“Well, you figured it all out,” I said. I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You won, I lost, you proved you’re smarter than me. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Caldera said. “You become a sanctioned witness, you waive your rights and agree to give a verified confession, I’ll make your sentence as lenient as I can. You still have a few friends on the Council. I’ll even testify myself. I figure I owe you that much.”
“That’s your deal?”
“Best you’re going to get.”
I looked away.
“Alex,” Caldera said. “Let’s get real, okay? They’re getting your confession. Either you give it up voluntarily, or the mind mages pull it out of your head.”
“Now who’s talking bullshit?” I said. “There’s not going to be any lenient sentence. Levistus and Sal Sarque have been wanting this for years. There’s only one sentence they’re going to sign off on.”
“You knew the game when you sat down to play.”
“A game?” Suddenly I was furious. “Fuck you. This was only a game for you. For you this was about your job and your ego. For me it was life and death.”
Caldera shrugged.
“Where’s Anne?”
“She’s not your concern anymore.”
“I want to see her.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Caldera looked at me. “That offer of leniency? Doesn’t include her.”
I swallowed. My throat was suddenly dry. “What’s going to happen to her?”
“You know what she did.”
“It won’t happen again.” I hated how weak my words sounded, but I had to try. “She can control it now.”
“That’s not your choice to make.”
“She was possessed, she wasn’t the one making the decisions. You have to know that.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You can’t just kill her!”
“That adept your team ran into in that Devon facility was possessed by a jinn too,” Caldera said. “What did you do to him?”
We killed him. I couldn’t say that out loud. “That’s different.”
“Alex, she killed eighteen people,” Caldera said. “And those are just the ones we know about. I know she wasn’t in control of her own actions. I know this is the latest piece of shitty luck in what’s been a pretty shitty life. But the law says she has to go, and the law’s right. She’s a danger to everyone else.”
“If it means losing her, I don’t care about everyone else.”
Caldera raised her eyebrows. “You really mean that?”
I didn’t answer. Caldera rose and walked away.
The men around us were still working. Some of them were starting to pack Arachne’s clothing and gear away into boxes. It was the same treatment we’d given the facility in Devon. It felt a lot different having it happen to a place I’d thought of as home. I tried to think of something I could do and came up blank.
I didn’t have long to wait. Caldera came back and hauled me to my feet. “Up.”
“Where are we going?”
It was a pretty pointless question, and Caldera didn’t bother to answer. She just put an arm through mine and dragged me.
I craned my neck, trying to ignore the pain in my head. There were various Keepers and security men around. Few were ones I knew, and the ones I did know were all ones I recognised for the wrong reasons. They’d probably gone out of their way to pick Keepers who didn’t like me. But it was Anne I was really looking for.
Then I saw her, and stopped dead. Or would have if it had been up to me. Caldera dragged me along. “What the hell?” I said.
“Keep walking, Alex.”
Anne was being led out from one of the back rooms, and she was so heavily restrained that I could barely tell it was her. A hood covered her entire head, her arms were bound behind her in a single sleeve, and her ankles were linked by a chain so she was forced to take short, shuffling steps. A pair of security men directed her with rods fixed to a collar around her neck. Two more mages and four more security men formed a perimeter around her, watching with a wary eye.
“Why are you treating her like that?” I demanded.
“Because she’s dangerous enough to need it,” Caldera said. She hadn’t slowed down, and now she pushed me forward into the tunnel leading out. I craned my neck to try to see Anne, but I’d already lost sight of her.
“She wasn’t threatening any of you! The only reason she even—”
“Take it up with HQ.”
Caldera marched me up the tunnel. I tried to reach out to Anne, talk to her, but my dreamstone was gone. Caldera kept me moving, not letting me hang back to let the others catch up.
The difference between how Anne and I were being treated said a lot about how much of a threat they thought I was, and the bitter part was that they were right. Right now, there was nothing at all I could do to stop Caldera from taking me away. Once we got to the surface and away from the cave’s wards, they’d take us through a gate, probably to San Vittore or somewhere equally bad. Once they did, I was finished. I’d have no chance of escape. I’d never see Anne again either. And there was nothing I could do about it.
Caldera led me out into Hampstead Heath. It was night and the Heath was quiet, the lights of Highgate glinting from across the ponds, the park itself dark and still. The air was still warm from the evening, and trees were black silhouettes against the sky.
A Keeper was waiting for us at the entrance. His name was Avenor; I’d never liked him much, and from the way he ignored me and addressed Caldera, he didn’t seem very cut up about my current status. “Diviner’s pulled out,” he told Caldera. “Last forecast was that everything’s quiet.”
“We clear for a gate?” Caldera asked.
“Got some civilians in the AO. We’ll have them gone in a couple of minutes.”
Caldera nodded and pulled me up the valley and out into the woods.
Once we were twenty feet or so from the ravine, Caldera stopped and we waited in silence. The trees stood around us, just faintly visible in the reflected light from the clouds above. I tried to think of something I could do but Caldera was keeping my arm locked in hers, and her grip was like iron. My head was still spinning and my leg hurt like hell. Even without the handcuffs I knew I’d have no chance against her, but I had to do something. I looked ahead, searching for something, some kind of edge . . .
I went still.
“Sergeant?” Avenor said from near the ravine. “We clear?”
Caldera looked over at him, waiting. Avenor stood for a moment, tapping his foot, then put a hand to one ear, talking into his communicator. “Sergeant Barnes. Please confirm that the civilians have been removed from the area and we’re clear for gate. Over.”
A few seconds passed. “What’s keeping him?” Caldera said.
“No answer.” I couldn’t make out Avenor’s expression, but he sounded irritated. “This is what happens when you count on normals.”
From the ravine, I heard the scrape of footsteps and I knew Anne was being brought up. Caldera sighed and spoke into her own focus. “Keeper Caldera to perimeter team. Need a report on those civilians, over.”
Seconds ticked by and I felt Caldera frown. The security men at the front of Anne’s detail climbed up out of the ravine, followed by the two men holding her collar poles. I saw Anne appear in the darkness, looking blindly from left to right. “Perimeter team, report in now,” Caldera said.
“You might want to duck,” I said quietly.
Caldera started to turn.
A bolt of black energy hit Caldera in the chest. Her eyes went wide but she didn’t let go of my arm, and as she fell she dragged me down with her. As I went down I caught a split-second glimpse of a green ray lancing out of the dark, striking one of the men holding Anne’s collar; he arched his back to scream and was gone in a flash of dust.
Caldera and I hit the ground, pain jolting through my head and leg. Shouts echoed through the night; there was the muzzle flash and chatter of automatic weapon fire, three-round bursts going ratatat, ratatat. A fireball burst next to us with a wash of hot air, lighting up the Council troops in hellish red. Caldera rolled, taking cover behind a tree. “Keeper Caldera to all units, we’re under attack at the cave entrance! Enemy force with battle-mages. Reinforce immediately, over!”