"Oh," she said, conveying a world of disappointment in that one small syllable.
"Can I call you again at this number?" he asked. "1 don't think so. It's a friend's phone. I don't have one," the voice came back. "It's not easy."
"Is there somewhere I can find you if we do come over?" Serrin asked. She gave him the name and address of Indra's club and told him to ask for her there.
"Look, I'm grateful for this," he said. "Really grateful. I'd like to reward you in some '
"I don't want your money," she said angrily. "That's not why I called. I want to see you." Then the line went dead.
Serrin cupped his fingers around his nose and breathed hard into his hands. He didn't know what to make of this. Michael had joined him by now, looking ready for work once more. Serrin told him about the call, and gave him the list of names.
"She got this from some kind of pocket computer?" Michael asked.
"Sounds a bit dubious, doesn't it?" Serrin said. "People get careless. One of the kidnappers could have dropped it in the struggle. These things happen. I could probably find out a lot if I could get hold of the list. Why didn't you ask her about it?" Michael complained.
"I didn't think. Frag it, it's the middle of the night and this came out of the blue. Gimme a break," the elf grumbled.
Michael pored over the list once again, then began to thumb through the printouts from his many trawlings of the world's electronic databases. He yelped with delight when he found the first match.
"Hey! Got one. Two, with Shakala. This one's from Banska Bystrica."
"Where the frag "
"Slovakia. Don't even ask me to pronounce his name, because I can't. We'll start digging with him. She's got something. She must have seen the people who tried to get you. Did you ask her about Scarface?"
The elf looked guilty.
"Oh, term, you are one dozy dweeb," Michael growled. "Call her back."
"I can't," Serrin explained.
"Great," Michael said. "You don't find out anything that really matters and we can't get back to our mystery girl. Just brilliant."
"I got the names," Serrin countered.
Michael rubbed his face. It wasn't quite early enough for a shave, but late enough to feel just a little uncomfortable without one. "Okay. Sorry. It's just that if I
"I know. But we can't all be bloody perfect," Serrin said, annoyed with the man. "Especially two minutes after waking up."
Michael's expression changed. "I'm sorry, Serrin. You're absolutely right. My humble apologies. Do we have any way of contacting her?"
"An address," Serrin offered.
"Then either we send someone or we go there ourselves," Michael said. "You've been to Azania before, haven't you? So Geraint's bio said."
"I spent three months in Joburg when I was nine years old because my parents were working there," Serrin told him. "I can't remember much about it except that it was as thoroughly unpleasant as any big UCAS city."
"And nothing like Cape Town. Or Umfolozi, for that matter. Oh well. But what about Tom? Would he go?" Michael's tone of voice changed a little. Serrin didn't think the Englishman regarded the troll as anything but an accessory.
"We can only ask," Serrin replied. "Let's sleep on it and decide in the morning."
"After I've done some more homework," Michael grinned. "Lots of lovely databases to rifle." He prepared
to jack in, rubbing his hands at the prospect. "Come to me, my little data packets, I'm not going to hurt you."
"Just don't get brain fried," Serrin said lightly, though it was no jest.
"Zero sweat. If I get into anything unpleasant, I'll call," Michael assured him. As the Englishman tuned into the chatter and imagery of the matrix, Serrin returned to his dreamless sleep. In the corner, Tom snored on.
While Serrin was dropping into sleep again on one side of the Atlantic, another elf gazed out at the gray eastern waters of the same ocean on a beautiful morning. The long grass, the slate rocks and hard stone, the trees struggling to survive the whipping winds, glowed with life under the brilliant sun on such a day. He lay back to luxuriate in it.
He could not risk putting any watcher spirits close to the mage even though he wanted to know if Serrin had been actively pursuing the people who'd tried to kidnap him. He had other priorities. The mage's flight to New York, and the company he was keeping, said that he intended to do something. Niall guessed that he'd found the right pawn after all. Having Mathanas leave the message had been crude, but perhaps effective.
What he did learn from his watchers was that Luther was not pursuing his quarry any further. He'd done the same thing in Azania. Once things got botched, he simply disposed of his own pawns. Niall didn't know exactly how Luther was selecting his victims, but he could make an educated guess. Protecting the next in line wasn't something he could concern himself with, painful though it was to think of what would happen to them. Luther's hunger had grown to extreme levels, and that was simply unknown for one of his kind. It meant he was almost burning up with the intensity of what he was doing.
It was the thought of what Luther was doing that suddenly made Niall shiver even on such a warm and magnificent morning as this that, and the fact that if he revealed his interest by making any overt moves he'd be destroyed out of hand by his own flesh and blood. Almost all his magical energies, and those of his allies, were directed at keeping him hidden. To turn against the will of the Danaan-mor, the real power in the land of Tir na n6g, was heresy, treason, a betrayal of infinite and eternal proportions. It just happened to be the only right thing to do.
12
The sound of a troll lumbering around the bathroom woke Serrin just after eight. Tom wasn't the quietest being on the planet. His gargling could easily have been taken for a major plumbing disaster.
Michael was knee-deep in paper by the time Serrin had finished the coffee-making ritual. The Englishman was almost oblivious to his presence until he sniffed liquid breakfast. Seeming almost to snap back into the real world, he looked around him with some distaste.
"That's the problem with three males in an apartment," he observed. "Men get so damn untidy."
Serrin decided to ignore that in favor of more important matters. "How's it going?" he asked. Tom had joined them now, bearing the remains of the fridge's contents in various assortments on plates. The waffles looked unappetizing despite the last of the preserves the troll had heaped on them. He munched cheerfully on several as Michael ran down what his long night's work had yielded.
"Well, the girl's list has names that I didn't have, and not just the bugger who got snatched in Cape Town. That's not so surprising because obviously I can't search the entire damned globe. What is crucial are the three names that I did find. Two of them were kidnappings, in Slovakia and Greece. Both elven mages, no corporate ties. No data on the kidnappers, no witnesses of any value, both vanished without trace. The third is Shakala, and he's still alive. Reason one for going to Azania: he's the best first-hand witness we're going to get.
"Now it gets more difficult," the Englishman sighed. Leaning back a little, he fiddled with his blue silk tie. "Of
the names I didn't have, I learned that one was an elf mage from Finland and the other two human mages, one from Vienna and one from Munich. So if these people are linked, they're not linked by being elves. The link, so far, seems to be that they're all mages. Right?"
Serrin and Tom nodded. So far, so good.
"But the other two; they're a problem. Both German. One from Dresden, one from Koblenz."
"Our kidnapper likes Germany, it seems," Serrin observed drily.
"Yes, but neither of them has been kidnapped."