Nemesis (17 page)

To distract myself, I pulled out my old laptop. For once, the Internet connected. I launched the browser, idly wondering if I had access to anything confidential now I was a full-fledged Alliance member. I knew they didn’t like any information on their staff being accessible online. I didn’t have a problem with that, seeing as I’d lived in hiding all my life. No social networking for me. Or, I imagined, for people like Kay, who’d been born into instant access to information on other worlds…

“It’s true. He used magic, and almost killed me. And he got away with it because of the Walker reputation. All because I found out he’s a criminal and a raging psychopath.”

I groaned again. This was going to drive me insane. And it was really none of my business. I’d hate if anyone had probed me for every detail of my life.

Except I couldn’t sleep. I had Internet access. And before I quite knew what I was doing, I’d run a search on the name WALKER within INTER-WORLD ALLIANCE. I honestly didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before.

“Maybe because you’ve reached a new low, Ada,” I muttered to myself. But… wait, someone had set up a whole information page on the Walker family, starting with Robert Walker. Kay’s grandfather had died five years before I was born, but he was listed as one of the founders of the Alliance on Earth. Wow. I’d known the name, but it had kind of escaped me until now just how deep in the Alliance the Walkers were. They’d been involved with other worlds long before most people on Earth even knew about them.

Lawrence Walker was listed as a council member and advisor to Earth’s Alliance. Wife, Elizabeth Walker, deceased. She’d died thirteen years ago. Son, Kay… By the date of birth listed on the page, he was twenty-one, only a couple of weeks older than me. That was all. It didn’t say whether his mother had worked for the Alliance, too. I scrolled down. It was just a list of Lawrence Walker’s achievements, and half of it had been blacked-out. Probably the Alliance’s doing. Kind of creepy how someone had set this page up.

I shouldn’t be reading this. Yeah, it was there on the Internet for the world to see, but…

Well, I’d already dug myself into a hole. I scrolled further down, hit the bottom of the page. Walker family…
Currently believed to own properties across multiple universes, including Earth, though several in England were destroyed in a fire shortly after Lawrence Walker removed his tracker from the Alliance on Earth. His current location is unknown.

Destroyed in a fire? I ran another search. Just one newspaper article showed up, and it said an arsonist had destroyed several properties belonging to the Walker family, in different locations, in a single night. Apparently they’d all been uninhabited at the time. No talk of the culprit either. It screamed, “cover-up”.
He’s like a serial arsonist or something.
Was that what Kay did? Set his family’s properties on fire? It would make sense, given the little I knew of his family, and it was easy to believe the person who’d experimented on children would take off to another universe leaving his only child behind with no family or guardian. There were no other surviving Walkers, if I believed the article. I didn’t know about his mother’s family.

Maybe that was why he’d been arrested. In fact… I checked the dates. Five years ago. Same year he’d joined the Academy.

I rubbed my eyes, not sure what to think. Right now, I was glad I’d never said anything.
I’d
been a criminal up until recently, and I guessed now I understood why he’d tried so hard to persuade Ms Weston to let me go when I’d been locked in the cells.

Really, I only had
more
questions now. But I couldn’t deny the tightness in my chest had lessened slightly.

***

The last thing I expected when I arrived at work was to find Kay in Ms Weston’s office when I knocked–and a centaur. The seven-foot-tall horse-man seemed to fill half the office.

“There you are,” said Ms Weston. “Ada, I don’t believe you and Markos have met?”

“Um, no.”
I think I’d remember meeting a centaur,
I wanted to add, but didn’t. “Nice to meet you.”

“The same.” Markos inclined his head. Long dark hair framed his face, which was tanned, as was his horse-body. The human half wore a black coat similar to Kay’s Ambassador jacket.

Kay himself barely glanced in my direction. He appeared tense–not that that was particularly unusual–and his hands were bandaged, as they’d been yesterday after he came back from Valeria. I hadn’t asked what happened, but it couldn’t be serious if he was going offworld.

“Good. Well, we have ourselves a dilemma,” said Ms Weston. “A situation has arisen offworld which the Alliance is badly placed to deal with, yet if action is not taken swiftly, there is the high risk of warfare.”

My heart lurched. “I–how?”

“Aglaia’s centaur leader is dead,” said Ms Weston. “It appears to be an accident, but the centaurs are blaming the humans. The two have always been at odds, and unfortunately, humans aren’t allowed to access the centaurs’ royal grounds. Unless we find proof one way or another, a group of particularly vocal centaurs intend to directly challenge the mages.” She fixed her gaze on me. “We have been exploring the possibilities, and we’ve concluded to employ the tech team’s latest invention in order to solve this dilemma. I’m told you can operate one of these… Chameleons?”

So they are using them.

“Yeah, I can,” I said. “So–you’re going to use them to sneak into centaur territory or something?”

“Exactly,” said Ms Weston. “Kay’s idea, as it happens.”

I glanced sideways at him, annoyed to feel myself flushing.
Dammit.
I’d totally freaked the last time we’d spoken. Was I really going to let what Aric had said bother me that much? Worse, Kay was doing his job, actually achieving things, while I struggled in a quagmire of self-created problems.

“Right. Uh, I should probably warn you they only last ten minutes tops,” I said. “Low battery. You’d have to be fast.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Ms Weston. “We were hoping for a demonstration, however.” She held out the small piece of metal, just like the one I’d used to break into Central’s stores.

“Sure.” I took the device and showed them the clip on the underside. “Just clip it to your sleeve like this. You need skin contact for it to work.” I demonstrated, clipping the Chameleon into place and flicking the switch. In an instant, my body turned invisible.

Kay’s eyes widened a fraction, as did the centaur’s. Ms Weston, who I swore was never startled, just gave a slight nod.

“That’s enough.”

I released the switch, and my hand reappeared, followed by the rest of me.

“We never found a way of making batteries that would last longer than ten minutes, not on Earth. Might be different offworld, though.”

“We’ll certainly have to look into that,” said Ms Weston. “In any case, we need to act now to stop a war. If it turns out the centaur king’s death was indeed murder, then we’ll have another problem on our hands. If not, then the mages are absolved of all blame and we’ll have to take action to stop the centaurs from declaring war. This isn’t an ideal scenario either way. I’d rather not antagonise the centaurs further, but the fact is that a certain group of them blame humans and refuse to listen to reason. We need to find out how the centaur king was killed and take action accordingly, even if it ultimately alienates us from them.”

Damn. I glanced at Markos, whose face was still.

“I have good reason to take Alliance technology within my territory,” he said quietly. “If it turns out the mages aren’t responsible, then I’ll have to tell my sister that I was the one to use the tracker. I’m already outcast, there’s nothing else she can do to me. She doesn’t want a war.” He tapped one hoof on the floor. “But the boss insists I don’t antagonise my sister further unless we know for sure how our father died. Instead, the two of you get the dubious honour of risking your lives.”

“The… two of us?” Though I’d suspected from the instant I’d walked into the room.

Awkward,
I thought, as the three of us walked through the blue-lit Passage, Chameleons at the ready. I wore my guard uniform, too, and had one of Jeth’s invisible earpieces clipped to my ear, which functioned as part of a three-way communication device. Kay and Markos had the other two. Apparently, there wasn’t time to get council permission for anyone else to remove the devices from the tech office, and Kay and I were already authorised because we’d used them before. Supposedly, the Alliance wanted to limit the number of people who knew about magic-sourced technology, though by the way the tech team was gossiping about the Chameleons, every world this side of Cethrax would know about them by the end of the week. Personally, I was slightly less freaked out about the fact that our deaths would require less paperwork than letting someone else in on the plan, than the fact that the last “mission” we’d used the earpieces on was when I’d been
kidnapped.

“Death by bureaucracy,” Kay muttered as we passed by a stretch of sealed Passage doors. “I won’t ask Simon to put that on my grave.”

Markos the centaur snorted with laughter. I was less amused, though I could hardly believe I was actually going offworld. The situation must be desperate, because there was usually a crap-ton of paperwork before taking a non-Ambassador to a world as far out there as Aglaia. The door was literally miles into the Passages.

Considering what had happened last time I was in here, to say I was tense would be an understatement. Ms Weston had said if we were caught armed on centaur territory it would mean a death sentence. But we had magic, even if Ambassadors were usually forbidden to use it in front of the centaurs because they hated it. She knew what I could do. And Kay, of course. I had a sneaking suspicion that was the real reason we’d been picked for this mission.

Just the thought made my limbs shake and my lungs threaten to close up again. If we were attacked, if I freaked out like yesterday, we might die.

Not gonna happen.

“Oh, lighten up, the pair of you,” the centaur burst out, after almost half an hour of silent walking. “It’s not like we’re going to our deaths.”

“You were the one who said there’s a sixty percent chance we’re going to die,” said Kay, irritably fiddling with the back of the bandage on his right hand.

“That depends on the reliability of your technology, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s reliable,” said Kay. “I’ve no intention of getting trampled by a herd of centaurs.”

“Tell me that’s not likely to happen.”

Markos turned to me. It was kind of intimidating. Those hooves looked like they could deliver a painful kick. Let alone getting trampled under them. I suppressed a shudder.

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” said Kay. He hadn’t mentioned our conversation yesterday at all, as if it had never happened. As if I hadn’t asked him if he’d tried to murder someone. If I’d known we might die today…

“Well,” I said, talking to stop myself thinking. “We just need to get into the capital. Activate the Chameleons, go to the place the king died, and use the tracker to check for magic traces. And then get out.”

“Simple,” said Markos. “There won’t be anyone there now. It’s unguarded. Doesn’t need to be, since most centaurs are naturally respectful of royalty. That’s probably the only reason I’m still alive.”

“Why?” I asked.

Markos threw Kay an exasperated look. Kay shrugged. “You’ll have to tell her sooner or later.”

“Tell me what?”

“Markos is the heir to the centaur leadership,” said Kay. “In theory. He’s trying to get the position passed to his sister instead, but the others aren’t being very accommodating. And one of his cousins won’t let the king’s death drop. How much do you know about it, anyway?” he asked.

“Uh,” I said. “No more than what Ms Weston told me, really. It doesn’t have strong links with Earth, does it?”

“If most centaurs had their way, it’d have no links at all,” said Markos. “We’re required by law to have representatives in the Alliance since the council voted to join, but the mages don’t like to share their secrets with offworlders. And centaurs don’t like magic. That’s putting it mildly, anyway.”

“Or humans, generally,” Kay added. “Strictly speaking, we aren’t allowed on their territory at all. Even Ambassadors.”

“Why did you come to Earth, then?” I asked Markos. “I mean, you’re the only centaur at Central, right?”

“Yes,” said Markos, “and I’ll thank you not to ask nosy questions, human.”

“Sorry. Just wondered, that’s all. I used to help people from other worlds migrate to Earth and settle in. I was curious.”

“It’s true, then?” asked Markos. “Curse this political fiasco for keeping me from meeting the most interesting human I’ve ever heard of. You helped offworlders behind the Alliance’s back?”

“Yeah–well, they were from worlds the Alliance wouldn’t help, for one reason or another,” I said. “Like Enzar. There was this network set up to help them escape to worlds like Earth. I helped them through the Passages.”

“Unbelievable.” Markos shook his head. “Never, in ten years at Central, have I heard of anything so audacious. I would have said Kay was exaggerating, if the dragon lady hadn’t confirmed it.”

“Dragon lady?” I said blankly.