Collision: The Alliance Series Book Three (2 page)

For most of our lives, we’d used a hidden lower level Passage that cut right through the territory belonging to the monster-infested world of Cethrax, so it had been strange adjusting to using the Passages as an Alliance employee. The cold, blue-lit corridors on this level were safe, relatively speaking, because this part of the first level belonged to the allied worlds, the members of the Alliance. Second level belonged to the worlds which, for whatever reason, hadn’t joined the Alliance or had even been barred from membership. And the lower levels were given over to the many doorways leading into the swamps of Cethrax. As an Alliance guard, it was my job to hunt escaped monsters down, when I was on duty. Lucky I had this weekend off.

We skirted around the main Passage to Earth, not wanting to get caught up in the cross-world traffic, instead heading for a side-corridor which led the same way. The Passages were a shortcut across the worlds, for Alliance employees at least, and a two-hour walk to New York was far more reasonable than flying.

At an intersection, we met Simon, a friend of Kay’s who’d also graduated from the Academy. He worked at the New York Alliance and had helped with setting up the links from the shelter to Enzar. His blond hair caught the blue Passage light as he waved at me.

“Hey,” he said. “I should warn you, the New York guards are jumpy as hell thanks to the whole invisible goblin debacle.”

“Yeah, same at Central,” said Kay. “The number of accidental injuries is through the roof, because people keep attacking each other, thinking it’s a goblin. And there are rumours of a serial prankster who keeps sneaking up on people in the dark tunnels. Ridiculous, of course.”

I glanced sideways at him. “And that definitely isn’t true?”

I wasn’t sure if he’d told Simon, but Alber didn’t know Kay could turn himself invisible now. I understood why he wouldn’t want the whole Multiverse to know he could do something that was supposed to be impossible, but it was still pretty freaking awesome. And yeah, he’d tried that trick on me before. I wasn’t amused.

“Might have happened once.”

“Ha,” said Simon. “At least that dickhead Aric isn’t around anymore. Has no one seen him since?”

Kay shrugged. “He’s either stranded on Aglaia, or he made it back into the Passages. If he did, he might be anywhere, on any world. His family’s all in jail now anyway.”

“Good,” said Alber vehemently. Aric’s cousins and sister had tortured him. Wynn Conner was dead, killed by the centaurs, and Kay had apparently spared Aric’s life in the forest–which I didn’t quite understand, given that they’d hated each other ever since they’d been at the Academy. Kay had almost accidentally killed Aric two years ago using magic, while Aric and his sister had retaliated by setting a wyvern loose in the Passages, which had left Kay permanently scarred.

“Hmm. I wonder about that,” said Simon. “Where do fugitives go?”

Kay shrugged. “I don’t know, he probably ran off to another world and got himself a false identity. I’m not too worried, to be honest. Idiot has no sense, he’ll get himself arrested within days.”

“You don’t think he’ll attack the Alliance?” Simon asked sceptically.

“Alone? No. Without his family’s name to protect him, he’s nothing. He’ll probably claim he’s innocent.”

“Dickhead,” said Simon. “Never mind him, anyway.”

As we rounded a corner, a group of black-uniformed guards appeared from the shadows, armed with stunners.

“Only me,” said Simon. “Jesus, point that stunner somewhere else, Dave. I told you I was bringing people.”

The muscled guy he’d spoken to eyed Alber. “He’s not Alliance.”

“Oh, lighten up,” said Simon. “We’re visiting the shelter, not Central. He’s Ada’s brother.”

Dave stared at me, and so did the rest of the guards. Nothing new there. The number of versions of the story of how I’d come to work at Central in London was probably bigger than the number of worlds in the Multiverse, and typically, the more dramatic parts had spread the furthest. I supposed it did sound odd that an illegal offworld immigrant who’d been arrested for dangerous magic use and trespassing ended up as an Alliance employee only weeks after breaking out of jail. Though I’d told as much of the truth as possible to people at Central, I was fairly sure a lot of people either saw me as a danger or a lunatic.

“All right,” said Dave, and the guards moved to let us past.

This doorway opened into an alley. The sun peeked over the skyline, reminding me we’d technically travelled five hours back in time. Simon led the way, but once we reached the alleyway’s end, Kay wandered off alone. He’d pulled out his communicator again, but still somehow managed not to walk into anyone on the crowded pavement.

“The shelter’s doing okay?” I asked Simon.

“Yeah. They were struggling a bit until a couple of months ago, actually,” said Simon. “I didn’t know much about the place until Kay called me up, asking about setting up the link to Enzar. Not long after, they got an anonymous donation. A
massive
one. It lifted them right out of debt.”

“Really?” said Alber. “From who?”

I poked him in the arm. “Al, don’t you know what ‘anonymous’ means?”

“Shut it, you.”

“It came from someone in the Alliance,” said Simon, jerking his head in Kay’s direction.

“You think?” I said.

“Yeah… I reckon he did it. Same happened back in London, now they’re opening a whole new shelter network.”

“I forgot about that,” I said. “I’ve heard it mentioned at Central, but I guess I didn’t think how they’d fund it…”

Simon nodded. “It’s something he’d do, for sure.”

A pang went through me. When I’d first met Kay, I’d assumed he was a callous Alliance guard out only for his own interests. It wasn’t the first time my tendency to speak without considering first had swung around to hit me in the face, but it didn’t help that my family had also jumped to the worst conclusion. Specifically, Nell and Jeth. I’d had words with them about not blaming him for the times I’d nearly got killed, but we’d been at an impasse for the past few weeks, as I’d adjusted to working at Central while Kay went offworld with the other Ambassadors.

“Huh,” said Alber. “I’d want everyone to know, if it were me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Figures.”

A sudden electric jolt shot up my spine, like I’d trodden on a plug. My head snapped up. I knew that feeling… but it didn’t happen on Earth. It
never
happened on Earth.

Magic.

Kay turned back, and from the expression on his face, he’d noticed, too.

“What’s up?” asked Simon.

I stared around, at the shops lining the street, the yellow cabs standing out amongst the traffic, the crowds passing by. Nothing out of the ordinary for New York.

“Alber, did you feel that?” I asked.

“Feel what?”

Maybe I’d imagined the sensation, but I’d have expected my younger brother, who was mageblood—the magic-wielding Enzarians on the other side of the conflict to the once-ruling Royals—to be able to sense magic, too.

We caught up to Kay at the street corner next to a convenience store. “That was a shift,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Anyone want to clue me in?” asked Simon.

“I thought I felt… magic,” I said. “A shift?”

“Like something boosted the magic level. I can’t feel it anymore.” Kay put his communicator in his jacket pocket, frowning.

“Eh, probably nothing,” said Simon. “There’s a bunch of offworlders living in the area, I’ll bet one of them brought something from another world in.”

“Hmm. There are magic-wielders at the shelter?” said Kay.

“Yeah,” said Simon. “I don’t know the specifics. People come and go.”

“Huh. Might be worth checking out.”

We reached the shelter, an apartment building at the street’s end. It looked no different from the other buildings on either side, but through the windows, most of the people I saw were offworlders –some easy to recognise by appearance, such as clawed hands and feet, wings, or odd-coloured eyes, some less so. The door flew open and a blond girl, around ten years old, ran out, shrieking.

“Get back here, Isa!” A blue-skinned woman ran from the building. Simon blocked the girl’s way before she ran into the road.

“Whoa,” he said. “Easy there. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The girl rotated on the spot, wild-eyed. “Rick electrocuted me!”

Oh, crap.
It sounded like magic, all right. First level was a mild static shock, and usually impossible even for a magic-wielder here on Earth. Unless you were like me, and from a high-magic world. But even I couldn’t use magic here most of the time.

“No I
didn’t!”
yelled a teenage boy from the upstairs window.

The girl stared at us. “Have you come to take us away again?”

“No,” Simon said quickly. “We were just checking things out. What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” said the woman who’d chased after the girl. “You’re from the Alliance, right? I’ve seen you here before.”

“Yeah,” said Simon. “These guys are from Central. They helped out with linking us to the cut-off worlds. If this is a bad time, we can leave…”

Another sudden jolt of energy rushed through the air. I looked at Kay again, alarmed. At that moment, the boy from upstairs ran out the house, too, and didn’t stop.

The woman followed. “
What
is going on?”

“No idea,” said another boy, of around twelve, who’d appeared from the house. “Rick’s hands started
sparking.
It was wicked cool.”

“Magic,” said Kay. “He’s a magic-wielder, right?” He directed this question at the blue-skinned woman. “From one of the outlying worlds?”

“And who are you?” she asked, instead of answering. “I didn’t think Earth people were interested in magic.”

“What just happened isn’t normal for Earth,” said Kay. “Even magic-wielders shouldn’t be able to… that was a second level shot, wasn’t it?”

“He was glowing,” said the boy. “Kind of freaky.”

“Damn,” Kay muttered, with a glance back at me. “It definitely isn’t normal for Earth.”

“We can take care of this,” said the woman, with a protective glance behind at the children who’d gathered in the hallway and behind the windows to see what was happening. I guessed she was in charge. “We don’t want the Alliance shutting us down, you hear?”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Kay. “Can you let the Alliance know if anything else comes up? Magic can be dangerous.”

“We can handle this.” She started herding the curious children back into the house.

Kay turned to Simon with a shrug. “Should we clear off, then? I don’t think we can be much help here.”

“Sure.” Simon turned his back on the shelter. “Let me know if anything else happens, okay?” he said to the woman.

“Weird,” I said, as we walked down the street, back in the direction of the Passage entrance. “Are you sure it was second level?”

“Pretty sure,” said Kay. “If it was first level, we wouldn’t have felt it.”

And third level was destructive and invariably fatal. A shiver ran down my spine.

“Hmm,” said Simon. “I always wondered how the whole magic deal worked. Can you sense if someone else uses magic, then?”

“On Earth, yeah,” said Kay. “But that’s because it’s low-magic so it stands out a mile.”

And because he, like me, had some kind of magic in his blood, thanks to an experiment the Alliance–his own father, in fact–had engineered.

“Hang on.” Kay turned back. “Right… you guys go on ahead. I have an idea.”

“Here we go.” Simon rolled his eyes. “Does it involve hijacking vehicles or crazy stunts?”

“Nah, I’m gonna go and check back there.” Kay indicated the shelter, where a bigger crowd gathered outside. “They won’t see me.”

Not if he’s invisible.
Any of us could use the Chameleon devices for temporary camouflage, but Kay could make the effect last as long as he wanted to.

Simon shrugged. “If you like. We’ll wait.”

Alber stared through the windows of a video game store. “I’m gonna look in here,” he said.

“You know you don’t have the right currency, don’t you?” I said. But he’d already gone inside.

“One of the perks to being an Ambassador is the offworld credit card,” said Simon. “It has like ten thousand currencies logged into it, you can withdraw in whichever you need. I can’t wait to get one.”

“Ah, I guess I never thought of that,” I said.
Awesome.
I made a mental note to check on the rules about cross-world regulations to see what I could legally bring back to Earth. Before I’d joined the Alliance, I’d spent a lot of time at the black market for offworlders at Covent Garden, where Jeth bought most of his offworld technology parts.

“I reckon you’ll make Ambassador soon. You’ve been offworld more than once already, right?”

“Yeah, but my boss doesn’t like me. Then again, I suppose she doesn’t like anyone, so…”

“Ah, Kay told me about the dragon,” said Simon. “Come on, you’re a celebrity.”