The two of them came to a stop about forty feet away. “Going to come quietly?” the lightning mage said. He had a London accent.
“Going to introduce yourself first?” I said. Only a little of my attention was on the conversation. If I ran straight back, the big guy would throw up a barrier to block the exit. What if I tried a sneak attack? No, they were waiting for that . . .
“We just want a chat,” the lightning mage said.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “From what I heard, your chats with Morden’s last couple of aides didn’t go so well for them.”
“Dunno what you mean.”
“You have mind mages on staff,” I said quietly. “Why use torture?”
The lightning mage shrugged. “Fight fire with fire.”
“How many times do you think you can try this before people start noticing?” I said. “No one is going to believe that this is just a coincidence.”
“No, no, Verus,” the lightning mage said. “You’ve got it all wrong. You see, you’re about to be abducted by some Dark mages who’re after that package you’re carrying.”
“Abducted by Dark mages who just happened to be inside the Vault?”
“The Vault?” The lightning mage smiled. “Who said anything about the Vault? When they check the records, they’ll find your signet was never used on the door.”
I felt a chill. If they had connections in the Keepers, it wouldn’t be hard for them to falsify the records. For that matter, if I suddenly disappeared, would anyone in the Keepers even think it was an abduction at all? Or would they assume I’d run off with the package I was carrying? The only reason anyone had known about what had happened to Morden’s last aide was that he’d been allowed to be found. I remembered the condition of his body—broken fingers and burned alive—and felt a flicker of fear. Both the mages were staring at me, and I recognised the expression in their eyes. As far as they were concerned, I was just another Dark mage.
“Time’s up, Verus,” the lightning mage said. “You going to make this easy?”
“Fuck you,” I said quietly.
The lightning mage’s smile didn’t change. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Light flared, crisp and sharp. I was already dodging right, and the ball flashed past with a smell of sulphur. My hand came out of my pocket holding a small marble, and I flung it at my attacker.
The other man put out a hand and a glowing shield appeared in midair. The marble struck the shield and shattered, and mist rushed out, hiding both the mages in a sphere of fog. I sprinted back, aiming for the exit, but I only made it halfway before the air in the tunnel mouth shimmered and another force barrier appeared, blocking my path. A second ball of lightning arrowed in and I swerved and turned on my attackers as the dark-skinned man came striding out of the fog.
I went for him, my knife in one hand and my stun focus in the other. Swords of light appeared in the man’s hands; the blade of each was a plane of glowing force, sharp enough to take off my arm, and I twisted and weaved, trying to find a way past the flashing blades. I fought not just in the present but in the future, trying every weapon I could think of to get past the big man’s defence. Glitterdust and stuns and dispels all struck at him, ghostly and unrealised, and all failed.
Ball lightning slashed at me and I had to jump back. The force mage lowered his blades and advanced, light glowing from the swords. The lightning mage was behind him, still keeping his distance. They were watching me, careful but not cautious, and I knew that they were confident that they were winning. I backed up, giving ground.
Energy crackled around the lightning mage’s hands, pulsed from the force swords. I kept moving backwards. The exit was behind me, but without looking I knew that the barrier was still there; the force mage was holding the spell as he fought me. Can’t outfight these guys. I needed an edge, but what? The chamber was bare, concrete and empty. There were pillars scattered around, but hiding behind them wouldn’t help. The force mage would just trap me with walls and I’d be cornered.
Pain flashed in my futures and I jumped left, placing the force mage between me and the spell. The lightning mage aborted his attack, letting the energy crackle away, and the two of them kept advancing. The lightning blast would have stunned and paralysed me . . .
. . . but it wouldn’t have killed me, and suddenly I was paying very close attention. They want me alive. The force mage had never tried to cut me in half with those swords, only hold me off. I needed to be in one piece for interrogation—but how were they going to do that? A memory jumped out at me: back when I’d been talking, I’d looked very briefly at the futures in which I’d agreed to go quietly, and I’d caught a fleeting image of a syringe . . .
It fit, and all of a sudden I had a plan. I broke right, sprinting for the pillar.
The lightning mage tracked me, and in the futures I saw the ball lightning leap out to intersect my path. I could see a future in which I dodged it cleanly, but I rejected it, looked for a future of a grazing hit. I saw the flash reflected from the tiles as the spell was loosed behind me and I tried to pick out just the right moment to drop. Got to make it look good. It was going to be close—
The spell hit just as I was starting my roll, spidering across my back and shoulder. Pain shot through my body and my limbs twitched and jerked. The roll turned into a fall and I slammed into the concrete, tumbling. I hit the pillar and lay still.
“Better not have killed him,” the force mage said, speaking for the first time. He had a deep, rumbling voice.
“He’s fine,” the lightning mage said dismissively. “Go check.”
Footsteps drew closer. I kept my eyes closed, breathing slowly, steadily. I still felt sick, the electric shock filling me with nausea and numbing my muscles, and the stink of sulphur filled my nostrils. I heard the force mage step to within arm’s reach and I could feel the presence of the blades, only inches away, and every instinct urged me to block, to defend myself. I held absolutely still, blind and helpless.
Something hard and narrow poked my arm roughly. It didn’t pierce the flesh; the force mage must have blunted the tip. “Still breathing,” the deep voice said.
“All right,” the lightning mage said. “Let’s hurry this up.”
I felt the spell dissipate and heard the rustle of clothing as the force mage reached into a pocket. The big man was standing right over me, holding a syringe in his right hand, and as I watched he slid the cap off the needle, tapped the side of the glass, then bent down.
As soon as I’d glimpsed that syringe, I’d guessed that it held some sort of knockout drug. Electricity can’t render someone unconscious, not reliably, but there are plenty of anaesthetics that’ll put someone under pretty fast if you inject them in the right place. Shock spells to take the target down, then a drug to make them unconscious for transport. The force mage took hold of my wrist, turning it so that the inside was facing up, and brought the syringe in for the injection. For a brief second, all of his attention was focused on getting that needle into the vein.
My hand closed over his. The force mage jerked back, but I’d been ready and used the movement to stab the needle into his wrist. My thumb came down on the plunger, and I saw his eyes widen as he felt the contents of the syringe go in.
“Surprise,” I told him.