“It’s an expression. It means just what you said.”
“I’m talking about people, not needles. And how did it get in the hay? Did some mad seamstress put the needle there?”
“Never mind,” Anders growled. He shrugged off his suit coat and glanced at Deirdre. “As you can see, we haven’t exactly made a lot of progress in our hunt for a sorcerer.”
Muscles played beneath the skin of his forearms as he loosened his tie. Deirdre gulped the scalding‑hot coffee.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her throat burning. “I think I’ve got it figured out.”
“You’ve got what figured out?” Beltan said.
“How we’re going to catch a sorcerer.”
24.
They waited until nightfall. The Scirathi were more comfortable working under cover of darkness; that was one of the few things they had learned in their dealings with the sorcerers.
And what about Anders?Deirdre thought as they drove in a black sedan along Shaftesbury Avenue. What’s he learned about them?
She glanced at him as he drove. Would he betray her tonight? After all, if he was really working for the sorcerers, he couldn’t allow her to catch one of them. Except he had to, if he was going to keep up his act; he would have to go along with her plan.
As the lights of the city came on against the gathering dusk, Anders turned the wheel, guiding the car onto a narrow lane. Beltan’s and Travis’s flat was just ahead.
“We already checked out the flat,” Anders had said earlier that day, when she told him where they would go that evening. “Beltan and I sniffed all around his old neighborhood and didn’t see a thing. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a sorcerer lurking about there–returning to the scene of the crime and all that. But if so, he won’t come out to play.”
“He will if you make him want to,” Deirdre had said.
It was time. Anders brought the car to a halt two blocks away from the flat. Deirdre climbed out. Beltan unfolded his long frame from the backseat.
“I’m ready,” he said, one hand in the pocket of his jeans.
Deirdre touched his arm. “Make sure you’re seen.”
He nodded, then turned and took long strides down the sidewalk, vanishing into the gloom.
Anders leaned out the window of the car. “Is your radio working, mate?”
Deirdre held the device to her mouth to test it. She heard her voice emanate from inside the car. She gave him a thumbs‑up, then tucked the radio into her jacket pocket, alongside something else.
“Good luck,” Anders said, winking at her.
The car sped away down the lane. Deirdre didn’t like letting him go by himself, but she had no choice, not if this plan was going to work. Besides, it was too late for him to warn them. If one was keeping watch, then at that moment he was already observing Beltan open the door of the flat. Deirdre looked at her wristwatch, letting thirty more seconds pass. Then she started moving.
She walked quickly down the sidewalk and up the front steps of the building. If the Philosopher was right, it wouldn’t take long. She waited a few seconds in the lobby of the building, eyes on her watch. The plan called for Beltan to be alone in the flat for three minutes, not one second more. With thirty seconds to go, she started up the stairs.
Five seconds still remained when she reached the door of the flat. It was closed; no sounds emanated from the other side. She drew in a breath to steady herself. Was Anders in position? What if he wasn’t?
There was no more time to worry about it. The watch ticked the last seconds away. Deirdre slipped a hand into her jacket pocket, then pushed through the door of the flat.
The sorcerer was killing Beltan.
It was hard to see. The flat was darkened, and only a few scraps of light filtered around Deirdre into the living room, but her imagination filled in what her eyes could not discern.
The window was open, and the night air billowed the white curtains like the garb of a ghost. Beltan was on his knees, his head thrown back, the cords of his neck standing out. One hand clutched at his chest. The other gripped a small glass vial filled with dark fluid. The sorcerer stood above him, clad all in black, a smile frozen on the serene gold face. One hand reached toward Beltan. The sorcerer’s fingers curled together, and Beltan jerked as a spasm passed through him.
Fear stabbed into Deirdre’s chest, as if it was her heart the sorcerer was stopping with a spell. And if she didn’t act quickly, in a moment it would be. She pulled two objects from her pocket–and fumbled them in sweaty hands. They fell to the floor: the radio, as well as something sleek and silvery.
A squawk emanated from the radio. Before Deirdre could move, Anders’s voice crackled out of it. “Is that you, Deirdre? Are you in position yet? I can’t see anything in the flat; it’s too dark in there.”
The sorcerer hissed, and the gold mask swung in Deirdre’s direction. Beltan drew in a gasping breath, but he still couldn’t move; the sorcerer had not lowered its hand. And it had another. It stretched its left hand toward Deirdre’s chest.
There was no time to think. Deirdre dived to the floor, grabbing the things lying there. She punched a button on the radio.
“Now, Anders!” she shouted. And with her free hand she gripped the other object and flicked a switch.
A beam of white‑blue light pierced the darkness of the flat, slicing crazily through the shadows. Deirdre threw down the radio and gripped the flashlight in both hands, angling the beam upward. It struck the sorcerer’s gold mask, and the Scirathi staggered back, dazzled by the sudden light. Beltan started to struggle to his feet.
Again the sorcerer thrust a hand toward the blond man, and Beltan grunted, falling back to his knees. The other hand pointed at Deirdre, and she gasped as pain crackled through her. She couldn’t breathe; the flashlight started to slip from her hands.
Something hissed through the open window, and there was a soft thunk. The sorcerer took a step back, and a soft exhalation of air passed through the mouth slit of its mask. Then the Scirathi slumped to the floor.
Although he had been under the spell of the sorcerer longer, Beltan was the first to recover. As he knelt above her, Deirdre could see his green eyes glowing faintly in the dark. He helped her sit up, and a ragged breath rushed into her lungs.
“Are you all right?” he said, his voice hoarse.
She nodded. Her heart had resumed something like a normal cadence in her chest. The sorcerer’s spell had not done as much harm as she would have thought. “How is he?”
Beltan moved to a dark lump that sprawled on the floor. “He’s not moving, but I think he’s still conscious.”
Good. The drug was working exactly as it was supposed to. She had feared Scirathi physiology might be different, but it wasn’t. For all their powers, they were still men.
Deirdre groped for the flashlight, then crawled on hands and knees to Beltan. She trained the light down, onto the crumpled form of the sorcerer. Its body twitched, and gurgling sounds emanated from behind the mask. A silver dart protruded from the center of its chest.
“The mask,” Beltan said. “Take it off. He’s powerless without it.”
Deirdre hesitated, then with trembling hands gripped the edge of the gold mask, pulled it off, and handed it to Beltan.
The sorcerer was not a man after all. The face was a blasted landscape of scar tissue, crudely stitched wounds, and oozing scabs. The ears were gone, and the nose reduced to two pits above the featureless slit of the mouth. However, the bone structure–plain to see–was fine, even delicate. This sorcerer was a woman.