Cursed

I don’t often look back over my life. Between paying attention to the present and looking forwards into the future, I don’t have much time left to look over my past choices. Now I did and realised what picture they made, and it wasn’t all that reassuring.

And I was about to add a whole bunch of new names to the list. If everything went to plan, a lot of people down there were going to die. And as I thought it over, I realised I was going to go through with it. At the end of the day, given a choice between Belthas and his men on one side, and Luna and Arachne on the other, I was going to pick Luna and Arachne, and if it meant Belthas and his men dead then that was what I’d do. I knew exactly how ugly and vicious the battle was going to be and I was going to do it anyway.

I didn’t know what that said about me. Maybe later, I’d think about it. Right now all I cared about was getting the job done. “What do you want, Cinder?” I said. “You want me to back out?”

Cinder shook his head.

“Then what?”

“Del hates you,” Cinder said. “Thinks you’re weak. I reckon she’s wrong. You’re ruthless as her. Just hide it better.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“I’ll save your pets if you go down,” Cinder said. “But I don’t reckon you will. I think end of tonight, you’ll be around. And Belthas won’t.”

I looked back at Cinder, trying to figure out if that should make me feel better.

A sound from behind made me look up in time to see Sonder returning. He was shivering. He really should have taken me up when I offered to lend him a coat. “Belthas started his ritual.”

I nodded. “Time to go.”

Sonder hesitated. “I—”

I sighed. “For us, not for you. You’re not going, Sonder. This isn’t your kind of fight.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out a radio, a donation from one of Garrick’s men. I tossed it to Sonder and he caught it awkwardly. “I want you to stay up here and pull lookout. Tell me if anything changes. I’ll call you when I’m in position.”

Sonder looked down, then up at me. “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I said. “There’s a time to play white knight and this isn’t it. If everything goes to hell, get out the way we came and follow the valley down. You’ll get to a village in about five miles.”

Sonder opened his mouth and I saw him thinking about what to say. “Good luck,” he said unhappily.

I grinned at him. “Luck’s for Luna. See you in an hour or two.”

The grin vanished about two seconds after I was out of sight. I put on my mist cloak, pulling down the hood so that it concealed my face. Belthas would know who I was, but there was no point giving the cameras a free show. It was time to get to work.

Up close, Belthas’s manor was solid and imposing. It had been designed to look like a traditional English country house, but there was a blocky quality to it that made me think of a castle or bunker. The lower-level windows looked accessible but I knew they were reinforced and sealed. The only ways in were the front and rear doors.

I’d put the time I’d spent waiting in the darkness above to good use and I had a pretty good idea of the building’s weak points. Any kind of security system that can keep out people you don’t want can also keep out people you do, and rather than solve the difficult problem of attuning his wards, Belthas had elected to leave two openings over the doors. After some consideration, I’d picked the front one. It was watched over by one guard and a pair of security cameras.

The cameras were easy. There was a slight gap in the coverage and I waited for them to pan away before slipping through to come up against the manor’s west wall. I could feel the presence of the defensive spells through the stone: a gate ward and some kind of nasty ice-based attack that would trigger if anyone attempted to force entry. Luckily, I wasn’t intending to.

The guard outside the front door was obviously bored and cold. Peering around the corner, I could see him shivering, his hands shoved into his armpits and his MP5 hanging from its strap. There were a few steps leading up to the door and he was standing on top of them, visible in the reflected light of the windows. I walked silently along the edge of the building towards him, pausing from time to time when I got too close to his peripheral vision. The front of the building was bare with no cover, but in my mist cloak I was just one more shadow in the night.

By the time I was up against the steps I was close enough to see the stubble on the guard’s face and smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. Looking into the future, I saw that if I got the guard out of the way and went in now, I’d run into two more in the front hall. All I could do was wait. I stood not ten feet from the guard, listened to his teeth chattering, and checked my watch. Thirty-five minutes until Belthas completed his ritual.