Burned (40 page)

I kept staring at the screen. Anne looked at me, then at the display, obviously confused. I felt the moment where she understood; out of the corner of my eye I saw her put her hands to her mouth. My eyes were locked to the computer.

On the screen, the view from the video feed magnified, zooming in. There was something on the wall of Luna’s flat, a darkish patch next to and slightly beneath one of the windows. ‘Hello, Verus?’ Barrayar said. ‘Have you got a good view? Sorry if the quality isn’t too good, but our men on the ground aren’t exactly professional cameramen.’

I didn’t answer.

‘The packs you can see mounted on that wall are made of black webbing.’ Barrayar’s voice was friendly, conversational. ‘Inside they contain a quantity of C4 explosive. The man setting it up gave me the details about the exact effects of the detonation, something about kilojoules and effective blast radius, but I have to admit, it went over my head. I’m not really an expert on the subject.’ Barrayar paused. ‘What I do know is that your apprentice, Luna Mancuso – actually, come to think of it, she isn’t your apprentice any more, is she? Well, either way, her bedroom is on the other side of that wall. She’s sleeping quite peacefully. At least for the moment.’

Anne looked at the video, then at me, her eyes wide. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Barrayar was still talking. ‘There are some additional charges too. Apparently our demolitionist was concerned that that curse of hers might interfere with the detonation process, so he went for the redundant approach. To be perfectly honest, it strikes me as overkill, but I’ve always believed that there’s no point in hiring a professional if you aren’t going to listen to his advice.’

I found my voice. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want you,’ Barrayar said. ‘I’m going to be very clear, so that there is no chance for confusion. It is currently 12.21 a.m. The explosives around that flat are armed, but not detonated. They will remain undetonated until exactly 2 a.m. GMT. That’s one hour, thirty-nine minutes from now. When the second hand ticks over to two o’clock, I will press the button in front of me and Luna Mancuso will go from being the most recently promoted mage in Britain to the most recently deceased. Unless you come here.’

‘You can’t do that.’ It was a stupid thing to say, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. ‘The Concord.’

‘An inconvenience.’

‘Luna isn’t part of this. You’ve got no quarrel with her.’

‘I agree,’ Barrayar said. ‘And though I doubt you will appreciate it, I really do not take any pleasure in doing this. Quite honestly, your former apprentice is exactly the kind of mage we would like to have more of. But sacrifices must be made, and unfortunately we want you more than we want her.’

‘I can’t make it back to London that—’

‘Verus, please don’t insult my intelligence. I do not believe for a moment that you can’t get yourself from your current location to here in … let’s see … one hour, thirty-seven minutes.’

‘I need more time.’

‘You have until 2 a.m. Make the most of it. Goodbye, Verus. I imagine I’ll be seeing you soon.’

‘Wait—’

There was a click and the line went dead. I lowered the phone, staring at the screen.

It was a little over a quarter of an hour later.

‘Okay, forget the bomb,’ Anne said. She was pacing up and down the room. ‘What if we go for the guy with the detonator?’

‘That’s going to be Barrayar,’ I said. ‘And who says there’s only one?’

‘If I can get close enough—’

‘
If
you get close enough, you could stop him pushing that button. But there is no way they are going to let you walk up to touch range.’

‘How many of them are there?’

‘Enough that every future in which I saw that I went there, I was blown up before I got into range.’

‘But they went for you? They didn’t set off that bomb?’

‘Why would they?’ I said. ‘It’s me they’re after. Luna’s a Council mage now. If they kill her, it’ll start an investigation.’

‘So maybe they’re bluffing?’

I shook my head. ‘They’re not bluffing.’ I’d looked at the futures of what happened if we stayed.

Anne stopped pacing and put her hand to her forehead. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay. What if we use our emergency alarm? Ring Luna’s phone. If she wakes up in time…’

‘I already tried,’ I said. ‘The call’s not getting through. Either a jammer or they’ve shut down her number.’

‘We could—’

‘It’s not going to work,’ I said. I was still sitting in the same chair, the computer on the table, my suitcase opened and forgotten on the floor. ‘They’ve had too long to set this up.’

Anne looked at me. ‘Then what do we do?’

I stared down at the carpet, then smiled suddenly. ‘Helikaon was right.’

‘What?’

‘I thought he was just making a point,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t. He saw this coming.’ I looked up at Anne. ‘The only way I can keep hiding and keep running is if I’m willing to let Luna and anyone else they target die.’

Anne looked back at me with a strange expression on her face. ‘Are you going to?’

I stared into space. It’s funny how the most important decisions in your life can go so fast. It only took me a few seconds to know what the answer was … but really, it was something I’d decided a long time ago. I wasn’t going to take Richard’s path, and I wasn’t going to take Helikaon’s either. ‘No.’

Anne relaxed slightly. ‘So we fight?’

I rose to my feet. ‘Except for the “we” part.’

‘Oh no,’ Anne said. ‘You are
not
telling me to stay behind on this one.’

‘It’s me they’re after. There’s no reason—’

‘No reason?’ Anne said. There was an edge to her voice. ‘Are you serious? You know what I can do. If you are going to have
any
chance of winning this, you’ll need me.’

‘I don’t want you to get killed because of me.’

‘And you think I want to sit here and watch?’ Anne looked at me, her eyes challenging. ‘How do you think I’d feel if you don’t come back?’

‘I can’t—’

‘No,’ Anne said. ‘I’m not letting you leave me behind. And you can’t make me.’

I hesitated, looking at Anne. Her expression was set, and as I looked at the futures I realised that she wasn’t going to be swayed, not on this. ‘All right.’

We gated back to England. The park was silent and deserted. I didn’t have a gate stone for where we were going, and we had to make do through mundane means.

The building was in Bromley-by-Bow, and it was a wreck. Five stories of shattered windows and defaced walls rose up out of an urban wasteland, scrubby weeds growing through cracked concrete and around two smaller ruined buildings nearby. Above us, traffic rumbled north and south along a raised A-road, but the area below was dark and empty. To the right were the tracks of a tube line.

‘You’re going to fight them here?’ Anne said quietly.

‘No bystanders,’ I said. The stairs leading up into the building were half blocked by a broken door, and I picked my way around it as I climbed them. The last time I’d visited the place, there had been a few homeless people living on the upper floors, but they were gone now.

The inside of the old offices looked like it had been bombed out and left to rot. Debris hung from the ceiling, and rubble and shards of glass were scattered across the floors. The furniture had been stolen or smashed, and the stair-rails and wiring had been ripped out and taken away. Graffiti covered the walls; a monstrous head with jagged teeth leered at me, the spray paint just barely visible in the light coming through the broken window frames. The place smelled of decay and old urine. Anne wrinkled her nose as she looked around – to her heightened senses, this place was probably even more unpleasant than it was to me – but she didn’t complain.

I set the bag down on the floor and unzipped it. The razor wire glinted faintly in the light. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Tripwires in each of the corridors, hidden as well as you can. If you have any left over, use it on the stairs. I’ll be up on the third floor.’

Anne nodded and took the bag, disappearing into the darkness.

The wrecked building would have been dangerous for most people, but my divination let me know where to step. Up on the third floor was a windowless closet, and half buried in rubble at the back was a metal chest. I felt around in the darkness until I found the combination lock that chained it closed, flipped it to its right setting, then levered open the lid.

Inside was a stack of dark green items, rectangular and slightly curved so as to form a convex shape. Each was about a foot long, with caps on the top. The outer casing was plastic, and embossed on the front were the words
FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY
. Two coils of wire sat beneath them, along with some tools. I stayed there for thirty seconds, staring down at them, then shook my head and checked my phone. Fifty-five minutes left.

Anne came up to find me just as I was setting the last one. ‘The entrances are all covered,’ she said as she walked into the room. ‘And I put a double set in the main corridor.’

I unwound another strip of duct tape, nipping it off before turning to wind it around the pillar. ‘Stairs?’

‘Ground floor and first floor. I don’t know how well they’ll stay in. There wasn’t much to attach them to.’

‘They only need to work once.’

Anne looked around. The green plastic items were mounted at various places around the room, concealed behind debris and joined with wire. ‘Are those …?’

‘Barrayar isn’t the only one who can use explosives,’ I said. I placed a last strip of tape and straightened. ‘There.’

Anne eyed the mines warily. Tucked away in the corners and against the walls, they didn’t look like much, but appearances are deceptive. Each of those mines contained hundreds of tiny steel balls, and when detonated, the explosion would hurl the spheres outwards in a sixty-degree spray at thousands of miles per hour. One mine could easily kill every living thing in a room. I’d set eight. ‘Are they safe?’

‘Until I hit the detonator. Then they’re very unsafe.’ I checked my phone. Thirty-one minutes. ‘Ready?’

‘Wait,’ Anne said. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘That’s going to depend on whether they play along.’

‘You’re going to try to draw them in and blow them up,’ Anne asked. ‘Isn’t that going to catch us too?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘But how—?’

‘Anne, I’m sorry, but we’re short on time. I’ll explain in a minute.’

Anne hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. Her expression said clearly that she hoped I knew what I was doing.

I took out my phone and dialled Barrayar’s number. I stood in the darkness of the derelict building, Anne a shadow to my left. Through the empty windows, I could hear the traffic passing by. The phone rang and rang … then clicked. ‘Verus,’ Barrayar said in greeting. ‘Good timing. Exactly thirty minutes left.’

‘Yeah, you can stop your clock. I’m here.’

‘I don’t see you.’

‘I’m in Trad House, just east of the A12, next to Bromley-by-Bow station. Come get me.’

‘I want you here. Not—’

‘You wanted me. You’ve got me. But I’m not walking into your trap for you. Now, do I need to tell you the address again, or did you get it the first time?’

Barrayar was silent. I knew what was going through his head. He could kill Luna … but that wouldn’t get him what he wanted. ‘All right, Verus,’ Barrayar said. ‘We’ll play it your way. But your time limit is still running. If we reach the address and you’re not there…’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said. ‘Get moving.’ I hung up.

Anne was watching me, her features shadowed in the darkness. ‘That was—’

‘Not as dangerous as you think,’ I said. ‘It’s me he wants, not Luna.’ I took out a gate stone and started working on the spell. ‘Come on. We need one last thing.’

The gate opened into bright light, revealing a simply furnished room with a bed, a TV and a table. The curtains were drawn but the small amount of sunlight leaking through was still enough to make us both shield our eyes, adapted to the darkness. I stepped through, coming down into warm, dry air, then turned and beckoned to Anne. ‘Come on.’

Anne followed me through. ‘Where are we?’

‘Melbourne.’ I watched Anne as she looked around. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she turned her neck, those odd reddish-brown eyes searching the room. The sunlight filtering through the curtains lit up her skin, banishing most of the shadows from the gate behind.
She really is beautiful.
I tried to fix the image in my memory, standing there and taking it in.

When I didn’t speak, Anne looked at me. ‘Alex?’

I shook my head. ‘It’s a hotel. We need that bag from the other side of the bed.’

‘Luna is still—’

‘I know,’ I said. On impulse, I reached up and touched Anne’s face, drawing a finger down her cheek and along the line of her chin. Her skin felt soft and clean, and I could smell her scent. It made me think of flowers.

Anne stood still, looking back at me. She’d caught her breath when I’d touched her, but she hadn’t pulled back. She almost seemed to be waiting for something.

‘Hurry,’ I said. I hadn’t let go of the spell, and the gate back into London was still hanging to my left. ‘I can’t hold the gate open for long.’

Anne hesitated but obeyed. She walked around the bed and was just reaching down for the bag when I stepped back through the gate. Anne whirled instantly, sudden realisation flashing in her eyes, but before she could move I let the spell go. The gate winked out, and I was in pitch darkness again. The portal was gone, and Anne with it.

I sank down to my knees. All of a sudden I felt very tired; the energy had gone out of my limbs and I didn’t want to move. My phone rang, first once, then again and again. I didn’t want to answer it. For some reason, I did anyway.

‘Alex!’ Anne was as furious as I’d ever heard her. ‘You tricked me, you bastard!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t you
dare
leave me behind!’ Anne’s voice vibrated through the phone. ‘You’re not doing this on your own. Not again!’

‘You don’t have a choice,’ I said. ‘There are gate stones in that bag, but they won’t get you here. Not in time.’