“What day is it?” the woman standing over me asked.
“Saturday,” I said. I was sitting in the open boot of a car. A mobile command centre had arrived, Keepers and other Council personnel were bustling around, and it all looked very official.
“What’s the nearest tube station?”
“Uxbridge.”
“How old are you?”
“You don’t know how old I am, so I could answer that question any way I liked, so long as I didn’t lie too blatantly. I get it, you’re checking to see if I have a concussion. How about if I tell you how old you are, will that prove I can think straight?”
She didn’t take me up on the offer. “How are you feeling?”
“Beaten up, but I’ve had worse.”
“Nausea, headaches, problems with your balance?”
“Not yet, but shining that light in my eyes isn’t helping.”
The woman clicked the light off. “Make sure you see a doctor before you go home.”
The rush from the battle had worn off, and I was utterly exhausted. My arms and legs were heavy, and I could feel all the bruises and scrapes I’d taken fighting the icecats. All I wanted to do was sit there. “Sure.”
The woman left. I looked down, examining the forearm of my armour. Both of the icecats had raked my arms and I could see light score marks on the mesh, but the claws hadn’t penetrated to the skin. My armour had probably saved my life. The icecats might not have been able to kill me on their own, but if I’d been carrying those wounds when I went up against the golem, it would have slowed me down enough to make the difference.
I felt a presence to my left. “Looks like you got off easy.”
I looked up. It was a man, medium height and heavyset. The flickering blue light showed brown hair and a sour expression. A Keeper, one I’d met before . . . What was his name? Oh yeah, Slate. The one who’d goaded Caldera into that fight with me at Red’s a couple of nights ago. Just what I need.
“So the kid’s gone,” Slate said when I didn’t respond. “Only witness, from our case, and you lost him. Fucked it up right and proper, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s not as if Caldera called you guys for backup as soon as we found out who the kid really was.” I was tired, bruised, still working through the aftereffects of an adrenaline rush, and not in the mood to be diplomatic. “Oh wait, she did. You know what? Maybe if you’d pulled your finger out of your fat arse and come to help, your witness’d still be here.”
I’d expected Slate to lose his temper, but he just looked at me with a twist of his mouth, as though I were something a dog had produced from its rear end. “Don’t see any blood.”
“And?”
“Kid got taken,” Slate said. “Caldera got hurt. You look like you got off pretty okay.” He studied me. “So what were you doing while Caldera was dealing with the golem?”
“Busy.”
“With what?”
“With one of the icecats.”
“That’s convenient.”
I didn’t answer. “How about you run through that fight for me,” Slate said.
“How about I don’t?”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Well, that’s great, because I’m not answering, so I guess we’re all happy, aren’t we?”
“You think you’re pretty special, don’t you?” Slate said. “Rules don’t apply to you, right?”
I just stared him. “Don’t think that card you’ve got makes you a Keeper,” Slate said. “You’re not even an auxiliary. I could arrest you and take you down to the station right now and no one’d look twice.” He leant in close, eyes staring into mine. “What happened in that house?”
I looked up at Slate. I could have looked down on him if I stood up, but I didn’t. “Let’s get something straight,” I said. “Taking crap from Caldera is one thing. But I’m not going to fold to every Council mage who strolls up. You want to be my supervisor, you can go ahead and fight Caldera over it. But you might want to bear in mind that the last time you tried duelling her she kicked your balls up your arsehole, so if I were you I’d think twice before going back for a rematch.”
I saw Slate flush. That one had finally managed to piss him off. “You can—” he began, then stopped as a hand fell on his shoulder.
Slate turned. Haken was standing there. “Captain wants you,” Haken said. He was watching Slate steadily.
Slate narrowed his eyes. I saw futures of him choosing to stand and argue; they flickered and disappeared. He gave me an ugly look and left.
Haken watched Slate go. “I know he’s an arsehole,” Haken said once Slate was out of earshot, “but you don’t need to pick a fight.”
“He picked the fight. I just fought back.”
“Slate’s . . . he’s got some history with Dark mages. I know how he acts, but he’s got his reasons.”
“And I just nearly got my head hacked off trying to keep Caldera and your witness alive.” I felt bitter, and the fatigue was making it worse. “I can deal with taking shit from Keepers when I deserve it. But taking shit from you guys when I’m risking my life to help you is pretty hard.”
Haken sighed. “World doesn’t always work the way we want it to, Verus.” Haken was maybe in his midthirties, but all of a sudden, in the flashing police lights, he looked much older and very tired. “Just have to live with it.”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
“They’ve run the maker’s marks on that golem,” Haken said. “It’s part of a set of three that were reported stolen a few years ago. We didn’t know White Rose had got them till now.”
“You think they were the ones behind it?”
Haken looked surprised. “Who else would it have been?”
I shrugged.
“That kid was from there, right? And he was meeting Rayfield?”
I remembered that last glimpse I’d had of Leo, shooting a terrified glance back at me before disappearing out into the street. I wondered if any of us were ever going to see him again.
Haken took my silence as agreement. “I know we don’t have enough for a warrant yet, but we’re going to be going for one tomorrow. Could use you, if you can make it. Caldera’ll probably still be out.”
“I’ll check with her. Do you know what happened?”
“About . . . ?”
“Caldera called for backup,” I said. “Before the fight started. More than long enough for other Keepers to gate.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Haken frowned. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Her communicator went dead during the fight.” I turned my head to look up at Haken. “Thought those things were supposed to be fail-safe?”
“That’s what they told me too. Best guess, it was a glitch. I know these things are supposed to be good, but they’re still new tech. We’ve had trouble with them before.”
“Pretty crappy reason to get killed.”
“Yeah, I’m not arguing. Look, I’ll see if I can track down whatever the problem was, okay? I’m guessing someone screwed up, but at least we can stop it happening again.”
“Thanks.”
Haken turned to leave. “Oh,” I said. “Haken?”
“Yeah?”
“When Caldera made that call, did she talk to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Caldera told me a couple of weeks ago that you were her primary contact for cross-case work.” I kept my voice casual, but I didn’t take my eyes off Haken. “Aren’t messages like that supposed to go through you?”
“Usually, yeah, but I was out on the Rayfield case. Would have done if it hadn’t been for everything else, but I didn’t get the call.”
I nodded. Haken walked away.
Chatter and voices washed around me from the police and the Council personnel. The people at the police tape and the windows were still there, taking photos and watching. From inside the house, I felt a gate spell. I couldn’t see through the screens, but I knew they were transporting the remains of the golem away.