Cursed

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.”

“We were just going to talk to her. To see if she knew about the monkey’s paw.”

“She said she was leaving.”

“But that wasn’t going to be for a few days, right? If I asked her …”

I sighed inwardly. Luna’s one of the very few people whom Arachne’s willing to let inside her lair. It was possible; I just didn’t like the idea of Martin being there. “Have you seen anything unusual?”

A loud rustling drowned out my words. I heard someone talking and recognised Martin’s voice. “Just a minute,” Luna called back to him, then spoke into the receiver again. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Forget it,” I said. “Just drop by first chance you get, okay? I need to talk to you. Privately.”

“Okay,” Luna said. “Um, I don’t know when Martin and I’ll be done. I’ll call you afterwards?”

I was really sick of hearing about Martin. “Sure.” I heard Martin say something else as Luna cut the connection. I dropped my phone back into my pocket.

I’d been indoors all day. I locked up the shop and started walking. Maybe some exercise would help me