CHAPTER 25: THE ATTACK
Professor Hoyt's Residence, Islington — August 26, 2010, 11:47 PM
The motion light in Hoyt's back garden triggered at 11:47.
I was sitting in a parked Vauxhall across the street — borrowed from Pemberton's tenant who'd gone to visit family in Leeds and left the keys with his landlord "in case of emergency." The car smelled of pine air freshener and stale crisps, and my lower back had gone from uncomfortable to genuinely angry about three hours ago. I'd been here since eight, watching the house, telling myself I was being paranoid.
The motion light said otherwise.
Hoyt's terrace was mid-row, which meant the back garden was only accessible via the rear alley or by climbing over neighbouring fences. The light I'd installed covered the patio door and the fence line. It was triggered by movement, not cats — I'd set the sensitivity to ignore anything under two feet tall. Whatever had set it off was human-sized.
Danger Sense prickled. Not the dramatic alarm-bell sensation from a film — more like the hair on my forearms rising, a tightening behind my sternum that said pay attention in a voice that didn't tolerate being ignored.
I grabbed the Maglite torch from the passenger seat — heavy steel, three D-cell batteries, the kind of torch that doubled as a truncheon if you held it right. I'd bought it at the same hardware shop as Hoyt's locks. £14. The most useful fourteen pounds I'd ever spent.
I crossed the street at a walk. Not running — running attracted attention. The front door was locked, deadbolt engaged. The gargoyle knocker stared at me with stone disapproval. I moved to the side passage, a narrow gap between Hoyt's terrace and his neighbour's, barely wide enough for a wheelie bin.
The back garden gate was open. It had been locked when I left.
Two options. Call the police and wait twelve minutes for response time in Islington at midnight. Or go through the gate and deal with whatever's on the other side.
Twelve minutes was a long time when someone was inside with a man who slept with his bedroom window cracked open because he couldn't stand stuffiness.
I went through the gate.
---
Two figures. Dark clothing, balaclavas, one at the patio door working the lock, the other standing watch. The motion light had them lit up like performers on a stage, and neither seemed bothered by it — they'd probably assumed it was a standard dusk-to-dawn fitting, not the motion-activated model.
The one at the lock was small, compact, with the easy balance of someone accustomed to physical work. The other was larger, broader, holding something that caught the light.
A knife.
My body did something my brain hadn't authorised: it stopped. Dead stop, one foot on the paving stones, the other still on grass. Every muscle locked. The FBI had trained me to assess threats from behind a desk, not to confront them in back gardens at midnight. The Bureau's self-defence certification — three Saturdays at a community centre in Quantico — had covered wrist locks and de-escalation techniques, not knife fighting.
Move. You have to move. If they get inside, Hoyt dies.
The window alarm I'd installed would trigger if they opened the patio door. But by then they'd be inside, and an alarm wouldn't stop a knife.
I needed noise. I needed chaos. I needed them to decide this wasn't worth it.
The fire extinguisher.
Hoyt's kitchen had a wall-mounted extinguisher — I'd seen it when I installed the locks. The back door was closer than the patio door, and I had the key. I'd given Hoyt the front door key and kept the back door spare.
Stupid plan. Best plan available.
I circled wide, staying in the shadow of the fence, reached the back door, and got the key in on the second try — the first attempt scraped metal on metal, and the watcher's head snapped toward the sound.
Time compressed.
I got inside. Kitchen. Dark. The extinguisher was on the wall between the cooker and the fridge, a red cylinder with a black nozzle. I pulled it free, thumbed the safety pin out. The watcher was already coming through the patio door — the lock had given way, which meant the window alarm was—
A shrill electronic scream split the air.
The alarm. The adhesive-mounted alarm that I'd worried would fall off in six months. Best sound I'd ever heard.
The watcher came through first. I squeezed the extinguisher trigger and hit him with a face full of dry powder at point-blank range. White cloud, choking, blinding. He staggered sideways into the kitchen table, clawing at his eyes.
The second one — the small one, the lock-picker — came through fast. I swung the extinguisher like a cricket bat. Heavy. Awkward. The base caught his shoulder instead of his head, and he rolled with it, turning the impact into a stumble rather than a fall.
The knife came from somewhere I didn't see.
The pain was instant and specific — a line of fire across my left forearm that felt like someone had pressed a heated wire against the skin. I dropped the extinguisher. It hit the tiles with a clang that echoed through the kitchen.
Don't look at the arm. Don't look at the arm.
I grabbed a kitchen chair and shoved it between us. The alarm was still screaming. Upstairs, Hoyt's voice — "What's happening? Hello?" — thin with panic.
The powder-blinded watcher was heading for the back door, hand over his face, coughing. The knife-wielder hesitated. Looked at me. Looked at the stairs. Looked at his partner.
"Go," I said. My voice came out steadier than I deserved. "The police are already called. You have ninety seconds."
They weren't. I hadn't called anyone. But the alarm was loud enough to wake the neighbours, and in Islington at midnight, curtains would be twitching.
[Danger Sense: Threat level decreasing. Hostiles disengaging.]
The knife-wielder said something in Mandarin — fast, clipped, an instruction. Then they were gone. Out the back door, over the fence, into the alley. The motion light caught them for a second: two dark shapes scaling the wood panel like it was a ladder. The small one moved like a gymnast — easy, practiced, the way you'd climb if you'd been doing it your whole life.
Zhi Zhu. The Spider. Or one of his people.
The alarm kept screaming. I found the unit on the patio door frame and pressed the reset button. Silence flooded in like water.
I looked at my arm.
The cut was six inches long, running diagonally from below the elbow to mid-forearm. Not deep — the blade had caught the surface, slicing skin and the thin layer of fat beneath without reaching muscle. Blood welled up in a dark line and began dripping onto Hoyt's kitchen floor.
[Combat Survived. Threat Rating: Moderate. Injury: Laceration (minor). +35 SP. Total: 405/600.]
[PHY +1. Combat stress response. New value: 11.]
Great. My first fight, and the system congratulates me while I'm bleeding on a linguistics professor's floor.
Hoyt appeared at the kitchen door in a dressing gown and bare feet. His face went white.
"Mr. Cole — you're — there's blood—"
"I'm fine." I pressed my jacket sleeve against the cut. The fabric soaked through in seconds. My hands were shaking — not fear, not anymore. Adrenaline dump. The human body's reaction to violence it hadn't been designed for. "Professor, I need you to call 999 and report a break-in. Tell them exactly what happened. Two intruders, balaclavas, one had a knife. They fled via the back garden toward the rear alley heading east."
"But you—"
"I'll handle this. Call. Now."
He called. I leaned against the kitchen wall, pressing the jacket harder against the arm, and tried to remember the last time I'd been this scared.
The hospital. Four months ago. Counting ceiling tiles while a system calibrated in my head and a borrowed body learned to breathe.
At least this time the blood is on the outside.
I left before the police arrived. Hoyt had my number. He'd tell them a private investigator had been protecting him — no names, I'd asked for that. The police would want to talk to me eventually, but eventually wasn't tonight.
Tonight, I needed stitches.
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