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  Something was nagging at me. “Those things have a locator beacon, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You activated it?”

  “Yes,” Caldera said shortly.

  “Should they be here by now?”

  “Yes.” Caldera shot me an annoyed glance. “I’m going to try out back. Wards must be screwing with the signal.” She started down the steps.

  I frowned, watching her go down. I’m not an expert on defensive wards, but I’d had a close look at the ones on this house, and as far as I could tell they were low-power and basic. They shouldn’t block communication—definitely not something as advanced as a synchronous focus. Anyway, hadn’t Caldera used that same focus to call for backup just a little while ago? Why should the wards suddenly start blocking it now?

  Something was wrong. Caldera was heading for the back door. I looked ahead, searching for danger.

  And froze. Something was about to . . .

  . . . oh, shit.

  “Caldera!” I shouted down the stairs. “Get up here NOW!” Then I ran for the bedroom.

  Leo looked up as I burst in, then as I reached for him he flinched and shielded his head. I grabbed his wrist and hauled him off the bed before pulling the wardrobe door open and shoving Leo inside. Coat hangers bounced off his forehead but he was small enough to duck under the clothes rail and I slammed the door, shutting him inside.

  The window burst inward in a spray of glass and something sleek and deadly hit the bed right where Leo had been sitting. Its momentum sent it to the floor, and as it landed it turned its head towards me.

  chapter 7

  The thing in the room with me was dark grey, four-legged, and fast. I had a fleeting impression of a low-slung body and glowing blue eyes, then it lunged. I dodged, kicked; the thing lurched away but seemed to twist in midair and was on me again in a blink. For a few crazy moments everything was a blur of motion, claws and teeth and icy cold. A paw raked for my face, I blocked and hit the thing in the belly, then it was slamming into me, sending me staggering against the wall. It snapped at me, wispy blue light trailing from its fangs; I scrabbled for its neck, got a grip, tried to force it back. It strained against me, trying to reach my skin with its teeth, and it was hellishly strong. Empty glowing eyes stared into mine as it bit at me again and again. Cold was sinking down my fingers and into my joints, numbing my hands, and I tried frantically to push it away—

  A big hand shot down across my field of vision and pulled the thing off me. I looked up to see Caldera holding the thing up one-handed. It struggled and Caldera smashed it into the door frame, once, twice, three times, the door frame splintering and breaking, then she slammed it to the floor, drew back her other hand, and hit it with a downward blow. There was a crack and the thing went still.

  All of a sudden the house was silent again. The whole fight had been over in seconds. “You all right?” Caldera asked.

  “I think I need new pants.” I scrambled to my feet. “Thanks. What was it?”

  “Icecat. There any more?”

  I took a breath, heart pounding, and looked ahead. The creature was lying on the floor, still and dead. It was cat-shaped, the size of a leopard or jaguar, but now that I could see it more closely, I could tell it was a construct. The eyes were lifeless now, the spell that had powered it broken. “At least one out the back. Maybe more.”

  Caldera opened the wardrobe door to reveal Leo huddled in the corner. “We’re leaving,” she told him. “Stay close.” She pulled him out.

  Leo’s eyes lit on the body of the icecat and his face went pale. “Oh God.”

  “Just stay with me.” Caldera dragged Leo downstairs.

  The fight with the icecat had been so fast that I hadn’t had the chance to draw a weapon. I pulled out my phone and started typing, trying to search through the futures at the same time. Danger flickered through the possibilities, getting closer. I hit Send, shoved the phone back into my pocket, and followed Caldera.

  Caldera was down in the living room behind the dividing wall, crouched low and holding on to Leo tightly. Leo was huddled into a ball, breathing fast. “Where are they?” Caldera said quietly.

  “Don’t go out the front,” I said, keeping my voice down. From our position we could barely see the front door, and couldn’t see the back at all, but I knew what would happen if we went there. “There’s someone covering the front door. We step through it, we’re going to eat a spell to the face. Something else too . . .”

  “The back?”

  “More icecats.” I scanned future after future in which we left the house. In most of them we got shot the instant we came into view. “A mage as well.”

  “So we’re surrounded.”

  All around us, the house was dark and silent. After the brief flurry of the battle, there had been no sound from outside; only my divination let me know that anything was there. I could hear Leo’s rapid breathing, and the whites of his eyes showed in the gloom. “Don’t let her take me back,” he said, his voice high and scared. “I’ll do whatever you what. Just don’t let her, please—”

  “No one’s taking you anywhere,” Caldera said, then looked at me. “Can you tell when our backup’s going to be here?”

  I’d been scanning the futures for exactly that. “No.”

  “Shit. Where are they?”

  “I don’t know, but if you’re expecting the cavalry to come riding to the rescue, you’re going to have to wait.”

  “If we break out the back?”

  “We’ll go right into a fight,” I said. “Two icecats, the guy controlling them—ice mage, I think—and something else. Something bigger.”

  Caldera was silent, and I knew what she was thinking. Caldera might be able to beat that many, but she couldn’t protect Leo at the same time. “All right,” she said at last. “We hold here and wait for backup. I’ll try the com disc—”

  “Forget that bloody focus. It’s not helping.”

  “You have a better plan?”

  “I called for backup too. We just need to hope these guys wait long enough—” The futures shifted and I trailed off. All of a sudden the ones with violence in them were much closer. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got incoming.” Movement from the back. Had they left the front exposed? No—if we made a break for it that way, we’d still run straight into fire and—

  “Verus. Talk to me.”

  “Icecats.” I kept my voice low. “They’re going to force an entry at the back. They’ll come through the kitchen and the picture window, then sweep towards us.”

  “Can we get them as they come in?”

  “No, it’s a trap. They’re going to pause at the entrances—get you to show yourself so they can get a clear line of sight. That ice mage is somewhere in the back garden—”

  There was a scraping sound from the kitchen, very loud in the darkness. Leo whimpered and tried to huddle into the corner. Caldera glanced back at the front door. “They going to come from the front as well?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  Another scraping sound, and I heard the sound of splintering wood. “I’ll take the cats,” Caldera said, and I knew she’d made her decision. She came up to one knee, staring into the dividing wall as though she could see through it. “You stay with the kid.”

  “Wait. There’s something else.” I could see confused futures of another path through the combat, something hulking and big. “Another construct, I think . . . but it’s not there yet . . .”

  The door broke with a crunch and I fell silent. I could hear the distant sounds of the city drifting in through the now-open back door: traffic, an aircraft overhead, a TV from somewhere. No voices or shouts. There were people in the houses all around us, but no one had raised the alarm. It seemed crazy that we were fighting for our lives and the neighbours hadn’t even notice
d, but they couldn’t see the futures that I could. All they’d have seen was the window breaking and the scuffle with the icecat, and that had been over in seconds. They probably hadn’t even heard it over the TV, and by the time they’d gotten to the window to look, it would have been all over.

  Footsteps padded through the kitchen on the other side of the divider. I could hear the icecat’s movement, smooth and heavy. No breathing. To my sight the construct’s futures were solid lines in the darkness, easy to predict. Another was about to break in, and I signalled for Caldera to stay where she was.

  There was the crash of breaking glass, shockingly loud. Leo jumped, and I covered his mouth before he could yelp; his eyes were wide and I could feel his quick breath against my palm. The dividing wall blocked our view of the icecats, but I knew where they were—one was to the left in the kitchen, the other in the broken remnants of the picture window, a little more than five feet from where Caldera was crouching.

  Silence. The icecats were waiting. There was no variation in the lines of their future; they were following a program, not under direct control. They would wait another ten seconds, then close in. I tapped Caldera, then took my hand away from Leo’s mouth and held up ten fingers where Caldera could see. Then I held up nine fingers, then eight.

  Caldera nodded, came quietly up to one knee. Seven, six, five. Broken glass crunched from the other side of the dividing wall as the icecats moved. Four, three. Caldera braced herself, ready to lunge. Two. A shadow appeared on the wall, the long shape of the icecat outlined by the ambient light from the garden behind it. One. I took hold of Leo, making sure he wouldn’t run.

  Zero.

  The icecat came around the corner and Caldera met it in a rush. The blow threw the icecat into the wall with a thud and Caldera moved in, but it was already turning on her, eyes glowing blue in the darkness. Leo made as if to bolt, but I tightened my grip on his arm and he went still. The second icecat lunged for Caldera but she stepped back, using the dividing wall as cover, forcing them to come around the corner one at a time.

  Shapes flashed in the darkness, fist meeting claw. The icecats were constructs, immune to pain and unnaturally strong, but Caldera was their match and more. Most battle-mages focus on ranged spells, learning to use their magic to kill safely from a distance, but Caldera is one of the ones who specialise in getting up close and personal. To my eyes her body was outlined in solid brown energy, flowing down her arms and legs and rooting her to the ground, one spell giving her strength and stability, another making her skin as hard as stone. The icecats’ claws trailed cold mist in the shadows, but where they met Caldera’s skin they scraped off harmlessly. Caldera’s blows didn’t scrape off. When she connected, the icecats went flying. Here in these tight quarters she was in her element, and even two on one, the icecats were losing.

  I held back as Caldera fought. In one hand I had a silver dart, tapered to a point—a dispelling focus. It could disrupt the spells that powered the icecats, maybe even destroy one with a lucky hit, but it needed to be recharged between attacks and I’d only get one shot. I wasn’t planning to use it unless I had to—this was a heavyweight fight and I was out of my league. Instead I kept searching the futures, trying to look past the chaos of combat to see what was coming. There were flickers of ice magic, but it looked as though our plan was working—the ice mage at the back couldn’t get a straight shot. But there was something else, a construct or gate magic or a combination of the two. Whatever it was, it was bad news, and—

  Caldera kicked at one of the icecats and it dodged, sliding away with an odd grace. The movement brought it farther into the living room, and for the first time, it had a clear line of sight to Leo.

  Instantly the futures changed. The possibilities in which the icecat attacked Caldera or me vanished—it was locked onto Leo and no one else. Without hesitating it sprang.

  “Caldera!” I shouted, but Caldera was already reacting. Her punch caught the icecat in midair, sent it flying into the wall. But she’d had to step back to do it, and the second icecat came around the corner . . . and as soon as it saw Leo it locked onto him, too.

  They’re not after us. They’re after him—

  The icecat lunged, and this time Caldera couldn’t block it. Constructs are strong, but they’re predictable. I plotted its course and managed to get my leg up in time; my heel met its head and the force of the construct’s leap crushed its head into my shoe. Pain shot up my leg and I thumped back against the wall, but the impact twisted the construct’s body around; it would have broken any normal animal’s neck, and it was actually enough to stagger it for a second.

  Caldera grabbed it before it could recover. As it struggled she lifted it in both hands, then broke it over her knee. It twisted and went still.

  I felt a flare of space magic from the back garden.

  A gate formed just outside the gate wards of the house, and something came through, massive and heavy. I felt the floor shift, trembling, first once and then again. I switched perspective, viewing the future in which I moved right to peer around the corner—

  A giant hulking shape was right outside the picture window, nearly eight feet tall, ambient light gleaming off a polished body. It was shaped like an insect but moved with the precision of well-oiled machinery. Light caught on its eyes and on the blades and weapons in its arms, and as a triple-jointed leg came down through the broken window, the floor shook, first in the future and a second later in the present. The window frame shattered as it came through without slowing, its head taking out a chunk of plaster where the frame met the wall.

  Mantis golem.

  Oh, fuck.

  Caldera was already facing the thing, and I felt her eyes go wide as it came around the corner. It swivelled towards her, the two of them facing each other in the darkened living room. Caldera is big, muscle and earth magic giving her the strength of stone, but compared to the construct towering over her she looked like a child. Mage and golem looked at each other, less than five feet apart.

  Caldera hesitated, just briefly.

  “Run!” I shouted.

  The kind of magic you can use isn’t something separate from you; it’s a part of who you are. It affects your thoughts, your desires . . . your instincts. Air mages, when they’re hurt or in danger, their first reaction is to break away, create space. Ice mages try to control the threat, lock it down. Fire mages attack. Earth mages . . . they defend and stand their ground.

  Caldera stood her ground.

  The golem struck, swords flashing out. Caldera ducked under the first swing and was about to punch when the golem’s second hand came up, holding some kind of cylindrical device; Caldera twisted aside as a beam of golden light shot down, burning a glowing line along the floor, then had to dodge again as a sword blow nearly took her head off.

  Mantis golems have four arms, and this one was holding two one-handed swords, the laser projector, and some other weapon I didn’t recognise. No human can use that many weapons, but mantis golems aren’t human and they have the strength and the parallel processing to use all four arms at once. The golem wasn’t especially fast, and its strikes didn’t have its full body weight behind them, but every one of its arms was attacking Caldera simultaneously and independently, like some kind of lethal golden windmill. No sooner had Caldera blocked one attack than she had to dodge the next.

  I hesitated, caught between Leo and Caldera. I didn’t want to fight this thing, but if I left Caldera alone—

  A grey shape darted behind the golem, turned its blue eyes onto Leo, and lunged. I’d forgotten about the other icecat. Leo screamed; I tried to get my focus up in time but the angle was wrong and I was thrown onto Leo with the icecat on top of me.

  For a few seconds everything was chaos. The icecat was raking with its claws, trying to shred through me to get to Leo; Leo was screaming; I was swearing and striking with elbows and knees, the floor shaking as Calder
a fought the golem. A future of my arm being burnt off flashed before my eyes; I twisted right and the golden beam of the laser seared a glowing line along the floor. Leo broke away, dashing for the door; the icecat bounded after him and I grabbed it, hanging on grimly. The icecat dragged me a couple more steps, then the futures flipped as it switched targets and turned on me, jaws opening wide to bite at my head.

  I’d been ready for it. My dispel focus was in my free hand, and as the head came round I rammed the spike right through the construct’s eye. The focus discharged and the icecat spasmed, throwing me back. The spell animating the cat construct flickered and died. Icy claws raked the floor, then went still.

  I looked up to see Leo fumbling with the front door. “Leo,” I shouted at him. “Stay here!”

  Leo shot me a terrified glance, then pulled the door open and ran out into the street.

  I swore and went after him. To my left, Caldera somehow got through the whirlwind of steel and landed a solid blow on the golem’s armour; plates cracked but a sword came around before she could pull back and I heard her grunt. I made it to the front door—

  —and ducked back as a force blast nearly took my head off. Leo was out there but someone else was too, and the force mage was in the cover of a station wagon across the street. There was something going on, but as I looked back I saw that Caldera was struggling. The golem was pressing down on her, a golden swirl of death. I could go after Leo or help Caldera, but I couldn’t do both.

  I hesitated a second . . . then turned back to Caldera, bending as I did to yank my focus out of the icecat. The mantis golem brought all its weapons to bear, striking at Caldera with three limbs at once. Caldera blocked a downward slash, ducked under the laser, and almost dodged the stab. It didn’t impale her, but blood sprayed and Caldera staggered and went down. The golem moved in to finish her off.

  I charged with a shout. Futures shifted as the golem retargeted on me, and I felt a spike of terror as the golden eyes turned to look down at me. I feinted at the golem; for a second I had it on the defensive, then it moved into its attack routine.