Collision: The Alliance Series Book 3 (Ebook)

“There’s a ghost in Jeth’s computer!” Alber’s shout came through the open window of the attic room, just below where I lay on the roof. Groaning, I rubbed my eyes. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep up there, but it was peaceful, even with the distant roar of London traffic and the smell of exhaust fumes. And for once, my sleep was free from screaming nightmares. I slid out of the improvised pillow-nest I’d made, picked up the pillows and the paperback I’d been reading, and climbed back into my room through the window. My seventeen-year-old brother Alber stood in the doorway, blinking at me with contact-less violet eyes.

“You were asleep on the roof?”

“I dozed off,” I said, shutting the window behind me and dropping the blankets on the bed. 

Alber shook his head. “You’re mental. It’s freezing out there.”

I shrugged, though I was barefoot and wearing pyjamas, which didn’t help. “I had blankets. What’s going on?”

“Jeth’s computer’s freaking out. We reckon it’s a ghost.”

“Of course. How’d you figure that one out?” I put slippers on and followed my brother down the rickety ladder from the attic to the landing. Loud swearing came from behind Jeth’s slightly-open door. He cursed at full-volume, in Karthonic, the language of his homeworld.

“No other explanation. If Jethro the genius can’t figure out what it is, it has to be a ghost, right?”

“Wait, he really doesn’t know what it is?” I pushed Jeth’s door further open and went in. “It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

“Very funny,” said Jeth, tapping the screen. The floor around his leather-backed computer chair was a tangle of wires hooked up between computers, monitors, and dubious-looking pieces of shiny offworld technology. My older brother was a certifiable genius who worked in the Alliance’s tech department. Since we’d moved into this new house, he’d claimed the biggest room to set up all his computers. And I’d asked for the attic. If I couldn’t have my old room, with the stars I’d painted on the ceiling, a window that opened onto the roof was more than enough to make up for it, even though I couldn’t see the stars here in the middle of the city.

I leaned in to see the screen, which had frozen on a blank page covered in what looked like white squiggly lines. “What did you do to it, anyway? Did you put parts of offworld tech in there, by any chance?”

Jeth was forever messing with different worlds’ technologies to see what would work on Earth, and he’d created devices even the Inter-World Alliance didn’t possess. Not that it was entirely legal.

“It was working fine until a few minutes ago,” said Jeth, rapping his knuckles on the monitor. “Whatever it is, it’s totally locked down the computer. I can’t fix it.” He slapped the desk with the side of his palm. “Dead. Dammit!”

“Wow,” said Alber, lounging against the doorway. “Chill out.” At a distance, he and Jeth could have been related. They were both tall, tanned, and fair-haired. Nobody would have guessed they came from different universes.

“I was working on something important,” Jeth muttered. “And yeah, I did put a couple of… enhancements in there. But it’s worked fine for the past year!”

“RIP, computer,” said Alber solemnly. “Shall we say a few words in its memory?”

“Shut it,” said Jeth, regarding the screen with a forlorn expression, as though he’d lost a beloved pet.

“What in the world is going on?” Nell came upstairs and peered round the doorway.

“Jeth killed his computer,” said Alber. “We’re in mourning.”

Nell sighed, running a hand through the strands of hair straggling loose from her bun. “It’s almost quarter past eleven. Ada, didn’t you say you were meeting someone at half past?”

“Ah, crap,” I said, taking a step back and tripping over a wire. I steadied myself against the side of the desk. “Lost track of time.” I backed out of Jeth’s room and all but flew up the steps to the attic. Fifteen minutes to make myself look presentable before I went to New York.

I ran the quickest shower ever, changed my outfit seven times, panicked that I’d lost my communicator, then remembered I’d left it on the roof, jumped a mile in the air at the sound of a motorcycle outside, and ran downstairs so fast I almost knocked Alber flying.

“Whoa,” he said. “What’s chasing you?”

“Very funny.” I grabbed my coat. Though I opted to go without my guard uniform, I grabbed my magicproof leather-style jacket to keep off the chill winter air.

The sleek and shiny cycle hummed in front of our house. Removing the helmet, Kay looked up, his dark hair ruffled from the wind and his usually pale face flushed in the cold air. He wore the typical uniform of an Alliance guard—black gear, his jacket embossed with the silver cuffs of an Ambassador.

“Hey,” he said.

Alber came to the door and gaped at the motorcycle. “Holy hell, that’s awesome. Can I have a go?”

“No chance, Al,” I said, before Kay could answer. “He failed his driving test,” I told Kay. “Thinks speed limits don’t apply to him.”

“Yeah, but you can’t even drive,” said Alber. “So.”

Kay set down his helmet. “We good to go? The bike stays here,” he added. “No racing this time. Sorry, guys.”

“Dammit,” said Alber. Twice, Kay had managed to get hold of temporary permits to allow Alber to join us in one of Valeria’s capital’s famous hover-zones, where you could rent magic-powered hover bikes. They were automatic models, which came as a relief to me. I’d never learned to drive because we had so little money it didn’t make sense to spend it on something mostly unnecessary in London. But I’d still managed to cause a pile-up when the bike stalled and flipped upside-down in the middle of the track, much to Kay’s and Alber’s amusement. The two of them had ended up racing each other around the track. 

At least it had redeemed Kay in Nell’s eyes somewhat. To her, Kay meant both the Alliance, which we’d tried to avoid our whole lives, and the council who’d doomed our homeworld. Considering Kay’s father, the currently-absent Lawrence Walker, had issued the statement against interfering in Enzar’s war in the first place, I wasn’t sure she would ever actually like him. Then again, Nell trusted no one outside our family. As a former servant to the sadistic rulers of Enzar, who’d have used me as a human weapon if she hadn’t smuggled me out, she wasn’t given to showing overt affection.

Nell appeared behind me and hugged me suddenly, startling me. “Take care of yourself, Ada.”

“Uh. I will.” This new Nell was kind of freaking me out. She’d always kept barriers up even with her own adopted children, but after she and Alber had been kidnapped by the Conner family, she’d been far more open with us than before. It took some getting used to.

Kay gave me a questioning look when Nell returned to the house. “You okay?”

“Huh? Yeah, it’s just weird.” I lowered my voice. “It’s like living with an alien. Until a few weeks ago, Nell hadn’t hugged me since I was about four. Unless you count teaching us headlocks, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count.”

“Useful life skill, though,” said Kay.

“Ha,” said Alber, turning to wave at Nell before she closed the door. “To be fair, it is weird. Maybe she’s had a personality transplant. Pretty sure that exists on some universe, right?”

“Maybe the one with haunted computers,” I said.

“You know what Jeth’s like, he probably put too much incompatible offworld technology in there. He’s like a mad scientist,” said Alber. “Anyway. I’ve always wanted to go to the States. Bet you Alliance Ambassadors get to travel all over.”

“On assignment, mostly,” said Kay. “All Alliance bases are open to Ambassadors. And everyone in the Alliance can apply for an offworld permit.”

Even I could, though my application had been delayed due to my not having legal identification until I’d joined the Alliance. Some worlds barred outsiders from entry, some required a crap-ton of paperwork, and others were listed as “hostile” to offworlders. I’d only been to Valeria and Aglaia so far, but as soon as I made Ambassador, the Multiverse would be open to explore. Like I’d always wanted.

The three of us made an odd group as we passed by crowds of tourists and shoppers, mobs of bikes and over-enthusiastic taxi drivers wheeling around corners. I couldn’t quite get used to living right in the middle of London rather than on the outskirts, but at least it meant I didn’t have to travel far to work now. Central appeared as a dark shape against the sky, a black skyscraper taller than any of the surrounding buildings and reflecting the sun from its gleaming surface. Alien and yet familiar.

The street we headed for, however, appeared deserted, the houses abandoned to disrepair. Most bore the damage a rampaging wyvern had caused when it got out of the Passages concealed behind a sliding metal door on the back of an old factory. Wide, high-ceilinged corridors lit with blue light linked the entire Multiverse and covered hundreds of miles.

“No monsters this way,” Kay said, as we entered the corridor. “We’re sticking to first level.”

“Good,” said Alber. After being abducted by the Conner family, my brother wasn’t as keen on risks as before. He said he was fine, and we’d rescued him before he’d been seriously hurt, but I knew from my own experience the worst scars weren’t on the outside.

For most of our lives, we’d used a hidden lower level Passage that cut right through the territory belonging to the monster-infested world of Cethrax, so it had been strange adjusting to using the Passages as an Alliance employee. The cold, blue-lit corridors on this level were safe, relatively speaking, because this part of the first level belonged to the allied worlds, the members of the Alliance. Second level belonged to the worlds which, for whatever reason, hadn’t joined the Alliance or had even been barred from membership. And the lower levels were given over to the many doorways leading into the swamps of Cethrax. As an Alliance guard, it was my job to hunt escaped monsters down, when I was on duty. Lucky I had this weekend off.

We skirted around the main Passage to Earth, not wanting to get caught up in the cross-world traffic, instead heading for a side-corridor which led the same way. The Passages were a shortcut across the worlds, for Alliance employees at least, and a two-hour walk to New York was far more reasonable than flying.

At an intersection, we met Simon, a friend of Kay’s who’d also graduated from the Academy. He worked at the New York Alliance and had helped with setting up the links from the shelter to Enzar. His blond hair caught the blue Passage light as he waved at me.

“Hey,” he said. “I should warn you, the New York guards are jumpy as hell thanks to the whole invisible goblin debacle.”

“Yeah, same at Central,” said Kay. “The number of accidental injuries is through the roof, because people keep attacking each other, thinking it’s a goblin. And there are rumours of a serial prankster who keeps sneaking up on people in the dark tunnels. Ridiculous, of course.”

I glanced sideways at him. “And that definitely isn’t true?”

I wasn’t sure if he’d told Simon, but Alber didn’t know Kay could turn himself invisible now. I understood why he wouldn’t want the whole Multiverse to know he could do something that was supposed to be impossible, but it was still pretty freaking awesome. And yeah, he’d tried that trick on me before. I wasn’t amused.

“Might have happened once.”

“Ha,” said Simon. “At least that dickhead Aric isn’t around anymore. Has no one seen him since?”

Kay shrugged. “He’s either stranded on Aglaia, or he made it back into the Passages. If he did, he might be anywhere, on any world. His family’s all in jail now anyway.”

“Good,” said Alber vehemently. Aric’s cousins and sister had tortured him. Wynn Conner was dead, killed by the centaurs, and Kay had apparently spared Aric’s life in the forest—which I didn’t quite understand, given that they’d hated each other ever since they’d been at the Academy. Kay had almost accidentally killed Aric two years ago using magic, while Aric and his sister had retaliated by setting a wyvern loose in the Passages, which had left Kay permanently scarred.

“Hmm. I wonder about that,” said Simon. “Where do fugitives go?”

Kay shrugged. “I don’t know, he probably ran off to another world and got himself a false identity. I’m not too worried, to be honest. Idiot has no sense, he’ll get himself arrested within days.”

“You don’t think he’ll attack the Alliance?” Simon asked sceptically.

“Alone? No. Without his family’s name to protect him, he’s nothing. He’ll probably claim he’s innocent.”

“Dickhead,” said Simon. “Never mind him, anyway.”

As we rounded a corner, a group of black-uniformed guards appeared from the shadows, armed with stunners.

“Only me,” said Simon. “Jesus, point that stunner somewhere else, Dave. I told you I was bringing people.”

The muscled guy he’d spoken to eyed Alber. “He’s not Alliance.”

“Oh, lighten up,” said Simon. “We’re visiting the shelter, not Central. He’s Ada’s brother.”

Dave stared at me, and so did the rest of the guards. Nothing new there. The number of versions of the story of how I’d come to work at Central in London was probably bigger than the number of worlds in the Multiverse, and typically, the more dramatic parts had spread the furthest. I supposed it did sound odd that an illegal magic-wielder from a highly classified world who’d been arrested for dangerous magic use and trespassing ended up as an Alliance employee only weeks after breaking out of jail. Though I’d told as much of the truth as possible to people at Central, I was fairly sure a lot of people either saw me as a danger or a lunatic.

“All right,” said Dave, and the guards moved to let us past.

This doorway opened into an alley. The sun peeked over the skyline, reminding me we’d technically travelled five hours back in time. Simon led the way, but once we reached the alleyway’s end, Kay wandered off alone. He’d pulled out his communicator again, but still somehow managed not to walk into anyone on the crowded pavement.

“The shelter’s doing okay?” I asked Simon.

“Yeah. They were struggling a bit until a couple of months ago, actually,” said Simon. “I didn’t know much about the place until Kay called me up, asking about setting up the link to Enzar. Not long after, they got an anonymous donation. A massive one. It lifted them right out of debt.”

“Really?” said Alber. “From who?”

I poked him in the arm. “Al, don’t you know what ‘anonymous’ means?”

“Shut it, you.”

“It came from someone in the Alliance,” said Simon, jerking his head in Kay’s direction.

“You think?” I said.

“Yeah… I reckon he did it. Same happened back in London, now they’re opening a whole new shelter network.”

“I forgot about that,” I said. “I’ve heard it mentioned at Central, but I guess I didn’t think how they’d fund it…”

Simon nodded. “It’s something he’d do, for sure.”

A pang went through me. When I’d first met Kay, I’d assumed he was a callous Alliance guard out only for his own interests. It wasn’t the first time my tendency to speak without considering first had swung around to hit me in the face, but it didn’t help that my family had also jumped to the worst conclusion. Specifically, Nell and Jeth. I’d had words with them about not blaming him for the times I’d nearly got killed, but we’d been at an impasse for a while, as I’d adjusted to working at Central while Kay went offworld with the other Ambassadors.

“Huh,” said Alber. “I’d want everyone to know, if it were me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Figures.”

A sudden electric jolt shot up my spine, like I’d trodden on a plug. My head snapped up. I knew that feeling… but it didn’t happen on Earth. It never happened on Earth.

Magic.

Kay turned back, and from the expression on his face, he’d noticed, too.

“What’s up?” asked Simon.

I stared around, at the shops lining the street, the yellow cabs standing out amongst the traffic, the crowds passing by. Nothing out of the ordinary for New York.

“Alber, did you feel that?” I asked. 

“Feel what?”

Maybe I’d imagined the sensation, but I’d have expected my younger brother, who was mageblood—the magic-wielding Enzarians on the other side of the conflict to the once-ruling Royals—to be able to sense magic, too.

We caught up to Kay at the street corner next to a convenience store. “That was a shift,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Anyone want to clue me in?” asked Simon.

“I thought I felt… magic,” I said. “A shift?”

“Like something boosted the magic level. I can’t feel it anymore.” Kay put his communicator in his jacket pocket, frowning.

“Eh, probably nothing,” said Simon. “There’s a bunch of offworlders living in the area, I’ll bet one of them brought something from another world in.”

“Hmm. There are magic-wielders at the shelter?” said Kay.

“Yeah,” said Simon. “I don’t know the specifics. People come and go.”

“Huh. Might be worth checking out.”

We reached the shelter, an apartment building at the street’s end. It looked no different from the other buildings on either side, but through the windows, most of the people I saw were offworlders —some easy to recognise by appearance, such as clawed hands and feet, wings, or odd-coloured eyes, some less so. The door flew open and a blond girl, around ten years old, ran out, shrieking.

“Get back here, Isa!” A blue-skinned woman ran from the building. Simon blocked the girl’s way before she ran into the road.

“Whoa,” he said. “Easy there. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The girl rotated on the spot, wild-eyed. “Rick electrocuted me!”

Oh, crap. It sounded like magic, all right. First level was a mild static shock, and usually impossible even for a magic-wielder here on Earth. Unless you were like me, and from a high-magic world. But even I couldn’t use magic here most of the time.

“No I didn’t!” yelled a teenage boy from the upstairs window.

The girl stared at us. “Have you come to take us away again?”

“No,” Simon said quickly. “We were just checking things out. What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” said the woman who’d chased after the girl. “You’re from the Alliance, right? I’ve seen you here before.”

“Yeah,” said Simon. “These guys are from Central. They helped out with linking us to the cut-off worlds. If this is a bad time, we can leave…”

Another sudden jolt of energy rushed through the air. I looked at Kay again, alarmed. At that moment, the boy from upstairs ran out the house, too, and didn’t stop.

The woman followed. “What is going on?”

“No idea,” said another boy, of around twelve, who’d appeared from the house. “Rick’s hands started sparking. It was wicked cool.”

“Magic,” said Kay. “He’s a magic-wielder, right?” He directed this question at the blue-skinned woman. “From one of the outlying worlds?”

“And who are you?” she asked, instead of answering. “I didn’t think Earth people were interested in magic.”

“What just happened isn’t normal for Earth,” said Kay. “Even magic-wielders shouldn’t be able to… that was a second level shot, wasn’t it?”

“He was glowing,” said the boy. “Kind of freaky.”

“Damn,” Kay muttered, with a glance back at me. “It definitely isn’t normal for Earth.”

“We can take care of this,” said the woman, with a protective glance behind at the children who’d gathered in the hallway and behind the windows to see what was happening. I guessed she was in charge. “We don’t want the Alliance shutting us down, you hear?”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Kay. “Can you let the Alliance know if anything else comes up? Magic can be dangerous.”

“We can handle this.” She started herding the curious children back into the house.

Kay turned to Simon with a shrug. “Should we clear off, then? I don’t think we can be much help here.”

“Sure.” Simon turned his back on the shelter. “Let me know if anything else happens, okay?” he said to the woman.

“Weird,” I said, as we walked down the street, back in the direction of the Passage entrance. “Are you sure it was second level?”

“Pretty sure,” said Kay. “If it was first level, we wouldn’t have felt it.”

And third level was destructive and invariably fatal. A shiver ran down my spine.

“Hmm,” said Simon. “I always wondered how the whole magic deal worked. Can you sense if someone else uses magic, then?”

“On Earth, yeah,” said Kay. “But that’s because it’s low-magic so it stands out a mile.”

And because he, like me, had some kind of magic in his blood, thanks to an experiment the Alliance—his own father, in fact—had engineered.

“Hang on.” Kay turned back. “Right… you guys go on ahead. I have an idea.”

“Here we go.” Simon rolled his eyes. “Does it involve hijacking vehicles or crazy stunts?”

“Nah, I’m gonna go and check back there.” Kay indicated the shelter, where a bigger crowd gathered outside. “They won’t see me.”

Not if he’s invisible. Any of us could use the Chameleon devices for temporary camouflage, but Kay could make the effect last as long as he wanted to.

Simon shrugged. “If you like. We’ll wait.”

Alber stared through the windows of a video game store. “I’m gonna look in here,” he said.

“You know you don’t have the right currency, don’t you?” I said. But he’d already gone inside.

“One of the perks to being an Ambassador is the offworld credit card,” said Simon. “It has like ten thousand currencies logged into it, you can withdraw in whichever you need. I can’t wait to get one.”

“Ah, I guess I never thought of that,” I said. Awesome. I made a mental note to check on the rules about cross-world regulations to see what I could legally bring back to Earth. Before I’d joined the Alliance, I’d spent a lot of time at the black market for offworlders at Covent Garden, where Jeth bought most of his offworld technology parts.

“I reckon you’ll make Ambassador soon. You’ve been offworld more than once already, right?”

“Yeah, but my boss doesn’t like me. Then again, I suppose she doesn’t like anyone, so…”

“Ah, Kay told me about the dragon,” said Simon. “Come on, you’re a celebrity.”

I pulled a face. “Can you not do that?”

“You’re just like him,” said Simon, shaking his head. “He hated attention at the Academy, but there was no real way to avoid it, considering he was the youngest in our year—only sixteen when he signed up. I realise it’s none of my business, but you know, I’m kind of surprised what happened with you two. I thought—eh, never mind.”

I stifled a sigh, checking over my shoulder to see if Kay was nearby. No sign of him. I didn’t think he was the type to invisibly eavesdrop, though. “Yeah. He said I have to take care of myself first.”

Simon let out a breath. “I don’t know what crap you’re dealing with, but it’s true.”

“Yeah. I got that. He said the last thing I needed was to be around someone like him.”

“He did?” Simon blinked. “Damn.”

“Take it that’s not normal for him? I got the impression he had kind of a chequered history…”

He pulled a face. “Not really. Kay might act like a shameless flirt sometimes, but if he really likes a girl, he takes bloody forever doing anything about it.”

“Hmm.” I huddled inside my coat, shifting from one foot to the other. Then I spotted Kay walking back towards us. So he wasn’t invisible, then. But I supposed we were in public, so he couldn’t exactly appear out of thin air in the middle of the street.

“What was that about?” I asked, as he caught up to us.

“Later,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s your brother?”

“Looking at video games he can’t buy. What happened?”

“Trouble,” he said. “Or, magic. Simon, you should tell your boss about this. Not report those kids or anything, but there’s something off with the magic level. I’m going to ask if there’s anything similar going on in London. Central will know.”

“If you say so.” Simon shrugged, and pulled out his communicator. “You’re heading back there now? Aren’t Ambassadors allowed weekends off?”

“Someone has to do it.” He started to walk back towards the alley.

“Wait.” Alber appeared from the shop. “When are we going to get our tour?”

“I’ll give you one,” said Simon. “I thought he’d disappear on us. You’re in denial!” he shouted after Kay.

Kay turned back. “Technically, we’re in New York.”

“All right, smartarse, have it your way.”

“Huh?” said Alber blankly. “What did you mean by that?”

“Absolutely nothing at all.” Simon glanced sideways at me.

“Cheers,” I muttered.

“He is,” Simon said quietly, as we continued down the street. “I know it. Don’t you rule out hope yet, Ada.”

Hmm. I didn’t know whether to believe him. It had been weeks since I’d inadvertently thrown myself at Kay while under the influence of Aglaian wine, and since then, he hadn’t so much as looked at me in a way that suggested he wanted anything more than friendship.

I shrugged, doing my best to sound offhand. “If magic’s making trouble again, I can guarantee we’ll both end up involved in it sooner or later.”

I couldn’t see the future, but I didn’t need to, not wherever magic was concerned. Kay was dead right when he said trouble and magic went hand in hand.