Richard turned back towards Jarnaff, killing the last gunman with an almost absentminded gunshot, and all of a sudden he and Jarnaff were the only ones still standing. “Stay back!” Jarnaff shouted, backing away.
Richard walked towards him, his expression calm. “I gave you a chance.”
Jarnaff’s eyes darted left and right, settling on the exit that he’d come in by. He put one hand to his ear, talking loudly and urgently. “Control, we need reinforcements. Bring them in, all of them!”
“I’m sorry, Jarnaff,” Richard said. “I really would have preferred to do this peacefully.”
“You’re fucked,” Jarnaff snarled. He lifted a hand, focusing his shield and layering it, drawing power from the rear to fortify the front. The two layers became three, then four, obscuring his face. He’d obviously seen what had happened to the air mage. “You’re never getting out.”
I still held the rifle in my hands. Both Richard and Jarnaff were focused on each other. I lifted the gun, aimed it between them, hesitated. Which one?
“You hear me?” Jarnaff said. “We’ll bring in mages until—”
Richard cast a spell. A thin lance of black light darted not from his hand but from behind Jarnaff. It struck Jarnaff’s weaker rear shielding, pierced it, and punched a neat, small hole right through the centre of Jarnaff’s chest.
Jarnaff staggered. He stared at Richard as though surprised, then sank to the ground. The shield winked out.
“I heard,” Richard said to the body. He glanced back at me. “Have you decided whether to pull that trigger yet?”
“I’m still deciding,” I told him. I didn’t lower the gun.
Richard walked across the vault and past me. I traversed the weapon, tracking him. Looking into the futures in which I fired, I saw the bullets spark off, and it suddenly occurred to me that I was trying to threaten him with exactly the same weapon that those dead gunmen had been shooting him with . . .
So many dead men. It hit me that we were literally surrounded by bodies. Zilean was lying just a little way away, sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling, and the two gunmen I’d shot were sprawled farther back. The half of the room nearer to the exit was littered with the corpses of the Crusaders who’d attacked Richard. The air mage lay in a pool of blood, Jarnaff was crumpled in the corner, and the bodies of every other member of the strike team were scattered in a gruesome pattern. Blood and bodies everywhere, and looking at them made me dizzy. Richard and I hadn’t really killed a whole Crusader strike team, had we? I wasn’t supposed to be a battle-mage. How had this happened?
I suddenly realised that Richard was kneeling next to Anne. “Get away from her,” I said sharply.
“She’s quite unharmed,” Richard said, and rose, slipping one hand into his pocket. “But I wouldn’t suggest waiting around.”
“You’d rather we go with you?” I said harshly.
“Unless you’d prefer to stay here and explain the situation to the Council.”
I stared after Richard, but he didn’t look back. He’d walked to the same area where Vihaela and the Dark mages had disappeared and was studying the alcove. “Mind telling me how we’re going to leave?” I said. “Because whatever Vihaela’s lot used to gate out, they took it with them.”
Richard didn’t turn around. “Carry her, please.”
I looked—again—into the future where I fired on Richard. Same result. I slung the rifle and picked Anne up in both arms. Her head leant against my chest and I started to walk over. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but the gate wards on this place are—”
A gate opened in front of Richard’s hand.
I stopped dead. “How the hell . . . ?”
“Not the time, Alex.” Richard stepped through the gateway.
I hesitated for only a second. Whatever was through the gateway, I didn’t think it could be worse than here. I stepped through.
I came down onto firm grass. The air was cool, and stars shone down above the dark shapes of trees; we were somewhere out in the country. I knelt, setting Anne down carefully on the grass, and as Richard let the gate close behind us I saw that he’d dropped his shield.
I moved without thought. Richard didn’t quite react in time, and looking back on it, I think I must have caught him by surprise. My fist landed hard enough to make him stagger, and he half-blocked the second punch as I moved in.
Then the futures flickered and slid away. My third strike hit nothing but air, and something slammed into my jaw, stunning me. I hit the ground and rolled, scrambling to my feet.
Richard was standing ten feet away. “Are you finished?”
I tensed, ready to move.
“Don’t,” Richard said. His voice was hard, and all of a sudden I realised that he had his gun out.
I stood very still. Richard was aiming at my midsection, and from looking into the futures I knew he wasn’t bluffing, but it was very, very hard to keep myself from going for him anyway. “You planned this,” I said, and my voice shook with anger.
“If I hadn’t stepped in, you and your companion would either be dead or screaming your lungs out in a torture chamber,” Richard said. “I appreciate that you don’t work for me willingly, but this ingratitude is becoming tiresome.”
“Ingratitude . . . ?” Red rage filled me. Only the certainty that Richard would shoot the instant I moved held me back. “You set this up. You and Vihaela. All so that Anne would pick up that relic.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because matters with the Council are coming to a head.”
“She had nothing to do with the Council!” I shouted. “The only reason she’s even here is because of me, and now she’s in deeper! Was this all just some fucked-up game? To make sure that this time I wouldn’t run away?”
Richard gave me a curious look. “Alex, I don’t think you quite understand. She isn’t here because of you. You’re here because of her.”
“You wanted someone who could bond with a jinn to be a pawn in your power games,” I said savagely. “Except you didn’t have one, did you? Because the only people who work for you willingly are psychopaths like Vihaela. So you had to force someone into it who wasn’t willing.”
Richard shrugged. “Reasonably accurate, allowing for your personal bias.”
“Then why her?” I shouted. “You wanted someone to fuck with some more, why her and not me?”
“Because you said no.”
“When?”
“Two and a half years ago, in Sagash’s shadow realm.”
I stopped dead. I remembered that meeting. It had been the first time I’d seen Richard since his disappearance, more than a decade before. “You didn’t tell me . . .”
Richard sighed. “No, Alex, for reasons that should be obvious, I did not give you a detailed breakdown of my plans involving the jinn and the Council. If you had agreed to my offer, you would have received further information in due course. You did not.”
I hadn’t been alone in Sagash’s shadow realm. And Richard had made that offer to two people, not one . . . “Anne,” I breathed. “You had your eye on her from the beginning.”
“I did tell you that not everything was about you,” Richard said. “You really should pay attention. In any case, Anne also rejected my offer, but she did so under your influence. I judged that left to her own devices, she would have said yes. I think subsequent events have proven me correct on that score. Jinn do not contract with an unwilling agent.” He nodded down at where Anne lay. “She will be an excellent host.”