Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(66)

This is going to hurt, I thought, and probably break things.

Only it didn’t, because something I can only describe as a cushion of air got between me and the cobbles. Not enough to stop it hurting and ripping my trousers to shit – although at least the Metvest kept the worst of the road rash off my back.

Unfortunately, the same was true of Chorley. Although I did try and belt him one as he rolled away from me. I’d thought he’d done the air cushion himself, but I’d been close enough to sense any formae, and there hadn’t been none.

I looked back at the van just in time to see all four wheels fly off at the same time. They went straight to the side with just a tiny bit of upward angle to stop them scraping the tarmac. Momentum carried them bouncing down the street, but the van fell onto its axles and ground to a halt in a bright shower of sparks.

Both me and Chorley knew only one person who could work with that kind of precision, and while Chorley was looking around desperately for Nightingale, I hammered him with an impello—palma combination that should have sent him screaming across the road.

Without even looking at me, Chorley threw up a hand and my own spell bounced back to smack me in the face. I got a taste of my own signare even as I was knocked off my knees and rolled into the gutter. I tried to get to my feet and slammed my head hard against an anti-parking bollard.

My ears were ringing and my sight was blurred, but not enough so I couldn’t see Chorley turning to give me his full attention. But suddenly he was sucked backwards off his feet and through an arched window in the office building opposite.

Then I heard footsteps coming up the road and Nightingale barked:

‘On your feet, Grant.’

And I was up before the command had consciously registered. Nightingale had put himself between me and the broken window.

‘Secure the van,’ Nightingale ordered, and suddenly he was surrounded by a globe of rippling air. I didn’t see what happened next, because I had my orders.

I ran towards the van, sitting on its axles at a crossroad. I could see Walbrook was still in the back, chained to the big fun tin of quality badness, but the driver had climbed out and was lurching towards me.

He was a big white man, dressed in the traditional garb of the working villain – black cargo trousers, navy blue sweatshirt and donkey jacket, all of it bought from jumble sales and charity shops the better to be discarded when the job’s done. He had a big square face, no neck, and arms about the same size as my thighs.

He frowned at me and shook his head.

My extendable baton was back with the flipped car, as was my pepper spray and my speedcuffs. Some backup would have been nice about then, but we’d all agreed the tactics in advance.

It’s the calculus of magical combat. Masters fight masters while the apprentices secure the objective.

I flicked a water bomb into his face – a nice cold one, thanks to a trick Varvara taught me – and followed up by kicking him in the bollocks. He gave me a puzzled look and then fell flat on his face. It turned out later that he’d been suffering from a concussion, probably picked up when the wheels came off the van, so it’s probably just as well I hadn’t smacked him on the bonce with a baton.

I would have paused to put him in the recovery position, but his boss chose that moment to emerge from the courtyard beside the office and fling a quarter of a ton of metal bars – the remnants of the courtyard gate – at Nightingale. The bars twisted as they flew until they formed a whirling mass like the blades of a turbine two metres across.

Despite being within charging distance of Chorley, I didn’t dare engage. He might be concentrating on Nightingale, but I thought it was better to hop back in the van on the basis that what the eye can’t see the mad supernatural psychopath can’t hit.

Walbrook’s eyes were open by then, and she pointedly stared at me and then at the purple tin of doom. Chorley had a knack for being insanely over-prepared, and it didn’t surprise me to find that he’d stashed a bolt cutter in a toolbox behind the front seats. Moving carefully to avoid the tin, I cut the chain around Walbrook’s wrist and it had barely hit the floor when she dived over the front seat.

‘Stay down,’ I said, and cut the chain holding the tin to the ceiling.

It dropped with an ominous clonk, as if it was much heavier than it had any right to be. I checked out the back and found Martin Chorley staring at me with an expression that was perversely similar to one my mum used to use.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ he said.

The tin did a little jump for emphasis, as if something were bouncing up and down inside.

I swung the bolt cutters like a golf club and whacked the vampire tin in his general direction. Typically he did an elegant pivot out of the way, but before he could complete his turn his clothes turned white with frost and I saw the hair on his head actually freeze. I assumed this was Nightingale proving that I wasn’t the only one who’d been getting tips off Varvara. I’d have loved to have stood around and watched but, still having my orders, I followed Walbrook over the back of the front seat and out the passenger door.

I found Walbrook furiously pulling the last of her chains off.

‘Where is he?’ she said when she saw me. ‘I’m going to have him.’

Behind me there was a sudden furnace blast of heat and I saw orange flames reflected in the shop windows behind Walbrook. I ran forward and bore her down to the ground as the van behind me exploded. If that was Chorley getting rid of his frostbite, then it was certainly overkill.