The Relic Guild (20 page)

It was more than she could fathom. With a daunting, sinking feeling, Marney suddenly wondered if the Timewatcher was watching now, staring out of this vast cloud to see an insignificant empath looking back at Her.

Again, Amilee’s lips came close to Marney’s ear. When she spoke, her voice was filled with such love and kindness that Marney found it hard to bear, so she closed her eyes to the Higher Thaumaturgic Cluster.

‘Never underestimate the gratitude and respect that we Thaumaturgists hold for the Relic Guild, for your part in keeping the denizens safe. And have faith, always, that the Timewatcher most assuredly knows your name, Marney.’

She felt as though the Skywatcher had let go of her. She imagined floating away into space, curled into the foetal position. In actuality, Lady Amilee’s embrace had tightened around her, and Marney’s eyes squeezed shut even harder, spilling tears onto her cheeks as she wept deeply, unashamedly.

‘To feel overwhelmed is no sin,’ Amilee soothed, ‘but I think, for now, you have seen enough.’

Marney’s sobbing continued for some time. When it finally abated, she realised that she was no longer clinging to the Skywatcher, but kneeling upon solid ground, and her forehead was pressed against something smooth and cool. She opened her eyes to the soft glow of purple mist drifting beneath a glass floor. After another moment, Marney looked up; the circular, metallic grey wall of the domed observatory surrounded her once again.

Lady Amilee was nowhere to be seen. Had she just disappeared, or had she remained in the strange and far realms of space? But there was a man standing in the observatory, before the open doors to the elevator; an old and kindly gentleman in a rumpled suit, crushing a hat in his hands.

Denton smiled at Marney, sending her pulses of comforting emotions, but he seemed hesitant to move towards her, as though it was important for his protégé to make the first move.

Tears filled Marney’s eyes again as she got to her feet.

Denton
, she thought to him.
I saw … I saw …

I know
, Denton replied.
Something wonderful.

Marney moved forward, half-stumbling, half-running to the sanctuary of her mentor’s outstretched arms. He came to meet her, and his arms were as engulfing as his empathic embrace.

Invisible, the four agents of the Relic Guild made their way up to the topmost level of the Anger Pitt. Van Bam brought up the rear; ahead of him, his comrades appeared as faint green skeletons of illusionist magic. Bryant led the way. Behind him, Macy guided Samuel by the hand. Silently, the group entered a spiralling stairwell and began climbing the bare wood steps to Mr Pittman’s private apartment.

Van Bam’s thoughts turned to Marney.

Some things were too personal to share, even between lovers. The agents of the Relic Guild never talked about the details of their personal meetings with Lady Amilee. Only once had Denton alluded to it with Van Bam; he had said, for most, what was learnt at the Tower of the Skywatcher was a perception-altering experience, the moment when an agent finally understood the difference between promising to uphold a duty and believing in it. However, on very rare occasions an agent had found the experience too profound, too heavy for their minds to accept, and had fled from the duties, crushed by the staggering responsibility. Denton wouldn’t say if he had known an agent who reacted adversely to what Lady Amilee had revealed to them, or what happened to them after, but Van Bam had to wonder how the experience would affect Marney … and their relationship.

He didn’t realise that Bryant had brought the group to a halt until he almost walked into the back of Samuel. Up ahead, the stairs ended at a small landing and a set of closed double doors. Beside the doors, a thick-set man sat guard in a chair, reading a newspaper. The jacket of his crumpled suit was open, revealing the handgun holstered to the side of his meaty body, the power stone inactive and as clear as crystal. He seemed engrossed in the article he was reading.

Bryant’s faint, green skeleton crept up the remaining stairs. A step creaked, but the guard didn’t look up from his newspaper, and Bryant didn’t pause until he stood directly in front of him. With two quick movements, the green skeleton first snatched the newspaper away, and then grabbed the man around the throat.

A shout of surprise was choked off by strong fingers as Bryant hoisted his heavy frame into the air with ease. Thick legs kicked and struggled but dangled limply as soon as the head met the ceiling with a dull crack. Bryant carefully lowered the guard back into the chair where he slumped, unconscious.

Bryant checked what lay behind the doors. He then whispered to the group that it was safe to continue after him.

Van Bam heard voices as the agents followed a short corridor. They came from a drawing room beyond an open archway. There, twelve of Pittman’s henchmen lounged around on sofas, or sat at a long table, playing cards. Most of them looked bored. All of them were armed. There were two doors in the room, facing each other on the left and right walls. Both were closed, maybe locked. There was no way the group could sneak through the drawing room without attracting attention.

Van Bam took Samuel’s arm and held him back in the archway while the skeletal forms of Macy and Bryant stepped into the room.

As the twins, unseen and predatory, moved among the guards, the sound of an amplified voice, muffled and unintelligible, rose up through the floor from the arena below. It was followed by a dampened roar from the crowd. Clearly, the first bout of the night had been announced.

One man playing cards at the table gave a groan and bemoaned that fact that he was missing out on the entertainment and gambling. As Macy moved up behind him, his proclamation was met by a few grunts of agreement, but the henchman sitting in the next chair along slapped his arm and said, ‘Shut your moaning and make a bet. The boss said he’ll see us right when Llewellyn comes through.’

‘
If
he comes through,’ sniffed the other, throwing a few chips onto the pile on the table. He shivered. ‘You all saw the state he’s in.’

‘That’s right,’ said another, sitting on a sofa to the left of the card game. ‘Gives me the creeps just looking at him. Don’t know how the poor bastard’s still breathing, but I’ll tell you something—’

He didn’t finish the sentence. Bryant punched him unconscious, hefted his limp body into the air, and threw him onto the table. Chips scattered and the card players jumped to their feet, staring with mute shock at their crumpled companion ruining their game.

Van Bam supposed that the stunned silence might have lasted a few moments more had Macy and Bryant not continued their assault. The twins set about the remaining henchmen with brutal precision.

Shouts of alarm and panic filled the room as Macy smashed two heads together with a sickening thud, and Bryant kicked a man so hard that his body cracked plaster when it hit the wall. Pittman’s men tried to draw their weapons, but the twins swirled among them in a flurry of violence. They moved in synchronisation, as though one didn’t need to see the other to know which head to crack next, and when. They kicked and punched and threw, speedily debilitating each man in turn. They were an unstoppable force.

However, one guard had managed to draw his pistol. He had dived for cover beneath the table when the trouble began. But now he had crawled out of hiding and was backed up against the wall watching the scene with frightened eyes. The pistol, its power stone primed and glowing, shook in his hands. He seemed unsure where exactly he should be aiming as the invisible entities whirled so violently through his friends. He was young, clearly inexperienced, and looked just about ready to start shooting blindly.

Beside Van Bam, Samuel had already sensed the danger. He drew the small, snub-nosed pistol from his boot, thumbed the power stone and took aim. He pulled the trigger and released the stone’s charge. The spitting shot cracked into the young gunman’s temple. He snapped sideways to the floor in a spray of red.

Of his companions, only one remained standing. Screaming, he ran for the archway, desperate to escape the mayhem. He headed straight for Van Bam, and the illusionist braced himself. But before the henchman got too close, Macy delivered a wicked punch to his temple. By the snapping sound that followed, it was obvious his neck had broken. He was dead before he hit the floor.

The fight had lasted less than a minute. In the sudden stillness of the aftermath, Macy spoke, not even sounding out of breath. ‘Van Bam, you and Samuel go and find Llewellyn. Me and Bryant will stay here and watch your backs.’

‘You are sure?’ said Van Bam. ‘Once I leave the room, my illusion will no longer conceal you.’

‘Then you’d best be quick,’ Bryant said. His green skeleton pointed to the closed door behind the body of the young henchman Samuel had shot. ‘Van Bam, Llewellyn’s through there, in Pittman’s bedroom.’

Van Bam found the door unlocked. Samuel led the way out of the drawing room, and they left the twins and the carnage behind.

They ascended a short flight of stairs to a narrow corridor that ended at another closed door.

‘Samuel, wait,’ Van Bam whispered.

On the floor, stones had been placed at even spaces against the wall on either side of the corridor. They were the same size and shape as tin cans, and each was engraved with an identical rune symbol that glowed faint blue. The symbols faced each other across the floor, and Van Bam knew what they were, though it had been some time since he had last seen one. They were Aelfirian warning stones, made by the magic-users from a House called Web of Rock – a House that had sided with Spiral in the war. At one time, these stones had been cheap and popular security devices, readily available in Labrys Town. If the space between the rune symbols was broken then a warning signal would be sent to some kind of receiver device undoubtedly in the possession of Pittman, and he would be alerted to the intrusion.

Fortunately, although the stones were imbued with Aelfirian magic, they were simple devices, easily overcome. Once again whispering to his illusionist magic, Van Bam amplified its effects through the green glass cane. Silently, two mirrors appeared on either side of the corridor and stretched its length in front of the glowing runes. He and Samuel continued on between the mirrors and made it to the door at the other end without detection.

Samuel grabbed the handle. His skeletal form paused for a heartbeat before opening the door to Pittman’s bedroom.

Inside, a doctor in a white coat stood before a four poster bed. By the way his pen hovered over the clipboard in his hand, the opening of the door had disturbed his note-taking. He blinked through thick spectacle lenses as the door closed again, clearly confused that no one had entered the room. He gave a quick grunt as Samuel stepped up behind him and smacked the butt of his pistol neatly across the back of his head. He crumpled to Samuel’s feet and lay motionless.

‘Watch the door,’ Van Bam told his fellow agent. He then approached the bed to gaze down at the patient who lay there.

The henchmen had not exaggerated when they had spoken of the condition of Mr Pittman’s cousin.

Llewellyn’s right arm was missing from the shoulder, as was his right leg from the knee down. Both wounds had been cauterised. Bloodied bandages were wrapped around his torso. The left side of his face had been gouged; his teeth exposed through missing cheek flesh. His left eye had been ripped away, along with the socket, and parts of his skull could be seen through what remained of his hair. The pillow under his head was wet and red. If not for the slow rise and fall of his chest, no one would have supposed that Llewellyn still lived.

A number of needles had been inserted into his body and remaining limbs. A hair-thin copper wire ran from each needle to converge into the base of a small box that hung from a stand beside the bed. Like the warning stones outside, the box held a faint blue glow.

Van Bam has seen Angel use a medical device such as this before; the magic in the box would block pain, keep a patient coherent for a time, but it would not heal wounds. It was the only thing keeping Llewellyn’s otherwise dead body functioning.

It was then that Van Bam noticed Llewellyn was awake. His remaining eye was open a crack and moving from side to side.

‘Is someone there?’ he said. Although his voice wheezed, he gave no indication that he felt pain, and his awareness seemed clear and bright. The box was doing its job. ‘Carrick, is that you? Please tell me everything went as planned.’

Van Bam dropped the illusion of invisibility and he appeared standing at the foot of the bed.

‘Oh!’ Llewellyn’s eye widened slightly, and then narrowed shrewdly. ‘Well then … With magic like that, you must be the Resident’s man.’ He took a shuddering breath. It became clear that he was paralysed from the neck down. ‘That can’t be good for Carrick.’

‘Your associate is dead,’ Van Bam told him.

The man in the bed tried to laugh, but only managed a long wheeze. ‘Of course he is.’

‘Quicker, Van Bam,’ Samuel hissed from over by the door. ‘Get this over with before Pittman finds us.’

‘Oh, there’s two of you, is there?’ said Llewellyn. ‘Don’t worry about Pittman – I’m useless to him with Carrick dead.’ He gave another wheeze that might have been an attempt at a sigh. ‘I never meant to get into the treasure hunting game,’ he said. ‘I’m a good denizen, really. I fell on hard times, but I knew the risks.’

‘Llewellyn,’ Van Bam said, ‘the artefact you brought into Labrys Town contained a virus. It killed everyone involved in the sale, but could have easily spread to the streets. Is that what you and Carrick intended?’

Llewellyn made a noise that might have been a grunt of surprise. ‘Well,’ he said after a moment. ‘I suppose it’s too late to try and convince you I don’t know anything about that. But it’s the truth – it was just an old jar to me. And to Carrick, as far as I know.’

‘Tell us everything you do know, and we will help you.’

‘Oh, I doubt it.’ Llewellyn’s one eye rolled in its socket. ‘I know the Relic Guild well enough. You don’t let people like me see your faces unless you’re taking them to the Nightshade. And people like me don’t come out again, right?’