Page 41 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

“He must have warped out by accident,” Mal said, passing the binoculars to Hala.

“Blinked,” Yu said, correctively.

“What?” Mal said.

“Warping and blinking are two different things,” Yu said. “Taran would have blinked out.”

“Aren’t they just the same thing?” Mal said.

“Warping is when one person teleports another person, blinking is when you teleport yourself.” Yu was happy to have everyone’s ear. “They look different too. If you’re warped you appear and disappear as if in smoke, like a haze, but if you blink you just zap into existence. It’s normally accompanied by a pop. The two feel quite different as well, I’ve been told.”

“Yeah, I’ve warped a bunch of times with work.” Des paused; Mal could see the painful realization slowly settling in. “When I … you know. Anyways, it makes your brain feel like it’s on fire. It’s awful.”

Mal remembered the recent times when he’d been “warped”: twice by Kosh, and once by one of those vampires. He remembered how awful he’d felt the second time. It sounded like Mal was getting off lightly by comparison. Mal checked the time again. The Order’s big meeting would have already started; luckily he would only be catching the end of it, so he didn’t need to leave right this instant. Mal looked back down at the egg-timer-hourglass-thingy as the others continued discussing warping and blinking. Something about it tugged on his mind. The same way the lamp had. Well, the man hiding as a lamp had. Forty-eight. Why forty-eight? Something else pushed its way into his mind. Something Vlad had said. “An old guy warped in … then he blinked away.”

He’d only heard one pop.

Someone was warped in, then blinked away.

Murray died first, so no one could be turned to stone.

Forty-eight hours to get past the other checks.

The big meeting, bringing together the whole Order.

Who would kill a dying man?

Like the tumblers of a lock, everything fell into place. A suspect. A motive. A hideous plan. This last realization struck Mal the hardest. If Mal was right, everyone in that meeting was doomed; they’d be walking into a massacre. Walters was walking into a massacre.

Mal jumped to his feet, startling the group.

“We have to go, right now, or else everyone’s gonna die.”

The group jumped up with him, concern and confusion marking their faces.

“What?” Hala and Yu said almost in unison.

“Mal, slow down,” Des said, putting a hand on his arm. “What’s happening?”

“I’ve solved the thing.” Mal’s mind was a jumble of panic and dread. “We need to stop Walters. It’s a trap, it’s all a—” Mal turned to Yu with more speed than he meant to, making Yu jump. “Can you stop someone from being warped?”

“What? Me? Personally? Probably not. Why?” Yu replied.

“How? How can it be done?” Mal said, pushing the words out his mouth with such force they barely formed sentences.

“A binding spell could work. Sometimes people make a sort of magical Faraday cage.”

“How long would that take?” Mal said. He turned back to Des. “You need to call Walters and warn him, the meeting’s a trap.”

Des nodded, pulling out her phone, while Hala packed up all their things ready for them to leave.

“About an hour if you know what you’re doing?” Yu said, a look of uncertainty punctuating their sentence.

“Fuck. We have to go,” Mal said.

“Where?” Yu said, picking up a bag.

“To that tower.”