Now we just had to figure out what to do about Steve.
He was still talking excitedly about Mercer, another story of his past exploits – stealing a chariot from the sun-god or some similar nonsense. Mercer could have that effect on people. In our circles he was as close to a celebrity as you could get. Forget fast cars and loose women – racing Pegasuses and wooing tree nymphs was more Mercer's style. He was the guy everybody wanted to be.
Except me. I'd hate to be anything like Edric Mercer.
A bony elbow jabbed my stomach. Ang jerked her head toward the main door. Hovering over the light switch was the flickering bluecap.
She raised an eyebrow.
I nodded.
The lights went out.
'What the– Jesus Christ, that made me jump. Hold on a tick, I'll check the fuse box.'
Ang and I froze, both mid-rise from our seats. The shadow of Steve turned, completely unawares, towards the door.
Where the bluecap still hovered.
'Well, now,' I heard him murmur. 'What's this little fairy light, then?'
I took my chance and leapt forward.
I did not try to hit him about the head, because 1) this is not a very reliable method of knocking someone unconscious, and 2) I didn't really want to hurt him. Steve was just a guy who wanted a new van. It's all business, in the end.
So I tapped him on the shoulder–
'Eh?'
–and swept his legs from under him with his own stool.
'Ang, run!'
'Hansard you prick–'
'Nothing personal!' I shouted behind me.
We slammed the door and rushed out into the night. There was a faint sound of scrambling behind us, but turning a few corners in this maze of an abandoned industrial estate was all it took to find a suitable alcove and simply . . . fade into the background. Sometimes it's better to stand still in shadow and listen for the sound of frantic footsteps to simply pass you by.
Ang and I stood motionless, our presence unfocused and blurred against a damp wall. We watched Steve come rumbling by. The confusion was plain on his face.
'I can see you!' we heard him shout hopelessly, further down the alley. Poor bloke. He was doing his best.
Eventually he was out of sight, and earshot.
'Shall we find the car?' I said brightly.
'S'long as we find food, too. Am famished, gwas.'
'We weren't tied up for that long, for goodness' sake.'
'Felt like f'rever.'
'Well it could have been shorter if you'd got that bluecap working faster.'
The ghostly blue flame slipped out of hiding from under Ang's waistcoat. She unscrewed the cap on her lantern and it slid inside – looking rather more solid than before. If you looked closely, you might see the shape of an amber egg sheltered inside it.
'Don't like it, gwas. Shouldn't be usin' bluecap for this work.'
'It is a treasure-seeking spirit,' I pointed out.
'Aye. Underground, maybe. Not through men's pockets.'
'But it's proven my point, yes? That bluecap of yours is a brilliant asset for obtaining new acquisitions.'
'Dunno. Seems like cheatin'.'
'Nonsense. We're just making the most of our resources.'
'Aye. It were too easy though, is what I'm sayin'.'
'You shouldn't complain about things going smoothly, for once.'
She arched an eyebrow. 'Ye sayin' that getting caught an' tied up was things goin' smooth?'
'It's smooth for us.' I felt for the little USB stick that Ang's bluecap had deposited in my pocket and held it up under the light of an orange streetlamp. 'Probably a tidy profit on this.'
'So we stealin' now as well?' Ang continued sourly.
'You might say Steve deserved it. He did try to sell us off.'
'Aye. And I s'pose ye didn't know he would do that. Did ye.' Ang's tone told me that it wasn't really a question. Her eyes bored upwards into my chin. I expected her to give another sharp remark, but instead she sighed. 'Look, gwas. We're partners now, ain't we? I should get more've a say in how we're doin' business. I've gone along wi' this'un, but I gotta say that outright stealin' don't feel right to me.'
I stopped in my tracks. 'Didn't I explain this all to you?'
'No.' She tilted her head. 'I have noticed, gwas, that ye tends to make long and fancy plans in yer head, an' oftentimes fails to enlighten me of 'em. Sometimes I thinks ye have whole conversations just wi' yerself.'
I mulled this over, well aware of the look on her face as I internally scrutinised the words. It's a lonely lifestyle, driving up and down the country hauling unlawful goods (unlawful only because there are no laws to govern them) to sell to various elements of underground – and also sometimes overground and betweenground – society, most of whom are too shifty to be trusted even as distant business associates, let alone as friends.
But Ang, despite being Welsh, and a coblyn, and a devourer of pastries, had proven herself to be just that – a friend. And she was right. I had promised we'd be partners in this business. And I hadn't been upholding my end of the deal very well at all.
'Gwas,' she said flatly.
'Right, right, I was just thinking. Sorry, is what I mean. Let's get to the car, and then I'll fill you in. How about that?'
'Stop right there!'
I whirled round. Steve emerged from the shadow of an alley, huffing and panting. His lankiness was deceptive: he was not a fit bloke.
'Careful Steve, remember your heart,' I said urgently. 'Don't go giving–' I grasped quickly for his wife's name, '–Catherine another fright like that.'
Steve doubled over in front of us, hands on his knees. 'Hansard, you bastard. You just needed to stay put.'
'Sorry. I didn't want to.' I ignored the logical compulsion to flee and prodded the question at the forefront of my mind. 'How did you catch up to us? We were long gone.'
Steve wiped sweat from his brow with one hand and waved the other which was holding onto a silver smartphone. It cast a brazen white glow over the murky brickwork.
'Scrying spell, motherfucker,' he said.
'What, on your phone?' I was incredulous, yet fascinated. 'You have an app for that?'
'Nah. The spell's embedded in the hardware. Actual silver casing, right. Crushed quartz grafted into the SIM card. And a spot of code written by yours truly. It's a beaut.' He held up the screen proudly, where a simple circle of blue pixels pointed right at me, as though I were true north on a compass.
'But surely the spell needs something that belongs to us, to track us down?' I said, perplexed.
He tapped twice – and a photo of Ang and myself tied to two chairs popped onto the screen.
'They say a camera captures a piece of your soul,' he said slyly.
'Sounds unlikely.' I peered at the image. I was in need of a haircut, I noted. 'Great craftsmanship, though. Very cunning. Wouldn't expect anything less of you, Steve-O.'
His chest puffed with pride. 'This's what adapting looks like, Hansard. No scrying crystals for me. Right. Now you know I can find you wherever you are, mate. So how about you just come on back with me now and save us both the hassle.'
I liked Steve. He was a fairly genuine bloke, simple goals, well-earned pride in his work, but not arrogant about it. He had the same heart as a car mechanic who would point out all the bits of an engine to you if you showed even a sniff of interest, regardless of your actual knowledge of how all the bits of metal and wire fitted together. Steve certainly wasn't made for deviousness, or for thinking like a devious person.
Unfortunately for him, I am.
'What's that button there?' I craned my neck, stepping closer. 'And how do you switch the spell from one person to another? You can't attune a crystal to more than one thing at once, even I know that. Have you got more spells on there? What if you wanted to reprogram it with a different kind of scrying magic?'
'Ah, slow down. And don't touch that. It's all in the interface. That's the bit I built an app for. Doesn't work without all the embedded hardware, mind. I'm trying to make up kits for it, but it's expensive as hell. Not profitable at all. But the app part is easy because it's just buttons to adjust the– Hansard you bastard!'
Ang sprinted to catch up with me. 'Gettin' sick o' this runnin', gwas,' she muttered.
'We'll cut down.' I grinned and clutched Steve's phone tightly. Poor sod. He wasn't even expecting the swipe.
We slowed to a jog before long as Steve's angry puffing faded behind us. In retrospect, we could've just outrun him again, regardless of any fancy digital scrying spell.
My car came into view. Just another nondescript car in a nondescript car park in a nondescript industrial estate in the centre of Manchester. I like nondescript. The fewer details people can remember about where you've been, the better. I turned Steve's phone off and slipped it into one of my many coat pockets.
Ang slumped into the passenger seat, retrieving a half-eaten sausage roll from the glove box. She munched noisily on it until I'd driven us clear of the estate. I knew when she'd turned to stare at me by the smell of spiced pork wafting over the gearstick.
'All right, so I knew he was going to double-cross us,' I said.
''A friendly business meet', ye called it,' she leered back. 'Acquirin' new products? Ye told me we wuz jus' goin' to talk.'
I looked appalled. 'Ang. Do you really see me peddling the kind of products Steve makes? Magical USB drives don't exactly look right next to crystals, potion bottles, and hex bags. It doesn't fit the, you know, aesthetic.'
'Oh, ye has an aesthetic now.'
'It's not traditional,' I huffed. 'What's next? Curses delivered by email? Miraculous remedies on a microchip? I mean, a scrying spell on a phone for goodness' sake. You might as well just hack someone's GPS. It's boorish and it's boring.'
'Why go to any trouble fer this doodad then? Ye gots it safe, right?'
'Of course it's safe.' I patted a pocket. 'This isn't for me. Or for us, rather. This is me repaying a personal favour. So it's uh, personal. Not business, is what I mean.'
I made a show of straining to read the road signs as we crawled a labyrinthine route out of Manchester; in reality, avoiding the question in Ang's stare.
'What's on the computer stick?' she said to the side of my face.
I gave a half shrug. 'I don't know.'
'And who's it fer?'
'A friend.'
Her head thudded back against the seat. 'Ye promised to explain, gwas.'
And I'd hoped the added excitement might have dulled her memory. But I knew Ang better than to expect her to drop a line of questioning, once started. 'He's a friend I owe a lot of favours to, all right? Don't ask me what for, because I'm not having that conversation now. But understand that I'm happy to owe this guy favours, and I'm happy to pay them, too. So when he asked me to get this gizmo off Steve, well. I didn't see the harm.'
Ang was quiet for a moment. 'Are you sayin' I got dragged along an' tied up an' made to sit in a cold warehouse an' used me bluecap for thievery, all so you could run a personal errand, gwas?'
'Not if you put it like that. Look, this is important to me–'
'Bluecap is important to me, gwas. Don't ye dare be askin' fer its lending fer yer own gains again.'
She swivelled sideways with armsand legs crossed and chin sunk onto her chest. My fingers drummed the steeringwheel angrily. What did she mean, 'for my own gains'? What did she think my entirebusiness operation was for?