Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952)

by Jacka, Benedict

  Variam looked at me, confused. “I don’t get it. I hit him but—”

  The second construct pulled itself up and went for us again. Variam narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, orange-red light flickering about his upraised hand. A pulse of heat exploded with a hissing thump from the centre of the construct’s chest, hot enough to ignite the air in a flash.

  An instant before the spell hit, the construct vanished and we were alone in the darkness. “What the hell?” Variam said. “I hit him!”

  Anne was looking around, and as she did her eyes widened. “Vari, Alex! It’s over—!”

  I threw one of my condensers to shatter against the tarmac and grabbed Variam and Anne. As the cloud of fog rushed out around us I dragged both of them to one side.

  An instant later the two constructs reappeared in the fog cloud. I couldn’t see them but with my divination I knew where they were. Their futures were static lines of light—without any sign of where we were they were just going to stand there until—

  “Let go!” Variam said angrily.

  “Shh!”

  The lines of light changed direction as both constructs moved, converging on the sound. Their heavy footfalls were audible and Variam tensed and shut up as I pulled him to one side. Anne stayed quiet, trusting me to lead her. The constructs reached the point where the noise had come from, only five feet away—and stopped.

  I kept leading Variam and Anne away and this time Variam thankfully kept his mouth shut. The constructs didn’t move; without sensory input their simple programming couldn’t predict our movements. We came out of the fog cloud into the night, and now that Anne and Variam could see me I put a finger to my lips, ushering them towards the car.

  “What’s—?” Variam said once we were fifty feet away.

  “Gate magic,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Short-range teleport.” Looking back I could see the patch of mist, weirdly out of place in the car park. The constructs were still standing motionless inside it—then as I watched they vanished. “Crap.” I broke into a run. “Come on!”

  We piled into the car. I started the engine and the gearshift dial rose up with a whirr. “Where are they?” Variam asked Anne.

  “I don’t know! They’re not alive, I can’t—”

  One of the constructs blinked into view just in front of the car. I’d had a second’s warning and as it appeared I stomped on the accelerator. With a roar the Jaguar leapt forward, ramming the construct with a hollow thump and sending it flying. I braked instantly, throwing Variam and Anne into the back of the seats, and pulled out into the car park. The second construct appeared an instant later, grabbing for the door, but I swung the car away and it caught only air. A green EXIT sign flashed up in the headlights and I turned towards it, accelerating and putting a row of cars between us and the constructs.

  The exit road was dark and led around the side of the services, past the petrol station and back towards the M4. Anne reached to touch my shoulder from the backseat and a soft green glow sprang up as I felt the energy of a spell flow through me. The adrenaline racing through my body levelled off, and my fatigue vanished as my reflexes sharpened. Suddenly I could see the road more clearly and correcting the car seemed easier. “Thanks.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket one-handed and handed it over my shoulder to her. “Anne, find Sonder and call him. Variam, keep watch out the back. We haven’t lost those things.”

  “They’ve got a car?” Variam asked. He was peering out the back window.

  “They don’t need one—”

  Variam said something in an angry voice. I didn’t know the language, but the meaning came across loud and clear and I glanced up at the mirror to see that two figures had appeared in the shadows behind, running after us. As I watched they vanished and reappeared closer, still running. “Hang on,” I said, and put my foot down. The Jaguar’s engine roared eagerly and carried us out onto the M4.

  The motorway was flat and slightly curved, hills and trees visible to either side in the darkness. Lights shone down from above, casting everything in orange-yellow except for the pinpoint reflections of the cat’s-eyes marking the lanes. It was late but the M4 is the major artery linking England and Wales and all three lanes were dotted with cars. I pulled from the left lane into the centre and then into the right. A few seconds later I saw the constructs burst out onto the motorway behind us, running along the hard shoulder before teleporting a few hundred feet forward, still running.

  “Hello?” Anne said from behind me. “Sonder? Alex, I’ve got him!”

  “Hold it here!” I swerved between the cars. The Jaguar was doing more than eighty miles per hour but in the mirror I could see that the constructs were still closing on us. They’d sprint for a couple of seconds, then blink forward, hit the ground running, and keep going. For all our speed, they were catching up fast.

  Anne scrambled over the gearshift into the passenger seat and held the phone to my ear. “Sonder,” I said, keeping one eye on the side mirror. “We’re being chased by two teleporting constructs trying to kill us. Need some suggestions.”

  “Teleporting—Wait, you mean—?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they—?”

  “Just vanishing and reappearing.”

  “Um.” I could imagine Sonder pushing his glasses up. “You know, I think—”

  I leapfrogged an Escort that was blocking the fast lane, pulled the Jaguar around a station wagon ahead of us, and slid back in again, ignoring the angry blare of horns. “Fast would be good.”

  “Screw this,” Variam said. “Open the roof!”

  I hit a button on the dashboard and the sunroof whirred back, filling the car with a rush of cold air. Variam pulled himself up, standing on the backseat, and turned towards where the constructs were running. Fire magic surged and I felt the pulse of a heat burst behind and to my left.

  “Um,” Sonder said over the phone. “Okay. Well, there was a fashion back in the early twentieth century for making constructs with an imbued spell. The idea was they’d be able to use their one spell in the same sort of way as an adept, but it eventually fell out of favour because—”

  “Sonder. How do we kill them?”

  Again I felt the pulse of Variam’s heat spells and again I heard him swear. I risked a quick glance away from the road to the left but I couldn’t see the constructs. We’d entered a band of heavier traffic that was forcing me to keep my speed down. “Well, theoretically—” Sonder began.

  The two constructs blinked in on top of us, one after another. With my second’s warning I was able to swerve away from the first. It appeared to our left at road level and grabbed for the car but missed.

  The second appeared an instant later while I was still recovering from the swerve. It landed on the Jaguar’s hood with a thump, blocking my view, and turned to face us.

  Anne drew in her breath in a gasp. For the first time I got a clear look at the construct; it had the form of an adult man in cast-off clothing with a blank face and dead eyes. Ignoring Variam, it locked its eyes on Anne and raised a fist to punch through the windscreen.

  I stomped on the brakes and the Jaguar slowed in a sudden screech of tyres. The construct clutched at the smooth hood, but there was nothing to grab and it went flying head over heels. It slammed into the motorway ahead of us, rolling over and over. From behind I heard another screech of brakes and I hit the accelerator again. The construct finished rolling, looked up to see the Jaguar about to run it down . . . and vanished in a blink as we shot through the space he’d been in.

  “Did you get him?” Variam called.

  “No. Did you?”

  “No! Every time I’m close they just—”

  Horns were blaring from behind. I’d lost sight of the constructs but I could see a traffic jam in the mirrors; it looked like cars were slowing down to avoid somethin
g. Anne put the phone back to my ear and I heard Sonder’s voice. “—lex? Alex, are you there?”

  “Sonder, we need some ideas,” I said. “Every time we’re about to hit these things they just gate out and I don’t know how long we can keep dodging them.”

  “Um,” Sonder said. “Well, theoretically it should take a lot of energy to keep running that spell. They shouldn’t be as tough as normal constructs.”

  “That’s great; how are we supposed to hit them?”

  I caught a flash of movement in my right mirror. A figure was running along the right side of the motorway by the divider; as I watched it vanished and reappeared much closer. “Variam!” I called and pointed.

  Variam pulled himself back up and I felt him aiming another fire spell. “Can you tell what their primary sensory input is?” Sonder asked.

  “What?”

  “Well, there has to be something that triggers their evasion routine. When they teleport away, is it based on visual data, auditory data, tactile—?”

  “How in the name of all that is holy am I supposed to know that?”

  “Um . . . You could try attacking them with methods that can only be detected by one type of sense. Then based on which ones they dodge you could—”

  “Are you serious?”

  Bursts of heat erupted in the path of the construct chasing us but it blinked away, getting closer each time. As it pulled level with our car I cut left into the middle lane, using the stream of traffic as a shield. I had to slow down to do it and for an instant the construct was roughly level with us, its head turned to look into the car as it ran. Variam focused his energy for another spell, aiming to blanket its area, and Sonder started saying something else over the phone.

  The construct teleported into the car.

  There was a chorus of screams, one of which might have been mine. Variam’s spell went off, the car swerved, and there was one frantic moment in which the car was on course to smash right into the side of a container truck. I pulled it back as the construct’s long arms came reaching around the passenger seat, grasping for Anne’s throat. Anne ducked and the fingers latched onto her hair instead; she yelped as the construct started dragging her back.

  Variam was still standing on the backseat, half out of the sunroof. He turned and stomped on the construct’s arms. The first kick made it bend at an impossible angle; the second broke its grip. I tried to turn to help and nearly crashed the car; I couldn’t fight and drive the Jaguar at the same time. As Variam kept kicking at the construct and it turned its attention to him I hit the speed control setting, grabbed Anne’s hand, and put it on the wheel. “You’re driving!” Anne’s eyes were wide, but she pulled herself up, trying to watch the road ahead and the construct behind at the same time.

  The construct got a grip on Variam’s leg and broke it with a snap. Variam screamed as the construct started to pull him in. I twisted to reach over into the backseat and jammed both thumbs into the construct’s eyes, trying to gouge them out. The construct couldn’t feel pain, but it reacted to the loss of sight, letting go of Variam and grabbing me. Its grip was like steel and I was yanked over the gearshift. “Variam!” I shouted as the construct forced my hands away and its dead eyes turned to focus on me. One of its hands went for my throat and I tried desperately to force it away. “Use the sword!”

  Variam was crumpled in the corner of the car, his leg bent at a horrible angle, but as the construct started to drag me in he fumbled out the flat-bladed sword and channelled his magic through it. The inside of the car flashed orange-yellow, and I felt a surge of heat as the blade lit up with fire and Variam drove it straight for the construct’s body.

  The construct vanished as the tip touched it. I fell onto the blade, felt it scorch through my clothes and into my arm, and pulled back with a gasp of pain. An instant later the heat cut off and Variam fell back against the edge of the car. My left arm was burnt but I gritted my teeth and scrambled back into the driver’s seat, taking the wheel back from Anne. “Help Variam!”

  Anne climbed back into the rear seat as I checked the futures. As I did my heart jumped—the other construct was about to do the exact same thing. In a few seconds it would appear ahead of us and in one more it would blink in right on top of Anne and Variam. I held my left hand back without taking my eyes off the road. “Sword!”

  There was an instant’s pause, then I felt the handle land in my palm. The blade was heavy and awkward to lift with only one hand. I kept my feet on the pedals and my right hand on the wheel and as the construct came into view ahead of us, I thrust the sword into the space the construct was going to teleport into.

  The construct blinked in and out—somewhere else. I felt the gate magic redirect and instead of dropping into the passenger seat and onto the waiting sword the construct appeared five feet up, right on the Jaguar’s roof. The rushing air snatched it instantly off its feet and it went flying over the sunroof to hit the motorway behind. In my mirror I caught a glimpse of it rolling over and over behind us, and then the Toyota that had been following us hit it square on with a soggy thud. The construct’s head snapped back and it vanished under the wheels and was gone. From behind came the screech of brakes.

  “Variam!” I called. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Variam said through gritted teeth. I could feel Anne’s healing magic working behind me but didn’t turn to look.

  “Anne, where’s the phone?”

  Anne sounded distracted. “I dropped it. Alex, I need to concentrate.”

  I dropped the sword and bent down to grab the phone instead, driving blind for a second. “Sonder?” I said, straightening up.

  “Alex!” Sonder sounded relieved. “You’re okay?”

  “Not for long. These things are tearing us up.” Wind roared through the sunroof and I could see a traffic jam developing behind us. The constructs hadn’t reappeared but I knew they hadn’t given up and I didn’t think we’d survive another attack like the last one. “Ideas?”

  “I don’t know! Um . . . Have you managed to damage them?”

  “Well, we hit them with a car a few times but it doesn’t seem to have slowed them down much.” A sign went by overhead indicating a turnoff, and I pulled into the left lane, driving right-handed.

  “Okay, so they’re not programmed to avoid physical impact?”

  “No, they—Wait. When I was about to run that one over a minute ago, it did avoid it.”

  “So they do—Alex?”

  I thought fast. I’d managed to hit one with the Jaguar back in the car park. But when one had gated onto the hood, it had gated away again when I tried to run it down afterwards. But then that last one hadn’t gated away before being run over by the Toyota behind me . . .

  Time. The one that had landed on the hood had had longer. “Sonder. How much energy would it take to do one of these teleports?”

  “Um, a lot. That was why they stopped building—”

  “Could it teleport and then teleport again half a second later?”

  “Um . . . I’m not sure. I don’t think so. The construct’s internal energy reserves should need at least a couple of seconds to recharge between—”

  “Perfect.”

  “What? Alex? Hello?”

  I dropped the phone onto the seat and pulled the car into the turnoff. It was a motorway layover, just a small enclave on the side of the road with a public bathroom, surrounded by woods. Nobody else was there. I brought the Jaguar to a stop and the engine died away with a fading growl. Outside on the M4 the cars swept past with a rush of air, the swooshing sound muffled through the car. “Anne,” I said. “Can Variam walk?”

  “I need more time.” Turning around, I saw that Anne was bent over Variam, green light glowing around her hands as she held his broken leg. She was concentrating and didn’t turn to look. “Give me a few minutes.” />
  “Can’t.” I got out and pulled the passenger door open. Variam looked up distractedly and I held out a hand. “Grab on,” I told him. “I’m carrying you.”

  “Wait!” Anne said. “He’s—”

  “We’ve got sixty seconds until those constructs catch up.”

  Variam’s face was pale from shock but he gave me one look and nodded. I reached down and picked Variam up with a heave; his fingers tightened on my arms and I knew it must have hurt, but he didn’t make a sound. “Bring the sword,” I told Anne as I hurried into the woods.

  There was a small clearing just twenty feet into the trees. Bits of garbage were scattered around from previous visitors, and the glow of the motorway lights was muted. I set Variam down against an ash tree. “Your weapon,” I told Variam. “Can you channel through it when you’re not touching it?”

  “I—yeah. Why?”

  “When I call, do it.” Anne made as if to go to Variam, but I turned and blocked her. “No.”

  Anne looked at me in frustration. “At least let me—”

  “If you want to help him, keep your distance,” I said quietly. “I need you to do something dangerous.”

  “What?”

  “Bait.” I looked steadily at her. “These things are after you. They only attack us when we get in their way, and their targeting resets every time they lose sight of us. I need you to stand next to me and not move until I tell you.”

  Anne looked from me to Variam, and I felt the two of them share a glance. Then Variam gave a small nod. I took the sword from Anne and walked to the centre of the clearing. The sword was oddly shaped and didn’t look like any weapon I’d seen; the blade was wide and heavy, broadening slightly from the hilt to the tip before narrowing abruptly to a blunt point. I walked to the centre of the clearing and moved the sword from side to side, feeling the weight of the blade. “Designed for cutting, right?” I asked Variam absently.

  “Yeah.” I could hear the tension in Variam’s voice.