Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Iswore and thrust upright, the movement so abrupt tea lapped the cup’s edge and splashed over my jeans. I swore again, but placed the cup down on the coffee table and said, “Our thief is at it again.”
“Well, there goes my date,” he said, obviously unperturbed.
“And my much-needed soak in a bubbly bath. And no, we cannot combine the two later on.”
I took my purse from him and tugged out the harp.
As I touched it, the discordant tune sharpened, and the room briefly faded.
What I saw instead was music, each note a visible entity that leapt from the strings and danced through the air, forming a conga line that slipped through the building’s front windows and continued on unseen.
If we followed it, it would lead us to our thief.
“We need to go. Now.”
I tossed my purse down but kept hold of the harp. I didn’t even pick up my coat, keys, or phone. There simply wasn’t time. He was close—real close, if the strength of the harp’s off-tune song was anything to go by—but if we wasted so much as a minute, we would lose him.
Why I was certain of that, I couldn’t say.
“Do we need the car?” Mathi asked as he chased me down the stairs.
“No. He’s near.”
I hit the ground floor, ran for the front door, and flung it open. Evening had settled in, the streetlights washing bright puddles of light across rain-darkened pavement. Overhead, thunder rumbled, a deeply ominous note through which an old goddess spoke, telling me to hurry the fuck up....
Imagination? Probably, though when it came to Beira, one could never be truly sure.
The stream of notes went right down Eastgate Street toward the Cross.
I ran after them, dodging pedestrians as the wind picked up and urged me on.
The Cross’s red sandstone gleamed in the warm light coming from the nearby shops, briefly bloodying the notes as they danced past it.
They continued on into Watergate Steet, but a third of the way down, went right and disappeared through the windows of a blue-and-white-painted building that held no signage other than a small logo on the door that said Dusty Diamonds.
I slid to a halt, pressed a hand against the window to shield my eyes from the lights behind me, and peered in. As I did, a shadow darted up the stairs at the back of the room; the notes stilled and then faded. He’d stopped using the pectoral, meaning we were in danger of losing him again.
“We need to get inside, Mathi.”
“Already on it.”
He dragged his lockpick out of his wallet and did his thing. A few seconds later, he opened the door and stepped inside. As I followed him in, something shattered on the floor above us.
I doubted it was a window—the glass sounded too fragile.
“You head upstairs,” Mathi said softly. “I’ll head around to the back of the building in the event he decides to clamber out on the roof or use the fire escape.”
I nodded and, as he headed out, ran through the crowded room, trying my best to avoid the shiny bits and pieces that covered all the shelves and nearly all of the floor—the dusty diamonds the shop was named after, no doubt.
None of it looked particularly expensive; in fact, while I was no expert, most of it seemed more aimed at tourists than any real collector.
But maybe the expensive stuff was kept upstairs; many collectors did that to save themselves the worry of “window shoppers” breaking something valuable.
I grabbed the handrail and took the stairs two at a time.
The wood was silent under my fingers, drowned under the weight of too much paint and too little care.
Even the building’s song was hushed to the point of being inaudible.
The floorboards had been treated as badly as the handrail, and the building’s network of golden rivers fractured by too many extensions.
Neither was able to give me anything on our suspect’s location.
At the top of the stairs was an open door, its lock smashed and the frame splintered.
I called a knife to my hand and warily stepped through.
Little in the way of light crept into the room, despite the windows on the street side of the building being uncovered and quite large, and the shadows were thick and heavy.
I couldn’t immediately see our thief—or anyone else for that matter—and there was no sound beyond the normal creaking of an old building.
I had no sense that he or anyone else was up here.
But unless he’d gone out a window—and the breakage I’d heard hadn’t sounded like window glass—then he had to be.
I edged forward, keeping my back to the wall and the knife in front of me. The inner tension ratcheted up several notches with every step, and its force echoed through the knife, sending little jabs of lightning into the air. In the deeper reaches of the room, the shadows briefly stirred.
“I know you’re there,” I said softly. “You need to come out.”
He didn’t reply. No surprise there.
I took several more sideways steps and raised the knife.
The lightning leaping from its tip caressed the stained glass pendant light almost directly above me and spun rainbows across the ceiling.
It revealed that this section of the upper floor had been converted into a proper living space.
Immediately in front of me was a living area, while to my right were two doorways—the one closest to the stairs being a bathroom while the other appeared to be a small bedroom.
I continued on warily, the knife’s dancing light slowly revealing the rest of the room.
Beyond the living area was a tiny kitchenette, and beyond that, a number of bookcases and— The thought froze as a figure darted across the room and disappeared through a door down the far end.
My first instinct was to run after him, but with the building’s song giving me almost no information as to whether he’d been up here alone, I wasn’t about to take any undue risks, no matter how desperately we needed to catch the bastard.
I continued on warily, sweeping the knife’s light in front of me, seeing nothing beyond the glittering glass shards lying at the base of the cabinet he’d broken into and the dust that danced through the air.
I paused at the door and cautiously peered around the frame, discovering a staircase leading up to the roof rather than another room.
The steps were metal and didn’t look particularly safe, but if our elf had gone up them, they should hold me.
Of course, he was a young dark elf, and not only walked lighter, but probably weighed a whole lot less, too.
I moved up warily, my footsteps echoing softly and the knife’s little flicks of lightning continuing to fold the shadows away.
At the top was a rather ratty-looking metal door; at the base of it lay the remains of a padlock.
If our thief had been responsible for the lock’s destruction, it was unlikely the door held any other magical protections, but just to be sure, I touched the knife’s tip to the handle.
Lightning buzzed around it for a few seconds then danced away.
The door itself held no threat; there was no guarantee the same could be said for whatever lay beyond it.
Again, the thunder rumbled. This time, Beira’s voice was clearer and sharper. You’re letting him get away. Move.
Don’t you have something else to do? I snapped back in annoyance.
Yes, so hurry up so I can get to it.
I swore at her, heard the distant echo of laughter in the thunder, and kicked the door open with a little more force than necessary.
It crashed back against the frame of a covered rooftop terrace—a very old one, if the rusted state of the metal framework and the amount of moss and mold covering the polycarbonate roof was anything to go by—sending sparks flying.
The wind sharpened around me, whispering of movement.
Our thief had just leapt over onto the next building.
I swore, caught the wind, and cast it after him, then hurried after it.
He swung around, eyeing me, his expression amused—arrogant—as he slapped a hand to his shoulder.
The harp came to life, the notes once again forming their conga line as the thief’s body began to dissolve.
The bastard was not going to get away from me. Not this time.
I split my leash, ordering one arm around his body and the other at the object he was gripping, ripping it out of his fingers. The notes died, and our thief solidified.
He swore—long and very colorfully—and tried to run.
I tightened my leash around his waist, ripped him off the roof, into the air, and let him hang there for several seconds.
The darkness within wanted to do far more; wanted to damage him as he’d tried to damage me, but I swallowed the urge and plucked the still-glowing pectoral from the wind’s grip, shoving it into the back pocket of my jeans as I walked over to the edge of the roof.
“You down there, Mathi?”
“I am indeed.” He appeared from under the awning covering the next building’s back door. “I take it from all the bellowing that you’ve caught our thief?”
“Yep. I have the pectoral, too, so he can’t escape. I’ll lower him down to you.”
“You able to keep him bound by the wind until Henrick gets here and we can contain him properly?”
“Sure.” I paused. “You keep restraints in your car?”
“I keep many things in my car. Some of them would probably horrify you.”