Other worrisome thoughts were fast on the heels of the ones she’d stamped out. His tracking program couldn’t show them the house at a room-by-room level, so they knew only that two people were inside—somewhere. As they stopped at a second-floor window, she murmured, “What if there’s someone in this room?”
He shook his head as he pressed her hands against the house’s stone facade. “There won’t be anyone. It’s Crawford’s.”
She was about to ask how he could be sure, but the magic fizzling under her fingers silenced her. His assumption about a protective spell around the house had been right, at least, and hopefully he was right about the room, too.
He convinced the window open and gave her a boost in.
As dim as it was outside, it was even darker in the room. But Hartgrave, gripping her elbow, set off with a fair approximation of confidence and managed to get all the way to the door without bumping into anything.
“Report in,” he whispered, pausing there.
Willi’s response was just audible from her position under Hartgrave’s ear. “Here. Plan proceeding.”
Seconds ticked by. Hartgrave’s grip on her elbow tightened. “Ballantine?”
“Here, here, was just going into a jump,” Bernie said, sounding harassed. “Keep your socks on.”
Hartgrave exhaled. He put his ear to the door, waited a moment and opened it with care.
The hallway was empty. So were the staircase and ground floor below, the entry-point to the basement—where the server lay hidden. As she treaded softly in Hartgrave’s wake down the stairs, she glanced at her watch. Nearly three minutes past six. They were running exactly on time.
Then she ran straight into him because he’d stopped dead at the bottom of the staircase. The door to a nearby room stood open.
A man walked out.
“Oi!”the wizard exclaimed, shock flashing across his face as he caught sight of them.
Whatever else he might have said was cut off as a burst of magic hurled him against the front door, Emily staring in shock as his body hit with athunk. He crumpled to the floor and lay there, unmoving.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” A woman’s voice—muffled, probably by a door, but close and anxious. “Jack! Answer me or I’m calling the boss!”
Emily had no idea what to do. But Hartgrave, hoisting the man in a fireman’s carry, paused for only a second before saying in a voice heavy with an accent that wasn’t his: “Nuffink’s wrong. Went arse over tea kettle, ’at’s all.”
“Typical,” the woman replied, and said no more.
Emily tried to be happy about the miraculous recovery, but two questions weighed on her: How badly had they just hurt this man with curly blond hair who looked as young as her students? And did Hartgraveknowhim?
Hartgrave staggered to the wall by the staircase, and she roused herself. Every second counted, and the ethics of self-defense could be pondered later.
She pressed her hands against the wall. The illusion hiding the door to the basement disappeared with a speed either gratifying or disturbing, considering what it said about her state of mind. The doorknob gave way next, and they were in, creeping down stairs that mercifully did not creak.
As they reached the bottom, she risked a whispered question. “Is he ... is he dead?”
“Alive.” He set the wizard down.
Relief left her light-headed, but it didn’t wipe away the unsettling—unwanted—feeling of sympathy for this Organization man. A few months ago in a different room, she’d been in his position.
Hartgrave, lashing the wizard to the far side of the staircase with a rope he’d pulled from his coat pocket, glanced up and gave her awhat are you doinglook.
“Behind you,” he whispered.“Hurry.”
Crud, yes. She whipped around and saw it—the computer server that allowed the Organization to track down and kill people, kill Willi’s wife. She had expected a hulking mass of electronics. Instead it was a narrow metal cabinet with no doors, a monitor up top and two stacks of black boxes the size of dictionaries below.
She rushed forward and immediately smacked into the outermost layer of invisible magic around it.
“It’s—God, it’s even more than—than I’d counted on,” Hartgrave whispered, voice shaking. “And we’re already behind schedule.”
Each barrier fizzed away at a good clip, but they’d been cast so close together, it would clearly take her more than ten minutes rather than less. She tried, she really tried to reach for anger, but panic set in. Their only hope was Bernie managing to hang on at least as long as he had yesterday. And far longer than this morning.
