Something caught my attention as we passed through a doorway, and I signalled for Garrick to stop. He gave me a look but held up his hand and I heard the main body of the group halt behind us. I crouched and brushed a hand across the dusty floor, feeling the chill of the concrete.
“What is it?” Garrick said at last.
“Someone forced this door,” I said, keeping my voice quiet. “Not long ago either.”
“Could have been the barghest.”
I held up a broken link of chain. The outside was rusted but the edge where it had been broken glinted in Garrick’s torch. “Not unless our barghest uses bolt cutters.”
Garrick raised an eyebrow and we moved on. I didn’t mention the second thing that had been out of place: The rest of the chain had been taken away.
We moved deeper into the factory. Garrick and I were on point with two of the security men ten paces behind. Talisid and Ilmarin walked in the centre of the formation, the last of the Council security bringing up the rear. When I sensed that the barghest was near, I was to withdraw and let the mages and soldiers move up into a combat formation, ready to take it by surprise. At least, that was the plan.
Things weren’t going to plan. By now I should have sensed where and how the fight was going to start. Looking forward into the future, I could see us searching every room of the factory, yet there wasn’t any sign of combat. In fact, I couldn’t see any future in which any of us got into combat. I could feel the men behind us growing tense; they knew something was wrong. The only one who seemed unconcerned was Garrick, radiating relaxed confidence. Had Talisid’s information been wrong? He’d been certain this was the place …
Around the next corner was a bigger room with a high ceiling and again I signalled for the others to stop. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Searching for combat wasn’t working. Instead I started following the paths of our group through the timeline, looking to see what we would find. Something in the next chamber would occupy everyone’s attention, and I looked more closely to see what it was …
And suddenly I knew why there wasn’t going to be any fighting tonight. I straightened with a noise of disgust and called back to Talisid, no longer making any effort to keep my voice down. “It’s a bust.”
There was a pause, then I heard Talisid answer. “What’s wrong?”
“We came here for nothing,” I said. “Somebody beat us to it.” I walked around the corner and out onto the factory floor.
Most of the machinery on the floor looked to have been removed or cannibalised for parts long ago, but a few pieces were still rusting in the gloom, piles of rubbish in between. My torch cast only a weak glow in the darkness, the beam of light disappearing up into the wide-open ceiling, and my footsteps echoed in the silence as I picked my way through broken boards and half-full plastic bags. The smell of dust and old metal was stronger here, this time with something underneath it that made my nose twitch.
The barghest was lying in the centre of the room, and it was dead. With its life gone, it looked like a grey-brown dog, big but not unnaturally so. It was lying on its side, eyes closed, with no blood or visible wounds. There was no smell of decay; it obviously hadn’t been there long.
The others moved up into the room, following me. Garrick came up to my side. Although his weapon was lowered, his eyes kept moving, checking the corners and upper levels of the room. Only once he’d swept the area did he look down at the body. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“Not any more it’s not.”
The next two security men reached us, followed by Talisid and Ilmarin, and we formed a circle around the creature. They made a lot more noise than Garrick, as if they didn’t know where to place their feet. “Well,” Talisid said at last.
“It’s dead?” Ilmarin asked me.
“It’s not getting up any time in the next few years,” I said. “Yeah, it’s dead.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Garrick said, “but I thought the mission was to kill this thing.”
“Looks like someone else had the same idea.”
“Can’t find any wounds,” Ilmarin said. Air mages are great at sensing movement but not so good with objects. “Verus, any idea what killed it?”
I’d been looking through the futures of me searching the body of this thing, watching myself rolling it over and running my hands through its fur. All I’d found was that it was heavy and smelt bad. Actually, I didn’t need my magic to notice that it smelt bad. “No wounds, no blood. Looks like it just dropped dead.”
“Death magic?”
“Maybe. Anything from the living family could do it.”
Talisid had been studying the body; now he looked at me. “Is there any danger in splitting up?”
I looked through the futures for a few seconds, then shook my head. “This place is a graveyard. The only way anyone’s going to get hurt is if they fall off the catwalks.”
Talisid nodded and turned to the others. “Spread out and search in pairs. Look for anything unusual.” Although he didn’t raise his voice, there was a note of command that assumed he would be obeyed. “Check in every ten minutes and we’ll meet back here in an hour.”
Somehow or other I ended up with Garrick. We worked our way through the factory’s ground floor, searching methodically.
The bodies of the barghest’s victims were in a side room off from the factory floor. There were seven, in varying states of decay. I didn’t look too closely.
“Had an appetite,” Garrick remarked once we’d left the room and called it in.
“That’s why we came,” I said. I was trying not to think about the corpses.
“Really?” Garrick looked mildly interested. “My contract was to make sure it was dead.”
“Looks like someone did your job for you.”
Garrick shrugged. “I get paid the same either way.” He gave me a glance. “So how far into the future can you see?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
I returned Garrick’s gaze. “On who’s asking.”
Garrick looked back at me, then gave a very slight smile. It made me think of an amused wolf.
I went back to the factory floor and found Talisid. “The bodies are in the second room off the back corridor. Nothing else worth checking.”
Talisid nodded. “I’ve called in the cleanup crew. You may as well take off.”
I looked at the barghest’s body, still undisturbed amidst the rubble. “Sorry I couldn’t help more.”
Talisid shrugged. “The problem’s been dealt with.”
“Even though we didn’t do anything?”
“Does it matter?” Talisid said. “There’ll be no more killings and we took no losses.” He smiled slightly. “I’d call this good enough.”
I sighed. “I guess you’re right. Did you find anything else?”
Talisid’s smile faded into a frown. “Yes. Scorch marks on the walls and signs of weapons fire. Several places.”
I looked at Talisid. “A battle?”
“It seems that way.”
I nodded at the barghest. “But that thing wasn’t burnt or shot.”
“Not as far as we can tell.”
“So what happened here?”
Talisid surveyed the dark room, sweeping his gaze over the rusting factory floor. With everyone else gone the place looked like it had been abandoned for a hundred years, and once we left there would be no trace of our visit but for footprints. This was no place for living people, not anymore. “We’ll probably never know,” Talisid said at last, and gave me a nod. “Good night, Verus.”
I left the factory, passed Talisid’s new Mercedes, and turned right at the corner of the street. I walked half a block, turned back towards the river again, then slipped down an alleyway next to a dark, squarish building. A fire escape took me up to the roof.