The Relic Guild (48 page)

‘Captain Jeter.’

The soft, lilting voice of a woman filled the office and interrupted the conversation. With a flurry of motion, Jeter jumped to his feet and saluted the eye device on the back wall. The action was quickly copied by his sergeant.

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Rest easy, Captain,’ Hagi Tabet said. ‘There is some good news in these dark times.’ She paused before giving a long, breathy sigh. ‘I have located our enemies.’

She paused again, and the fluid within the eye swirled pinkly. Jeter frowned and lowered his hand. Had he detected amusement in the Resident’s voice?

‘Ma’am?’ he said.

‘They are hidden in a warehouse in the southern district,’ she said. ‘I have given the precise location to your Watchers. Now, go and kill the Relic Guild for me, won’t you, Captain Jeter?’

‘Of-Of course, Ma’am.’

‘And, Captain … please don’t let me down.’

The eye clicked and the fluid inside settled. The Resident had gone.

In the ensuing silence, Ennis turned to face his captain, his mouth open, speechless.

Jeter swallowed. ‘Tell the Watchers to send that location to all patrol units, Sergeant. Gather everyone.’ He clenched his teeth. ‘The Relic Guild does
not
leave that warehouse alive.’

The elevator descended into the cellar. Immediately, the atmosphere felt eerily still, the air stale, as if undisturbed for a very long time. With his rifle in hand, its power stone primed, Samuel was quick to scan the area for enemies, but he detected nothing. The elevator platform touched base, but no one moved or spoke.

The cellar was deserted. Two glow lamps shed weak light; one was positioned at head height to the right of the elevator platform, and faced the other positioned on the opposite wall. Between the glow lamps, a rod of dull grey metal, no thicker than Van Bam’s cane, rose up from the smooth stone of the floor.

Van Bam was the first to act. He strode over to the metal rod and studied it. Clara joined him, while Samuel went to check an open archway cut into the end of the left-hand wall. Through the archway was the dark empty stairwell that led back up to the warehouse. Samuel took comfort from knowing the door at the top was locked.

‘Samuel, look at this,’ Van Bam said.

There was an uncharacteristic edge of awe in his voice. Samuel holstered his rifle as he moved to see what they had found.

Van Bam was studying the tip of the metal rod, which was at eye level. It ended with a hollow diamond shape, giving the rod the appearance of a spear.

‘The mark of the Thaumaturgists,’ Van Bam whispered.

The diamond was positioned in line with the glow lamps, and their light met through its hollow centre. The thaumaturgic symbol served as a frame for what looked to be clear glass, but when prodded by Samuel, it proved to be flexible, gelatinous.

‘It is perhaps best not to touch it, Samuel,’ Van Bam warned. ‘I have no idea what purpose this device serves –’ he studied the length of the spear’s shaft – ‘but I do recognise the metal it is made of. It is neither solid nor liquid, and its colours …’ He seemed in awe again. ‘I observed Hamir use material like this a very long time ago, Samuel. You recall the automaton spider?’

‘I’m not likely to forget it,’ Samuel replied. ‘But what’s this thing doing here? Did Hamir make it?’

It was Clara who responded. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but you’re on the right lines.’ Judging by the changeling’s expression, she was once again on the edge of something just beyond the reach of her memory. ‘Hamir didn’t make this thing. But he did show Van Bam how to use it.’

Samuel looked at Van Bam, but the ex-Resident was fixed on the rod and made no response.

Clara’s expression became wistful, and the ghost of a smile played on her lips. ‘Thaumaturgy has memory, Van Bam. And it remembers its teachers.’

Samuel screwed his face up. ‘What’s she talking about, Van Bam?’

But his old friend didn’t reply. Instead he passed Samuel his cane, and then reached out for the metal rod with a tentative hand. With almost dream-like slowness, Van Bam gripped the shaft. He gasped, his grip tightening as though the metal was charged with some intense energy.

‘Van Bam!’ Samuel shouted, but the ex-Resident raised his free hand to stop him from acting.

Van Bam exhaled a long breath, and smiled. ‘I once helped Hamir do something extraordinary, Samuel.’ His voice was distant. ‘The magic in this metal remembers that help. It has been waiting for me.’

Samuel had never felt more bemused, and his anger rose. ‘For love of the Timewatcher,’ he growled, ‘what’s going on, Van Bam?’

‘We shall find out. Perhaps the two of you should stand back.’

Clara showed no sign of moving, so Samuel took her by the arm and dragged her away from the diamond-tipped rod. As he did so, Van Bam withdrew his hand and joined them.

Samuel barely noticed Van Bam taking his cane back; he was watching, disconcerted and fascinated, as the spear of dull grey metal began to radiate light. It started as a faint glow that soon brightened to a rich purple flare. Samuel raised a hand against the light as it began flickering with rapid, blinding flashes. Through his fingers, he saw darker rings of purple shooting up the shaft to the top where it gathered, soaked almost, into the gelatinous substance within the diamond-shaped frame. More and more of the rings added light to the thaumaturgic symbol until the shaft was drained of the coloured light and the diamond blazed like the brightest star in the night sky.

Static charged the atmosphere, and the hairs on Samuel’s arms stood erect.

At the sound of a sharp crack, the three agents flinched as one. It was followed by the low hum of energy building up. Two thin beams of purple light shot from the diamond and hit the glow lamps with a second loud noise. The lamps fizzed and buzzed before redirecting the light to the wall opposite the stairwell. Fractured into a multitude of searing, purple streaks that filled the cellar with a nauseating strobe effect, each beam focused on the centre of the wall. Wherever one hit, a patch of brickwork disappeared in a puff of dust as fine as tobacco smoke. Quick and fleeting, the beams continued to burn away stone until they had fashioned a neat rectangular area that resembled a dark doorway.

Samuel’s mouth hung open. The beams of purple energy danced around the frame of the rectangle, as if keeping its shape open. Within the frame, the doorway was coated with a black substance that rippled like liquid glass.

‘A portal?’ Samuel asked no one in particular. His throat had gone suddenly dry.

In the flickering light, Van Bam’s expression was just as astonished. ‘Events unfold as they have to,’ he whispered.

Clara was brave enough to step forward.

‘Careful,’ Samuel snapped as she approached the vertical beam connecting the diamond with the glow lamps. But he needn’t have worried; Clara seemed fully aware that energy capable of destroying stone would have no trouble with flesh. She ducked under the beam, and, flanked
by the purple streaks
, she stood with her back to her colleagues, staring into
the glassy portal.

‘Samuel,’ she said softly, ‘you told me
the portal outside the Nightshade only goes one way, didn
’t you?’

Samuel shrugged. ‘All right,’ he told Clara. ‘If
you say I did.’

‘That can’t be right, can
it?’ She rubbed the cut on the back of her
head. ‘I mean – portals are two way things. That’s
how the Thaumaturgists designed them to be. Surely you know
that?’

Samuel’s confusion deepened, and he was relieved when
Van Bam replied for him.

‘Clara,’ he said, ‘I cannot
pretend to understand the mechanics of portals, or the thaumaturgy
by which they are designed, but I can assure you
that Samuel is correct. Nothing can leave through that portal
at the Nightshade.’

‘I’m not saying Samuel’s
lying,’ she continued, clearly irritated. ‘I’m saying the entrance
and exit aren’t always located in the same place.
But a portal always –
always –
has a way in and
a way out. They can’t exist without both. The
avatar told me that …’ She spun around and faced her
fellow agents. ‘The avatar told me! I remember …’ Her mouth
worked silently and her hands shook.

Samuel stepped forward, closely
followed by Van Bam, and together they ducked under the
purple beam and approached Clara.

Samuel gripped the changeling by
the shoulders. ‘
What
do you remember, Clara?’

She shrugged him
off and turned to the portal. ‘This –’ she pointed a
finger at the dark, rippling doorway, and took a step
closer to it – ‘it’s connected to the portal outside
the Nightshade. It’s that portal’s exit – a way
out.’

Clara spoke as if her statement should have been
obvious to all. This was higher magic she was talking
about, something neither Samuel nor Van Bam knew much about.
But where Van Bam seemed eager to believe her, Samuel
felt only scepticism.

‘Just wait a minute,’ he growled. ‘Van
Bam, what if the avatar lied to her? Fabian Moor
could have created this portal. It might lead us straight
into the Nightshade.’ His face darkened. ‘Or the Retrospective.’

‘It might also lead us to the Aelfir who have been keeping us alive for the last forty years.’

‘It does!’ Clara said adamantly. ‘It’s the Labyrinth’s backdoor. It was kept secret from you.’

Samuel checked an angry retort. He was as desperate as anyone to find help, to believe the avatar was on their side, and that this portal
was
the answer. But the pragmatist in him simply couldn’t out-argue the cold, suspicious mercenary he had become.

Old Man Sam stared at the portal almost angrily.

‘The only way to know for sure is to step through,’ he said. ‘And I’m just suggesting we think really hard before doing that.’

‘What’s left to think about?’ Clara said. She seemed both irritated and overjoyed. ‘I’m not afraid.’

‘Perhaps Samuel is right, Clara,’ Van Bam suggested.

Without looking back, she threw her arms into the air, made a noise of exasperation, and took another step closer to the portal. For a moment, Samuel thought she might leap forward and dive blindly into the glassy blackness. But she turned around, and her eyes flashed yellow as she glared first at Samuel, and then at Van Bam.

‘The avatar is telling the truth. I can’t explain it, but I just know it is.’ Her face twisted into an almost bestial expression. ‘And we’re all going to die anyway if—’

She looked up sharply, sniffing the air.

At the same moment, Samuel’s prescient awareness flared. Time slowed. He became connected to his environment with almost painful sensory perception. The flashes and flickering of purple light became measured pulses. A dull
click
was followed by the groan of hydraulics. The elevator platform began rising.

Samuel wheeled around, drew his rifle, and aimed it at the stairwell door. The power stone whined and glowed into life.

The ripping and tearing of wood came next: the door to the warehouse above being smashed from its hinges. Voices followed – loud, shouted orders – and then came the sound of heavy feet pounding down the stairs to the cellar.

Samuel tracked his aim along the stairwell wall, judging the position of the lead runner.

He pulled the trigger and the power stone flashed.

With a spray of stone, the bullet smashed through the thin wall, found its target, and the magic it contained ignited. There was a brief scream and a roar of fire. A figure, smouldering but not alight, tumbled to the foot of the stairs and fell through the doorway. He rolled from side to side, frantically trying to lessen the heat in his clothes. He wore the bowl-like receptor helmet of the street patrols.

Samuel’s second bullet shattered the black glass and incinerated the person beneath.

Another patrolman stumbled against the doorway, already aflame. He must’ve been touched by the magic in Samuel’s first bullet. The fire ate through his clothes, burned away his skin and muscle, and his skeleton crumbled to ash on the floor.

That first shot had left a gaping hole in the stairwell wall. The barrel of a rifle appeared through it and spat out a lethal projectile. Samuel’s prescient awareness was one step ahead of the shooter, telling him which way to duck. The bullet missed the old bounty hunter, screaming past his ear. Someone grunted behind him. Samuel fired through the hole in the wall. The sound of shattering glass preceded the flare and fury of red flames, and the agonised screams of dying police officers.

And then the glare of Van Bam’s magic streamed over Samuel’s shoulder. It covered the doorway and the hole in the stairwell wall with a barrier shining green against the flickering beams of energy that cut purple lines through oily smoke and the stench of burnt flesh.

The shouts and footfalls on the stairs were muffled now. Two patrolmen arrived at the doorway, looking demonic and insect-like in their black helmets. They pounded the green barrier with the butts of their rifles, causing it to ripple like disturbed water, but they could not break through Van Bam’s magic.

With his last fire-bullet spent, Samuel slid the rifle into the holster on his back, and drew his revolver. Up above, the elevator platform had almost reached the warehouse’s upper level. There was no telling how many police were up there; how many officers Hagi Tabet had sent after them.

Through the pounding of his heart and the rushing of blood in his ears, Samuel became aware of a whimpering sound behind him.