I felt a familiar presence behind me and turned to see Caldera. She was at the door leading to the stairwell, and she was arguing with Rain. With an annoyed glance back to where Haken had vanished, I headed towards them.
“. . . not an option,” Rain was saying as I came into earshot.
“I’m fine,” Caldera said. “The doctor said I was in good shape.”
“I’ve got Dr. Cazriel’s report on my desk,” Rain said. “He prescribed a minimum of forty-eight hours before you’d be ready for light duty. Four days before any combat ops.”
“That’s bullshit. I can still—”
“The answer is no,” Rain said. “I am not going on record as sending you on a combat mission against direct medical instruction.”
“You need all the help you can get.”
“There are six Keepers on this already. We’ve got enough hitting power.”
“It’s my case,” Caldera argued. “I’ve got the background—”
“And your reports have been filed. You’re already the Keeper of record for the Pudding Mill Lane investigation. You’ll get the credit.”
“Fuck the credit! I want to be there.”
Rain gave her a steady look. “Go home, Caldera.” He glanced at me, then turned and headed through the door.
Caldera glared after him, looked like she was about to start swearing, then looked at me and visibly ground her teeth. “Bad day?” I said.
“No shit.” Caldera took a deep breath. “You’re going?”
I nodded. “I don’t know most of the team. Anything you can tell me?”
Caldera moved to one side, out of the way of a pair of men walking past. “Who’ve you got?”
“Haken, Slate, Trask, Lizbeth. Two others called Cerulean and Coatl. And a time mage auxiliary called Abeyance.”
“Yeah, I’ve worked with Abeyance,” Caldera said. “She knows what she’s doing. Slate you know. He’s an arsehole, but at least he’s not bent. Lizbeth’s a bitch, don’t turn your back on her.”
“The others?”
“Trask is Slate’s partner: he’s smarter than Slate and he’ll back him up. Coatl’s a long-timer. Not as dumb as he looks. Cerulean I don’t know, he’s a transfer from Order of the Cloak. And Haken’s Haken.”
“Cool. Who are they working for?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m guessing that at least half the team are in the pay of or onside with someone who’s not the Keepers.” I didn’t lower my voice, but I’d already checked around us to make sure that no one else was within earshot. “Do you know who’s with who?”
Caldera looked away.
“I’m just saying it’d help.”
“They work for the Keepers.” There was a definite warning note in Caldera’s voice.
“Officially.”
“Verus.” Caldera gave me a look. “This doesn’t help. Okay?”
“I’m not sure if you quite understand the difference in our respective positions.” I kept my voice calm and didn’t look away. “You’re a Keeper and a Light mage. I’m not. So given that I’m about to go off on a mission with a group of people whose collective objectives might include disposing of me, then yes, I’d say that knowing exactly who they’re working for would very much help.”
We stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Two more people passed by, skirting around us to head through the door and down the stairs. Caldera was the first one to look away, but she still didn’t answer.
“Okay,” I said. “How about a compromise? I’ll head off to work and do my job. You stay on standby. If things don’t go to plan and some of these guys turn out not to be so friendly, you can back me up.”
“I’m not cleared for active duty.”
“Thought you just said you were fine.”
Caldera gave me a narrow look. “You’re trying to get me to pull this too?”
Voices sounded from the corridor behind us. I looked back to see the Keepers coming out of the room: Haken and Lizbeth, Slate and Trask, Cerulean and Coatl, Abeyance on her own at the back. “Think it over,” I said. “Talk to you later.”
The other Keepers caught us up. I let them pass before falling in behind, leaving Caldera up on the landing as I followed the group down the stairs.
We geared up, moved out, and began gathering information. Hours passed, and afternoon became evening.
Sunset found me in Bank, right in the heart of the City. If you’re not connected to the London finance industry, then Bank is one of those districts that you pass through without stopping in, a strange place of towering walls and narrow streets, where buildings a hundred years old house newly furnished offices. There’s not much to see from the outside, just dingy stone frontings with faded nameplates. Tucked away around the corners are the sort of pubs where you pay for a drink and a burger with a twenty-pound note, filled with men in suits talking office politics and going outside to smoke. Around one of those corners was a plain black van.
I sat inside the van, eyes closed, and I path-walked. Every future began the same way, with me getting up, opening the rear doors, and heading left. From there they diverged. My future selves were meant to turn left, go right down the alley, and make their way into an unmarked door on an unmarked building about halfway down. It had been easier earlier in the afternoon, when everyone was still at work. Now the skies were going a dusky grey and the streets were filling up with bankers and stockbrokers and all the people who worked for them. The people on the streets kept disrupting my path-walking, breaking the delicate chain and forcing me to retrace my steps and start again.
I’d just made it into the building when the future thread splintered and broke for the umpteenth time. I went back, sent my future self out the doors again, saw him stop. Conversation; someone I knew. I looked to see who it was, then opened my eyes, coming out of my trance.
The van doors opened, letting in grey twilight and car exhaust. Abeyance ducked her head and stepped inside. I reached over to pull the door shut behind her.
“Hey, baby!” Coatl said with a grin. He and I were the only ones in the van’s rear compartment: the security men were in the front cabin. “How’s the view out there?”
“Dull,” Abeyance said. She glanced around. “Where’s Haken?”
“Vanished again,” I said. I’d tried to shadow Haken with my divination, but he was being careful and I’d lost him in the crowds. “Did you see Vihaela?”
Abeyance frowned. “He should be here for this.”
I didn’t answer. “No sign of her,” Abeyance said. “Any movement on your end?”
“Pretty sure they didn’t spot you.” In her dark blue business jacket and skirt, Abeyance fitted into the area perfectly. Like most passive senses, timesight doesn’t show up to magical detection.
Coatl laughed. “You think she doesn’t know we’re coming?”
Abeyance turned to him. The two of them made a strange pair: Coatl, fat, bearded, and balding, sprawled out over two seats, and Abeyance, slim and straight-backed and slightly prim, looking at Coatl with her mouth turned down in disapproval. Briefly I wondered how they saw me. Maybe to them, I seemed even weirder.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Abeyance said.
“You know what they say,” Coatl said. “Two people can keep a secret if one’s dead.” He grinned. “The Council knows, the eight of us know, the ones who briefed Rain know. Just a matter of time.”
“Presumably that’s why Rain’s ordered us to do it by tonight,” Abeyance said.
“What makes you think it’s not one of us?”
Abeyance sighed. “This is pointless.” She glanced at me. “If I stay here and don’t talk or move, can you find out when Haken’s going to be back?”
I nodded. Abeyance was as good as her word and to my surprise, Coatl didn’t do anything to disrupt the path-walk either. After a few seconds I looked up. “He should be here in five minutes.”
Five minutes and twenty seconds later, the door swung open and Haken stuck his head in, looking at Abeyance. “What’s the score?”
“No sign of Vihaela,” Abeyance said. “At least, not from the front. Plenty of traffic in and out, but as far as I can tell they’re all normals or sensitives.”