least until he uses magic.'
'What does he smell like after that?' Sara asked.
'Power,' Tommy said. 'And death.'
'Well, that wasn't utterly depressing,' I said, trying to lighten the rapidly dampening mood.
'She did ask,' Tommy pointed out, before removing something from his pocket and passing it to me.
I turned the small radio and microphone over in my hands. 'I'm not going on a mob bust.'
'It's that or you wear one of those ridiculous Bluetooth headsets, which are about as secure as yelling really loud. I need to stay in contact with you, just in case he comes home early.'
I placed the radio in my pocket, clipped the microphone to my top and pressed the ear piece home. 'I assume you've done some recon work to know where he might be at ten in the morning.'
'Of course. Neil leaves his building a little after nine am, and comes back at three pm. He then leaves again at six pm and comes back sometime in the morning between one and three. Twice he's arrived back with a young woman, who then leaves a few hours before Neil surfaces. According to the notes, the young women were of… questionable virtue.'
'They're hookers, is what you're getting at, yes?' Sara asked, which made me laugh.
'I'm surrounded by uncouth ruffians.'
'And apparently you live in the nineteenth century,' I said. 'I'm going to go break into his house before you call me a ragamuffin or something equally hurtful.'
Even Tommy had to laugh, but it was cut short by a serious expression. 'Nate, be careful. This guy is a nutcase. If he sees you in there, he'll attack you.'
I forced a grin. 'Isn't that why you brought me along in the first place?'
I walked off before Tommy could argue. We both knew that I was going into the house not only because he was concerned about killing Neil before we'd had the chance to talk to him, but because he knew that I could take care of myself better than anyone who worked for him. Over the centuries, Tommy and I had been caught in enough life and death situations to know that we could rely on one another to perform under pressure.
I entered the four-digit code and pushed open the front door. Warm air from the foyer beyond washed over me like a summer breeze. A single guard sat behind a desk opposite the buildings staircase. He couldn't have appeared less interested in being there if he'd been sleeping. That lack of interest changed the second he saw me, though. He straightened up and pushed the newspaper he'd been reading to one side.
'Can I help you, sir?' he asked.
'You're a bloody idiot,' I whispered into the mic. 'There's a damn guard.'
'Sir?' the guard repeated.
'Oh sorry, jet lag tends to make me a little all over the place,' I said with a smile and reached out my hand. 'Nathan Garrett, I work for Neil Hatchell.'
' Mister Hatchell is not here at the moment.'
The distaste in his voice when he uttered Neil's name was clear, maybe he didn't approve of prostitutes being brought back to the upmarket building where he worked. Or maybe Neil was just a dick. I figured it was a little of both, and it meant that I could change tactics. 'Okay, you seem like a nice guy…'
'Roger.'
'Well, Roger, I don't actually work for Mister Hatchell, and I know he's not in.'
'Then you should leave.'
'Probably, but you see Mister Hatchell was recently let out of jail. Did you know that? He served time for rape?'
The fact that Roger had turned the colour of magnolia told me he didn't.
'I work for certain people who want to make sure he's behaving himself, sticking to the straight and narrow, if you will.'
'You're his probation officer?'
'Exactly,' I said. 'My job is to keep tabs on him. He came into a lot of money when he was released, and we're not entirely convinced that he got it via legal means. I'm here to check that out.'
'I still don't think I should let you-'
'Roger,' I interrupted. 'Do you know what your employers would say if they found out that the penthouse suite was occupied by a rapist, a former prison inmate and someone who could be committing crimes as we speak? What do you think will happen to the property values of the other occupants? I don't think they'll be very happy. Now, if we do it my way and he's done something wrong, it all gets sorted quietly. But if not, then the press will get involved and the police will want to interview everyone in the building. It'll be a mess. Is that something you want to deal with?'
Roger shook his head.
'Good man, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going upstairs to look around and check that things are okay, and you're going to go back to reading your paper.' I slipped a fifty pound note onto the desk. 'Something to say thank you. There's some more in it for you when I come back down, if you forget I ever existed.'
'Deal,' Roger said instantly.
I pushed the button for the lift and waited a few seconds for the number above it to drop down to GF and the doors to open. 'Good man,' I said to Roger again, and pressed the button for the penthouse.
'Apparently they didn't go inside the building to look around,' Tommy said inside my ear.
'Well maybe next time you should send people who will do a better job.'
'It was their first assignment; sit in the car and watch. I'm sorry; I'll speak to them when we get back to the office.'
Any anger drained out of me. 'Okay, don't go overboard though. My first ever assignment didn't exactly go to plan, either.'
'Weren't you about thirteen?'
'Twelve,' I corrected. 'Even so, it wasn't the sparkling success that Merlin had been after. Anyway, we have another issue.'
'Which is?'
'The lock on this door is a bastard of a thing. You sure I can't just kick the damn door in half?'
'Not exactly a stealthy option is it?'
I mumbled something under my breath and placed my palm against the door's lock. White glyphs cascaded from my fingers, across the back of my hands and down over my wrists and forearms, vanishing beneath the sleeve of my hoodie where they would continue up my arms and across my chest and back.
Magic is a complicated beast. For the most part, you think about what you want to do and, if you're powerful and experienced enough, the magic will form on those thoughts. Magic wants to be used, to flow freely from the sorcerer, no matter how dangerous that might be. In contrast, the actual control of magic is very difficult. Even the smaller uses of magic, like lighting a candle, require precise movements and power, so that you’re not left with a big puddle of wax and a lot of fires to put out.
It’s why a young sorcerer is so dangerous, they don’t have the control needed to temper their magic and have, on occasion, caused devastation when their power has exceeded their ability.
Using air magic to fill the inside of a lock in the exact same way as a key was both time consuming and tiring. When the magic touched the inside of the mechanism, I felt it as if I were using my own finger. It's a matter of remembering where each part was so that I could construct the key and turn it. One wrong move and I’d had to start from scratch, and it's not something that I could do in a hurry. The more complex the lock, the more of a pain in the ass it is to use magic to open it.
The lock on the penthouse was one of the more secure locks that I'd ever had to pick. The main problem was that you had to turn the key once to make it click, move the key back to its original position and then do it again, but this time the click came further away. It took me ten minutes to get the lock open. I certainly would have been happier kicking the door in.
The second the door closed behind me, a continuous beep sounded from an alarm panel on the wall next to me. I inputted the six digits and the beeping ended. That had been my major worry. What if Neil had changed the code and not told anyone? Turns out, I needn't have been concerned.
'I'm in,' I said, and started looking around the spacious flat.
'You see anything suspicious?'
