“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Caldera said with a frown. “I thought you wanted to talk about Richard.”
“I think this is connected to Richard.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“That’s”—I hesitated—“not something I want to go into.”
Caldera turned away with an expression of disgust. “It’s personal,” I said.
“What do you think I am, directory enquiries?” Caldera said. She shook her head and turned to walk away. “You’re having a laugh.”
“Wait,” I said. “This is important.”
Caldera paused, looking back with her hand on the door. “I’ve got a job to do, all right? You’ve got something to tell me, spit it out.”
“Let’s trade,” I said. “I need to know about this group. Tell me, and I’ll help you out with your investigation.”
“So you’re going to tell me what’s going on with Richard?”
“No. I told you, I don’t know where he is.”
“Then what have you got?”
“I can help you some other way.”
“How?”
“Come on,” I said. “You’re seriously telling me you can’t think of anything a diviner would be able to help you out with? Try me.”
Caldera measured me with her eyes, and I knew what she was thinking: she was weighing up whether to trust me. Luna, Anne, and Variam stayed quiet, for which I was grateful. “All right,” Caldera said at last, and took her hand off the door. She walked up and gave me a challenging look. “I want you to get me into Richard’s mansion.”
I stared at her. “Are you serious?” When Caldera only raised her eyebrows, I went on. “You want to break into a Dark mage’s house? Do you have any idea just how many things could go wrong with that?”
“No, but you can make a list if it’ll make you feel better.”
“If you’re looking for interesting ways to commit suicide, why don’t you just go interview Deleo? It’d be faster.”
“Can’t find her.”
I hesitated, belatedly remembering that I was going to go interview Deleo that same night. I hoped Luna and the others were keeping a straight face. If I offered to bring Caldera along, would she accept that instead? No, bad idea, very bad idea. As soon as Deleo spotted Caldera she’d vanish, and that was if we were lucky. Given the choice between breaking into Richard’s mansion and pissing off Deleo, I’d rather break into the mansion.
“So are you in or out?” Caldera said, mistaking my hesitation. “Look, all the information I’ve got says the place is deserted. And you’re a diviner, aren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to be good at sniffing out traps?”
I really didn’t like the idea. Diviners are good at sniffing out traps, and I’m good even by diviner standards, but it’s the kind of thing you don’t want to do unless you have to—there are a lot of things that can go wrong. On the other hand it’s something I know how to do, and looking into the future I could see that Caldera wasn’t going to be bargained down. “All right,” I said at last, not trying to hide my reluctance. “My help on a trip into Richard’s mansion, in exchange for the information on the adepts.”
“I can get that to you in a couple of days.”
“Or you could give it to me right now.”
Caldera raised her eyebrows. “How do you figure?”
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I think you know how to do your job. And since these adepts are obviously connected to the rumours about Richard, I think you already looked them up.” I’d also looked into the future and seen fragments of her telling me about them, but I left out that part. “So how about it?”
“So what’s stopping you from doing a vanishing act as soon as I tell you what you want to hear?”
“At some point we’re going to have to trust each other,” I said. “And if you don’t trust me, then you really shouldn’t be relying on me to break you into a Dark mage’s mansion.”
Caldera studied me for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine. Then we’re hitting the mansion tomorrow morning.”
“Are you in some sort of hurry?”
“Aren’t you?” Caldera stuck out her hand. “Deal?”
I took it. “Deal.”
We shook hands, and I felt the tension in the shop go away. “How do you know about these guys?” Luna asked.
“Ways and means,” Caldera said. She leant back against the wall and glanced at me. “Ready?”
I got a notebook and a pencil. “The guys you’re talking about are an adept vigilante group,” Caldera said. “They got going about a month ago and they’re calling themselves the Nightstalkers.”
I looked up from the page, eyebrows raised. “The Nightstalkers?”
“You listening or not?”
I started writing and Caldera went on. “The leader is named William Traviss and he’s eighteen years old,” she said. “Time adept who can use haste. British-born, moved to the States when he was nine following the death of his parents. Only other family was an older sister, and she disappeared soon after. He grew up in the United States and picked up a police record to go with it, juvie stuff mostly. At some point—we don’t know when—he started recruiting other adepts. His line was that adepts needed to stand up and protect themselves—we’re being oppressed by the evil magocracy, band together and throw off your shackles, that kind of thing. Once he’d gotten a core group together, he moved back here and they started operations.”
“What kind of operations?”
“Small stuff to start. Recruitment, throwing their weight around. Then they started messing with Dark mages, targeting their operations, mostly with a view to rescuing people. Their big splash was Bristol. A Dark mage named Locus was running a major slaving nexus out of the inner city, buying and selling sensitives and adepts. The Nightstalkers took him on and actually won. Didn’t kill him, but they messed him up pretty badly, and when he ran they broke all the slaves loose. They got a lot of converts from that.”
I closed my eyes briefly and looked away. And the lessons they’ll have taken away from that are that all Dark mages are evil, and that violence works. Great. “And since then?”
“Word is they’re looking for Richard.”
“You guys planning to do anything about all this?” Variam said.
“Like what?” Caldera said. “Get between Dark mages and a bunch of militant adepts?”
“Thought you were supposed to keep the peace?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Dark mages aren’t exactly popular,” Caldera said. “Doesn’t matter if there’s a truce; no one’s that motivated to get in the way.”
Variam looked away in disgust. “Look, I’m not saying I like it,” Caldera said. “But the Keepers do what the Council says. And as long as these adepts stick to going after Dark mages the Council couldn’t give a shit. Some of them are probably cheering them on.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I said. “Come on, Vari. It’s not like this is anything new.”
“Who are the others?” Luna asked.
“Second-in-command to William is Dhruv Chaudhury,” Caldera said. “He and William go back a way. He’s supposed to be the brains of the group, comes up with the ideas. Magnetism adept, can create magnetic monopoles. Next up is Kyle Summers. Supposed to be a space magic user—not a gater—but other than that we don’t have much on him. Seems to have some military background, though he’s not much older than the others.”
“I guess that’s Captain America,” I said to myself. “What about a life-drinker? Same age as Will, South American looks?”
“Oh yes,” Caldera said. “Jaime Cordeiro, otherwise known as Ja-Ja. We’re very interested in Mr. Cordeiro. The Brazilian police were investigating him for murder, but he got out of the country before any charges were laid. Met William in the U.S. and followed him here. Suspected of life-draining, though nothing’s been proven. I’d keep your distance from him if I were you.”
“What about the fire girl?” Luna said.
Caldera shook her head. “That’s all I got. We know there are at least three others in the group, but we haven’t got details. Our guess is they’re new recruits that William picked up since arriving in the U.K. and they haven’t been around long enough to pick up a reputation. Sorry.”