The warehouse lit up with white flashes and two deafening bangs. The wounded man continued to scream as Garrick’s voice spoke over the radio. “Move up!”

  Lights flashed again, blue flickering against red over the staccato of the gunfire. I could sense spells being thrown, full-strength battle-magic intended to cripple or kill. Voices spoke over the radio, shouting, giving orders, drowning each other out. There was a final roar and a blue flash, followed by an ominous silence.

  “Cease fire, target is down, cease fire.”

  Garrick’s voice. “Bravo, take the stairs. Alpha, secure our position.”

  “Bravo, moving up.”

  Through the walls, I felt the signature of a gate spell. “Movement!” someone called.

  “Flash the room. Go, go, go!”

  Another white flash and a bang, this one slightly muffled. More gunfire and the distant thump of something heavy. Then the gunfire stopped. The warehouse below was silent but for the distant patter of boots.

  “Clear left.”

  “Clear right. First floor clear.”

  “Ground floor clear.”

  “Bravo, report.” It was Garrick’s voice.

  “We got—” There was a burst of static. “—went in.”

  “Bravo, repeat.”

  “Negative, negative. We hit him, he fell through.”

  “Confirm status of Target Two.”

  “Evac’d. He’s gone.”

  “Target One’s breathing.”

  “Confirm that,” Garrick said. “Lock the place down. Charlie team, you’re on medic duty.”

  The radio traffic died away. The man who’d been wounded earlier started screaming less often, then went quiet. I realised I’d been holding my breath and let it out. Meredith was still tense and the two of us stayed there, watching and waiting.

  Infantry combat doesn’t end with a bang or fanfare. It draws out into a long, tense silence as the ones still holding the field search to make sure the enemy’s gone. Only as the minutes tick by and the silence stretches out does the tension ease.

  After fifteen minutes Belthas’s men began to emerge, making a sweep of the immediate area. Once they began looting the warehouse, I knew the battle was over. The vans drove into the industrial area, parking near the warehouse with their back doors opened and turned towards it, and a steady stream of men moved back and forth.

  The wounded were brought out first. I suspected it was public relations on Belthas’s part rather than genuine concern for the men but it made sense either way. Two were still walking, while the third was on a stretcher. I could see burns down his left side but he wasn’t moving.

  Next came items. I couldn’t make out any pattern in the things Belthas’s men were taking from the warehouse and I suspected they were just grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down. There were clothes, weapons, and papers. One thing in particular caught my eye: a set of spikes about the length of my hand. Light reflected off them with a flicker of purple but before I could get a close look they were stowed away.

  And finally they brought out Rachel. She was on a stretcher, pale and unconscious in the artificial light. Garrick and two other men were guarding her as the stretcher was wheeled out and lowered behind the van. Rachel’s mask had been lost somewhere in the fighting and I could almost make out her features, her hair spread out like a fan on the pillow. I stood next to Meredith, looking down through the tall windows over the industrial park, watching the men bustling around Rachel’s still form as she was lifted into the van. The doors shut behind her with a clang.

  No one else came out. Rachel had been captured but Cinder had escaped. I considered asking Belthas what had happened but decided against it. They were a lot of men with guns down there, and now that Rachel and Cinder were gone, they didn’t have any need to stay quiet. It wasn’t that I expected Belthas to have me shot just to tie off a loose end; I just didn’t see any reason to give him the opportunity. I caught a glimpse of Belthas getting into one of the vans next to Garrick and the three vans pulled out one after another. The growl of their engines grew louder as they passed our building, then softer, until they’d faded into silence.

  Meredith and I descended the building and left the industrial park by the front entrance. The security post was empty. We walked back to the station in silence.

  Only when the glow of the railway station was in front of us did I speak. “Want to get some dinner?”

  “I can’t,” Meredith said. “I need to sort out a new place to stay.”

  I hesitated. “You can use my flat if—”

  “Thanks,” Meredith said. “But I need to get some other things done as well.”

  “Okay.”

  There was the crunch of tyres on gravel and as I looked into the road I saw a taxi pulling up. The driver signalled through his window and Meredith waved at him before turning back to me. She gave me a quick hug, then pulled away. “Will you be okay getting back?”

  “Uh, sure. What about—?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thank you for everything.”

  Meredith walked quickly to the taxi and slipped inside. It pulled away and I watched the red lights disappear into the distance. It turned a corner and vanished, and I was alone.

  I took the train home. My flat was empty and I went to bed.

  chapter 7

  I woke up early next morning, heart racing and breath quick. Another nightmare. I don’t get them as often now but when I do they’re just as bad. The sounds of the London morning drifted through the window. My flat was quiet.

  There was a message on my phone from Belthas, congratulating me on the successful completion of the mission. I skimmed it and hit Close. I didn’t feel like talking to Belthas.

  The next message was from Sonder; he’d started research on the monkey’s paw but was having trouble finding all the books he needed. I closed that too and looked to see if there was anything from Meredith or Luna. There wasn’t.

  I reviewed and tested my home defences. I had breakfast, went over my stock of items, and laid out the most useful ones in case of another attack. Finally, at nine o’clock and with nothing else to do, I opened my shop.

  The morning dragged. I enjoy running my shop most of the time but nothing makes work less fun than wishing you were somewhere else. The customers annoyed me more than they should have, and I kept glancing at my phone to see if I had a message from Meredith or Luna. Finally, at noon, I gave up, shooed out the last few stragglers, and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

  I was restless. Something was bothering me and I didn’t know what.

  I didn’t want to work but pushed myself to do it anyway. Sonder’s message had included a list of books that were supposed to contain references to the monkey’s paw so I put on my coat and went out into central London to look for them. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and it wasn’t—the books Sonder had listed were obscure as hell. But finding a book in a bookshop, even an obscure book, is a lot easier than finding a person in a city.

  Two and a half hours and twelve bookstores later, I’d tracked down seven out of the nine books on Sonder’s list and decided to call it a day. I went home to my desk upstairs and pulled the first volume from its parcel. It was old and smelt of dust. A third of the way through, I found what I was looking for.

  …the First Age, where the monkey god was brought to battle by Morthalion the Destroyer. For three days and three nights they battled but the monkey god’s claws could not pierce Morthalion’s shield. Neither could Morthalion’s death magic slay the god, for being divine, its spirit could not be parted from its body by mortal means.

  Seeing this, on the fourth day Morthalion reached down and tore away a part of his own shadow, from which he formed himself a blade of darkness, slim as a leaf and sharper than the frost. Wielding it, he struck off the god’s foot, then before the two could be reunited Morthalion burnt the foot in black fire until it crumbled to ash. Again and again Morthalion struck, cutting and burning feet, legs, arms, head, and finally body. At last only one part of the god remained: a single paw.

  Morthalion could not destroy the paw and instead bound it up with a white thread, enspelling it so that all should forget the monkey god’s name, and thus his power could never be restored. But the monkey god’s spirit lived on within the paw, and survives to this day, filled with hate for the race that destroyed him.

  The passage ended. I flipped to the end, but the monkey’s paw wasn’t mentioned again. I closed the book and picked up the next.

  —of wish-granting items, little needs to be said. Their powers are generally overrated and greatly inferior to those of True Mages, who—

  I rolled my eyes and tossed the book aside. The next one, titled Encyclopaedia Arcana, was thicker and the writing denser.

  Wish magic, or desire magic, works quite differently. It magnifies the power of speech: Rather than the words being a trigger, it is the speaking of the wish itself that rewrites reality.

  Stories abound of carelessly or ambiguously worded wishes causing disaster; these legends, unfortunately, have a firm basis in fact. While wish magic will not misinterpret or “twist” a wish, neither will it take into account context or intention, and phrasing is absolutely crucial. Clear, simple sentences are best; convoluted wording often results in too weak a “lens” for the magic to focus through, and vague wishes bring totally unpredictable results. Many mages blame such results upon malicious intelligence on the part of the granting power, but this is inaccurate. Wish magic is essentially neutral. It grants only what is asked; nothing more and nothing less.

  There is a qualification, however. Most sources of wish magic have individual prohibitions against wishing for a certain outcome, a common example being the taking of a life. Should the user attempt a forbidden wish, the magic will fail to take effect or rebound upon the wisher. There is usually no way of discovering such limitations except through trial and error, making such experimentation a highly dangerous process.

  More than any other, wish magic is capable of creating extraordinarily powerful effects; however, experienced mages generally consider it more trouble than it is worth.

  Books four and five didn’t have anything new. The sixth was more interesting.

  …imbued items capable of bestowing wishes, generally referred to as “monkey’s paws” regardless of their actual form. Their magic works as an unspoken contract, granting the user between three and as many as seven wishes.

  At first, the wishes will appear to work to the user’s benefit. However, with each wish the monkey’s paw gains a greater hold over its bearer and soon it will begin to twist the wishes, subtly at first, then more forcefully. In every case, the user is made to feel that the only way to escape his problems is to use the paw again; each wish leads to greater and greater calamity, until he is destroyed.

  Although wholly evil, a monkey’s paw is bound by rules. First and foremost, the monkey’s paw cannot force a bearer to accept its contract. It can tempt or promise but the truly innocent are safe; at some level, the bearer must knowingly and willingly consent to the item’s power. The monkey’s paw must also follow the letter of a wish, if not the spirit. This has led many to believe that a clever wielder could make extended use of a monkey’s paw by wording his wishes carefully, but such success is rare.

  The final book was a slim volume that seemed handwritten rather than printed. Squinting, I realised it skipped from account to account, and I was in the middle of a paragraph before realising that it was what I was looking for. I went back to the beginning of the section and read it from start to finish.

  The monkey’s paw is one of the most ancient of all artifacts and the truth of its origin is unknown, though many have crafted lesser copies in an attempt to imitate its power.

  The monkey’s paw grants wishes with few if any limitations. Most believe that these wishes follow fixed and certain rules. This is false. The monkey’s paw is sentient and free-willed. The paw, not its bearer, chooses whether and how to grant a wish. Any bearer who believes he controls it soon learns his mistake.

  While inactive, the paw lies dormant. In these periods, the monkey’s paw will often adopt a place, or a person, to remain with. This “host” seems to enjoy limited protection from the item; perhaps the monkey’s paw prefers not to harm those who do not use its power, or perhaps it simply chooses not to bite the hand that feeds it. The reason, as with so much else concerning the item, is unknown. The monkey’s paw is not in the habit of explaining itself and rarely leaves witnesses in its wake.

  The section ended. I read it through twice more, then sat back in my chair. Something about that last one made me uneasy. A host …

  I tried to figure out some way I could put the information in the books to use but came up blank. Bound or unbound, limited or unlimited, evil or neutral: Each book told a different story, and without knowing which was true they weren’t much help. The one thing they all agreed on was that the monkey’s paw was dangerous—and I’d known that already. I walked to my window and looked out over London.

  The morning had been overcast but the clouds had vanished one by one and the sun was shining down out of a clear sky. Sunset was only a couple of hours away and the colour of the sunlight had changed to a rich yellow-gold, the chimneys and rooftops casting long shadows with the coming evening. The windows in the houses and flats were still illuminated by the sun but as dusk drew nearer I knew they would light up one by one, making squares of light in the darkness.

  I was still restless. I’d tried to shrug it off all day and it hadn’t worked, and I didn’t know why. I’d done a job for Belthas and succeeded. Okay, I didn’t know everything, but Rachel and Cinder had been stopped. I wasn’t completely happy about the way things had ended, but I hadn’t had much choice.

  Was it about Luna and the monkey’s paw? I thought about it and realised that wasn’t it. Working on the monkey’s paw wasn’t making me feel any better; the problem was somewhere else. Something was wrong.

  But what?

  It was because I didn’t understand. I’m like all diviners: I need to know things. I’d learnt bits and pieces but that wasn’t enough. I had to know how they fit together. The assassination attempts, Belthas, Rachel and Cinder, Arachne …

  Start at the beginning. Which part related to me the most?

  The assassination attempts.

  There had been four. The construct in my shop, the sniper on the Heath, Cinder burning Meredith’s flat, and the bomb-maker in the factory.

  Why did someone want me dead so badly?

  The obvious explanation was because I’d stopped that first attack on Meredith. I’d prevented Rachel and Cinder from killing her so they’d turned their attention to me. The sniper and the bomb-maker had tried to kill me, and Cinder had tried to kill both of us. I remembered that last glimpse I’d had of Cinder, staring at me as Starbreeze snatched me and Meredith out of the window.

  I frowned. Staring at me … There was something nagging at me. What was it?

  It was the method. It didn’t fit. The construct and fire had been brute-force magical attacks. The sniper and the bomb-maker had used modern technology, precise and deadly.

  And now that I thought about it, I’d never seen Rachel or Cinder use guns. Like most mages, they rely on magic for pretty much everything. If they wanted me dead, they’d either send a construct or do their own dirty work.

  But that was stretching things. It made sense that the same group would be behind all the attacks. I knew Rachel and Cinder had been trying to get me killed …

  …didn’t I?

  Again I remembered how Cinder had looked when he’d seen me in Meredith’s flat, the way he’d stopped to stare. Except …

  …if he’d been trying to kill me, why had he stopped?

  I knew how fast Cinder was. He’d had more than enough time to get off an attack. But he hadn’t.

  And the only way that made sense was if Cinder hadn’t been trying to kill me at all.

  What if Cinder hadn’t known I was there? Meredith had been Rachel’s target when she’d sent the construct. Maybe Meredith had been Cinder’s target, too. It had been Meredith’s flat; even if he’d been expecting anyone else, Cinder would have had no way of knowing it was me. Which would mean he hadn’t known I was involved at all.

  But the sniper had been targeting me, not Meredith. And the sniper had tried to kill me before I’d met Cinder at the flat …

  A nasty feeling crept up inside me. That meant Rachel and Cinder hadn’t sent the sniper—and probably not the bomb-maker, either. Someone else had done it. Which meant that someone else was still out there. And odds were, they still wanted me dead.

  But who?

  I shook my head in frustration. It didn’t make sense. I wanted to blame Belthas. He had the contacts and the resources, as well as Garrick, who I still suspected had been the one shooting at me on the Heath. But I’d been working for Belthas—in fact, I’d just won a battle for him. Why would he want me dead before I’d told him where Rachel and Cinder were hiding? And if it was someone else, like Levistus, why would they choose to strike at me now?

  I was missing something.

  I tried calling Meredith and got her voice mail. I hung up and called Luna, and this time I got through.

  Luna took a long time to answer, and when she did, her voice was blurred by the sound of wind. “Hi.”

  “Luna, it’s Alex. Are you free?”

  “What was that?” Luna said loudly.

  “Where are you?”

  There was the sound of voices and I heard the crunch of footsteps. The background noise dropped slightly. “Hi, Alex?” Luna said again. “Sorry, it’s hard to hear.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On the Heath.”

  I blinked. “Why are you on the Heath?”

  “Um … I was going to see Arachne.”

  There was something in her voice. “Is Martin with you?”

  There was a pause. Luna’s not a good liar. I closed my eyes. “Luna, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”