‘Not that old.’ I sighed: Cinder was looking at me inquiringly and I knew I was going to have to share. ‘I ran across him about three years ago. There was a girl I knew, an adept, new to the country. She’d let Pyre take her out a couple of times, and was just starting to figure out that that had been a mistake. I did some looking into it, found out that other girls who did that and then tried to break things off afterwards tended to disappear. Enough of them that it was a pattern. Tried to get the Council interested, but it was the usual story. No breach of the Concord.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Managed to help her,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t help the others.’
‘Others?’
‘A lot of others,’ I said shortly. It had been one of my more bittersweet memories. The girl had been called Xiaofan, and I’d managed to save her, and that had been something I could be proud of. But I hadn’t been able to save Pyre’s other victims, and even at the time I’d known he was just going to keep on doing the exact same thing. I still wonder sometimes whether I was right to walk away. The thing was, if I hadn’t walked away, if I’d tried to stop him, then realistically speaking, there were only two ways it could have gone. One of us would have finished up in the ground, and I hadn’t been at all sure that I would have been the one left standing. So I took my winnings and went home, and left Pyre to carry on doing what he did. It hadn’t been my fight … but then, that’s how people like Pyre always keep getting away with it, isn’t it? The ones who can stop them won’t, and the ones who want to stop them can’t.
‘Mm,’ Kyle said. ‘Well, I guess it’s comforting to know that he’s a complete arsehole to everyone.’
‘Which brings me back to my question of why you,’ I pointed out. ‘I mean, no offence, but I’m pretty sure neither of you are that attractive.’
‘Shows how much you know.’
Cinder gave Kyle a look.
‘Fine, fine,’ Kyle said. ‘The reason Pyre’s been chasing us all around London like some demented British version of Wile E. Coyote is because he wants something we’ve got.’
‘What’s the something?’
Cinder put down what was left of his burger and shifted position, adjusting himself so that his back was to the other people in the restaurant. Then he peeled the glove off his left hand.
I raised my eyebrows. The glove had looked bulky, but as Cinder took it off I saw that it was actually thin: the bulk had come from what it had been covering. Under the glove was a gauntlet. It looked to be made out of some kind of blue scale armour, with articulated plates covering the fingers and wrist. Dark stones were set in a line behind the first finger, and the flexible parts of the gauntlet underneath the plating seemed to be made out of black mail. That glove of Cinder’s must have carried some sort of shielding spell, because now that it was removed I could sense magic radiating. The sheer power of the aura told me what sort of item this was, even if I hadn’t recognised it. ‘Okay then,’ I said.
‘You recognise it?’ Kyle said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. The description of that gauntlet was in the file currently sitting in the drawer in my office in the War Rooms, the one that listed the imbued items stolen in the raid last year. It was called the Dragon’s Claw, and it was a powerful defensive item designed for magical combat. The Council had wanted it back quite badly, judging by the number of words that they’d underlined in its description.
‘This isn’t going in your report,’ Cinder told me.
‘Yeah, I don’t think the Council needs to know about this little detail.’ If they did, the first thing they’d do would be demand that I go after Cinder and get it back.
Cinder nodded and pulled on the glove again. I felt the magical aura wink out as the leather covered the scales. ‘So that’s why Pyre wants you guys so badly,’ I said. ‘What’s the deal, all the other Dark mages on Richard’s team got a big hefty imbued item and he’s feeling left out?’
‘He wasn’t even on the team in the first place,’ Kyle said. ‘Did some bullshit minor stuff, and now he’s claiming he was cheated. As though anyone would have taken a nut like him on any kind of serious job.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, frowning. Something wasn’t quite adding up. ‘Though I’m kind of surprised he’s got the balls to pull something like this without backup. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the guy’s dangerous, but he’s a predator through and through. He goes after easy targets.’
Kyle and Cinder looked at me.
‘Oh,’ I said, catching on. ‘He does have backup. Who’s his friend?’
Cinder swallowed the last bite of his burger. ‘Onyx.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Well, that changes things.
‘You up to date on that whole situation?’ Kyle asked.
‘I know Onyx and Richard aren’t getting on,’ I said. ‘Heard it was something to do with Onyx wanting to take Morden’s place.’
Kyle snorted. ‘Yeah, like that’s going to happen. The whole thing started right after the raid. You know how Onyx was there? Well, he was ordered specifically not to do that, because it’d implicate Morden. Drakh was pissed and when the items got parcelled out, Onyx didn’t get one. Onyx didn’t like that one bit.’
‘Mm,’ I said slowly. ‘And he made friends with Pyre since then?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sounds like he’s trying to gather his own cabal to rival Richard’s,’ I said. Two mages isn’t much of a cabal, but I suppose Onyx figured he had to start somewhere.
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Um,’ I said. That implied a few things. Cinder is connected to Rachel, and Rachel is Richard’s Chosen, so by having Pyre go after Cinder, Onyx was attacking Richard in an indirect sort of way. These sorts of proxy battles are common when mages fight – a personal confrontation is risky, so they work through agents instead. It was more subtle than I’d have expected from someone like Onyx, but maybe he was testing Richard, seeing how far he could push him. If Pyre managed to hurt or kill Cinder, and Richard did nothing, maybe Onyx would take that as a sign that he could keep going.
Of course, subtle or not, it was still stupid. Onyx is not remotely in Richard’s league, and the fact that Richard hadn’t responded to the younger mage’s provocations just meant that he had bigger fish to fry. If Onyx ever made it to the top of Richard’s priority list, he’d be splattered like a bug on a windshield.
Cinder finished off his last few fries and looked at me. ‘You haven’t said what you want.’
‘I need to go set up a meeting with Onyx,’ I said. ‘Was hoping you guys could give me an in.’
Cinder raised an eyebrow. ‘You want to talk to him?’ Kyle said. ‘Why?’
‘Can’t really go into the details, sorry.’
To those of you not familiar with Dark mages, it might seem a bit odd that I was asking Cinder were for something like this. After all, if what Kyle and Cinder were saying was true, Pyre and/or Onyx had just tried to kill them. A Light mage would look at what had just happened and conclude that the whole thing was a bust and that they should go find someone else, or approach Onyx directly.
It sounds logical, and it’s also completely wrong. The fact that Kyle and Cinder were in a state of open war with Onyx and Pyre didn’t make any difference at all. It goes back to the whole thing about lines of communication. Dark mages don’t respect Light mages, and if they get a message from one, the most likely thing they’ll do is ignore it. If they get a message from another Dark mage, particularly from one whose strength they respect, they’ll listen. If anything, the fact that Cinder had survived several attempted assassinations would make Onyx more inclined to listen.