She’s smiling apologetically, sniffing away tears.
‘You need a hand out of there?’ she asks.
Zal nods. She climbs up inside, holding Fleet’s keys. He waits until she’s a foot away, then drops his hands and hugs her. She doesn’t sniff back any more tears now, just lets them flow.
They hold each other for a long time, neither able to say anything. Then she reaches into her pocket and produces her phone, which she hands to him.
‘I got a text from an unrecognised number, came during that press conference after Holland’s men tried to lift you. That’s when I knew what it was I needed to do.’
Zal looks at the screen. It says simply:
He loves you.
Don’t let him leave.
Morrit.
Liberation
The Guarantor watches the ambulance approach through a detached night-vision rifle scope, zoomed to seven-x magnification. It’s four hundred metres away, according to the range-finder, and in accordance with what he picked up on the emergency channels, it is escorted by two outriders and a car in the rear, heading for Millfield Hospital.
He has chosen his spot and estimates forty seconds to intercept. It’s a two-lane stretch, a straight channel hemmed in on both sides by concrete walls. In the passenger seat sit the Hicks G12, the HK MP5 and the Groeller-Duisberg pistol, both Berettas holstered either side of his chest.
Thirty seconds. He pulls away into traffic, heading towards the convoy. Twenty seconds. He accelerates to a steady thirty and holds his speed. Ten seconds. The outriders are less than a hundred yards away.
Zero.
He brakes smoothly but rapidly and slews the A8 across the oncoming lane. Both motorcyclists slam into the side of the car, a fraction of a second apart. They are sent headlong over the top of the vehicle and skidding on to the tarmac. The ambulance fishtails its way to an emergency stop, the squeal of the police car’s brakes audible behind it.
The Guarantor climbs quickly from the A8, the MP5 slung around his shoulders, the grenade launcher in his grip. He fires four teargas grenades over the top of the ambulance, engulfing the cops as they attempt to emerge from their car. Then he takes the MP5 and opens fire, shredding the police vehicle’s tyres and ripping into the engine as the cops flee, blinded and choking.
The Guarantor slings the MP5 again and takes the GD from his belt, holding it in his right hand as he opens the ambulance doors. Inside he sees two paramedics next to a trolley, upon which lies the target. They both put their hands in the air, disorientated and terrified. The Guarantor shoots each of them with a tranquilliser dart straight to the chest. They look at him in panic and disbelief.
‘Lie down so you don’t hurt yourselves when you fall,’ he advises them. ‘You will survive. Assure the British authorities that Darcourt will not.’
The Guarantor wheels the trolley out of the rear and pauses only to put a dart in the driver before bundling his package into the back of the A8. He describes a tight arc, assisted by his handbrake, as he executes a u-turn, then accelerates away as fast as German engineering can facilitate.
He reaches the airfield in thirty-three minutes.
The plane lands thirteen minutes after that.
‘He’s been shot in the back and has lost his right eye,’ the Guarantor explains to Bernard. Always wise to get the faults mutually acknowledged before one signs over the merchandise. ‘Looks like they sedated him. He may have lost a lot of blood, so I don’t know how long he’ll live.’
Bernard hands the Guarantor his payment as two men carry Darcourt aboard the plane.
‘Longer than he’ll wish to,’ Bernard says.
Spirit of Athene, one month later
The sorcerer sits in his chaotic and ramshackle study, slumped in anguish, his head upon his desk and his right hand clutching the edges of a framed portrait of his departed love. His grip upon it slips and it falls forward, but the portrait disappears in a plume of flame before it can hit the ground.
He gets to his feet and reaches for a dusty spell book upon his shelves. A moth flies from between its pages as he opens the tome, and with a gesture of disgust he waves three fingers at it, turning it into a dove. It flies around the room and lands upon a perch while he thumps the book down on the desk before placing a black crucible alongside it. Flicking through the pages with his left hand, he produces a shrivelled wand in his right and embarks upon a frenzy of spell-casting, causing various of the arcane and occult artefacts about the study to levitate, vanish, reappear or transform, his frustration growing with each clearly unintended feat. Finally, he causes a porcelain bust of his beloved to suddenly become liquid, the sculpted head disappearing in a milky splash, whereupon he collapses to his knees on the floor in ultimate despair.
At this, the study falls dark, allowing him to become aware of a glow outside his window. He looks up in astonishment and sees her face in the glass. As he climbs waveringly to his feet, the walls around him disappear, leaving him alone in the presence of his love, his departed, his angel. She is floating in the air against a backdrop of stars, her hair like an aura around her, her dress shimmering about her body like wings. The sorcerer staggers towards her, reaching out a hand. She beckons him, seeking his embrace. Then, as his arms are about to clutch her, she vanishes as though those wings, that aura, simply collapsed upon themselves.
He takes another few despairing steps through where she had been, then finds himself standing in front of what a spotlight suddenly reveals to be her headstone. He nods, understanding, accepting she is gone, and reaches into his coat for a flower. All he can find is a withered and sad-looking specimen. He places it upon the grave and walks away. As he does so, it becomes a bounteous bouquet of red roses, then the curtain falls.
A few moments later, Zal is bowing before tumultuous applause, but none of it sounds as good as when his angel joins him to take her bow. She’s breathing hard as she stands next to him, smiling and exhilarated. He recognises that look: she’s feeling the buzz, and he intends to get her dependently addicted.
Morrit is trying to disguise the fact that he’s got a tear in his eye as they come backstage. This final illusion, the Vanishing Angel, was Zal’s take on one known as the Mascot Moth, which the old man hasn’t seen performed in decades, and which he had always wished to stage again. The old man is delighted to witness that even in the twenty-first century, it is still capable of astounding an audience. The angel disappears live on stage, right before their eyes: no billowing cloth to hide the magic moment, no cabinet, no smoke pellets. It was pioneered by deKolta and perfected by David Devant almost a century ago, but it took Morrit’s knowledge and instruction to bring it back to life. Not to mention the talents of a very promising new magician’s assistant, who has recently opted for a radical career change.
Angelique was sick that morning, so nervous was she about making her stage debut, but as Zal told her, everybody went through that. He was sure she’d be great, and so far she’s proven him right.
‘It’s much the same as your old job,’ he’d explained. ‘You have to perform all kinds of athletic and daring feats, except nobody will try to shoot you. You may have to dodge a few swords, and you will almost certainly be sawn in half, but there’s a waiver covers that.’
Truth be told, Zal was probably even more nervous than Angelique about tonight, but not due to any fears regarding her performance. His principle concern was that he wanted her to love it, because he wanted this to work. From what he witnessed onstage, neither of them had ever had anything to worry about.
‘What did I tell you?’ Zal says to Morrit. ‘She’s a natural.’
‘You sure are, pet,’ Morrit assures her, pouring both of them a flute of champagne. Angelique declines, picking up a glass of water instead. Come to think of it, Zal hasn’t seen her touch a drop for a while, figured she was avoiding anything that might affect her concentration. She’s earned herself a drink now, though, surely.
Zal chimes his glass against hers
as Morrit impatiently ambles off to fuss over the Vanishing Angel apparatus.
‘You did it, kid,’ he tells her. ‘You were great. I reckon you’re ready for the big time.’
She smiles, puts out a hand and rests it on his thigh.
Zal takes a big gulp, feeling the nerves again in anticipation of what he has to say.
‘Which is just as well,’ he goes on, ‘because we’ve been offered a very big opportunity. Singapore. Extremely good money, and it’s owned by the same people as own several hotels in Vegas. Play it right, and one day I’ll be able to take my show to the city where I first watched my dad perform.’
She gives him a weird look, one he can’t read at all. It’s like she’s real happy, but she’s also afraid she’s about to let him down.
‘Look, there’s no pressure,’ he assures her. ‘This was on the strength of my one-man show, and that’s what they’re expecting. We can work the assistant stuff into the act gradually.’
She smiles and gives a subtle shake of the head, mumbles a reply.
‘...a little late,’ is what he catches.
‘To start this? Don’t be insane. You’re only, what, thirty-six? And you’re a natural.’
She laughs, takes hold of both his hands, pulling him towards her. ‘I believe you,’ she says. ‘But it might be tricky, in the short term at least.’
‘Why?’
Then she draws his head close, puts her mouth to his ear, and whispers.
‘I didn’t say it was a little late...’
A Snowball in Hell Page 43
