Read Online Fated: An Alex Verus Novel by Benedict Jacka - Free Book Online

alarm, and Council reinforcements were on the way. I already knew that Khazad’s guess had been accurate. The reinforcements were going to be too late to do me any good.
    But the three Dark mages didn’t know that. The woman took a final glance at her watch and shook her head. ‘We’re out of time.’
    Reluctantly, Cinder held out his left hand. The woman handed him something the size of a tennis ball, covered in a dark cloth. Cinder turned to the statue and hesitated.
    Khazad gave an ugly laugh. ‘Losing your nerve?’
    ‘Shut up, Khazad,’ The woman’s voice had a snap of authority to it. Khazad fell silent mid-laugh and glowered. The woman’s eyes swept past him and suddenly locked on the corner in which I was hiding.
    I caught my breath. Blue eyes stared into mine. In the dim light, I knew that I would be only a shadow in the corner. But if she came forward even a little … I closed my fingers around the glass marble in my pocket.
    ‘Fine,’ Cinder growled. The woman dragged her eyes away to look at him, and I let out my breath silently. ‘Let’s do this.’
    Cinder stepped forward towards the statue, unwrapping the whatever-it-was. His back was to me, and I wanted to find out what he was holding in his hands, but self-preservation made me look into the future instead. Cinder was going to place the thing into the statue’s hand, the statue was going to activate, and—
    Oh,
crap
.
    I’d been hoping these three knew what they were doing. Judging by what they were about to set off, it was obvious they didn’t.
    As Cinder wove a protection spell around the statue, I knew I didn’t have much time. My current location was about to become very unhealthy. I could try stepping out to give the three Dark mages a warning, but I didn’t even bother checking what the consequences of
that
would be. Pretty much every future in which I stayed in this room led to me being burnt to a crisp within the next thirty seconds.
    It was time to go back to Plan A: run away very quickly.
    Cinder finished his spell, placed something in the statue’s hand, then stepped back. With his bulk between me and the statue, I couldn’t see what was happening, and all my attention was going towards calculating at exactly which point I should run. There was a faint white glow from the statue, dim in the red light, then a red flicker. Then the light died away and there was silence.
    Khazad spoke into the vacuum. ‘Is that it?’
    Never
ask questions like that around active magic.
    The room brightened with pale light, swallowing the red glow of Cinder’s magic in a white aura. Something large appeared in the room, just above the statue, and right in the middle of the three very surprised Dark mages.
    And in the moment’s pause where the three of them were staring open-mouthed at the creature in front of them, I sprinted past and down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me.
    I’ve been involved in a good few combats over the course of my life, and pretty much all of them have either started or ended with me running away. There is a reason for this. Mages can inconvenience, immobilise, hurt, injure, stab, slice, burn, bend, fold, spindle and mutilate you in a varietyof creative ways, but pretty much all of them require that they know where you are. If you can stay out of sight it’s hard for them to know where you are, and if you can move faster than they can it’s hard for them to keep you in sight. So if you lead a lifestyle that brings you into frequent contact with unfriendly mages, and you have plans for your life that don’t involve getting turned into a small pile of charcoal, it’s a good idea to learn to run fast. To run fast you need training, fitness and, most of all, motivation.
    I had three Dark mages and an angry guardian elemental behind me. I had motivation in spades.
    As I tore down the stairs, I heard a shout from the woman, followed by a hollow boom and a red-black flash as at least two of the Dark mages took a