Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) (16 page)

The world spun. A web of lines wrapped around him like a cocoon. Hot air rushed by his ears. His stomach clenched, and he closed his eyes, focusing inward, not on the chaos around him.

They popped into existence a foot off the ground. They crashed to the earth, Seb taking the brunt of the impact, Avatari not quick enough to hide it, and rolled onto his knees. Grim followed behind, but he just dropped to the ground on both feet.

‘You’ll have to show me that trick,’ Seb said.

The next thing he knew he was being hoisted off his feet and slammed against a wall, Grim’s crimson face pressing up against his nose.

‘What the he --’

‘What were you thinking?’ Grim shouted.

‘What was
I
thinking? Are you serious? You were going to kill them. All of them!’ The rage was returning now, a warm fire filling his belly.

The anger in Grim dissipated. He dropped Seb down and stepped back. Seb held his position. Weave-energy filled his limbs. His fists were balled, his muscles tensed, yearning for a release.

Grim wasn’t going to give it.

‘I had no choice,’ the mage said, turning away, his voice trailing into a mutter.

‘Had no choice?’ Seb followed him, further into the car park where they’d appeared. ‘Yeah, the gun that girl held to your head must’ve been really terrifying for you!’

‘You saw him, Seb, there was no saving him. And they’d seen too much. They would’ve been corrupted by the Weave, nothing was so certain.’

Seb caught up with him. He gripped the mage by the arm and pulled him back.

‘Who’re you to decide that?’ he said. The two were nose to nose now.

‘They cannot handle it, this
truth
. What do you think would’ve happened, eh? Would you have been there to save the girl when she became Aware? Where would you take her? And what if the sheol came, eh? Would you wait until she was possessed before you took her life?’

Seb pushed Grim. The other mage staggered back a step, disbelief in his eyes. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m tired of this, Grim! I tire of your holier than thou attitude. You pretend you’re doing them a favour, but you’re not. I know what it is. What you’re really doing.’

‘Oh really, what?’

‘Control. It’s simple. You’re afraid. All of you. You’re afraid.’

Grim scoffed. ‘Afraid? Nonsense.’

‘Touch a nerve did I?’ Seb said, the anger in full flow now. ‘You’re scared. Scared of what the newly awoken mean for your world, for your control. You thought yourselves kings, but in reality you’re just dictators. And today just proved it. You’re nothing but cowards.’

Seb’s
sense
flared as Grim struck out, palm open. Seb raised his shield but it was too late, and he slammed into a concrete pillar, the air blasted from his lungs.

‘Seb, you need to calm down.’ Grim came towards him, arms out, concern on his face.

‘I’ll give you that one,’ Seb replied, rising to his feet. Grim opened his mouth to speak, but words were blasted from him as Seb
blurred
into him. Grim soared through the air, crashing into the windscreen of a parked car. The vehicle’s indicators blinked to life as an alarm began to sound.

Grim stood up on the bonnet of the car. He shook off shards of glass from his clothes. Thin red cuts covered his arms where glass had cut flesh. ‘You just made a grave mistake.’

The Weave crackled as Grim channelled. Seb did likewise, Avatari flooding his muscles, his perception reaching preternatural levels. Grim held out his arm, palm open. There was a flash of purple lightning as his staff materialised in his grasp.

‘Slightly unfair,’ Seb said, flexing the knots out of his neck as he advanced forwards. ‘But if it’s what you need to even the odds, then I’ll let you have it.’

Grim’s eyes filled with fire. ‘Insolent bastard!’

The mage
blurred
from the vehicle. Seb sidestepped, anticipating the move, Grim’s anger preventing any kind of feint. The staff
whooshed
over Seb’s head as he ducked low.

‘You’re fast, but clumsy. Your anger betrays you,’ Seb said, trying but failing to hide the smile on his face.

Grim was on him in an instant. The attacks came high and low, the staff a blur at normal levels of perception, and only just visible to Seb’s enhanced senses. He ducked and dodged, the weapon missing him by inches as Grim came ever closer. At one point the staff came too close, and Seb was forced to deflect it with the palm of his hand, the impact slapping onto bare skin and sending a burst of pain up his arm.

Careful,
he told himself, thinking over the many lessons that Enzo had taught him.
He channelled Sentio, calming the energy that threatened to burst from his veins. Grim came on regardless, anger fuelling his efforts. Seb was equal to it, dodging and parrying as he
sensed
his opponent’s intentions before he committed them to action.

His calm was rewarded a second later. He faked a stumble, and Grim, consumed by rage, took the staff in both hands and raised it up above his head, ready for a skull-splitting strike.

Now!

Seb threw everything he had into the attack, driving both fists, strengthened by Avatari, straight into the exposed mage’s solar plexus. The staff clattered to the ground as Grim flew backwards, smashing into a wall. A spider’s web of cracks appeared behind him as he slumped to the ground. He tried to push himself up but collapsed again.

Seb picked up the discarded staff and stalked round to Grim’s side. The anger burned inside him now, and it felt good, so good. It was as if any doubts had been dispelled, any fear of making a misstep in the eyes of the magi no longer present. They were wrong. They were
weak
.

And Grim would be the first to pay the price.

Seb raised the staff above his head. Grim looked up at him, one eye was already red and swollen, the other simply stared up, the same anger there that filled Seb now.

Do it
.

It seemed so easy. So simple. He tensed his grip and focused on Grim’s forehead. It would be quick. The mage wouldn’t feel a thing.

What am I doing?

The voice, a whisper in volume, boomed inside the inferno that was his rage.

It wasn’t a stranger’s voice, like the thing in the tower that had spoken to him before.

It was him. A stronger, more powerful, disbelieving him.

This is just fear, he told himself. All great deeds begin with an act such as this. There would have to be sacrifices if he was to erase the magi from this shard. They only brought it down. They could be kings, but they were too weak. Far too weak.

What the hell am I doing?

It came again, louder this time. The inferno seemed to decrease in intensity.

‘What’s the matter? You lost the stomach for it?’ Grim stared at him still, the other mage’s anger not dissipating one iota. There was no doubt that if the situation had been reversed that this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

‘No, this is wrong.’ The staff clattered to the ground as he took a step back. ‘What are we doing?’

Grim staggered to his feet. He called a subtle pattern and the staff reappeared in his hands.

‘Big mistake, mageling,’ he spun the staff around, the wounds on his face already healing. ‘You won’t get to make it again.’

‘Grim, something’s wrong. This isn’t right. Look at us. This isn’t what we’re about.’

‘Tell that to the Void!’

Seb braced for the inevitable attack, but at that moment various doors leading into the car park burst open at once. Bright lights shone on them, blinding him. Someone began to shout.

‘Police!’

‘Grim!’

The other mage glared at him. There was a crackle in the air as Grim tried to channel. Seb felt his own powers diminish into almost nothing as the room flooded with the Unaware, the pressure of reality smothering him like a pillow.

Something clattered on the ground nearby. A small object.  Metallic. It pinged off a car not six feet from where he stood.

‘On your knees! Do it! Do it now!’

He hit the ground just as something exploded with a bang so loud it left his ears ringing. The world had turned white and a pain throbbed in his mind. Strong arms came from nowhere and hoisted him upright. He tried to twist out of their grasp - bad move - and the next moment he’d been slammed face first into a car bonnet, splitting his lip. A voice shouted from somewhere, something about being under arrest, but he was so disorientated he couldn’t take it in.

‘Get the hell off me!’ Grim screamed.

‘Grim, no!’

Reality screamed in Seb’s mind as Grim let rip a burst of power that pushed hard against the Consensus. He caught sight of a police officer sliding across the ground, smacking with a sick crunch against a concrete pillar. Someone raised a weapon and fired, striking Grim. The mage pulled a curious expression, but not from the projectile he’d just been struck with, but from his over-exertion with the Weave. Blood poured out of his nose and his eyes rolled up in his head as he toppled backwards into oblivion.

Seb
sensed
the police officer thirty seconds before he stopped at the door to his cell.

Young, inexperienced. Slightly nervous. He was coming to get him. Take him somewhere.

Officer Prescott stopped at the cell door. The eye-hatch slid open.

‘Stand away from the door.’

Seb took a further step from the door so that he was stood by the firm platform that served as a bed. The door unlocked and swung inward. Officer Prescott came in.

‘Seb Wilkinson?’

‘Unless I’ve been mysteriously replaced by an identical double, yes.’

‘Come with me.’

Seb kept behind Officer Prescott as he was led through the police station to a wide corridor. Three rooms stood along one side, the word “Interview” above the door. A red light was on above the first, the other two were off. Prescott showed him to the second door.

‘In.’

Without a word, Seb followed the officer’s lead and went inside. A table stood before him with two chairs on one side and one on the other. Common sense told him where to go and he sat in the single one.

‘Detective Darnton will be in to see you in a moment,’ Prescott said before leaving without another word.

Darnton? Why did that ring a bell? He searched his memory, Avatari creating a catalogue of crystal clear images to scan through. He blurred through them, scanning and discarding each scene with barely a thought.

Ah.

Detective Darnton. The one who’d interviewed him when Sarah had died, when he’d
nearly
died.

What was he doing here?

The answer to that arrived a moment later when the door opened and Detective Darnton came in. He’d added a couple of pounds since they’d last met, the weather and age had further furrowed his face, and a grey streak ran down both sides of his head, but there was no mistaking this was the same guy.

‘Seb, we meet again,’ Darnton said, taking one of the free seats opposite.

‘I’m sorry, have we met?’

Darnton raised a
really, we’re going to do this
eyebrow before smiling at him. ‘Bad memory, kid? Okay, let me refresh your memory. About two years ago I spoke to you when you barely survived an attack in Brightford. Ring any bells?’

‘It’s hazy, it was a long time ago,’ he replied. There was no point in being dumb and replying “no comment” to every question. Darnton had Seb’s file right in front of him - whatever that amounted to, anyway.

‘Of course. You remember what you told me back then?’

I remember perfectly,
he thought. Black eyes. Talons. A feeling of dread. Sarah transferring Marek’s secret bomb into his mind.

‘No, sorry, I don’t.’

Darnton proceeded to read out the incident report from that night. The night when Seb encountered Sarah. He remembered every detail with crystal clarity. It was something he’d never forget, but hearing Darnton repeat the words as told by his younger self he couldn’t help but think how much time had passed since then. He sounded so weak, so defenceless in the report. Had he changed so much? He’d encountered Clementine again, and killed him, avenging Sarah. He’d learned the Weave, and much faster than expected for someone not born
of the blood
. Yet in the end he’d only been a vessel, a walking bomb in the wrong place at the wrong time. His unwitting knowledge had caused the destruction of the Magistry and several dear friends. And to what end? What had come out of it? The Consensus was broken. People were awakening with almost daily frequency. The Families viewed it as an abomination, and all their efforts were focused on the eradication of this corruption in what they viewed as the natural hierarchy of things.

But that question came again. The one that plagued him night after night. The one that had finally cumulated in the battle between himself and Grim.

Who were they to decide? Reality wasn’t theirs to own. He remembered a question he’d asked Cian when he’d been training in Avatari:

‘So we’re all magi, really, even the Unaware?’

‘Sorry?’

‘We all have a say in it, this reality, we all contribute to what is real and what isn’t.’

‘Why, I suppose your right!’

‘Seb, you there?’

Seb shook the lingering image of Cian’s smiling face from his mind and the sadness that came with it. ‘Sorry?’

‘I was just seeing if any of this rang any bells?’ Darnton said, an edge of frustration creeping into his voice.

Seb shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago like I said.’

‘Right. So let’s skip to the present, shall we?’

Darnton opened the other folder. Seb glanced down at the grainy photos there and his heart sank.

The images, clearly captured from some kind of CCTV camera, showed the exchange between himself and Grim in all-too-revealing detail. Grim flying through the air as he crashed into the car. Seb sliding across the floor after being struck by Grim. Underneath other images poked out, but these weren’t from the car park although no less disturbing. Was that Alex in one? Anna and Seb in another? Why was that girl there, Stephanie? The one that Anna had cleansed?

‘She rings a bell does she?’ Darnton said, sliding Stephanie’s photo from out of the folder. The detective’s mind was quick and agile, even without the Weave.

‘No, sorry.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. Who is she?’

‘She’s dead.’

Seb’s stomach felt like it was going to drop to the floor. ‘Sorry?’ he heard himself whisper.

‘Yeah, very sad. Some might say she was just another statistic. Living alone, history of drug and alcohol problems. Perhaps it was just waiting to happen.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘I was hoping you might be able to assist with that.’

‘What? How can I help?’

‘You visited her, didn’t you? A few weeks ago.’

‘No, of course not.’ His back was beginning to sweat. What could Darnton know?

The detective slid some more grainy photographs across the desk. Seb recognised them instantly. A rundown wasteland in Edinburgh. A bleak, grey block of flats. One image showed a very grainy Seb, with Anna alongside him. But even with a squint, it was impossible to say for certain it was him.

Calm down. They can’t prove anything. Stephanie wouldn’t have remembered them.

Would she?

‘Familiar?’

He couldn’t believe he would have to resort to this.

‘No comment.’

Darnton sighed. ‘Really? This is how you want to play this?’

‘No comment.’

Darnton leant across the desk, any facade of friendliness vanishing in that moment. ‘This girl jumped off the roof of that block of flats. A week earlier I’m told that someone matching your description paid her a visit. Why?’

‘No comment.’

‘I don’t believe you are an evil man, Seb, but I’m also aware that this world can twist people, make them do things they wouldn’t normally do. If you’re one of those people, then now would be the time to speak. Otherwise it will be a lot worse down the line.’

Seb felt like shit. But he had no other choice now.

‘No comment,’ he sighed.

Darnton sat back, leaving the documents in place. ‘Fine. If you want to play it like that.’ He stood up and went to the door. He opened it and beckoned Prescott back in. ‘Take Seb back to his cell.’

‘Wait, what? You can’t keep me here, surely?’

Darnton scoffed. ‘Keep you in? At a minimum I’ve got you for wilful damage of public property and assault on your friend. Worst case for you is that I link you with this girl’s death.’

‘I had nothing to do with it,’ he heard himself say.

‘You know what Seb, for some reason I’m inclined to believe you. I know bad people, Seb, I’ve seen the worst this world can produce, and I just don’t believe that you’re one of them.’ Darnton stepped back inside. ‘But - I do think you know something about this girl’s death. Whether you’re covering for this woman you’re with or something else I don’t know, but trust me, it’ll be better for you if you speak soon.’