“They’re okay but there’s someone coming!” Anne called up. “Ahead and to your left.”
I took one look into the futures, saw the flicker of combat, and put on a burst of speed, scraping my elbow as I scrambled up onto the half-destroyed roof. Where the front of my roof had been was now a pit, dust still swirling in the night air. I could hear shouts and noise from the buildings around.
A figure came jogging out of the shadows ahead. He was only a silhouette in the darkness, but I knew who it was—Jaime Cordeiro, aka Ja-Ja, aka the life-drinker, the one Caldera had warned me about and the last person on Will’s team I wanted to get close to. He swerved towards me, his palm coming up.
I reached into my pocket for a weapon and my fingers closed on nothing: my items were buried under the rubble ten feet below. Ja-Ja lunged and I dived, rolling and coming back to my feet to turn and face him. Ja-Ja managed to brake before going over the edge and started back towards me. I danced back, the roof cool under my bare feet, not taking my eyes off Ja-Ja’s hands. One touch and I’d be dead or crippled. Ja-Ja lunged again and I dodged behind a chimney. He moved left, then right; I matched him, keeping the brickwork between us.
Ja-Ja crouched, tensed. From the faint glow of the city lights I could see he was wearing clear plastic goggles; Will’s lot were learning from experience. Bad sign. I heard a crash from the direction of my flat, followed by a surge of fire magic, and I knew that more were coming in from below but I couldn’t take my eyes off Ja-Ja. I had to take him down, but I didn’t have a weapon and I couldn’t risk coming within reach—
A hand touched Ja-Ja from behind, and he spun to face Anne. She was standing close, her arm extended and the fingers of her left hand resting lightly against his chest. Ja-Ja looked at her face to face and his expression was ugly. “Back off or I hurt you, bitch.”
Anne met Ja-Ja’s gaze, her eyes steady. “Don’t.”
Ja-Ja didn’t ask twice. His right hand came up fast and he slapped it into Anne between her breasts. Green-black light flickered around his arm and I had an instant to see the attack in my mage’s sight: focused and lethal, designed to rip the life from Anne’s body. One hit from that spell would kill most people. Two hits would kill anyone. Before I could move the spell flashed through Ja-Ja’s palm and into Anne.
Nothing happened. The green-black light vanished. Anne looked at Ja-Ja.
Ja-Ja looked taken aback. He looked down at his palm, then up at Anne, then tried again. Again the lethal green-black light flickered from his hand and into Anne’s body. Again nothing happened.
“Please stop doing that,” Anne said.
“That should have worked,” Ja-Ja muttered. He was still standing with his hand against Anne. All of a sudden instead of looking threatening he looked faintly ridiculous.
“It’s okay,” I said brightly. “It happens to a lot of guys.”
“Shut up,” Ja-Ja snapped.
“I’m sure it doesn’t happen to you usually. Maybe you can take a rest and try again in a few minutes.”
Ja-Ja snarled. “I said shut up!” He drew back for a punch.
Anne’s fingers hadn’t left Ja-Ja, and as he started to swing, leaf-green light flickered from her hand into his body. He crumpled instantly, unconscious before he hit the floor. Anne glanced at me. “Maybe you should stop taunting them.”
No one else had come; we were alone on the roof. Ja-Ja was out but I could still sense fire magic and there was danger ahead. “What’s going on down there?” I said. “Are Vari and Luna okay?”
“They’re not hurt,” Anne said, looking down through the roof. “They’re at the top of the stairs; Will and the others didn’t—” She cut off, frowning. “That’s strange. They’re pulling back.”
The futures of danger suddenly multiplied, branching, and as I looked at them my heart sank. “Oh crap.” I started running the way Ja-Ja had come, across the rooftops. “Come on!”
Anne looked from me to my flat, startled. “Luna and Vari—”
“They’re not coming for Luna and Vari!” I called back. “They’re coming for us!”
I heard a sharp breath and then Anne was running after me. “How?” she called.
“Gater!” I’d already looked into the future and seen the oval portal appearing above my flat and Will’s group pouring through it. Given the trend I was guessing it was from a gate adept, and that was bad news. As long as Will’s group had access to gate magic we couldn’t outrun them—they’d just gate ahead to cut us off. The only way to lose them would be to get away from their gater’s known locations.
I dodged between chimneys and scrambled over roofs, trying to get to the end of the street. Anne can’t see in the dark but she’s quick and fit and she was keeping up well. Behind I felt the flicker of gate magic and knew Will and the rest were on the rooftops too. Sirens were starting to sound in the distance, but I knew that by the time they got here it would be too late, and Will’s adepts were more than a match for the police anyway. Running barefoot on the bricks and tarmac I felt vulnerable. I was wearing only my T-shirt and trousers, and the only item I was carrying was the two discs of my forcewall, left forgotten in my pocket after my meeting with Cinder and Deleo. Maybe if I used them to block the roof behind us . . .
I felt the flicker of gate magic again and skidded to a halt. “Shit,” I said into the darkness.
Anne dropped down behind me. “What’s wrong?”
“They’ve split,” I said. “Half in front, half behind.” They were in two groups of three now. Looking into the futures in which we kept running, I saw all of them turn into a flurry of chaos and battle. If we kept going as we were we’d be caught in minutes.
Anne looked around. “The house below’s empty—”
“We’d be fish in a barrel,” I said. Going across the rooftops was out. To our left was the street, but that would just get us boxed in. The safest direction was through the back lots to the right, but then we’d run into the railway line . . .
. . . Oh.
That could work.
I turned and headed for the edge of the roof. “This way. Fire escape over the edge.”
The fire escape was painted black and almost invisible in the darkness. I dropped and heard the metal clang beneath my feet, then kept going down until the fire escape levelled out. Ahead was a fenced area leading into the building’s car park and to our left was the brick wall of the building itself. To the right was a sheer drop onto railway lines.
I led Anne across until the second set of lines were right beneath us. They emerged from a tunnel under the building and continued for about a hundred feet before disappearing beneath the next street over. “Jump over and hang on to the other side,” I told Anne, pointing at the railings.
Anne hesitated for an instant then obeyed, swinging her legs over to stand on the walkway on the other side of the railings. “You know what you’re doing, right?”
“There’s a freight train coming in two minutes,” I said. “We’re going to hitch a lift. I’ll time it for both of us but you’re going to have to let go exactly when I tell you.”
Anne looked down. It was more than a twenty-foot drop to the wood and steel of the railway tracks. She looked back up at me. “Just so you know, there are really few people whom I’d trust if they told me to jump onto railway lines.”
“I know.”
“Please make sure you get this right.” There was a trace of nerves in Anne’s voice.
“I will,” I said. “Can you see Will’s gang?”
Anne nodded up and over my right shoulder. “They’re coming.”
A rumbling sound echoed through the tunnel and I felt the walkway beginning to tremble beneath my feet. “I’ll count you down,” I said. “When you hit, drop and stay low.”
Anne took a breath and then slid her hands down the railings, swinging down to a crouch. The rumbling grew louder, rising to a roar. “Get ready,” I called over the noise of the train. I heard a clang from above and knew Will was close, but I didn’t take my eyes off Anne. She looked back at me through the railings, silent and tense. “On zero,” I called. “Three . . . two . . . one . . . zero!”