With only two more steps to go before the top of the stairs and a small landing space with white-painted walls and bare wooden floorboards that led to another plain wooden door, Girard stopped, crouching down to get a better look at the step in front of him.
“There’s a tripwire here.” He flicked on his torch and inspected the two remaining steps. “Just this one. If we step over it, we should be fine.”
“Alright,” Hallie said, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. A tripwire could be connected to a variety of things, from a simple bell to let the occupant know that someone was coming up the stairs to an explosive device. And she wished she hadn’t thought of explosives again. A lifetime in low city andshe’d had to worry about skips using whatever they could get their hands on to try to take her out so that they could make their escape, but she’d never had to worry about things blowing up.
Girard made it safely over the step with the tripwire and put his torch away, waiting on the landing for Hallie to catch up before he tried the door. To her surprise, and his, judging by his expression, the door opened under his hand.
They made their way from the bare, utilitarian corridor into another space of refined luxury. It was some kind of entryway and would have been at home in ahochlenresidence. In fact, it was far more luxurious than the entry to Hallie’s new apartment. There was thick carpet underfoot, the kind that Hallie’s boots sank into, making no sound. The carpet was patterned with deep, rich colours, matched by the deep crimson walls and ceiling. The walls held a series of hooks for coats. There was a long, drab coat hanging at one and a pair of boots on the ground underneath it, but nothing else in the room. There was another door ahead of them and Girard crossed to that.
As the door opened, the flat crack of a gunshot rang out. Girard ducked to one side, Hallie moving with him. The gunshot was followed by muttered cursing in a low, feminine voice. They’d found Zurine Halinburn. And it sounded like she hadn’t expected them so soon.
Girard eased forward, sticking his head into the open doorway, ducking back again as another shot sounded. The bullet smacked into the wall on the opposite side of the entryway and Hallie’s brows rose. The bullet had hit barely a hand’s width from the first one, suggesting that Zurine was an excellent markswoman. Judging by the trajectory, the bullet had been aimed slightly to the side of Girard’s torso. So the woman wasn’t trying to kill them, but to deter them or slow them down. Cool headed under pressure, Hallie noted, which must be useful in her profession.
With her back against the crimson-painted wall, Hallie frowned. They were one storey up from the ground, and she would wager good money that someone as skilled and thorough as Zurine would have at least one other way out of the building. So she and Girard couldn’t wait here for the forger to come out. They needed to go and get her. But that meant getting past the chokepoint of the doorway.
Hallie raised a silent query with thezauberat her hip. It had provided cover for her and Girard before. Some kind of camouflage. She wondered if it might do the same now?
The artefact stirred and she could have sworn it gave a low, contented purr before she felt the stir of magic in the air around her.
“Thezauberis giving us some cover,” Hallie told Girard in as low a voice as she could manage. “But we will need to move quickly.”
“Got it,” Girard said. And moved.
Even though she washochlenherself, and aware of the edge that gave her over humans, it still shocked Hallie just how quicklyhochlencould move when they wanted.
Girard was through the open door and halfway across the room before she was through the doorway. He was heading straight for Zurine.
Hallie didn’t have time to form any impressions of the room other than it was even more luxurious than the entryway, her attention on Girard and Zurine. The forger was standing next to a heavy desk, using one hand to stuff various items into a larger leather bag, gun held in the other hand. She must have heard or sensed Girard’s movement, despite thezauber’smagic, as she looked up, eyes wide, and brought the gun up, aimed squarely at Girard’s chest.
She got one shot off, but her aim was bad and the bullet whizzed past Girard and thudded into the wall not far fromHallie. Then the forger threw something at Girard and turned to run.
Girard stopped dead in his tracks, as if frozen in time and space. The last Hallie saw of Zurine was the woman slipping out of the nearest window, leather bag slung over her shoulder.
Hallie skidded to a halt beside Girard and stared at him. He was coated in what looked like a fine mist, and Hallie could sense magic in the air. She was getting better at recognising it, thanks to the periodic lessons with Emmet and her own increasing use of magic.
“Hold still a moment,” she told Girard, eyes on the mist. To her relief, the magic didn’t seem to be doing anything apart from holding him still. He made a low sound of frustration. “Sorry. Poor choice of words. I mean, don’t try to fight it. It’s some kind of resistance spell, which thezauberor I should be able to reverse.” She sent a silent query to thezauber. The artefact preened a little again and sent a sliver of its own power out into the air, dissolving the mist. “There. Can you move now?”
“Yes,” Girard said. His eyes were snapping with temper, but it wasn’t directed at Hallie. “I should have expected she’d have other defences.”
“I’m not sure how,” Hallie said, following him as he strode towards the window. “Magic isn’t all that common, and I’d never seen a spell like that before.”
Girard was only half listening. He stuck his head and torso out of the open window and made a low noise of disgust. “I can’t see her anywhere. And I can’t get a fix on her. Still don’t have a good enough feel to track her.” He came back into the room and looked around, then turned to Hallie. “Any ideas?”
“She was prepared to run. And we interrupted her, so she might have left something useful on the desk. But I doubt she’ll have left much else behind. She’ll have at least a couple of other places across the city to go and hide,” Hallie said, thinking asshe spoke. “We might get somewhere by checking her family background and property records. No, she won’t have a hideout in her own name, but possibly in the name of a family member, or unclaimed property.”
She paused, taking a careful look around the room. It was a large space, making the enormous desk Zurine had been standing beside look small. It had the same opulent feel as the entryway, with the same thick, richly patterned carpet and crimson walls. The deep colours could have felt oppressive, but instead made the space feel inviting and restful. Besides the desk, there was a sitting area with an array of different types of seating, and a large painting over a fireplace that looked like it might be an original, to Hallie’s untrained eye. “She likes the finer things in life. If she does have a hideout, I’m guessing that she’ll have some nice things stashed away, so we’ll know it when we find it. That doesn’t help much in actually finding it, I know. There are a few areas of low city with a poor population that don’t ask too many questions.” Hallie herself had a basement room in one such building, where she’d hidden Rosalia when they had both been suspected of killing Rosalia’s keeper. “Or she might do something quite different and head to midtown.”
“We need more people,” Girard said. But he hesitated before pulling out his phone.
“I’d like to check the rest of this building, too,” Hallie said, while Girard stared at his phone screen. She understood his hesitation. The director and the rest of the investigators were working flat-out on the threats to the Conclave. The forger might be a distraction from that.
Girard looked up from the phone, interest sharpening his eyes. “Why?”
“Look around. This feels like a private retreat. Yes, I am sure she had some work items here, in the desk, but I don’t see this as a place where she would have actually created false papers, ormet clients. So I think she might have an office space somewhere else. Not just for shop business, but for her other business as well.”
“Good thinking. Right. Let me get the property searches started,” Girard said, and dialled a preset number on his phone.
Hallie moved across to the desk while he spoke to the director, remembering to put on gloves before she began investigating the giant piece of furniture. It had the weight and feel of something she’d expect to find in ahochlenhousehold, reinforcing her assessment that Zurine Halinburn liked the finer things in life.
