I trailed off. Onyx was still working on his spell, but I could sense magic from where Rachel had disappeared. It felt like . . . I frowned. A gate spell? I might not know where we were, but I’d already sensed that this place had spatial wards. Trying to open a gate here would probably lead to the thing either blowing up in your face or—
I felt a gate open and close.
Magic flared from within the control room, sharp and precise, once, twice, three times. There was a muffled sound, just barely audible through the steel door. It might have been a scream.
Onyx looked up from his spell, and he and the other two Dark mages paused, waiting. The corridor was silent. As I listened I realised I couldn’t hear any more gunfire from elsewhere, either.
“Was that her?” one of the Dark mages said.
There was a click and the heavy steel door to the control room swung open, revealing Rachel in the doorway. “What are you waiting for?” she said irritably. “An invitation?”
The Dark mages glanced at each other and walked in. Rachel looked at me. “You coming or not?”
I hesitated, then followed Rachel inside. She shut the door behind me with a thump.
The inside of the control room was walled in black. Office chairs sat in front of long, curving desks, and on the desks and walls were more than a dozen computer monitors, showing camera feeds and status reports. A couple of the chairs had been knocked over, and as I turned my head to look, I saw a scattering of dust next to each of them. I looked at Rachel. “Was that necessary?”
“I don’t give a shit,” Rachel said. She tossed something at me.
I caught the object and looked at it. It was black, small enough to fit into the palm of the hand, and radiated low-level magic of some kind, probably universal. “I’m done babysitting you,” Rachel said. “Stay in this room and don’t talk to me.” She stalked away.
I watched Rachel go with a frown. Onyx was arguing with one of the other Dark mages, while the last was working at one of the computer banks, leaning in to stare at the screen. For the moment, no one seemed to be paying attention to me.
I took a closer look at the item in my hand. I’d seen similar focuses before, and it didn’t take me long to figure out how it worked. I placed my thumb on the depression at the top, channelled a thread of magic into it, and spoke. “Hello?”
There was a moment’s silence, then Vihaela’s voice spoke up. “Took you long enough.”
“Where’s Anne?”
“You’re in the control room, yes?”
I wasn’t in the mood for games. “You know I am.”
“Find the camera feeds. Section twelve.”
Two quick strides brought me to the security desk. None of the Dark mages did anything to stop me, and I bent over the keyboard, scanning the monitors. One of the screens showed a map of the facility. Okay, definitely not the War Rooms. It seemed to be some kind of . . . prison? No, those weren’t cells: they were security gates . . .
Vihaela’s voice sounded. “Tick tock, Verus.”
“Found you,” I said curtly. One of the monitors was divided into nine camera feeds. Three were black, four more showed nothing but empty corridors, but one showed the entrance to what looked like a giant safe, and in front of it was a group of four figures. Vihaela was easy to pick out, but standing a little to her left and off to the side was a slim figure with shoulder-length hair. I felt something inside me ease a little. All the same . . . “Put Anne on.”
“Don’t trust me?” Vihaela said. She sounded amused.
“No,” I said curtly.
In the camera feed, I saw Vihaela toss something to Anne, who caught it and turned it over in her hands. There was a moment’s pause, then I heard a soft voice through the focus. “Alex?”
I felt a rush of relief. “You okay?”
“I’m not hurt.”
“You didn’t get caught up in the fighting?” I was looking at the map, and if I was reading it right, Anne was deeper than me into the facility—much deeper. To get to where she was, she’d have had to go past a lot of guard posts.
“There were guards. Vihaela . . . dealt with them. Do you—?”
On the screen, I saw Anne flinch as something flew out of her hands and back to Vihaela. “Catch up later, Verus,” Vihaela said. “We’ve got work to do.”
“So are you going to tell me why you dragged us down here?”
“We’re getting through this door,” Vihaela said. “You’re going to help.”
I stared at the door. It looked pretty heavy-duty. “You want to know if it’s trapped?”
“That sort of thing.”
“That’d be a lot easier if I was there with you.”
“Missing me already?” Vihaela sounded amused. “No, I think I’ll keep you right there. Now stop stalling and make yourself useful.”
I glared at Vihaela’s image on the monitor. What’s she planning now? I scanned and found a local security display. “The door’s got a signature lock of some kind, looks like a retinal scan but there might be another way to bypass it, probably magical. Then there’s a key code . . .”
As I spoke I was looking through the cameras, and a set of feeds at the top caught my eye. They seemed to be showing external views of the facility. Several were corridors with people passing by, and something about them made me think of Underground tunnels, but the ones I focused on were the three at the top. They showed a roundabout with a steady stream of traffic. It was night, and cars were circling the arches at the centre and moving through the traffic lights. The angle was weird but the scenery was familiar, and I knew I’d seen it before. I just needed to . . .
Something clicked and all of a sudden I knew where I was. The image on the cameras was Old Street Roundabout. And that meant I was in—
The Vault. All this time, he was going for the Vault.
“Well?” Vihaela said.
“I’m working on it,” I said absently. Inwardly, my mind was whirling. So this was what Morden had been planning. He’d lied to me and to everyone else, let them think he was going to attack the War Rooms, when really he’d been . . .
Had he lied to me? A conversation flashed through my head. Vihaela’s words: Morden promised me both of you. My answer: Did he really? Or did he just imply that she’d be coming, and let you hear what you wanted to hear . . .
“Shit,” I said out loud.
“Need that code, Verus.”
“I said I’m working on it.” So that was where the rumours about an attack on the War Rooms had come from. Morden had planted them, to draw off the Council’s defences. All that soul-searching I’d done about whether to tip off the Council had been a complete waste of time. I could have told Morden to his face that I was going to sell him out, and it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference.
Everything made more sense now. That had been why Vihaela had kept me away during those last few hours—so that I couldn’t glimpse their plans and pass on any last-minute warnings. And it was why they’d split us up. If I didn’t help Vihaela, Anne would be on the chopping block.
But some things hadn’t changed. My deal with the Council still held, and even if the diversion worked and this attack succeeded, Morden was going to get it in the neck. Attacking the Vault wasn’t as big as attacking the War Rooms, but there was no way that the Council would let him get away with it. Once this battle was over, win or lose, Morden was going down.