“You’re not making much of a case for my liking you,” I said, flexing my fingers for that familiar crackle of electricity. There was a little, running through the walls only a few feet away, and a plug quite close to her feet from which I could snatch some power, if it became necessary.
“Well, there are a few things you can consider,” she said, patting the barrel of her rifle with a gesture more motherly than threatening. “For a start, I can be immensely useful to you.”
“How?”
“I can kill anyone who gets in your way,” she explained, smiling hopefully, “so long, of course, as I deem them to be worthy of the death. And I know a very good dentist.”
“I’m thinking that perhaps you’re something of a breakaway cult.”
“Cult?”
“References to God, damnation, dentistry, Satan, mixed with a violent tendency and samurai swords.”
“We take all sorts. Those who believe are, naturally, those best equipped for our mission.”
“And what, exactly, is your mission?”
She shrugged. “Ultimately, the complete obliteration of all magic on this earth, although right now we’re dealing with priorities, and will settle for the obliteration of all actively malign and threatening magic on this earth, starting with Bakker.”
“And progressing to me?” I asked, guessing the answer.
Her eyes flashed, stayed for a second on mine; then looked away. “We’ll have to reassess our priorities when the time is right.”
“Religion has got corporate-speak?”
She smiled, just for a moment. “We find it easier to mention ‘issues’ than talk about the advancing horde of the evil masses.”
“And I’m currently not sending two hundred and forty standard mains volts into you for what reason?”
She ticked them off on her fingers. “One: you’re inquisitive. Two: I know you need allies and we” – a grin – “are
“What makes you so sure?”
“You wouldn’t have had the guts,” she replied. “The blue electric angels might have, but at the end of the day, you’re still in there being a coward. Did I miss anything?”
I shook my head, feeling small. “No,” I said. “I guess you didn’t.” With a sigh, “Where is Blackjack?”
“Is that his name?”
“It’s Dave really.”
“I see why he changed it.”
“Really? I don’t.”
“Should you ever get into the world of online fantasy gaming, Mr Swift, you will find, to your surprise, that Bob the Master of Arcane and Mystic Arts is a rare creature, and that Gary the Sacred Warrior of Eternal Might doesn’t buy so many potions of smiting when he goes shopping for his battle gear. You have no sense of style; your friend does.”
“You have him?” I asked. “And he’s not really a friend.”
“Yes.”
“Hurt him?”
“No.”
“Going to?”
“Perhaps. Do you care?”
We thought about it. I knew the answer, though I couldn’t find a reason for it. “Yes,” I sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to kill Bakker,” she said with a bright, sucrose smile. “And I’m going to be there at every step, until you do.”
“And if I do?” I asked wearily. “What then?”
She stretched, slinging the rifle casually over her shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll work something out.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why bother? What’s your reason?”
“Did you miss the mission statement?”
“I think I understand what’s going on with the Order. You’re
She shrugged.
“What about you, Oda? Why are you the one standing there with the big sword, the nasty gun and the attitude?”
She thought about it for a moment, then looked me in the eye and said, “My brother is a murderer. He kills with magic. Is that enough, or shall I tell you of the light of God and the Truth of his Word?”
I shook my head. “No thank you. I think I’ve got the picture.”
“Excellent!” she exclaimed. “So! Did you have a plan?”
The bathroom was chipped and brown, the white tiles filled in with old crumbling cement where they’d cracked, the floor warping with thin plastic sounds of distress, the sink too small, the tap too low. I washed as best I could, and in the kitchen found a small tray of ice in a freezer containing nothing else but fish fingers and suspicious tubs of home-made dripping. I wrapped the ice cubes in a tea towel stained with tabasco, sat down on the floor and tried my very best to relax.
Oda was packing a small arsenal of weapons into a sports bag, utterly uninterested in my self-pitying looks as I moved the ice around various ugly, swollen areas of bruising on my face. I hadn’t been this hurt since I was fifteen and got into a fight at school; and that had ended by my accidentally sending fifty volts into the fist of my attacker, back when I hadn’t understood why the squirrels brought me nuts in the winter, or why the local fox didn’t run away when I found it digging through the bins.
I said, “The plan’s simple.”
“Well?”
“I intend to destroy the Tower.”
“We’re with you on that one; any bigger plans?”
“There were four people Sinclair identified as important in sustaining the Tower – San Khay, Guy Lee, Harris Simmons and…”
“Dana Mikeda, yes, I know.”
“Sinclair thought that by targeting those four you could undermine the Tower itself. San Khay is… Amiltech is a wreck. They won’t be able to provide proper security any more. Now I’m on to Guy Lee.”
“One down, three to go. Sure, I get that.”
“Oda?” I bit my lip. “There’s something I need to make clear now. If the Order or you so much as touch Dana Mikeda, I will show you just how Satanically inclined I can be.”
“I thought you might say that.” She shrugged. “No promises, not that vows mean anything to you. We’ll have to see how things play.”
I grimaced and tried not to think about large quantities of electricity. “So,” she said, with a thin smile, “Let’s talk about Guy Lee.”
Sinclair’s files were thorough, but not nearly as useful as they had been for San Khay. For a start, Guy Lee was not a man of nice, predictable habit. He had no fixed address, no family, no real friends and no consistent lovers. Even his driver, shepherding him across town night after night, was changed on a frequent but unpredictable basis. Khay had offered to provide Lee with personal security; rumour went that Lee just laughed and said he was better off dealing with his own affairs. Certainly, he was a man with many minions, and his interests spread from Enfield to Croydon across the whole sweep of the city – brothels in Soho, beggars in Holborn, street cleaners in
