I just had to make sure he didn’t take me with him.
All of this went through my head in less than five seconds. “You know, if you can’t find a way to unlock it, we can just blow it off its hinges,” Vihaela said.
“No,” I said curtly. With Anne next to Vihaela, I had to help, at least for now. “The doors in this place are reflec-shielded. Put me on to the guy who’s working on that keypad and I’ll see what I can do.”
Vihaela handed me over and I started working through the security systems, and as I did I kept watching the other monitors, piecing together what was going on. Morden’s forces had taken full control of the facility—the remaining Council forces were either dead or had fled. The Dark mages had broken through into some lower-priority storage rooms and were busy looting them, but the main storage vault was behind the doors that Vihaela was trying to get through now. The doors would lead into a section which had no camera coverage at all, and then into the vault itself, which did. Live feeds showed lines of shelves filled with crates and pedestals holding sealed boxes.
The security systems weren’t enough to keep out the Dark mages, but then, that’s what you’d expect. Most security isn’t meant to be impenetrable—it’s just meant to keep intruders tied up long enough for reinforcements to arrive. The Dark mages must have set off every alarm in the place while they were fighting their way in, and right now, a Council strike team had to be assembling. How long until it got here?
Casually, I took a glance back at the other people in the control room. Rachel and Onyx were arguing about something, and the other Dark mages were busy with the computers. I slid my communicator focus from where I’d had it hidden and slipped it into my ear. This place was shielded, but there was still a chance that I might be able to get through to Vari or Luna.
For the next few minutes I multitasked, giving advice to the Dark mage trying to get into the vault while also exploring the futures in which I tried to get in touch with Vari. Divining for two different sets of futures at once is tricky, but I was making good headway . . . until something caught my eye and all of a sudden I had something new to worry about.
There had been a brief and highly unlikely future in which Rachel and the other two Dark mages had all left the control room at the same time, leaving me alone in the room with Onyx. It had vanished almost as soon as it had appeared, but it had been there long enough, and I shot a glance back over my shoulder. Onyx wasn’t looking in my direction, and to a casual glance he seemed absorbed in the contents of one of the computer screens, but now that I knew what to look for, I noticed that he was turned at just the right angle to watch me in his peripheral vision. To all appearances, Onyx was just sitting there, but as soon as the other three Dark mages left the two of us alone . . .
Shit. All of a sudden I felt very vulnerable. The tight confines of the control centre was exactly where I did not want to be fighting a battle-mage whose speciality was hitting things until they broke. I needed a plan, and fast.
“Light on the panel’s gone orange,” the Dark mage said over the communicator.
“Means it’s on standby,” I said absently. “Wait sixty seconds, then input the same code again.” What if I tried leaving the room? Anne and Vihaela weren’t that far away, I could get to them pretty quickly . . . no, Rachel was going to stop me. Shit. I needed help, but I didn’t have Luna or Vari this time. What I needed was someone on site already, whom I could count on . . .
An idea came to mind and I scanned the monitors again. There. On one of the screens showing the atrium, I could see a bulky figure that I thought I recognised. I dug around in one of my pockets and pulled out a thin metal probe, then channelled a thread of magic into the communicator. I’d already seen that Vihaela had locked the communicator so that it could only talk to hers, but I’m pretty good at working around those kinds of things. A thread-thin pulse of magic disabled the restrictions for just long enough to send a message ping. Now I just have to hope that he checks it soon . . .
“What are you doing?” Rachel said.
I glanced back at Rachel, making the probe disappear into my palm. “What do you think?”
“Who are you talking to?” Rachel demanded.
“Your boss,” I said. I held up Vihaela’s communicator. “You want to take over? Be my guest.”
Rachel stared suspiciously, then there was a rustle and Vihaela’s voice came from the communicator. “Verus. What’s the holdup?”
Rachel turned away and I let out a breath before speaking into the receiver. “It’s done. Shields should deactivate in a second, you can cut your way through.”
“Good,” Vihaela said. “Stay on the line.” On the screen, I saw Vihaela give orders and a Dark mage stepped forward, conjuring a blaze of light that made the camera flicker.
It would take them maybe five minutes to get through. I looked through the futures in which I tried using my own communicator, and my heart leapt as this time I saw movement. Casually, I turned my back to Rachel and to Onyx and spoke under my breath. “Vari, this is Alex. Come in. Vari, this is Alex. Come in.”
For a long moment there was silence, then Variam’s voice spoke into my ear, the signal clear and strong. “Alex? I’ve been trying to call you for hours! Where have you been?”
I heard a footfall behind me and knew that Rachel was within earshot. I held Vihaela’s communicator to my ear, pretending to talk into it. “Okay, keep that up. You should burn through in a few minutes.”
On the other end of the line, Variam paused. “What?”
“Yes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No, that should be okay.” I could still feel Rachel behind me. Please, Vari, figure it out.
“I don’t—wait.” I could sense the lightbulb going off in Variam’s head. “Is someone listening in and you can’t talk?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Morden’s goons, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Shit,” Variam said. “Um . . .”
“Look, just tell me what you can see from your end.”
I could hear Variam snort. “What I can see? Everything’s gone to shit, that’s what. You remember that adept demonstration? Well, it started quiet, just a bunch of teenagers hanging around out in the street. Then the numbers started to fill up. We’d been told to expect a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty—turns out there were thousands. The Keepers all got deployed, there were security squads around, everyone was ready to seal off the War Rooms if they needed to. Then everything hit the fan.”
“What happened?”
“Hell if I know. Some Keepers were saying that there were Dark mages in the crowd—whatever it was, someone started shooting and it got ugly real fast. A bunch of people are dead, the Council have the whole place on lockdown, and the area’s being is being cordoned off and searched. If they—”
“Diversion,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a diversion. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Yeah,” Variam said. “Landis said the same thing. He’s sure this whole thing is just to pull the Keepers off the real target, keep them busy at the War Rooms, but . . . We were getting alarms from the Vault and Southampton before the lines got cut. You at one of those?”
“Yes.”
“The Vault?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I’ll tell who I can, but the Council’s in panic mode. They’re still convinced that this is all some sort of bluff and the real attack’s coming in at the War Rooms any minute. It’ll probably be an hour before they’re done rounding up the demonstrators and—”