Ap Owen looked at him sharply. “But surely, my lord, we need her alive for questioning?”
“We need her stopped before she can do any more damage,” said Nightingale. “As long as she’s free, she’s a threat. You know her reputation, Captain; if you try and take her alive she’ll just kill your men and disappear again. We can’t risk that. If you find her, kill her. No quarter, no mercy.”
Ap Owen looked at Regis, who nodded steadfastly. “Do whatever you have to, Captain, but don’t bring her back alive.”
8
Cutting Loose
Burns and Mistique followed Hawk silently as he led the way through a maze of narrow back streets and shadowed alleyways. He’d hardly said a word since Mistique reluctantly named Fisher as the traitor, and his cold, grim visage hadn’t encouraged conversation. Burns and Mistique glanced at each other, but a few raised eyebrows and quick shrugs were enough to make it clear neither of them knew what was going through Hawk’s mind. Given what he was capable of, his continued silence was worrying. Passersby hurried to get out of his way, but Hawk seemed totally oblivious of everything except his own thoughts. He walked unhurriedly through the shabby streets, staring straight ahead, his bloodied axe still in his hand.
They finally emerged into a quiet side street, and Hawk led his companions into a squalid little tavern called The Dragon’s Blood. The air was thick with smoke, and the sawdust on the floor looked like it hadn’t been changed in years. Mistique wrinkled her nose. Burns pushed the door closed with his fingertips, and then wiped his hand fastidiously on his cloak. The place was as dark as a coal cellar, with only occasional pools of dirty yellow light at the occupied tables, and two storm lanterns hanging over the bar. The window shutters had been nailed shut to ensure privacy. Shadowed drinkers watched silently as Hawk led his companions to a booth at the back of the room. Conversation slowly resumed as the three Guards seated themselves, but only as a bare murmur. The bartender emerged from behind his bar to serve them personally, and Hawk ordered three beers. They sat in silence until he came back with the drinks. Hawk paid him the exact amount and then dismissed him with a curt wave of his hand. The bartender shrugged, and went back to the bar to continue polishing his glasses with a dirty rag. Mistique looked dubiously at the drink in front of her, and decided that she wasn’t thirsty. Hawk took two deep swallows from his beer, and then put the glass down and stared into it.
“The beer’s safe enough here,” he said quietly, “but don’t touch the spirits. Half of it’s made from wood alcohol.”
Burns sipped at his beer to show willing, and his lips thinned away from his teeth at the bitterness. “Nice place you’ve chosen. Hawk. Great atmosphere. I’ll bet plague rats stay away from here in case they catch something. Do you drink here often?”
“Only when I have some hard thinking to do. No one bothers me here.” He drank from his glass again, and Burns and Mistique waited patiently for him to continue. Hawk wiped the froth from his mouth with the back of his hand. and leaned back in his chair, staring out into the gloom around them. “It all comes down to Morgan,” he said finally. “He has all the answers. If we’re ever going to get to the truth of what’s really going on here, we have to find Morgan.”
“Half the Guards in Haven are trying to do just that,” said Burns. “But Morgan’s always been able to disappear when he needed to. He could be anywhere in Haven. Our people are out leaning on every loose mouth in the city, but no one knows anything. Morgan’s gone to ground so thoroughly this time that even his own people don’t seem to know how to contact him. You must really have thrown a scare into him.”
“He can’t afford to be totally isolated,” said Mistique. “He still has to move his super-chacal before word gets out how dangerous it is. And to do that, he must be doing business. however indirectly, with some distributor.”
“Exactly.” said Hawk. “Morgan may have crawled into his hole and pulled it in after him, but his lieutenants are still out there, doing business on his behalf. All we have to do is tail them, and eventually one of them will lead us to Morgan.”
Burns shook his head. “Hawk, those people are professionals; they’ll spot any tail we put on them.”
“They won’t spot a sorcerer,” said Hawk. “How about it, Mistique? Can you follow these people with your magic?”
“There is a way ...” said Mistique slowly. “But I don’t know these lieutenants like you do. You’ll have to open your minds so that I can learn what you know. Are you and Burns willing to do that?”
“No,” said Burns flatly. “Sorry, Hawk, but there are some things I won’t do, for you or anyone else. My thoughts are private, and my memories are my own.”
“There’s no need to be so defensive,” said Mistique. “It’s a comman reaction to my ability. Though why anyone should assume their secret thoughts are so fascinating I couldn’t resist peeking, is beyond me.”
“Take what you need from me,” said Hawk. “But don’t go wandering. There are things in my mind you don’t want to know.”
“I can believe that,” said Mistique. She closed her eyes, and a cold breeze swept through Hawk’s mind, ruffling his thoughts, and picking things up and putting them down again. Images flickered in Hawk’s mind like flaring candles, come and gone so quickly he barely recognised them, and then Mistique opened her eyes, and his mind was quiet again. Mistique nodded, satisfied. “Got it. Names and faces for all twenty of his lieutenants. Now I need both of you to sit still and be quiet. This is going to be very difficult, and I can’t afford any distractions.”
She closed her eyes again and let her mind drift up and out, becoming one with the mists. Wherever mists and fogs rose throughout the city she had eyes and ears. She became the mists, flowing over houses and streets, through keyholes and under doors, and nothing was hidden from her. The mists carried her up into the sky, and she soared high above the city, seeing it spread out below her like a vast dark stone labyrinth of sudden turnings and endless possibilities. Lights burned in its darkness like furnaces in hell. She swooped down over the city, spreading her consciousness among the many streets and alleyways as mists curled everywhere in Haven. Buildings raced past her at bewildering speed, people appearing and disappearing in an instant, but all of them observed and studied and dismissed. Words from a thousand conversations battered her hearing like pounding waves on the rocks outside the harbour. Mistique let it all flow past and over her, sifting through the endless noise and chaos until finally she found what she was looking for.
His name was Griff-- a shabby, skinny man with long, greasy dark hair, darting eyes, and a quick, unpleasant smile. He wore a long frock coat mended at the collar and elbows, and carried a quarterstaff. He didn’t look like much, but bigger men than he bobbed their heads and smiled nervously in his presence. He was Morgan’s eyes and voice and executioner, and everyone knew it. Mistique curled lazily on the air as Griff strode down a gloomy side street, unobtrusively checking now and again that he wasn’t being followed. Mistique floated after him, everywhere and nowhere, ahead and behind him.
Griff took a sudden turn into an alleyway and stopped dead, just inside the alley mouth. He looked casually about him to be sure he was unobserved, and then moved slowly forward, counting the steps under his breath. He then stopped, reached out and pressed five bricks in the left-hand wall in a careful sequence. A door slowly appeared in the wall, a great slab of solid steel, featureless save for a single moulded handle, forming itself moment by moment out of the dirty brickwork. Griff waited impatiently, his gaze darting back and forth, and then he pulled the door open, grunting with the effort. A bright crimson light flared out into the alley, and Griff stepped forward into it. The door slammed shut behind him, cutting off the bloody light, and melted back into the brickwork. In the renewed gloom of the alleyway, the roiling mists curled and twisted triumphantly.
In the tavern, Hawk and Bums watched silently as Mistique closed her eyes and fell immediately into a trance state. All trace of personality dropped out of her face as her muscles relaxed completely. The air grew thick and indistinct around her as wisps of mist seeped out of her skin. The mists gradually thickened until they were boiling up off her like ectoplasm at a séance. The tavern quickly emptied as the other customers headed for the door at a run. The bartender disappeared behind his bar. Burns started to rise from his chair, and then sank reluctantly back into it when Hawk glared at him. Hawk watched, fascinated, as Mistique’s eyes darted back and forth beneath her closed eyelids as though she were dreaming, and then her eyes snapped open and personality flooded back into her face. The mists in the booth began to dissipate, stirred by a sourceless wind. Mistique fixed Hawk with her gaze.
“I’ve got him. Morgan’s been hiding out in another pocket dimension, hidden off Packet Lane, not ten minutes’ walk from here.”
“Did you get a look inside?” said Hawk. “Did you see Morgan himself?”
“Not really. I could sense his presence, along with a dozen or so bodyguards, but when I tried to enter I brushed up against another sorcerer’s wards, so I got the hell out of there before I gave myself away.”
“Are you sure there’s just the one sorcerer?” said Hawk.
Burns looked at him. “One is usually enough to screw up any mission.”
Hawk ignored him, his gaze fixed on Mistique. “This is the second we’ve come across already. There might be more.”
“No,” said Mistique. “There’s just the one.”
“Good,” said Hawk. “Burns and I will take care of the bodyguards. You handle the sorcerer. Only this time, let’s all try really hard not to bring the pocket dimension down around our ears. All right?”
Mistique led the way to Packet Lane, striding confidently through the thickening fog. Hawk carried his axe at the ready and kept a careful watch, but no one seemed to be paying them any particular attention. People tended not to look at Guards if they could help it, on the grounds they didn’t want Guards looking at them. Burns grumbled most of the way to Packet Lane, muttering that the odds stank, the whole idea was crazy, and they ought to call Headquarters for a backup. Eventually Hawk said No with enough force to prove that he meant it, and Burns shut up and sulked the rest of the way. As long as he did it quietly, Hawk didn’t give a damn. He couldn’t afford to have Headquarters involved at this stage. If they were, he’d have to tell them about Fisher.
Mistique finally brought them to Packet Lane, and they stood together in the alley mouth, staring into the gloom. Nothing moved in the alleyway, and the shadows lay quiet and undisturbed. Burns drew his sword, and the sudden grating noise was eerily loud in the quiet. He glanced at Hawk, who nodded to Mistique. She walked forward, counting out the steps, and pressed the five bricks in the correct sequence. The huge steel door appeared out of the brickwork, and swung open at Mistique’s gesture. They stepped forward into the bright crimson light, and the door swung silently shut behind them.
The three Guards stood close together a moment, squinting into the crimson glare, and then Hawk hissed at Burns and Mistique to spread out. They made too good a target standing as a group. Their eyes quickly adjusted, and Hawk relaxed a little as he realised the long corridor before them was completely empty. The brilliant red light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, bathing everything in its bloody glow. The corridor had no furniture, no doors, and no visible turnings off. The walls and the floor were bare wood, not even varnished. Hawk took the point and led the way forward, axe at the ready. Bums and Mistique followed close behind. Their footsteps echoed loudly from the bare wooden floor, no matter how softly they trod.
The corridor seemed to go on forever. Hawk glanced back over his shoulder, and his hackles rose sharply as he saw the corridor stretching away behind him into the distance, with no sign of the door through which they’d entered. He shrugged uncomfortably, and trudged on down the corridor. It had to lead somewhere. The corridor suddenly rounded a corner and branched in two. Hawk looked down both paths, but there was nothing to choose between them. He looked back and forth while Burns and Mistique waited patiently for him to make up his mind, and then he tensed as he heard footsteps approaching. Hawk gestured quickly for the other two to fall back, and they retreated round the corner. Hawk eased back round the corner after them and stood poised, listening to the footsteps draw nearer. A man-at-arms rounded the corner, and Hawk whipped an arm round his throat before he had time to react. The man-at-arms started to call out, and Hawk tightened the hold until all that came out was a strangled croak.
“Don’t move,” said Hawk quietly. He waited till the man was perfectly still, and then eased his grip a little. The man-at-arms drew in a long, juddering breath. Hawk nodded to Burns, and he stepped forward and took the man’s sword. Hawk put his mouth close to his prisoner’s ear.
“Morgan. Where is he?”
“Are you crazy? He’ll have you killed for this....” He broke off abruptly as the hold round his throat tightened harshly and then relaxed again.
“What’s your name?” said Hawk.
“Justin.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No. Who are you?”
“I’m Hawk. Captain Hawk.”