Someone screamed and suddenly the platform was chaos, people running, dodging, getting out of the way. The air mage started advancing towards me again, glass crunching under his boots. “That,” I said tightly, “was not necessary.”
The mage didn’t answer. He was still studying me from behind his glasses, and the air blade was by his side again. He’d obviously figured out that I was hurt, and he was intending to get in close to finish the job.
There. To my right, people were running onto the train at the platform. Behind me I could sense a man in an orange TFL vest staring down at the activity, and he was next to the train’s control panel. DLR trains don’t have drivers, but they do have a manual override. All of a sudden I had a plan. “You know what, screw it,” I said. “This isn’t worth dying for.” I pulled a pouch from my pocket.
The air mage paused, studying me. The pouch was the one I use for my condensers, padded to stop them from breaking. There was one left, still inside, a marble-shaped item about the same size and shape as the focus I’d found last night. I let him get a brief look at it, and then from behind me I sensed the TFL man hit the button and I moved.
The air mage’s hand came up and another spell flashed down the platform. He’d been expecting me to run for the train, but I hadn’t; I’d thrown the pouch into the train, and the shards of hardened air crossed paths with it midflight. It landed on the train floor and skidded, just as the doors closed behind it with a thump. With a whine of electrics the train started to move.
The air mage looked between me and the train. “Now what?” I said. I had to speak loudly over the rumble of wheels. “You can get me, or you can go after that focus. But you stay to finish me and that focus’ll be gone by the time you catch up.” I stepped back. “Which is it going to be?”
The air mage hesitated and I held my breath, feeling the futures swirl ahead of us. So many things could go wrong. He should have had just enough time to sense the magic from the condenser, but if he’d gotten a good enough look at that pouch before the doors cut his magesight off, he would have seen that it wasn’t the right one. Or I might have guessed wrong and it was me he was after. Or maybe—
Then the air mage gave one quick shake of his head and started running down the platform. I scrambled for cover, but he sprinted right past, matching the train’s speed and then leaping off the platform. The jump was impossibly high and graceful, arcing through the air to land with a thump on the train’s roof. I had a last glimpse of him straightening, holding his balance easily on the rocking carriage, before starting to walk towards where I’d thrown the pouch. He didn’t look back.
I watched the train pull away into the distance, running lights fading into the sea of neon. Only when I was sure that he wasn’t coming back did I sigh and relax. I was hurting in a dozen places, and now that the adrenaline was fading away, I was realising just how bad the wound in my side was. Blood had soaked through my shirt and coat, and I was starting to feel light-headed.
I looked at where the woman was lying. She wasn’t moving, and that was enough to kill any satisfaction I felt at having escaped. From a quick check I could tell that she was alive but badly hurt. I didn’t have anything that could help her, and I could hear sirens in the distance; the paramedics were on their way and the police would be too. Time to go. I turned and limped away, looking for somewhere out of sight where I could gate home.
Chapter 4
“Hold still.”
“Ow.”
“I said, hold still.”
I was back in my flat, lying on my side on the sofa. My shirt was off, and Anne was leaning over, studying me.
“You’re sure it was just hardened air?” Anne asked. “He wasn’t using something else as a missile?”
“I didn’t exactly get the chance to—”
“Don’t lift your head.”
I obeyed, putting my head back down on the sofa and talking to the floor. “Pretty sure. There isn’t . . . ?”
“There’s nothing in the wound. I just wanted to be sure.” I heard Anne sigh slightly. “You were lucky.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
It was about fifteen minutes later. I’d gated home, called Anne, and had been lucky enough to get her on the phone. She’d used a gate stone to make the journey to my flat immediately.
Other members of the magical community have mixed feelings towards life mages, viewing them rather as they would nuclear reactors. They’re good at what they do, but you don’t want to get close to one unless you’re really sure it’s safe. Given Anne’s history, very few mages would willingly allow her within arm’s reach. I never used to really get that attitude, but after last year, I think I understand it a little. I still don’t share it though. I’ve always instinctively trusted Anne, and as soon as she’d arrived, I’d felt myself relax.
“I’m serious,” Anne said. Her sleeves were rolled up but she hadn’t touched me. Anne can look at a living body and read its condition and injuries and state of health as easily as you or I can read a clock. “You were really lucky. The shard must have been almost flat—it went deep but it didn’t have much volume. That’s the only reason it didn’t hit anything vital. An inch or two up or sideways and it would have penetrated the kidney or the bowel.”
“Is that bad?”
“What do you think?” Anne said in exasperation. “There’s muscle damage, internal bleeding, and you’ve got some bacterial contamination.”
“Oh.” I paused. “Uh, can you . . . ?”
“Can I?”
“Fix it?”
“Of course.” Anne sounded surprised. “Did you think I couldn’t?”
“Okay.”
“When you were stabbed in the casino it was with a sword, and it was a stomach rupture,” Anne said. I felt her hand on my side; she was touching the skin around the wound, but it didn’t hurt. Soft green light glowed at the edge of my vision as Anne started to weave her spell. “That was hard. The thicker the blade and the more tearing it causes, the worse it is to treat—the really bad ones are the ones where the blade’s serrated or where it was twisted and pulled out. Air blades are easy. They’re nearly flat, and they’re so sharp they’re like surgical knives. Plus they just dissolve in the wound . . . Move your arm up.”
I did. “Would you have trouble with injuries like that?”
“Like what?”
“Where the blade’s serrated or twisted.”
“Well, no. But it takes longer.”
I couldn’t feel anything on my side. Anne was still using her magic, but I couldn’t tell what she was doing. “Is there anything you can’t heal?”
“Not really.” Anne’s voice was absentminded. “I always think of it like a flame. As long as there’s a spark left, you can build it up . . . There. Done.”
I looked down in surprise. The ugly gash in my side was gone. Blood was still crusted over it, but underneath the skin was clean and unbroken; I couldn’t even see where I’d been hurt. “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“I had the signals from your local nerves turned off.”
“Don’t you have to worry about a patient suddenly getting up when you do that?”
“Actually, I was controlling your movements as well.”
“Oh.”
“You just didn’t notice because you weren’t fighting it. Could you get up and move around?”
I did. I felt a little light-headed, but no more. “Looks good,” Anne said. She didn’t wait for me to tell her how it felt; she probably knew better than I did. “Oh, and you had some bruises and sprains, so I fixed those too. Some were from today and a couple looked like you did them yesterday evening. You didn’t get attacked twice, did you?”