Taken

I looked at Anne, seeing the slim dying body, the fear and shame and desperate hope in her eyes, and walked forward. I had to fight myself to do it; my danger sense was screaming at me with every step. I reached down and took Anne’s hand from where it hung limp.

There was a green flash and the strength in every part of my body vanished at once. My hearing cut out, my vision went black, and I couldn’t see or sense or feel. I never felt myself hit the floor.

chapter 4

I woke up very slowly.

I felt awful. My muscles were like water and my head was dizzy. I felt like I’d caught a fever, starved for two weeks, then gotten the worst hangover of my life to top it off. As soon as I realised how bad I felt my first reaction was to try to go back to sleep.

I stayed like that for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. What finally pushed me awake was realising how hungry I was. I opened my eyes.

It was morning and bright sunlight was streaming through the window. There was something odd about the quiet, and it took me a moment to realise what was missing: the background hum of the city. I wasn’t in London anymore.

I was in a guest room with plain white walls and I was lying in a bed. I was still wearing my clothes but my shoes had been taken off, and looking to one side I could see that the contents of my pockets had been neatly stacked on a bedside table. The room was familiar, as was the sound of the river outside, and a moment later I realised where I was: my safe house in Wales. I just wasn’t sure how I’d got here.

Then I remembered. Anne; the taxi; the battle and the gate. I tried to pull myself up and failed. My muscles were ridiculously weak; I couldn’t even sit upright. My body felt different too, lighter.

Footsteps sounded from the corridor and I looked up to see Anne’s head poking around the door. She vanished and reappeared a second later holding a tray.

Anything I’d been planning to say went right out of my head as soon as I smelt the food. My stomach growled and I realised I wasn’t just hungry, I was ravenous. “Um,” Anne said. “I think you should eat—”

I didn’t quite grab it out of her hands but I came close. The food was oatmeal and fairly bland, not that I cared. Anne went back to the kitchen and got a second bowl, which lasted about as long as the first.

As I was starting on the third bowl I felt the stirrings of a spell and glanced up to see Anne reaching out towards me. As I looked at her she stopped. “May I?”

“As long as it’s not whatever you hit me with last night.”

Anne flinched as if I’d slapped her. I shook my head. “Sorry, didn’t mean it like that. Go ahead.”

Anne placed her hand against my shoulder. A faint green glow, the colour of new leaves in spring, welled up around her hand to soak into me. I could feel it spreading through my body but I couldn’t tell what it was doing.

As I ate I studied Anne out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a white T-shirt that left her long arms bare, and her skin was a healthy colour again. The bloodstains and bullet holes in the T-shirt were very obvious but she moved without any trace of pain or stiffness. In fact she looked a hell of a lot better than I felt.

I finished up the third bowl. Now that I’d taken the edge off my hunger, it was a little easier to think. Anne was still working her spell through the touch of her hand, and I could feel a faint tingle within my body. “What are you doing?”

“Ah . . .” Anne said in her soft voice. “I’m rebuilding your reserves.”

“How?”

“Your body converts food into energy,” Anne said. “I’m . . . speeding that up. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Okay,” I said. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but unless my memory’s going you stopped seven bullets with your chest last night while I only got a few bruises. So could you explain why you’re looking the picture of health when I can’t even get out of bed?”

Anne made as if to speak, then went out of the room, coming back with another two bowls. She put them on the table and sat on a chair, not meeting my eyes.

I started on the next bowl. “You’re not very used to talking about this stuff, are you?”

“Sorry.”

“Well, if you want to eat too and don’t fancy oatmeal, there should be something in the kitchen.”

“I don’t think it’s there.”

“It’s in the cupboard under the sink.”

“I know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I . . . already ate it.”

“You can’t have eaten all of it. There was three days’ worth.”

Anne looked embarrassed.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Sorry,” Anne said again.

I looked at Anne’s slim figure in disbelief. “Where do you put it all?”

“I used too much last night.” Anne brushed her hair back, looking down at the floor. “I burnt all my reserves. Muscle and fat. It took . . . quite a lot to rebuild them.”

I looked at Anne a moment longer. “You’re a life mage.”

Anne nodded.

“That was how you survived those injuries,” I said. “You were repairing the damage from the bullets.”