Cursed av-2 Read online

  I woke up early next morning, heart racing and breath quick. Another nightmare. I don’t get them as often now but when I do they’re just as bad. The sounds of the London morning drifted through the window. My flat was quiet.

  There was a message on my phone from Belthas, congratulating me on the successful completion of the mission. I skimmed it and hit Close. I didn’t feel like talking to Belthas.

  The next message was from Sonder; he’d started research on the monkey’s paw but was having trouble finding all the books he needed. I closed that too and looked to see if there was anything from Meredith or Luna. There wasn’t.

  I reviewed and tested my home defences. I had breakfast, went over my stock of items, and laid out the most useful ones in case of another attack. Finally, at nine o’clock and with nothing else to do, I opened my shop.

  The morning dragged. I enjoy running my shop most of the time but nothing makes work less fun than wishing you were somewhere else. The customers annoyed me more than they should have, and I kept glancing at my phone to see if I had a message from Meredith or Luna. Finally, at noon, I gave up, shooed out the last few stragglers, and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

  I was restless. Something was bothering me and I didn’t know what.

  I didn’t want to work but pushed myself to do it anyway. Sonder’s message had included a list of books that were supposed to contain references to the monkey’s paw so I put on my coat and went out into central London to look for them. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and it wasn’t-the books Sonder had listed were obscure as hell. But finding a book in a bookshop, even an obscure book, is a lot easier than finding a person in a city.

  Two and a half hours and twelve bookstores later, I’d tracked down seven out of the nine books on Sonder’s list and decided to call it a day. I went home to my desk upstairs and pulled the first volume from its parcel. It was old and smelt of dust. A third of the way through, I found what I was looking for.

  …the First Age, where the monkey god was brought to battle by Morthalion the Destroyer. For three days and three nights they battled but the monkey god’s claws could not pierce Morthalion’s shield. Neither could Morthalion’s death magic slay the god, for being divine, its spirit could not be parted from its body by mortal means.

  Seeing this, on the fourth day Morthalion reached down and tore away a part of his own shadow, from which he formed himself a blade of darkness, slim as a leaf and sharper than the frost. Wielding it, he struck off the god’s foot, then before the two could be reunited Morthalion burnt the foot in black fire until it crumbled to ash. Again and again Morthalion struck, cutting and burning feet, legs, arms, head, and finally body. At last only one part of the god remained: a single paw.

  Morthalion could not destroy the paw and instead bound it up with a white thread, enspelling it so that all should forget the monkey god’s name, and thus his power could never be restored. But the monkey god’s spirit lived on within the paw, and survives to this day, filled with hate for the race that destroyed him.

  The passage ended. I flipped to the end, but the monkey’s paw wasn’t mentioned again. I closed the book and picked up the next.

  — of wish-granting items, little needs to be said. Their powers are generally overrated and greatly inferior to those of True Mages, who-

  I rolled my eyes and tossed the book aside. The next one, titled Encyclopaedia Arcana, was thicker and the writing denser.

  Wish magic, or desire magic, works quite differently. It magnifies the power of speech: Rather than the words being a trigger, it is the speaking of the wish itself that rewrites reality.

  Stories abound of carelessly or ambiguously worded wishes causing disaster; these legends, unfortunately, have a firm basis in fact. While wish magic will not misinterpret or “twist” a wish, neither will it take into account context or intention, and phrasing is absolutely crucial. Clear, simple sentences are best; convoluted wording often results in too weak a “lens” for the magic to focus through, and vague wishes bring totally unpredictable results. Many mages blame such results upon malicious intelligence on the part of the granting power, but this is inaccurate. Wish magic is essentially neutral. It grants only what is asked; nothing more and nothing less.

  There is a qualification, however. Most sources of wish magic have individual prohibitions against wishing for a certain outcome, a common example being the taking of a life. Should the user attempt a forbidden wish, the magic will fail to take effect or rebound upon the wisher. There is usually no way of discovering such limitations except through trial and error, making such experimentation a highly dangerous process.

  More than any other, wish magic is capable of creating extraordinarily powerful effects; however, experienced mages generally consider it more trouble than it is worth.

  Books four and five didn’t have anything new. The sixth was more interesting.

  …imbued items capable of bestowing wishes, generally referred to as “monkey’s paws” regardless of their actual form. Their magic works as an unspoken contract, granting the user between three and as many as seven wishes.

  At first, the wishes will appear to work to the user’s benefit. However, with each wish the monkey’s paw gains a greater hold over its bearer and soon it will begin to twist the wishes, subtly at first, then more forcefully. In every case, the user is made to feel that the only way to escape his problems is to use the paw again; each wish leads to greater and greater calamity, until he is destroyed.

  Although wholly evil, a monkey’s paw is bound by rules. First and foremost, the monkey’s paw cannot force a bearer to accept its contract. It can tempt or promise but the truly innocent are safe; at some level, the bearer must knowingly and willingly consent to the item’s power. The monkey’s paw must also follow the letter of a wish, if not the spirit. This has led many to believe that a clever wielder could make extended use of a monkey’s paw by wording his wishes carefully, but such success is rare.

  The final book was a slim volume that seemed handwritten rather than printed. Squinting, I realised it skipped from account to account, and I was in the middle of a paragraph before realising that it was what I was looking for. I went back to the beginning of the section and read it from start to finish.

  The monkey’s paw is one of the most ancient of all artifacts and the truth of its origin is unknown, though many have crafted lesser copies in an attempt to imitate its power.

  The monkey’s paw grants wishes with few if any limitations. Most believe that these wishes follow fixed and certain rules. This is false. The monkey’s paw is sentient and free-willed. The paw, not its bearer, chooses whether and how to grant a wish. Any bearer who believes he controls it soon learns his mistake.

  While inactive, the paw lies dormant. In these periods, the monkey’s paw will often adopt a place, or a person, to remain with. This “host” seems to enjoy limited protection from the item; perhaps the monkey’s paw prefers not to harm those who do not use its power, or perhaps it simply chooses not to bite the hand that feeds it. The reason, as with so much else concerning the item, is unknown. The monkey’s paw is not in the habit of explaining itself and rarely leaves witnesses in its wake.

  The section ended. I read it through twice more, then sat back in my chair. Something about that last one made me uneasy. A host …

  I tried to figure out some way I could put the information in the books to use but came up blank. Bound or unbound, limited or unlimited, evil or neutral: Each book told a different story, and without knowing which was true they weren’t much help. The one thing they all agreed on was that the monkey’s paw was dangerous-and I’d known that already. I walked to my window and looked out over London.

  The morning had been overcast but the clouds had vanished one by one and the sun was shining down out of a clear sky. Sunset was only a couple of hours away and the colour of the sunlight had changed to a rich yellow-gold, the chimneys and rooftops casting long shadows with the coming evening. The windows in th
e houses and flats were still illuminated by the sun but as dusk drew nearer I knew they would light up one by one, making squares of light in the darkness.

  I was still restless. I’d tried to shrug it off all day and it hadn’t worked, and I didn’t know why. I’d done a job for Belthas and succeeded. Okay, I didn’t know everything, but Rachel and Cinder had been stopped. I wasn’t completely happy about the way things had ended, but I hadn’t had much choice.

  Was it about Luna and the monkey’s paw? I thought about it and realised that wasn’t it. Working on the monkey’s paw wasn’t making me feel any better; the problem was somewhere else. Something was wrong.

  But what?

  It was because I didn’t understand. I’m like all diviners: I need to know things. I’d learnt bits and pieces but that wasn’t enough. I had to know how they fit together. The assassination attempts, Belthas, Rachel and Cinder, Arachne …

  Start at the beginning. Which part related to me the most?

  The assassination attempts.

  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 think.

  The city was bustling in the sunset. I crossed the canal and walked up Kentish Town Road, watching the rush-hour traffic pile up nose to tail. The air was filled with noise and car exhaust.

  After a while I realised my feet were leading me towards the Heath. Usually when something’s bothering me I go and talk it over with Arachne. But Arachne was either gone or busy with Luna, and I didn’t want to deal with Luna and Martin. I changed direction, heading for the southern part of the Heath instead of the deeper regions that hold Arachne’s lair.

  By the time I reached Parliament Hill, the sun had set and the light was fading. I climbed the hill and sat on one of the benches facing south. It’s a beautiful view. Ahead, through the branches of the trees, were the jagged skyscrapers of Liverpool Street; to the right was the looming ugly Tetris block of the Royal Free Hospital. The towers of Canary Wharf were away to the left, small and squat in the distance. The sky was the dusky blue of twilight, and lights were coming on in the windows as I watched.

  I noticed my phone was about to ring and pulled it out. I was a bit disappointed to see that it was Sonder but I kept it out anyway and answered on the second ring. “Hey, Sonder.”

  “Hi.” Sonder sounded worried. “I’m glad I got you.”

  “I found some of those books.”

  “What?”

  “The ones you said you needed. About the monkey’s paw.”

  “About- Oh, oh. Right.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So I’m guessing that’s not why you called.” Although the Heath was darkening, there were still people scattered across the hill. A spaniel ran past, nose to the ground, stumpy tail wagging. “Something’s bothering you.”

  “Yeah.” Sonder seemed to get hold of himself. “Okay. You know the thing we agreed I should check up on?”

  “Not the monkey’s paw.”

  “The other thing.”

  I thought back to the conversation and remembered. “About Martin.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you talk to Luna?”

  “Um …” Sonder hesitated. “She said she was busy.”

  I’ll bet. “Okay.”

  “So, u
m …”

  “You went sniffing around anyway,” I said. I couldn’t honestly say I was surprised. It was the kind of thing I might have done.

  “Yeah,” Sonder admitted.

  It sounded from the echoes as though Sonder was in a corridor. “Are you at Luna’s flat?”

  “…Yeah.”

  “You didn’t break in, did you?”

  “No! Well … not exactly.”

  “Sonder …”

  “I didn’t go inside! And she’d said she might be around, I was just waiting to see if-”

  “Okay, okay.” I knew Sonder would get sidetracked if I let him, and I didn’t really want to hear the details. “What did you find?”

  “Well … it was Martin. He made a phone call.”

  “What, right now?”

  “No, on Saturday night.”

  “Saturday-okay. And you were listening?”

  “Yeah, a few minutes ago.”

  You really need a couple of extra tenses for a conversation about time magic. “Okay,” I said. “Who was he talking to?”

  “Belthas.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  “I know,” Sonder said. “He’s not supposed to be working for Belthas, right?”

  “…No. He’s not. Working for him?”

  “That was what it sounded like. Martin was giving a report and then he said he was on his way to meet him. As in, right then.”

  I tried to figure out what was going on. I’d missed something, something big. “What was he telling Belthas about?”

  “About Luna.”

  I went still.

  “He said he’d spent the evening with her and things were going well.” Sonder sounded worried. “Then he said something about two or three days. Then he said he was on his way.”

  Two or three days from Saturday night would be … about now. “Sonder, I’ve got to go. We’ve got a problem.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Luna’s taking Martin to Arachne’s lair right now.” I got to my feet and started walking. “See what else you can find but be careful.”

  “Okay.” Sonder paused. “Alex? What do you think Belthas wanted with Martin?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think I’m going to like the answer. I’m going to find Luna. I’ll check in when I do.”