The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(68)

He was going to slow gradually, then he checked the ground and panicked and braked hard. Underneath them a pine tree exploded from a toy into a grasping, pricking monster and together the three of them slammed into the penny-farthing and the penny-farthing slammed into branches. He had time to think: f*ck them all if he died like this! For a case that he didn’t even know what was in it! Pine needles slapped him and then they hit the ground and his vision went white.

Something was ringing like a bell. It was his head. His chest was empty, and he writhed on the ground like a grub. He tried to take in some air, any air at all, and weird creaking and crying sounds came out of his mouth. Either his ribcage had collapsed and crushed his lungs and he was dying, or he’d just got the wind knocked out of him and would be fine in a minute.

He pushed himself up. The world was turning around him like a carousel.

As it stabilized he saw Betsy already up and staggering in circles. Quentin started to say something, but he could only cough and spit.

“Where is it?” she said hoarsely. “Where is it? Do you see it?”

The woman was still down, ten feet away, but she was stirring. Quentin got a close look at her for the first time: tall and model-thin, older than her picture, with ringletted black hair and a bad cut on her forehead that would need stitches. Quentin spotted the case resting in a patch of ferns, as neat as if it had just come off a baggage carousel, a few yards from her.

The woman saw where he was looking. She made a noise in her throat and began to crawl toward it, but Betsy was way ahead of her. As she walked past her Betsy bent and put a hand on the woman’s neck. She spasmed, arching her spine like a cat. Betsy touched her with the other hand, then straddled her like a horse, pumping energy into her—her fingers sparked. The woman’s body bucked under her like she was being defibrillated.

“Stop!” Quentin croaked.

But it was already too late. She let go and the woman fell face-first on the black earth, still twitching. Quentin smelled burned flesh.

“I stopped,” Betsy said. She kept walking.

She picked up the case, examined it skeptically for damage, hefted it in her hands. It looked like it hardly weighed a thing. Quentin crawled over to the dying woman but stopped short of touching her. There was no telling what kind of fatal magical juice was still in her body. Smoke rose from her black hair. It was too late anyway.

Betsy watched him. She spat on the ground.

“I’ll kill you too if you try to stop me.”

The forest was quiet. It was early spring, the undergrowth was still recovering from the rude shock of winter, and only a few crickets chirped. The woman had been a murderer. Three minutes ago she would’ve let either one of them die. Betsy squatted down and laid the case down and fumbled with the latches.

“Shit.” She strained at them, set herself and strained again. “Shit. I was afraid of that. Where the hell is Plum where you need her?”

“What do you want with Plum?”

More or less on cue Stoppard and Plum came crunching down through the branches, shielding their faces from the bristles. They were crowded together on the same club chair; something must have happened to the other one. Their landing was hard but controlled until the chair came down on a rock and one of its legs snapped off, spilling them onto the soft ground.

Plum got to her feet, rubbing her hands on her thighs.

“Jesus,” she said. “What happened?”

“The girl bit it,” Betsy said. “Open the case.”

“What, now? Shouldn’t we—?”

“Open it!”

“Better do it,” Quentin said. “She killed the woman.”

Betsy must be pretty worn out by now, he thought, but there was still no telling what she was capable of.

“Jesus,” Stoppard said. “Why’d you do that?”

He seemed to really want to know, but Betsy ignored him. Her face was grim and set.

“Open it. Do it now.”

“What makes you think I can open it?”

“You know what.”

Plum sighed, resigned.

“I guess I do.”

She sat down cross-legged in front of the case and snapped open the latches as if they’d never been locked. As soon as she did Betsy kicked her aside roughly.

“Hey!”

She rummaged through the contents. She picked up a book, tossed it aside, then she held up a long knife made of what looked like tarnished silver. It was a simple weapon, unornamented. It looked very functional and very old.

“Yes,” she whispered to it. Her voice cracked. “Oh, yes. Hello you.”

With a rush of air and a thunderous crackling whump the pool table bashed straight down through the canopy and landed solidly on its thick legs on the forest floor. Lionel rode it down standing up, the bird on his shoulder. There was no sign of Pushkar.

“Where’s the case?” Lionel took in the corpse, Quentin and Plum and Stoppard, Betsy and the knife. “You opened it.”

He’d unwrapped his parcel: it was a gun, a snouty-looking assault rifle that fit lightly under his arm. Stock and barrel were deeply engraved, swirls and tracery—it was obviously a hybrid weapon, high-tech but magically augmented.

“I sure did,” Betsy said.

“Where’s Pushkar?” Stoppard said.

Instead of answering Lionel smoothly raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted down it and fired two controlled bursts briskly and efficiently at Stoppard’s chest.