‘Ignore him,’ Callum said. ‘He’s a teddy bear. Kyan, put him down. You won’t run, will you, Luca?’
The words were a warning, and the Nazen knew it.
‘I have a name,’ Kyan said flatly, releasing him.
Luca landed on his feet, blue lightning-like flickers dancing along his skin.
Nazen were able to pass as human when their electric powers and charge weren’t making them too jittery. It was their eyes that usually gave them away: always a blue so pale it made you look twice.
‘Could have announced yourself,’ Luca said, fixing his shirt.
‘You’re telling me you don’t have cameras on this place?’
‘I do, but I was busy.’ He looked mournfully down to the dropped sweets.
‘I’ll buy you another pack,’ Callum said, throwing his arm around Luca’s shoulders. ‘Now, no time for chit-chat, I have a mission for you.’
He began to steer Luca to his loft door.
The Nazen had the good sense to show a flicker of apprehension, but it was swiftly followed by intrigue. ‘Oh?’
Ten minutes later Kyan stood with his arms crossed opposite a bank of monitors with Callum, while Luca began to hack into the Wake’s security systems.
The Nazen’s apartment was a sprawling industrial-style loft filled with modern art, and a few Old Masters’ paintings.
Code and security footage danced across the screens. Luca’s eyes fluttered as his mind hooked into the system and rewrote it, subverted it, or did whatever he needed to do.
Nazen didn’t all develop tech skills but some of them, like Luca, were basically able tobecomethe tech and rewrite it to do whatever they wanted. Sometimes it resulted in trickery: lights flickering in your house, laptops turning off at the chuckle of a passing Nazen. Or they were the best electrician you’ve ever had. Other times they became vigilantes, wiping out mortgages and shutting down sections of the dark web – exactly the kind of work that Callum knew Luca for.
‘Won’t the Old Bailey be warded against Nazen?’ Kyan asked.
‘There are many security protocols,’ Callum said while he watched. ‘But they’re not necessarily effective againsthim. He’s the best. But it made you cocky, didn’t it, Luca?’
The Nazen sniffed. ‘Callum found out they’d sent someone to take me out after I hacked into the Wake’s servers.’
‘I Influenced the Empyreal they’d sent to think they’d killed him, then spirited him away.’ Callum shrugged. ‘They can’t risk having someone out and about that would know how to break into their databases.’
‘Is this how you hacked my phone and knew where I was in Estwood?’ Kyan asked.
Callum’s lips curled up. ‘Perhaps.’
Kyan shook his head, refocusing on the screen. ‘How long does this take?’
‘You know the Wake have been around for, like, two millennia? It took me at least an hour last time,’ Luca groused, but there was unmissable excitement in his tone.
Kyan resisted the urge to pace and looked instead at the live recording of the Old Bailey on the other screen.
‘In the fucking law courts,’ Callum marvelled. ‘Thearrogance.’
The words made Kyan wonder, not for the first time,whyhis friend was on this secret mission with him. Nicole had woken Kyan up to the machinations of the Wake.
But why had Callum agreed?
Back in Estwood, he’d cited the fact that the Wake had been lying to them and Freya had information he needed. But there was more here, and it tugged at Kyan’s memories, reminding him of the rare times he’d seen Callum truly emotional. The last time was when he broke Kyan’s already broken nose, again.
He couldn’t ask him now, but he would soon, and he wanted a truthful answer.
The plans for the Old Bailey stared at him from one of the monitors, as did the handsome facade of the building. Once, it had been the site of the most vicious prison in London: Newgate. It had been rebuilt in the early 1900s and a fashionable court building formed in its stead. Now it wasn’t just the site for trials and human law cases, but supernatural ones too – another reason why photography was strictly prohibited inside during weekdays.
