I could see that I wasn’t in any danger: Belthas wasn’t going to try to silence me or anything if I said no. The question was whether I wanted to.
If this technique of harvesting magical creatures really existed—and from what Belthas and Arachne had said, it seemed pretty damn likely—I wanted it destroyed. The idea of the magical creatures of our world being hunted down in a race for their life force made me feel sick. I didn’t know if it could be done but I was going to try.
On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how much I trusted Belthas. His explanation had been plausible and smooth but something still made me hesitate. I’m pretty good at telling when I’m being lied to; if I had to bet, I’d have said Belthas was telling me the truth but not the whole truth. Although his manner was friendly, I couldn’t shake the feeling that underneath it was something calculating. He was keeping something back, maybe something important.
But for exactly that reason, I didn’t want to refuse. If I walked away, I’d have no way of learning what Belthas was up to. I already knew I wasn’t going to let this drop; it was a choice of investigating with him or without him. Then there was Meredith. I didn’t like the idea of just cutting her loose and it was pretty clear the Dark mages weren’t going to give up easily. I looked at Belthas. “You’ve got a deal. On one condition. I don’t want anybody else to gain access to Jadan’s research. If we get it, I want it destroyed.”
“Agreed.” Belthas smiled slightly. “Welcome aboard.”
To my side, I felt Meredith relax slightly. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’m working with my contacts in the Council to assemble a strike force. I need you to find out where the Dark cabal is operating from and how powerful they are.”
“And once I do?”
“I will eliminate them.” Belthas’s words were matter-of-fact, with no sign of bragging, and I pricked up my ears.
The split between Light and Dark mages is thousands of years old. There have been wars in the past, but at present there’s an uneasy peace governed by a set of rules called the Concord. Under the Concord, there’s a truce between all mages, whether Light or Dark … in theory. In practice, all the rules really come down to just one: don’t get caught. Open warfare is rare nowadays but violence isn’t, and a lot of brief, brutal skirmishes take place in the shadows of mage society, away from witnesses. Dark mages tend to come off best in these fights. It’s not that they’re any more powerful than their Light counterparts—they’re not—but they’re meaner and a hell of a lot more experienced and there aren’t many Light mages who’ll willingly engage a Dark one. Conventional wisdom is to steer clear of them; sooner or later someone else will take them down, and it’s a lot safer if that someone isn’t you. But somehow, as I met Belthas’s steady gaze, I didn’t get the feeling he was exaggerating.
“How much do you know about them?”
Belthas nodded. “As you say, that is the weak point. So far, the cabal have worked hard to keep their identities secret. I’ve only seen them once and they were masked. There were at least two, of which one was a fire mage, but the encounter was too brief for me to learn much of value.”
“Any leads?”
“They would have had some connection to Jadan, but I do not know what. I suspect, to start with, the best avenue of investigation would be the location of the battle. I met with the Dark cabal last Thursday at—”
“—an old factory in Deptford, just south of the river,” I finished.
Meredith started and Belthas raised his eyebrows. It was the first sign of surprise he’d shown. “You’re well informed.”
I just looked at him. I didn’t explain how I knew. Bad for the mystique.
“Meredith.” Belthas turned to her. “I think it would be best if you assisted Verus.”
Meredith’s eyes went wide. “What? No!”
“You have a problem with working together?”
“I don’t want to get anywhere near these guys. It’s too dangerous. I didn’t sign up for this!”
“I believe you agreed to gather information.” Belthas’s voice was mild.
“Not like this. You—” Meredith hesitated, then started again. “You know what I agreed to. This isn’t it.”
I wondered exactly what Meredith had agreed to. The silence stretched out and Meredith shifted uncomfortably. “Well,” Belthas said finally. “If you wish to distance yourself, I will not do anything to stop you. However, I cannot guarantee the same of our opponents.”
Meredith frowned. I wondered what Belthas was getting at; it didn’t sound like a veiled threat unless … oh.
“What do you mean?” Meredith said suspiciously, then suddenly she got it. “Wait! They’re still after me!”
“Then it would seem to be in your best interests to stay with Verus, wouldn’t you say?” Belthas said. He looked at me. “Assuming Verus has no objection.”
After a moment, I shook my head. Meredith stared at Belthas. She wasn’t happy and I could tell she wanted to say more; maybe my presence was stopping her. If nothing else, I was sure by now that Meredith and Belthas weren’t close allies
. Unless I missed my guess, Meredith was only still working for him because she couldn’t see any other way out. “Then it’s agreed,” Belthas said. “I’ll see to the arrangements.”
I left Belthas’s office an hour later. As promised, he’d given me a run-through of the other information he had as well as setting up payment into one of my bank accounts. I didn’t have any worries about the money, but the information was another matter. I walked out into the waiting room at exactly the same time that a familiar blond-haired man strolled in the other door.
Garrick was wearing civilian clothes instead of the body armour and fatigues that I’d seen him in on Friday night but he was unmistakable; there was something about the lazy grace with which he moved that made me think of a predator. His eyes registered me without surprise. “Verus.”
“Garrick,” I said. I looked him up and down. “No guns?”
“Off duty.”
“Working hard?”
Garrick smiled slightly. The two of us faced each other across the small reception room. The window to one side gave a spectacular view across London but neither of us paid it any attention. “Up to anything interesting?” I asked.
“Looking to hire me?”
“Depends who you’re working for.”
“Sorry. Confidential.”
I looked at Garrick. He looked back at me. I’d been fired at just a few hours ago by someone involved in mage business who was a very good shot. There wasn’t any proof that that someone had been Garrick … yet. “Funny coincidence you showing up here.”
“Business.”
“What is your business, by the way? You don’t exactly act like Council security.”
“Could say the same for you,” Garrick tilted his head. “So you’re working with Belthas?”
“Business,” I said. Garrick’s mouth twitched.
We stood looking at each other a moment longer. “Want some advice?” Garrick said suddenly.
“Why not?”
“Take a holiday.”
I looked at Garrick with raised eyebrows. “I’m kind of busy.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t.” Garrick studied me. “But if I were you, I’d clear my desk and take a break. Maybe a month.”
I started to answer, then paused. It sounded like a threat, and Garrick was the kind of guy you’d pick to deliver one. But as I looked at him, I got the odd feeling that he was giving me not a threat but a warning.
The door behind me opened and Meredith stepped out. She stopped as she saw Garrick. Garrick gave me a nod and walked past into Belthas’s study. I gave him a last glance, then headed for the elevator. Meredith hurried to catch up. The security guards watched us impassively as we left and I wondered if I’d be seeing them again.
As you’d guess from the name, Canary Wharf wasn’t always a financial district. Only a few decades ago it was a dock, part of the vast wharf network running along both sides of the Thames in what used to be the greatest port in the world. Nowadays it’s steel and glass, skyscrapers rising up past the Docklands Light Railway and mixing with cafés and shopping malls, but the layout is still that of the old Docklands. Channels are carved out of the mud, inlets flowing in from the Thames. It’s gracefully landscaped and framed with stone but there’s no hiding the huge bodies of water, enough to make the skyscrapers feel almost like islands. I walked along one of the old piers, watching the crowds thronging the plazas. The concrete was warm from the late-afternoon sun but the breeze off the water was cold.
Meredith was still with me. She seemed to have come out of herself since meeting Belthas and I could tell she was about to speak. There was a stone bench near the waterside, and I sat down on it. “Thank you,” Meredith said.
“For what?”
“Agreeing to help.” Meredith sat down next to me, close enough that our knees were touching. It might just have been the cold. “I know you didn’t have to.”
Meredith’s dark eyes looked up at me but I avoided meeting them; I probably would have said yes to Belthas even without her, and I felt uncomfortable being thanked for it. “What about you? Why did you sign up with him?”
Meredith’s gaze drifted down and she looked out over the water. “I’m not sure.” Her voice was doubtful. I looked at her as she gazed away, watching her brush her long hair back as she stared over the Thames. “I mean, he offered the same things … favours, credit, you know. It’s been so much harder since last year, since …” She seemed to realise what she was saying and looked back at me. “Do you think I should have said no?”
“I’m not sure.” Meredith was right next to me, looking into my eyes, and it was really difficult to think straight. I forced myself to look away. “It’s your choice to make.”
Meredith sat quietly. “What should we do now?” she said at last.
“I can think of a couple of things,” I said. I braced myself and turned to Meredith. “The question is what you’re doing.”
Meredith looked up at me in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Look, Meredith, it’s pretty obvious you’re not too keen on the parts of this that involve people trying to kill you. And I can promise you it’s not going to get any safer. Are you sure you want to stick around?”
“Belthas said—”
“I don’t care what Belthas said. The investigation side of this is going to be dangerous. If you want to stay out of it, it might be best if we found you a place to stay out of trouble.”
Meredith hesitated, and I felt the forks of a decision opening up before her. She was really thinking about this. Then the futures settled and she shook her head. “No.”
“Are you—”
“I want to stay with you. And I won’t be useless. I can help.”
Now it was my turn to hesitate. But Meredith’s answer had put me on the spot and it was likely I really would need the help. “All right,” I said at last. “We could ask around to find out more about this cabal. But that was what you were doing when you got targeted, right?”
Meredith nodded. “Did you have any leads?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I thought I was getting somewhere but …”
“But some of the people you were asking tipped off the people you were looking for.”
Meredith looked at me in surprise. “How did you know?”
I shrugged. “Not hard to guess.” Asking around about a mage is dangerous. Mages who aren’t prepared for trouble tend not to live very long so one of the first priorities of most mages is to establish an early-warning network to spot potential threats, in the same way I’d been warned by Starbreeze. And anyone willing to sell you information about the mage you’re looking for is just as likely to sell the information to them the instant you turn your back. “Anyway, it sounds like this cabal’s gone into war mode. I don’t think there’s much point going fishing. Last thing we want is for them to jump us halfway through.”
Meredith nodded with obvious relief. Apparently she hadn’t been looking forward to that idea either. “So let’s try Belthas’s plan,” I said. “Check out the factory.”
“Right now?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. I need to make some calls.”
The classic thing to do in this situation would have been to go to the factory, magnifying glass in hand, and look for clues. There were several good reasons why I wasn’t going to do that, the main one being I’d already tried it and it hadn’t worked. I hadn’t been able to find much on a search even before a bunch of mages and Council security spent several hours tromping around the place. Besides, why root around when someone’s done it for you?
I called Talisid but came up dry. The investigation of the barghest and factory hadn’t turned up anything else useful. In exchange, I relayed the information from Arachne. “Harvesting nonhumans?” Talisid said in surprise. “Really?”
“Do you know anything about it being tried?”
“God no.” Talisid sounded revolted. “In every instance I know of, the harvester went violently insane. I
f that was what they killed the barghest with, I’m surprised we didn’t find their bodies too.”
“Why’s it so lethal?” I kept my voice casual, as if from idle curiosity, though I didn’t expect Talisid to believe it for a moment. “Harvesting works on humans, doesn’t it?”
Talisid snorted. “If you can call that ‘working.’ It’s like ripping out half someone’s mind and injecting it into your own. Usually turns whoever did it into a deranged psychopath, though if they were willing to use Harvesting in the first place, most people probably wouldn’t notice much difference.”
It matched with what I’d heard. Magical power isn’t something that can be given away; it’s part of who you are. The only way to take a mage’s power is to rip out most of him with it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to merge that maimed fragment with your own self, and that’s if what you were taking came from a human. Trying to assimilate something totally alien, like a barghest …
“So now what are you up to?” Talisid broke into my thoughts. “Trying to track down the mages who did it?”
“Yup,” I said. “Anyone still searching the factory?”
“Empty.”
“Okay.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with that business on Hampstead Heath, did you?”
“What would that be?”
“Someone tried to settle a disagreement with military-grade weapons.” Talisid’s voice was dry and I knew he had his suspicions. “Anything you want to tell me?”
“Yeah, but I shouldn’t.”
“Hm. Watch yourself.”
Talisid broke the connection and I dialled another number, and this time I had more success. It took only a few minutes to tell the story and fix a time for the meeting. I dropped my phone into my pocket and went back to Meredith. “We’re done.”
Meredith looked up from her coffee. We were sitting in a Starbucks, the late afternoon sun slanting through the glass of the shop front. “Did you find the guy you were looking for?”
Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) Page 38
