All of a sudden the only ones still up were me and the mage. He had a shield active, a bubble of hardened air. I know all about fighting air mages. I tried to rush him, pulling out my dispel focus, but a blast of wind drove me back against the couch. I tripped and rolled to my feet, scooping up the gun as I did and levelling it.
For a moment there was a pause, the two of us facing each other across the overturned couch. The air mage was slim and dark-skinned, hands up in a defensive stance; he wasn’t wearing armour but I could sense the auras of defensive magic beneath the shield. I had the gun aimed but I knew a shot wouldn’t get through; it was tempting to drop it and go for something else but the air mage was focusing on it in a way that suggested he saw it as a threat. The other three men weren’t getting up: the one I’d stunned was still out of it, the guy I’d stabbed was crawling for the door and the third guy was groaning and clawing at his eyes. Seconds ticked by. I ran through attack patterns in the futures, trying to see a way through for a killing strike. Dangerous. I could get through – maybe – but not without exposing myself as well. I needed an edge—
Magic pulsed from elsewhere in the flat, something powerful. Not air magic. All of a sudden I remembered why I was here. Anne!
‘John!’ the air mage yelled. ‘Caliburn! Get in here!’
I tried to dart for the door, but a wind wall drove me back. Anne! I called. Where are you?
There was an instant’s pause before the answer. In the bedroom and doing just fine, thanks for asking.
I hesitated an instant, my concentration split. What’s going on?
Just do me a favour and stay out of range. Oh, you might want to hold on to something. The connection cut off abruptly. I took one look at the futures and dived behind the sofa.
There was a pulse of magic from the next room over, like the first but ten times as powerful. It was a type I didn’t recognise – similar to Anne’s life magic but with strands of something else woven in, something dark and hungry, and it hit my senses like a hammer. The room went black as a light-eating wave of darkness swept outwards and then in again, there and gone in a flash.
I staggered to my feet. I felt disorientated; like most diviners my magesight is sensitive, and a spell this powerful is like a fire alarm going off in your ear. Luckily the air mage didn’t look any better. I tried to rush him, but apparently he’d had enough. A whirlwind drove me back and the air mage reached the window in two bounding leaps, then jumped through it in a crash of splintering glass. Shards glanced off his shield as he soared up into the street and out of view.
I didn’t try to chase the mage – he was long gone and in any case, I didn’t care. I darted out into the small hallway and into Anne’s bedroom.
And there was Anne, alone. She was wearing the same clothes that she’d worn to Morden’s mansion, and they showed no signs of wounds or damage. She whirled to face me as I came through the door, her hands coming up. ‘Alex? What are you doing here?’
‘Rescuing you, or at least I thought I was.’ I was scanning for threats. There was movement at the edge of my range but I couldn’t sense anyone coming closer. Maybe they were hanging back until they figured out what was going on … worth a try. I pulled out a gate stone and started casting.
‘Where are they?’ Anne asked.
‘The guys in the living room?’ The gate was forming fast, but I wasn’t sure if it’d be fast enough. ‘They should be out of it.’
‘The ones in here.’
I paused, looked at Anne. She was looking around as if confused. ‘What do you mean, the ones in here?’
‘There were three,’ Anne said. She looked puzzled. ‘I was going to trigger the barrier and send a signal to you and Luna and Vari, but—’
Air magic flared from somewhere out in the street. I heard a crack of thunder and the house shivered. ‘Talk later,’ I said. ‘Running now. Where’s that air mage?’
‘Flying out at the front,’ Anne said. She was recovering, her focus coming back. She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Now he’s circling over. I think he’s aiming for the window.’
‘How long?’
‘Maybe fifteen seconds …’
‘Got it,’ I said with satisfaction. The air shimmered and formed into a portal. ‘Go!’
Anne darted through. There was another clap of thunder and the window fractured, cracks running through the glass. Too slow. I gave a mental middle finger to the air mage and was just about to jump through when something caught my eye.
There were fewer signs of struggle here in the bedroom: whatever had happened, it had apparently been too fast to leave much of a mess. The laundry basket near the door had been kicked over, the clothes left in a pile, but the bed itself was still neat and untouched. There was no sign that anyone else had been here at all … except for one thing.
As with the living room, Anne had decorated her bedroom with potted plants. I’d noticed them the last time I’d been here: there had been a cluster of violets, and a white flower of some kind I didn’t recognise, all growing and healthy. The pots were still there, but they were empty of anything except earth.
A cold feeling went through my stomach. I didn’t know what I was looking at, and I didn’t have time to stop and think. I jumped through the gate and let it close behind me.
8
It was two hours later.
‘So when are you going to tell us what happened?’ Variam demanded.
‘I already told you,’ Anne said. ‘I don’t know.’
We were in the Hollow, gathered in one of the clearings under the afternoon sun. It was a lot like the last time we’d come here to meet, with one difference: Anne was on one side, and the rest of us on the other.
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Variam said. He was still wearing his red and gold dress robes; he and Luna had come running straight from the Carpenter Club as soon as they’d seen my alarm. ‘You had a Crusader hit team attack your house! How do you just forget something like that? “Oh, I’m sorry, I know there was a bunch of assassins in my bedroom, but I really wasn’t paying attention.”?’
‘It’s nothing to do with attention,’ Anne said. ‘I told you how the attack went right up to the point where I fell back. I was going to try to catch one as he came through the door. Then the next thing I remember, Alex was bursting in.’
‘So what happened to the guys chasing you?’
‘I guess they were the ones Alex took care of.’
Variam threw up his hands. ‘That is such bullshit!’
‘I’m sorry, were you there?’ Anne said pointedly.
‘You said there were two guys chasing you when you ran into your bedroom,’ Variam said. ‘The one who was in the lead was using force magic, and he was white. Right?’
‘Yes …’
‘Well, Alex already told us that the mage he was fighting was an air mage, and he was black,’ Variam said. ‘So what, you’re saying that the guy chasing you not only changed his magic type from force to air, but spontaneously managed to change his race as well?’
‘Then maybe he left? There were plenty more outside. Why is this so important anyway?’
Variam looked about to explode when Luna touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Vari.’
Variam switched his glare. ‘What?’
‘This is pointless,’ Luna said. As she withdrew her hand the silver mist of her curse flowed back down her arm to cover the fingers once again. ‘We know what happened.’