Another man snatched me roughly and planted me upright, then he turned on his companion, withdrew a pistol, and shot him point-blank. I didn't see that, but I saw the aftermath when the man who'd hit me fell by my feet.
Where the bullet had entered was smoking, and as I watched there came more and more smoke. A sting hit my thigh, a hypodermic needle. I winced. The shooter said, “Walk or you'll be like him.”
I found I could nod and move, but so slowly, and so stiffly. Every step felt like I was tearing muscles and ligaments. I shuffled.
Down with Mordon the fight was still going on, even more frantic now. He'd gotten my message. Unfortunately so had my captors and they wanted to complete their task before they had an enraged fire drake breathing down their necks.
I had a humiliated feeling of being caught doing something stupid. I was in the center of these men, and I hadn't even gotten off a spell on one of them. Not even a trinket. Except for the wind whistling in a tempest around us, I was defenseless.
The men wanted me to go faster but I couldn't—and a part of me realized that I needed to drag my feet as long as possible. Mordon was roaring from the lower decks.
The market was shuddering. Even the roll-down doors were shaking. People were trying to get back in. They knew what was happening and were watching.
But it was too late for interference. All around me the men had given up on hurrying me and were now drawing a circle and symbols. Making a portal, right there at my feet. Even if Mordon reached me within a minute, they might have the portal going and the best he could do was try to follow.
To an average magic-user, to be so defenseless, so constrained would break their will and inspire submission. These men, whoever they were, hoped on such a response. They made their living on it, if I were to judge. In those seconds when they were holding me and doing their portal, I took in every detail I could, engraving it into memory.
Their armor was thick, too thick for any normal hide, yet it bent as though alive. Wyvern scales. Had to be, I'd seen dragon and drake. Weapons on their belts, each had a pistol, I'd have to research them later, and a curved sword with matching knife. Mordon had books on the topic. No identifying mark on them, except one small symbol behind the ear. All identical buzz-cuts on their heads. They moved as trained soldiers would do, each with his own task. None were surprised that one of their own had been killed as punishment. The worst about it was he was smoking all over now. Incinerating.
Beats of wings filled the air. Mordon rushing to help. One man took aim.
People on the other side of the roll-down doors were yelling. Rattling. I saw the man tighten his finger on the trigger. The final symbol finished on the floor.
Then I struck with everything I had, all at once. I knew it would be dangerous. It would draw from my already worn energy reserves, put me all too close to black out. I knew this. But what was more, I knew that my odds of survival would be far worse if these men got me to a secondary location.
I poured everything into the wind, compressing it into hard and slender lengths with a pointed tip. I shot them like bullets, riddling the chalk portal at my feet with heavy breaks. Gritting my teeth I aimed the others to strike the arms and necks of my attackers. It would have been easier, so much easier, to do a single cluster through their eyes. Killing them. But I wanted them alive.
The man squeezed the trigger as the ball of compressed air knocked his aim wide, the bullet streaked by Mordon's jaw. The man holding me stumbled as his feet swept out from under him, his grasp on me tightened. As he fell he took an egg out of his pocket and started to clench it. I'd had an egg like that, too, they stored spells. As I tumbled to the ground and I heard the egg crack, I broke free of his grasp, then I was ducking the third man as he fell, diving under him.
His armor brushed against my back, then I was loose, staggering to my feet and running. The gun-wielder aimed at me.
Mordon's head lashed out. The man went reeling through air.
The other two grasped one another as the egg-spell unleashed and brilliant light flashed, blinding. I ran without sight, by the feel of the air.
I knew Mordon's talons had caught the falling man, and I knew when the other two disappeared with an emergency portal spell. It sucked at everything nearby, snapping the boards in the walkway and drawing them down into an eddy. It tore at Mordon's wings and for an instant he was pulled towards it.
With a brutality stemming from panic, I yanked Mordon down and away, a riptide of wind snatching him out of the way of the wild portal. He hit the deck below and I kept going even after my magic had faded.
I crawled. The power of the portal strained against me, drawing heavily on the strap which held the books. If I could have struggled out of the bag, I would have done so. Then rough hands seized me and hauled me forward, flat against the bars covering a door and Leif's face filled mine. He was yelling something, I couldn't hear what. I was dizzy as they pushed me onward, to the stone steps in front of King's Ransom.
When Mordon was brought along, I caught sight of a boiling burn across his jaw and saw the blood across his forehead. He was flushed, angry, yet I did not know if it was directed at me. In a moment we were through the doors to the shop and Anna was taken from me and I was sitting in the commons lounge with a blanket over my shoulders. Mordon was fuming. Constable Barnes was yelling. Lilly was pointing at me. And that was when I saw leaving the room was Shelly Johnson.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What's the story with the Safe Streets lady?” I asked when Barnes took a seat across from me with glasses of brandy. A matter of a few hours had passed since I saw Shelly Johnson, and this was the first time that someone had come upstairs to talk with me.
“Swallow that down first,” Barnes said and waited until I'd done so, then poured me another straight from a bulbous purple bottle. Without telling me why, they'd shuffled me into the safety and security of Barnes' quarters. We sat in the parlor. Or was it an armory? It smelled of his favorite pipe smoke and the vanilla-scented candle burning on the mantle. A fire snapped in the fireplace, and a cold draft snuck in through cracks in the window behind me. Rain tapped on the roof, dripped off the eaves.
It always seemed to be raining around me lately.
Couldn't the weather give me a little sunshine?
Had it been the first time someone had tried to kidnap me, I might have been terrified. But I'd been through greater dangers, and what bothered me was all the things I had no answers to. Who those men had been. Who they worked for. I knew they wanted Anna and I was an optional item on their checklist, but that didn't tell me the why of the matter. Nor did it tell me where the ever-benevolent Shelly Johnson came into play. Physically, I hurt. I'd admitted stiffness to Lilly, because that was so obvious, but hadn't told them how bad it was.
Ever since I'd regained my mental capacity, I'd been kept separate from Anna. They didn't think I was well enough to care for her. They were right. That was one thing, but there was another, entirely different thing which irritated me.
“You're keeping me apart from Mordon.”
Barnes tipped his brandy back and twitched his mustache. He curled it, taking his time, then let his hand fall on his lap. “I have taken his statement. Are you well enough to give me yours?”
Giving me the booze hadn't seemed to be a good official way to get a statement, nor were there recording devices or other listeners in the room. I'd checked while he took his time getting the brandy. So I shrugged and began my tale.
I told him about the library, about Special Collections and the bogies and my suspicion about who was behind the destruction. Then I told him about how we'd walked into a trap in the center of Merlyn's Market. Barnes grimaced and I wanted to press him for an explanation, but continued with my story anyway. Presently I was back to my original question.
“And when I came-to again, I saw Shelly Johnson leaving the commons lounge. What was she doing there?”
He made a face. “It was the nearest secure loc
ation. She'd been locked out of everything else.”
“Does this count as my statement? Can I see Mordon now?”
Barnes hesitated. I knew there was more to the story than I'd been told. At my cross expression, Barnes said, “He's receiving treatment. The bullet which skimmed off his jaw was enchanted.”
“What?”
“Stay sitting. There's nothing you need to do. It was enchanted but it's with fire magic, and it would take several of those to come close to harming him. That said, we're being careful.”
Much as I hated to do it, I nodded and lowered myself back down in the chair. My mind went to something else. “Mordon caught one of those men. I know he did. Who is he? What did they want?”
“We don't know. At present he is in the dungeons. No one has escaped from it in over a hundred years. Since shortly after it was founded, actually. He is undergoing interrogations from the Constabulary.”
“Where is Anna? I don't want to be far from her.”
“Against the Constabulary's recommendations, she is here in my home. Lilly has her. Leif is in the dungeons, awaiting news with his colleagues.”
“Speaking of the news. Is this going to be in it?”
Barnes decided it was time for something else in addition to the brandy. He took out a pipe, carefully filled it, lit it with a word, and started to puff on it. With his first exhalation, he said, “They sent out a special edition. Any time the market is closed, it warrants an explanation as to why.”
I waited but Barnes wasn't forthcoming with the paper. “Can I see it?”
“Look,” he said, and pointed to the fireplace. It took me a second to see the faint greenish tinge to the flames which indicated that newspaper ink had been burning.
“You started the fire with it. Won't you tell me the gist of the article?”
“No.” The fierce finality of Barnes' voice made me wince. “I'm not telling you, and nor will anyone else. What I will say on the matter is that Safe Streets has been looking for a scandal, and they've found it. Not through any fault of your own, it was a matter of time before they either found or constructed something suitable for their cause. But you aren't going to read a paper, because if you do, you'll want to call them on what they said, and there will be no good coming from that. Donald Steele is taking care of things, and you need to not get in his way while he does it.”
“Why? What's going on?”
“An age-old battle which has decided to use you as its focus.” Barnes' lip curled so that his mustache writhed and I saw a glimpse of teeth. “The whole thing has been around for longer than I can remember, in one form or another, and Safe Streets is the crookedest form of it yet. Claiming to keep the community watchful, healthy, and alert. People like what they hear. Lower crime rates. Removing high-risk individuals from sensitive areas. A catalog of suspects when something does go wrong. Can you imagine, really imagine what that looks like? It's not Leave It To Beaver. No, it's Berlin. Fears are flaring and the ones who can put a stop to it are the ones fanning the fire. Damned Tribune.”
Barnes bit on his pipe, an audible cracking came from either his teeth or the pipe. He sat there giving little puff of smoke which seemed to be pouring out of his ears.
After some time, he pointed the mouth of the pipe at me. “Your job is to remain here, recover. When you're out of pain—oh yes, I know that you hurt, don't you think I haven't used that same method of disarming—then you can start taking care of Anna again and Mordon will be around to see you. But if you set one foot outside of this very room, I'll see to it you're brought back. And that muscle-lock will be nothing compared to what I'll use.”
“Hold on,” I said. “You can't expect me to sit around doing nothing. Have you seen how crazy I go?”
Barnes snorted. “I saw your old barn and the home renovations. You wouldn't think I'd risk something similar happening here?”
“There was nothing wrong with—”
And then Barnes dropped my bag onto the floor before my feet. It was heavy with books. The bestiary, Skills, even an assortment of books on weapons from Mordon's shop.
“Because you asked for them and I thought that you might as well study up,” Barnes said. “But don't expect to see the men's weapons in any of those books.”
“Why not?”
“They're the Blackwings. That's why.” Barnes tucked his pipe into his pocket and poured me more brandy. “They are officially mercenaries, but the only people rich enough to afford them are the ruling classes. Doesn't matter if they only get one or two contracts in a year, they get paid enough for five. Brutal organization. Die if anything goes wrong. The danger of the one you caught is that they'll kill him before he starts to talk. And unless he talks, you can kiss your answers good-bye.”
“Will he talk?”
Barnes shook his head, a slow dragging motion, and said nothing before he got to his feet and left me alone in the room with a crackling fire. A bit of rooting around the room unearthed a page which had hidden itself behind a chair. Largely it contained uninteresting tidbits of this and that, but one article was complete.
Cole To Run For Commandant
AMERICAN SORCERING TODAY
Gregor Cole, son of the late Howard Gregor Cole, notable statesman from Merlyn's Market, has announced his bid for commodancy last night at the Tarry Party Caucus.
While his campaign starts late in comparison to Richard Glass-Coffin's campaign or Katharine Salem's own announcement, Cole nevertheless has broken into the race alongside his fellow Tarries. He is soft-spoken, charismatic, and even this early into his bid he has people rallying in support.
Tarry leaders worry this will divide the party still further, but are quick to say they haven't seen an election this exciting in years.
View upcoming article outlining the candidate's political and moral views tonight at 7.
Fantastic. Commandant Cole. It even had a ring to it. I knew what kind of political and moral views he had, good thing I didn't need to see what they were tonight at 7.
I picked up Skills of the Thaumaturge and made myself a nest on the floor out of throw pillows and a blanket. A piece of the newspaper headline still survived at the back of the grate, in the process of being consumed by flames. Feraline Swift: cold-blooded killer, kidnapper, Creature. The catalyst of social reform.
What was Safe Streets after in the end? It couldn't be genocide.
Could it?
I shook my head and picked up a book, determined to devote my time to something I could do.
Progressing through the book I'd gotten from the library gave me nothing new. It proved to be half-bestiary, half-journal in which Aethel reflected on what she'd done and recorded how it had been accomplished—except she did it in code. She was not a beautiful artist, but there were serviceable sketches in the book and when she'd done a poor representation she made notes as to why her drawing was less than accurate. From the context, and the abundance of counter-spells which she took explicit time describing, there must have been a good deal of wicked—that was the word she used—curses abounding at the time. Interesting and worthy of study, but of no help in discovering Anna's true identity. Not that she fell short of her promise of recording the various races, just that it lacked any sense of order. They were grouped by whichever 'beast' had come to see her lately, or when she was reminded of this or that. Worse still, there were double-entries which may or may not repeat information. I left off at handwriting so rushed it was nearly impossible to read.
Songbirds out this morning, it is early, I am weary for we had nighttime visitors whose spirits kept us awake long into the morning. There is a feather on the ground which brings to mind a peculiar encounter I once had so very many years ago …
Time slid by, unmeasurable with the endless rain and perpetual soft light outside. Eventually the candles against the wall flickered on by their own accord and I realized I had been reading in the dark. Page by page I went through Skills, the bestiary, and some of the weapons book until names
and facts and places collided into each other and I could no longer keep them straight. I was glad for the notes I'd been filling Skills with, but I wished that I had a way to verbally dictate to it. My hand cramped. But at least I'd learned a couple illusions which substituted for ink when I ran out of my ink supply.
Weary with exhaustion, I put my head into the crook of my arms. Rain rattled on the roof, lightning lit the room in brief flares. Outside, wherever we were, the wind writhed and thrashed in a wild tempest, reflecting the shadow of defeat rounding my shoulders, dragging my spirits down.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The storm had slackened when the parlor door admitted inside Uncle Don, Constable Barnes, and Leif. Now I felt rested and they looked beat, a real flip flop from how we had looked before. Slowly I picked up my books and notes and stacked them so the others could move freely about the room. All my reading hadn't provided answers.
Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) Page 18
