DEDICATION

To Dan, my best friend.

PROLOGUE

AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK 
NEAR KOOKYNIE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Toby Boyd was making surprisingly good time zooming across the Outback when the desert tried to kill him.

One moment he was rolling along, looking forward to some good beer and good conversation. The next, the parched, cracked ground lurched up, tossing his ancient little dual-purpose Honda bike into the air like a child’s hand poking at toys from under a blanket.

The dwarf let go of the handlebars, deciding in midair to not to be near it when it—and he—landed.

Crap! I’m gonna die in the middle of nowhere!

The harsh summer sun beat down on the dusty, wide-open Outback plain with merciless disregard as the nearby landscape bucked and roiled, chunks of rock bigger than cargo vans scraping and smashing against each other like some kind of discordant geological orchestra.

Boyd hit the ground hard, his shoulder jarring painfully against the rutted dirt road. He rolled a couple of times, and heard the crash as the Honda slammed down a few meters from him. Normally that would have concerned him, given that he was a long way from camp and it was his only transportation, but right now he had more important things on his mind.

Like how he’d managed to miss the manastorm bearing down until it had been right on top of him.

Dust billowed all around him; he couldn’t even see the bike anymore, and every time he tried to rise, the ground surged up again and dumped him back on his ass. Clamping his eyes and mouth shut against the stinging grit, he dropped to all fours and scrabbled blindly forward.

It couldn’t be a very big manastorm: if it was, somebody back at the Shiawase camp would have noticed it approaching, even if he hadn’t. Damn it anyway—all he’d wanted to do was take a quick side trip to visit his sister while they were relatively close by. He hadn’t seen her in years, and given how much the bikie group she ran with traveled around, he’d decided to seize this chance to catch up while she was staying put for a while. It had been a last-minute thing, and his colleagues back at the camp hadn’t been happy about it at all, but the project was ahead of schedule, and he was due for some R&R. He told them he’d be back before nightfall and set off on his little bike in the direction of Emmy’s compound.

And now here he was, getting buffeted around by an angry planet fueled by angrier magic, and he still wasn’t out of the woods. The ground cracked in front of him, opening a chasm a meter across and several meters long. Rocks and dust cascaded down into it, and Boyd nearly followed—right before another heaving roll wracked the earth and slammed the edges back together again with a sound like thunder. The terrified dwarf caught himself at the very last moment before sliding over what had been an edge a second ago; clawing at the ground with his stubby fingers, he was glad he’d dropped to all fours instead of trying to walk. Even as low to the ground as he was, he’d have been crushed into dwarf paste if he’d fallen into that chasm.

“Frag, frag, frag!” Boyd muttered as he kept crawling. If he’d been more of a mage, he might have been able to huddle up under a barrier and wait it out. Manastorms were a fact of life in the Outback, something that everybody who braved the “Big Red” had to be prepared to deal with. There were a lot of ways to deal with them: spotting them with enough time to stay out of their way, outrunning them, getting underground, or using magic to mitigate their effects were some of the big ones. Unfortunately for Boyd, he’d struck out on the first three, and the fourth was out of the question, since the extent of his magical abilities consisted of some astral perception and a pretty good expertise in parabotany. The latter was why he was here in the first place: a field trip with some colleagues from Shiawase to hunt down some of the Outback’s more interesting flora for study.

And if I’d stayed where I belonged in the first place, I wouldn’t be dodging fun-size earthquakes now, he thought, squinting into the swirling dust and barely throwing himself out of the way of a falling rock the size of his head. He coughed and spat out a wad of choking red dirt.

As manastorms went, at least this one was straightforward: having the earth toss you around like a chew toy was no party, but it beat the hell out of having your skin flayed off your bones, or being turned into a rabbit in the middle of a crowd of hungry dingoes. Yeah, those things happened, and a lot worse. The only thing consistent about manastorms in the Outback was that they existed, and, if you were the least bit cynical, that they had an uncanny way of fragging you over at the most inopportune times possible. Aside from that, all bets were off. If it was something magic was capable of doing, you could bet your ass that someplace around the Outback had been hit by a manastorm that did just that.

Boyd took advantage of a momentary lull in the storm’s intensity to scramble to his feet and try to take a look around. All he managed to do was get dust in his eyes before he was unceremoniously dumped on his ass again. A cone-shaped spike of rock thrust up almost directly underneath him; he scrambled away from it and started crawling again. With his limited resources, his best hope was that the storm was one of the small ones, so he could escape its radius if he kept going in the same direction.

Yeah, if a rock doesn’t crack my head open like a melon first. He thought of Emmy, picturing her craggy face and cheerful smile. The irony didn’t escape him that the first time in years he’d actually tried to seek out anyone in his family, the very planet had protested against it.

He wondered what it would do if he tried to look up his ex-wife.

Abruptly, silence.

It took Boyd a moment or two to notice that the earth wasn’t moving anymore, and even the dust was quickly settling. He stayed put for a couple more minutes, then tentatively got up. When everything remained where it was supposed to be, he sighed in relief and began looking for his bike. He’d been luckier than he should have been: this manastorm looked like one of the small, quick ones. He decided if the tough little bike was still functional, he’d keep going and see Emmy rather than turning back.

He spotted it lying on its side about twenty meters away. The air was still full of dust, but from here it didn’t look too bad. At least it was intact. Picking his steps carefully, he moved toward the bike.

He’d made it about halfway when he felt it.

Toby Boyd wasn’t much of a mage. Even his ability to detect magic wasn’t terribly well developed—it got him by, and since his job was more focused on his skills in other areas, it was all he needed. But even he couldn’t miss the sudden strength of a magical aura that nearly broadsided him as he stumbled toward his fallen bike. He stopped, his gaze darting around as if expecting the manastorm—or worse, a different, more dangerous manastorm—to be rolling back in on him.

Instead, he saw a hole.

He was sure there had been no hole there before. It cut down into the earth at around a forty-five-degree angle, and was almost big enough to be classified as a cave. In fact, for someone Boyd’s size, it was a cave. The aura, whatever it was, was coming from inside it.

He approached with caution, still unconvinced that the manastorm had passed by, and peered inside. Dust swirled around in the darkness, but even so, Boyd could see that the cave wasn’t very deep. He shifted over to astral sight and took another look, and that was when he saw it.

It lay on the earth at the rear of the small cavern, maybe two meters or so in: too far for the dwarf to just reach in and grab it, but too tantalizingly close to ignore. He couldn’t make out what it was, except that it wasn’t very big. Around a third of a meter long at maximum, and oddly shaped. The magical waves it sent off were strong, pulsing to his astral sight.

He made a fast decision: before his reasonable sense of self-preservation could talk him out of it, he pulled a deep breath, darted inside, snatched up the object, and ran back out, all the while expecting the newly-formed cave to come crashing down around his head, like a trap. He was actually surprised when it didn’t—in less than ten seconds, he was back out in the blazing sun, the item clutched in both hands.

Boyd was no expert in such things, but he had no doubt that it was some sort of native artifact, probably made by Aboriginal hands. It resembled a coiled serpent, crisscrossed with intricate carvings and painted figures. He had no idea how old it was, but despite the fact that it had been buried under tons of earth until a few minutes ago, it showed no signs of wear or encrustation of dirt or grime. Even so, he knew it was very, very old.

He didn’t know how he knew that, but he didn’t even think to question it. Its aura pulsed strong and radiant; furthermore, the thing itself hummed in his hands, like an electrical current was running through it. Since, as far as Boyd knew, there were no electric Aborigine artifacts, this had to be something important.

He swallowed, looking down at it. The sun beat down on the back of his unprotected neck, but he barely noticed. His mind was far away, turning over possibilities.

Whatever else this thing was, it was big juju.

That could mean a lot of things, if he played his cards right.

It meant that his life could finally change.

He’d have to be careful, though. He knew the living earth could conceal magical energy, which was why nobody had noticed it before. But now, if he could sense it, then maybe others could too. He needed to get it under cover, and fast. And then…

And then he’d have time to consider his next options.

Carefully tucking the serpent into in his satchel, Boyd hurried to his bike. He picked it up and thumbed the ignition. For the second time today, something went right for him: the hardy little engine roared to life.

As he rumbled off in the direction of Emmy’s location, he allowed himself to hope that maybe this might be an omen for things to come.

CHAPTER 1

UNKNOWN LOCATION, SEATTLE

Richard Ortega thought he might have two weeks to live.

It might be a bit longer if the results were a little slower in working their way through the system. How pathetic that he was forced to pray for the glacial pace of bureaucracy now, when usually he considered the stumbling blocks it placed in his path a frustrating waste of time.

No matter how long it took for the results to surface, however, it was inevitable that they would do so. He couldn’t sweep this one under the rug, bury it in the Matrix somewhere, divert its funding to other sources. There were too many people involved, too many reports already winding their way to their final destinations, too many data trails and tests in the process of being run. So far, all of these disparate bits of information existed separately, and no single piece taken on its own would raise any red flags to anyone who might take an interest in them. But soon, too soon, all the data would come together. When it did, his failure would be visible for all to see.

He looked down at his desk, his fingers moving with spasmodic urgency as they swiped aside a series of AR windows showing blocks of text, neat columns of numbers, and page after page of complex arcane diagrams. All of them were now showing him the exact same thing—his impending, catastrophic failure. He ran a finger around the damp collar of his Executive Suite shirt, which suddenly seemed too tight, despite its custom tailoring.

He had been so fragging careful. He’d brought on talented experts, made sure they had everything they needed, and kept a close eye on their progress to ensure everything was going as planned. This was a high profile project, with results that would be available not only within the company, but to outside consultants. That made it particularly important that everything be done right: Ortega’s superiors didn’t look kindly on results that cast the corporation in anything less than a fully positive light. This project had the potential to catch the eyes of those who could finally recognize Ortega’s abilities, his loyalty, and his dedication to the ideals of the corporation. It had been too long since anyone had shone a light in his direction, and this project would be his ticket to everything he deserved.

Or it would have been, if he hadn’t made a crucial mistake.

His right hand clenched into an involuntary fist as the offending AR slid onto the top of his desk. It was an intricate formula, the design of a summoning circle of a type that had never been attempted, due to the danger to both those performing the ritual and anyone who might be in the path of what it summoned if the ritual team should lose control of it. Similar rituals were performed in the deepest reaches of the corp’s magical R&D labs every day, and sometimes even those less risky versions failed. Sometimes people died. That was an unpleasant but necessary side effect of pushing the boundaries of magical research. However, another unpleasant side effect, he knew, was that failure on the scale of what would soon come to light simply wasn’t tolerated in this subset of the corporation’s culture.

In two weeks—maybe more, maybe a bit less—the results would all come together. A team would be assembled to attempt the summoning, and a cadre of outside experts would be on hand to view the results.

And it was all going to fail.

Ortega didn’t know how Marques had found out about it, but the meeting a few days ago hadn’t been a pleasant one. Marques was two levels above Ortega’s manager in the org chart, high enough in the food chain that when he summoned you for a meeting, you showed up without asking questions.

Even if that meeting was held at a clandestine conference room in a remote area outside the city.

It was blackmail, pure and simple. Marques had somehow found out about the impending failure. He had the power to make the whole mess disappear, to cancel the project (citing budget constraints, or some similar unlikely corporate-approved reason) before the ritual ever saw the light of day. He had the power to save Ortega’s career—and probably his life.

It wouldn’t come free, of course. The proposed cost was one that Ortega had no idea how he would pay—but he didn’t have a choice. He’d have to find it somewhere. But even after he’d added up the value of all his personal assets and everything he thought he could get away with embezzling from his department’s funding, the total still fell far short of the mark. He grew more desperate as the time window grew shorter and shorter, and with only a little more than a week left, he contemplated another meeting with Marques to beg for more time to pay off the favor.

He’d nearly made the call when earlier today, his salvation had appeared in the form of a message from someone he hadn’t even thought about in more than twenty years.

He pushed aside the AR showing the faulty formula, accessed a private, encrypted datastore, and replayed the message. He had viewed it and then put it aside for a while, not daring to hope that it might represent a way for him to get out of this debacle alive. However, on second look, that tiny hope began to kindle. Perhaps the gods did look out for mere mortals after all.

Leaning back in his chair, he watched the familiar face of Toby Boyd, a dwarf who had been a member of his fraternity back in their university days, but who he’d promptly forgotten after graduation. His mind wandered as Boyd spoke, explaining what he wanted and what he was willing to offer to get it. It wasn’t until the view switched to the item in question that Ortega leaned in to examine it more closely.

No, he hadn’t been wrong. He wasn’t entirely certain what the object was—much of what gave it its value couldn’t, by its very nature, be conveyed via an AR message—but he was enough of an expert in magical artifacts to know that if it was genuine, it was very old and very valuable. Certainly worth a small fortune—enough that he could sell it, or maybe even present it to Marques in exchange for his assistance. Or, more likely, he could get enough money out of its sale to bypass Marques entirely and pay the right people to help him disappear and never be found again. Ortega hadn’t risen as far as he had by being naïve; he had no illusions about Marques’s plans to follow through on his promise once he had the money. Either way, though, if the coiled stone serpent was genuine, then his imminent death might not prove to be so imminent after all.

With the artifact in hand, he’d have a short time to consider his options before making a decision. But first, he had to have it in hand. And that meant there were things that needed to be done. Things that needed to be done quickly and quietly, without using corporate funds or the normal channels. He needed operatives to perform the job for him: to do what Boyd asked and to follow up on obtaining the item. Toby Boyd wasn’t stupid: he had revealed just enough to pique Ortega’s curiosity, but not the actual location of the prize.

So, he would need deniable assets—even more deniable than usual, since he couldn’t afford to let his superiors get wind of what he was up to—to do the job for him.

He knew just the asset for the job.

He smiled, but it wasn’t a cheerful smile. It was a cold smile, the sort that one might wear when contemplating a well-deserved fate for an old enemy. Calling up another private file, he sorted through a series of pages until the one he sought hovered in front of him. The accompanying holopic showed a man with dark hair, sharp features, and eyes that glittered with cynical intelligence. He studied the file for a moment, his smile widening.

He’d approached this particular asset in the past on more than one occasion, and on every one of those occasions, the man had turned him down. Not just turned him down, but turned him down with a level of contempt bordering on insult. Apparently the man had a conscience when it came to removing magical artifacts from their owners with…extreme prejudice.

Notes added to the file indicated that its subject was no longer in the shadowrunning business. Instead, he now split his time between teaching university-level thaumaturgy in England and doing various freelance projects for various organizations, most commonly the DIMR and the Draco Foundation. No doubt if he were offered this particular job, he would turn it down once again. There was no reason in the world why he would have any interest in it.

Therefore, Ortega would need to make sure that he couldn’t turn it down. What was that line in that old flatvid movie from the last century? Oh, yes: He would make the man an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Pulling out his personal commlink, he obtained a secure line and made a call.

CHAPTER 2

UNKNOWN LOCATION, SEATTLE

THURSDAY NIGHT

Wherever he was, it was dark. It smelled like old soykaf and industrial detergent. Somewhere far away, an off-kilter fan rattled.

His brain felt slow. Disoriented. Sluggish. He sat halfway up and tried to pummel it into some semblance of awareness. Fighting past the layers of sodden cotton that seemed to be wrapped around it, he examined possibilities: Was he back in his hotel room? Had he had too much to drink and was sleeping off a hangover?

He blinked a couple of times, sat up the rest of the way, and swiped at his hair. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the room’s blackness and shapes resolved themselves into view, two things competed for his immediate attention.

The first was the fact that this was not his hotel room. It was much smaller, for one thing. The placement of the furniture was wrong. The window was wrong. The door was in the wrong place. Even the smell was wrong. Wherever he was, he was sure he’d never been here before.

The second was the buzzing coming from somewhere on the other side of the room, rising with gentle persistence over the rattle of the faraway fan. His subconscious told him that the buzzing hadn’t been going on long—that it had, in fact, begun after his awareness had returned. Was someone watching him in this dark, unfamiliar room?

He reached out and fumbled at the area where the nightstand should have been, searching for a lamp, but there was no lamp. There was, in fact, no nightstand.

It was at that point that the memories began to flood back.

The auction…

The cameo…

The woman… What had her name been? Lynn? No…Lydia.

She had done something to him. Something as he was getting into the car.

His mind sharpened as a frisson of dread traversed his spine. Had the whole affair been a setup, or just Lydia’s involvement with it? Someone had obviously lured him to Seattle so they could abduct him, but—why?

More images rose in his mind: the Asian elf. The dark-skinned woman. They’d both been watching him, and hadn’t seemed to care that he’d noticed. Was one of them behind this? Or perhaps someone else who had been present, but more subtle?

So many possibilities, but no answers.

Not yet.

The buzzing continued. A tiny red light flashed on the other side of the room. Getting up, he stood for a moment to make sure his legs would support him, then crossed to it. He summoned up a light spell without thought: it revealed a generic dresser and a commlink that wasn’t his.

The buzzing was coming from the commlink. He picked it up: the screen showed no incoming LTG number.

“Yes?” His voice sounded raspy, like he hadn’t used it for a while.

“Ah, good,” said a mechanical voice. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Who is this?” He glared at it, as if doing so could intimidate it into revealing more information.

The voice didn’t reply. Instead, it said, “You’d better get dressed. You have a meeting to attend shortly, and you wouldn’t want to be late.”

“What the hell are you on about?” he demanded. “Who is this? I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what I’m doing here and what this is about.”

“You’ll know soon enough,” the voice said, managing to sound amused despite its artificial tone. “All the relevant details are in the commlink. A car will arrive to pick you up in half an hour. Please be ready.”

“I don’t think you heard me,” he said. As his anger rose, his brain was clearing. “Whoever you are, you’ve made a mistake doing this.”

“You’ll make a mistake if you don’t attend the meeting,” the voice said. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but please trust me on this: attendance is a matter of life or death.” It paused a moment, then added: “Yours.”

The line went dead.

He stared at the commlink. If the time on it could be believed, it was a bit past 18:00 on Thursday night. His last memory was of around the same time on Wednesday. Whatever was going on, he’d lost nearly an entire day to it. Had whatever Lydia drugged him with kept him under that entire time? This wasn’t making any sense at all. If she—or more likely, whoever she worked for—wanted him dead, they easily could have killed him. And if they didn’t want him dead, why set up this charade? What had they done to him in the hours he’d been unaware?

He found the light switch. Harsh overhead fluorescents blazed to flickering, humming life, illuminating a nearly featureless room containing a bed, a chair, and the dresser where the commlink had been. There was no window, but one closed door and two open ones: one revealed a small bathroom, the other a tiny closet.

He was dressed in crisp black pajamas; the tuxedo and overcoat he’d worn at the auction hung, freshly wrapped from the cleaners, in the closet. He stared at them, eyes narrowing, then hurried over and rifled through the pockets of both garments. As he suspected, not only was his own commlink missing, but so were his magical foci. He snatched the dresser commlink and tried to make a call, but wasn’t at all surprised to discover it had been disabled for outgoing communications. Whoever they were, they didn’t want him talking to the outside world.

Well, that was simply too bad for them. There was more than one way to make contact. He reached out with his mind, sending out a call. Almost instantly, a small form shimmered into being in front of him, sitting primly on the bed with her long, plumy tail wrapped around her paws.

His colleagues were usually amused when they first met his ally spirit, Maya. A lot of mages designed their allies to take the form of a cat—cats were one of the classics, along with things like bats, ravens, and black dogs. But he was the only one he knew who’d taken it a step further and designed her with the form of a blackberry cat. Most people didn’t want anything to do with those little beasties, who looked like larger, more intelligent versions of the common longhaired black housecat. It might have something to do with the fact that blackberry cats liked to play, and their version of “play” involved taking over a metahuman’s mind and encouraging him or her to do all sorts of things that were usually detrimental to the metahuman’s health and continued existence.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” she said through their mental link, regarding him with luminous green eyes. Her accent, like his own, was British, but it retained a brisk, charming lilt that made her sound like someone’s favorite nanny. “I was getting worried about you.”

“Tell me what happened to me after I was drugged.”

Blackberry cats couldn’t quite shrug, nor could they quite look sheepish, but Maya managed both. “Sorry,” she replied. “I can’t tell you much. The car left and took you somewhere. I tried to follow, but another spirit showed up and I had to run away. When I tried to find you again, I couldn’t.”

That wasn’t entirely unexpected: if someone were planning to abduct him, they had to know he’d have formidable magical backup, so they’d have to have something on hand to deal with whatever spirits he might have on call at the time. They’d also have to keep those spirits from finding him, which meant they’d probably had him behind a ward or some other magical protection.

He hadn’t designed Maya to be a combat monster; mostly she helped him with magical studies and support tasks, and played confidante when he was feeling moody and didn’t want to be around anyone else. Plus, he’d given her standing instructions not to get into fights unless he directly told her to. He tried a different tack: “Where am I, then?”

Spirits, even powerful ones like Maya, weren’t the best with mundane concepts like directions in the material world. “Not far from where you were,” she said.

“Not in a different city?”

“No.”

So, he was still somewhere in the Seattle ’plex. One encouraging fact, at least. He crossed the room to the door and tried to open it, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. Instead, it opened to a featureless hallway carpeted in the sort of nondescript gray you might see in a government building or cheap hotel. A few other doors, all unmarked, lined the hallway; an old-fashioned green EXIT sign hung at the end near another door.

He went back inside the room and sat down on the bed.

“What happened to me? Did you see it?”

“Not exactly,” the cat said. She paced back and forth across the crumpled bedclothes, then curled up on the pillow. “You were getting into the car with that woman, and then you were unconscious.”

“Just like that? Did she shoot me with something?” His mind whirled as he tried to recall the events around the time when he got into the Nightsky.

“She didn’t shoot you. I don’t know if anyone else did, but you fell not long after you opened the door.”

He frowned. Contact drugs on the car door? He had to admit it was a good way to take him down: his tuxedo and overcoat had both been armored; he’d have noticed if something hit him hard enough to punch through those, or hit him in his unprotected hands or head. But some sort of contact-delivered drug would bypass his protections.

Somebody had done a lot of planning to get hold of him. But why?

He had two choices, as he saw it: he could either leave now, assuming that the door to the outside world was likewise unlocked (or even if it wasn’t: given his state of mind right now, blowing a locked security door off its hinges would be downright cathartic), or he could remain and wait for the car the mechanical voice had said would arrive for him.

All his survival instincts told him to run, to get out of here fast before anybody showed up, or at least to conceal himself somewhere to see who they sent after him. He ignored them. Logically, leaving wasn’t a good idea. If they knew who he was and what he could do, they had certainly taken steps to be able to locate him again if he should try to escape. They had probably even taken a sample of his blood. That’s what he would have done if the situation were reversed. Also logically, if they’d wanted him dead, they’d already had plenty of time to make that happen. Ergo, they didn’t want him dead. Not yet, at least. Which probably meant they wanted something from him.

They were going to be waiting a long time for that.

He lowered his head and massaged his brow with both hands. Whoever these people were, none of what they were doing was making any sense. He hated things that didn’t make sense, because his brain kept trying to force them to make sense, and that usually just gave him a headache.

Don’t forget what they said, his brain helpfully reminded him. Something about life or death.

Oh, yes. That.

He glanced at the commlink again, then snatched the clothes from the closet and headed into the bathroom. “Tell me if anyone comes ’round,” he told Maya. “I’m having a shower.”

If they showed up before he was ready, they could bloody well wait for him.

CHAPTER 3

SEATTLE, 24 HOURS EARLIER

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

To a casual observer, the invitation-only event held in a carefully segregated wing of one of the more exclusive private clubs in Seattle might appear to be nothing more than another in the endless series of high-society affairs the club hosted on regular occasions. It certainly had all the trappings: elegantly attired guests; liveried waitstaff—by coincidence or design, most of them attractive female elves—negotiating their way through the crowd while balancing silver trays with lithe grace; sumptuous food and free-flowing liquor. An elven string quartet played discreet but exquisite chamber music from a stage tucked into one of the corners, and guests gathered in small groups to sip their drinks and exchange meaningless pleasantries.

If the observer were to look a bit more closely, though, they might notice a few things that weren’t quite as obvious: the fact, for example, that most of the guests maintained a sense of heightened awareness that belied their unruffled façades. There was also the matter of the small cadre of individuals who, while dressed every bit as richly as the other guests, did not mingle among them, but rather patrolled the perimeter of the large room and paid particular attention to its entrances and exits—most specifically the closed double doors on the far side.

“I do so hope we’ve found something this time,” a slender woman in an elegant gown of shimmering lavender silk commented. “The last time was such a disappointment. I can’t believe that wretched man missed something so obvious. He came so highly recommended, too.” She smiled at her companion. “Not so highly as you were, though.”

“I’ll do my best,” Winterhawk said, arching an amused eyebrow.

“Oh, I’m not worried.” She chuckled. “I just hope it’s not another fake, whether you identify it or not. These sorts of things don’t surface often, and so many of them are counterfeits.” She chuckled. “In any case, we’ve got a few minutes before things get started, and I see some people I’d like to chat with. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

“Of course.” He sipped his champagne as he watched her go. I could get to like this sort of thing, he decided, savoring the superb, dry flavor. He drifted off to stand near one of the walls where he could see the entire room—even after all this time, old habits died hard—and shifted his perceptions for a moment to assense the area. He wasn’t at all surprised to see the veritable flock of spirits still flitting this way and that, patrolling astral space as the well-dressed security squad patrolled the meat world. He had no doubt that somewhere nearby was a command center where elite security deckers and their utilities were doing much the same thing in the Matrix. It might look like a party full of rich people ripe for the pickings, but Winterhawk knew better.

What this was—or what it would be soon, when the double doors were opened—was one of a network of underground silent auctions set up to display and exchange magical artifacts of dubious legality and provenance. Similar events popped up all over the world, and only those who had been carefully vetted and approved were included on the list of invitees. Winterhawk himself had not been on the guest list for this one, but he wasn’t here to buy. While he was by no means short on funds these days, the prices he expected most of the items to command here were well out of his price range.

No, he was here in a purely advisory capacity. Lydia Duvall, the slender, thirtyish woman he was playing attentive escort to, was a wealthy collector of magical artifacts. She had contacted him a couple of days ago through a series of secure channels with a tempting offer: though she was a magical practitioner of some modest talent herself, she readily acknowledged her status as a dilettante, and didn’t trust her own ability to separate the real thing from the increasing number of counterfeit objects that had been flooding the market lately. The last “consultant” she’d hired had apparently assured her that an item was genuine; she had purchased it only to discover that it was a fake, so this time out she’d made an extra effort to track down someone with solid credentials.

Normally Winterhawk would have declined, but he had just returned from an expedition to Amazonia and the lecture series he’d been invited to deliver at Universitas Carolina Pragensis in Prague didn’t start for another month—that, and his curiosity about the sorts of items that might be on offer at such a high-end event was such that he couldn’t say no.

So, here he was, tuxedo-clad and sampling the life of the rich and indolent. He didn’t even bother masking his aura, since too many people here knew him—most by reputation, a few personally. When you reached a certain level of notoriety in magical circles, those circles got surprisingly small. It was much like the shadowrunning community in that regard, though with a lot more overinflated egos. Present company most certainly not excepted.

Lydia drifted back over toward him as the event’s host, a gray-haired dwarf wearing a blue tuxedo and a monocle, tapped a glass. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll direct your attention to the next room, we’ll get started in just a moment.”

“About time,” Lydia muttered, linking her arm through Winterhawk’s and moving off to join the exodus as two expressionless guards opened the doors. “I think we’re going to have some good luck tonight, don’t you?”

From the look of the crowd’s auras, a lot of people were thinking the same thing. Winterhawk continued assensing the area, watching the bright flares of anticipation hovering around most of the group. He allowed himself to be pulled forward but kept his awareness high: he had recognized more than one old—well, it would be overdramatic to call them enemies when perhaps rivals or adversaries might suffice better, but in any case he had crossed paths in the past either with them or with the corporations they represented, some on more than one occasion. Sure, that probably meant nothing after all this time: biz was biz, as the saying went, and most corps knew better than to maintain longstanding grudges against shadowrunners. It didn’t make good business sense to do so, since the odds were good that they themselves might wish to make use of their services at some future time. Word got around fast if a particular corp devoted too much time to retaliating against the very grease that kept their vast and corrupt machines operating smoothly.

The items arrayed on linen-draped tables inside the next room appeared deceptively vulnerable. Each one was individually lit, displayed against a backdrop of velvet or silk arranged to show it off to maximum advantage. Winterhawk doubted that any of those who were truly interested in purchasing the items even noticed this window dressing, nor the intricate but subtle security measures that were in place to make sure no one got too close.

He felt Lydia’s hand squeeze his arm. “There it is,” she said under her breath. “But let’s not be too obvious about it. Let’s just look around a bit first.”

Winterhawk was all too pleased to do just that: the number of magical artifacts spread out before him was not large, but their effect on him was very much the same as what a small child might experience if set loose in a particularly enticing toy store. Still, he had a job to do and it didn’t include spending the rest of the evening in close examination of each and every artifact, as much as he would have liked that. He kept his perceptions shifted to the astral plane as he joined his client in her explorations. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, stopping near a painting of a young girl, whose eerie eyes seemed to follow the observer around the room.

Winterhawk murmured noncommittally. He’d seen the painting before; the last time had been in a small, private museum in Amsterdam devoted to magical art. It had disappeared a couple years ago, and had, up until now, not resurfaced yet. He paused to study it more carefully, but Lydia was already on the move again.

“Who is that man?” she asked after a moment, this time under her breath.

“What man?”

“The Asian elf, standing next to the goblet there on the end. He keeps looking at us.”

Winterhawk glanced up, appearing to be examining the jewel-encrusted gold necklace next to the goblet in question. “He’s not looking at you,” he said in the same tone.

“How do you know?”

“He’s—an old acquaintance.” That was one way to put it: he was a formidable shaman affiliated with Wuxing; Winterhawk and his team had once lifted a priceless magical coin from a facility he was responsible for guarding, resulting in a reprimand and a demotion. Winterhawk caught the elf’s gaze, raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. The elf barely nodded back, but otherwise remained expressionless.

As Lydia continued her aimless wandering, Winterhawk split his attention between studying the various items on display and keeping surreptitious track of several other patrons he recognized. Despite the high degree of security and the genteel veneer everyone was maintaining, the tension among many of the guests was nearly visible to the naked eye. A lot of these people didn’t like each other, and had good reason not to. Aside from those who would have cheerfully seen him dead in bygone days, Winterhawk didn’t miss the fact that several of the elegantly clad men and women were casting chilly glances at each other under cover of checking out the artifacts. If the simmering hostility in here ever burst free of its careful boundaries, this whole place could devolve into a magical bloodbath in seconds. He didn’t expect it to happen—these sorts were experts at keeping things under wraps—but it was always wise to keep it in mind and prepare a contingency plan. Just in case.

After a few minutes, Lydia apparently decided that sufficient time had passed that she could approach her target without attracting too much attention. Her arm still linked through his, she led him to a round table near the end of the display. There, arranged on a pedestal in an artful nest of crumpled black velvet, was a beautifully carved cameo brooch. The setting was rose gold; the carving itself large and intricately detailed, displaying a female face in profile against a background of lustrous black. The face was round and strong-boned; it looked strangely unfeminine until one realized that it depicted what looked very much like a handsome dwarf woman. The piece was clearly very old, and despite the fact that no effort had been made to clean it up, it shimmered under the directed overhead light. An ARO below it declared it to be of unknown age and unknown artist, and included the identifying information needed if one wanted to place a bid.

“It’s lovely,” Lydia said. “Just lovely.” She glanced at Winterhawk, her eyes full of hope, almost as if she were begging him to give her the answer she desired.

Showtime, then. Winterhawk reclaimed his arm, took a deep breath, and focused his concentration to pinpoint accuracy. He hoped that the article was genuine, too; not because he had any particular desire for it to end up in the private collection of this over-privileged magpie who would regard it as nothing more than another trophy, but rather because he had nothing but contempt for those who produced fake magical items for monetary gain. Magic was a force deserving of respect: why waste the prodigious level of talent required to make such credible counterfeits when there were so many other ways to put it to use?

He leaned in as closely as he was permitted, mindful of the vigilant gazes of the silent security guards, and the rest of the room melted away. After a few moments he stepped back, his shoulders dropping a little. He shook his head, just once.

Lydia’s eyes went wide. “Oh, please don’t tell me—”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

It was a masterful job: he had to give whoever was responsible for it that. Clearly the counterfeiter was highly talented and knew his or her way around magical antiquities. The brooch itself was quite likely almost as old as it was claimed to be, and might even have started out possessing some small bit of magical energy of its own, though Winterhawk doubted the magic was anywhere near as old as the object itself. In any case, if he hadn’t known what he was looking for, he probably wouldn’t have spotted it: small inconsistencies in the brooch’s magical aura, indicating that it had been subtly tampered with. Detecting such tampering was a skill he’d honed over the last couple of years to support his occasional work with the Draco Foundation, the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, and other similar organizations he’d offered his services to.

Lydia’s gaze shifted back and forth between the cameo and Winterhawk; her slightly out-of-focus expression told him that she too was assensing. “Are—you sure?” Her voice shook a little, as if she feared offending him with her question.

Winterhawk shrugged. “You’ve hired me as a consultant. I’ve given you my professional assessment. It’s up to you whether you choose to accept it.”

She studied the cameo for a moment longer, then took his arm again and led him off, away from the displayed artifacts. “Well,” she said at last. “At least you’ve saved me the embarrassment and expense of buying another fake. Are you going to tell anyone?”

He shifted his eyes up, sweeping over the group. The elf was watching them; so was a dark-skinned human woman in a deep blue NightShade gown whom he recognized as a known Saeder-Krupp retainer. “It’s not my responsibility to save them from their own greed,” he said, just loudly enough for Lydia to hear. “Are we done here, then?”

She nodded, still looking disappointed. “I’m not interested in any of the rest of these pieces, even if they’re real. I’m so sorry to bring you all the way out here for such a waste of time.”

“Not at all. I’ve saved you some trouble, and I haven’t been back to Seattle in a while. Perhaps I’ll look up some old friends while I’m here.” They were leaving now, heading back out through the front room under the watchful eye of more of the security personnel.

Her hand tightened on his arm. “At least have a drink with me,” she said, tilting her head and giving him the kind of sly smile that was impossible to mistake. “It’s the least I can do. I’d love to hear about some of your…adventures.”

They were outside now. It was a rare clear night, but chilly, with a light, icy breeze rolling in from the Sound. Winterhawk settled Lydia’s wrap over her shoulders, then shrugged into his own overcoat. She’d already called her driver; after a moment the sleek white Nightsky pulled silently up and stopped.

She smiled, waiting for him to open the door for her. “So, what do you say?” she asked, sliding in with practiced ease. “Will you join me for a drink before you go?”

He moved to follow her into the vehicle, and had only just made it inside before his limbs stopped working properly. His mind began spinning in circles, spitting out random snatches of concepts and phrases that rose up to submerge coherent thought. His last conscious memories were the click of the car’s door closing behind him and Lydia’s widening smile as he pitched forward, his head landing in her silk-clad lap.

CHAPTER 4

BLUE MORAY RESTAURANT 
SEATTLE 
THURSDAY NIGHT

The restaurant was on the edge of Downtown: one of those understated, upscale places most people tend to drive right by unless they’re looking for it. The kind of place where the menus didn’t include prices, and the deals made over cocktails each evening affected the fates of thousands of people and millions of nuyen.

The unassuming black sedan slid to a stop in front of the walkway leading to the entrance, and the door opened. Winterhawk got out, straightened his coat, and considered his options as the door closed and the car glided off. Once again, the temptation to shift to invisibility, pull a full mask over his aura, and make a run for it was strong. He had the overwhelming feeling that if he walked into that restaurant, something significant was going to change in the course of his life.

He wasn’t going to run, but he also didn’t have to be stupid about the whole thing. “Maya?”

“Here.”

“Check the place out, please. Focus on any private dining or conference rooms, and anyone who looks like they’re hiding or overly watchful. Watch out, as always.”

He felt her agreement, and then she was gone. He lingered outside, pretending to be paying attention to the commlink he’d taken from the room. Nobody looked oddly at him; without the tuxedo’s bow tie, he just looked like another businessman in a black suit and dark overcoat. A well-dressed couple and a small group of Japanese sararimen walked past him without a glance and disappeared inside.

Maya touched his mind again. “I see three people in a back room,” she reported. “It’s not warded. There’s a spirit on patrol, but it didn’t see me.” Her voice held pride at this. “Two humans and an elf. One of the humans is sitting at a table, and the other one and the elf are standing behind him. Those two don’t show up very much on the astral plane, and they have guns. The one at the table seems to be watching something.”

“Probably me,” Winterhawk said dryly. “Well, if they don’t think I’d be checking them out before I march into the lions’ den, they’re fools. All right, then. No more time to stall, I suppose.”

“Be careful.” The cat’s voice held gentle worry.

“I’m always careful,” he told her, as he strode up the walkway toward the restaurant.

“Oh? Is that how you ended up unconscious in a disreputable hotel room, wearing pajamas you normally wouldn’t be caught dead in?”

“Hush, you.”

He didn’t give a name to the pale, elegant elven maître d’ standing behind a podium at the front, but he didn’t need to. Apparently he was expected. The elf bowed slightly, indicated for him to follow, and led him back through the restaurant’s dark and tastefully appointed main dining room to a discreetly placed, intricately carved wooden door down a short hallway in the back. He bowed again and departed without a word.

Winterhawk pushed open the door, and paused in the doorway for a moment. The three figures Maya had reported seeing during her astral examination were all still there: a bland-looking man in a gray, corp-issue suit sat behind an oblong table facing the door, and two others—a human man and an elven woman—stood in the shadows behind him, close enough that it was obvious they were bodyguards, but far enough back so as not to involve themselves in the conversation. Winterhawk had seen this scenario dozens of times before: it was such a cliché configuration for a meet that he was sure they must have done it on purpose.

The bland man smiled. “Please. Come in. Sit down.” He indicated the chair across from him with a wave of a manicured hand. He was human, handsome, middle-aged. He had the kind of perfect hair, perfect skin, and perfectly pleasant expression that suggested a lot of expensive surgery. He’d probably majored in Blandness in corp school.

Winterhawk didn’t move. “I don’t think so. I don’t fancy participating in your delusion, whatever it is. If you want something from me, say so. Otherwise, I’ll be on my way.”

The man’s smile grew wider. “You’re certainly welcome to do that. Neither I nor my associates will stop you. But you might want to hear what I have to say first.”

“And why is that?”

“Because if you leave this room without hearing my offer, you’ll be dead within a week. And there won’t be anything I or anyone else will be able to do about it, unfortunately.”

Winterhawk went still, his mind going back to the day he’d lost while he was unconscious, and the words of the mechanical voice.

Life or death. Yours.

A day was a long time. A lot of things could happen in a day. A lot of very troubling things, in fact. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, deceptively calm. “What did you do to me?”

“Sit down, please,” the man repeated. “You can call me Mr. Johnson, by the way. I suppose you knew that already. I know who you are, of course. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I’ve heard a lot of very interesting stories about you and your adventures over the years.”

Winterhawk paused. He could try to force the information out of the man, but given that he didn’t have all the facts, that was likely an unwise course of action. Especially with the bodyguards to consider. He might be able to neutralize all three of them—but then again, he might not. Patience for now, then.

He crossed the room and settled into the offered chair. Leaning back, he folded his arms over his chest and waited.

“Would you like a drink? Dinner will be served soon. No doubt you’re hungry after your…rest.”

“I want nothing from you except an explanation. Let’s not waste each other’s time, shall we? Why am I here?” Shifting his perceptions for a moment, he assensed Mr. Johnson. Even his aura was bland. He seemed utterly unruffled, almost to the point of languor. All at once, Winterhawk knew why. “For that matter,” he added, “why am I talking to you? If your boss has something to say to me, bring him out. I don’t deal with lackeys.”

Mr. Johnson’s demeanor didn’t change, except that he chuckled briefly. “All right, you like to get right to it. That’s fine. I’ll forego the social niceties.” He leaned forward a little. “What I want is very simple, and should be obvious, given the circumstances: I want to hire you to do a job.”

“Did you hear me? I want to talk to whoever is pulling your strings.”

Mr. Johnson’s expression was a paternal sort of amusement, the way a father might regard a toddler who’d just done something droll. Once again he continued without acknowledging Winterhawk’s words. “A job,” he said, “which must be completed quickly, and that requires certain skills I’ve been told you possess in abundance.”

Winterhawk closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and tried another approach. “If that’s true, then why did you bother abducting me? Why not simply contact me through normal channels? Is it because you knew I’d turn you down?”

Mr. Johnson shrugged. “I don’t see any reason why you would refuse. It’s a fairly straightforward job, similar to those you’ve done in the past. And of course you will be well compensated for your time and talent. I understand that you will have to retain the services of other experts, so you’ll be given a budget for that as well.”

Winterhawk raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re planning to pay me, then, are you? That’s surprising, actually.” He stood. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer, Mr. Johnson. If you know as much about me as you claim to, you must know that I’m not currently seeking that sort of employment. And that’s completely putting aside the whole ‘abduction’ thing. I’m contrary like that: even if I might have been inclined to play along if you’d asked nicely, I’m certainly not now.”

“You haven’t even heard the offer yet,” Mr. Johnson said, not appearing at all discomfited.

“I don’t need to hear it. I don’t care what it is. Perhaps you’re new at this game, but for next time you might learn that if you want something from someone, there are better ways go about it.” Winterhawk pushed the chair in, turned his back on the man, and started toward the door.

Something deep inside him lit up with white-hot pain. The world reeled as his brain erupted, etching an image of every neural pathway in his body across his mind’s eye, traced with a sudden, brief agony worse than anything he could ever remember experiencing. It only lasted a couple of seconds, there and gone almost before it registered as a pain at all. But worse, far worse, was the influx of psychic disturbance that flooded his brain: visions of unimaginably horrific creatures, flashes of crippling self-doubt, wave after wave of an internal onslaught that tore through his mental defenses as if they were made of paper.

And then it was over.

Just like that. Just…gone.

He found himself on the floor, knees drawn up and hands clutching at his head, with no memory of how he’d gotten there. Gasping, heart pounding, he pushed himself up with shaking arms and looked around.

Mr. Johnson was still seated behind the table, still sporting the same bland, professionally pleasant smile. The two bodyguards had neither moved nor changed expression; they could have been statues. 

“Bloody hell,” he got out between breaths. “What was—” Mentally, he waved a concerned Maya off, assuring her he was all right.

“Please,” Mr. Johnson said, as if nothing had changed. “Sit down. Believe me, you don’t want me to do that again, and neither do I. I’ve already taken at least half a day off your allotted time with that demonstration. If you force me to demonstrate again, I’m afraid you won’t have enough time to complete the job before it’s too late.”

Winterhawk dragged himself back to his feet. His hands tingled with a nearly physical compulsion to gather mana to him and let loose with something devastating and pyrotechnic—something that would sear that insufferable smile from the Johnson’s face, and probably take out a good portion of the room along with it. Instead, teeth gritted and eyes blazing, he resumed his place in his chair. There was no lingering effect from whatever had hit him, save for a slight headache such as he might have gotten if he’d overexerted himself magically. His eyes locked on the Johnson as he waited for his heart rate to slow to something approaching normal. “What have you done to me?”

Mr. Johnson nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “We didn’t think you’d be willing to accept our job, so we took certain…steps…to ensure your cooperation.” He picked up his wine glass and sipped. “You’ve been given a—well, let’s call it a poison to make things easy, though it’s actually quite a bit more complex than that. All you need to know about it is that it’s slow acting, especially at the beginning of exposure. As time goes on, it effects will become more debilitating until, eventually, it will kill you.” His voice remained utterly smooth and even, as if he were discussing the weather or commenting on the vintage of the wine.

Winterhawk stared at him. “Why…?” he asked. “Why me? Surely there are any number of others who could—”

“Because we don’t want any of the others,” Mr. Johnson said. That smile was getting old in a hurry. “Don’t you see? We want you.”

He narrowed his eyes—and then he did see. “This isn’t about my skills, is it? Not at all. Whoever’s behind this has some sort of issue with me personally.” His mind spun, trying to put together a list of anyone who might have both a grudge against him and the resources to pull off a scheme like this. He stopped counting when he reached a dozen—at least half of whom had been present at the auction. When you’d run the shadows as long as he had, it was hard not to develop an impressive collection of people who didn’t like you. Most of them didn’t consider his retirement from the shadowrunning business to be a valid reason to put aside their animosities.

“Oh, but it is,” the Johnson replied. “What would be the point of hiring you to do the job if we didn’t think you could manage it? As it happens, you’re rather uniquely suited for it, based on your previous history and what we know of your talents. That is why we wanted you in the first place. So here’s our offer: You do this job, along with any other teammates you can procure. We’ll leave that part up to you. If you complete it satisfactorily and in the proper timeframe, we’ll meet again. You’ll deliver the target of the run, and in exchange we’ll provide you with the antidote to the poison, as well as the remainder of your payment. If you refuse to do the job, or if you take too long to finish it—” He spread his hands and looked apologetic. “—then I’m afraid things won’t go so well for you.” His eyes came up, and the smile was back. “So, what do you say? Do we have a deal?”

Winterhawk was silent. He appeared to still be looking at the Johnson, but his mind was far away, reeling with a cacophony of clashing thoughts: who was this Johnson representing? What kind of poison had they given him? Had they even given him anything at all, or were they merely bluffing? And if they were bluffing about the poison, what had they done to him that had dropped him like he’d been shot? 

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a brief physical inventory: still no leftover effects. “If I refuse now,” he said at last, “Then—what?”

Mr. Johnson shrugged. “Then I thank you for your time, and you get up and go on your way.”

“But the poison—assuming there is any poison—remains in effect.”

“Of course.” The smile was approving this time. “You’ve got about a week, give or take. You must understand that this particular treatment is still highly experimental. So the longer you wait to get started, the less margin for error you’re allowing yourself. Oh,” he added, “one other thing: when you leave here, I’d advise against spending too much time and effort in trying to figure out what’s been done to you. If you talk to the right people, you might get it—I doubt it, but anything’s possible—but we’ll be paying attention. And trust me, even if you do figure it out, it’s not going to be something you’ll be able to deal with on your own in the time you have left. I’m just telling you this because I know how you operate: you have to know things. In this case, curiosity really will get you killed.”

“Is he lying?” he asked Maya.

“Not that I can see,” she said, her mental tone concerned.

He sighed. This was a lot to take in at once, and he still wasn’t sure he wasn’t missing something important. The memory of the flare-up, whatever it had been, was still fresh and frightening in his mind.

“Suppose I decide to go along with this,” he said at last. “What is it, precisely, that you want me to do?” Regardless of his final decision, more information was never a bad thing.

“The details will be on your commlink, back at your hotel room,” the Johnson said. “You’ll find everything you need to know there, along with the first portion of the funds for your payment and for hiring additional talent to assist you. Basically, you’ll be performing an extraction of a willing, high-level target. After you’ve secured the target, he will give you the needed information to complete the second half of the job. I suggest you get started quickly, in case more time is required than anticipated.”

Winterhawk didn’t answer.

Mr. Johnson waited for a full minute, his hands on the table and his expressionless eyes focused on the mage. Finally, he said, “Do we have an agreement, then?”

Winterhawk stood. “I suppose you’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” he asked, and then turned and left the room.

This time, Mr. Johnson didn’t stop him.

CHAPTER 5

SEATTLE 
LAUBENSTEIN PLAZA HOTEL 
THURSDAY NIGHT

Winterhawk left the restaurant without conscious awareness of doing so. Outside, he flung himself against the wall and took deep, gasping breaths of the cold, sea-tanged air.

Think, man, he ordered himself. He had to keep his wits together, or he’d be lost before he started. Whether Mr. Johnson was lying to him about the poison or not, it wasn’t something he could take chances with. Not until he had more knowledge, more proof.

A week—maybe less. That wasn’t enough time to split his focus. He was going to have to pick a course of action and commit to it, and soon: he could do the job, he could try to find someone who could deal with the poison, or he could simply walk away from the whole business and call the Johnson’s bluff. The first two alternatives required him to believe that Mr. Johnson’s handlers not only had the desire to kill him, but could also produce or procure a poison such as the one described. The third alternative required him to take a gamble that could either result in his freedom or his death. No middle ground there.

Numbly, he waved down a taxi and gave the driver the address of the Laubenstein Plaza Hotel, then settled back into the seat and continued examining the situation. True, he had a lot of acquaintances and associates who might be able to help him—but the operative word was might. Mr. Johnson had said the poison was experimental—if it was something cooked up deep in the bowels of some exotic corporate skunkworks, it would take a lot of effort and more than a bit of luck to even identify it, let alone figure out how to counteract it. Those kinds of things were doable—anything was doable with the application of enough ingenuity and nuyen—but the timeframes were troubling. That was a lot to ask for in a week, even in the unlikely event he was able to claim the attention of some of his higher-placed associates on such short notice. He wished he’d been able to snap a surreptitious holopic of Mr. Johnson; even though it was obvious the man was a mere pawn in this game, even pawns could be traced back to their masters. Regardless of the course of action Winterhawk ultimately decided to follow, his first order of business would be to find out this Johnson’s affiliations, as well as whether any of the people at the auction were connected with this little scheme. Knowing who was behind it might provide some insight into the resources they’d have available.

By the time the driver dropped him off at his hotel, he hadn’t come up with any other ideas. He took the elevator to his floor and was relieved to discover that the Johnson had not, at least, been lying in one case: his room was as he had left it, with the exception of a small, unmarked, sealed box sitting in the middle of the bed.

He tore it open, not even entertaining the possibility that it might hold something sinister. At this point, he didn’t care. But no: the box contained only his commlink and his small collection of magical focus items. He checked his cred balances: his usual accounts were unchanged, but now there was a new one, in the amount of 120,000¥. His payment, plus the funds Mr. Johnson had provided for hiring a team.

He hunted around until he found the other file Johnson had included: the details of the run. It was a simple text message:

You will travel to Los Angeles. There, you will perform an extraction on a dwarf named Toby Boyd, who is currently employed as a parabotany researcher by Shiawase. He is prepared and willing, but you must handle the details of the extraction.

The second part of the assignment will require travel to Australia, and the continued assistance of Mr. Boyd. You will be retrieving an item of a magical nature. After you have successfully extracted Mr. Boyd, he will reveal to you the specific nature and location of the object, as well as relevant files and assistance in reaching and procuring it. This object is the target of your assignment. You must return it to us in the appointed time, at which point you will be compensated as we discussed. The safe return of Mr. Boyd is desirable, but not a necessary condition of successful completion.

The file included a holopic of a middle-aged dwarf male with short brown hair, bright green eyes, and a cheeky grin. It also included the address of the Shiawase complex where Boyd was employed.

Winterhawk stared at the commlink, tension creeping into his shoulders. It wasn’t much to go on. Damned little, in fact. If he’d been offered such a job as a legitimate shadowrun, he’d have turned it down instantly. Too many variables to be comfortable with, with the largest being that the entire second part of the run—obtaining whatever the item was that Mr. Johnson wanted—hinged on his team’s ability to find this mysterious Boyd, get him out alive, and keep him alive for the remainder of the run.

Winterhawk hated extractions, even extractions of willing targets. Almost invariably they involved civilians, and civilians were dangerously unpredictable. Shadowrunners, even those you hadn’t worked with before, could usually be counted on to focus on the job. If you hired them to be sneaky and quiet, they were sneaky and quiet. If you hired them to make big booms, they made big booms. What they usually didn’t do was freak out halfway through the run, change their mind about wanting to be extracted when the drek started to hit the fan, panic and run off, or suddenly remember that they’d left important hardcopy files in their offices or family members in their homes that they simply had to retrieve.

The only thing he hated more than extractions was an extraction that required the team to babysit the target rather than simply handing him or her off at the earliest convenience. The longer you held on to someone, the greater the chance something would go wrong.

It was almost as if this Johnson had gone out of his way to tailor a job that hit all the bullet points on Winterhawk’s ‘most disagreeable shadowruns’ list. All it needed was a sewer to slog through.

He sighed, tossing the commlink on the bed and taking a few deep breaths. Assuming the Johnson wasn’t lying about the drug, this got even better; his life depended on finding a magical item he had no idea about: what it was, where it was, or how hard it was going to be to get his hands on. And all of this had to be accomplished in less than a week.

Best to get started, then...

He couldn’t trust his commlink for communication, of course, especially not with anything related to trying to ferret out Mr. Johnson’s true identity and his plan. He’d have to either get another one or have this one checked out by someone who could locate and neutralize any traces or bugs the Johnson’s people might have added. He gave it a brief, cursory examination at both the material and the astral levels, but found nothing out of the ordinary. That didn’t surprise him: if they were bugging it, he didn’t have the expertise to discover it.

The rest of his gear was still in the room as well, and didn’t appear to have been moved or disturbed. He got out of the tuxedo, tossed it in a heap in the corner, and took another quick shower.

Wrapped in a robe, he lay down on the bed and forced himself to relax, reaching out once more to Maya. When she shimmered into place perched on his chest, he told her, “I want you to examine me.”

Maya tilted her head. “Examine you?”

“Astrally. Tell me if you see anything odd. Anything potentially harmful.”

“It’s good that you qualified that. ‘Odd’ is essentially your defining trait.”

“Oh, be quiet and do as you’re told,” he said sourly, but his tone was laced with amusement.

He knew he wasn’t going to get much; a spirit, even one as familiar with him as Maya was, wouldn’t be able to give him the same kind of answer as a trained metahuman practitioner. But he couldn’t examine himself, and he was fresh out of other options at the moment. Even a little information would be more than he had at the moment.

The blackberry cat disappeared. He lay still, sensing her presence even though he could no longer see her. She was gone for perhaps five minutes, then winked back in at the same spot on his chest.

“Well?”

“There is something wrong,” she said. “But I can’t find it. Something about your aura isn’t quite right. Might just be because you’re stressed. Don’t think so, though. I’ve seen your aura when you’re stressed, and this is different.”

“You can’t tell anything more than that?”

“Sorry. Like I said, there’s something there, but it’s doing a good job hiding. Maybe the poison isn’t strong enough to show any signs yet. Plus, I’m not an expert on you fleshy types’ physiology.”

“Fine,” he said. “Go on, then. I’ll call you if I need you.”

Maya purred, rubbed her face against his, and departed. Winterhawk let his breath out and contemplated the room’s ceiling. No point in being disappointed by the lack of a definitive answer: Mr. Johnson’s people had to know if they’d used something simple or easily spotted on him, he would find it fast.

If these were the old days, back when he’d still been a shadowrunner based out of Seattle, this would have been much easier. To start, there would have been any number of local people—people he trusted—that he could have called for a quick examination, both astral and medical. He still had such people: there were several JackPoint members, discreet and professional magical practitioners as well as experts on medicine and exotic poisons, whom he could no doubt seek out for advice and confirmation. But none of them were currently in Seattle, and unfortunately examinations such as this would require him to be physically in the same place as the examiner, or at minimum to send them some quantity of his blood to analyze. With Mr. Johnson’s clock ticking away, he didn’t have time to risk a trip, and even putting aside his reluctance at shipping blood around (desperate times called for desperate measures in this case) it would still take time in transit. If he could find someone willing to help, the best he could do would be to send them what little information the Johnson had told him, and the symptoms he’d felt during the man’s “demonstration.” Not a lot to go on. And before he could even do that, he’d need a secure way to communicate. He had no idea if the Johnson was monitoring his communications, but right now he had to assume his commlink was compromised.

He’d have time to sort all that out as he went, though. For now, he needed to get started on other tasks. If he was going to do this job, he’d need a good team to back him up. He had no illusions about his own abilities: he was a damned good mage, but he’d been out of the biz long enough that he didn’t have the edge he used to for this sort of thing. The shadows changed constantly, with everything old—technologies, skills, people—being pushed aside in favor of the newer, the faster, the stronger. Most of the people he’d run with were gone: either left town before old enemies caught up with them, dropped out of sight, or dead. Shadowrunning was a young person’s game, and it had a nasty habit of eating its talent alive. If you survived, it meant you were either very good or very lucky. Or else you hadn’t gotten on the wrong side of the wrong people yet.

Most of them were gone…but not all of them.

He stood up and dressed quickly. If he was even going to think of actually doing this run, he knew the first person he wanted on his side.

Assuming, of course, that the guy didn’t tell him to go straight to hell.

CHAPTER 6

THE WHARF RAT 
SEATTLE 
THURSDAY NIGHT

The place was called the Wharf Rat, and it looked exactly like you would expect a place called the Wharf Rat to look. It should have been condemned years ago: its wooden-timbered structure was more rot than wood these days, and the state of what it laughably called its ‘kitchen’ was such that nobody in the know—or at least nobody without a cybernetically enhanced digestive system—would ever risk ordering anything that required cooking.

Its cuisine had never been the Wharf Rat’s draw, though. Neither was the bar, though it did a brisk business in cheap beer, assorted varieties of cut-rate synthahol, and an occasional bottle of the real thing when somebody made a big score and decided to splurge. Those just gave the patrons something to do with their hands until the real action started downstairs.

Nobody quite knew how the Wharf Rat stayed in business (and more surprisingly, independent) for as long as it had. Frank, the crusty old troll who owned the place, had been a fixture in this corner of Seattle’s docklands for more than fifteen years, and during that time he’d never had to deal with more than a few halfhearted attempts—by local law enforcement, upstart gangers, and the occasional newly-minted mob up-and-comer—to muscle in on his territory. No one ever identified any definitive reason why: rumors ran the gamut from speculation that he was the secret son of a powerful politician, that he was a retired shadowrunner who arranged the murder of anyone who messed with him, or—to the most farfetched—that he had long ago done a big favor for a dragon, and the wyrm had arranged it so Frank didn’t have to worry about any attempts to take over his place.

Regardless of the real reason, it had become so ingrained in the local folklore that you didn’t mess with the Wharf Rat that almost nobody did anymore. And so, one of Seattle’s most infamous underground fight clubs continued offering a choice of attractions, depending on your particular inclinations: the opportunity for anyone brave enough (and willing to pay the entry fee) to step into its pit and test his or her skills against everything from bone-stock troll brawlers to cybered-to-the-gills young razorboys in single combat. Or, for those who preferred their thrills a little more vicarious, the chance to watch it all go down in all its bloody glory. And to bet on it, of course, which was where the Rat made most of its money. There were only three rules, and Frank enforced them with an iron hand: No magic, no weapons, and no intentional killing.

As might be expected, that third rule got tested more than the other two combined. The fine line between good, clean, illicit mayhem and casual murder was a thin one, and it was the combatants’ responsibility to pay attention to it, or risk being banned from the Rat for good.

The man slouching against the rough, graffiti-strewn wall of the dimly-lit tunnel, flexing his hands and watching the AROs flitting across his field of vision, was early for his bout. From his vantage point near the exit, he could barely make out the bottom of a familiar set of old, wooden steps; they led down past a series of banked terraces arranged in a circle around a dirt-floored central pit about ten meters in diameter. The spectator area had no chairs, just narrow metal rails to keep drunken patrons from falling onto the lower tiers.

Directly across the pit from his own tunnel was its mirror-image counterpart. It wasn’t good for business to put the night’s opponents too close to each other. The fights were supposed to happen in the pit where the customers could see them, not in the waiting area.

He’d checked a few moments ago: the terraces were about three-quarters occupied, the mostly male crowd yelling and cheering, pumping their fists in between guzzling their drinks. The mingled stench of unwashed bodies and cheap beer was strong here, overlaid with the faint tang of blood.

In other words, a typical night at the Wharf Rat.

He wasn’t looking at any of this now, though—just the AROs. Even then he’d filtered out everything but the important stuff: who was currently fighting, the status of that fight, and how the odds were firming up for his own upcoming bout. As usual he was the favorite, and as usual it was by a fair margin. His opponent, some guy who went by “Julio,” was a newbie: he’d never seen him around here before. Might not again, either, after tonight. The new kids came and went, most of them flaunting their fancy new mods and thinking a little surgery and a few street scraps gave them what it took to be number one.

They’d learn. Or they’d die. He often felt like he was performing a public service, showing the new crop of wannabes just how much they didn’t know before they tried to take their attitudes off the street and into the big leagues, and ended up getting themselves geeked.

That, and he just got a rush out of the whole thing. It was a habit these days, more than anything: a way to blow off steam. Some guys played pickup ball or hung out at the gym. He went to the Wharf Rat and beat people up for money.

“Seriously, Ocelot, chummer—what the hell are you even still doin’ here?”

Ocelot turned. Frank stood at the end of the tunnel near the dressing rooms; his arms, gnarled with age but still ropy with bulging muscles, were crossed over a chest barely contained by his black TROG’S GYM t-shirt. The old troll wore an odd expression: half amusement, half sympathy.

Ocelot shrugged. “Why not? I was bored. Figured I’d pick up a little cred teachin’ greenies they’re not half as good as they think they are.”

“Yeah, like you need the cred.” Frank snorted. “Not like I don’t love ya, kid. You put on a good show. People actually show up special on nights they know you gonna be here. But—” He spread his hands, looking past Ocelot to the pit, where a bloody, dark-clothed figure reeled back across the tunnel opening and crashed into a wall. “Ain’t it gettin’ time to think about hangin’ it up? Ain’t none of us gettin’ any younger, you know.”

“Screw that,” Ocelot said, narrowing his eyes. “Day I hang it up is the day they haul my carcass outta the Sound.”

Frank shrugged. “Your life. I’m just sayin’, I watch. Some of these greenies are gettin’ scary these days, with what they’re stickin’ in their meat. It’s like givin’ a 12-year-old the keys to a fraggin’ Lamborghini. Just last week I had to kick some new cybered-up chica outta here ’cause she unzipped a guy’s gut, right there in the middle of the pit. That drek’s gettin’ harder to handle these days. Not to mention it’s hell on cleanup.” He shrugged again. “Ain’t talked to ya in a while. You still runnin’, or’d you do the smart thing and retire yet?”

“Retire? Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. Shadowrunners don’t retire, Frank. You know that as well as I do. They stay ahead of the axe as long as they can, till the one day they don’t.” Ocelot flexed his hands again, then clasped them behind his head and stretched out his arms and his upper back. At thirty-six, maybe his body didn’t respond quite the way it had back when he was twenty, but it hadn’t failed him yet. And he had a lot more mods now. That was the way it worked: you kept up with the SOTA, or the world rolled over you, spit you out, and moved on.

“Ain’t none o’ my biz,” Frank said, holding up his hands. “I’m just here to deliver a message.”

That was odd. “What message?”

“Got a call. Guy sez you turned your ’link off, and he needs to get in touch with you fast. Dunno how he figured out you were here.”

That was very odd. A lot of people knew the Wharf Rat was one of the places he hung out, but he couldn’t think of any of them who’d need to talk to him so urgently that they couldn’t wait for him to check his messages after the fight. It wasn’t like he had any loved ones to worry about. “He say who he was?”

“Yeah. Strange guy. British accent. Sez you’d know him: name’s Winterhawk.”

Ocelot let his breath out slowly. Now there was a name he hadn’t heard, or even thought about much, in the last couple of years. “He say anything else? He want me to call him?”

“Nah, he said he’ll be here. Wants you to meet him in the bar after your fight.”

It was probably a good thing that this Julio wasn’t anything to be concerned about, because after Frank delivered his message, Ocelot’s mind wasn’t on the fight anymore.

An ARO beeped for his attention, flashing a status update: the previous bout was winding down, and Ocelot would be up any minute. He pushed himself off the wall, did a couple of indifferent stretches, and glanced down the tunnel toward the pit. The sound was filtered in here, but the cheers were rising in volume. Somebody had probably been seriously hurt. The crowd always loved that.

Ocelot was about to move forward when the shimmering form of a large black cat winked into existence between him and the end of the tunnel. He leaped back without thought, dropping into a crouch, then relaxed when he recognized ’Hawk’s ally spirit, Maya.

“The boss is here,” she said, her prim British tones sounding in his mind; he’d forgotten how much having a voice in his head that wasn’t his weirded him out. “Where shall I tell him you’ll meet him?”

“Tell him he’s gonna have to wait,” he said in a low growl. “I’m busy now. Tell him he should come down here and watch the show. I’ll see him upstairs after.”

The cat flicked her tail and winked back out again. Ocelot glared at the spot where she had been, but he didn’t have time to think about it any longer. He was up.

The fight itself was almost an afterthought; they were too often these days. Ocelot wished sometimes that Frank would change the rules to allow weapons in the bouts, or maybe let him fight more than one guy at once. Even the trolls didn’t often provide a challenge for him anymore, not because he had any illusions that he could beat a similarly skilled troll one-on-one, but because it was a rare day when anybody in his league showed up looking for a fight. Most people who’d been at it as long as him wised up eventually and moved on to bigger and better things, leaving the place to the newbies and the up-and-comers.

Take Julio, for example. He was a big kid, an Amerind ork with a shaved head and a synthleather vest designed to show off the augmented, tattooed muscle of one arm and the polished chrome of the other. His expression appeared to be set in a permanent sneer.

It took Ocelot less than five minutes to wipe the sneer off the kid’s face. Oh, he was fast: maybe even faster than Ocelot. He was definitely stronger. But all the strength and speed in the world wouldn’t do a damn bit of good if you couldn’t connect with your shots.

Julio was clearly used to winning fights fast. That was almost certainly why he was here: one of his chummers had told him about the place, and the lure of the cred you could make if you were any good was enough to entice any street kid with a little ’ware, a lot of attitude, and dreams of moving up in the sprawl food chain. Ocelot had to grin as the kid roared and lunged at him, becoming more and more frustrated as this smoothie nearly twice his age kept not being there when his punishing blows landed.

Normally Ocelot would have drawn out the whole thing, played to the crowd a bit. Not tonight, though. He glanced up into the stands, trying to spot Winterhawk among the throng of cheering fans, wondering if he’d bother to watch the show, but he couldn’t see him. Julio took that opportunity to take another shot, feinting right and then bulling forward with all his considerable weight and momentum. If he’d connected, he would have clinched Ocelot in a vicious bear hug and, given his clear level of frustration, probably squeezed until he broke something.

Too bad for him. That was the thing about most street kids with more mods than talent: they might as well be holding up signs announcing what they were going to do next. All you had to do was watch their eyes to see it. Ocelot sometimes took side jobs teaching martial arts to a few carefully chosen students; he knew they were finally making progress when he couldn’t read every upcoming move on their faces.

Julio hadn’t taken any such lessons. Ocelot neatly sidestepped the lunge, lashing out with a flashy kick that sent the ork off in the same direction he was headed, only about twice as fast. Ocelot wouldn’t have used that kick in a real fight, but he figured he’d at least give the crowd something to look at. Julio, unable to stop his forward momentum in time, slammed face-first into the pit wall and did a slow-motion drop as the crowd jeered and rained garbage down on him. And that was it.

There wasn’t any ceremony about the way fights ended at the Wharf Rat. The old ork who announced the fights lumbered back in, followed by the troll whose job was to haul out the losers if they couldn’t make it under their own power. Ocelot nodded at the troll, confident that his winnings would be credited to his account, and with a quick wave to the crowd, headed back out through the tunnel.

CHAPTER 7

THE WHARF RAT 
SEATTLE

By anybody’s reckoning, Winterhawk was an odd guy—he’d been an odd guy since Ocelot had first met him, introduced by a fixer who’d been putting together a team for a job requiring finesse, a light touch, and a decent amount of magical firepower. The two of them had hit it off about like you’d see on one of those trid shows where you tossed a thoroughly mismatched pair together and sat back to watch the sparks fly. “Street-bred kid from the Seattle sprawl meets fancy-pants academic mage from London. Let’s take bets on how long before they try to kill each other.” Ha ha, very funny. Maybe they could have sold it to the networks.

The funny part had ended up being how well it all worked out. He and Winterhawk had stopped trying to finish the job fast and get the hell away from each other about the time they both realized how successfully their particular areas of expertise meshed. When they went back to the fixer, they both allowed that maybe they could try one more job together—just to prove that the first one had been a fluke. The fixer smirked as if he’d expected it all along, and sent them on another run.

That had been ten years ago, give or take, and a lot of jobs.

They’d been a good team, both alone and with various others as needed, for five years or so after that. They’d done all kinds of runs, and quickly developed a rep for having the punch to get things done, but also for being smart enough that they usually didn’t have to use it. The kind of people who hired shadowrunners, with a few notable exceptions that Ocelot and Winterhawk stayed far away from, didn’t appreciate a lot of noise. In and out with a minimum of impact was what they specialized in, but when the drek hit the fan, they proved on numerous occasions that they could dish out the pain and get the job done.

Still, Ocelot had known pretty much from the outset that ’Hawk’s heart wasn’t really in it. The man was an academic at his core: his motor ran on finding out Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, particularly as they related to magic. That was why he’d taken up shadowrunning in the first place: if you picked your jobs carefully, you got to see things that ivory-tower researchers, and even the guys who went on the university-sponsored field trips, didn’t get to see: the kind of things that led to papers that made magical scholars wet themselves. ’Hawk had gamely toughed out the runs that didn’t involve magic to get to the ones that did, but it became clear before long that his days as a shadowrunner were numbered.

Ocelot had always resented that, and though he’d never told Winterhawk outright about it, he was sure the mage was perceptive enough to see it. When you were a street kid from the Barrens who ran the shadows because it was either that or stay in a gang and end up dead before your twentieth birthday, constant reminders that your partner could step out any time he wanted to and return to a life of relative ease were a little hard to stomach. The dissolution of their partnership had been entirely civil, but not without a certain tenseness on both sides.

And now, ’Hawk was back. Just like that, here he was in Seattle. Ocelot could have called him back and told him to meet somewhere else, but he hadn’t. The mage could damn well come here if he wanted to talk. It would do him good to interact with the real world for a change.

The first impression Ocelot got as he approached Winterhawk’s table in the bar was that there was something wrong with his old partner, but he had no idea why. ’Hawk looked like he always did: same thin frame, same dark hair, same cynical gleam in his eyes. As usual, he was elegantly (and completely inappropriately) dressed in a fine suit with an overcoat casually draped over a nearby chair. It was just a fleeting impression, quickly gone, that something wasn’t as it should be.

The two of them eyed each other in the manner of a pair of neighborhood tomcats who suddenly found their territories overlapping.

“Been a while,” Ocelot said, dropping into a third scarred thermoplast chair. “Want a beer?” He sat, as he always did, with his back facing the wall, tilting the chair onto its back legs and holding it in perfect balance.

Winterhawk didn’t even try to keep his distaste from showing. “No.”

Some things never changed, apparently. Ocelot grinned.

The mage made a vague gesture that encompassed the place, upstairs and down. “Still slumming, are you? Don’t you ever get tired of outclassing the room?”

He shrugged. “You have your fun, I have mine.” He paused for a long swig of beer. “So, what do you want, ’Hawk?”

A brief, unidentifiable expression flitted across Winterhawk’s face. “I have a job. Thought you might be interested.”

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected ‘Hawk to say, but that wasn’t it. Not even close. “Thought you were out of the biz.”

“I was.”

“Your globetrotting professor thing fall through?”

“Not exactly.” Winterhawk sighed. “Could we perhaps go somewhere else? Charming as this place no doubt is, it’s giving me a headache.”

Ocelot wasn’t feeling very accommodating at the moment. “Yeah, okay. But first you’re gonna give me some idea what this is all about. You turn up again outta nowhere, I wanna know why.”

Winterhawk took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly. “Listen—I know this is sudden, but the whole thing’s a bit of a rush, and I need a team fast. Tonight, if possible. It’s got to be done quickly.”

Ocelot grunted. He knew Winterhawk didn’t need to assense him to see the suspicion rising in his eyes. “This ain’t like you, ’Hawk. You never used to make a move without checking things out from ten different angles first. What’s the hurry? Something goin’ on I should know about?”

“I have my reasons. Can’t go into them right now. It looks like a fairly straightforward job, but it needs to be handled fast, and I’d like to have someone I can trust on the team.” He met Ocelot’s gaze solidly; he always had that way of focusing on people like he was reading their mind—and for all Ocelot knew, he might be doing just that. It was one of those things you got used to when you ran with mages.

“What’s the job?” Ocelot did nothing to hide the edge in his voice. “And why the hell are you bein’ so damned cryptic about it?”

Winterhawk glanced toward the door, but appeared to accept the fact he was going to have to endure the Wharf Rat’s ambiance until Ocelot was satisfied that he was making a sufficient effort. “Two parts,” he said. “First is an extraction in Los Angeles. Then—things get a bit murkier after that. The target has information we’ll need for the second bit. We’ll be retrieving an object, but I don’t know where it is at present, except that it’s likely somewhere in Australia.”

“And this all has to be done—when?”

“Within the next few days.”

“Or—what? You turn into a pumpkin?”

“Something like that, yes.” Again, the odd look flitted across ’Hawk’s face.

Ocelot leaned back in his chair and looked out over the crowd. “What’s it pay?” His tone was noncommittal: he knew that even after all this time, Winterhawk would know he wasn’t conceding—he was just exploring his options.

“Ten thousand up front. Another twenty on completion. Expenses handled.”

Ocelot considered. It was a good offer—not as good as what he’d made on some of his bigger recent jobs, but respectable. “You check out the job, or we gonna go meet with somebody? Who’s the Johnson?”

The mage’s gaze didn’t waver. “As far as you need to know, I am.”

Ocelot didn’t answer for a long time. This was pinging more alarm bells than a botched B&E in a top-secret corp lab. ’Hawk brokering his own jobs? In the old days, the mage and his catlike attention span regarding anything not in his area of interest had barely paid attention during the meets with Johnsons. What was going on?

He shook his head. “’Hawk, this is fragged up. I don’t know what you been doing all this time, but I know you been out of the biz. I don’t even think you realize how messed up what you just said sounds. You want me to take a job without any background intel? You just want me to trust you?”

Winterhawk nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. “That’s precisely what I want.” He started to rise. “And I need to know right now: are you in or not? Because if you’re not in, I need to find someone who is. I don’t fancy doing this job on my own.”

Ocelot stared. ’Hawk was going to leave. He was going to get up and jet, just like that, if Ocelot didn’t play ball. He leaned in, examining the other man more closely. He opened his mouth to say something, but instead thumped his beer cup on the table (no glasses at the Wharf Rat; Frank wasn’t an idiot) and got up. “I dunno, ’Hawk. I gotta think about it. C’mon. Let’s get outta here. My cred for the fight just showed up: we’ll go somewhere and have a real drink.”

Winterhawk rose too, his hands clenched for a moment around the edge of the table. He looked like he was working through a difficult mental dilemma. “Fine,” he said at last. “But I need an answer soon. I still have more people I need to find.” He retrieved his overcoat and shrugged into it, motioning for Ocelot to precede him out.

When you haven’t seen someone for a long time, you tend to forget about the more difficult aspects of their personality. Winterhawk contemplated Ocelot’s retreating back as they exited the Wharf Rat into the drizzly, (comparatively) clear air of the Seattle docks. He didn’t know why he’d expected the meet to go more smoothly: wishful thinking, perhaps, though he thought experience and cynicism had burned that out of him years ago. More likely that his mind was still reeling from the very real possibility he’d be dead by next week if he couldn’t get this team together and get this job done.

Nothing like a little impending doom to derail your higher thought processes.

“Boss?”

Maya’s voice poked into his thoughts—he’d almost forgotten she was still there. The last instruction he’d given her inside the bar had been “Let me know if anything’s getting ready to jump me.” She’d replied: “Everything in here looks like it wants to jump you. You don’t exactly fit in.” Sometimes he wished his ally spirit didn’t reflect his own personality quite so much: he wasn’t in the mood for a smartass cat tonight. “Yes?”

“Trouble.”

He didn’t get a chance to ask what kind before three figures leaped out from behind parked cars, their movements a blur in the foggy air.

Before he could call out a warning, Ocelot was already moving. There wasn’t much light in the parking lot, but the brief mental impression the spirit sent revealed the hulking form of Julio, the kid from the pit fight he’d watched on an AR feed from the bar. Apparently losing hadn’t sat too well with him, so he’d come back with some friends to even the score.

All three went for Ocelot, coming at him from the front and both sides. The two others were almost as fast as Julio: a troll and a human, from the look of them. As easily as Ocelot had taken Julio down, the ork plus two friends might have proven problematic, assuming the friends were equally jacked and quite probably drunk by this point.

Winterhawk stood back for a moment, watching Ocelot’s fist lash out at one attacker, his foot at another. He moved in a blur, every movement efficient, planned, and lightning fast. He might have gotten older, but he hadn’t gotten any slower—or at least he was doing a damned good job at hiding it behind his disciplined, precision strikes. So far he hadn’t deployed any of his deadlier toys, such as his cyberspur or monofilament whip, but depending on how the fight went, the mage was sure they wouldn’t be off the table if things started going south.

No doubt Ocelot could have dealt with all three of the kids in time, but you could never count on that in a street fight: any number of variables could go out of control at any moment, and Winterhawk didn’t have time to deal with the aftermath if they did. He didn’t know whether Ocelot would appreciate a little help, but at this point he didn’t care. Pointing his hand at one of the attackers Ocelot had just flung away, he gathered mana and unleashed a bolt of energy that picked the troll kid up and threw him halfway across the parking lot. It wouldn’t kill him—not at his size, and with all the augmentations he had—but it might make him realize that the fight wasn’t three on one.

“Holy drek, he’s got a spellslinger!” the troll yelled, scrambling to his feet.

What he managed to miss was that the spellslinger wasn’t his biggest problem. Ocelot took advantage of the troll’s friends’ momentary distraction to unleash a punishing strike into Julio’s face. Something cracked, and the ork yelped, pulling back.

The human lunged in, swinging a katana at Ocelot in a wild arc. He leaped over the blade, his foot smashing into the kid’s chin and sending him reeling backward into a parked car. The kid dropped and didn’t get up as the car’s alarm went off with a loud, screeching warble.

“Okay, who’s next?” Ocelot yelled, popping a gleaming cyberspur from his right arm and brandishing it in front of Julio and the troll.

Maybe it was the threat. Maybe it was the fact that Ocelot had a mage on his side. Maybe it was just the car alarm spooking them. Whatever it was, Julio and the troll decided that whole thing about discretion and valor might have some truth to it. They both turned tail and took off into the night. The whole fight had taken less than thirty seconds.

By now, a few spectators had drifted out to the lot. Ocelot stood, panting, his eyes scanning the lot for any other potential attackers. He sheathed the spur, swiped blood from the corner of his mouth, and shot Winterhawk a fierce grin. “Dumbasses.”

Winterhawk couldn’t help returning the grin. It had been too long since he’d flexed his magical muscles in an old-fashioned street brawl, even in such a small way. It wasn’t something he’d ever go out of his way looking for, but it brought back memories of days he thought were long gone. Things had been a lot simpler back then. For a moment, he’d forgotten the sword that hung over him and just reveled in the sheer rush of letting loose with his power.

Ocelot nudged the unconscious form of the human, rolling the kid over onto his back. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here before somebody calls KE.”

“Have you actually got a car these days? There’s no way in hell I’m riding on the back of a motorcycle.”

Continuing the theme of revisiting old haunts, they reconvened at the Glass Onion, a bar where they’d attended many late-night meets with teammates and Mr. Johnsons back in the old days. It had changed, as everything did: formerly a solidly mid-level runner joint, it was now a trendy bar-and-grill that appeared to cater to the corp crowd. That was all right with Winterhawk; tipsy sararimen out for a little relaxation weren’t likely to get too interested in your business.

Ocelot eyed him over his glass, which contained an infinitely better class of beer than he’d been drinking at the Wharf Rat. “So, you got anybody else lined up for this team?”

“Not yet.”

There was a long pause, during which he looked like he was carefully considering something. “I might know somebody you can talk to. But you’re not gonna like who it is.”

Winterhawk frowned. “Why not? Are they competent?”

“Oh, yeah. Competent as hell. Fact is, if you want somebody good, you’re lucky she’s available. She usually isn’t.”

“But—?”

Ocelot told him who it was.

Winterhawk stopped in the act of reaching for his glass, his hands involuntarily clenching into fists. He shook his head. “No. Just…no.”

Ocelot shrugged. “You said you needed good people in a hurry.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway. She wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, I think she would. Like I said, things are different right now. You want me to call her?”

Winterhawk sighed. Things just kept getting better and better tonight. “No. I don’t want you to call her. But I haven’t a choice, have I? Do it, before I change my mind.”

CHAPTER 8

ORK UNDERGROUND 
SEATTLE 
THURSDAY NIGHT/FRIDAY MORNING

An hour later, they were already farther into the Ork Underground than a couple of humans were technically supposed to be without an escort.

“She’s doing this on purpose,” Winterhawk muttered. He glanced around, feeling every eye and every suspicious glare on them as they wound their way along a narrow, claustrophobic street toward their destination. In addition to Maya, he had a summoned elemental on standby; the two of them patrolled the nearby area on the astral plane, playing nice with the neighborhood spirits, but on the lookout for incipient threats. It didn’t make him feel much safer, though. If any number of unseen observers wanted to, it would be an easy thing to plug him and Ocelot from a distance and be long gone before anybody noticed or cared. Just a couple of smooth-skins where they didn’t belong—anybody would think they got what they deserved.

Ocelot shrugged. “Sure she is. And loosen up, will you? People down here don’t bite.”

“Some of them do.”

He grinned. “Only if you pay ’em first. C’mon, ’Hawk. You’ve been doin’ the jet-set thing too long. You forgot what the real world’s like.”

Nobody bothered them, but more than one loitering group acted like they were tempted to. Knots of orks and a few trolls lounged against buildings, drinking, chatting, looking over as the newcomers went by. It was too late at night for there to be any children out; music filtered down from open upper-level windows. “You’ve been down here before, have you?” Winterhawk asked.

“Sure. Never without somebody who belongs, though.” Ocelot’s words were dismissive, but Winterhawk couldn’t help noticing that he was constantly scanning the area too, looking for sudden movement.

On paper, the Underground was just another Seattle district, its sprawling tunnels and dug-out basements home to many of the city’s orks, fewer trolls, the occasional dwarf, and a varied collection of more “unusual” types who preferred the concealment of the subterranean tunnels to the light (in both a physical and a metaphorical sense) of the surface. Most of them had jobs, families, and the same concerns as the surface-dwellers did. But it didn’t stop there, and anyone who assumed it did and attempted to venture down here unprepared was in for a rude awakening.

The “sanitized” part of the Underground was a big tourist attraction in the Seattle Sprawl —if anything, that was more true now than it had been back in the days when Winterhawk had still been actively running. But if you were a tourist and you were smart, you kept to the public entrances and well-lit areas that served as the place’s face to the rest of the world. This was especially true if you were a human or an elf—in other words, one of the “pretty” races. Unfamiliar dwarfs sometimes got a pass, and if you were an ork or a troll, you could count on at least getting civil treatment even if you weren’t a resident. But the orks and trolls of the Underground, well cognizant that they weren’t likely to get a fair shake in the rest of the city, guarded their corner of the sprawl jealously. They didn’t look kindly upon unaccompanied humans or elves coming down to get an eyeful of the trogs in their natural habitat. Bribes helped, of course—bribes helped nearly everywhere—but only if you treated the residents with respect and always kept in mind that you were an interloper in their domain.

Damn her anyway, Winterhawk thought sourly as he followed Ocelot, picking his way through a narrow choke point lined with dumpsters, plaswood crates, and strategically piled mountains of trash. She knew exactly what kind of effect this would have. She was probably waiting at the bar she’d told them to meet her at, laughing as she visualized them navigating the minefield, trying to find their destination amid a sea of signs they couldn’t read and misleading directions and sullen glares from unsympathetic locals. She might even have somebody sending her the street-cam feed of their trek, and be broadcasting it on a viewscreen for the amusement of the room. He wouldn’t put that past her.

That assumed, of course, that she even planned to show up.

 “Do you even know where we’re going?” he asked, glancing around again. The AROs here weren’t much help: many were written in Or’zet, and the ones that weren’t mostly flashed advertisements for bars, upcoming entertainment events, and local businesses that were probably closed at this time of night. That was when they flashed at all: Matrix access was notoriously spotty down here, and the AROs kept shifting and flickering in and out of focus.

“Almost there, I think.” Ocelot paused, obviously checking out something displayed on his cybereyes’ AR, then started moving again. “Just up ahead.”

The bar they were headed to had a name that Ocelot’s Or’zet translator rendered as something like “The Watering Hole.” There wasn’t much information to be had about it on the Matrix, either because it was new (a lot of businesses in the Underground appeared and disappeared quickly as their owners’ fortunes shifted) or because there wasn’t much to display. His quick check with an ork friend had revealed it was a small neighborhood bar, working-class and very, very orkish. Not quite “No Norms Allowed”-level, but that was probably only because no humans had ever been brave (or stupid) enough to try going inside.

If Winterhawk thought every gaze had been fixed on them out on the street, it was nothing like what they got when they shoved their way through the Watering Hole’s heavy, carved wooden doors.

The place was small, but packed with male and female orks standing in pairs and small groups, seated around stout wooden tables or lounging near the bar. The air was redolent of the strong but enticing aroma of heavily spiced meat, mixed with the tang of the potent ales popular with many orks. The deafening, percussion-laden music sounded to Winterhawk like what might happen if an unfortunate moose became trapped in a car crusher during a junkyard orgy. He wished he had cyberears so he could turn them down; he didn’t think putting his hands over his real ones would present the sort of image he was going for.

The music didn’t stop playing when they entered. The crowd didn’t all stop what they were doing and turn to stare at the two foolish smoothies who’d wandered away from their tour group. No hulking form stepped up to growl that their kind wasn’t welcome here. None of that happened—but none of it had to. Winterhawk shifted his perceptions for a moment to assense the room, and had to steel himself from actually recoiling at the sheer level of suspicion, mistrust, and outright dislike rolling off nearly every person in here. And every bit of it was aimed at them.

“They don’t like you guys, boss,” the spirit he’d summoned to help Maya keep a lookout and to provide backup if necessary, offered helpfully.

“You think?” That was why he kept them around: their keen grasp on the subtle nuances of social situations.

She’d told them to meet her in the back room. Ocelot led the way, bulling a path through the small groups of patrons who didn’t seem inclined to move aside when asked politely. Winterhawk followed in his wake, close enough that the groups didn’t have time to reform between them. As easily as he could have parted the crowds with a judiciously applied bit of magic, he was quite sure that would not be the best way to handle the situation.

The “back room” wasn’t much smaller than the front one, though the crowds here were sparser and, once Ocelot waved Winterhawk through and slid the heavy door shut behind them, the music was a lot quieter. The place was fashioned to look like a cavern—or perhaps it really was a cavern, one of the spaces carved from living rock long ago by the dwarfs who used to share the Underground with the orks. Electric torches flickered on the walls; the only other illumination came from neon beer signs. Orks, with their natural low-light vision, wouldn’t consider this a problem; neither would Ocelot, with his cybereyes. Winterhawk pulled a pair of sunglasses from his inner pocket, adjusted them for low light, and put them on.

She was alone at a table in the back, facing out where she could keep an eye on the whole room at once. “So, you made it,” she said as they approached. Of medium height for an ork, she had light brown skin and short-cropped, dark hair tucked neatly under a black baseball cap. “Was wondering if you would.” Her voice, low but surprisingly pleasant, dripped with contempt. Her gaze settled on Winterhawk for a microsecond, then shifted to Ocelot as she pointedly directed her words at him. It was a clear snub. “So. You wanted a meet. What do you want?”

“Evening, Dreja,” Winterhawk said, the contempt in his own voice matching hers. He took the oversized seat directly across from her without being invited, flaunting his lack of concern about having his back to a room full of potential hostiles. “Blown up any buildings lately?”

She ignored him and continued speaking to Ocelot. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing him. Thought you had better taste in friends these days.”

Ocelot sighed. “Chill, okay? He just wants to talk. I figured you might want to hear him out. This is his show.” He took the seat next to Winterhawk’s, tilting it back.

Dreja glanced up and waved to someone across the room. An ork woman in a tight black T-shirt and jeans came over. “Want a drink?” Dreja asked. “The hurlg’s good here.” When both Winterhawk and Ocelot declined, she waved the woman off again and took a long pull from her own mug. “Yeah, figured. You ujnort are too delicate to handle real drinks. Sorry they don’t have anything with an umbrella in it here.”

She shifted her gaze to Winterhawk, looking him up and down, the twist in her tusked lips clearly indicating that she didn’t like what she saw. Her eyes were dark and deep-set, smoldering out of a pale face. “What makes you think I’d be interested in anything you have to say? What I should do is kill you now and do the world a favor. One less arrogant asshole everybody has to deal with.”

“You can try if you like.” Winterhawk dropped neither his gaze nor the chill in his voice. One thing you never did around Dreja was show weakness or hesitation: she was like a shark, zeroing in on any flaws in her opponent’s armor. If it came to a fight, he knew they were probably in trouble: not because he couldn’t take Dreja one on one—he thought he had a good chance, and suspected that she did, too—but because the crowd would almost certainly turn on them as soon as things started getting ugly. They were a long way from safety right now, in a place where they stood out like a porno trid in a church. He shrugged. “Whatever else you are, though, I thought you were a professional. Perhaps I was misinformed.” He started to get up.

“Sit,” she ordered, jerking her chin downward. “You have something to say, say it.”

Winterhawk paused, studying her, then lowered himself with unhurried calm back down into his seat. She didn’t look much different from the last time he’d seen her—the last time they’d been on opposite sides of the same job. She looked a little older, but that was to be expected, given shorter ork lifespans. The fervor in her eyes hadn’t dimmed, though. If Ocelot hadn’t told him on the way over that he’d heard through the shadow grapevine that she’d been set up hard on a recent run, and was now into some unforgiving people for some large sums of money, he’d have wondered why she’d even agreed to talk to them. “I have a job I need done. I need professionals, and I need them fast. But I doubt you’d be interested, since it doesn’t have anything to do with firebombing Humanis chapterhouses or rescuing baby orks stuck in trees.”

The contempt returned. “Yeah, it wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t expect a fancy-ass skupam mecux like you to give a damn about that kind of thing. Beneath your notice, neh? Whose leash are you on these days, anyway? The DIMR? Still stealing magical artifacts from their rightful owners?”

Ocelot let out a loud, frustrated sigh. “Would you two give it a fraggin’ rest? I thought you were on a timetable, ’Hawk.”

Winterhawk ignored him. “I didn’t steal it,” he said. “You just can’t handle the fact that I got to it before you did.”

“Yeah, you go right on believing that,” she said. “The delusions must really be fun in your world.” She leaned back, lifting one combat-booted foot up and clumping it down on the tabletop next to her hurlg mug. “So, you gonna tell me what the job is, or do I give the sign and have both of you chucked out on your pasty asses? Ardo up front was just telling me he hasn’t had a good fight in weeks. I’m sure he’d love the chance to mess up that pretty face of yours.”

Winterhawk shrugged, refusing to take the bait. The thing about Dreja—the reason why he hadn’t simply refused to deal with her when Ocelot had suggested her—was that when everything was said and done, she was a pro. She was pathologically picky about the jobs she took, and she was a pain in the ass to deal with if you didn’t share her level of passion about her ideals, but if she took your money, you could count on her to do what you were paying her for. And do it well. According to Ocelot, that hadn’t changed since back in the day. He could do a hell of a lot worse right now, and he didn’t have time for personal preferences to enter the equation. Assuming that they didn’t end up killing each other before they could finish the job, she’d be a good addition.

Keeping his voice carefully even, he gave her the same pitch he’d given Ocelot. He didn’t mention money yet.

She listened in silence, sipping her hurlg and focusing her unblinking gaze on the mage’s face. “So, an extraction,” she said at last. “And you don’t know what else comes after?”

Winterhawk shook his head. “We’re after some sort of item, but I don’t know what or exactly where yet, except that it’s somewhere in Australia. We’ll find out when we secure the target. And I’m on a tight schedule. I want to leave for Los Angeles first thing in the morning. We have to finish this fast.”

“Wait.” Her gaze sharpened. “We? You’re not just hiring? You’re actually going along?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She turned to Ocelot, her expression hard to read. “He’s serious?”

Ocelot shrugged. “Yeah. Why?”

“How long’s he been out of the biz? And you trust him not to frag things up and get us all killed?”

“He’s fine,” Ocelot said, eyes hardening. “You just look out for you. You in or not?”

She didn’t answer for a long time. After a couple of minutes she stood up. “Wait here. I’ll be back.” Without waiting for an answer, she clumped off to the bar.

“This was a bad idea,” Winterhawk said, not bothering to watch her go. “She’s probably gone off to set the whole place on us.” He looked down at his hands on the table. They were still steady—no sign of shaking. He wondered how long he had before the poison started showing its effects—and what those effects would be. Mr. Johnson hadn’t been specific about how long it would be before things started to happen, but if he actually wanted the job done right, it didn’t make sense to use something that would hinder his agent’s abilities quickly. Suddenly he felt very tired, but he shook it off. Tired wasn’t an option right now.

“I don’t think so,” Ocelot said, eyeing him oddly. “I didn’t realize how much she doesn’t like you, though. What’d you do, manabolt her puppy or something? I know you can be kind of an ass sometimes, but you’re no anti-meta bigot.”

Winterhawk was spared answering by Dreja’s return. She didn’t sit down, but loomed over the end of the table nearest where the mage sat. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s my deal. Take it or leave it. I’ll sign on for the first part of the job, assuming your offer’s not an insult. No promises on the second half, though, since you either can’t or won’t tell me what it is. If it ends up being something I can’t agree with, I walk. So ka?”

Winterhawk nodded—it was the best he was going to get. “Done.”

It took surprisingly little negotiation to arrive at a figure they could both live with, which supported the rumors Ocelot had heard about Dreja’s financial situation. Winterhawk had already accepted that he’d have to go into his personal funds to make this work, and he was fairly sure the Johnson not only knew it, but intended it. He’d already offered Ocelot more than he’d been prepared to, but the thought of doing this job without at least one trusted team member backing him up wasn’t something he was willing to consider. And Dreja, as personally distasteful as he found her, had a solid rep. Much as he hated to admit it, he was damn lucky she was available. Unless he wanted to go into this with a bunch of rank amateurs—which would almost certainly get all of them killed—he would have to pay for quality. He had a fair bit of money put away over the years: investments, and a few accounts nobody knew about, hedges against the proverbial rainy day. If need be, he could get more by selling some of his own magical collection, but that would take time he didn’t have right now. If he made it through this, he could always get more. You had very little use for funds and magical trinkets when you were dead.

The only trick was going to be keeping her around once she found out that the “item” they were after was magical. He hoped whatever it was, it wasn’t something they were going to have to liberate from some downtrodden rightful owner.

After they agreed on an upfront figure and Winterhawk had transferred the cred, he stood. “I’d love to remain and enjoy your hospitality,” he said with only a hint of sarcasm as he rose, “but I’ve only got a few more hours to find at least two more for our team. So if you’ll excuse us—”

Dreja held up a hand. “What do we need?”

The mage looked at Ocelot, then back at her. “A decker, at minimum. We’ve got magic covered, along with firepower and combat capability. Aside from Matrix support, at this point I’ll take anyone who’s good, trustworthy, and available. And preferably not a trigger-happy idiot.”

“Available’s gonna be the hard part, on that kind of timeframe,” Dreja said. She thought for a moment, then indicated Ocelot with a head jerk. “You trust him to make the calls?”

Winterhawk wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but nodded. “Of course.”

“Good. He can come with me, and we’ll find some bodies. You go take care of transportation, if you haven’t already.” She fiddled with her commlink and sent him a file. “There’s how to reach me. Send us the details of where and when to meet.”

Winterhawk glanced at Ocelot, who shrugged. “Makes sense,” he said. “You’re kind of out of the loop as far as shadow talent these days anyway, ’Hawk.”

“Besides,” Dreja said, “This way I get a few more hours before I have to be in the same room with you again.”

“Charming as ever, I see,” Winterhawk said with a mocking bow. “Tomorrow, then.”

CHAPTER 9

MAXIE’S DINER 
SEATTLE 
FRIDAY MORNING

They met up in the back room of a seedy 24-hour diner near Sea-Tac at a little after 0700 the following morning. After arranging passage with a rigger headed to Los Angeles, transferring necessary data to a new commlink, and sending out a few communications to trusted associates, Winterhawk hadn’t slept in the intervening few hours. His mind refused to shut down, trying to work out the Johnson’s identity and his plans, wondering whether his lingering headache was just stress or whether the poison was already starting to affect him, and second-guessing his decision to leave the selection of the rest of their team members to Ocelot and Dreja instead of remaining personally involved.

He arrived early, but Ocelot and Dreja were already there, slouched over a corner table, steaming cups of soykaf in front of them. Two large duffel bags sat on the floor next to them. They didn’t appear to be having any sort of conversation, just stared moodily into their cups.

“Where are the others?” he asked. The rest of the room was empty, except for a skinny human waitress who came over to drop off another cup before resuming her circuit of wiping down tables on the opposite side.

“They’ll be here,” Dreja said. “So you made it out of the Underground on your own. I’m impressed. I bet your chummer here twenty nuyen that you’d piss off somebody big and nasty, and your body would turn up naked in a dumpster somewhere.”

Ignoring her, Winterhawk turned to Ocelot. “So—?”

“So…I won twenty nuyen?” he asked, looking innocent.

The mage sighed. It was going to be a long week. He supposed he should be grateful for one thing: If the poison was going to kill him, at least Dreja’s presence would make the time he had left seem like an eternity. Worse, she seemed to be rubbing off on Ocelot. “How many did you find? And how much am I going to have to pay them?”

“We found three. And we got lucky,” Ocelot said. “Got each one for ten up front and ten more on completion. I gotta warn you, though: two of ’em are okay, but the other one’s gonna take some getting used to.”

“More than this one?” He indicated Dreja with a head jerk. She made a rude gesture at him without looking up.

“Let’s just say when we were talking to him I counted three times I wanted to use him for monowhip practice.”

“Drek,” came a youthful whine from the doorway. “Seriously, why we leaving so early? Normal people aren’t even up this early. It’s still practically dark out.”

Winterhawk turned as a figure shuffled to them and threw a large backpack covered with patches and buttons down next to the two duffels. He carried another bag slung over one shoulder.

“’Hawk, this is Scuzzy,” Ocelot said. There was a clear note of something odd—possibly apology—in his voice. “Scuzzy, this is Winterhawk. He’s a mage, and he’s calling the shots.”

“Hoi,” Scuzzy said, thrusting out his hand. He was a tall, gawky human who might have been twenty; one side of his head was covered with a curtain of long, greasy blue hair, the other was shaved and tattooed with intricate patterns. His narrow face displayed the characteristic unhealthy pallor of someone who spent all his time under artificial light.

When Winterhawk didn’t immediately return the handshake, he looked him up and down. “So you’re the mage, huh? Wiz. I never met a real spellslinger before. I play one in Mystic Avengers sometimes, though. You ever play? I always wondered if mages could really do some of that stuff.”

Dreja snickered.

Winterhawk didn’t answer Scuzzy. Instead, he fixed Ocelot with a you have got to be kidding look and nodded for him to join him on the other side of the room. By now, the waitress had disappeared back into the kitchen.

“That is what you found?” he demanded. He tried to keep the frustrated edge out of his voice, but wasn’t very successful. “Has he ever even seen a shower? I think I can smell him from here.”

“Look,” Ocelot said, not sounding any happier about it, “you only give us a few hours, we get what we can get. And believe it or not, he actually has a damn good rep as a decker. He just—doesn’t usually work in the meat.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Yeah. I get it. He’s a pain to get along with, and he smells like week-old ass. Just be polite and let him do his thing, and it’ll be fine.”

Winterhawk grunted noncommittally and headed back to the table. Scuzzy had taken a seat, pulled out his deck, and was already tapping away, his eyes glassy.

The other two team members arrived a few minutes later. They came in together, but it was obvious by their wary postures that they’d never seen each other before today.

“This the meet?” asked one. A male ork nearly a head taller than Dreja, he had the physique of a bodybuilder; tanned skin covered in tattoos; blunt, ugly features; and brush-cut black-brown hair. He was dressed all in black in street style, and carried a large bag that looked like it could hold everything up to and including a heavy machine gun. His flat chrome cybereyes swept the group seated at the table, and he walked over with a rolling, fluid grace that spoke of heavy cyber modifications. He dropped his bag next to the others, spun a chair around, and threw his leg over it. “Name’s Tiny. Go ahead, laugh. Get it over with now. After today, anybody that laughs gets a free nose job.”

Nobody answered, except to nod to him. Winterhawk glanced up to study the second newcomer, who seemed content to hover in the background. She was an elf, tall and lean, dressed in functional and nondescript armored gear topped with a long, dark-gray coat. Her eyes were hidden behind narrow mirrored shades, her dark hair shaved close to reveal delicately pointed, chocolate-brown ears pierced by many studs. “And you are—?” the mage asked.

“Call me Kivuli,” she said. Her voice was nondescript too, low and precise. She carried two bags: a synthleather backpack over one shoulder, and a large briefcase in her right hand.

“I’m sure you already figured out what Tiny brings to the party,” Dreja said. “Kivuli’s a gunslinger adept. I know that makes us a little pewpew-heavy, but she’s got a great rep, and we had to go with who was available. Figured you’d rather have somebody good than hold out for the perfect composition.”

Winterhawk nodded. “Did they explain the job to you?” he asked, slapping the table to jolt Scuzzy out of his Matrix trance.

“Yeah,” Tiny said. “Go to LA. Grab a dwarf. Find out some stuff from him, then go with him somewhere else to get somethin’.” He shrugged. “Works for me, as long as your nuyen’s good. When do we leave?”

Winterhawk hadn’t completely forgotten how to deal with the shadows—especially since some of the shadier of his “research trips” over the past couple of years had involved making less-than-reputable travel arrangements. The rigger’s old cargo plane wasn’t the poshest transport, but at least it had seats. Add that to the fact that the rigger didn’t ask questions and was leaving right away, and it suddenly became much more attractive.

Nobody said much until the plane was in the air and on its way to Los Angeles. “Okay, ’Hawk,” Ocelot said, leaning forward in his seat. “Details time.”

Winterhawk nodded and told the group what he knew. “Our extraction target is a dwarf named Toby Boyd. Everything’s been arranged with him, so he won’t be giving us any trouble, but his handlers most likely will. They’re apparently quite motivated to keep him.”

“Why is that?” Dreja asked. “What does this guy do?”

“He’s some sort of parabotany researcher,” he said. “He’s got information about the second bit of the run—the part where we have to retrieve the item. But other than that, he appears to be a simple corporate cog. Senior-level enough that his bosses don’t want to lose him, but not so senior that he’s likely to have high-level protection.”

“So, he’s using whatever information he has that we want as a bargaining chip to get him out of someplace he doesn’t want to be,” Ocelot said.

“It appears so,” Winterhawk said, nodding.

“You haven’t looked up anything about him yet?” Scuzzy asked. He sounded surprised, clearly wondering how anyone could need more information about something and not immediately go out to hunt it down.

“No. I didn’t want to arouse any suspicions by flagging any searches for him, in case anyone is paying attention.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Scuzzy said, pulling out his deck.

“Don’t get caught,” Dreja said, eyes narrowed.

Scuzzy made a pfft noise and rolled his red-rimmed eyes. “Hey lady, I don’t tell you how to shoot your guns, right?”

“Not yet…” Ocelot muttered.

“Is anybody else after the dwarf?” Kivuli spoke up. “Should we expect any kind of resistance other than from his own corp?”

“Not that I was told,” Winterhawk said. He pulled out his commlink and sent around the holopic and the fact file on Toby Boyd. “Naturally, that means we should expect it.”

“So, after snatching him, we’re supposed to be getting some item, but you don’t know what it is?” Tiny asked. He kept shifting uncomfortably, his bulky frame too big for his seat. “Drek, what kinda job is this? We’re just supposed to go in with no intel?”

“If it was easy, anybody could do it,” Ocelot growled. “You don’t do the job, you don’t get paid.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, waving him off. “Payment clears, I do the job. I’m just here to shoot stuff anyway.”

“Do you have a plan for how we’re doing the extraction?” Dreja asked with a glare at Tiny. “Or are we just gonna make it up as we go along?”

Winterhawk shook his head. “Suppose you tell me how you expected me to have a plan, since I had no idea what sort of group I’d be working with? That’s where you lot come in: we’ll get more facts once we get to L.A., and then I’d hope that between us we can come up with something that will work.”

“So, the only way we find out about this thing and the rest of the job is from the guy?” Tiny asked. “What happens if he gets killed?”

“We make sure that doesn’t happen,” Winterhawk said, fixing him with a cold stare. “I got a look at the artillery you’re bringing along—don’t expect that you’ll be using it much. I want this one to be as quick and quiet as possible.”

“You can plan for that all you want,” the samurai said. “Don’t mean it works out that way. And when things go sideways, you’ll be glad to have my guns protecting your ass.”

Winterhawk started to reply to that, but decided it was pointless. He let his breath out slowly and remained silent, looking out the window at the layer of clouds rolling along below their wings. He felt the tension rising in his shoulders and the back of his neck again, remembering one of the reasons why he’d gotten out of the shadowrunning game in the first place. He’d run with Ocelot long enough that the man was one of the few in the world he trusted with his life, even after all this time. Whether that was a mistake or not was beside the point. But the rest of this group—they were already getting on his nerves, and the plane hadn’t even landed yet. 

He settled back in his seat and took a few deep breaths, focusing on a meditation technique he used when preparing to perform ritual magic. He had no idea if remaining calm would slow the poison’s progression, but it couldn’t hurt. And he might as well get a jump on cultivating inner calm around this lot.

Before this was done, he had a feeling he’d need as much of it as he could get.

Dreja moved to the back of the plane and sat back down to look out the window. Like Winterhawk, she was stressed, but unlike him, she was not meditating.

 She dragged the smaller of her two gear bags over and began going through it, ensuring that everything was where she wanted it to be. It was a kind of ritual to her, carefully incorporating each new bit of kit into her carefully arranged configuration. She had trained herself to find any given item in this bag in pitch darkness, and this obsession had saved her life on more than one occasion.

When she finished, she put the bag aside and leaned back, studying the backs of the others’ heads and already regretting her decision to take this job. If this got out—assuming they survived, which was becoming less of a given in her mind with each passing hour—it would play hell with her reputation. That made her smile, a tight little thing with no humor in it: her rep wouldn’t mean a fragging thing if Gianelli’s people caught up with her before she had the cred to pay him off. She’d already sent the initial payment to him, but it was only a small fraction of what she had to come up with to get him and his people off her back for good. She’d be a lot more comfortable if she knew what the second part of the run involved; she was sure Winterhawk actually knew and was keeping it to himself. The mage was like that, even worse than most magical types she’d run across: he loved his secrets, and getting them out of him was like trying to get a dragon to part with his hoard. Dreja was convinced he was keeping this one because as soon as he told her what they were after, she’d walk.

And I fragging well will, she told herself with a firmness that she didn’t feel, staring down at her hands clenched into fists in her lap. Gianelli can wait for his fraggin’ cred if it’s that bad.

Movement caught her eye, and she looked up. Ocelot was working his way down the aisle toward her. She glared at him. “Don’t catch hints too well, do you?”

He dropped down into the seat across from hers. “You can be alone later. I want to talk to you first.”

“So talk.” She eyed him with distaste, but nothing close to the level of loathing she reserved for Winterhawk. At least this one looked like he could handle himself in a fight, and maybe actually knew what it was like to live on the streets and wonder where his next meal was coming from. He wasn’t an ork, sure, but he couldn’t help that. His choice of friends, on the other hand—

Ocelot glanced forward, then lowered his voice down to something that barely carried across the aisle. “I wanna know what the hell’s going on between you and ’Hawk.”

She shrugged. “Not your business, neh?”

“I’m makin’ it my business,” he said. “If I’m gonna trust somebody to watch my back, I want to know some old bad blood isn’t gonna make her go off the plan.”

“I took his cred. I’ll do the job. You know my rep, or you wouldn’t have called me.”

“Yeah,” Ocelot agreed. “And I know you two have issues, but I didn’t know they were that bad, or maybe I wouldn’t have called you. I thought it was just a professional rivalry thing.”

She snorted. “Professional rivalry. Yeah, that’s a nice way to put it.”

“Dreja—”

“Listen,” she said, her voice dropping to a hiss. “I don’t like him. That’s pretty much an understatement. He’s an arrogant, over-privileged asshole who thinks he can do whatever the hell he wants to, and frag anybody who gets in his way. He’s the kind of guy I spend my life trying to take down.”

Ocelot put up his hands as her words grew more vehement, flicking a glance up front to make sure nobody else had reacted. “Hang on, hang on,” he said. “Where you getting all that? I mean yeah, ’Hawk’s always been a little out of touch with the streets, but—”

“You know what he’s been doing, right? When was the last time you two talked? You’re still based out of Seattle, aren’t you? You still send each other Christmas cards and get together for lunch three times a year?”

“Haven’t seen him for two years,” Ocelot said. He shrugged. “I dunno what he’s been up to, except in general terms. Does it matter?”

She stared at him, unable to keep the incredulity from her face. “Does it matter? Damn fragging right it matters. Don’t you think it matters what somebody stands for? What they decide to spend their life doing?”

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed. “Lady, I’m a street kid from Seattle who got lucky. I managed to pull myself up out of the gangs and stay alive longer than I should have. You can talk about ideals all you want, but I’ve never met anybody who didn’t chuck their ideals into the nearest drekker when things start going to hell.”

Dreja’s fists clenched in her lap again. “Go sit somewhere else,” she said, her voice a rumble in the back of her throat. “I’m done. I signed up to do a job, not to have stupid conversations with clueless smoothies.”

He stared at her for a moment, then got up. “Fine,” he said. “You do your job, we got no problem. Right now, all I care about is getting this over with and coming home in one piece.”

“What was that about?” Winterhawk sat up a little straighter as Ocelot returned to his former seat across from him.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Telling you lies about me, was she?” The mage didn’t look disturbed by this.

Ocelot pulled a small folding blade from his inner jacket pocket, flicked it open, and began cleaning his fingernails. “You tell me. Was she?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sighed. “Look. I’m already getting sick of playin’ lunchroom monitor between you two. So either tell me what’s goin’ on, or the next one of you that mouths off’s gonna get one in the chin.”

Winterhawk turned in his seat a little to face him. He appeared to consider for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s nothing, really. She hates everything she thinks I stand for, and I think she’s an idealistic fool.”

“Oh, hey, if that’s all it is…”

He glanced back toward where Dreja was sitting. “She…takes issue with my recent activities. Especially since a few months back, when she was hired as part of a group sent to retrieve a particular magical artifact from Amazonia, and my little research group got to it first.”

“That’s just biz, though, isn’t it? Why would she—”

“Oh, it’s not just that. She felt that the item should be returned to the indigenous population, even though the culture that created it has been dead for thousands of years, and the so-called ‘indigenous population’ was backed by a group headed by a wealthy private collector.”

“You know this?”

“Let’s just say all the data pointed in that direction.”

“So, she thinks your people stole this artifact out from under the noses of the poor, downtrodden natives, and you say it would have ended up in some rich slot’s collection and the natives wouldn’t have seen a cred.”

“Essentially, she thinks my purpose in life is to exploit underprivileged primitive cultures by appropriating priceless magical items integral to their cultural heritage. Or something like that—I suspect her version would have fewer syllables and more expletives.”

Ocelot focused on his fingernails in silence, then folded the knife up and put it away. “Hey, you okay?”

The mage glanced up quickly, startled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t seen you for a while, but there’s something just—off—about you. I can’t put my finger on it. That makes me nervous. I don’t like being nervous.”

“You’ve figured it out,” he said with a wry smile. “I’m actually not me at all. I’ve been taken over by a malevolent spirit bent on world domination. This is just the first step in my fiendish plan.”

“You know, you’re this close to getting that punch in the nose. Just because I want to punch somebody right now, and your smartass routine is getting old.”

Winterhawk sighed, spreading his hands. “What can I say? I’m fine. Bit tired, is all. I wouldn’t have chosen to take this job, but I—owed someone a favor, and they called it in at an inconvenient time.”

Ocelot didn’t answer that. He also didn’t mention that if the mage were any more obviously hiding something, there would have to be signs and AROs involved. “Whatever,” he said at last. He glanced over at Scuzzy, whose slack-jawed, glassy-eyed expression and twitchy fingers clearly indicated immersion in some Matrix game. “Get some sleep, you look tired. I’ll tell you the truth: I’m not thrilled about doing this job with you. You’re out of practice. That’s dangerous. But if it has to be done, you’d better be at your best.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Winterhawk said. “Believe me, I’m more motivated than you are to have this whole thing go as smoothly as possible.”

“You do remember that never happens, right?”

“Just this once, let me dream.”

CHAPTER 10

LOS ANGELES 
FRIDAY LATE MORNING

The Los Angeles area had undergone many changes in the last decade, as the combined wrath of forces both magical and geological had ripped at it until it was left as a series of interconnected islands. One thing that never changed, though, was the smog.

The plane landed at a small airfield in Riverside. The sky was a leaden gray choked with yellow, a steady dry breeze blowing as the team transferred their gear from the cargo area to the van Dreja had arranged to be waiting for them. Winterhawk had left the logistics to her: he hadn’t been to Los Angeles recently, and the last time had been as part of a team delivering a paper at a conference at Cal Tech.

The local rigger Dreja had hired was an amiable, dreadlocked blond elf named Cosworth who looked like he’d be more at home on a surfboard than behind the wheel of a vehicle. “Hop in,” he said, waving them toward the battered GMC Bulldog he’d pulled up next to the plane. “Nellie’s got plenty of room for everybody.”

Dreja gave him an address, and in less than an hour they arrived at a nondescript, suburban ranch house with an oversized garage in a white-bread neighborhood near the 405.

Winterhawk raised an eyebrow at it, then at her. “This is a safe house?”

“Who’s gonna notice it?” Ocelot asked. “I’m gettin’ bored just lookin’ at it.”

“Doesn’t look like much,” Winterhawk said dubiously.

“Just the way it’s supposed to look,” Dreja pointed out. “It’s got more than you see. Armored up, high-end locks, full security system. Between Scuzzy, Cosworth, and any spirits you want to summon up, nobody’s getting close to us. Just the way I like it.”

They threw their bags down. Scuzzy immediately curled up on an old sofa, pulled out his deck, and switched off the rest of the world. Tiny found an Urban Brawl game on the trid, while Dreja sat down at the kitchen table and began repacking her small bag.

Winterhawk summoned Maya. “Take a look around, will you? Let me know if anything looks suspicious.”

“You look suspicious in this house,” she told him, her prim voice amused. “I thought you were allergic to the suburbs.”

He actually chuckled at that, staring out a window into the small, scrubby back yard. It contained a rusting swing set and what looked like the remains of a sandbox; he wondered if they were put there for show by whoever had set the place up.

Maya came back to report the all-clear about the same time Ocelot walked into the room. “Everything okay?”

Winterhawk nodded. “Just doing a bit of astral recon.”

Ocelot didn’t answer for several seconds. “So…you gonna tell me what this is really about?”

“What do you mean?” His fingers traced idle patterns into the dust on the windowsill. He didn’t look at Ocelot.

“Come on, ’Hawk. I’m not an idiot, and I know you. There’s more to this than you’re telling us. So, you gonna tell me what it is?”

Winterhawk shook his head. “No. Not yet at least.” He turned; Ocelot stood in the middle of the room, watching him warily. “I promise you, though: it won’t affect the run. It’s just something I—need to deal with on my own for now.”

Ocelot studied him. “You sure I can’t help?”

“I don’t see how.” He pushed off the sill and headed toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go see if our malodorous decker has made himself useful yet.” 

Ocelot, clearly admitting defeat for the moment, followed him out.

Scuzzy was sitting up now, carefully stowing his deck away in its bag.

“You find out anything about our guy?” Ocelot asked.

“Some. You’re not gonna like it, though,” he said.

“Try us,” Winterhawk said, preparing for the worst. Tiny and Dreja drifted in.

“I hope you weren’t planning on grabbing him when he’s at work,” the decker said. “That’s gonna be tough.” He popped up a couple of screens to their AR. “There’s some seriously nasty IC protecting the data about that guy, which is weird. He’s some kinda mid-level parabotany researcher at Shiawase, just like you said, but every time I tried to access any files on him, something kept trying to shunt me off. Nothing attacked me, it just—tried to divert me somewhere else. It’s like they don’t want anybody to know he exists.”

“Makes sense, if they’re afraid he’s an extraction target,” Ocelot said. “Right?”

“So you’re saying they know you were poking around looking for him?” Dreja asked. “I thought I told you to—”

“Calm your tusks, chica,” he protested, holding up a hand. “I said they tried.” He grinned. “I eat systems like this for breakfast. They’re good, but they’re not that good. I intercepted their warning messages and sent them off to the cosmic bit bucket. They got no idea I was there.”

“But did you get the data?” Winterhawk asked.

“Yeah, some. I didn’t try for everything ’cause I didn’t wanna push my luck. But like I said, he works for Shiawase, at one of their big facilities in the Harbor District. And there’s no way we’re gonna get in there.”

“Why not?” Tiny asked.

Scuzzy rolled his eyes, clearly unable to hide his opinion of Tiny’s mental horsepower. “Because,” he said, his tone condescending, “They’ve got more freakin’ security than most banks. It’d be suicide trying to get in there in the meat. Even if we could fake the credentials, we’d have no way to get near our guy.”

“So you’re sayin’ you can’t do it,” Tiny said, crossing his arms and frowning. “Maybe we need to find us a better decker.”

“I think what he’s saying,” Winterhawk said, “is that we haven’t time for the sort of planning it would require to pull off that kind of direct infiltration.” He did a considerably better job than Scuzzy had at keeping his voice even.

“Thank you,” Scuzzy said, nodding for emphasis. “You said we only have a week for the whole job, and that includes whatever we’re doing in Australia. To grab him at work we’d have to spend most of that planning. And it still might not be enough.”

“I wouldn’t want to do it that way anyway,” Ocelot said, shaking his head. “No offense, ’Hawk, but none of us are used to working together, you’re out of practice, and Tiny here would probably start shooting the minute somebody looked at him sideways.”

Tiny glared at him, but didn’t answer.

“What are we going to do, then, if we can’t take him inside his workplace?” Kivuli asked. “What about his residence?”

Scuzzy shook his head. “Corp housing, inside the complex. Security there looks like it’s a little less heinous than in the R&D section, but we’d still have to get past some pretty heavy-duty automated stuff, not to mention I’m sure they’ve got your full set of guards with big guns.”

“No doubt formidable magical security as well,” Winterhawk said, pacing. “If they’ve got multiple spirits on patrol, I won’t be able to handle all of them on my own.” He sighed. “So the workplace and the residence are out. What else? Do they ever let him leave the complex?”

“Still working on that,” Scuzzy said. “Gimme a little time. I got some feelers out, and I’m waitin’ for them to come back. Even I can’t do everything at once. Anyway, I’m freakin’ starving. Let’s make a Stuffer Shack run or something, yeah? I got a jones for a double Sloppy Soy and a Buzz.”

Back at the house a little over an hour later after two stops to pick up supplies (mainly because Winterhawk and Dreja both refused to touch Scuzzy’s idea of “food”), the decker got back into the Matrix. This time, it only took him about twenty minutes to come up with something. When he came up for air, he wore a sly smile. “Okay, I got some more intel.”

“Yes?” Winterhawk asked.

“Mr. Boyd’s a naughty boy.” He dragged the sentence out into a lascivious singsong.

Dreja glared at him. “Just spill it, will you?”

“Looks like he does get out of the corp complex. Fairly often, in fact.” He grinned. “Always to the same place, too.”

“And that is—?” Winterhawk asked.

“Pandora.” Scuzzy’s voice was triumphant.

“What the hell is Pandora?” Ocelot demanded. “Sounds like someplace you pick up cheap joygirls.”

“And social diseases,” Winterhawk added sourly.

Scuzzy looked delighted, nodding. “You got it! Well, not the social diseases. Also not cheap. It’s a private—er—club on the east side of Hollywood. Members only.”

Winterhawk frowned. “I don’t follow. Corporations generally take care of that sort of thing in-house, as it were. Why would they risk—”

“Because,” Scuzzy said, nearly oscillating in his eagerness to reveal what he’d found, “Mr. Boyd isn’t into your standard vanilla joygirls. Or joyboys. He likes things a little rougher.”

“So—this Pandora is some kind of kink club?” Ocelot asked.

“Nah. It’s kind of an everything club. Whatever you’re into, they can provide it. And Toby Boyd is into Lady Desdemona, apparently.” He tapped at his deck and called up a holopic, which he sent to everyone’s AR.

Winterhawk studied it. It was the sort of ad you might see in a high-end publication catering to wealthy gentlemen. Lady Desdemona was human, with dark skin, long auburn hair, glittering blue eyes, and a build like an Amazon warrior. Her black leather bustier and short skirt, despite their obvious sex appeal, only made her look more formidable, as did the intricately inked UV sleeve tattoos covering her arms. Her piercing gaze met the viewer’s head-on, her cold little smile promising what might be in store for anyone brave enough to retain her services. “Well,” he said after a moment. “That’s different.”

“She’s hot,” Tiny said, studying the AR image. “For a human, at least.”

Dreja made a contemptuous noise. “She’s trying to look intimidating, but I could take her apart in five minutes. In the dark.”

“I bet she’d be into that,” Scuzzy said, grinning.

“Unless you’re planning a career as a dominatrix,” Winterhawk said, “That’s really beside the point. But this does open up some new possibilities for us.” He addressed Scuzzy: “How’s the security at this place? And do we know when he’ll be there? If it’s not soon, it won’t work.”

“Far as I can tell security’s good, but not anywhere near as tough as at the corp complex. Like I said, it’s members only, but anybody can get a membership if they have the cred and pass the background checks.”

“How much?” Tiny asked.

“Seriously?” Scuzzy asked, shaking his head. “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. As far as when, it looks like he doesn’t have an appointment until later this week, but gimme a minute and I’ll hack in and change that to tonight. I’ll tell him she’s gotta change the night ’cuz there’s an out-of-town client coming in for the usual time.” He grinned. “I’ll change her schedule too, and offer him an extra-special deal for bein’ so accommodating.”

“Do it,” Winterhawk said. “And get us on the membership list.”

“While you’re at it, see what you can get for floorplans, schedules, that kind of thing,” Dreja added.

“Especially where this Lady Desdemona does her thing,” Ocelot said. “If we can get in there fast, find him, and get him out, that’ll make me a lot less nervous about this whole thing.”

Winterhawk nodded. “I hope that’s all there is to it,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Ocelot asked.

“We still have to get his files, remember?”

“Pfft, easy,” Scuzzy said. “Especially if we have him. He can just give us access to his systems. I won’t even have to break in.” His eyes glittered. “But that’s for later. First, joygirls. I’m liking this job more and more already.”

“You and me both, kid,” Tiny said.

CHAPTER 11

LOS ANGELES 
PANDORA CLUB 
FRIDAY NIGHT

It was just before midnight when they arrived at Pandora. Cosworth pulled the van into the large parking lot, scanning for an open space. There weren’t many to be had: it looked like the place was busy. Finally, he squeezed the big vehicle into a spot between a bright yellow Saab Dynamit and a couple tricked-out Harley Scorpions. A pair of stylishly-dressed male orks leaned against the back of the Dynamit, clearly too busy with each other to notice the Bulldog. 

Dreja sighed, frowning. “Would be nice to be closer. Cos, if you see a spot open up closer to the door, move into it and let us know, okay?”

“Sure thing,” the rigger said. He’d settled back into his seat and only seemed to be half there. “I don’t wanna send the drones out to keep an eye on things—too conspicuous. But I’ll stick one up on that light pole there and keep an eye on the parking lot. Let ya know if anybody shows up.”

Scuzzy was in the back next to Ocelot, his attention fully focused on his deck as he cycled through views from the street cameras surrounding the building and displayed them to the others’ AR. “Everything looks quiet,” he said.

Pandora’s appearance belied its level of security, giving no outward indication of its function. It looked like a typical Los Angeles night club: lots of neon, palm trees (which might or might not have been genuine) out front, the club name spelled out in tasteful red near the door. Clubgoers dressed in everything from street gear to trés chic suits and slinky party dresses stood in small knots near some of the cars, and the faint beat of music wafted through the lot. Winterhawk, in the shotgun seat, adjusted his commlink to look at the AROs: out here they came in two flavors: those related to what might happen to your vehicle if you left it unlocked, and advertisements for drinks, the current bands playing at the club, and the “entertainment.”

He twisted around to face Scuzzy. “All right, everybody’s got the plan, yes? Last chance for questions.”

Scuzzy rolled his eyes; it seemed to be his default go-to expression. “It’s all handled,” he said. “Null persp. You old guys worry too much. We’re all on the guest list for tonight. I’ve uploaded your IDs to your commlinks. You’ve even got clearance to be packing small weapons. Just make sure you remember who you’re supposed to be and don’t try to smuggle in any big-time armaments, and you’re golden.”

Tiny started to say something, then shook his head and remained silent.

Dreja sighed. “If we’re cleared to carry, I wonder how many others in there are.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ocelot said. “If we’re shooting, something’s gone wrong big-time.”

Winterhawk studied the floorplan Scuzzy had sent everybody earlier. “Two floors and a basement.” He indicated a large room in the basement. “Here’s the dungeon Lady Desdemona operates out of. Can you get us a view of that?”

“Not till we get inside,” Scuzzy said. “They’ve got something blocking access from out here.”

“Probably because they don’t want every slot with a deck hacking their camera feeds and broadcasting the show to the Matrix,” Ocelot said.

Scuzzy nodded. “Yeah. I’ve done it myself. It’d blow your mind some of the stuff you can see when people think nobody’s watching.” His voice rose in pitch, taking on more animation. “Like this one time, I saw these two mind-blowingly hot chicas—”

“Let’s stay on task, shall we?” Winterhawk interrupted.

Scuzzy looked disappointed, but shut up.

“All right, then.” The mage opened the door. “Good luck, everyone. Remember: fast and quiet.”

“I don’t like this,” Ocelot said. He’d switched off the outgoing audio on his comm so the entire team couldn’t hear him. “We’re staking a lot that some pimply kid knows what he’s doing.”

“Not mad about it myself,” Winterhawk agreed. “But you said he was good. I suppose now’s when we’ll find out. I just wish I could have done a bit of astral recon before we went in there. I don’t like being blind.” He had taken a quick pass back in the van before they left, but apparently Pandora took its security seriously: similar to the measures they had taken to ensure that no unwanted Matrix intruders could get inside, they had also taken precautions against astral incursions. “First brothel I’ve ever seen with wards,” he muttered.

“Oh, and you’ve seen so many?” Ocelot grinned. “’Hawk, you dog. I had no idea.”

“Quiet, you.” The two of them headed up the walk toward the front of the club. The only indication of its function was a discreet sign on the wall next to the double doors, proclaiming Pandora – Private Club – Members Only. There were no AROs, at least not out here.

Two doorkeepers—a human male and an elf female—dressed in matching, long, blood-red coats that didn’t look armored but undoubtedly were stood at the front, sheltered from the warm wind by a short awning with the club’s logo—a heavily stylized P fashioned into a boxlike shape—on the front.

Winterhawk and Ocelot approached the two guards, who took subtle steps toward each other to block the way. Winterhawk nodded pleasantly to them, while Ocelot remained behind him, playing the role of an attentive bodyguard. They presented their identification and waited silently while the elf woman examined it.

After less than a minute that seemed at least ten times that long, she nodded. She and the human man stepped aside, and the doors opened. “Welcome to Pandora, gentlemen. Enjoy your evening.”

Dreja slouched in the Bulldog’s middle seat, watched the two orks through the tinted glass, and waited. The waiting was always the hardest part, especially when she was more than half-convinced that the whole thing was going to blow up in their faces as soon as somebody inevitably screwed up.

She took deep breaths and forced herself to remain calm; she had a reputation to maintain, and there was no way in hell she was going to display any kind of stress in front of Timmy the Wonder Spaz and Rocky the Lunkhead. At least Kivuli was quiet. Dreja liked her: she did what she needed to do without unnecessary conversation. She wished Scuzzy was more like that. Winterhawk, too, but she really just didn’t want to hear anything out of him.

The comm crackled to life. “We’re in,” Ocelot said.

Somebody snickered from the third row. Probably Tiny. She ignored him. “Good,” she said. “Any trouble?”

“Nope. We’re in the bar area now. Get in here so we can get started.”

“Okay,” Dreja said, turning to Tiny and Kivuli. “You two are next. Tiny, just hang out in the bar for now. Anybody asks you if you want some action, tell ’em you want to get good and drekfaced for a while first. Keep an eye on the front door.”

“Null persp,” Tiny said, shoving open the van’s door.

Kivuli slid out behind him, straightening her long, armored coat. She said nothing, merely nodded. Dreja didn’t bother to reiterate the plan to her; there was no need. “Okay, go. Let me know when you’re in, and we’ll follow. Scuzzy and I will coordinate from the bar once we’re there.”

The two of them slipped off, their dark-clothed figures disappearing into the night. Dreja leaned back, trying her best to project an aura of ‘don’t talk to me’ now that she and Scuzzy were alone with the zoned-out Cosworth.

“So how come you and Hawk-man don’t like each other?” the decker asked.

So much for auras. “You want to tell me why that’s any of your business?”

She saw him shrug in the rearview mirror. “Isn’t, I guess. You guys run together before?” His hands were still flitting over his deck in his lap.

“No.” The single word came out harsher than she meant it to. She wished the kid would just shut up and let her focus.

“I looked you guys up. This isn’t your usual kind of job. Isn’t his, either.”

She let her breath out, gripping her seat arms to stop herself from doing anything she might later regret. The kid was a decker. That’s what deckers did. Trying to stop them from ferreting out any information they could track down was like trying to stop elves from being insufferable. “No,” she said.

“So, I guess I’m just curious about why you took it.”

She did turn then, glaring at him. “Kid, this is your last chance to shut your mouth and do your job. Got it?”

He held up a hand, nodding. “Sure. Null sweat. Just makin’ conversation, is all.”

“Hey, we’re inside,” Tiny’s voice came in through the comm. “Everything’s frosty. There are some seriously hot chicks in here.”

“On our way,” Dreja said. She glared one more time at Scuzzy. “Come on. Let’s get this done. Sooner we do, the sooner I can get away from you people. And please try not to drool.”

The evening was in full swing inside Pandora. Winterhawk and Ocelot drifted down a short stairway and a thickly carpeted hall into the main bar area, taking the place in. “Lot of people,” Ocelot said through the comm. “I expected the customers to mostly be off in the rooms, doing their thing.”

Winterhawk nodded, looking around. Most of the main floor of the club was one large open area; a long horseshoe-shaped bar underlit with red neon dominated the left side, with a few small round tables scattered near it. On the other side, barely visible past a large open dance floor seething with writhing partiers, rose a stage featuring an elven band playing something with a pounding tribal beat. A couple smaller alcoves—one near the bar, one near the dance floor—provided more tables for those who wanted to get drunk or watch the action without becoming part of it. Cages suspended from the high ceiling above the dance floor held nearly nude dancers: elves, humans, and orks of both genders, grinding and gyrating against the neon-lit bars as they tried to entice the crowd to dance. All together, the club area probably contained a couple hundred people: most of them looked like clients, but more than a few had the watchful, focused look of undercover club security or bodyguards for some of the individual clubgoers. “You don’t see our man, do you?”

Ocelot scanned the crowd. “Not here. There are a couple dwarfs over there by the bar, but they don’t match the holo we’ve got.”

Winterhawk adjusted his commlink so he could see the AROs; they were surprisingly tasteful, advertising the club’s nightly drink specials, the locations of the private party rooms upstairs, and a “menu” of the available talent on offer for the evening’s festivities. It offered the chance to fine-tune the selection by gender, sexual preference, metatype, ethnicity, and numerous other factors. “I don’t see Lady Desdemona here,” he said, indicating the choices.

“Maybe you need to make an appointment with her in advance. Doesn’t matter, though—we know what we’re looking for is downstairs. We need to get over to the elevator and get down there without anybody catching on.”

“We’re inside,” Dreja’s voice cut in. “Had to hand over a couple of my guns for safekeeping, but otherwise fine. We’ve got a table in the back of the bar.”

“I’m at the bar,” Tiny said. “Other than you guys, nobody’s come in since we got here.”

“Doing a little recon,” Kivuli said. “Checking out the bathrooms, and I’m about to get ‘lost,’ and see if I can get a look at the kitchen area.”

“Scuzzy, do you know where the security center is?” Ocelot asked. “Place like this has got to have one somewhere, so their guys can keep an eye on biz and run the system.”

“Yeah, working on it,” Scuzzy said. “Just like I thought, it’s a lot easier once we’re inside. Gimme a minute, and I’ll have a feed and a floor plan.”

A scantily clad human woman drifted up to Winterhawk and Ocelot, and they both ordered drinks. “I guess they like the personal touch here,” Ocelot said, watching her departure with approval.

“Stay focused,” Winterhawk ordered. He scanned the crowd, cycling between normal vision and astral sight: even just assensing, the club’s sensual vibe came through loud and clear. He looked around, trying to spot any signs of tension or threat that might indicate potential trouble.

“See anything?”

“I think there might be quite a number of corporate types here,” he said.

“He’s right,” Dreja said. “Not hard to spot the bodyguards and handlers keeping an eye on their charges.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “Can’t let the coddled little things out on their own. Some big bad ork might eat them.”

“Give it a rest,” Winterhawk said. “I’m just saying that we need to be careful. This has to go down quietly. Too many people in here who could be threats if we start a fight.”

“We can take ’em if we have to,” Tiny said.

“The point is not to have to,” Kivuli said.

Winterhawk remained where he was until the waitress brought back their drinks, then walked toward the opposite end of the bar from where Tiny was leaning. The samurai appeared to be chatting up a young elf woman, but he was oriented so that he could keep the front entrance under surveillance.

“Okay,” Scuzzy said. “I’ve got access to the main security cameras, including the ones around the outside perimeter. The ones in the rooms are gonna take a little longer.”

“They have cameras in the rooms?” Tiny asked. “Nice.”

“Shut up,” Dreja snapped. “Let’s keep the chatter down. Scuzzy, any sign of our guy?”

“Check and see if they’ve got some kind of control sheets for the rooms,” Ocelot said. “You know, like a schedule. Who’s with who and where. Place this size, they’ll need to keep track.”

“Yeah, okay.” Another pause, then another window popped up, showing a floor plan.

“Looks like the normal rooms are upstairs, ”Dreja said after a moment. She indicated a hallway with a red dot. “Looks like this is where the stairway is, and the way to the admin offices and stuff.”

“What about that section there?” Winterhawk asked, marking a series of upstairs rooms set away from what looked like the normal guest rooms.

“That’s where the…um…talent stays when they’re not working,” Scuzzy said. “Kinda like a lounge area. Hold on…” Another window popped up, showing a view of what looked like a large central area surrounded by smaller rooms. It was full of couches, mirrored makeup tables, and clothing on racks. Two of the tables were occupied by joygirls adjusting their minimal clothing and applying makeup. “There you go. See for yourself.”

“Look at those costumes,” Tiny said. “Niiice. I bet you could get a girl to dress up like whatever you want here. If you wanted her to dress at all, I mean.” The leer came through in his tone.

“Will you keep it in your pants?” Dreja growled. “You think this Lady Desdemona gets ready in here, too?”

“Dunno,” Scuzzy said. “Still trying to get the schedules. Gimme a couple more minutes. Go look around or something. I’ll ping you when I got something.”

CHAPTER 12

LOS ANGELES 
PANDORA CLUB 
SATURDAY MORNING

Toby Boyd had a feeling that tonight was the night.

He couldn’t be sure, of course; his contact had told him that it was too dangerous to give him any specific information, but the fact that Lady Desdemona had changed their night made him wonder. She never changed their night.

He hoped whoever they sent were good: the two goons-in-suits that his Shiawase overlords had assigned to babysit him stuck to him like lovesick schoolgirls any time he was outside the corporate complex. He couldn’t even go to the can without having at least one of them stationed outside the door, and the other one guarding any windows that might give him a means of escape. It was all fairly pathetic: what did they expect he was going to do, wriggle out through a tiny window and make a run for it? He hoped that when his shadowy contact sent somebody after him, they might be a little more inventive than to extract him from the drekker.

For a while he tried not to let the whole business bother him, but lately it was getting downright stifling. He wondered if that was because somebody at Shiawase had gotten wind that he was ready to jump ship after his little jaunt to Australia.

He doubted it, though; it was probably just his growing annoyance at being watched like some kind of prize show dog. As much as they liked to keep him as happy as reasonably possible, he doubted the upper level honchos in his organization would let him continue with his periodic visits to Pandora if they thought an extraction was in his future.

His handlers (he’d never bothered to learn their names—he referred to them as Goon One and Goon Two) were in their usual places: One, a stoic, muscular Japanese human, had stationed himself near the elevator, while Two, a bald Anglo shaped like a fireplug, was parked at the locked door to the stairway that was the only other way down to basement area. If Boyd had given a damn, he might have felt a little sorry for Goon Two. At least Goon One got to stay in the club and watch the show. Poor Two was stuck in a featureless maintenance corridor on a folding chair. He noticed they never switched jobs, and supposed it had to do with the fact that Goon Two wasn’t Japanese. For all their nods to being progressive, being the right ethnicity (and the right metatype) still went a long way toward making your life easier when you worked at Shiawase, or any of the Japanacorps for that matter. Maybe there’d be somebody else’s minder waiting there tonight, so at least he’d have company.

So tonight might be the night. Boyd hoped if somebody was going to come after him tonight, they’d wait a little while. Maybe try to grab him on his way out or something. That way, he could get in one final session with Lady Desdemona before he’d have to leave town. He was going to miss her. She was the first woman in a long time who really understood him. Not like that slitch of an ex-wife back in New York.

Still thinking about Lady Desdemona and fantasizing about what sort of humiliating delights she might have in store for him in her dungeon, he entered the elevator and took it down to the basement level. He moved with casual ease; he’d been here many times, and no doubt could traverse the place in his sleep. Stepping out into a hallway carpeted in plush red, he walked down and took a left. There were three dungeons at Pandora; Lady Desdemona’s domain never changed.

He prepared himself as she had instructed, taking a quick shower and clothing himself in the simple white robe and black synthleather briefs he found hanging in a locker. She didn’t approve of his usual clothes, which, when he wasn’t working, consisted of garish Hawai’ian shirts and surfer shorts. She said they made him look undignified.

That was, after all, her job.

<Anything look suspicious?> Winterhawk texted. He stood at the end of the hallway, leaning against the wall and appearing to be deeply interested in the gyrating elf in the cage high above the dance floor.

<Nothing here,> Tiny replied. <Everything good.>

<Same.> Ocelot was seated at one of the tiny tables near the edge of the dance floor, about ten meters from Winterhawk’s current location. <I’m keeping an eye on that bodyguard standing by the entrance, but so far he just looks bored.>

<Quiet here,> came Kivuli’s report.

<We’re good, too,> Scuzzy sent. <Lady D isn’t even here tonight, so you don’t have to worry about running into her. Just get down there fast, and tell us when you’re coming back up. Nothing on the Matrix in the dungeons, so I can’t watch you down there.>

<All right, then—showtime,> Winterhawk sent. He took a couple of deep breaths, waiting for the hallway to clear out. When it did, he drew mana to him, shimmered into invisibility, and ducked down the hallway, staying close to the wall in case anyone came by. It only took a moment for the door to the women’s restroom to open on two humans in short skirts and high heels, chattering away. They didn’t appear to notice the light breeze that wafted past them. A couple of minutes after that, the door opened again and a tall, dark-skinned woman dressed in black leather emerged. She headed purposefully toward the elevator. It slid open and she stepped inside.

Kivuli leaned against the wall in the hallway near the east-side bathrooms, having a smoke. <Stand by>, she texted. <They should be coming out with the target soon. Are you in position?>

<Standing by. We’ll move on your signal.>

<Acknowledged.>

Boyd wondered how long it was going to be before Lady Desdemona showed up. She must be trying something new tonight, keeping him waiting longer. He lounged on the hard wooden table, anticipating the feel of the silken bonds on his wrists and ankles, the touch of her whips and floggers on his tender skin, the harsh but loving tone of her voice as she punished him for all the transgressions he’d committed this week. He shifted, a little uncomfortable; the table didn’t exactly hurt, but his muscles were starting to stiffen up a little, and his back was getting sweaty against the wooden surface of the platform. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and she’d never kept him waiting this long before.

The door opened then and Lady Desdemona strode in, fixing him with her glittering, cold smile that always made his whole body tingle with anticipation. She didn’t speak as she crossed the room and loomed over him.

“Is…something wrong, Mistress?” Boyd asked after several moments of that silent scrutiny. “I’ve been waiting so long…have I failed to please you in some way?”

“So many ways to answer that,” she replied…only it wasn’t her voice. Instead of Lady Desdemona’s throaty, sultry purr, she spoke in a sardonic male voice with a British accent.

“M-mistress?” Boyd sat up, sweat running down his back and pooling up in his synthleather shorts.

She leaned over and grasped his wrist. “Sorry to take you away from your nightly flogging, Toby, but it’s time to go.”

Boyd stared. “Go?” And then he got it. “You mean—?”

“Up and out,” she said, nodding. “Come on, then—we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

Boyd moved numbly, sitting up and dangling his legs over the edge of the wooden table. “Where—where’s Lady Desdemona? You didn’t hurt her—?”

“She’s fine. We mucked about with her schedule, so she’s probably home enjoying a nice cup of tea and a trashy novel. Don’t you worry, she’ll be back to spanking bad little boys in no time—just not you. Now come on, hop down. We need to get you someplace safe, and then you can give us the information we need.”

Boyd nodded, breathing a little hard. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m good for it. It’s all right here.” He tapped his head. “Headware. I didn’t want to forget anything. You get me out of here, I’ll send it all to your decker, and you can verify it before you let me go.”

“Excellent. But first, out.”

The dwarf slid off the wooden table, suddenly conscious of the fact that he was wearing nothing but a pair of synthleather briefs in the company of another man, even if that man did look like his smoking hot mistress. “Um—can I get dressed first?”

“Not unless your clothes are in here. We need to get moving right now.” She flashed a grin. “Don’t worry. They won’t be seeing the real you anyway.” She made a gesture and the air shimmered around him. “There. Now you’re a short human chap in a business suit. Just come with me and don’t draw attention to yourself. We’ll have you out of here before you know it.”

Boyd looked down at himself, but he couldn’t see what Lady Desdemona (or whoever it was) was talking about: by all he could see, he still looked like a dwarf in his underwear. He snatched up his white robe and quickly threw it on, then hurried after the dominatrix. His heart was pounding, but in a way this was exciting: being extracted by Lady Desdemona, having to follow her orders in the face of real danger (even if she did sound like a man) was an experience he’d never had before. He filed it away in his memory for closer examination later.

Upstairs, Ocelot lounged near the bar, scanning the area for potential problems. 

“They’re coming out,” Scuzzy’s voice came over the link. He sounded relieved. Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to get a view into the actual dungeon room, so they hadn’t known what was going on after Winterhawk had called up his illusion and gone inside. “I got the feed on a loop so if the two bodyguards or the sec-guys are watching, they’ll just see an empty hallway.”

Ocelot pulled up his AR window and watched as the tall woman in tight black leather and boots with five-inch stiletto heels stalked up the hallway, followed by a small, slim human male in a corp suit. “’Hawk? Everything okay down there?”

“So far so good,” came the mage’s voice. “We’re almost at the elevator now. Are you ready for us?”

“Looks good here,” Tiny said from the other end of the bar. “I’m gonna head over toward the front door.”

“Moving toward the door,” Kivuli said.

“That illusion on Boyd going to hold?” Dreja asked. “If the bodyguard up here sees through it, we’re gonna be in trouble.”

“Don’t worry,” Winterhawk said. “This is what I do, remember? Just be ready. We’re entering the elevator now, so pay attention. I’m going to drop my own illusion so it doesn’t look suspicious to have Lady Desdemona escorting a different client.”

In her hallway near the restrooms, Kivuli stubbed out her cigarette, pretending to be fiddling with something showing up on one of her AR displays. <They’re coming out now.>

<Acknowledged.> 

<Stand by.> Her hand moved to a hidden pocket in her longcoat, withdrawing a small, round object. She drifted up the hallway until she was standing just inside near the edge of the dance floor.

Winterhawk smiled encouragingly at Boyd as the Lady Desdemona illusion dropped away and the elevator moved slowly upward toward the ground floor. “Just stay calm and stay close,” he urged.

The dwarf studied him for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m scared,” he said.

“No need to be. We just need to get you past those two bodyguards of yours and out the door, and we’ve got transportation waiting.” Over the link, he sent: <Tell Cosworth to start heading for the front door.>

<On it already>, came Dreja’s reply. If it was possible for a text to sound irritable, hers managed. <You do your job, let me do mine.>

The elevator door opened. Boyd swallowed again. Winterhawk felt the dwarf’s hand briefly touch his arm and then pull away.

“Here we go,” Winterhawk murmured.

<Go>, Kivuli sent as she made a swift, overhand sweeping motion with her right arm. The tiny round object flew unerringly over the crowd and came down somewhere near the elevator.

Every light in the club went out.

CHAPTER 13

LOS ANGELES 
PANDORA CLUB 
SATURDAY MORNING

A lot of things happened at once as chaos erupted all around the club.

<Scuzzy?> Winterhawk demanded. <What’s going on?>

<Not sure. I’m trying to—oh, frag, somebody else is in here! Can’t talk!>

“Oh, spirits,” Boyd moaned. “This was a bad idea…”

Winterhawk was reaching into his pocket for his low-light glasses when suddenly the darkness became even more absolute. Clouds of choking smoke billowed upward, engulfing the area.

Coughing and disoriented, he reached out blindly to grab Toby’s arm, but failed.

Ocelot had already leaped up as soon as the lights went off, and he was far enough back that the smoke cloud didn’t reach him. <’Hawk?>

<Frag!> Tiny sent. <On my way!>

All around them, the crowd was already beginning to panic as they caught on to the fact that the lights going out wasn’t part of the show. Screams rose, and in absence of any security lights showing the way to the exits, they began moving in different directions.

Somewhere, a gun went off.

More screams.

In the bar, Dreja leaped up so fast her chair flew out behind her. “Scuzzy!” she barked. “I have to go! You gonna be okay here? Get those exits locked down!”

He waved an impatient hand, his focus almost exclusively on the Matrix. <Go!>

She spared him one more quick glance, but he was in the back corner of the bar and the panicked customers were, for the most part, moving in the direction of the exits. If she was going to see anything, she’d need to get some height. With all the lights out, Scuzzy’s camera views would be useless: even if the emergency lights came up, the mass of writhing bodies would make it difficult to pick out anything. She yanked a small, powerful flashlight from inside her vest and sent a message to the team: <Report!>

Kivuli drifted backward near the side exit. It had been laughably easy a few minutes earlier to slip outside and hotwire an old Americar that undoubtedly belonged to one of the employees, then come back inside and wait for the show to start.

<Spirit deployed>, came the message. <Under your control.>

She nodded, feeling the spirit touching her mind. She gave it a command and it shot off.

Winterhawk was still trying to get hold of Boyd, but the choking smoke made it impossible to see. He shifted to astral sight and thought he’d spotted the dwarf when two moving forms slammed into him from two different sides, knocking him off balance. He reeled back, crashed into the wall, and in the couple of seconds it took for the panicked figures to move on past and him to right himself again, Toby Boyd’s short, stubby aura was nowhere to be seen.

<Where’s Toby? I can’t find him!> he sent, then called to the air spirit he’d had patrolling on the astral plane. “Get rid of this smoke! And Maya, find the dwarf!”

The smoke gave Ocelot’s ultrasound cybereyes little trouble. He waded in, not seeing Boyd, but immediately spotting the dwarf’s Japanese bodyguard. The guard apparently either didn’t have ultrasound or hadn’t switched to it yet, because he was still fumbling and flailing in obvious attempts to either get out of the cloud, locate his charge, or both.

Ocelot slammed him against the wall, but the man was fast, strong, and well trained. He ducked under Ocelot’s next punch and, still blinded by the smoke, wrapped his arms around his opponent’s waist and tried to bull them both forward and out of the cloud.

Toby Boyd screamed. One moment, he was standing next to the tall British mage as the two of them headed confidently out the elevator and toward freedom, and the next moment everything went dark.

He clutched wildly for the mage’s arm, but before he could grab it, something that felt like a whirling tornado snatched him up, spinning him high up into the air and then forward. He screamed again, pistoning his arms and legs in a desperate attempt to free himself from whatever had grabbed him, but its grip was both strong and impossible to get a handhold on. He felt like he was being blown upward in some kind of wind tunnel, then snatched through the air like he was flying. Under more pleasant circumstances he might even have enjoyed it, but right now it was terrifying.

It was only when he started to lose altitude and was deposited gently down next to a shadowy, dark-skinned elf woman standing near the open doorway by the drekkers that he figured it out: it was an air spirit! It had to be!

He stared in wide-eyed panic at the woman. “What the hell—?”

“Shh!” She put a finger to her lips and waved him forward. “Come on. I’m part of the team that’s extracting you. Sorry about the scare, but we needed a way to get you out fast. Car’s ready.”

Boyd panted, bent over and clutching his knees, not even aware that his illusion had dropped, his white robe had been blown away in his flight, and he was now standing in the parking lot in his underwear. Right now, that wasn’t even rating on his list of things to think about. Instead, relief washed over him. Of course! He shouldn’t have doubted that these guys knew what they were doing. “Come on!” he urged. “Let’s go before my guards catch up to us!”

The elf woman smiled. It might have registered somewhere in the back of Boyd’s mind that the smile looked odd, but a lot of things were looking pretty fragging odd right now. He followed her out to the car and scrambled into the back seat, ducking low. In a moment, it sped off into the night.

CHAPTER 14

LOS ANGELES  
PANDORA CLUB 
SATURDAY MORNING

The lights still weren’t back on, and the crowd at Pandora had reached a full-scale panic now. The dance floor was emptying, but since nobody had any idea where the exits were in the dark, the dancers ran in random directions, slamming into each other, trampling the fallen in their headlong rush to escape. A few of the guests kept it together enough to pull out their commlinks and use them as flashlights, but the lights did little to help them shove their way through the seething, mindless throng.

It didn’t make anything any better that Toby Boyd was not the only corporate reveler being minded by one or more heavily armed babysitters. When the lights went out, every one of those babysitters engaged whatever form of low-light vision they had, readied their weapons, and attempted to collect their charges so they could get the hell out before the drek hit the fan.

It also didn’t help that somebody got the bright idea to shoot up a flare to try to get a better look at what was going on. The bright little light flew high above the crowd and hit one of the caged dancers, igniting the feathers that comprised her costume. This had two effects: the first was that her panicked screams added to the horrific soundscape of the club, and the second was that the fire sprinkler directly above her began dousing the center of the dance floor with slippery fire-retardant chemicals over an area of two or three meters. The dancers underneath, having no idea what had just hit them, panicked even more and redoubled their efforts to get away, resulting in yet more tramplings.

All around the perimeter of the dance floor, both club security personnel and corporate bodyguards did their best to try to quell the panic, but it was a losing battle. When the crowd surged over them a couple of the bodyguards, convinced that someone was trying to make off with their charges, let loose with a barrage of gunfire into the air. The terrified crowd took them down, but not before a few rounds tore through several of the clubgoers.

<Scuzzy! Can you get those lights back on?> Dreja sent. She was still on top of the bar, shining her light over the heads of the crowd, and joined now by a couple other guests who’d seen her and apparently thought she’d had a good idea. <We’ll never get out of here with all these people running around like fragging crazy!>

<Stand by,> came the decker’s clipped reply. <Somebody’s in here trying to keep them off.>

<In the Matrix? You mean somebody’s fighting you?>

<Yeah!>

Frag, she thought. <’Hawk, you guys got the dwarf back yet?>

<Busy,> Winterhawk replied.

Dreja spun. Winterhawk was never that terse. Something was up.

“Maya! Have you found Boyd yet?”

“He’s leaving,” the cat said. “Kivuli took him out the side door, over by the bathrooms on the other side.”

“What?” Winterhawk was stunned for a moment. “How’d he get over there? Can you follow them?”

“There’s a rather large air spirit in the way,” she replied dubiously.

Bugger. Winterhawk glanced around, then send off two messages. The first was to his own air spirit: “Deal with the spirit by the exit door. Maya will show you where.” The second one was to the team: <Kivuli’s gone rogue. She’s taken Toby out through the side exit!>

<Frag!> Dreja’s message came back. <Can anybody get out?>

<Not in this crowd,> Tiny said. <Everybody’s panicking!>

<Cosworth! Can you spot them with your drones?>

<On it, but doubt it. Don’t know what they’re driving. They must’ve snuck out when I was watching the front.>

<Get the rig ready to go,> Ocelot sent.

Another gunshot went off, somewhere on the other side of the room.

<This place isn’t going to be safe for long,> Dreja said. <We have to handle this fast and get out. Scuzzy, can you deal with that decker and get the lights on?>

<Working on it,>, he replied. <Just need a little more time.>

Winterhawk donned his low-light glasses and took a look around, pulling in mana to summon up an armor spell. Everywhere he looked there were writhing bodies, trampled bloody figures on the floor, and security guards brandishing guns and trying to restore order. <I’ll try to go after them,> he sent. If he could manage to levitate himself up over the crowd and keep moving fast enough to avoid being hit by the erratic shots flying around the club, he might be able to catch up with Kivuli and Boyd before they got too far away.

Something shimmered into being in front of him, forming from discarded beer glasses, bits of litter and napkins, twisting bar stools, and other detritus from around the club. It whirled and spun and formed itself into a humanoid form three meters tall and almost as wide, dropping down in front of Winterhawk. It roared, its voice sounding like the feedback from a whole stack of amplifiers during a trog-rock concert.

<Or not,> he sent.

Ocelot brought his knee up between the bodyguard’s legs and felt the man’s grip on him loosen. He shoved the guard backward, slamming him into the wall. He briefly considered drawing his gun and shooting the man, but there was already enough gunfire flying around now, and he didn’t want to attract attention to what they were doing. He’d seen the message about Boyd’s abrupt departure, and the longer he stayed here tangling with the dwarf’s bodyguard, the better chance that their objective would get away from them.

Backpedaling, he let the bodyguard make the next decision: he’d either revert to training and go back to looking for Boyd, or he’d come after Ocelot. Ocelot wasn’t sure whether the bodyguard even knew where Boyd was, but the dwarf obviously wasn’t here. If the man decided to come after Ocelot instead, then he’d deal with him. But he had to lure the guard out and away so he could ditch him and get after Boyd.

He glanced over and his eyes widened as he saw the mass of whirling detritus that occupied Winterhawk’s attention. It had just picked the mage up and tossed him several meters toward the bar. <’Hawk?>

Winterhawk, scrambling back to his feet and flinging something at the spirit that made it flare bright red, didn’t respond.

Tiny came pounding up to Winterhawk just in time to see him sail across the open space and crash into the bar. He drew his Ingram and pointed it at the trash-spirit, which was wading over toward the mage as he got back to his feet, and opened up, sending two quick bursts into its center.

He might as well have been tossing spitballs at it. It didn’t change direction or even acknowledge his presence, continuing its inexorable advance on Winterhawk.

Tiny was about to stow the gun and pop a spur from his cyberarm when he spotted something else: another shadowy figure was moving, crouched and stealthy, toward Winterhawk from behind him. The mage, still facing the spirit, obviously didn’t see him approaching, and between the screams and the gunfire and the general cacophony there was no way he could have heard it.

Tiny raised the gun again, leveling the barrel at Winterhawk. “Down!” he yelled over the link. He got a brief glimpse of the mage’s wide, shocked eyes before Winterhawk caught on and hit the floor. Tiny squeezed off another burst in a neat pattern in the center of the second bodyguard’s chest. The man staggered back, his hand going to his jacket. Tiny plugged three more rounds into his face before he could get his gun out.

<Thanks. Find Boyd!> Winterhawk’s message came through as he flung another spell at the spirit.

Tiny hesitated for a moment, then nodded and launched himself toward the panicking crowd and the other side of the club.

Dreja jumped down off the bar. Her flashlight beam had picked out the tall form of Tiny bulling his way through the edge of the crowd in an attempt to reach the other side of the club where Boyd was last seen. She hurried to follow him, but even as she did, she knew they would never get there in time. No one in the crowd was actively trying to impede their forward progress, but panicking crowds try to head for exits, and the place where Kivuli had spirited Boyd away was one of the few available ones. That meant a good portion of the crowd was trying to get where they wanted to go, and even with Dreja’s flashlight and the smattering of other light sources—flashlights, commlinks, and the occasional flare—the combined effect of too many brains shutting down and too many bodies stampeding like mindless cattle meant the dance floor and its immediate environs were a dangerous place to be. Dreja was big, tough, and armored, but she wasn’t the only one who was.

She changed course, heading for the periphery of the crowd, where she could move faster, but there was no chance she’d get there in time. Kivuli and Boyd were probably already gone by now. It would be up to either Winterhawk and his spirits, or Scuzzy and his deck. And both of them were currently otherwise occupied.

Drek! This whole job was going to hell right in front of her eyes, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

The emergency lights kicked in as Ocelot buried his fist in the human bodyguard’s gut, knocking the wind out of him and, from the feel of it, cracking several ribs. The man crumpled into a heap on the floor as suddenly everything was bathed in a reddish glow, making the place look even more hellish than the fight did.

<I got him!> Scuzzy sent. <Dumpshocked the bastard! Working on the rest of the lights now.>

<Never mind the lights,> Dreja sent. <Let the sec guys get them. Find Boyd ASAP.>

More crashes. The whirling spirit had stopped moving—it remained rooted in place, its nimbus of detritus spinning around it, focused on Winterhawk. The mage too stood motionless, his gaze locked on it. Ocelot had seen this before: he was trying to banish it. He popped his cyberspur and launched himself toward the spirit. Maybe if he could get its attention, ’Hawk would have an easier time dealing with it. They had to get out of here.

Dreja had almost reached the other side of the club when a mob of screaming clubgoers came pounding back the other way. She barely dived out of their path before they would have trampled her. Tiny, a little ahead, didn’t even bother: he just put out his massive arms and diverted them to either side, clearly not caring if he knocked any down into the others’ paths.

With the emergency lights on, it only took Dreja a second to figure out what had spooked them: the two air spirits, Winterhawk’s and the one that had borne Toby Boyd away, filled the hallway leading to the exit and were currently engaged in battle. Anything from the immediate vicinity that wasn’t attached to the floor—tables, chairs, trash, plates, cutlery, purses, and even a few small clubgoers—was currently whipping around as potentially deadly projectiles as the two spirits went at each other with increasing fervor.

<Frag,> she sent. <There’s no way out the way they went. The spirits are blocking the door!>

<Hawk, can you tell yours to move?> Tiny sent.

The mage didn’t answer.

<He’s a little busy right now,> Ocelot sent. <Go around!>

Dreja was about to do that when she spotted something: it was hard to see, because the spirits were nearly transparent except for their whirling clouds of trash, but it looked like one of them was shoving the other one into the club, leaving a potential opening in the hallway leading toward the exit.

Waving at Tiny to follow, she leaped for it before it closed.

Tiny hurried behind her.

“Go!” Winterhawk yelled, pointing his hands at the trash spirit and focusing all his will into his banishment spell.

Banishments took a lot of work: spirits didn’t generally want to come to the material plane, but once they were summoned they were dogged about following their orders. Trying to send them back if you didn’t control them tended to make them grumpy, and right now a grumpy spirit was just one more in a series of things Winterhawk and his team were going to have to deal with if they were going to find Toby.

The spirit’s aura flared red and angry as the spell hit it, its energy diminishing.

He spared a thought to his ally as he gathered his own energy: “Maya, did you find them?”

“I’m following them,” she replied. “They’re heading away in a small car. Not fast, but they’re already not close to you.”

“Stay with them,” he told her, and then had to break off the conversation as the trash spirit made a renewed attempt to gain the upper hand. He was going to have to do something definitive soon, before his strength gave out. He felt the spirit flare again, but this time it wasn’t his doing.

Then he saw him: Ocelot! Spirits weren’t easy to affect with mundane weaponry, but apparently nobody had told Ocelot that: his cyberspur flashed in the reddish light as he slashed it through the spirit’s form, dissipating it still more. It roared its amplifier-feedback roar and spun on him, raising arms made of two hovering bar stools.

Winterhawk grinned. Bad idea to turn your back on a mage, even if you were a spirit. He pointed his hands again and barked out a series of arcane syllables. The spirit flared brighter red than the emergency lights and its feedback-screech rose to a howl—

—and it was gone, leaving the various bits of bar debris that had made up its form to crash to the floor.

Ocelot recovered fast, hurrying to where the mage stood, a little bent over and panting. “We gotta find Boyd!” he yelled in his ear.

“Maya’s tracking him,” he yelled back. Then over the link: <Come on—meet at the van. Cosworth, bring it around front!>

<There now,> the rigger responded. <Better hurry—I think the cops are on their way.>

CHAPTER 15

LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

They all made it to the van, using whatever they needed to get through the crowd and shove their way out the front door. Outside, they could hear sirens screaming in the distance, and the clubgoers who’d managed to escape stood in shaking knots in the parking lot. Some of them were snapping holopics or vids of the scene.

The team piled inside with Dreja nearly tossing Scuzzy bodily into a seat, as he was still focused fully on his deck. Cosworth hit the gas and tore out of the lot, barely avoiding running over oblivious bystanders.

“I got ’em!” Scuzzy said. “I hacked the cameras out back and saw them go—they’re in an old Americar.”

“Can you do anything about it?” Dreja asked.

“Trying.” He sounded distracted. “I’m gonna see if I can divert them away from their route by hacking the traffic signals.”

“Do it,” Winterhawk said from the shotgun seat. “Maya, remain on standby—keep them in sight, but if that air spirit shows up, get out of there.”

Kivuli stomped on the pedal, slewing the little Americar around a corner onto a smaller street. She had no idea if anyone was watching or following her, but she had to assume they were. The sooner she got Boyd out of sight and got the information from him, the better she’d feel. She only wished she’d been able to steal a car with an engine instead of a couple underfed hamsters under the hood, but it was too late to deal with that now. She had a good head start, and with luck, that would be enough.

“Where we going?” Toby asked, fumbling with the seatbelts in the back as another sharp turn slung him sideways and nearly knocked him over. “Are we meeting up with the others?”

“Yeah,” she said, distracted. “There’s a rendezvous point we’re all supposed to meet at.” She spared a quick glance back at him. “You’ve got the info we’re here for, right?”

Toby tapped his head. “Yep. All in the headware. You get me safe and it’s all yours.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, ducking her head so he couldn’t see her sly smile. Headware! This was even better than she’d hoped—she could just hook up a cable to him and pull it down, without having to convince him to give it up without the others present. “You’ll be safe as a baby in no time. Just hold on tight and stay low.”

“I hope so,” he said. “Can you maybe turn up the heat a little? I’m freezing back here.”

Scuzzy flashed a window on everyone’s AR showing a map of the surrounding area. Two dots, one green, one red, moved steadily along two different streets a couple of kilometers apart. Winterhawk hunched forward in the front passenger seat, gripping the dashboard as if he could make the vehicle go faster by sheer force of will. His attention was divided between the map and another window showing changing views from street cameras as Scuzzy hacked them to follow the Americar’s progress. “What are you doing with them?”

“Diverting them,” Scuzzy said, sounding distracted. “Changing traffic signals. Trying to get them off the main streets.”

“She’s heading east. It looks like she’s trying to get to the 5,” Dreja said, studying the map. “Don’t let her do that, or we’ll never catch ’em.”

“Maya,” Winterhawk sent, “Are you still on their tail? Has the spirit shown up?”

“Still following,” she replied. “No sign of the spirit yet.”

“All right, good.” He had felt his own spirit’s disruption as the other one had overpowered it; it had never been intended to be a heavy-duty combatant, but it had done its job, holding off the opposition long enough for them to get out.

Cosworth flung the van around a corner, narrowly avoiding a slow-moving van in the right lane. “See if you can send ’em here,” he said, lighting up a portion of Scuzzy’s street map. “That’s under construction. It’s a dead end. If she’s not from around here, she might not know it.” He was slumped back in his comfortable captain’s chair, piloting the Bulldog without any apparent effort. “I’ll see if I can get a drone on ’em.”

Winterhawk swiveled around to look at Scuzzy: the decker’s fingers flew over his deck, his face lit with manic excitement. Clearly the kid was in his element, directing the various traffic signals and AROs along the Americar’s path like a virtuoso directing an orchestra. The mage allowed himself the tiniest of hopes that they might catch up with Kivuli and Boyd before they were in the wind. He refused to think about what would happen if they couldn’t.

Toby Boyd was cold, scared, utterly miserable, and beginning to rethink this whole “extraction” thing. “Are we getting close?” he asked in a small voice, afraid to upset the intense elf woman whose hands were clenched on the old car’s steering wheel. “I’m really kinda freezing back here.”

“Almost there,” she said without looking at him. Her voice held a strange tightness that hadn’t been there before. They were driving down a narrow side street, and she swore under her breath as the traffic light in front of them switched suddenly to red. She hit the brakes and took a fast right; horns blared from two motorcycles she’d cut off.

“Is something wrong?” Boyd asked. So far, everything had been so professional, but the elf woman was starting to look stressed.

“Nothing’s wrong. Just be quiet, please.”

Boyd swallowed. He wasn’t sure how far they’d come from the club, but the neighborhood they were in now was nothing like the brightly lit, corporate-chic area where Pandora had been. The lights here were sparser, the cars older, the streets lined with darkened buildings. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he tried to force himself to stay calm. They knew what they were doing. They were shadowrunners, after all, and he was just a poor, scared, little parabotany researcher who wished he was back home in his comfortable little Shiawase-issue apartment with a nice cup of his favorite tea and his fantasies of Lady Desdemona.

“Frag it!” Cosworth slammed a hand on the seat next to him, slowing the Bulldog down to half its previous speed as a bus pulled into the intersection in front of them and stopped, hemmed in behind traffic.

“Can you go around?” Winterhawk demanded, leaning further forward, trying to see whether there was enough space for the big van to slip past the bus.

“Hang on,” Scuzzy said, fingers flying. “There,” he said after a moment. “Switched the light ahead of them—they should be moving in a sec.”

“Did you lose Boyd?” Dreja leaned forward, too, clutching the back of Winterhawk’s seat.

An animated icon of a cartoon face rolling its eyes popped up on everyone’s AR. “C’mon,” the decker said, voice dripping with contempt. “If I can’t multitask two things, I’m kind of a failure.”

The window following the Americar slipped to the front again, alongside the map. The red dot was still a fair distance away from the area Cosworth had marked in yellow, but the green dot was catching up with it. The two vehicles were now only a few blocks apart.

The cross traffic moved again and the bus trundled out of the intersection. The Bulldog gained speed, shooting across between the bus and the car behind it as horns honked in protest. The traffic here wasn’t as heavy as it had been near the club, but it was still enough of a factor that Cosworth couldn’t open up the Bulldog to anywhere near top speed.

“Can’t you do something to their car?” Ocelot asked. “Hack it and make it stop moving or something?”

“Tried that,” Scuzzy said. “They’re off the Matrix. She’s smart—I’m sure she knew that’d be the first thing I’d try. Either that, or that piece of drek they’re driving doesn’t even have a connection.”

“Don’t worry,” Cosworth said in his usual easygoing tones. “We’ll catch ’em. I know this area like my own backyard. She doesn’t. I know some shortcuts. Hold on tight!”

Without waiting for anyone to comply, he jerked the Bulldog hard right, making an impossibly sharp turn into an almost invisible alley between a pair of two-story apartment buildings. The van flew down the narrow passage at full speed, alarms blaring as its armored sides took chunks out of some of the cars parked along both sides. A hulking form—troll or big ork, he flashed by too fast to tell for sure—flung himself sideways across a covered dumpster, avoiding impact at the last instant, and bullets spanged off the Bulldog’s rear panels as he took a few parting shots at them.

Cosworth grinned. “That’s the way, Nellie!” he crowed, patting the dashboard.

Boyd leaned forward. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

The elf woman had thrown the Americar through a couple more ill-advised turns, and now they were driving down the middle of what looked like a war zone. At one time it had probably been a thriving neighborhood, with businesses on the ground floor and apartments up above. But now the streetlights were out, the windows boarded up and covered in graffiti, the streets lined with derelict vehicles and overflowing dumpsters. The Americar gamely thudded and jounced over the uneven pavement, cracked and torn up with disuse, but the elf woman appeared displeased about having to slow down.

“I told you to be quiet,” she ordered, but it sounded like a rote response: her mind was clearly focused on the terrain ahead. She jerked the wheel again and the car flew around a darkened corner.

“Look,” he said, gathering his courage. “I’m really grateful that you extracted me and all, but I’ve got something you want, too. You could be a little nicer to—”

“Fraaag!” The elf’s yell turned into a scream, and she slammed her foot on the brake as something large and immobile loomed in front of them. That probably saved both her and Boyd’s lives, but even her impressive reflexes weren’t fast enough to completely avoid the impact.

The Americar’s back end slewed around, and the car hit the obstacle—now revealed to be a large, dark-painted bus parked perpendicular across the middle of the road to block most of both lanes—side-first. The passenger side windows front and rear shattered, as did the right side of the windshield.

Boyd was jerked first to one side, then to the other as the Americar came to an abrupt stop. Then something white-hot lit up his chest, and nothing else mattered to him anymore.

Kivuli disentangled herself from her seatbelt and the spent airbag, cursing. She tried to restart the Americar, but knew it was hopeless. The little piece-of-crap car wasn’t going anywhere. She spun around to see what was going on with Boyd, who was uncharacteristically quiet.

She froze.

The dwarf sat upright, still in his seatbelt, his head lolling back and his mouth hanging open. In the center of his pale little chest was a neat red hole.

Instinctively she calculated where the bullet must have come from: since she hadn’t heard the crack of it breaking the Americar’s windshield, the shooter must have timed it to coincide with the car slamming into the parked bus.

Ambush! 

Cursing herself for not realizing it sooner, she slid over the front seat and into the back next to Boyd, ducking low to stay out of line of sight of any other shooters, quick-drawing one of her twin Browning Ultra-Powers from its holster. He was dead, no doubt about it: still warm but cooling fast, face frozen in wide-eyed surprise. That didn’t matter, though—all she cared about was the headware. If she could suck down the information she needed from it, Boyd’s death was irrelevant.

Glancing up, she didn’t spot anyone else approaching the car, but she knew she didn’t have long before they would, hunting for anything they could salvage from the car and its passengers. Also, Winterhawk and his team would find her soon, and she couldn’t be here when that happened. She pulled a cord from her coat, plugged one end into her commlink and the other into Boyd’s datajack, and worked with feverish intensity to access the files.

Good news: the files were clearly labeled. Bad news: there were a lot of them, and some were large. Worse news: they were protected by heavy encryption. Kivuli wondered if the dwarf had done something that would corrupt them if anyone tried to access them without authorization, but she didn’t have time to care. She set her commlink to download and switched her focus between peeking out the Americar’s window and watching the progress bar as it crept forward at glacial speed.

The bar had only made it about a quarter of the way to full transfer before her low-light vision picked out glowing forms moving toward the car.

CHAPTER 16

LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

As soon as the Bulldog rounded the last corner, Winterhawk knew something had gone very wrong, and was probably just about to go a lot more so.

The street appeared derelict and abandoned, lined on both sides with decaying three- and four-story structures that looked like they might at one point have been businesses with apartments above them—but that point had passed long ago. The only light came from a half-moon trying to force its way past clumps of smog, and the Americar’s single remaining functional headlight.

The car rested where it had slammed into an old bus that had been placed perpendicular to the road, obviously meant to stop anything foolish enough to venture into the area. Someone had also moved a large, wheeled dumpster into position behind the Americar, making a neat little ambush point.

“Scuzz, why the frag did you send them down here?” Dreja demanded.

“I didn’t, I swear!” the decker protested. “She must’ve ignored one of the detours I put up. I can’t even see anything here. There aren’t any working cameras I can hack.”

“So where are they?” Ocelot was already climbing out of the Bulldog, looking around on high alert. He had his Mossberg shotgun at the ready, sweeping it back and forth along with his gaze. “I don’t like this.”

“There’s no one alive in the car,” Winterhawk said. “I just had Maya check it out—she says she’s found blood, though.”

The rest of the group emerged from the car except for Cosworth. “This place is givin’ me the creeps,” he said. “I’m gonna stay with Nellie in case you guys need to make a quick exit.”

“Send up a drone so you and Scuzzy can both keep a lookout for anybody showing up,” Dreja said, and the rigger hurried to comply.

“’Hawk, can you get any feel for where they might have gone?” Ocelot asked.

Without replying, Winterhawk started toward the wrecked Americar, assensing the area for any movement from the blasted-out buildings or the bus. Ocelot and Dreja followed; Scuzzy remained close to the Bulldog as if reluctant to leave its safety, and Tiny jogged forward, leaped with casual ease up to the top of the bus and crouched low, assault rifle at the ready.

Winterhawk approached the Americar with caution, magical and mundane senses at full awareness. “Maya, anything?”

She answered just as he spotted it himself: “The blood trail goes into that building over there.”

“Bugger—that’s what I was afraid of,” he said under his breath. The back door of the Americar—the one that wasn’t currently smashed against the side of the bus—was standing open.

Dreja was checking inside the car. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“What?” Ocelot asked them both, still trying to look everywhere at once. Being out in the open like this, even in near-darkness, was clearly making him uncomfortable.

The ork answered first, pointing through the Americar’s shattered rear window toward the back seat. “Look at all this blood back here.”

“So?” Ocelot asked.

“So,” she said, waving toward the front of the little car, “look at the impact. They didn’t hit that hard.” She pulled a flashlight out of her vest and shined it behind the car. “See those skid marks? She hit the brakes and sideswiped this thing. The impact trashed the car, but—”

“But the blood’s wrong,” Winterhawk said, nodding as he saw what she was getting at. He leaned in on the other side of Dreja, holding up a light spell to illuminate the area. “No blood on any of the windows, even where they’re broken. What did he hit to produce that much blood? The seat?”

Ocelot was looking in through the front window. “I don’t see any blood up here. So Toby got hurt but Kivuli didn’t? What the hell’s going on?”

“It gets worse,” Winterhawk said. He motioned toward the blasted-out hulk of an old 2D movie theater, just past the bus and barely visible in the glow from the Americar’s feeble headlight, every surface of its façade scrawled with layers of riotously colored graffiti. “The blood trail leaves the car. It heads inside there.”

Ocelot jumped on top of the Americar’s roof and took a look around. “That’s a hell of a lot of blood, ’Hawk. So what happened? He was hurt and Kivuli dragged him in there?”

“I don’t think he’s hurt,” Dreja said. She was half-in, half-out of the Americar’s back seat, examining the bloodstain in the beam of her flashlight. “I think he’s dead.”

“What?” Winterhawk hurried back over, opening the front door and climbing inside to lean over the passenger seat. A slow chill worked down the back of his neck. “Why do you say that?”

She pointed. “Because this wasn’t an accident.”

He looked where she was pointing. It wasn’t easy to see at first because of all the blood, but after a moment he spotted it: a tiny, neat hole drilled through the synthleather of the seat.

A hole just at the right height to pass through a seated dwarf’s heart.

CHAPTER 17

LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

Kivuli perched on the roof of a five-story building a kilometer or so away from where she’d had to ditch the Americar—and her target. She scanned the surrounding area, cycling through the various settings on her cybereyes until she was convinced that no one was coming after her.

Yet.

It would only be a matter of time before they did, though; she was sure of it. She had to get out of here, someplace where Winterhawk or that little cat-thing of his wouldn’t be able to track her with magic. She didn’t think she’d left any of her blood behind in that pathetic excuse for a car, but she couldn’t be completely sure. It wasn’t worth taking chances. Time to get under cover.

First, though, she had to make a report she didn’t want to make. Best to get it over with. She sent out a coded message and resumed watching the area as she waited for a return call.

When it came less than a minute later, there was no video, and the voice on the other end was mechanically altered to the point where there was no way—or at least none with the technology she had available to her—to tell whether she was talking to a man, a woman, or something else entirely.

“Report,” was all it said.

“I had—partial success,” she said. She hated the hesitation in her voice; it had been a long time since she’d had to admit to anything less than perfection in one of her assignments. Her pride burned with the frustration of being bested by that squabbling group.

“Explain.”

“The target’s dead. I was able to access his headware, but I could only secure part of the data. I encountered unexpected difficulty that required me to abort the mission before I was able to get the rest.”

There was a long pause, which Kivuli filled with all manner of speculation about what the voice would say next. She’d never worked for this particular Johnson before, so she had no idea what kind of reaction he (or she, or it) would have to failure. Partial failure, she reminded herself. After all, the objective had been to get the information from Boyd’s headware, and she’d gotten at least some of it. She hoped it was enough for her employers to find useful.

“Where is the target now?” the voice asked at last. It held no inflection.

She gave him the coordinates where she’d ditched the Americar. “I left his body in the back seat of the car.”

There was another pause. “You’re certain he is dead?”

“Affirmative. I was able to confirm that before I had to leave the area.”

“Will the mage and his team be able to recover the body?”

“Probably. Unless somebody else takes it out of the car before they arrive at the site. There were gangers in the area—that’s why I had to retreat. It was an ambush. But I believe Winterhawk’s team was tracking my location after they realized I’d left with the target.”

She shifted position as she spoke, making another scan of the area, including a sweep of the skies this time, looking for drones or any flying creatures that might be paying too much attention to her. For now, she still saw nothing.

The pause this time was even longer. Kivuli wasn’t sure whether the voice on the other end was pausing to get its anger under control, consulting unseen data sources, or simply trying to get under her skin by filling her with uncertainty about her fate. “Acknowledged,” it said after nearly a full minute. “We will attempt to recover the target’s body.”

“Do you want me to go back there and help?” she asked.

“No. Stand by and await further instructions. If we are unsuccessful in recovering the remainder of the data, you will receive your next assignment.”

She let her breath out. So they were planning to continue keeping her in their employ, for now at least. It was something. Perhaps then she would have a chance to redeem herself.

“Your failure to obtain the entirety of the data, however, will be deducted from your final payment for the assignment.”

It was nothing less than she expected. “I understand.” She didn’t even bother to ask the voice to help her find a place where she could hide from astral searches. That was something she’d need to do on her own.

The connection broke without any further comment from the other end. Kivuli waited a moment longer, then pulled a small grapple gun from her belt. As she silently and gracefully rappelled down the side of the building, she was already initiating another call.

CHAPTER 18

LOCATION 
LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

Winterhawk stared too long at the small, bloody hole in the Americar’s seat, until Ocelot finally prodded him. “’Hawk?”

The mage let his breath out. “Why did she kill him?” he asked in an odd, faraway tone. It didn’t make sense. If Kivuli had wanted Boyd dead, she had ample time to kill him at Pandora during the firefight. One stray round would have done it, and she was certainly a good enough shot to pull it off without arousing their suspicion. Why did she go to the trouble of trying to escape with him?

And then he thought he knew. “She didn’t mean to…” he said in the same tone.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dreja demanded. Her frustration with him hadn’t been apparent during the chase and the initial discovery of the accident scene, but now that it appeared they weren’t in danger of imminently being jumped, it resurfaced with renewed vigor. “‘She didn’t mean to’?”

He pulled back, getting out of the car. “I think she intended to take him somewhere alive. She probably convinced him to go with her voluntarily, and only killed him when Scuzzy’s detours led her into an ambush.”

“So why’d she drag him into that place?” Ocelot asked, indicating the theater with a head jerk.

Scuzzy’s text popped up in their AR windows. <Probably so she could get what’s on his headware. If it’s encrypted, she’d need time to figure out how to get to it. Unless she just took his head with her.>

“I doubt she had time for that,” Dreja said. “There’s not enough blood in the back seat for a decapitation, so if she did it, she did it in there.”

“People are watching you,” Maya’s voice broke gently into Winterhawk’s thoughts.

He glanced up, startled. “Where?”

“All around. Up high. They’re waiting.”

Ocelot and Dreja reacted immediately to Winterhawk’s sudden tenseness. “Trouble?” Ocelot asked, scanning again.

“Possibly. Maya, are they hostile?” He wanted to get an astral look himself, but didn’t want to leave his body vacated in an area like this.

“They’re just watching. I think we’re making them nervous. Some of them have guns, though.”

He wondered if they were the same group who’d set up the ambush of the Americar. If they were, maybe they were just being cautious: an armed group the size of theirs was a bit more daunting than a single vehicle with two occupants. Still, they could be summoning reinforcements as his group stood in the middle of the street talking. They needed to find that headware, and fast. He had no idea how much of Boyd’s knowledge they might have lost if he truly was dead, but the dwarf had told them that his files were locked up in his ’ware. “We have to go,” he said abruptly.

“Go where?” Dreja asked. “We need to find Kivuli and Boyd.”

He nodded. “Yes. We need to go into that theater, now. Maya?”

“Here.”

“Please check inside that building. Tell me if you see anyone alive, and if so, mark where they are. Especially if you see Kivuli or Boyd. Be careful, though. If you find anything that can hurt you, run away.”

He felt her agreement as a soft touch in his mind, and then she was gone.

While they waited, the three of them drifted back toward the Bulldog. “Has the drone spotted anything?” Dreja asked.

“Yeah, there are definitely people in some of the windows,” Scuzzy said. “I don’t think it’s safe to hang here too long.”

“Did you get a look at them?” Ocelot asked.

Tiny, still crouched on top of the bus, jumped down and came over. “They’re ducked back behind the windows, like they’re tryin’ to stay out of sight.”

“This is gang territory,” Dreja said. “They probably ambushed Kivuli and Boyd, and now they’re waiting more of them to show up before they take us on. We need to hurry.”

“I’m not so sure,” Ocelot said, sounding contemplative.

“Why not?” Winterhawk asked. He was notoriously bad at things like examining graffiti to determine which gang had primacy over a particular neighborhood (it was one of those perennial topics of teasing from his old teammates, along with his legendary lack of proper skill with firearms), but even he could see that the proliferation of painted tags covering the building indicated heavy gang involvement.

Ocelot shook his head. “You’d think it would be…and I’m guessing it used to be. But look at the tags. They’re old. Faded. That’s the thing with gangs—they’re constantly fighting it out over turf, testing each other’s boundaries, tagging over each other’s tags. That’s what gangs do. But these look like they’ve been around and undisturbed for a while now.”

“I don’t see any recent AR tags, either,” Scuzzy said. “What’s it mean? They left?”

“Or else they’re not fighting over the area anymore,” Ocelot said. “Which might mean something’s changed so there’s no reason to fight over it anymore.”

“Like what?” the decker asked.

Winterhawk didn’t hear Ocelot’s answer, though, because Maya chose that moment to come back. “Kivuli isn’t inside,” she said.

He moved off a little from the group, crouching behind the Bulldog. “What about Boyd?”

“Not alive, if he’s there. I found a body, but I can’t tell whose it is.”

“Why not? You saw Boyd—the dwarf. Can’t you tell if it was him?” Winterhawk’s tension was growing again, knotting the muscles between his shoulderblades.

Maya managed to sound delicate when she answered. “It…wasn’t all in one piece.”

His eyes widened, and he stood quickly back up. “What?” And then a slow realization settled over him as his mind began to put two and two together.

The nearly-deserted neighborhood… the trail of blood… Kivuli’s absence…

“Maya…are there other beings inside that building?”

The cat’s voice took on a tinge of reluctance. “Yes.”

Oh, bloody hell…no… “How many?”

“Didn’t count. Twenty or so, that I saw, I think. Maybe more, hiding.”

“Could any of them see you?”

“Yes.”

He moved back around to where the others were still conversing; they appeared to be comparing notes on which windows were occupied, painting the targets on an AR window that Winterhawk didn’t currently have up. “You aren’t going to like this,” he said, cutting into their discussion.

Dreja looked up sharply, swinging her gun barrel around as if she expected to see something looming up behind Winterhawk. “What?”

“Boyd’s dead. We’re going to have go in after him to get that headware back. And Kivuli didn’t drag him in there. Ghouls did.”

CHAPTER 19

UNKNOWN LOCATION

The view on the AR window showed a figure obviously sitting at some kind of outdoor location, perhaps a park or a table at a sidewalk café. It was a beautiful, sunny day where he was, but something in the software obscured his face. It was possible to identify him as male, human, and dark-skinned, but nothing more.

“How are things progressing?” the caller asked.

The man in the sunny climate nodded. “Everything is going according to plan. Our team was able to liberate the package from its location with little difficulty. It has been taken to a protected facility where it cannot be traced. We’re only waiting for you now.”

“There’s been a bit of a setback. Our local operative was not able to secure the details on where the other package is currently located. The target is dead, and she was only able to obtain partial data from his headware files.”

The man with the obscured face leaned forward. “What are your next steps, then?” His voice took on a dangerous edge. “We thought you had everything under control up there.”

“There’s no need for concern. Our operative will continue to track the team who originally had the target. After they recover the information from the headware and learn the location of the package, she and our other operatives will follow them and ensure that the package is recaptured. It might require another day or two before we can begin the next stage of the plan, but no more.”

“See that it doesn’t,” the man said. “Keep me apprised of your progress. I want to have everything in place and be ready to move as soon as we have both packages in hand.”

“Acknowledged.”

CHAPTER 20

LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

“Careful,” Dreja snapped, putting up a hard-muscled arm to catch Winterhawk across the chest and stop his forward progress. “You might be able to spot ghouls with magic, but if you blunder into some kind of mundane trap, we’ll be just as dead.”

Winterhawk nodded, pausing to let her go first as they stepped into the lobby of the old theater. A wary Ocelot brought up the rear, Mossberg in one hand and monowhip in the other.

It was just the three of them—and Maya, of course, who was running astral overwatch along with another summoned spirit. As soon as Winterhawk mentioned ghouls, Tiny held up both hands, shook his head with great vehemence, and pronounced, “No. Fragging. Way. You ain’t payin’ me enough to go in there after fraggin’ ghouls. Let ’em have the damn dwarf. Maybe when they’re done with him we can go in and pick the headware outta the scraps.”

They didn’t have time to argue. Dreja glared at him in disgust, called him a few choice names in Or’zet that nearly brought the two to blows, but finally ordered him to stay on the street with Cosworth and Scuzzy. “Stay in contact,” she’d told them. “Keep an eye on the area, and let us know if any trouble shows up.”

Cosworth produced another small, tracked drone from one of the storage compartments in the Bulldog. “I’ll send this in with you. It’s not armed, but it’s got a good sensor package and lights. We’ll be able to keep an eye on you from out here.”

The theater was of an antique vintage, the type that had been popular in the early part of the twentieth century. Its small box office out front had been nearly destroyed, its windows broken and everything inside gutted. On either side of it were sets of double doors with colorfully tagged plywood nailed over their broken glass panes. The set on the right was locked with a heavy chain and padlock, but the right-side door of the left set opened under protest, dragging against an accumulation of dirt and compacted trash. By assensing, Winterhawk determined that the blood trail led in through this door and disappeared into the darkened lobby.

The first thing that hit him when he stepped inside, careful to mirror Dreja’s footsteps on the moldy, grime-strewn remains of formerly thick carpeting, was the smell. It wasn’t strong out here, but the fetid stench of rotting flesh hung heavy in the air, mixing with the dust.

“Anything, ’Hawk?” Ocelot asked, his voice laced with disgust.

Winterhawk paused, reaching out to Maya. After a moment, he switched back on. “They know we’re here,” he said.

Dreja stopped to check several of the small pouches on her vest and belt. “I’ve got some grenades. If they come after us, we can make ghoul salsa out of ’em.”

“Not yet,” Winterhawk said. “We have to get that headware first.”

“You don’t even know where they took Boyd,” Ocelot said. “He could be anywhere in here.”

“I have an idea. Maya says she saw them gathered around a dismembered body in the backstage area.”

Ocelot frowned at that. “Who says he’s the only dismembered body they’ve got around here?”

“Come on,” Dreja said, picking her way through the lobby.

At the rear, the remains of the concession stand stood in the middle; staircases on both sides presumably led up to the balcony, while each side had two doorways in the back, the doors ripped from their hinges long ago, and probably salvaged for some other purpose. Behind the concession stand, the only decorations were a few dusty paper cups and a single, tattered The Hills Have Eyes poster hanging askew on the wall.

“Restrooms and the entrances to the theater itself,” Winterhawk said, indicating the two doorways on either side.

“Anybody in the drekkers?” Dreja asked. She shone her flashlight back and forth as Cosworth’s little drone cruised around, exploring the space.

“Maya says no.”

“Let’s go,” Ocelot said. “The longer we’re in here, the more I’m getting the creeps.” He swung his shotgun’s barrel around.

“Don’t you have some kind of spell you can use to look around and figure out where they are?” Dreja asked Winterhawk.

“Yes, but there’s no light back there, so I wouldn’t be able to see anything. Ghouls are blind, remember? They only see on the astral. Better to trust Maya, anyway—I don’t fancy leaving my body unoccupied in here.”

She nodded; clearly even she couldn’t find a decent argument with that. “Cos, send the drone in first to light the place up.”

“On it,” came the rigger’s voice. “All quiet out here so far.”

Cautiously, the three of them moved through the rear lobby door. The drone’s light and their flashlights illuminated a narrow aisleway that stretched forward into shadows. On their left side were the rotting husks of upholstered theater seats, some of which had been ripped free of their moorings and tossed haphazardly onto others and into the aisle. Tiny skittering sounds broke the eerie silence as scavengers scuttled around beneath the debris.

“There’s a balcony above us,” Ocelot said quietly, moving forward in a sideways scuttle that kept his back to the wall. “If any of ’em are up there, they could ambush us easy. Especially if they have weapons.”

“They’re fraggin’ ghouls,” Dreja said, lips curling around her tusks. “Mindless killers. If anything, they’ll jump down on us.” She added an upward component to her flashlight sweep, though, as they stepped out from beneath balcony overhang.

“I think most of them are backstage,” Winterhawk said. “That’s where Maya saw the body.”

They kept moving forward, slowly, picking their way with care over and around mounds of trash, the mangled remains of seats, and piles of what looked like old clothes. A short way down Winterhawk accidentally kicked something; a roundish, pale-white object that rolled half a meter or so down the sloped aisle before hitting the wall with a thud.

“Careful!” Dreja hissed, swinging her flashlight around to illuminate the object.

It was a metahuman skull: an ork, from the look of the tusks. Its owner was obviously long dead; the tattered bits of hair and flesh that still clung to it were dry and desiccated.

Dreja stared at it, swallowing hard. “Fraggin’ cannibals…” she muttered.

“Keep moving,” Ocelot said, nudging her forward.

They’d made it about halfway down the aisle when Maya spoke in Winterhawk’s mind: “They’re moving.” Nearly at the same time, the other spirit reported the same thing.

“The drone’s sensors are picking up something—” Cosworth’s voice came over the link.

It happened fast after that. Several near-simultaneous clicks sounded from several different directions, and hunched figures detached themselves from the shadows at the front of the theater.

“Behind us!” Ocelot snapped, whirling and bringing his gun around.

Winterhawk turned too, to spot more figures, two on each side, blocking the exit doorways. He looked up to see more of them leaning over the balcony, aiming what looked suspiciously like guns in their direction.

“Frag…” Dreja whispered over the link as she aimed at the pair of ghouls blocking the way they’d come in.

“Wait!” Winterhawk said.

“Wait for what?”

“Look.” He was facing back toward the stage again, and pointed.

Four of the figures were heading up the aisle—toward the group.

CHAPTER 21

LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

Dreja and Ocelot took cover instantly, diving behind two different rows of seats. Dreja still had her AK-98 trained back up the aisle, while Ocelot leveled his shotgun at the approaching figures.

Winterhawk remained where he was. “Keep an eye on them,” he told Maya. He summoned an armor spell around him, but otherwise didn’t move.

“They’re wary,” she said. “I think they’re as afraid of you as you are of them.”

That was very odd. He watched them as they drew closer: four shabby, pale figures dressed in ragged clothes and threadbare coats, their eyes shining bright little pinpoints out of deep-set hollows in their gray faces. None of them appeared to be armed, and they flinched away from the lights Ocelot and Cosworth’s little drone were shining on them.

“Cosworth, tone down the light a bit,” Winterhawk said. Then, louder, to the ghouls: “You lot: That’s quite far enough.”

“Why are you wasting time talking to them?” Dreja asked over the link. “Fry them with a fireball or something so we can get the headware and get the frag out of here.”

“So quick to kill,” he murmured. “Just be quiet a moment.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the four ghouls, who had stopped at his order.

“’Hawk…” Ocelot’s voice was tight with tension.

“Shh.” To the ghouls, he said, “We’re here because we want something you’ve taken from us. If you let us have it, we’ll leave you in peace.”

For a moment it looked like they weren’t going to answer him, but then a thin, older-looking male shook his head. “You can’t have him…” he said. His voice was creaky, as if he’d fallen out of the habit of using it.

“He’s ours now,” said another one. Younger: a bit more muscle on his spare frame. “And so are you.” From up in the balcony, some of the other ghouls murmured agreement.

“Mind your manners,” Winterhawk replied in an even tone, “and we’ll mind ours.” He kept his focus on the older man, who was apparently the group’s leader. “Make a move on us, and we’ll have the lot of you dead before you can get near us. I’d advise you not to test us on that.” He paused, letting the words sink in for a beat, then added, “But it doesn’t have to come to that, does it?”

“There are only three of them,” said the group’s sole female. “Look at them. So much lovely flesh…”

Winterhawk started to reply, but before he could, the old man jerked his head in her direction. “Quiet, Clarice!” he ordered, waving at her with a gnarled, clawed hand. She hissed, but faded back. “You will go now. We won’t attack if you leave.”

“We’re going,” Winterhawk said. “But first we need to talk.” He took a deep breath. He didn’t like what he was going to say, and he doubted his teammates would either. Whatever else he was, Toby Boyd had been a decent enough dwarf. He didn’t deserve this fate, and in a way, Winterhawk felt as though it was his fault that the dwarf had ended up here. He should have realized that Kivuli was planning something. How he should have realized it, he wasn’t quite sure, but that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty about it. “We’re not here for the dwarf. We know he’s already dead, and we know you didn’t kill him. It’s something he…has on him that we need.”

“He had nothing,” one of the young male ghouls said. His voice was raspy, his posture oddly twisted. “Guignol, he’s stalling. There are more of them outside.”

“There are,” Winterhawk said quickly, “but they won’t come in unless we give the word. Isn’t that right, Cosworth?”

“You’re the boss,” the rigger’s voice, full of skeptical confusion, came through a tiny speaker on the drone. “Hurry it up, though. Those gangers are gettin’ a little restless out here.”

The old ghoul, Guignol, considered. “Ezra is right,” he said at last. “The dwarf had nothing on him.”

“He has headware,” Winterhawk said. “All we need to do is let our decker come in here and retrieve the data from it. It will be quick.”

“We could sell that,” Ezra protested. He tugged at Guignol’s sleeve. “We could—”

“I don’t believe this,” Dreja said over the link. “Quit fragging around. Let’s just take ’em down and get on with it.”

Winterhawk ignored her. “Make your choice,” he said. “Let us take what we want and leave peacefully, or—” he shrugged. “My friends here are frightfully fast and well-armed, and not feeling charitable at present. And you can see my aura, so you know what I am. Do you think you can take us down, as well as our friends outside, before we level this place and everything in it?”

The other younger male ghoul made a strange sound, halfway between a groan and a whimper. Ezra glared at them, but didn’t move. Clarice remained silently behind Guignol, regarding them through narrowed, filmy-white eyes.

After a moment, the old ghoul sighed, and his bony shoulders sagged. “All we wanted was to be left alone.”

“There’s no reason we need to tell anyone you’re here,” Winterhawk said softly.

The ghoul’s eyes came up, his ugly face searching the mage’s. “Don’t lie to an old man, boy.”

“Are you going to let us retrieve what we came for?”

Several seconds passed. The ghouls were silent. The rats skittered around beneath the seats, and the stench settled more oppressively over the auditorium. Finally, Guignol nodded, once. “You have ten minutes,” he said. “I can guarantee your safety until then. After that…”

Dreja was already on the link. “Send Scuzzy in here. Fast.”

“Like hell,” the decker’s voice protested. “I’m not goin’ in—”

“Get your ass in here, kid, or I’ll shoot it off when I get back out there,” she growled. Then she glared at Winterhawk. “You better know what the hell you’re doing.”

Guignol waved his clawed hand, and the two ghouls blocking the entrance moved over to join those on the other side.

The little drone trundled back up and disappeared out the door, and after a minute returned with a very nervous-looking Scuzzy trailing behind it. He got a look at the ghouls and stopped, eyes wide and mouth open.

“Come on,” Ocelot said. He was still crouched behind the seats, as was Dreja. Neither of them had lowered their weapons. “Clock’s tickin’.”

Scuzzy stood where he was for a moment, clearly poised between moving forward and bolting back the way he’d come. Finally, he crept forward and joined Winterhawk.

Without a word, the four ghouls turned and began to walk back to the short stairway leading up to the stage. The runners followed, with Winterhawk taking lead this time. Scuzzy went next, and Ocelot and Dreja brought up the rear. 

“Keep the drone out in the auditorium,” Dreja said over the link. “Let us know if they make a move.”

“Roger that.”

The smell, if anything, got worse as they mounted the stairs and crossed the stage. Their feet creaked on the rotting wood. A tattered, mold-eaten curtain that looked as if it had once been made of fine red velvet hung at the back of the stage. The ghouls passed through it, motioning for the runners to follow.

Winterhawk paused a moment to check with Maya. “Are they waiting to ambush us back there?”

“No. There are four more of them, and they’re gathered near the body.”

He nodded, motioning the others forward, and stepped through the curtain.

On the other side was a large, open space. Boxes and old furniture were arranged to make the place look like some kind of clubhouse. The ghouls had dragged in a row of four theater seats from the auditorium and, along with a ripped sofa, a couple of boxes with cushions on them, and a scarred old coffee table, created a sitting area. The other four ghouls were seated here.

Toby Boyd’s body—or what was left of it—was on the table. It was missing both legs, which were nowhere in evidence, and had been neatly eviscerated. Clearly the ghouls had been hungry, and just as clearly they worked fast.

Behind him, Winterhawk heard Ocelot swallow hard a couple of times, and Dreja make an odd, strangled noise. He himself tightened his jaw and tried not to look too closely at the body. Not because the sight disgusted him—it did, but only because of the regret he felt for Boyd’s fate and his hand in it.

Scuzzy had no such restraint. He shifted from foot to foot, gurgled in the back of his throat, and then darted off to the side, where he was loudly sick all over the floor.

“Scuzzy, get the hell over here!” Dreja ordered, hurrying over to grab his arm and drag him back, none too gently. She pointed in the vague direction of Boyd’s body without looking straight at it. “Get to work.”

The decker swallowed again and nodded. His pasty complexion had gone an unhealthy shade of green, clashing with his blue hair.

Guignol, obviously aware of their discomfort, herded his companions away from the body. They complied, reluctantly, and gathered on the far side of the room. Their expressions suggested a pack of predators acutely aware that someone was about to run off with their kill. Guignol himself drifted off to the other side of the body, his gaze never leaving it.

Winterhawk moved to approach him. Ocelot grabbed his arm and gave him a what the hell are you doing? look, but he just shook it off and continued. He studied the old ghoul for a moment in silence. “How long have you been here?”

Guignol shrugged. “We don’t pay much attention to time these days.”

“The gangers outside. They help you, then?”

He nodded. “We help each other. We keep the neighborhood clear, and they bring us anyone they kill.” A pause, and then: “You could have killed us. I see what you are. You and your friends.”

Winterhawk watched Scuzzy as he crouched next to Boyd’s head. “No point. We’re in a hurry.”

“Whatever is in that headware must be very important to you.”

He nodded, but didn’t otherwise answer.

The link crackled. “Uh, guys?” Cosworth’s voice was a little too loud. “We got trouble.”

“What is it?” Dreja snapped.

“Incoming. Cops, it looks like.”

“Close?” Ocelot asked.

“Not yet. Picked it up on the scanner, and sent up the drone to spot ’em. They’re headed this way. You got maybe five minutes before we gotta jet.”

Winterhawk stepped forward. “Scuzzy? Anything yet?”

“No!” The decker’s voice was distracted and strained. “This drek’s encrypted. You want me to work in the middle of a pack of fraggin’ ghouls, it’s gonna take time.”

“We don’t have time,” Dreja said, glancing back toward the curtain. “We need to go. Now.”

“You can’t rush this!” Scuzzy whined. Glistening beads of oily sweat stood out on his forehead. “You want the data or not? If I screw this up, you’ll have a big, fat, corrupted pile of nothing!”

Winterhawk considered, then made a decision he didn’t want to make. “Take his head.”

“What?” Ocelot demanded, looking at him like he’d gone crazy.

“We can’t wait. Take the head.” He looked at Guignol. “Sorry. No choice.”

“But the brain—” Ezra protested, stepping out of the pack.

Guignol silenced him with a look. His gaze shifted from his group to the runners, then he nodded.

Winterhawk turned to Ocelot. “Do you still have that whip of yours?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Fastest way. Do it.”

“’Hawk—”

“Do it.” Winterhawk took several deep breaths; suddenly his heart was racing and it was too hot in here. He heard the stress in his voice but did nothing to temper it. In the shadows the ghouls crept forward a step, obviously sensing his weakness. There wasn’t time for diplomacy. “After all the times you’ve accused me of losing my edge—”

“Frag!” Ocelot snarled. Then he jerked a small object from his pocket. “Get outta the way, Scuzzy.”

The decker scuttled backward. “What are you gonna—”

Ocelot took careful hold of the counterweight on the end of his monowhip, then stretched it out. The line was so thin that he looked like he was doing nothing more than spreading his arms, as if getting ready to conduct an orchestra. He paused for just a moment, hovered his spread hands over the dwarf’s neck, then made a fast downward motion. 

Toby Boyd’s head separated neatly and mostly bloodlessly from his body. It rolled sideways and came to rest, its open, staring eyes fixed on the runners.

“Holy drek,” Scuzzy breathed. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Guignol silently offered a discarded bag. Winterhawk motioned for him to hold it open, then made a gesture and the head levitated upward and dropped neatly into it. “Thank you,” the mage said, taking the bag.

“I hope you were speaking the truth,” the old ghoul said. “About not telling anyone about us.”

He nodded once, then hurried to follow the others.

Cosworth’s voice grew more agitated as they hurried back out to the street. “They’re almost here,” he said. “Couple more blocks. Come on!”

They piled into the Bulldog. Tiny had already moved the dumpster out of the way, and apparently the gangers hadn’t bothered him while he was doing it. As soon as they were all inside, the rigger spun the van around and rocketed off into the night.

It wasn’t until they were a couple of blocks away that Cosworth let his breath out. “That was close. I hope you guys got what you were after.”

Winterhawk regarded the bag, the bottom of which was wet with blood. He blinked a couple of times, trying to fend off the headache and lightheadedness that had nothing to do with the fact that he was holding a severed head in a sack. “So do I.”

CHAPTER 22

SAFE HOUSE 
LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

They made it back to the safe house without attracting any attention from law enforcement. Winterhawk left Boyd’s head with Scuzzy and retired to one of the bedrooms to lie down. As he was leaving, the decker had put the head on a cookie sheet he’d found in one of the kitchen cabinets, covered it with a dish towel, and was trying not to look at it as he tapped away at his deck.

Winterhawk flung himself down on the bed and stared up at the cracked ceiling. He couldn’t get Toby Boyd out of his mind. He had barely known the dwarf—he’d hardly had a chance to connect with him at all before everything had gone pear-shaped, and the dominatrix illusion hadn’t been one of his finest moments, magic-wise—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he and his team had done their jobs better, Boyd would still be alive. If he’d assensed Kivuli, maybe he’d have spotted some duplicity in her, or if he’d managed to put up with Scuzzy long enough to ask him to do some background research on the others, then—

He shook his head and sighed. That kind of thinking was counterproductive. What was done was done, and now they had to make the best of the leftovers. He just hoped whatever Scuzzy found in Boyd’s headware, it truly would point them at the next stage of the run. He was acutely aware of his remaining time ticking away, already wondering if he had enough left for them to finish the job and get back to the Johnson. He wondered if he should have already made arrangements to get the team on their way to Australia, since that was where the man had said the object they had to retrieve was located. Australia was a big place, sure, but regardless of where they chose to land, they’d be a lot closer to their goal than if they waited here for Scuzzy to extract the data. The only thing that stopped him was the lingering idea that Boyd might have made a last-minute change to the plan and hidden the item somewhere else. The last thing he wanted to do was end up halfway across the world only to find out that the dwarf had somehow smuggled the item back into North America.

So many choices. Normally he didn’t have trouble making decisions: over the past few years he had headed up numerous expeditions of a similar type, directing the activities of anywhere from a few to dozens of people. But it was a hell of a lot harder to do when you could practically feel the poison’s insidious tendrils creeping through your own body, wondering what sort of damage they were already doing, and how much of it would be irreversible.

He was about to get up and locate his stash of painkillers when there was a knock on the door. Thinking it was probably Ocelot, he called, “Come in.”

It wasn’t Ocelot. Instead, Dreja’s lean, muscular form filled the doorway. “Got a minute?”

He sighed. The last thing he wanted to do right now was get into it with the ork again, but maybe Scuzzy had found something. He sat up, shrugged, and waved her into the room.

She paced for a moment, which was a departure from her usual direct approach.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Winterhawk asked, a bit of impatience touching his tone.

She turned and faced him, but when she spoke, her own tone was quiet, with no trace of challenge or belligerence. “I want to talk about those ghouls.”

“What about them?”

Her eyes shifted away. “I—wanted to kill them.”

“Yes, I know.” He didn’t try to keep the contempt from his voice. “Listen, I really don’t want to—”

“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant. I wanted to kill them. You treated them like people. Why did you do that?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Because they are people.”

She began pacing again, looking troubled. “Yeah. They are. And I wanted to blow them away because I wouldn’t see that.”

The mage frowned. The conversation was taking a completely different turn than he’d expected. “Is there a point you’re trying to make here?”

“I don’t know,” she said, still refusing to be provoked. “How did you know they weren’t going to attack us?”

“The fact that they didn’t,” he said. “Feral ghouls don’t hang about conversing with their meals. They just strike, fast and preferably from ambush.”

She appeared to consider that. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “A pack of ghouls killed a couple of my old teammates a few years back. Ripped ’em to pieces, right in front of the rest of us. Ever since then, I’ve been happy to cack ’em and turn ’em in for the bounty when I can. I’ve heard of the ones that aren’t like that, but I never actually met one. You have?”

“A few, actually. One of them’s a bloody good decker. I wish I could have brought her along for this run, and not just because she smells better than Scuzzy.”

She nodded, stopping her pacing again to regard him for a long moment. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone. Just wanted to know that.”

“Let me know if Scuzzy finds anything.”

“I’m sure you’ll hear him,” she said as she drifted toward the door.

“Dreja?”

She paused. “Yeah?”

“Are you going to turn this lot in for the bounty?”

There was a long pause as she lingered in the open doorway. She half-turned, not looking back at him. “No,” she said at last, and closed the door as she left.

Winterhawk returned to the front room shortly afterward to find Scuzzy still bent over Boyd’s head. The faint stench of decay had begun to permeate the air, but the decker appeared to be deep into his task and paying no attention to it. Winterhawk paused a moment to watch him, tensing as his traitorous mind once again served up possibilities of what might happen if Scuzzy couldn’t retrieve the data, or if it was hopelessly corrupted. His headache hadn’t responded to the painkillers; the brief rest hadn’t done anything to alleviate the lightheadedness or the growing feeling of unease. After a few moments, he moved on.

The others, all but Cosworth, who was apparently out in the garage tinkering with the Bulldog, were having a low, heated discussion. They all stopped and looked up as Winterhawk came in. The mage regarded them with a raised eyebrow. “Am I interrupting something?”

“We’re talking about how we’re gonna go after Kivuli,” Tiny said. “That bitch fragged us over, and we need to find her.”

Winterhawk noticed that Dreja was nodding agreement. Ocelot neither said nor revealed anything. “No,” the mage said firmly.

“Whaddya mean, no?” The samurai glared, clutching the armrests of his chair. “It’s her fault we’re in this mess. It’s her fault Boyd’s dead. You could find her with magic. Send one of your spirits out.”

Damn it, I don’t want to deal with this now. Winterhawk swiped the back of his hand across his forehead and matched Tiny’s glare with an icy one of his own. “I said no. We’re not going after anyone. As soon as Scuzzy downloads the data, we’re going where it takes us.”

“Look,” Dreja said, her old stubborn expression settling back over her features, “Tiny’s kind of an idiot, but in this case he’s right. You can’t let somebody get away with drek like that. They start thinking they can, they win. You don’t betray your team.”

“You too?” Why is it so hot in here? “Perhaps you didn’t hear me, so I’ll repeat: We’re not going after anyone. We’ve got a job to do and a limited amount of time to do it. We’re not wasting time on pointless side trips.”

“Pointless?” Tiny demanded. “So you’re just gonna let her get away with it?”

“We need to find her and figure out who she’s working for,” Dreja said. “If she’s gone off to report to someone, she could cause trouble with the rest of the run.”

Winterhawk closed his eyes for a moment. His head pounded in rhythm with his increased heartbeat; the three figures in front of him swam in his vision as his balance shifted, and he had to grab the top of Ocelot’s chair to keep from falling over. When he spoke again, his voice was sharp, harsh, and left no room for any dissent: “You also might have forgotten the fact that I’m the one who hired you for this job. That means I make the decisions. This isn’t a democracy. Scuzzy!” he called, his voice rising to a bark. “Anything yet?”

“Getting close,” came the decker’s distracted voice. “Don’t talk to me right now!”

Winterhawk turned back to the three others. “Now, then. I don’t want to hear any more objections. We’re going to wait for the data. After we’ve found the location of the objective, we’re going where it is and retrieving it. That’s the way it’s going to be. Anyone else want to discuss it?”

“Yeah. I do,” Dreja said, her voice rising, too. “I really don’t like leaving a loose end out there in the wind. Loose ends come back and bite you on the ass at all the wrong times. And besides, you might be paying the tab for this job, but you hired us for our expertise. We’re telling you it’s a bad idea to let Kivuli skate. You’ve been out of the shadows so long you don’t even remember the way it’s supposed to go down when things like this happen.”

“What she said,” Tiny said, his expression growing more stubborn. “It’s bad biz and a bad idea.”

Ocelot stood. He was eyeing Winterhawk with a mix of anger and concern. “What’s goin’ on, ’Hawk? Are you all right?”

The mage whirled and strode over to the window. He moved the closed blinds aside and glared out into the night, struggling to get himself under control. He’d had episodes before, and they’d passed. He just needed a few moments to focus without everybody wanting something from him—

“’Hawk?”

All at once, something snapped inside him. He spun back, his rage and frustration and fear all rising up on a vast tide that threatened to engulf him. “No!” he yelled. “I am bloody well not all right! I’m about as far from all right as I can be at present, and you lot prattling on at me isn’t making anything any better!” He fought to get his voice under control; his rational side didn’t like the sound of that sharp, bright edge that was coloring it, but right now he had no more power to affect it than he did to spontaneously neutralize the poison coursing through his body. He sagged again, dropping to his knees.

Ocelot moved in that swift way of his that seemed not to cover any intervening ground between his starting point and his ending point. All at once he was next to the mage, and like the others he stared at him with confusion. “’Hawk. What’s going on?”

Winterhawk focused on him for a moment, then dragged himself up, stalked over and flung himself into his vacated chair. The others were still staring, shocked. He could feel the burn of their eyes on him, and he wanted to run, or scream, or lash out at them with the full measure of his magic until they weren’t looking at him anymore. If everyone could just leave him the hell alone—

And then he stopped. The rage ebbed away as quickly as it had come, leaving behind nothing but despair and an unutterable, bone-deep weariness. He realized that, subconsciously, he had been living with some growing subset of this despair ever since he’d left the Johnson’s presence, and it was sapping his strength and will every bit as effectively as the poison was.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he muttered. He looked up at them, meeting their confused gazes in turn, lingering longer on Ocelot’s and Dreja’s than Tiny’s. “The bottom line is, I haven’t got time to waste. You’re right: it’s probably a good idea to find her. But I don’t have time. If I don’t finish this run and get this thing back to the Johnson, I’m dead in four days. Maybe fewer.” He dropped his gaze into his lap, clasping and unclasping shaking hands.

“What?” Ocelot and Dreja demanded at the same time, and Tiny sat up straighter in his chair.

Ocelot came back over and perched on the edge of the coffee table, his eyes searching Winterhawk’s face. “What the hell are you talking about? I think you better explain that.”

And so he did. Without looking at any of them, speaking in a dull and lifeless monotone, he told them the whole story: the auction, the abduction, Mr. Johnson’s meet, the poison, the time limit. None of them spoke; he didn’t know if they were looking at him, and he didn’t care. He kept speaking until he didn’t have anything else to say, and it wasn’t until he finished that he looked up to see what effect his words were having on them.

For several moments there was no sound save for the soft taps of Scuzzy’s fingers on his deck as they all just sat there, stunned into silence.

Finally, Ocelot said, “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Winterhawk shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I thought I could handle it. Maybe I thought you wouldn’t agree to the run if you thought I wouldn’t be able to see it through. I really don’t know the answer, honestly.” He swept his gaze around them. “So—that’s it, then.”

“That’s what?” Dreja asked.

He didn’t get to answer, because at that moment Scuzzy looked up in triumph. “Got it!” he crowed, yanking the wire out of Boyd’s datajack.

CHAPTER 23

SAFE HOUSE 
LOS ANGELES 
SATURDAY MORNING

Winterhawk leaped from the chair and hurried to him. “Is the data there? It’s not corrupted?”

The decker grinned. “It’s all here,” he said, patting his deck. “Hang on, I’ll shoot it to you.” His fingers danced over the screen and then he punched an icon. “There ya go. You can look it over first, and then I’ll send it to everybody else.”

“Just send it to them now,” he said, digging out his AR-viewer monocle. “No point in hiding anything—we’ll all have to know before we leave anyway.”

Scuzzy did as requested. Winterhawk slumped back into Ocelot’s vacated chair and immediately began perusing the data. The poison flare-up episode had quieted, mostly, leaving behind only the headache that was becoming a constant companion. He examined the files one after another, his breathing picking up; he wasn’t a religious man, but if he’d been one he would have been praying hard to find no surprises in them.

Most of the file was in the form of a video diary Boyd had kept while on a working trip to Australia to study local flora with his team. He described being caught in a manastorm-created earthquake, finding a hidden cave, and discovering an odd artifact that he could tell was ancient, magical, and powerful. He held it up: it was a carved figure of a stylized coiled serpent, intricately covered with symbols and figures.

Winterhawk’s eyes narrowed as he examined it as well as he could in the small window. Obviously he couldn’t sense any magic in it in the video, but he’d seen other examples of Aboriginal magical artifacts in his career. This one was clearly such an artifact, but its form—and especially the symbols—were like nothing he’d ever encountered before. It was possible the item was valuable—but it was equally possible that the dwarf had either found or created a fake in hopes of convincing Mr. Johnson to arrange the extraction.

Everyone else was still watching the video and examining the data. Ocelot looked up first. “So, Australia. And not just Australia: out in the middle of the fraggin’ Outback.” He tilted his head, eyeing Winterhawk critically. “Never been there, but I’ve heard it’s bad news if you’re not familiar with it. You sure you’re up to—”

“I’m sure I don’t have a choice, do I?” the mage snapped, shoving aside an AR window to get a better look at him.

Dreja was the next to emerge from the small forest of windows. She too looked at Winterhawk, but her eyes were narrowed. “This is a magical artifact we’re after,” she said, her voice even. “An Aboriginal magical artifact. And you want to find it and take it back to some Johnson we don’t even know anything about.”

Winterhawk sighed. He’d seen this coming for a long time, and hoped that whatever was in the file wouldn’t cause a problem with the idealistic ork. “Yes,” he said. There was no way to hide it: it was right there in the file.

Ocelot was still reading. “Wait, he left this thing with his sister, in a biker gang? So we’re gonna have to track down a bunch of bikers in the middle of the Outback? How the hell are we supposed to do that in the time we got? We can’t just call her up, right?”

“Nope,” Scuzzy said. “Matrix connectivity out there is crap. Once you get out away from the cities, you’re lucky if you can get anything at all. And it doesn’t look like this chica hangs out near the cities.”

“So how we gonna find her?” Tiny demanded.

Dreja shoved a map in front of them. “Here,” she said. “It looks like they’ve got a home base at some abandoned outpost or ghost town out near someplace called Kookynie.”

Winterhawk looked it over. “Even if she’s not there, we might find someone who knows how to reach her,” he said, sighing. “I was hoping for something a bit more definitive, but we’ll go with what we have.”

 “The Outback,” Tiny said, looking dubious “Ain’t gonna be easy, gettin’ out there. I ain’t been there, but I’ve run with chummers who have. Nobody just goes out there for fun. You’re out in the middle of fraggin’ nowhere, there’s no water, and every damn thing you run into is tryin’ to kill you.”

“We’d better make sure we’re prepared, then,” Winterhawk said. “Are you sure this is all there is, Scuzzy?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I grabbed all the files in there. Can we get rid of this head now? It’s starting to really ick me out.”

Winterhawk ignored him. He turned back to the others. “So,” he said after a pause. “Where does this leave us, then?”

“What do you mean?” Ocelot asked.

The mage got up and began a restless prowl that took him from one side of the room to the other. “You all agreed to do the first part of the job, and you have. Not exactly the way I’d have planned it, but that’s not your fault. We got the data, and we know the where the artifact is. The next phase is to go to Australia and retrieve it.” He paused again, trying to decide the best way to continue. “Some of you have indicated to me that your participation in Phase Two of our little adventure is contingent upon what we discovered in the data. So, I guess we’re at a bit of a crossroads right now, aren’t we?” He looked straight at Dreja as he said it.

“So—” Ocelot began.

“So,” Winterhawk said, resuming his pacing, “I need to know who’s still in and who isn’t. Regardless of what you decide, I need to get moving. Now you know why. It’s not really an option for me to quit at this point. But the rest of you—”

“I’m in,” Scuzzy said instantly. “Hell, I shoulda started doing runs in the meat a long time ago. I didn’t realize how much more fun it is out here.” He cocked his head at the tea-towel-covered lump on the cookie sheet. It was beginning to seep. “You know, aside from the disgusting severed heads and ghouls and stuff.”

Ocelot looked troubled. “Yeah, frag it, I’m in too,” he said after a long moment. “I don’t like it, ’Hawk. I don’t like any of this. But I ain’t gonna leave you on your own.”

Tiny appeared to still be examining the AR displays. “Gonna cost you extra,” he said. “You ain’t payin’ me enough to go all the way to fraggin’ Australia. I got expenses, you know?” He looked up and met Winterhawk’s gaze; there was challenge in his own, almost as if he were saying, you ain’t got much choice, do you?

Winterhawk didn’t answer right away. He moved with preternatural calm until he was standing in front of Tiny. He kept his expression and his tone utterly still. “Suppose you tell me how much more you want.”

Tiny looked like he was going to answer, then got a look at something in Winterhawk’s eyes that the rest of the group couldn’t see. “Uh—” he protested, scrambling. “Hey, back off, chummer. I’m not tryin’ to screw you over or anything. What do you think I am, anyway?” He thought a moment, then ventured, “Another ten?”

Winterhawk remained still for a beat, just long enough to make his point. Then he nodded. “Ten is reasonable,” he said. “For each of you. On completion.” When Tiny started to say something else, he held up a hand. “I’ll leave the funds in escrow with Ocelot. That way if things…don’t go well for me, you’ll still have your payment. Is that acceptable?”

The samurai nodded, satisfied. “Yeah. I’m good.”

The mage dropped back down into his chair and leaned forward. “Just you left,” he said softly to Dreja. “I need an answer. We should already be on our way.”

She didn’t answer for a long time. Then she stood up. “Make your arrangements,” she said. “I need some time to think.”

Winterhawk nodded as if he expected it. “Not too long.”

“Yeah.” She left the room and disappeared into the back of the house. After a moment they all heard a door close behind her.

Winterhawk hovered over Scuzzy at the kitchen table, watching as the decker struggled to work out the fastest and least problematic way to get a group of individuals all sporting highly illegal modifications to Australia in the shortest possible timeframe, when a message flashed in the corner of his AR display: 

<We need to talk.>

The mage glanced up at the others. Ocelot was prowling around the front part of the house, working off his restless energy. It was obvious he wanted to discuss the situation more, but hadn’t made any move to do so yet. He caught Winterhawk’s eye, but didn’t hold his gaze. Tiny sat on the couch, his big gear bag open, the components of his Ares HVAR spread out over the coffee table as he checked and carefully cleaned each bit. “Keep working,” Winterhawk told Scuzzy. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Dreja stood in front of the window in the house’s other back bedroom. She didn’t turn around when Winterhawk came in. He waited for her to speak.

“You know,” she said, still without turning, “When your friend called me about this job, I was going to turn it down. The second I found out you were involved.”

“I had the same reaction when he suggested you,” he said.

She did turn then, studying him with expressionless calm. “Everything I ever heard about you made me hate you. And then that job, where you and your little group of vultures beat me to that carving—”

He shrugged. “I can’t help what I am.”

“No,” she agreed. “Some of it, you can’t. But you never tried to help the rest of it, either. People like you just go through life like everything’s just there for the taking.” Her lip curled around her tusks. “I mean, look at you. Is there any privilege you don’t have? You’re human. You’re male. You’re attractive. You have money. You’re a mage. And you just accept all of that like it’s the way things are supposed to be.” She paused. “You never had to worry about where your next meal was coming from, did you?”

“Not really, no,” he said softly.

“You never had to watch anybody you loved die. Kids. Old people. You never had to watch your friends’ families getting driven out of their crappy, roach-infested dosses because Humanis or some group of asshole human rich kids decided it’d be fun to frag with the tuskers.” Bitterness tinged her tone, but her expression was hard.

He shook his head. “No. I haven’t had to do that. But I’ve also never been the cause of anything like that.”

“Not directly,” she agreed. “I’ll give you that: I’ve never heard anything about you being anti-meta. That’s something, I guess.”

Winterhawk sat down on the bed. “Dreja, I’ll be straight with you. I have neither the time nor the desire to get into some sort of class-war debate with you right now. None of that matters a damned bit to me at the moment. I need to finish this job, I need to do it fast, and I need good people to help me. You’ve been a valuable member of this team, and I think we’d have a better chance of success if you came along. But—” He got up. “I suspected that ever since we found out what sort of item we were set to retrieve, I wouldn’t be able to count on you going forward.”

He crossed the room to the doorway. “I can’t blame you for that. You were never anything but up-front about what you would and wouldn’t do. So I’ll see to the rest of your pay, and—”

“I’m going along,” she said.

He stopped. “What?”

“Tell Scuzzy to get another seat on whatever we’re going to Australia in,” she said, her tone flat and dispassionate.

He turned back. “Why?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I’m an idiot. Maybe I need the money, or else some bad people are gonna track me down and rearrange my face. Maybe I just don’t like to leave a job unfinished. Bad for the professional pride.”

He continued to watch her, waiting.

She picked up her bag. “Maybe it’s all that. Or maybe this is the first time I’ve ever heard Mr. High-and-Mighty Mage admit that he’s anything less than in control of a situation.” She shrugged. “I still don’t like you. But maybe I understand you a little better now.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not one of your lost causes, Dreja.”

“Maybe not,” she said, one corner of her mouth quirking up a bit. “But having somebody like you admit you need me, when I know you’d rather eat ground glass than do it, feels damn good on the ego.” She slung the bag over her shoulder. “Now come on. Time’s wasting, and I ain’t draggin’ your fancy ass all over the Outback if you get too fragged up to move under your own power.”

Out front, Scuzzy put the finishing touches on the travel arrangements. He still sat at the kitchen table, with his deck in front of him. He’d shoved Boyd’s increasingly malodorous, towel-covered head as far away as it would go, and turned his chair so he could surreptitiously watch the others as he continued perusing the files he’d gotten from the dwarf’s headware. He hadn’t been lying: he was convinced that he’d retrieved everything that could be retrieved, and he’d sent everything he’d found to the others.

This feeling of having everyone pleased with him—of feeling like a valued member of the team—was something he wasn’t used to, and he allowed himself a little time to bask in it now. Usually, the jobs he did were on a virtual-only basis, at his insistence. While he had a rep for doing a good and thorough job, being remote meant he never felt fully like a member of any of the teams he’d run with. Even though he preferred interacting with the world through his Matrix avatar, he was finding lately that it was hard to be part of a team when you never let anybody see what you really looked like. That was what had led him to accept this job; well, that and being hopped up on too much caffeine and too little sleep when he’d said yes. By the time he’d panicked and come to his senses, it was too late to back out.

This Winterhawk guy, even though he could be more than a bit full of himself, had played straight with him. He’d treated him like a competent and useful part of the overall team. Not too many people had done that. And this whole business with Mr. Johnson and the poison was pretty fragged up. Nobody deserved that.

Scuzzy decided that maybe he should try to do something for the mage in return. Glancing up to make sure nobody was watching him, he slouched down in his chair and, with great care, began setting a few things into motion.

CHAPTER 24

PERTH, AUSTRALIA 
SUNDAY NIGHT

Scuzzy hadn’t been able to get them all on the same plane to Perth: on such short notice, it was safer to split the group. Winterhawk and Ocelot went together on one flight that left Los Angeles early Sunday morning; they now sat in a small tourist bar near the airport that rocked the whole kangaroos-and-boomerangs aesthetic, waiting for the others to arrive. It was a little before midnight, local time.

They hadn’t gotten much chance to talk on the plane. Ocelot was clearly nervous; even though his fake SIN was in order, he’d left all of his toys except his monowhip at home, planning to pick up replacements locally. He spent the entire flight keeping watch from his window seat as if expecting someone to jump them in midflight. Winterhawk had taken the opportunity to grab a catnap and ended up sleeping for most of their time in the air. Unlike Ocelot, he wasn’t concerned about security issues: his SIN was legitimate these days, and he neither needed nor carried any weapons.

“So,” Ocelot said, lowering his voice as he finished his first beer and waved toward the cute blonde waitress for another one. “You holdin’ up okay?”

Winterhawk nodded. “Fine,” he said. It was a lie: his headache had increased beyond his basic-level painkillers’ ability to mitigate it, but he was reluctant to take anything stronger that might affect his mental edge. His extended nap on board the plane had been plagued by uneasy nightmares featuring the same sort of horrific creatures he’d seen during Mr. Johnson’s “demonstration” back at their original meet, which meant he didn’t feel any more rested now than he had before.

“So, what are you doing about this?” Ocelot asked.

“What do you mean?”

He snorted. “You heard me. You doin’ anything to try to figure out who’s behind it? Any idea who it might be?”

“Not really.” Winterhawk shook his head. “I sent out a few discreet inquiries to some trusted people after the meet, but so far no one’s come up with anything definitive. Whoever it was who did this, they were very careful. Almost as if they knew I’d check up on them, and the sort of resources I could call on.”

“What about this poison? You know anything about it?”

“No. I had Maya check me over, but I haven’t time to go find someone to do a full scan. If I’ve really got less than a week to get this done, even a brief side trip to visit someone I trust is more than I’m willing to risk. Especially since I’ve no way to know if they’ll even be able to figure out what it is.” He sighed. “I’m sure whoever this Johnson is, he’s got my blood. He certainly had me long enough to take it. I thought for a while that they might be bluffing, that they did something at the meet to make me think they’d poisoned me when they really didn’t.”

“How do you know that’s not what happened?” Ocelot asked. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier to just make you think they did something than to actually do it.”

“It would,” he agreed. “Except you’ve no idea how ghastly I feel right now. This isn’t psychosomatic. There’s something going on, and it’s getting worse.”

Ocelot took another pull of his beer, looking troubled. “I assume you’ve tried to figure out who you pissed off enough to do something like this to you.”

“I stopped when I reached two dozen,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “We made a lot of enemies in our day, and I made a lot more after we went our separate ways. I also did a bit of checking around the people who were at the auction, but once again, if they were behind it, they’re hiding it well. And as far as I can determine, they don’t have the background to be able to do something like this.”

“So you got nothin’, is what you’re saying.”

He nodded soberly. “I’m afraid my best hope right now is to finish this up as quickly as I can and hope that either the Johnson keeps his bargain, or one of my feelers comes back with something definitive before he has to.”

“What about this Lydia chick? The one who hired you. Is she connected with anybody?”

“Possibly. I don’t know. She’s been flitting around the black-market magical artifact circles for years, though—she’s from old money, and doesn’t have any issue with me as far as I know. As I said, I was reluctant to probe too deeply, since the Johnson implied they might be watching.”

Ocelot stared down into his glass. “Well, let’s get it done, then, I guess, if we got no other choice. When are the others getting here?”

As one of the major gateways to the Outback, Perth teemed with both established businesses and entrepreneurial individuals willing and eager to assist the would-be traveler. As Winterhawk and the rest of the team soon found, you could procure anything from simple guidance and advice to a full-service tourist extravaganza including all supplies, vehicles, and a planned itinerary that promised to provide the “full Outback experience.”

Naturally, they ignored all of this and headed straight for the shadowy end of town.

No matter where you were in the world, there was a certain commonality among bars that catered to the shadowrunning crowd, and Boomer’s was no exception. Tucked away down a narrow side street lined with trash, disreputable-looking characters, and vehicles that looked like crap but probably didn’t run like it, Boomer’s was, according to a response Winterhawk had received to an inquiry he’d sent to JackPointer Traveler Jones, the place to go if you were looking for fast, discreet, and competent assistance with Outback excursions of the less-than-legal variety. A weathered, hole-in-the-wall place sandwiched between a dodgy-looking electronics store and a strip joint, Boomer’s had little to announce it to the world aside from a pair of flickering beer signs and a couple of orks whose auras barely moved the meter on the astral plane out front having a smoke. They eyed the newcomers with squinty apathy.

Dreja and Tiny went in first, presenting a confidence that slipped just far enough into swagger that it was unlikely anyone in the bar would mess with them without a good reason. Ocelot, as usual, brought up the rear, keeping a watchful eye to make sure nobody got any ideas about jumping them from behind. Winterhawk and Scuzzy were in between, the former watchful but unfazed by the rough crowd, the latter slinking nervously along and trying to keep everything in sight at once without outright staring. The air hung heavy with beer, peanuts, and body odor. Around them, conversation buzzed in English, Afrikaans, and various Aboriginal tongues, and discreet but suspicious glances were cast their way. There was no way for Winterhawk and the others to hide their status as outsiders to the local shadow community, so they didn’t even try.

The man they were here to see sat near the back, lounging behind a little round table littered with empty beer glasses and peanut shells. He was a small, wiry human with dark skin, corkscrewing black-brown hair shaved at the temples to reveal numerous datajacks, and a lazy grin. His sleeveless T-shirt, which might at one point have been black but was now faded to a dusty gray, depicted Harley-Davidson’s bar-and-shield logo. He appeared to be splitting his attention between several AR screens, but when he spotted the group approaching him he shoved them all aside and flashed bright white teeth. 

“Well, look what the dingoes dragged in,” he said amiably. “Somebody’s a long way from home.”

“You Bodge?” Dreja asked.

“Maybe.” He looked her up and down. “Depends who’s askin’ and what they want. If my ex sent ya, then my name’s Henry.” He laughed and waved randomly in the air; after a moment a dwarf woman came by with a pitcher of beer and a tray full of glasses. “If not, pull up a brew and take a load off.”

All of them pulled up chairs around the small table, arranging themselves according to who had the most issues with facing away from the door. Winterhawk leaned back, watching the room’s shifting auras and listening to his head pound, content to let Dreja take point for this negotiation. He’d been to Australia before, and had even taken part in a couple of expeditions to the Outback, but they had been in association with the DIMR and had embarked out of Darwin far to the north, so he hadn’t had to handle any of the logistics of anything beyond the magical end. Maya perched on his shoulder on the astral plane, scanning the area for potential threats.

“So,” Bodge was saying. “Yer wantin’ to go out to the Big Red. What for?”

“That’s our business,” Dreja said. “But we need to do it fast. You might have guessed we’re new around here, so we’re lookin’ for somebody who can do the job without fraggin’ us over. Your name came up.”

Bodge shrugged. “Yeah, sure, I can do it,” he said. “If Traveler Jones vouches for ya, I’m satisfied. But I gotta know what I’m in for. If somebody gonna be shootin’ at my rig, I wanna know about it.”

“That gonna stop you from taking the job?” Ocelot asked.

“Nah—that just makes it more fun,” he said with a grin. “But it’s gonna cost ya extra. And if ya tell me there’s no shootin’ and then there ends up bein’ shootin’, it’s gonna cost ya even more extra. So it pays to be up-front about it, y’know?”

“With this lot, it’s never safe to say there won’t be shooting,” Winterhawk said. “But odds are good there won’t be, unless the people we’re going to talk to have issues with us.”

“Who ya goin’ to talk to?” the rigger asked. “Maybe I might know ’em. The Outback’s a big place, but not that many folks out there, y’know?”

“Dwarf woman who goes by Bluey,” Dreja said. “She runs with a biker gang called the Gypsies.”

Bodge nodded knowingly. “Don’t know her,” he said. “But I know of the Gypsies. Nice buncha blokes and sheilas, from what I hear. They ride with the Crows sometimes, but they got their own little base out by Kookynie. That’s a ghost town.”

“Would they be there now?” Ocelot asked. “We gotta find her fast.”

Bodge’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”

“We mean her no harm,” Winterhawk said quickly. “She has something we’re supposed to pick up. Her brother sent us.” That was, of course, not the full truth, but if you stretched things a bit it wasn’t a lie, either.

“How far is it?” Dreja asked. “How fast can you get us there?”

Bodge considered. “That’s close to 800 klicks northeast o’ here. If we don’t run into trouble an’ I drive straight through, nine-ten hours. That’s best case, mind. Best case never happens in the Big Red, so figure maybe twelve. Longer if we have any mechanical trouble or run into nasties.”

“We can handle nasties,” Ocelot said, holding up his right hand to show the tip of his cyberspur peeking up past his closed fist.

“Your rig ready to go?” Dreja asked. “Mechanical trouble could be a problem.”

“Mechanical trouble’s always a problem,” Bodge said with a philosophical shrug. “One thing ya learn around here: the Big Red does what it’s gonna do. Ya make the best preparations ya can, but the spirits got their own ideas, y’know? Can’t predict the manastorms, f’rinstance. And I’m bettin’ those are some nasties you and yer mates aren’t prepared for.”

“I’m familiar with manastorms,” Winterhawk said. “I’ve dealt with them before. No promises for the big ones, but I should be able to protect us from a smaller one if it comes up unexpectedly.”

Bodge eyed him. “Well, that makes things a little better,” he admitted. He leaned back and took another long pull on his beer. “Okay, then. So ya want me to take ya out to see this Bluey sheila and then bring ya back. That it?”

Winterhawk nodded. “Theoretically, yes. We need speed and reliability.”

“Reliability I got, and as much speed as anybody gets out here.” He set his glass down and eyed each of them in turn. “Okay, ya got yerself a driver. Two t’ousand up front, two more when I get ya back. We run into trouble, we talk extra. Yeah?”

Winterhawk nodded. “That’s fine.” He sent the initial payment to the rigger. He probably should have tried to bargain and likely could have secured Bodge’s services for less, but at this point he had neither the desire nor the energy to haggle with the rigger.

“We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow morning.”

Winterhawk’s commlink buzzed; he pulled up the message and found an address, which he sent around to the others. “Why tomorrow?” he asked, frowning. “I’d like to leave now if possible.”

“You are in a hurry, aren’t ya, mate? I’m kinda wonderin’ why yer in such a rush to talk to this Bluey, but none o’ my business long as yer straight with me. ’Sides,” he added, looking them over again, “None o’ you’re ready for the Big Red. Ya gonna need supplies. Here.” He sent Winterhawk another file. “That’s a list of what ya gonna need. I’ll take care of food, water, and fuel, but I ain’t a tour guide—I don’t keep the rest of it on hand. Ya can pick it up between now and then. Tell Morrie I sent ya, and he’ll give ya a discount.”

Dreja leaned forward. “We’ll need another recommendation too, if you got it.”

“Yeah?”

“We had to leave most of our weapons behind—flying commercial, neh? Need to pick up some replacements and ammo.”

Bodge’s blinding teeth flashed in the bar’s dim light as he laughed. “Ah, yeah. The important stuff. Thought ya said no shootin’. But yeah, I get it. Like I said: be prepared. No worries, I got ya covered there, too. No discount this time, though.”

CHAPTER 25

PERTH 
MONDAY MORNING

Part of why Kivuli had accepted the job of embedding herself with the shadowrunner team extracting Toby Boyd was that she was promised she could remain local. She had told her employer as a condition of accepting that she had no intention of going anywhere, let alone Australia. The mysterious employer had assured her that if she performed as instructed, she could collect her pay upon delivery of the information and their association would come to a mutually profitable end.

That lasted until the botched extraction attempt. Sometimes having a sense of honor could get in the way of simply disappearing until the heat blew over, but the fact that she’d failed so spectacularly at what should have been a simple job ate at her. Double-crossing her initial team didn’t bother her, because they hadn’t been her initial team. The whole point of the job was to infiltrate the extraction team and get hold of Toby Boyd long enough to get the information her employers needed. But this failure—and she did consider it a failure, despite the fact that some of the major components had been outside her control—was unacceptable to her.

Which meant that when the employer had contacted her again and told her to prepare to head to Australia and continue shadowing the team in order to find out where they were going, she had agreed without protest.

It wasn’t about the employer, now: it was about her. If she couldn’t make this right, she had no right calling herself a professional.

She initiated communication after doing a careful sweep of her cheap motel room for bugs. <I’ve arrived in Perth,> she sent. <Targets arrived a few hours ago.>

<Excellent,> came the reply. <Do you have anything to report?>

<They’ve hired a rigger to take them to the Outback. I didn’t want to risk talking to him, but I had success with the assistant at a shop where they purchased supplies.>

Ah, yes. Lonely young assistants were easy to dazzle with exotic elven charm. Kivuli didn’t like doing it—it seemed beneath her, somehow, to resort to something as crass as seduction. It was almost unfair. But when one needed information in a hurry, one used the tools at one’s disposal. A tiny application of laes made sure that the assistant wouldn’t have an attack of conscience later, and a few more inquiries in the shadow community provided her with the rest of what she needed to know.

<They’re leaving at dawn, headed to a ghost town called Kookynie.> She sent the coordinates. <My contact didn’t say so, but I found out Boyd’s sister runs with a biker gang based in that area. It makes sense that he might have left the package with her.>

<Very good,> her employer said. There was a long pause, presumably to look up the location. <It will take us a bit of time to move our operatives into place. Arrange with the local talent to leave immediately and…take care of the situation. We will follow up as soon as possible.>

<Acknowledged.>

CHAPTER 26

NATIONAL HIGHWAY 94 
WESTERN AUSTRALIA 
MONDAY MORNING

It was easy for Winterhawk to keep his mind away from uncomfortable thoughts while he and the others were involved in the flurry of activity to secure the supplies they needed for the trip into the Outback. Now, though, an hour or so after a blazing summertime sunrise had ushered them out of Perth’s snarled traffic and onto National Highway 94 leading east, he had settled uncomfortably into his own head.

Their conveyance, they had discovered upon arrival at the appointed location at dawn, was a battered, iron-gray Ford-Canada Bison, heavily customized to make it more fit for the unforgiving Outback travel and plastered with stickers, AR tags, and brightly painted native art. Bodge had insisted on giving them a brief tour of the vehicle, pointing out the plethora of locked exterior storage compartments (though, Winterhawk was sure, not all of them), an impressive collection of tools and spare parts, a large supply of water (“ya never go out to the Big Red without tools, spare parts, and water,” he told them. “Ya do, yer not just a drongo—yer a dead drongo”) and a weapons locker stocked with everything from pistols to a battered but nasty-looking FN MAG-5. He also showed them the exterior weaponry, consisting of a GM Light Cannon as the primary weapon, backed up by a Vindicator Minigun. “Anything messes with us, it’ll regret it,” he told them with pride.

The Bison was divided into three sections. The cab had two seats and an eclectic collection of decorations, including a swaying hula girl on the dashboard, a miniature stuffed wallaby in a tiny red T-shirt, and a collection of well-thumbed hardcopy skin mags that Bodge hastily swept under the shotgun seat. The greasy whiff of old soyburgers lingered in the air. The center section had a couple of bench seats, a trid unit, and a bank of windows with armored covers that were currently closed. The rear section included two narrow bunks, a microscopic head that would likely prove a challenge for Tiny, and several more closed boxes of supplies. “No worries,” he told them as they’d all settled into their places. “I do this all the time. I’ll get ya there quick-like. Just sit back and relax. I’ll let ya know if there’s anything ya need to worry about.”

Winterhawk doubted that Bodge had any inkling of what he was worried about. He slumped in the front passenger seat, looking out the window without really seeing anything, his thoughts far away. Only an hour out of Perth, the road was still paved and the scenery relatively unremarkable. He was sitting up here because he didn’t feel like fielding the sort of questions his team would likely come up with given time to consider them. He wished he could just sleep for the entire trip: he was constantly tired now, with a low-level ache in his chest that hadn’t risen past “annoying” yet, but which no amount of adjusting position, tossing back mild painkillers, or pain-mitigation spells would alleviate. Add the headache to that, and he wasn’t feeling at all social.

Bodge, however, was. “So,” he said, “What’s up with this sheila ya wanna talk to? She a friend or something?”

“No. Never met her. We knew her brother, back in Los Angeles.” It was always odd looking at riggers while they were working: since they directed their vehicles via wireless connection, there was no steering wheel or other controls, which gave the unsettling impression that they were either asleep or drugged out in their seats. Bodge had given the team limited privileges on the vehicle’s PAN, allowing them to follow its progress to their destination and monitor some aspects of the Bison’s operations and sensors, but the only thing Winterhawk was paying attention to was the map, and the progress of the green dot that represented them as it crept with agonizing slowness toward their far-off destination.

The rigger nodded. “Don’t look to me like ya had much preparation. Kinda sudden thing, eh?”

Winterhawk didn’t answer. Deciding the chatty rigger wasn’t going to take a hint that he didn’t want to talk, and that it would be a bad idea to offend the man who could potentially strand them in the middle of the Outback, he said instead, “You seem quite comfortable out here.”

Bodge shrugged. “Well, we haven’t hit the real Outback yet, but yeah. I come from out here.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. My people are up north, couple hours outta Alice Springs. They move around, but that’s where they’re based.”

Winterhawk did look at Bodge then, studying his profile. “Forgive me if this is prying, but are you from one of the Aboriginal groups?”

“Yep.” Bodge didn’t seem to think it was prying. “My family’s mostly all still out there, but that wasn’t the life for me, all that movin’ around from place to place, huntin’ and livin’ off the land and communin’ wit’ the spirits and all that. Soon’s I could, I took off for the big city with a coupla mates, and never looked back, except for the ’casional visit to make sure the fam don’t forget what I look like.”

“Ever seen anything like this?” Winterhawk pulled out his commlink and sent Bodge an image of the serpent.

The rigger studied it for a moment, then nodded. “Sorta. That’s definitely Aboriginal art, or a good fake. Never saw one exactly like that, though. Looks pretty old. What is it?”

“It’s what we’re going to pick up from our friend’s sister. He left it with her when he was here.”

Bodge did turn and look at him then, shifting a portion of his awareness away from steering the Bison. “Might not wanna spread that around,” he advised. “Lotta Aboriginal folks out here don’t take kindly to gubbahs makin’ off with their art.”

Winterhawk didn’t miss that he’d said their rather than our. “I take it you’re not among them?”

“Nah. Don’t matter to me. A bunch of old carvings and cave paintings don’t do nothin’ for me. I don’t care who owns ’em. But a lot of those old pieces are brimmin’ with the mojo. Believe me, you don’t wanna get some o’ them koradji mad at ya. You a spellslinger yerself, yeah?”

“I am. I don’t know a lot about the Australian tradition, though.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t think it’d be yer thing. Ya look like a city boy, like me.” Bodge grinned, showing off those blinding teeth again. Then he sobered. “But those blokes and sheilas got some serious mojo, and they talk to the spirits all the time out here. I seen some o’ them koradji do some pretty impressive stuff. Ya don’t wanna mess with ’em, especially not out here on their home ground.”

“No intention of that,” Winterhawk assured him. That was something he’d learned firsthand on his couple of trips out of Darwin: for magical unpredictability, the Outback made the Mojave area in CalFree look like a controlled lab environment. Between the manastorms popping up without warning, the alchera that faded in and out of existence, and the sheer randomness of magical expression in the area, it wasn’t a safe place for anyone who didn’t call it home to try doing anything more than basic magic in. He hoped that their search for Emmy Boyd was an uneventful one for that very reason.

“I gotta say, I’m glad yer along,” Bodge said. “Usually when I get hired to drive folks out here, if they don’t have a spellslinger with ’em, I either gotta bring one myself or hope for the best. Got caught in a manastorm once, and I don’t wanna do it again.” He shivered. “Took me days to clean all the baked-on frog guts off the rig.”

Winterhawk nodded. He had Maya on standby, keeping a lookout for any approaching manastorms. The cat wasn’t happy about it, saying the astral plane here was “weird, and the other spirits don’t like me,” but she was doing it. So far, she hadn’t reported anything on the horizon, but that didn’t mean anything. Manastorms could come up faster than sudden downpours, and they were a lot more dangerous. He settled back in his seat and closed his eyes, hoping Bodge would take the hint this time.

The Bison rumbled on, keeping up a steady speed under the wide-open, cloudless blue sky. Highway 94, which began as a six-lane superhighway in Perth and shrunk to four lanes as it cut through the suburbs, dropped to two once they’d gotten out of the greater Perth area. The scenery changed from dense urban sprawl to residential spread to scrubby vegetation and the red soil that gave the Outback its nickname.

“Settle in,” Bodge announced over the Bison’s PA. “It’s gonna look pretty much like this for the next seven hours or so. Hope ya all brought somethin’ to do.”

“And hope it isn’t on the Matrix,” Scuzzy whined. He’d been complaining ever since they’d gotten far enough outside the Perth sprawl that the Matrix connection became spotty; a couple of hours in, it got so intermittent that he’d given up trying to do anything requiring more than local connectivity. It hadn’t stopped him from continuing to grumble, though, until Tiny, who was trying to take a nap, had threatened to lock him in one of the cargo compartments.

Ocelot didn’t like the situation much more than Scuzzy did, but for different reasons. Being shut up inside the Bison under the blazing Outback sun tripped two of his personal issues: confinement and dislike of being outside a city. All this wide-open space made him nervous, and this whole trip was turning into a series of increasingly smaller metal cages. He glanced over at Dreja, who was once again arranging her gear bag. It seemed like a kind of Zen thing for her, but it also seemed not to be working this time. Her expression was troubled.

She caught him looking at her. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

He held up his hands in a warding gesture. “Stay frosty. Just makin’ conversation. You looked stressed out. You afraid something’s gonna go wrong?”

“I’m always afraid something’s gonna go wrong,” she said, closing the bag and setting it on the floor next to her. “That way, I’m not surprised when it does.”

“Anything in particular?”

She shook her head. “I just don’t like any of this.”

“How so?”

“Look, it’s nothing, okay? Just got stuff on my mind.”

“Fine, fine. You don’t want to talk, that’s fine.” He stretched his legs out and tilted his head back against the patched headrest. Maybe if he was lucky, he might nod off for a while.

For several moments, the silence inside the compartment was broken only by the rumble of the Bison’s engine, the howl of the tires on the badly-paved road, and Tiny’s not-so-soft snores.

Then Dreja spoke again. “I just hate it when I feel like I’m breaking my own rules.”

Ocelot rolled his head forward again. “You mean about takin’ the snake back to the Johnson?”

She nodded. “I get it that he’s got to do it,” she said, indicating the closed door to the cab, where Winterhawk was riding. “But I’m just not so sure I’ve got to do it.”

“Little late to change your mind now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m in this now. But I gotta live with myself, knowin’ I’m part of takin’ something like this away from the people it belongs to.” She clenched her fists in her lap. “Who am I to put one guy’s life ahead of the right of these people not to have their culture plundered for some rich asshole’s pocketbook? Doesn’t that make me every bit as elitist as I’m accusing ’Hawk of being?”

Ocelot tensed a little, leaning forward. “Having second thoughts?” he asked, keeping his voice even. “We’re not gonna have a problem, are we?”

She shook her head. “Settle down. The one thing I haven’t compromised is that my word’s good, and I don’t intend to now.” She let out a loud sigh. “Besides, I can’t very well have any ideals if I’m dead, and if I don’t pay off my debt, I’m gonna be dead as soon as I get back to Seattle.”

Ocelot didn’t reply. It wasn’t his business what kind of baggage she’d brought to the party, as long as it didn’t affect the run.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” she said, not looking at him, not even seeming to be talking to him. “I should never have taken a job for the Gianelli Family, even if it did give me a chance to skullfrag the local branch of Alamos 20K.”

“Drek, that’s why you owe all that money?” It wasn’t strictly a bad idea to do jobs for the Mob, or any of the other organized-crime syndicates that jockeyed for position and prestige in any large sprawl. If you did your legwork, didn’t screw up the job, and kept everything as professional as possible, there was even good money to be made from it. But you had to be careful, and you had to make damn sure you didn’t screw up. The syndicates had long memories and no sense of humor.

She nodded. “It was a political thing. I was supposed to plant some incriminating evidence on a rival of one of Gianelli’s pet pols—a chica who was in bed pretty hard with A20K. Gianelli’s people were gonna arrange to have the media on hand when KE raided the place on an anonymous tip. Problem was, the rival got wind of it somehow and got a recording of me planting the stuff. Bottom line, I ended up looking bad, Gianelli looked worse, and the 20K people came out smelling like fraggin’ roses.”

Ocelot winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. Only reason Gianelli didn’t have me cacked on the spot was that I’d done other jobs for him and he knew I was good. So instead, he just tells me that I need to pay back what he paid me for the job, plus another thirty grand of what he called ‘frag-up tax.’”

“And you didn’t have the thirty grand.”

She looked at him sideways. “I didn’t even have the up-front money. I’d already spent it upgrading some weapons and helping out a few friends.”

She paused a long time, looking out the window as the barren, unchanging scenery went by, then sighed. “So yeah, you don’t have to worry about me fraggin’ you over. Maybe I don’t have the same kinda sword hanging over me as he does, but I’ll be just as dead if I don’t get this run done. It won’t get me out of the woods, but like I said, Gianelli doesn’t want to have to kill me. I figure as long as I’m making progress, he’ll cut me some slack.”

“At a generous interest rate, right?”

She nodded without looking at him.

Time passed, and the Bison rolled along. Winterhawk returned to the middle compartment and settled into a chair with Maya in his lap, noting that most of the team was taking the opportunity to catch up on sleep, conserving their energy for whatever might be coming up. It wasn’t like the scenery changed much. The only one who didn’t appear to be dozing was Scuzzy, who once again had the glassy-eyed look of someone whose attention was far away. Winterhawk supposed he must be playing some game that didn’t require a Matrix connection. If it kept the decker quiet, he was all for it.

He felt something under his hand, and looked down to see Maya nuzzling against it. She regarded him with luminous green eyes. “Are you all right?”

He made a little mental shrug. “As much as can be expected under the circumstances, I suppose.” He stroked her soft fur, and she began to purr softly. “Just wondering if we’re going to be able to do this, or if I’m deluding myself.”

“Does it matter?” she asked. “You’ll do what you need to do, and what you can do. I’ll be here with you. I’ll help. You can use my strength if you need it.”

He gave her a faint smile. “I appreciate that, Maya.” He didn’t know if it was only in his mind, but in her presence the pain and shaking didn’t seem to be as intense. “You’re good for me.”

“I know,” she said. Raising up, she nuzzled under his chin, then curled up in his lap. Just save your strength. I think we’re getting close.”

The PA crackled, jolting everyone awake. “Keep yer eyes open,” Bodge announced. “Looks like we’re gonna be havin’ some company.”

CHAPTER 27

NEAR KOOKYNIE 
WESTERN AUSTRALIA 
MONDAY NIGHT

Winterhawk switched on his AR and called up a view from the cameras on top of the Bison. Something behind them was sending up a cloud of dust against the setting sun, but it was too far back for him to make out what it was. “What is that?”

“Bikes, most likely,” the rigger said. “Hopefully it’s the Gypsies, and ya can talk t’em. Gonna have to make the turnoff soon to get out ta their compound.”

Winterhawk looked around at the others. They were awake and aware, tense and intent on their own ARs.

“They’re getting closer,” Ocelot said. “Definitely catching up.”

“Looks like about ten of ’em,” Dreja added. “Bodge, can you tell yet if they’re the Gypsies? Can you reach any of them?”

“Nobody’s answerin’,” he said. “Just stay frosty. I run into bikies all the time out here. Most of ’em know better than ta bother me. Hang on, here’s the turnoff.”

The Bison swung left, jerking them sideways as it left the main road for a narrow, unmarked dirt track. Winterhawk kept his focus on the AR view, and after a moment the mob of bikers slowed and also took the turnoff. They sped up now, until they were only a few car lengths behind the Bison.

The windows in the compartment all slid shut with little clicks. “Bodge?” Ocelot asked, voice tight.

“Sit tight,” the rigger replied. “Better ta be safe. Let’s see what they want. If they give us any trouble, I got enough armament on this rig ta give ’em second thoughts.”

The bikers, still visible on the camera view, approached the Bison, splitting apart to flank it on both sides. Winterhawk studied them: both they and their mounts were an eclectic collection. Though it was hard to pick out detail under their mismatched armored gear and layers of dust, he thought he spotted representatives of each of the five common metatypes, and vehicles ranging from battered old Harleys to whining sportbikes and one oversized trike piloted by a big female troll.

“I see some kind of colors,” Ocelot said, “But I can’t make ’em out.”

The Bison slowed and then stopped. “No worries,” Bodge called. “These are some o’ the Gypsies. They must just be checkin’ us out since we’re gettin’ close ta their squat. I hope you guys were tellin’ the truth.”

Through the camera view, Winterhawk watched the group as they pulled their bikes to a stop, still running, in a circle around the Bison. Engines rumbled menacingly, and every few moments another of the group would rev one for extra effect. A few of them had pulled out weapons from holders attached to their bikes’ frames; they weren’t pointing them at anything yet, but they held them with relaxed ease. He moved back into the cab and took the front passenger seat again; from here the view through the windshield was much more immediate than the one in AR.

One of the gangers, a squat ork with big shoulders, a bigger gut, and a black synthleather jacket caked with red dust, idled his patched old Hog slowly closer until he was only a couple of meters from the Bison’s front door. “You got thirty seconds to tell me what you’re doin’ here,” he called.

Bodge didn’t appear bothered by the obvious challenge in the ork’s tone. “Got some mates here who wanna chat with ya,” he said, his voice amplified through the Bison’s exterior PA system. “C’mon, put the guns down. Let’s keep this friendly. No reason not ta.”

They didn’t put the guns down, but they still weren’t pointing them at anything but the ground. The ork tried to peer in through the tinted driver’s window. “What mates? Who you got in there? What do they want with us?”

Bodge handed Winterhawk a microphone. “Tell ’em.”

The mage paused a moment, then said, “We’re here to see a woman named Bluey, assuming that you’re the Gypsies.”

The ork’s brow beetled until his eyebrows met in the middle, and a dangerous frown appeared on his weathered face. “Why you wanna talk to her?”

“Is she here? Our business is with her. Tell her we’ve been sent by her brother, Toby.”

Another biker rolled up next to the ork, this one a bald, dark-skinned female human with cybereyes that looked at least fifteen years out of date. The two of them conferred for a moment, then the ork faced the Bison again. “She ain’t here right now.”

Winterhawk sighed. He started to say something else, but Bodge held up a hand and spoke instead. “Listen,” he said. “They just wanna talk, that’s all. Dunno if you’ve hearda me, but I get out this way fairly often. Name’s Bodge. You make nice with them, I got a couple 20-liter jugs of water in the back I might see fit to send your way. Yeah?”

The ork and the human exchanged glances. “Just talk?” the ork asked, clearly interested in the offer.

Winterhawk was annoyed that he hadn’t thought of the bribe. Water was more precious than gold in the Outback; it was one of the scarcest and most valuable commodities to be had since there was so little of it available in the hot, arid climate. He leaned forward, waiting for the ork’s answer.

Finally, he shrugged. “Yeah, sure, we can do that,” he said. “But I’m not kidding: Bluey’s not here. She’s due back soon, though. C’mon—follow us.” He glared at the Bison. “No funny stuff. Any weapons come out, we’ll take you out.”

“No worries,” Bodge said again. “We didn’t come ta fight. Just ta talk.”

He rolled the Bison forward, and the bikers surrounded it, with the ork and the human woman leading the way. The little caravan moved on for about another kilometer before a cluster of dark forms grew visible up ahead.

“That’s it,” Bodge said. “Used to be a ghost town called Kookynie. Most of it’s gone now—I haven’t been out here, I’m guessin’ they’ve fortified the buildings in the best shape and closest together, to make ’em easier to defend.”

“Is there a lot of trouble with attacks out here?” Winterhawk asked. His trips to the Outback had been confined to sites of magical interest—the only contact he’d had with a bikie gang was when one of his expeditions had hired one called the Cowboys to provide some security for the team. Once he’d gotten past their formidable appearances, they’d been a relatively pleasant lot.

“Nah, not really. Mostly the bikies have their own turf, and they’ll work together a lot of times,” Bodge said. “It’s rough enough out here all on its own without messin’ with each other. They have their little spats sometimes, but mostly everybody’s frosty.”

As they drew closer, the group of dark forms resolved themselves into a half-dozen buildings, with smaller ones surrounding a larger one in the center in a rough circle. A few scattered lights illuminated the area. A stout metal fence ringed the buildings, leaving an open area of ten meters or so between them and the outer perimeter. The bikers headed toward a gate in the fence, which stood open and was manned by three more bikers holding rifles.

“Good thing they don’t fight much,” Ocelot said from the back. “This doesn’t look very defensible.”

The three stood aside and let the caravan in, then closed the gate behind them. The ork and the human led the group to the larger building, which on closer examination appeared to have been some kind of central meeting hall, or possibly a school for the town when it was still a going concern.

Winterhawk headed to the center compartment, where Ocelot, Dreja, and Tiny were stowing smaller weapons in their jackets. Scuzzy slung his deck bag over his shoulder, still looking grumpy. He had a small Beretta pistol, which he checked and slid into his pocket.

“Come on in,” the ork said when they exited the Bison. He indicated the large building. “We’ll talk in there.”

Bodge emerged last. He went around to one of the outer compartments, opened it, and pulled out a large container. “Here’s the first twenty liters,” he said, offering it to the pair. “You’ll get the other one when we’re done, yeah?”

The human nodded and took the container. She opened it, sniffed, then handed it off to another biker.

Bodge headed back for the door. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna hang out in here,” he said. “Gotta drive my mates here back to Perth after they’re done chattin’ with ya, and I need a kip. Sleep regulators only go so far, y’know?”

The ork looked suspicious, but finally nodded. He waved the others inside, and several bikers trailed behind them.

“Maya,” Winterhawk sent, “keep watch around the area. Let me know if you see anything we should know about.”

“Of course,” she sent back. “There isn’t much else to do out here. The spirits won’t talk to me, but they say I can stay for now.”

Inside was a large, open room with a couple doors leading off to the left and right sides, and a rotting staircase, that the bikers had obviously reinforced, leading to a second floor. The windows were all covered in heavy plaswood, with narrow slits cut to look through. Graffiti decorated the walls, and the rank tang of heavy body odor and alcohol filled the air.

“You want a beer?” the ork asked. “Name’s Rhino, by the way.”

The others introduced themselves. Ocelot, Dreja, and Tiny took Rhino up on his offer, and everyone settled down in mismatched chairs. About a dozen of the bikers joined them, many of them pulling out cloths and beginning to wipe the ubiquitous dust off their battered weapons. 

<Scuzzy, you still in contact with the Bison?> Dreja sent over the PAN.

<Yeah. I’m keeping an eye on the cameras outside, just in case.>

<Good man.>

“So,” Rhino said, popping his beer. “You come a long way out here to find us. What you want with Bluey, anyway?”

“We told you—her brother sent us,” Winterhawk said. “Are you expecting her soon?” He had to make a conscious effort not to wrinkle his nose at the room’s stench: with the paucity of water in the Outback, bathing was rare and discouraged. It was considered the height of bad manners to acknowledge anyone’s personal “aroma.”

<Somebody’s coming,> Scuzzy sent, at the same time Maya relayed the same message. <Looks like three of them.>

Apparently Rhino had gotten the update as well, because he perked up. “Ah, yer in luck,” he said. “I think they might be back now.”

Five minutes later, the door opened again and the three newcomers stumped into the room. Two of them were orks, one male, one female, dressed in the gang’s standard dusty leathers. They flanked a wide middle-aged dwarf woman with a lined face, a black eyepatch, and short-cropped hair dyed flaming red.

“Frag, finally back!” she roared cheerfully. “I could drink about five beers!” She had the kind of loud and gritty voice that belied her love of cigarettes; in fact, an unlit hand-rolled specimen poked out  the side of her mouth now. Her eyes fell on the team. “An’ who are these, then? Saw the rig out front—Rhino, you bringin’ home strays again?” Her good eye, bright blue and squinty, twinkled.

Winterhawk stood. “Bluey, I presume.”

“Ooh, ‘presume!’” The dwarf woman twirled her hand in a ‘posh’ gesture. “Fancy! Who’s the pom?”

“Okay, clear out, you lot,” Rhino said, waving toward the rest of the bikers. “You had yer brews—Give us a little privacy.”

Grumbling, everyone but the human woman, Rhino, and the two orks left. Winterhawk waited until it was clear nobody else was going to leave, then faced Bluey. “We’re here because your brother sent us,” he said. “You’ve got something we’re to pick up for him.”

She eyed him with suspicion. “My brother, yeah? How’s old Bobby doing these days? He still got that stupid green mustache?”

Winterhawk smiled. “Perhaps you’ve already had a few of those beers,” he said, “if you’ve forgotten so much of your brother Toby so soon. Last time we saw him, his hair was brown and he was clean-shaven.”

Bluey relaxed a little. “Okay,” she said. “You know I had ta do that. Can’t just have anybody showin’ up.” She paused, studying the group. “He sent all of you ta pick it up?”

“Travel out here is a bit daunting for the unfamiliar,” Winterhawk said, shrugging. “We thought it would be safer this way.”

“That yer rig out front?”

“Yeah,” Dreja said. “Our rigger’s sleepin’ it off. We’ll be headin’ back right away, soon as we have the package.”

Bluey nodded. “So…how’s Toby doing? I haven’t talked ta him since he left a couple weeks ago—I’m sure you know we got no Matrix connectivity out here—”

“Tell me about it,” Scuzzy groused, rolling his eyes.

“So, I only get ta talk to him when we go into town for supply runs,” she continued as if the decker hadn’t spoken. “He got any news for me?”

Winterhawk took a deep breath. This was the sticky part. He didn’t want to lie to Emmy Boyd, but there was always the lingering fear that if they told her the truth about her brother’s fate, she might choose to turn her biker friends against them and refuse to hand over the serpent. His head was still pounding, and so was his heart. The overheated feeling was returning. He swiped a hand across his brow and drove the feeling down with a harsh effort of will. He couldn’t afford to have an attack right now.

He had only paused a couple of seconds, but Bluey obviously picked up on something. Her eye fixed on him, her lined face wrinkling as she frowned. “Something wrong?” she asked. “You said you saw Toby. He all right?”

Winterhawk paused again, aware of the others’ eyes on him, both his own team and the bikers. Mind spinning fast, he considered the odds that his team would be able to take out the bikers if it came to that. If things got bad he could do a mind probe on Bluey to get the information; he didn’t want to do it, but he would if he had to. He hadn’t come all the way out here to leave empty-handed. <Be ready,> he sent to the others, and felt them tense. 

“I’m—sorry to have to bring this news, Ms. Boyd,” he said softly. “I’m afraid your brother is dead.”

All around them, the bikers’ hands went to their guns as Bluey’s eye widened. “What?” she demanded, leaping up.

“I’m sorry,” Winterhawk said in the same soft tone. “We were hired to extract him from his employer, but one of our team members double-crossed us and escaped with him. By the time we caught up with them, he’d been killed.” He gathered mana around him, holding it in reserve should he need to cast something quickly. The tension in the room was nearly palpable.

She stared at him. “No…Toby…” Her voice shook, and her unlit cigarette fell from the corner of her mouth to the wooden floor.

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Winterhawk said. “That’s hardly the basis of a good relationship. We did everything we could to save him, but—”

Bluey didn’t answer. Around her, the other bikers held their guns at the ready, but didn’t point them at the team yet. They were clearly waiting for a signal from Bluey about how she wanted to play this.

“How do I know yer tellin’ the truth?” she asked, glaring, her voice shaking with grief and anger. “How did he die?”

“He—was shot by a sniper,” Winterhawk said, carefully avoiding anything about the ghouls. The truth was one thing, but he was sure that saying her brother had ended up as ghoul chow and a severed head on a cookie sheet was taking full disclosure too far.

“So—” The dwarf was clearly having trouble processing all of this. “He gave ya the information about the thing he brought me and then he got killed? He’s not that stupid. He’d want ta be safe before he’d hand it over.”

“It was a terrible accident,” Winterhawk said. It was hard to employ his usual charm when he felt like he was about to faint, but failing wasn’t an option at this point. “By the time we got to him, he was already dead. Our decker here took the information from his headware.” He pointed at Scuzzy.

Bluey’s eye narrowed. “You…took it from my brother’s head after he was dead?” Her hand went to her jacket, and she pulled out a Ruger Super Warhawk that looked even bigger gripped in her stubby fingers. She leveled it at Winterhawk. “I think maybe you and your friends had better go.”

Winterhawk didn’t back down. “Ms. Boyd, please. I’m afraid that’s not something we can do. Your brother wanted us to have that item.”

She snorted. “All I have is yer word for that. Maybe ya killed him. Maybe ya set him up. I don’t know. All know is that thing’s magical, and if Toby’s dead and it ain’t doin’ him any good, we’re gonna keep it. There’s a lotta things we could use out here, and that thing’s prob’ly worth a pretty price.” She pulled the hammer back on the Ruger with a decisive click. “Now. You and yer mates just head on out, get back in yer rig, and get the frag out of here before I forget my manners.”

“Ms. Boyd, you don’t want to do this,” Winterhawk said. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and drew another shaky deep breath. “It won’t end well for any of us.” The armor spell was ready in his mind. He doubted she’d get her shot off before either Ocelot or Tiny plugged her, but he didn’t want it to come to that. “Just, please, let us—“

At that point, four things happened at once. “Boss, big group coming fast,” Maya sent, her mental tone urgent.

<Incoming!> both Scuzzy and Bodge sent over the link.

The door slammed open and a rangy elf slid to a stop, his eyes wide with fear. “We got trouble, mates!” he panted.

Something hit the far end of the building with a loud BOOM, blowing everybody off their feet and filling the air with dust and flying debris.

CHAPTER 28

GYPSIES’ COMPOUND 
NEAR KOOKYNIE 
MONDAY NIGHT

“What the frag?” Rhino yelled, leaping up from the floor.

Winterhawk dragged himself up more slowly, brushing bits of wood and debris off his coat. <Scuzzy? Bodge?>

All around him, the others were getting up. None of them looked hurt beyond a few cuts and bruises. Whatever had hit them had hit far enough at the other end of the building that the big meeting room was still mostly intact, though the ceiling was raining down bits alarmingly.

<Don’t know yet,> Bodge sent back. <Looks like a big group. Bikers, coming fast. Checking it out with the spotter drone.>

“You got anything defensible in here?” Dreja demanded to the Gypsies.

For the moment, Bluey seemed to have forgotten their animosity. “This place is fortified—probably safest in here. I don’t think the ceiling will come down, but—what was that, a fraggin’ grenade?”

“Drone,” Scuzzy said. “I think they dropped it on us. Probably why Bodge and I didn’t spot it until it was too late.”

The door opened and more bikers poured into the room, all holding weapons. Mostly they had rifles and handguns, but a couple held battered SMGs and one had an assault rifle. “You know who it is?” Rhino demanded of them.

“No idea. Haven’t got a good visual yet.” The bikers spread out, pushing over tables and taking defensive positions with their gun barrels pointed out through the slits in the windows.

“We can’t just stay in here like sitting ducks,” Ocelot said. “And the rest of our gear’s in the Bison. I’m goin’ out. Bodge, pop the door.”

Winterhawk glanced at Bluey. “We’ll help you defend against this, whatever it is,” he told her as another loud BOOM sounded somewhere off in the distance. “But we’ll talk again after.”

She nodded, looking fearful.

The mage hurried out after the rest of the team. They were already inside the Bison, quickly gathering their bigger armaments. “Maya, have you got more detail?”

“Looks like about fifty of them,” she sent back. “Motorcycles, a few small four-wheeled vehicles. I don’t see any magic to speak of, but they have a lot of weapons.”

“Fifty,” he said aloud to the others.

“Come on,” Dreja said. “Let’s spread out. If they have heavy weapons we’re in trouble. Need to take ’em out fast.”

Winterhawk, a rush of adrenaline driving off the poison’s attack for the moment, climbed back out of the Bison in time to see a hatch on its roof open and an autocannon slide smoothly up and snap into place.

<That should give ’em something to think about,> Bodge sent. <I’ll stay in here and coordinate my drones. If they don’t shoot ’em out of the sky, I should be able to update you on what they’re up to.>

<Hopefully they’re just after the Gypsies,> Ocelot sent. <If they don’t know we’re here, maybe we can surprise them.>

Winterhawk headed outside, pulling an invisibility spell over him and levitating up to the roof of the central building where he could get a better look. He braced himself against a crumbling chimney, pulled a pair of optical binoculars from his jacket pocket, and scanned the area outside the perimeter.

Maya had been right: there were about fifty of them out there, circling the Gypsies’ compound. He could hear them whooping and yelling, firing their weapons at random into the center of the town. <Attack of opportunity?> he sent.

<That’s what they want us to think,> came Dreja’s reply. <They look like they’re shooting at random, but they’re too accurate to be idiots.>

Winterhawk paused to study the circling group before casting any spells. He was tired and in no way at his best right now; he didn’t want to be throwing around magic at random, so he needed to pick his best targets. Most of the riders were one-up on their bikes, though there were a few carrying a passenger who was free to fire from the pillion seat. There were big old Harley Scorpions, trikes, off-road bikes, a few four-wheeled ATVs, and even an ancient-looking rig with a sidecar that might have been built in the previous century. It was hard to pick out details in the moonlight, but he didn’t spot any obvious gang patches on the backs of their jackets. They all rode fast and erratically, doing a good enough job avoiding returning fire that it was obvious even to him that they were better than they were trying to appear.

Below, the Gypsies scrambled around, taking defensive positions behind piles of old machinery, wrecked vehicles, and buildings. Gunfire roared, splitting the silence of the night. As Winterhawk watched, one of the attackers yelled and fell, their bike sliding away.

Dreja’s voice came over their link, calm and steady. <We need to take out the big guns first. Anybody got a good vantage point to see?>

<I’m on the roof of the main building,> Winterhawk sent. <I can’t see their weapons, but probably good to take out the trike and the sidecar first.>

<Yeah,> Ocelot added. <I’m on one of the south-side buildings. I think the guy in the sidecar has a grenade launcher.> To punctuate his words, another BOOM sounded, and one of the smallest buildings went up in a bright explosion.

Winterhawk gathered mana to him, hoping that his spell would perform as expected. You could never count on that in the Outback: the mana out here was beyond erratic, which meant that anything he cast could do any number of things—only one of which was function as intended. The others were mostly all bad, ranging from fizzling out to hitting the wrong target to being significantly more taxing to cast than they should be. Fond as he was of offensive spells with big flashy effects, he opted for something less likely to kill him or his friends if it went awry. Pointing his hands at a patch of ground in the path of two of the enemy bikers, he murmured a few words under his breath and released the magical energy.

The bikers were going so fast that they had almost no time to react when the glowing barrier popped into being directly in front of them. Even from his vantage point Winterhawk could hear their yells of terror as they braked, their bikes sliding sideways and slamming into the magical wall. It went down—it was meant to—but so did the bikers, and they didn’t get up.

<They’re blowing the gate!> Tiny said. <Look out, they’ll be coming in!>

He was right. Another BOOM and the compound’s front gate exploded, throwing its two sections in two different directions. One of them hit a Gypsy, who went down screaming and bleeding.

<On it,> Ocelot sent. After a moment both he and Tiny appeared at the gate. Three bikes were bearing down on them, two big, solid Harleys, each with rider and passenger, and a small and speedy off-road bike.

Winterhawk, watching from above, wondered if the attackers had any idea what they were up against. Tiny and Ocelot moved with the precision of partners who’d been working together for years. Ocelot leaped up in one of his trademark feats of impossible athleticism, landing on the back of the lead Harley and shoving the passenger off with barely a second thought. The Harley’s rider, struggling to keep the bike upright, dropped his small SMG. Tiny, meanwhile, braced himself in the path of the second Harley, aimed his assault rifle and fired, hitting the rider in the neck. The rider died with a thin scream and a spurt of fountaining blood, the bike continuing to slide forward. Tiny leaped over it and spun, sizing up his next target.

Ocelot, meanwhile, had popped his cyberspur and run through the rider on his own bike, jumping free of the wreckage as the dying man lost control of it. That left only the off-road bike, which had made a quick turn and was bearing down on him and Tiny, its rider spraying fire from another SMG.

Ocelot and Tiny looked at each other and acted as one. From Winterhawk’s vantage point, it looked like Ocelot had reached into his pocket but failed to find what he was looking for. Winterhawk knew better. Ever since the two of them had run together in the old days, Ocelot’s weapon of choice when he didn’t have to worry about who he killed was the tiny, deadly monofilament whip. He was damned good with it (which was a good thing—those who failed to master the monowhip usually didn’t survive long, at least not with all their limbs intact) and had apparently gotten even better since Winterhawk had last seen it in action. Ocelot made an acrobatic little spin, more like a ballet move than a combat maneuver, but suddenly the off-road bike’s rider and his bike were going in one direction while his head flew lazily in another. At the same time, Tiny’s assault rifle spoke again, stitching a line of red across the man’s dusty synthleather jacket.

<We’re not killing them fast enough,> Dreja sent. Winterhawk pulled up a map on his AR, noting the positions of his allies: aside from Ocelot and Tiny in front of them, Dreja was on the other side of the compound, and Scuzzy was inside the main building. Bodge, of course, was inside the Bison. Another BOOM sounded, but this time it was the Bison’s autocannon raining death down on a couple of the bikers far out in the distance.

<They just blew out one of the windows and hit one of the guys in here,> Scuzzy sent.

<They’re smart,> Ocelot said. <Not clustering too close together. Hitting us from too many sides at once.>

<Suggestions?> Winterhawk held on to the chimney, concentrated, and blanketed an area in front of him with a stunning spell. Of the two bikers in its path, one went down clutching his head. The other jerked sharply sideways, but righted himself and kept going. ’Hawk swore under his breath. Normally this kind of fight was his element: lots of opportunity to let loose and feel the singing ecstasy of the mana coursing through his body, of shaping it to his command and making it do his bidding. Now, every spell added to his exhaustion. So far they were doing what he expected them to do, but he couldn’t afford to faint and go toppling off the roof.

<Take out that sidecar,> Dreja sent. <It’s coming back around your way, and it looks like he’s got some kind of grenade launcher in there.>

<On it,> Bodge and Winterhawk sent at the same time. Winterhawk couldn’t see Tiny and Ocelot anymore, but two Gypsies had taken positions behind a couple rusted-out vehicles and were aiming their rifles at the gate opening.

Winterhawk watched from the roof. <I see them,> he sent. <Coming around now. Get ready.>

<Got ’em in sight,> Bodge sent. <Just let ’em get a little closer.>

<Trike coming in!> Tiny sent. <Watch the front gate!>

The troll on the oversized trike was bearing down on them, its trajectory putting it in a straight line for the opening where the gate had been. There was no way the two Gypsies with rifles would be able to take out the troll before she could get inside, and if she had explosives on board, things could go downhill fast.

<I’ll get her,> Winterhawk sent.

But before he could gather energy for another spell, a small glowing object flew out of somewhere in the interior of the compound. Winterhawk got one brief look at the troll’s astonished face as a grenade landed neatly in her lap, and then it blew with a spectacular explosion. She screamed, flying off the trike as it continued forward and smashed into one of the smaller buildings.

In the link, Dreja whooped. <That’s the way to do it!>

<Nice,> Ocelot sent.

They didn’t have communication with the Gypsies, but apparently at least one of them was thinking. As Winterhawk continued to watch and tried to identify another target, a large, rusty open-bed truck rolled forward, blocking almost all of the opening where the gate had been. The Gypsy slid out of the passenger-side window and, ducking low, hurried back toward the main building. A round from one of the bikers slammed into her arm, spinning her around, but she regained her balance and kept going until she was out of Winterhawk’s sight. <That should help,> he sent, relaying an image of the truck to the others.

<It will,> Dreja said, <but it’s not enough. They still got like thirty people out there, and they’re too spread out. If they get a direct hit on the main building, we’re fragged.>

<I could take the Bison out and cause some mayhem,> Bodge sent. <Let me just—>

“Boss!” Maya’s terrified voice cut into Winterhawk’s mind.

“What?”

“Manastorm! Big one! Coming fast!”

CHAPTER 29

GYPSIES’ COMPOUND 
KOOKYNIE 
MONDAY NIGHT

Winterhawk froze in place as his ally’s warning sunk in. “Oh, bloody hell! That’s the last thing we need. How fast?”

“Fast. Minute or two at most.”

“Come back here and help me.”

“On my way. Be careful, boss. This one is bad.”

Teeth gritted, Winterhawk levitated down to the ground, staying low and moving as fast as he could toward the main building’s front door. <Manastorm!> he sent over the link, cutting off whatever Bodge was saying about his plans for the Bison. <Everyone get inside. Now! Have they got some kind of underground shelter around here?>

<’Hawk, we can’t,> Dreja sent. <These guys aren’t stopping. We got casualties.> There was a pause, and then: <Oh, frag! One of the Gypsies says that first grenade blew the top off their shelter!>

What next? <Go. NOW!> he sent again, trying to inject all of his terror and urgency into the single word. Maya wasn’t prone to hyperbole. If she said the manastorm was bad, and the shelter was breached, that meant that they’d better get under some kind of magical cover immediately or things were going to get ugly. <Get to the central building! I can shield us, but we need to be close. Tell the Gypsies. It’s coming fast. We don’t have much time.>

<If he says it’s magic and it’s bad, listen to him!> Ocelot added. <Go, go, go!> 

“Oh, my,” Maya said again, appearing on the astral next to Winterhawk as he reached the door to the central building and headed inside. Her mental voice sounded more agitated than before. “I got a look before I left. It’s very bad. The leading edge of the spell hit a kangaroo. It tried to get away, but the storm hit it and took it apart. All that was left was bones and bloody meat. Boss, please get under cover.”

Winterhawk swallowed, breathing hard. <HURRY!> he sent. <Tell the Gypsies! Get everyone in here!> He slumped into a chair. His head felt like it was going to explode. Could he do this? He had no idea how strong the storm was, but he couldn’t afford to take chances. He’d have to put up the best mana barrier he could manage and hope for the best. Fortunately for him, his best mana barrier was pretty damned good, and probably more than a match for anything but the worst storms. But Maya had said the storm was big, too. How long would he have to sustain it? “Help me, Maya,” he begged. “I don’t know if I can keep this powered long enough.”

“I’m here,” she said. Her tone was still worried, but now that he was inside the building she had calmed some. Outside, the enemy gang continued circling the compound and shooting at it. Through a window a grenade had blown the wooden cover from, he could see one of the outbuildings burning.

People were pouring in through the door now, shoving past each other, dragging injured comrades. “What’s going on?” Rhino demanded. “They said to come in here—”

“Manastorm!” Winterhawk snapped. “Bad one, coming fast, and the shelter’s buggered.” He glanced around the room. Counting the team and the Gypsies, there were at least thirty people. Some of the Gypsies were dead, but it was still going to be a tight fit. “Make sure everyone’s in here, now. No argument. If you’re not in here, you’re dead.”

“What about Bodge?” Scuzzy demanded. “He’s still out in the Bison!”

<I’m okay,> Bodge sent. <This rig’s tight as a drum. Ain’t nothin’ gettin’ in here!>

<No chances!> Winterhawk sent. <Get in here, Bodge! You’re not safe out there!>

The confused Gypsies milled around the room. Bluey grabbed Winterhawk’s arm. “How do you know this?”

“Spirit,” he said, barely acknowledging her presence. “Go. I need to concentrate.” He lowered himself to the floor. If the lower end of Maya’s estimate was true, they had no time to waste. “Gather in tight and stay put. And stay quiet.”

Ocelot pulled the dwarf away from Winterhawk and shoved her away. “I’m gonna go get Bodge.” He leaped up and hurried out the door.

<I’m coming,> Bodge sent. <I don’t like this. My rig’s weathered plenty of…Oh, dear spirits! What IS that? It’s shredding them!>

He didn’t get a chance to send more. Ocelot standing in the doorway, aimed his grapple gun at the rigger and fired, snagging his armored jacket and jerking him inside. Dreja and Tiny grabbed him and pulled him in.

“We all here? Anybody missing?” Ocelot yelled.

“All here,” Bluey said. She and the other Gypsies huddled in a tight group ringing Winterhawk.

“Go!” Dreja yelled. “Do it, ’Hawk!”

Winterhawk concentrated. All the spellcasting against the attacking bikers had taken its toll, and this wasn’t going to be easy. His head lit up with pain, his chest tightened like someone was grabbing his heart and squeezing. Sweat poured off his forehead. He gathered the mana around him, focusing on forming it into a large dome, shaping the magical forces into an impenetrable barrier that nothing but the strongest spells would be able to breach. If the manastorm was stronger than his magic than they were all dead, but it was the only chance they had. “Maya. Help me…”

He felt the cat-spirit add her strength to his, and the barrier flared brighter, stronger. “Best I can do…” he got out through gritted teeth. “Now…just have to…hold it…”

He felt the leading wave of the manastorm touch the barrier, felt its power as it battered the dome and tried to drive it down, like an ocean wave pummeling a child’s sandcastle. There was nothing personal to the power, nothing malevolent: it simply was, a vast wave of magical energy made manifest by the chaotic forces that had taken over the Outback’s manascape.

Winterhawk clenched his fists, clamped his eyes shut, and concentrated with everything he had, holding the barrier as the storm washed over it.

“Is it here yet?” a troll woman demanded, rising to a standing position.

“No, don’t—” somebody yelled.

Too late.

Winterhawk cracked an eye in time to see the woman’s head and the top of her shoulders disappear in a whirling red haze. Mana barriers didn’t stop anything physical: anyone who wasn’t dual-natured could just walk through them any time they liked. The troll woman was tall enough that standing up had taken the top part of her body outside the barrier’s protection.

The manastorm had flayed the unshielded part of her alive.

She didn’t even get time to scream before blood spattered over the group and her skull dropped down and landed on top of Bluey.

Several others screamed, and some of them started to rise.

“Damn you, stay still!” Winterhawk barked.

“Stay down!” Ocelot echoed, grabbing a couple of nearby Gypsies and pulling them back down into an untidy heap.

I can’t do it… Winterhawk’s whole body shook now, his heart pounding so hard he feared it would rip free of his chest. He tasted a salty tang as his nose began bleeding, red spots pattering like raindrops down on the rough wooden floor. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t—

And then it was over.

The pressure, the massive magical push from the manastorm was gone. Just like that. It moved on, following its unpredictable and inexorable path across the Outback’s dusty plain.

“That’s…it…” Winterhawk whispered, and then everything went gray and he passed out.

CHAPTER 30

GYPSIES’ COMPOUND 
KOOKYNIE 
MONDAY NIGHT

Winterhawk awoke to someone shaking him. Blinking, he focused as the blurred form sharpened into Dreja’s tusked face, her deep-set brown eyes wide with fear. “You okay?”

Okay was relative, but at least the vise in his chest had let up for the moment. It was something. “How long was I out?” he asked. His voice sounded husky and exhausted.

“Not long. Five minutes or so. You sure that manastorm isn’t going to turn around and come back?”

“Can’t ever be sure with manastorms, but I’ve never heard of one doing that.” He started to get up, pausing as a wave of dizziness hit him, and noticed the room was a lot less crowded than he remembered. A few shell-shocked Gypsies still lingered, tending to their injured friends, and Scuzzy slumped on a battered couch, knees drawn under his chin and looking like he didn’t know what to do next, but the rest of the team and the Gypsies were nowhere in sight. The unfortunate troll woman’s body had been removed, though a wide pattern of blood spatter still remained on the floor. “Where are the others?”

“Outside, checking the damage.” She offered him a hand and, when he gripped it, hauled him up, steadying him until the dizziness passed.

“What about the other gang?”

“See for yourself,” she said grimly, nodding at the door.

“Don’t,” Scuzzy called in an oddly manic tone. He was the same combination of pale and green he’d been when they’d chopped Toby Boyd’s head off. “Trust me on this.”

Winterhawk ignored him and followed Dreja out.

Outside, the Gypsies had gotten a few lights working, and the moonlight illuminated the wide, flat area outside sufficiently to make out the manastorm’s gruesome aftermath. Bikes, ATVs, and other small vehicles lay abandoned all around the perimeter fence, as if their riders had suddenly been plucked up by some covetous giant. It was only when he got closer that Winterhawk saw what had actually happened: each vehicle was accompanied by a horrific pile of bones, gore, and clothing remnants in a vaguely humanoid shape, draped over the controls or lying nearby in cases where the person had tried and failed to outrun the storm. The Gypsies wandered through the mess like postapocalyptic bomb survivors, aimless and pale.

“Bloody hell…” Winterhawk breathed. He’d seen plenty of manastorms in his career, and read accounts of more, but those like this one were exceedingly rare.

He spotted Ocelot, talking to Bodge near the Bison. Tiny walked back from outside the fence, his expression resolute and his arms full of weapons he’d gathered. He dumped the armload and headed back out as Winterhawk surveyed the carnage.

Bluey approached, pale and shaking. “That—that—” She stared up at Winterhawk. “You saved us. All of us.”

“Thank Maya,” he said. “She’s the one who warned me, or we’d all have been buggered.” He sent out a call for her, and she materialized on his shoulder, weightless as a cloud. He nodded toward the shredded attackers. “Any idea who they were?” he asked Bluey.

She shook her head, swallowing a couple of times before she could speak. “No markings, no colors…I don’t recognize any of their bikes.” She stared. “Dead…all…dead…”

Dreja took the dwarf woman’s arm. “Come on,” she said in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Let’s go back inside.”

Bluey nodded. “Yeah. I think we gotta talk.”

Ocelot caught up with them and the group was heading back toward the compound when Rhino came running up. “Your decker said to find you,” he said, breathless. “He says he found something on one of their ’links.”

They hurried inside. Scuzzy, clearly glad to have something useful to do, sat on the couch, several commlinks spread out around him. He looked up when they entered. “Check this out.” He put up an AR window. “Somebody hired those guys to go after us.”

“What?” Winterhawk paused to examine the displayed files, his expression darkening.

“Frag, you’re right,” Dreja said. She pointed. “Look at this message. Somebody in Perth arranged to get these drekwipes together and sent ’em out here. But why?”

“But who?” Ocelot asked.

“No intel about who,” Scuzzy said. He waved at the other commlinks. “I’ve checked ’em all for that—only that one had anything useful on it. It sounds like somebody wanted to make it look like a couple of biker gangs went at it.”

“Why the hell would anybody wanna do that?” Bluey demanded, eyes narrowing. She fixed her good eye on Winterhawk. “This have somethin’ to do with you lot?”

“How should I know?” the mage growled.

The dwarf woman held his gaze for several seconds, then sighed. “Come on,” she said, motioning for him and the others to follow her. “We definitely need ta talk.”

Winterhawk did so. As he exited the building, suddenly his knees buckled under him. He grabbed the doorjamb and gritted his teeth against a cry as the pain in his chest returned.

“’Hawk?” Ocelot and Dreja moved fast, grabbing him before he fell.

“It’s…all right…” he rasped. Fear gripped him as he wondered if being in the presence of such a powerful accumulation of mana or the exertion of keeping up the barrier had accelerated the poison’s effects.

Panting, he turned to the wide-eyed Bluey, eyes hard. “You’re right…” he said. “I saved your life. All of you. I don’t have any more time to be diplomatic. We have to go, and I want that serpent. Now.”

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, that’s fair. Come on.”

With Dreja and Ocelot supporting him, Winterhawk followed Bluey to another outbuilding that might have been a barn in its early days. In the corner was a pile of mismatched machinery, trash, and old scrap metal. “It’s buried under there,” she said, pointing. “Toby said we had to bury it deep to keep it from…I don’t know…broadcasting magically or something.”

Winterhawk sagged against the wall. Normally he would have just levitated the detritus away, but he feared if he tried any more magic right now he would pass out. He nodded at Ocelot and Dreja to do it, and soon they had it cleared away.

Between them and Bluey, it took them another fifteen minutes to excavate a square metal box about half a meter on a side. As soon as it was uncovered, Winterhawk felt the magic radiating from it. The power level surprised him: this was no minor item. No wonder Boyd had noticed it, even with his limited magical power.

There was something else, too. He shifted his perceptions, assensing the magical energy, then frowned. No…that can’t be right. I must just be tired and reading it wrong…

Ocelot held the box up in front of Winterhawk, and he slipped the catch and opened it. Inside, nestled on a pile of old rags, was the serpent figure. With even the minimal shielding from the box gone, it was easy to see that he wasn’t, in fact, wrong in his assessment.

This thing is…pulling at something.

His head twinged again, reminding him of priorities. The serpent’s aura was interesting…but not relevant at the moment. He didn’t care what it wanted. All he cared about was getting it back to Seattle as fast as possible; the Johnson could deal with whatever it was trying to communicate with. For perhaps the first time in his life, Winterhawk’s usual overriding sense of curiosity was overshadowed by his sheer instinct for self-preservation.

“That it?” Dreja asked, craning her neck to see inside.

“Yes,” he said, relief weakening his knees again. He snapped the box shut. “That’s it. Tell Bodge we’re leaving.”

Bluey watched them, head tilted. “Can ya tell me something before you go?”

Winterhawk said nothing, merely waited.

“Are ya tellin’ the truth that Toby wanted ya to have this thing? Ya didn’t kill my brother, did ya?” She sighed. “It doesn’t really matter at this point—I can’t stop ya from takin’ it, and after what ya did, I honestly wouldn’t try, even if ya did kill him. But I hafta know.”

The mage shook his head. “No. We didn’t kill Toby. We failed him—we should have been able to get him out safely, and we didn’t. But we didn’t kill him.”

She considered, then nodded. “Okay. That’s good enough. Take that thing and go. I’m startin’ ta think it’s nothin’ but bad news for us anyway.”

CHAPTER 31

PERTH 
MONDAY NIGHT

Kivuli wasn’t the type to get angry, or to exhibit any sort of excessive emotion. She thought it was wasteful, weakening her focus on the job. However, if she were inclined to do so, this would be the time.

She sat in the passenger seat of her team’s van and glanced over the last report regarding the group of bikers she’d hired to take out the Gypsies’ compound. As she read it, her hand tightened around her commlink so hard that if she had been stronger, she’d have crushed it into pieces. Then she initiated a call.

“Report,” the mechanical voice ordered.

She gritted her teeth. “The operation failed—the last reports indicate that the hired contractors were on their way to a decisive victory, but a massive manastorm hit the area. I’ve had no contact from any of them since. From the sound of the storm’s effects, I’m assuming they’re all lost.”

There was a long pause. “Yes, we heard about the manastorm. Our scans indicate that the package is on the move again. What do you know about that?”

“We think the target arrived before the contractors, and sheltered the group from the manastorm long enough to secure the package. Our magical scans showed it heading in a direction consistent with returning to Perth before it became untraceable again. We believe that the target was able to shield it. We’re on our way to rendezvous with them now. We should have the package in our possession within the day.”

“See that you do. When you have it in hand, advise us of nearest location and we’ll secure transportation.”

“Acknowledged.”

CHAPTER 32

GOLDFIELDS HIGHWAY 
WESTERN AUSTRALIA 
TUESDAY MORNING

The Bison rumbled south along the Goldfields Highway, about an hour out of the Gypsies’ compound and heading back toward Highway 94.

Scuzzy dozed in the back seat of the center compartment, trying to get the gory images from the battle and the manastorm’s carnage out of his mind, when an indicator buzzed and popped up in the corner of his visual display. He sat up a little more, propping his deck in his lap. His decryption programs had finally finished chewing through the data his agents had brought back right before the Matrix connection had gone belly-up. Between the lack of a connection and the complex encryption on the files, it had taken much longer than usual to deal with them, and he’d almost forgotten about them by the time they came back. He hit an icon to pull it up.

There weren’t many files: a small collection of messages, a few small audio and video files, and one large video that had probably claimed most of the decryption program’s effort. Whoever had encrypted this stuff really didn’t want anybody to see it.

Scuzzy grinned. That’s just too fraggin’ bad, isn’t it? Just try to keep anything from me and see how that works out for you. He hit another icon, brought up the first file, and began to read.

Before long, he wasn’t smiling anymore.

Winterhawk barely noticed when Scuzzy’s message came in. He half-sat, half-lay with his head propped against the window in the back section of the Bison, pretending to be asleep so nobody would talk to him. Maya had manifested and curled up on his lap; his hand rested on her back.

His head pounded harder than ever, his body alternating between hot and chilled, the shadowy things clawing at the edges of his mind battering harder against his mental defenses. He didn’t know what would happen when he wasn’t able to hold them back any longer—was there enough time to get to Perth and return to the Johnson before it was too late? He wasn’t sure anymore. Just focus…he thought. That’s what you’re good at. We’re going as fast as we can. It’s all you can do.

The message indicator buzzed again. Reluctantly he flicked his eyes open and saw Scuzzy’s big-eyed cartoon character icon in his AR. He shook his head. Of all the occupants of the Bison, the annoying decker was the last one he wanted to deal with right now.

<It’s important,> the message insisted, with the icon face changing to a wide-eyed, pleading expression. <You really need to see this now.>

He sighed and sat up a little, wincing as even the slight movement set off small explosions in his head. <What is it?>

<Can I come talk to you?>

<If you must.> Whatever the decker had to tell him, he just wanted to get it over with.

In a moment, Scuzzy’s skinny form wormed its way into the rear compartment, and Maya vanished. The decker eyed Winterhawk for a moment, obviously troubled by what he saw, then sat down across from him.

“Listen,” he said. “A while ago, after you told us what was going on with you, with the poison and stuff, I figured I might be able to help. I sent out some agents to do some checking.”

Winterhawk stared hard at him, a chill that had nothing to do with the poison’s growing effects clawing at the back of his neck. “You what?”

“Hold on, hold on,” Scuzzy said quickly, holding up his hands to stop him. “I know, I took a chance and I’m sorry about that, but it worked. I got the data, and I guarantee I grabbed it without anybody catching on.” He frowned. “Look, I know I’m kind of a spaz and people think I’m annoying, but I’m good at what I do. Okay?”

Winterhawk nodded, not wanting to argue with him, but he couldn’t shake the growing fear: if Mr. Johnson had found out that he or anyone associated with him was poking around in his system looking for answers… “You wouldn’t be telling me this if you hadn’t found something, I assume.”

“Yeah. I found something all right. Hang on, let me just send it to you.”

“What is it?” he asked. “Can’t you give me the short version?”

“I can,” Scuzzy said, his tone sober as he settled back and pulled out his deck. “But I think it’s better if you just see it yourself. Look at the text messages first. That’s where the important part is.”

Clearly, Winterhawk decided, he wasn’t going to get rid of the kid unless he looked at whatever he’d found. He assumed it had something to do with the Johnson’s identity, but at that point it didn’t really matter who he was working for. It wouldn’t change anything. He called up the first file.

It contained a series of messages, their timestamps beginning around two weeks ago. There were no names on them, only initials he didn’t recognize: RO and KM. Some of the text was garbled, but enough was there to give him the basics: The exchange was a conversation between someone who was no doubt the puppet master behind the bland Johnson, and another person who was clearly some sort of parabiochemist. They were discussing the likely effects of using a particular experimental treatment on a human subject. As he kept reading, his eyes widened.

“You okay?” Scuzzy’s voice seemed to come from far away.

Winterhawk didn’t answer, just continued paging through the messages, skimming their content, zeroing in on keywords.

…Ritual…

…Sustaining…

…Blood component…

…Parasitic spirit…

…7-10 days…

…Fatality rate…

Oh, spirits, no…

It’s not just a poison. It has a magical component…bloody hell, why didn’t I see that?

His eyes snapped open. “They never intended to give me an antidote…” he said, very softly.

Scuzzy shook his head. “I don’t even think they have one,” he said in the same tone. “I don’t get most of this stuff—I thought you might since you’re a mage, but…”

“It’s not just a poison,” he said, slumping back into the seat. “In fact…I don’t think the poison is a poison at all. It’s—some kind of magical compound, designed to interact with a sort of…parasitic spirit. Give it something to feed on… The spirit’s the problem, not the compound. They must have done a ritual…”

“Yeah…” Scuzzy nodded. “That’s what the big video file is. I didn’t watch the whole thing—it’s, like, hours long. But I watched enough to see that they did some kind of magic ritual on you.”

“A blood ritual…” he whispered, flipping back to the text messages.

“Do you know this guy?” Scuzzy asked abruptly, popping an image up in Winterhawk’s AR.

Winterhawk studied it, blinking a couple of times and reaching out a shaking hand to enlarge the image. His vision was intermittently blurry now, making it difficult to focus. He didn’t have to look for very long to recognize the face. “That’s who’s behind this?” he whispered. It’s all starting to make sense now…

“Yeah,” Scuzzy said. “That’s RO, in the other messages. He’s got some short video diary files where he talks about arranging Boyd’s extraction.”

Winterhawk took a few deep breaths. It was tiring to talk; even the minimal effort left him feeling like he’d just run a kilometer alongside the Bison. It’s the spirit, he realized; it was constantly testing his defenses, sapping his strength, especially now that most of the compound keeping it at bay had been exhausted. 

“His name is Richard Ortega,” he said wearily. “He’s with Aztechnology. He heads up some sort of highly experimental magical R&D lab. One of those ‘ends justify the means’ types with very little regard for anything but his own ambitions. He’s tried to hire me in the past, but I turned him down. Wasn’t too tactful about it, either.” He closed his eyes as a tide of grayness rose and threatened to engulf him. The shadow inside him shifted, and he groaned.

“I—” Scuzzy began, but broke off. Then, with more certainty: “But if it’s a spirit that’s doing this to you, can’t we just find somebody to get rid of it? Can’t you get rid of it, now that you know what it is? Or that cat-thing of yours?”

Winterhawk rolled his head back and forth without opening his eyes. “No. I don’t think it’s that sort of spirit. It’s not a possession. It’s more…insidious than that. Subtle. I might be able to work something out if I could go over the entire ritual in that file you have, but I don’t think we’ve got time for that. And without the exact knowledge of what it is, trying to remove it would probably kill me instantly.”

“So—what’s that mean?” he asked. “There’s nothing you can do? It’s just gonna—”

“—kill me. Yes, it appears so.” He bowed his head, closing his eyes. He felt tired, numb, disassociated, as if this were all happening to someone else. After everything that had happened, all they had been through, it had come to this. If he was honest with himself, he would be forced to admit that some part of his subconscious had suspected something like this was going to happen all along. He’d been pushing the thought back, avoiding it, but there had never been any logical reason for the Johnson to concern himself with things like antidotes, or keeping his word, once he had what he wanted. Especially now that Winterhawk knew who the man behind the puppet Johnson was and who he worked for—Aztechnology had no great love for him in the first place, and Richard Ortega was the worst kind of enemy: one who had been nursing a long-term vendetta. It wasn’t business for him—it was personal. A way to get something he wanted and get rid of an old enemy at the same time.

He opened his eyes again, reaching out to touch the box containing the artifact. He imagined he could feel it thrumming under his hand, even though that wasn’t possible with the precautions he’d taken before they left the Gypsies. The Bison rumbled and jounced beneath him, moving as quickly as Bodge dared to push it on the uncertain Outback roads.

Moving quickly so they could get back to Perth, where they would catch a plane back to Seattle and deliver the artifact to Johnson.

Like hell they would.

Suddenly, Winterhawk felt a rage growing inside him that had nothing to do with the spirit, or poison, or whatever the hell it was that was slowly destroying him. He sat up straight, snatching up the box.

Scuzzy jerked in his seat, startled. “What—?”

He paid no attention to the decker. Standing wasn’t easy, especially with the Bison bouncing around like a boat on a choppy sea. Bracing himself against the wall with one hand and holding the box with the other, he moved with steady determination toward the front where the others sat.

Ocelot and Dreja, who’d been slouched in their seats, looked up as he came in. “’Hawk?” Ocelot asked. “What’s going on?”

“Tell Bodge to stop,” Winterhawk said through gritted teeth. He gripped the back of one of the seats, but didn’t let go of the box.

“What?” Dreja demanded. Both of them twisted in their seats. “We can’t stop. We need to get you and that thing back to—”

“No,” he said. “We don’t. Tell him to stop.” He let the anger, the frustration, the rage at the Johnson’s actions course through him, because for now it seemed to be shoring up his fading strength. Maybe it was just psychological, and in any case he knew it wouldn’t last long, but right now he’d take whatever he could get.

Dreja fiddled with her commlink, and after a moment the big vehicle slowed and pulled off the road. Bodge appeared in the doorway to the driver’s compartment. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked. “Why we stoppin’? I thought ya were in a big hurry ta get back.”

Winterhawk set the box down on the seat, still using the back to hold himself up. “I need to find a koradji. The more powerful, the better. Do you know of any Aborigine groups based near here who might know of someone?”

Ocelot and Dreja were both looking at him like he’d gone crazy. “What the hell—?” Ocelot began.

Winterhawk ignored him, fixing his burning, fever-bright gaze on Bodge. “Well? Do you?”

Bodge looked confused. “Uh—maybe, yeah. I think so. Thuma’s group’s not far.”

“How far?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty klicks or so? They move around, but I think I remember some mates doin’ a supply run out ta them a couple of weeks ago. They might be stayin’ put for a little while. Why, though?”

“Can you take us to them?”

Everybody stared at Winterhawk. “’Hawk,” Ocelot said, getting up, “Come on. I know you’re feelin’ like drek right now, but we gotta go. You said yourself, there’s not much time.”

“The situation’s changed,” Winterhawk said. He sagged a little over the back of the seat. “We’re not taking this to the Johnson.”

“What?” Ocelot crossed the space and got into the mage’s face. “’Maybe you better explain what’s going on. Now.”

Winterhawk looked past him to the rigger. “My show, remember? Take us to them, Bodge.”

The rigger shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “Yer the boss.” He disappeared back into the cab, and after a moment the Bison rumbled back onto the road, turned around, and began heading back the way it had come.

Winterhawk picked up the box and dropped into the seat, holding it in his lap. Ocelot, Dreja, and Scuzzy clustered around him. “We’re taking this back to someone who can make sure it ends up where it belongs,” he said. He didn’t look at them. He didn’t want to think about it, or about what was inevitably going to happen. At this point, if there was nothing he could do to stop it, he just wanted to get it over with.

“Why?” Dreja asked.

“Something’s changed,” Ocelot said, his eyes narrowing. He glanced at Scuzzy, then back at Winterhawk. “He told you something, didn’t he? When he was back there with you.”

Wearily, the mage nodded.

“What’d you tell him?” Ocelot turned on Scuzzy, his voice a low growl.

“Leave him alone. All he did was track down the truth I should have realized a long time ago,” Winterhawk said. “And if it’s the last thing I do—and it might well be—I’m going to make sure that bastard Ortega doesn’t get what he wants.” He still wasn’t looking at them, but he made a vague gesture in Scuzzy’s direction. “Show them the files. I’d rather not explain.”

It got quiet in the passenger compartment as Dreja and Ocelot both skimmed Scuzzy’s data. Ocelot slammed his fist down onto the arm of his seat, denting it. “Frag!” he snapped. “’Hawk, I—”

Winterhawk shook his head. “None of that,” he said. “We don’t have time. Let’s just do this, and then—”

“Hey, guys.” Tiny angled his bulky frame out of the cab. “What’s goin’ on? I was takin’ a nap, and Bodge says we turned around. How come? Don’t we have to get that thing back to Seattle pronto?”

“Plan’s changed,” Dreja said in a monotone.

“Huh?”

“Look,” Winterhawk said, getting up with care, “I’m not feeling much like talking right now, if you don’t mind. I’m going back to lie down for a bit. Wake me when we get where we’re going, all right?”

Ocelot nodded numbly. “Yeah…okay.”

Tiny’s confused gaze followed Winterhawk as he disappeared into the rear compartment and closed the door. “What’s up with him? Why’d the plan change?”

Ocelot and Dreja didn’t answer. Finally, Scuzzy updated him with the short version of the latest developments.

Tiny dropped into a seat across from them. He thought for a moment, then pointed back toward where Winterhawk had gone. “You mean—there’s nothing we can do to get him outta this alive?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Ocelot said without looking at him. He gripped the arms of his seat to keep from launching himself up out of it and pacing around like a caged tiger. He’d never been good with confinement, and the Bison, with its minimal windows and armored walls, was becoming oppressive. It wasn’t the vehicle, though, and he knew it: it was the situation. He wanted to hit something, put his fist through it and release the pent-up energy rising inside that made him want to start yelling at the world. Fragging corps never changed, and this time, after all the runs they’d pulled, the bullet had finally found its mark in one of his oldest friends. And there wasn’t a fragging thing he could do about it.

Tiny was silent for a long time, staring out the small window. Then he said, “Why are we doing this, then?”

“Huh?” Scuzzy asked. He looked up from where he’d been fiddling idly with his deck.

“Why are we takin’ this thing to some Aborigine magic-man?”

Ocelot shrugged. “Because that’s what ’Hawk wants to do. What, you want to give it to the Johnson? You need cred that bad?” His voice took on a dangerous edge.

“Nah, not Johnson,” Tiny said, unperturbed. “Frag, if somebody screwed me over that bad, I wouldn’t want to give him what he wanted either. But…”

“But?” Dreja asked, leaning forward. Her tone was the same as Ocelot’s. Even the normally oblivious Scuzzy flinched back a little.

“Look,” the samurai said, his own voice taking on a tinge of stubbornness. “I know the guy’s your chummer. This whole thing sucks, and I’m sorry about that. But drek happens. People get fragged on runs sometimes.” He glanced back toward the rear compartment. “But that thing he’s got—it’s worth a fraggin’ fortune. You heard what he said about it: it’s ancient and magic, which means a lot of people would pay a lot of cred for it.” He glared at them. “If takin’ it back to his Johnson isn’t gonna do a damn thing to help him—if he’s gonna die anyway, why can’t we just take it and—”

He didn’t get to finish because Ocelot was right there in his face, one hand grabbing the front of his shirt, the other balled into a fist and poised a centimeter from his face. “You’re gonna want to shut up,” Ocelot snarled. “You don’t know how much I want to put my fist through something right now, and you’re lookin’ like a real good candidate.”

Tiny roared, moving every bit as fast as Ocelot, flinging him back into the wall on the other side of the compartment. He erupted out of his chair, fists raised. “Don’t you frag with me, man!” he yelled. “You ain’t in charge of this job, and your friend ain’t gonna care what happens to that thing. I say we get what we can out of it, not just hand it over to a bunch of—”

There was a click. “Try it,” Dreja said. Her tone was even, controlled, but her own rage came through nonetheless. “Just try it, and see how far you get.”

Ocelot scrambled out of Tiny’s grip and got upright again to see Dreja holding her SMG pointed at Tiny’s head, only a few centimeters away.

“Hey, back there!” came Bodge’s voice over the PA. “No fightin’ in my rig!”

“We got this,” Dreja called back. She fixed a level gaze on Tiny. The gun barrel didn’t waver. “Right?”

He glared at her. “Yeah, I got it.” His mouth twisted into a sneer. “You’re all for this too, I see. Nothin’ but a fraggin’ hypocrite, aren’t you?”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

He shook his head as if dismissing her. “You think I don’t listen. You think I’m just dumb muscle. But I know the only reason you’re on this job in the first place is ’cuz you owe some mob boss big cred. I heard of you—I know you usually only take jobs helpin’ metas, or fraggin’ over corps. You got standards. You make a big deal outta that, like you’re somethin’ special. Until you owe somebody, then all your high ideals just go right in the crapper, don’t they?”

He reached up and shoved her gun barrel away from him. “Don’t talk to me about ideals, sister. You need the cred too, and you know it. So what’s it gonna be? We sell the thing and get a big payoff, or we give it to a bunch of natives who’ll probably stick it in a cave and dance around it or somethin’, at least till somebody else with some balls takes it from ’em?”

Ocelot watched both of them, his muscles quivering with the desire to get his hands around the ork bastard’s neck and squeeze. He looked back and forth between Tiny and Dreja, watching the interplay of emotions on her face as she digested what the samurai had said. He didn’t look at Scuzzy; the decker didn’t count in this. If Dreja decided to side with Tiny, though, Ocelot wasn’t sure he could take them both. But he was sure he’d try, if it came to that.

Finally, Dreja lowered her gun and returned it to its holster with a loud sigh.

“What’s it gonna be?” Tiny asked again. “Pay off the monkey on your back, or live up to some code you’ve already broken?”

She glanced toward Ocelot, then back toward the closed door to the rear compartment. She shrugged. “Maybe I did break it,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I gotta keep breakin’ it.”

Ocelot let his breath out; he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it.

Tiny snorted. “Fine,” he said. “We do it your way.” He looked over at Scuzzy, who had skittered over into a corner when the fighting had started. “What about you, twerp? You goin’ along with this?”

“Yeah,” he said, as if there were no question about it. “You gotta be a pretty fraggin’ crappy person to sell out a teammate for cred.”

Tiny glared at him, poised for a moment as if he might lunge at the skinny decker. Ocelot and Dreja both stiffened, preparing to intercept him if he did. The tension held for a few beats, and then Tiny let out a loud, contemptuous snort. He stalked across the compartment and threw himself into the seat farthest from the rest of them.

“You people are all morons.”

CHAPTER 33

WESTERN AUSTRALIA 
TUESDAY MORNING

Nobody spoke much as the Bison motored across the unceasing red dust of the Outback. Tiny remained sullenly slouched in his seat, occasionally muttering to himself until he finally nodded off. Ocelot noticed Dreja was keeping as close a watch on the ork samurai as he was; he didn’t trust Tiny not to try something. Scuzzy had taken over the shotgun seat up front. The door to the rear compartment remained closed.

Ocelot glanced over at Dreja. <Keep an eye on him,>, he sent, nodding at the dozing Tiny. <I’ll be back in a few.> Then he got up and opened the rear door.

It was dark inside; all the lights in the small compartment were turned off. Ocelot’s low-light cybereyes adjusted, quickly picking out the form stretched out on one of the two tiny bunks. Maya was curled up on top of the box next to the bunk. “’Hawk?”

He half-expected the mage not to answer, but he did. “Yes?” He sounded ragged and tired.

“We’re almost there. Few more klicks. You doing all right?”

“Not really.” He sat up and switched on the light next to him. His face was pale, his eyes sunken deep into shadowy hollows. He indicated the box, idly letting his hand trail over Maya’s back. “That thing wants something,” he said. His voice was soft, contemplative, almost like he was talking to himself.

Ocelot sat down across from him. “What do you mean, it wants something?”

“I felt it when we first got it. There’s a sort of—pull to it. I can’t explain it better than that. I think it’s connected to something else.”

“Uh…okay. So what does that mean for us?”

Winterhawk shook his head. “Nothing, probably. Perhaps the koradji will know what it means.”

Ocelot said nothing, watching him for a long moment. “Is it dangerous to have it?” he asked at last. “Is whatever it’s connected to gonna come after it?”

“No idea.” His voice held none of the usual animated curiosity he displayed when talking about any sort of magical subject. “Probably best to just hand it off to someone who can deal with it and get the hell away from it.”

“Do you think Johnson knew about this—connection?”

“Now, that’s the odd bit.” Winterhawk straightened a little, his expression troubled. “I was examining some more of those files that Scuzzy retrieved. It looks like Ortega and Boyd were old University friends. As nearly as I can determine, Boyd was fairly ignorant about extractions and whatnot. I think he just contacted Ortega because he was the only person he knew who might have the means and the desire to get him out.”

“I’m not following. Did Boyd know about the connection?”

Winterhawk shook his head impatiently. “I don’t know. My guess is that he didn’t. But here’s my question, which becomes a lot more important now, with this new knowledge: who was Kivuli working for?”

Ocelot started to say something, then stared. “Holy drek, you’re right. It doesn’t make sense that she’d be working for the Johnson. Why would he sabotage his own op? All this time we’ve been thinking that Kivuli was just after Boyd, but…”

“Exactly,” Winterhawk agreed. “If Ortega’s two aims were to get hold of this thing and get rid of me, the easiest way to achieve both was just to let us succeed. Sending someone after us would just increase the chance that the item would be lost or destroyed.” He shifted in his seat, wincing. “Even if Kivuli was trying to get Boyd away from us long enough to retrieve the location from his headware, why hire a backup group?”

“Maybe Ortega thought you’d catch on and try to screw him over? I mean, it’s not like Aztechnology’s hurting for funds to hire runners.”

“Possibly. But there’s something else that makes me wonder about that.”

“What?”

“I watched the communications between Ortega and the parabiochemist again. I didn’t find any trace of corporate iconography on any of the files.”

Ocelot frowned. “So?”

“So…if this were an official Aztechnology job, why try so hard to hide it? I’ll bet if I asked Scuzzy to examine these files more closely, he’d find that there wasn’t even any identifiable metadata on any of these files associating them with AZT.”

“So you’re sayin’ that Johnson, or Ortega, or whatever his name is, is doing this on his own?”

Winterhawk spread his hands in an ‘I don’t know’ gesture. “If he is, though, that makes me wonder why.”

“What it makes me wonder,” Ocelot said, “Is if this other group who’s after it, the one who apparently hired Kivuli and maybe tried to take out the Gypsies, isn’t working for Ortega, then they might know about whatever this thing is connected to. Maybe that’s why they want it.”

Winterhawk nodded. “True. We’ll have to be sure to tell the koradji about that when we hand it over.” He looked up at Ocelot, his expression serious. “If I can’t do it for whatever reason, then you—”

“Shut up, ’Hawk.”

The mage considered for a moment, then nodded. “I’m sure he and his people will have ways of making sure that the others won’t be able to track it. I don’t think they can track it now, as long as it’s under cover. That’s why I’m not trying to study the item itself any further—I’m afraid it will lead the other group right to us. It might have already.”

Ocelot didn’t answer, because at that moment Bodge’s voice came over the Bison’s PA. “You guys might want to look sharp. We’re almost there.”

It was another fifteen minutes before they reached their destination, a collection of makeshift, temporary buildings spread out over a small area near a series of low foothills. Even before they reached it, they could see groups of people going about their business, the glows of fires, and even a couple dogs running around.

“Here we are,” Bodge said, pulling to a stop. “Let me do the talkin’, at least at first. I’ve dealt with this group before—they’re not crazy about strangers comin’ ta visit, but if I vouch for ya it should be okay. Just be frosty, and don’t do anything insultin’.”

“Great,” Ocelot muttered. “Because city guys from Seattle know everything about what Aborigines might find insulting…”

They trooped out of the Bison and stood taking the place in for a moment. Winterhawk could feel gazes on them from all around; he was sure the small group of Aborigines who had come out to meet them were not the only ones nearby.

“G’day, Bodge,” one of the men, a small, solidly-built human, called, waving. Then he switched briefly into a language Winterhawk didn’t understand. Bodge said something in the same language, and then the first man switched back to English. “What are you doin’ here? You bring somethin’ for us?” He eyed the newcomers one at a time, as if memorizing each of their faces. “Who you got here?”

Bodge turned to Winterhawk. “Tell ’em,” he said. “I got no idea what yer lookin’ for.” He pointed at the man. “This is Cole. Cole, this is Winterhawk. He and his group hired me to bring ’em out here.”

Winterhawk stepped forward, leaning heavily on a metal pole he’d salvaged from the Bison with one arm and gripping the box containing the artifact in the crook of the other. “We need to speak with your most powerful koradji,” he said, his voice raspy. “It’s very important.”

The man looked at him like he’d just asked them to hand over leadership of their group to a band of kangaroos. He turned back to Bodge and shook his head. “Bodge, what’s goin’ on, mate? You can’t just bring some gubba by and expect Thuma to talk to him. Anyway, he’s busy. He’s in the middle of his meditations.”

Winterhawk’s patience for diplomacy was at perhaps an all-time low. His legs trembled and he tightened his grip on the pole. “Please, listen,” he said. He indicated the box. “We’ve got something here he’ll want to see. It’s a magical artifact created by your people.”

Some of the other Aborigines watching from further back murmured to each other. Cole’s eyes traveled from Winterhawk to the box he held and then back up to his face. It didn’t take any sort of perception to tell that his experiences generally involved white men trying to take artifacts away from his people, not coming to their camp to offer them one.

“He’s a magic man, Cole,” Bodge said. “I’ve seen him sling the mojo. He knows what he’s talkin’ about.”

Cole considered for another long moment, then finally nodded. “I’ll see if he wants to talk to you,” he said at last. He motioned a couple of other Aborigines over and spoke in low tones to them, then turned back to the group. “You go with them and wait. I’ll be back soon.” Without another word to them he turned and jogged off, disappearing up a trail into the hills.

By now, more Aborigines had gathered to check out the newcomers. For the most part they hung back, watching from a distance, but the two Cole had spoken with, a calm-eyed human woman and a watchful, battle-scarred ork man, came forward.

“C’mon,” the man said in heavily accented English. “You’ve traveled far. Come and rest while you wait.”

They followed the two into a smallish hut. Winterhawk went first, noticing that Ocelot was staying close by. “I’m not going to keel over,” he muttered under his breath. “Not quite yet, anyway.” He hoped that was true, but wasn’t completely sure about it.

Ocelot didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away, either. Dreja, Scuzzy, and Tiny followed along behind.

Half an hour passed before a figure appeared in the doorway. It was a tall, lean young man of perhaps seventeen, dressed in cargo shorts, a leather vest, and dusty leather boots. His dark skin was crisscrossed with scars and tattoos. He looked over the group and his gaze settled immediately on Winterhawk. “Please come with me,” he said. “Thuma says he’ll talk to you.”

They followed the boy silently up a long path to the top of a ridge. Winterhawk gritted his teeth, forcing himself forward, but by the time they made it to the top he was barely standing. Ocelot gave him a questioning look, but he shook his head. He was going to see this through, if for no other reason than sheer stubbornness.

The boy led them through a wide opening into a cave set into the hillside. Light flickered from within, casting eerie shadows onto the stone walls. As they headed further in, they saw another man sitting cross-legged in front of a fire. He was considerably older than the boy; every visible centimeter of his skin was decorated with even more intricate scars and tattoos. The cave walls were also decorated with paintings and symbols that seemed to move in the firelight. The boy motioned for them to wait, then dropped to his knees next to the older man.

“I think even I can feel the magic in here,” Dreja muttered, looking around nervously.

Winterhawk nodded. When he had switched to astral perception, both the cave and the two Aborigines’ body art had lit up with auras: the paintings and symbols were powerfully magical, and the koradji himself displayed a strong and unmasked aura. Even though their traditions were so different as to be nearly alien to each other, Winterhawk had no trouble recognizing another initiate of the higher mysteries. If nothing else, the serpent would be in good hands.

“Come,” the boy said. “Sit.”

The group did as they were told, taking their places around the fire. It was only then that the koradji himself spoke. “Welcome,” he said. “It’s not often we get visitors from so far away. You can call me Thuma, and this is Narrah, my apprentice.”

Everyone introduced themselves. Thuma nodded politely at each name, but it was clear that his mind was on something far away. “Please,” he said, “Tell me why you’ve come.”

Winterhawk got right to it. He set the box in front of him, and gave the koradji a brief explanation of what it contained, where they’d gotten it, and why they had it. He spoke slowly, frustrated with himself that the mere act of speaking was draining his strength. When he finished, he was shaking, his hands clutching the edge of the box. Moving with care, he slid the lid off the box and tilted it so Thuma could see what was inside.

The koradji’s reaction startled them all. He was clearly assensing as he looked at it, and as soon as his gaze fell on the serpent, he jerked backward as if he’d been hit by an electrical current. Narrah, alarmed, started to dart forward to catch him, but he waved a dismissive hand. Winterhawk noticed that his expression was fearful, and he too was shaking. “Close it…” Thuma rasped.

“What’s wrong?” Ocelot asked, as Winterhawk quickly returned the lid to the box.

For a long time, Thuma didn’t answer. He leaned back, eyes closed, taking deep, steady breaths. Then he opened his eyes. “So, it has come at last.”

“What’s come?” Dreja asked.

Thuma’s eyes were unfocused; he wasn’t looking at any of them, but rather seemed to be seeing something none of the rest of them could. “I have been sent dreams of this moment,” he said. “So have other koradji I have spoken with in the recent past.”

“Dreams?” Winterhawk asked, his gaze sharpening. His curiosity drove away a little of his growing feeling of unease. “What sort of dreams?”

“About this thing?” Scuzzy asked, pointing at the box.

“Dreams of something that was to happen,” Thuma said, still without looking at them. “Dreams of something…terrible coming into the world. But the dreams were not specific. They merely urged us to be watchful.”

“You’re saying this thing is dangerous?” Dreja asked.

Thuma snapped back to awareness, almost as if he were awakening from another of his prophetic dreams. “Not on its own,” he said.

Winterhawk stared at him. “It’s connected to something,” he said softly. “Isn’t it?”

Thuma looked surprised that he had figured that out. “Yes. You can feel it?”

“When I was examining it, yes. It feels like it’s—pulling at something.”

The old koradji nodded. “Please—may I see it?”

Winterhawk passed the box across to him. He took it, settling it into the hollow formed by his crossed legs, and began running his hands over it, chanting in a low and musical voice.

“What’s he doing?” Scuzzy whispered.

Winterhawk continued assensing before answering in a low voice. “He’s weaving a sort of protective field around it. Probably so he can examine it safely.”

After a few minutes, Thuma stopped chanting, though he still appeared to be focused on something far away. Slowly, he slid the top back off the box and stared down into it.

Ocelot stiffened. “Is that—?”

“It’s all right,” Winterhawk murmured. “He’s got it contained.”

It was getting hard to stay upright now. Sweat unrelated to the heat of the fire trickled down his back, and a growing, gnawing ache bloomed steadily from somewhere within his chest. The spirit was on the move again. He focused on watching Thuma work, though the koradji’s protective magic was strong enough that he could no longer see the serpent’s aura even at such close proximity.

Thuma’s examination lasted for nearly fifteen minutes. Dreja and Ocelot sat still, each appearing to be lost in their own thoughts, while Tiny and Scuzzy looked uncomfortable and fidgeted, shifting back and forth and looking around the cavern. A couple of times Winterhawk caught Scuzzy’s gaze straying toward the bag where he kept his deck, but the decker managed to refrain from retrieving it.

Suddenly, Thuma sagged, his eyes growing wide. It was hard to tell for sure between the inky darkness of his skin and the flickering firelight, but his complexion seemed to take on a slight ashen tone. Narrah, the apprentice, moved to his side, but he held up a hand, sliding the lid back on the box with the other. “I hoped I was wrong…”

“What is it?” Ocelot asked.

In answer, he looked at Winterhawk. “I know something of your tradition,” he said. “And I see that you, too, are awakened to the higher mysteries.”

Winterhawk nodded.

“It’s my understanding,” he continued, “that in your tradition, it’s customary during one of your early initiation rites to inscribe your magical insights onto a document, correct?”

“Yes.” Winterhawk himself had created such a work many years ago; a handmade, leatherbound tome stored in a secure location. Aside from serving as the focus of one of his initiation ordeals, it also formed the cornerstone of his thesis when he’d obtained his Applied Thaumaturgy doctorate. He looked hard at Thuma. “Are you saying—?”

The koradji indicated the box. “In our tradition, we take a different approach to the same purpose. We produce an artistic piece, a masterwork, that captures the whole of our Dreaming. I have created one, and it’s the only material possession that has any meaning to me. It encompasses everything I am, my connection with the ancestors and other spirits, my place within the greater Dreaming. It is, as you might expect, an intensely powerful and personal process.”

Ocelot leaned in. “Are you saying that this thing is one of those?”

Thuma looked troubled. “Yes…and no.”

“What’s that mean?” Scuzzy asked.

“It isn’t complete, for one thing,” he said. He looked at Winterhawk. “That’s why you think it’s connected to something: because it is. This is only half of the work. There is another, somewhere, and it seeks its counterpart.”

Dreja frowned. “Why now? Wouldn’t they have been looking for each other all along? I thought this thing was old.”

“It’s ancient,” Thuma said. “And from the story you tell me, this one was hidden away beneath the earth until the manastorm revealed it.”

“The earth would have blocked its signal,” Winterhawk said, nodding. He took a deep breath, tightening his jaw against his growing pain. “But there’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling us.”

“Yes.” Thuma held up the serpent, studying it. “This is, I’m sure, what was sent to me and the other koradji in our dreams, and now I see why. If these two halves of the whole are reunited, then it will have dire consequences. And I fear that there are those who are trying to do just that.”

“Why?” Scuzzy asked. “I don’t get this magic stuff very well, but isn’t this just like some kind of magical autobiography? Like you create this thing and draw mystic symbols all over it that tell the story of your life or something? How can that be dangerous?”

“Because that isn’t all this one is,” Thuma said. Real fear flickered in his eyes along with the firelight as he pointed at the various symbols and pictographs on the serpent. “It’s a thesis, yes. But if what I read here is true, the koradji who created it was a man whose true name was lost, but who was known as Akurra, which is the Adnyamathanha people’s name for a powerful snake spirit. He lived many years ago—some have even said millennia—and was known for having such vast power that those who knew him were convinced he spoke to the gods themselves.” He paused, then looked up. “He was also said to have been quite mad.”

“Wait a minute,” Ocelot said. “I get that this thing is more than just a life story—that it’s got some kind of magical component that connects it with the guy who created it. But this guy’s got to be dead, right? So even if it’s still connected to him, how can that cause any trouble? It’s not like joining the two pieces together is gonna raise his spirit, or—”

Thuma’s gaze, steady and calm, swiveled to meet his.

Ocelot’s eyes widened. “Oh, holy drek…” he breathed.

The koradji nodded. “The legends spoke of how Akurra was able to preserve his spirit in a carefully prepared vessel prior to his death, and how his followers hid it away until the time came to unearth it and release him. That’s all we thought they were: legends. But after seeing this…” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “I don’t know if combining the two parts will allow Akurra’s spirit to be released into our world, but the fact that they’re still pulling at each other after all this time suggests that it’s possible. We can’t take the risk.”

Winterhawk stared at Thuma with almost as much shock as Ocelot did; his mind reeled with questions that clamored to get out, but he knew this wasn’t the time. “Can you hide it?” he asked, voice hoarse. “Or destroy it?”

“I don’t know if I could destroy it,” Thuma said soberly. “But I wouldn’t, in any case. This is part of our culture, part of the Dreaming. I didn’t create it, so it’s not for me to destroy it. But I’ll confer with the other koradji who shared in my visions. If you leave it with us, we will see to it that it’s protected and hidden from anyone who might want to misuse it. I’m sure that, given time, between us we can make a ritual that will safely break the connection and remove the threat.”

“If it’s that dangerous,” Dreja said, “Wouldn’t it make sense to get it as far away from its other half as possible? Hell, maybe arrange to put it in a lead box and drop it in the ocean, or have it sent up into space?”

“Or if you can’t destroy it, then we can,” Tiny said, speaking for the first time. “It doesn’t look very tough.”

Dreja glared at him. “Yeah, like we’re gonna let you anywhere near it, after what you said before.”

“Please,” Thuma said, holding up his hands. He looked at Winterhawk. “It must be your decision. But now that you’ve brought this to us, I beg you—leave it with us. It belongs with our people.”

Winterhawk nodded. He looked around the circle at his friends, trying to read their thoughts from their faces, even though he knew this was ultimately his own decision. He had gotten them all into this, and he could already feel the shadow gnawing at him, gaining power, draining his strength. He was sure he didn’t have much longer before he wouldn’t be able to make his wishes known. “We brought it to you,” he said. “It—”

Pain.

Sudden, searing agony. With a spasmodic jerk, he rose to a more upright position, eyes clamped shut, teeth clenched against the scream he could feel building inside him. The shadow’s tendrils gripped at him, squeezing with thousands of tiny claws, biting with thousands of tiny teeth inside his body, inside his head…as if something were devouring him with methodical precision from the inside out.

His hands flew to his temples, clutching his head as if that action could squeeze the shadows from it. A tide of red-gray broke over him, submerging everything but the pain. Faintly, from far away, he thought he heard voices calling his name, thought he felt hands grasping at him.

In a last, desperate attempt to stave off what he knew was inevitably coming, he tried to fling his consciousness free of his body, to project it into the astral plane. But the red-gray tide rose faster, almost as if it had anticipated his plan.

He thought he heard himself scream, and then even the pain was gone as everything faded to blackness.

CHAPTER 34

ABORIGINE CAMP 
TUESDAY MORNING

Ocelot paced, his entire body thrumming with tension. His every impulse wanted to break free of the small hut where they’d been taken to wait. He wanted to punch through the walls and run out into the chilly Outback night. He wanted to do something.

Narrah had brought them here about a half-hour ago, after Thuma had instructed them all to leave him alone with Winterhawk.

“Why?” Dreja had demanded. “You can’t help him, can you?”

“I don’t know,” Thuma had said.

“We can’t help him,” Scuzzy pointed out. “Let’s let him try. Maybe he’s got a shot at it.”

Ocelot hadn’t wanted to go, but Dreja had taken his arm and pulled him along. Now he was here with the others, pacing and muttering obscenities under his breath and feeling useless. “I don’t like any of this,” he growled. “Who knows what the hell he’s doin’ up there with ’Hawk. And leavin’ that thing with these guys—”

Dreja sighed. “I don’t like it either, but it’s not our choice to make. It belongs to their people. We can’t take it away from them just because we don’t like the way things are going.”

Tiny snorted. “I think it’s all a load of drek anyway. That old fossil’s just tellin’ us that stuff about the spirit so we’ll let him keep it.”

“You just don’t give up, do you?” Scuzzy snapped. The decker was at least as restless as Ocelot, though probably not for the same reason: he’d made no secret to his teammates over the last couple of days that he’d never gone this long without Matrix access, and it was causing him serious distress.

Half an hour passed. By the time the koradji’s apprentice Narrah appeared in the doorway, Ocelot had thrown himself down on an old cot and was trying without success to achieve a catnap. All of them jumped up when the boy appeared.

“’Hawk?” Ocelot demanded. “Is he—?”

“Your friend’s still alive,” Narrah said. “But only barely.” He pointed at Ocelot and Dreja. “He wants to see you two.”

“Where?” Dreja asked, suspicious.

But Narrah didn’t answer, only turned and disappeared into the faint light of the dawning day.

“Why just you two?” Scuzzy asked. “Why not all of us?”

“He’s gonna make a deal with ’em for that thing,” Tiny said.

“Will you give it a fraggin’ rest?” Ocelot glared at him, the temptation to shove his cyberspur through the samurai’s ugly face growing stronger by the minute. Then to Dreja, he said, “C’mon. Let’s go see what he wants.”

Narrah was waiting outside. He nodded to them, then led them back to the same cave where they had been before. He motioned them inside, but didn’t go in himself.

Thuma was still seated cross-legged in front of the fire, the box containing the serpent next to him on the ground. Winterhawk lay near him; someone had placed a folded blanket under his head. The mage’s face was ashen; he could have been dead, except that his eyes were open, his gaze wandering and unfocused. He turned his head toward Ocelot and Dreja as they entered.

“What’s going on?” Ocelot asked without sitting down. “Why do you want to see us?”

“I’ve examined your friend,” he said. “He’s in the grip of powerful magic.”

“Yeah, tell us something we don’t know.” Ocelot was out of patience at this point. Diplomacy had never been his strong suit under the best of circumstances; right now it was out of the question.

“Can you do anything for him?” Dreja asked.

“His body is under assault by a malevolent and potent spirit,” Thuma said. “I’ve never seen anything exactly like this before. Do you know how it came to be there?”

“Some guy who doesn’t like him was into creative revenge,” Ocelot said. “Can you get it out of him? You know, like banish it or something?”

Thuma shook his head, looking troubled. “Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s not a question of just banishing it. It’s…somehow tied to his life force.” He paused, as if trying to figure out how to say it. “If it was a physical thing, I’d say it’s like a sort of…tumor growing inside of him, slowly reaching out to drain more and more of his life energy.”

Ocelot and Dreja exchanged glances. “It was a ritual,” Ocelot said. “Scuzzy has a vid of it, but it’s long, probably too long to show you now. Do you know about blood magic?”

Thuma nodded. “He told me a bit about the ritual, as much as he could manage.” His expression was grave. “That makes sense. There’s great power in blood. We use it in some of our own rituals—every important stage of life involves the shedding of blood. But not like this.” He looked disgusted. “Rituals like this are perversions. They’re…an insult to nature.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ocelot said, glancing at Winterhawk’s still, pale form. “So you can’t banish it. What can you do? I’m gonna guess you guys didn’t call us up here just to tell us that.”

The koradji closed his eyes as if gathering his thoughts. “There may be a way. It’s dangerous, and I don’t know if it will work.”

“What is it?” Dreja asked. “And who’s it dangerous to? You? Him?”

Thuma stared into the fire. “To have any chance of saving your friend, it will, I think, require a journey to the metaplanes. The spirit originates there, so it must be destroyed there. And he has to do it,” he said, nodding at Winterhawk.

“Huh?” Ocelot demanded. “How’s he gonna do that? He’s barely even conscious.”

“I can revive him for a short time, and we can journey there together. I can guide him to the right place. Fortunately, since the spirit is interconnected with his own essence, we can trace it back to its home metaplane. That makes things a little easier. But I won’t be able to help in the battle itself. It isn’t my fight. To be this effective and hide its effects so well, this ritual had to have been designed specifically for him. That means the spirit is attuned to him. In order to cast it from his body, he’ll need to oppose it with his own strength and destroy it.”

Ocelot was about to say something, but then he stopped. “His strength…” he said. “You mean his mental strength. His will. That’s the way it works, isn’t it?” It was coming back to him: the old days, when Winterhawk used to try to explain complex magical concepts to him. Half the time Ocelot had thought the mage just liked the sound of his own voice and a captive audience, but apparently some of his lectures had rubbed off.

Thuma nodded. “Yes. It’s not going to be easy, though. This spirit will know his weaknesses, and try to exploit them. He might still die.” He sighed. “He’ll probably still die.”

“But there’s a chance,” Ocelot said. “Can I help him? Can I go along? I’ve been on metaplane trips with him before.”

The koradji looked surprised at that. “Yes. I don’t know how much help you can be—you can’t defeat this thing for him. But I can call a spirit and ask it to open a way for you. He’ll have an easier time of it if he has an ally to help him in his fight.”

“Two allies,” Dreja said firmly. When Ocelot looked at her in surprise, she shrugged. “I’m in, too. He’s paying me. I got a rep to protect.” She turned back to Thuma before Ocelot could say anything else. “So, can we both go? And how does this work? Can we do it right away?”

“We’ll have to,” Thuma said. “He won’t survive long if we don’t.” He called out, and Narrah hurried inside. The two of them conferred softly for a moment, and then Narrah nodded and darted back outside the cave. “We will have to travel a short way,” he said. “To a sacred place near a song line, where it will be easier to perform the ritual more quickly.”

“What about—that thing?” Ocelot asked, pointing at the box. “Are we taking it with us?”

“It will remain here. Narrah and our warriors will guard it until we return. I have shielded it, so anybody who might be looking for it shouldn’t be able to find it.” He rose in his eerie, graceful way, and headed for the cave exit. “Get ready. We’ll leave in a few minutes. We don’t have time to wait.”

Ocelot watched him go, then sank down next to Winterhawk. The mage’s eyes were open and aimed at him, but it was hard to tell if he was actually seeing him. He sighed. “Well, one thing hasn’t changed since the old days, ’Hawk,” he said. “You sure as hell don’t do anything the easy way.”

CHAPTER 35

ABORIGINE SACRED SITE 
TUESDAY, DAWN 

“Are you ready?” Thuma asked.

It was dawn, and they’d traveled by Jeep to the top of a rise on a narrow and winding dirt road. Here, Thuma had told them, his tribe had erected a ritual site, situated on a song line and carefully designed and constructed to facilitate the koradjis’ communication with the spirits.

“No one who is not of my people has ever been permitted here,” he said. “But in this case the need is great. I have consulted with the spirits, and they have agreed that an exception must be made. I ask that you do not speak of anything you see here to others.”

Both of them had assured him that they would not.

The old koradji sat now in the center of the circle of rocks, a fire blazing in front of him. Around it were three small stone braziers, each one emitting odd-smelling gray smoke from something he had set to burn. A fourth, slightly larger stone bowl, currently empty, sat on a three-legged stand between the fire and Thuma. He had been sitting there, chanting and weaving his preparations, for the better part of an hour after they’d arrived.

“What do we have to do?” Dreja asked. She looked nervous, and Ocelot thought he knew why: she was a warrior, accustomed to fast and decisive physical action. Any mages or shamans she worked with were most likely of the combat-oriented variety, more suited to slinging damaging spells and providing straightforward magical backup than to performing rituals like this. Still, he also wondered what the old Aborigine had in mind. In all his lectures, Winterhawk had never mentioned anything about Australian magic and how it worked. This was new territory for Ocelot almost as much as it was for Dreja.

“Bring him into the circle,” Thuma said, nodding at the rear of the old Jeep. They’d made Winterhawk as comfortable as possible in the back, and left him there while Thuma prepared the ritual.

They did as directed, laying him down on the other side of the fire, opposite where Thuma sat. The koradji nodded, motioning for both of them to take positions on either side of the mage. When they’d done so, he indicated the small brazier nearest them. “He has to be awake for this part—he must make the decision on his own, or not only won’t it work, we might get some nasty surprises instead. Wave that smoke over him.”

Ocelot took the brazier and wafted the gray smoke into Winterhawk’s face while on the other side of the fire, Thuma chanted. After a moment Winterhawk coughed and lurched upright, nearly knocking the brazier from Ocelot’s hands. His gaze darted around, as if he were confused by where he was, but his expression settled when he saw the circle of rocks and the rest of the ritual setup.

“This is it, then,” he said, blinking rapidly. He looked and sounded as if he wasn’t completely there, exhausted and emotionless. Ocelot and Dreja moved a little closer to steady him so he didn’t fall back over again.

Thuma nodded. He looked at all three of them. “What was done to you was done with blood, and it must be undone with blood. The difference is that this blood is given of your own free will, so it will add to your strength instead of taking away from it. But it must be freely given.” His dark eyes settled first on Ocelot, then on Dreja. “If you have any doubts, step out now. If you are not committed, you won’t be able to help, and you’ll probably cause the whole thing to fail.”

Ocelot’s jaw tightened as Thuma produced a stone knife from inside his jacket. He chanted over it for a moment, holding it in one hand and waving his other over it, tracing intricate patterns. The knife was covered in the same sort of symbols Ocelot had seen inside the cave where they’d first met Thuma. The koradji offered it hilt-first to Ocelot. When he took it after a pause, Thuma handed him the stone bowl from the empty brazier in front of him. It was obvious what was expected.

Glancing at Dreja and Winterhawk, Ocelot gripped the knife and sliced it across his palm, wincing as blood welled up. He turned his hand over and let it drip into the bowl. He thought he felt the stone receptacle tingle in his hand, but maybe that was just his imagination.

Thuma nodded approval and indicated Dreja. Ocelot passed her the knife and the bowl, and she repeated his actions, adding her own blood to the mix.

“Good, good,” Thuma said. He appeared to be entering into some sort of trance. “And now it’s your turn,” he said, pointing at Winterhawk. “You have to do it yourself.”

Winterhawk took the knife. His hand shook, but his expression was resolute. With almost a savage motion, he slashed his palm, deeper than Ocelot and Dreja had. Dreja moved quickly to get the bowl under the flow of blood. There was no mistaking it now: the crimson mixture thrummed with magical energy, and had started giving off a growing cloud of vapor.

“Give it here,” Thuma said with urgency. Ocelot pulled the knife from Winterhawk’s grip, and Dreja handed over the bowl. When he had both of them, Thuma made his own slice and added his own blood, chanting.

Winterhawk sagged again and collapsed.

The vapor cloud, shifting and so alive with magical energy that even Ocelot could feel it, streamed out of the bowl, billowing around all of them. Ocelot stiffened as his vision was obscured by what looked like reddish fog, gripping Winterhawk’s shoulder with one hand and reaching out to Dreja with the other.

He felt her hand close on his.

And the world changed.

CHAPTER 36

METAPLANES 
UNKNOWN LOCATION

Winterhawk was alone.

He stood on a graveled path. The sky above was a bright, dazzling blue, with a few wispy clouds meandering by. To his left and right lay a manicured garden, such as might surround a large manor house, stretching as far as he could see, but he barely glanced at it.

In front of him, at the end of the path, was a vast, rambling structure. It had the clean, ordered lines of some sort of archetypal institution—perhaps a university, library, or hospital. A short flight of white stone steps led up to a pair of massive double doors, currently closed. He could see no sign or any other identifying information.

Looking down at himself, he noted that he was dressed in an idealized version of his standard style: tailored dark suit, crisp white shirt, long overcoat. Every line was immaculate, spotless, perfect in a way it could never have been in the real world.

He wondered where his teammates were, where Thuma was. He thought they were going to accompany him, but perhaps he’d been mistaken. His mind hadn’t been at its sharpest lately, and the shadow had been flooding his thoughts with odd and unsettling images as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

“They aren’t coming…you’re all alone…”

The whispered voice in his head was so subtle that he wasn’t even sure whether he’d heard it or manufactured it. He shook his head and started forward. It was obvious where his path led.

The shadow inside him seemed to be gone. He walked slowly but steadily, his feet crunching on the gravel, his muscles moving effortlessly, without pain. Even his headache was gone. Of course. This isn’t my physical body. Even if he did end up having to die, doing it this way might be preferable: at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the increasing pain that threatened to pull his body apart.

He studied the building as he drew closer to it. He was sure he’d never seen it before, not per se, but he was equally sure that bits and pieces of it had been drawn from his own subconscious, blending together into a seamless whole that was impossible to quantify. He couldn’t say “those windows came from the University of East Anglia,” or “that door came from the Thaumaturgy department at UCLA,” but his mind still made those associations.

“Why didn’t they come along? They’ve given up on you…it’s hopeless…”

He paused at the foot of the stone steps, glancing at the garden again. There was something…off…about it; he couldn’t put his finger on it for a moment, but then it came to him: the orderly rows of plants and flowers, carefully pruned and arranged, had closed ranks. The gravel path terminated a few meters behind him in a solid row of blazing red rosebushes.

All right, then: no going back, he thought.

That didn’t surprise him. He’d been on enough metaplanar journeys to know that wherever he was, he might as well play along with the show. He smiled a bit as he recalled something an old teammate had said during a similar extraplanar trip long ago, something that had nicely encapsulated the experience. He murmured it aloud: “Moo.”

His smile faded quickly, though. There was no reason why this place should be unsettling: the blue sky, mild weather, lovely garden, and pristine structure should have added up to a pleasant, peaceful experience. Instead, something jangled at the edges of his subconscious, like a normally cheerful child’s tune played in a minor key. You didn’t expect it to be enjoyable, did you? he asked himself. Just get on with it.

“You can’t do it…you’re losing your grip… You’re not strong enough…you’ve never been strong enough…that’s why they abandoned you…”

He reached out to turn the knob on the right-side double door, and both of them swung open. Behind them was utter, impenetrable darkness, so black it made his eyes hurt with the strain of trying to pierce it. No hints, then. Turning, he glanced behind him again. The rosebushes were closer now; the flowers’ deep red was even deeper, almost black, the leaves a dark unhealthy gray-green, the needle-pointed thorns the size of tigers’ claws. Clouds rolled in overhead, obscuring the sun and turning the sky an unfeeling slate gray.

He was wrong, he decided: as hints went, this one was pretty blatant. Either the metaplanes were getting more literal than he’d remembered, or this was just the opening act. Forward: good. Backward: bad.

Or impossible.

He stepped into the darkness, prepared to summon a light spell that he fully expected to be ineffective. This proved unnecessary: the moment he crossed the threshold, the doors slammed shut behind him and the lights came up.

“Welcome,” said a voice. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Ocelot and Dreja appeared on an arid plain that didn’t look that much different from the Outback landscape they’d just occupied. The rough land stretched out as far as they could see: reddish earth, scrubby, brittle plants, and a vast, pale blue sky. There was no sign of Winterhawk, Thuma, the fire, or anything else familiar.

“What the hell—?” Dreja demanded, her hands immediately going to the AK-98 slung over her back.

Ocelot dropped into a defensive crouch, drawing his Mossberg and sweeping it around, scanning for threats. There were none, though: as far as he could tell, there was nothing alive. Even the plants looked spent and dead. “Where’d they go? ’Hawk!” he called. “Thuma! What’s going on?”

Dreja didn’t put her gun away, but she did lower it. “Looks like we got left behind.”

“Looks that way,” Ocelot said through his teeth. Had Thuma done this deliberately? Or was it just the metaplanes up to their old tricks again? Obviously they weren’t still at the Aborigines’ ritual site, but were they even still in Australia? Was this a metaplane? When he’d gone with Winterhawk before, there’d been some kind of Watcher thing that tested them before they could go on. Where was that? And if this was a metaplane, what were they doing here if they weren’t meant to help Winterhawk?

“So what now, we just wait?” Dreja’s heavy brows knotted in frustration. “We just sit here? If that’s the case, we should have stayed back at the camp.”

“Maybe not,” Ocelot said, though he was as frustrated as she was. “The one thing I learned from the couple times I did this with ’Hawk is that everything happens for a reason, even though we might not have a fraggin’ clue what it is at the time.”

“Great,” she said. “So, we sit here on our asses until the coach decides to put us into the game.”

“If there’s still a game when the time comes,” Ocelot said.

The two individuals standing in front of Winterhawk were both human: a man and a woman, each dressed in perfect business suits covered by white coats. They wore nearly identical smiles, dazzling and cheerful, and had identical shiny silver datajacks on the sides of their heads.

“You’ve…been expecting me,” Winterhawk repeated. He looked around: it was a spotlessly clean lobby with a tasteful grouping of beige sofas surrounding a glass-topped table on his right, and a large pale gray receptionist’s station on his left. Another set of swinging double doors was on the far side of the room, a few meters behind the two humans. It looked like the waiting room of a high-class hospital. Aside from the pair of humans, no other living soul was visible.

The woman smiled and nodded. “We’re all ready for you. If you’ll come with us, we’ll give you a tour around the facility, and then show you where you’ll be staying.”

“You can’t solve this. You’re not clever enough. Are you even sure these thoughts are your own?”

He shuddered a little and glared at the humans. The male held a datapad—had he had that before? “What kind of facility is this?”

“Come on,” the woman said, beckoning. “We’ll show you. We’re so proud of what we’re doing here. I’m sure we’ll be able to help you.”

He studied her for a moment. There was a certain plastic quality to her expression, as if she were looking at him from behind a mask. There appeared to be names embroidered over the breast pockets of both her coat and the man’s, but when he tried to focus on them they seemed to shift and blur. Whatever he was here to deal with, he was sure it wasn’t these two. They were just the messengers. “Suppose I want to look around on my own?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

She shook her head with a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, but we can’t let you do that. Not at first. After you’ve had the tour and settled in, then you’ll be able to do your own exploring.” She motioned toward the doors. “Let’s go.”

Acutely aware of what had to be going on with his physical body, he decided it was in his best interests not to stall any longer. Even though he didn’t feel weak right now, as his body faded he knew it would inevitably have a detrimental effect on his astral form.

He followed the two of them and they pushed through the swinging doors. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the waiting room recede into darkness as the doors swung shut behind him.

Far off in the distance, someone screamed.

“What was that?” he demanded.

“What was what?” The woman looked back at him. Her face was a little different, but he couldn’t quite identify how.

“I didn’t hear anything,” the man said without turning.

They were in a wide corridor now, lined with doors, carpeted in sturdy beige plush, the walls painted brilliant white. Tasteful pastel-dominated abstracts were interspersed at regular intervals. Each door had a small window set into it, but as he tried to glance through them as they went by, he saw nothing but darkness inside.

He caught a glimpse of his own leg as he moved, and stopped, startled. His immaculate suit and longcoat were now crisp pajamas, slippers, and a black robe belted at the waist. He hadn’t noticed the change.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked, turning again. Was he seeing things, or was her coat not quite as brightly white as it had been? Looking at her embroidered name made his eyes want to skitter away from it.

“You’re doomed…” whispered the voice. “You’ll never get it. You’re on your own. No one wants to help you. They’ve already gone back home.”

“Bugger off,” he whispered. He kept going.

It took him a while to realize that the light had changed, from muted overhead fluorescents set into the ceiling to drab, institutional hanging fixtures with metal cages built around them. The carpeting under his feet shifted seamlessly from the beige plush to a gray, utilitarian weave. The walls were still white, but a dingier shade in need of a good scrubbing. The pastel abstracts had become yellowed still lifes and floral studies of a type that had gone out of style sometime in the previous century. He noticed that the floor sloped downward at an almost imperceptible angle.

The screams were more frequent now.

“What’s going on?” he asked, but he didn’t stop. “Where are you taking me?”

“I told you,” the woman said. “We’re taking you to where you’ll be staying. How do you like our facility so far?” Her hair was different now, piled on top of her head. Her makeup was overdone, her mascara running just a bit. There were unidentifiable stains on her lab coat and the man’s. Instead of a data pad, the man now held a metal clipboard.

A hand thumped on the window of one of the nearby doors, fingers splayed like a pale starfish. It stayed there for a moment, then slid downward, as if its owner were being dragged away.

“Charming,” Winterhawk said, wondering what this was all leading to. Wondering if, whatever form it took, he would have any chance of defeating it.

“Of course not. You’re going to die alone. You had the chance to survive, but you failed.”

He kept going.

“Do you see that?” Ocelot leaped up from where he sat, gesturing with the barrel of his shotgun to something far off in the distance.

“See what?” Dreja shaded her eyes with her hand and craned her neck. Then she stiffened. “There’s something there. Is that—a person?”

“Looks like it,” he said. He was sure it hadn’t been there before, but it was there now. Adjusting the magnification in his cybereyes (huh, he thought idly: this is one of the metaplanes where cyberware actually works) he focused in on it. It was a humanoid form—probably male, probably a human or elf from the look of it. It was upright, and seemed to be confined inside some kind of structure. “Come on,” he said, glad to have something to do. “Let’s go check it out.”

“Careful,” she urged. “This whole place is giving me the creeps. Let’s not give it any excuses to eat us.”

Ocelot glanced at her and was surprised to see nervousness showing on her blunt features. “You’ve never been to the metaplanes before, have you?”

She shook her head. “Hell, no.” She glared at him. “I guess maybe I don’t run with the same high-flyers you do. The spellslingers I know blow things up and summon spirits, and that’s about it.”

Ocelot didn’t answer—he didn’t see the point in setting Dreja off again right now. “Come on—I want to see who that is. Maybe they can tell us what the hell’s going on.”

They started off at a jog. For a while it seemed like the figure wasn’t getting any closer, but then Ocelot skidded to a stop and stared. “’Hawk?”

It was indeed Winterhawk—or at least a flawless facsimile. The mage was dressed as he had been back at Thuma’s campfire, in the same grubby bush gear Dreja and he wore. His eyes were unfocused and shadowed, his hair limp and hanging in his face, his hands dangling at his sides. He was imprisoned inside a steel-barred cage about three meters square. As they watched, he shuffled back and forth, wandering in aimless patterns without ever touching the bars. He was muttering to himself, but Ocelot couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dreja demanded. She tried to open the cage door, but it was locked. When Winterhawk’s path took him near her, she reached out a hand as if to shake him by the shoulder, but Ocelot grabbed her arm.

“Leave him alone,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m thinkin’ maybe we shouldn’t mess with it.”

“Why is he in a cage? Why doesn’t he notice us?”

“Damned if I know.” He tried rattling the cage bars, but they were solid and unmoving, even when he applied his full strength to the task. “But he’s good and stuck in there. I hope the plan isn’t for us to get him out.”

“Is he doing anything?” Dreja looked like she was trying not to let her fear affect her, but it wasn’t entirely working. “Is this even doing any good, or is he just standing here waiting to die back with Thuma?” She wheeled on him. “You’re the one who’s done this before! Tell me what’s happening!”

“I don’t know,” he said again, feeling every bit as helpless as she looked. He studied Winterhawk again, then let out a frustrated hiss of air through his teeth and dropped down to sit on the dusty ground next to the cage and wait.

For what, he had no idea.

The place was changing. Devolving. Winterhawk struggled not to blink, not to take his eyes off what was happening around him, but even as he tried to maintain his focus, he still didn’t see when it changed. He only saw the increasingly horrific results. Whatever he was here to find, he was getting closer. He was certain of that.

The path continued sloping downward. The screams were nearly constant now, coming from all around him, bouncing off the walls and redoubling in their wordless terror. The doors lining the corridor were something from a nightmare, each one with pale, reaching hands grasping at their tiny windows. Sometimes the windows were gone or broken, and the slashed and bloody hands stretched out, trying to grab him. He dodged out of the way, but it was getting harder with every step. The corridor was even narrower now. Once, one of the hands brushed his shoulder; a shudder of revulsion ran through his body.

In front of him, his two guides had changed too. They still wore their white lab coats, but they were so stained now that they were more red and brown than white. He didn’t look at their faces anymore. Above him, the lights crackled and buzzed and cut in and out; an eerie strobelike effect cast the area in the hellish guise of something that was never meant to exist in a sane world.

The worst was when the corridor would widen out into a room. The screams grew louder then, echoing so much they seemed to be coming from every direction. Shadows writhed against the walls, though he couldn’t see what cast them. The clean, white, modern purity of the initial areas had given way to something that wouldn’t have been out of place in an old-style madhouse: heavy wooden instruments of restraint, wrought-iron cages, overpowering odors of sweat and blood and death.

His clothes had morphed again at some point. He tried not to look at them, but the pajamas and robe had transformed along the way; first into a set of filthy white scrubs, and then to a tattered, shapeless gray garment that hung limply down to his knees. His arms were thin, too thin, covered with bruises and half-healed cuts. The floor under his bare feet was rough wood, strewn with broken glass from the windows, with the occasional shattered chair or discarded child’s toy flung against the walls. The figures on the peeling flocked wallpaper…moved. He blinked and looked away.

“Almost there…are you ready to die alone? You can’t win. You are lost. Your mind is losing its grip. Give up now.”

“No…” he muttered. Giving up wasn’t an option. It’s all an illusion. It’s just the metaplanes messing with your head. He focused on that thought and kept going. None of this is real. It’s all symbolic. Deal with what is.

But what if this was “what is”?

What if he was going insane? What if none of this was really there? His breathing sped up, his heart pounding.

The voice inside his head laughed, a mocking sound that mingled with the screams.

Winterhawk gritted his teeth and kept walking.

After what could have been a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days, his two guides stopped. The walls and floor were stone now, great gray blocks imperfectly set and stained with what looked like long-dried blood. The lights were torches set in sconces at wide intervals. A light, frigid draft wafted along the floor, carrying with it the rich, fetid aroma of bare earth and the dead things entombed in it. Ahead, at the end of the corridor, was a small elevator. It was an old-fashioned one, the type where you had to open a metal gate, enter the box, and then close the gate before beginning your descent. A rusted metal plate next to it had the same crawling, uneasy text as the two guides’ coats, and Winterhawk still couldn’t look at it long enough to try to read it. Below it was a single blood-red button.

“Here we are,” the woman said. Her voice still had the same cheerful lilt, but delivered now in a rasping tone that sounded like two oil-coated stone plates sliding against each other. She took up a position on one side of the elevator, and the man mirrored her on the other. The woman grasped the metal cage and slid it open, and then they both regarded him expectantly. The screams were louder now. They seemed to be getting closer.

He didn’t look at the two humans. Instead, he stepped forward until he was standing in front of the door.

“Do it,” whispered the voice. “Do it now, before you lose your nerve. Die alone, in agony, as your mind deserts you. Your friends have left you. You have no one. But still, you have to see what awaits you. Do it. It will all be over soon.”

He stabbed the button with a decisive finger.

The door slid open. Inside, there was darkness.

He stepped inside.

Ocelot leaped up as Winterhawk abruptly stopped his aimless shuffling. “’Hawk?”

The mage ignored him. He stood still, beginning to shake. His jaw was tight, his teeth gritted, beads of perspiration plastering his dark hair to his pale forehead. His hands knotted into fists.

“What’s he doing?” Dreja moved around him, circling him.

“Looks like he’s fighting something,” Ocelot said. “Like something’s trying to take him over, and he’s fighting it.” Unable to restrain himself any longer, he grabbed Winterhawk’s shoulders, gripping them firmly, feeling the tension. Whatever the mage was doing, he was as tightly wound as a guitar string tuned to the breaking point. “’Hawk! Can you hear me? We’re here! Let us help you!” He glanced helplessly at Dreja.

Winterhawk showed no sign that he heard or noticed them.

The elevator trundled downward, swaying and jerking, periodically bashing against the sides of what was clearly an uneven shaft. Winterhawk stood in the center, looking straight ahead, avoiding even glancing at the walls with their peeling, freakish images that moved and flowed from one panel to another. Only the door seemed clear of them, so the door was where he focused his attention.

“They’ll never find you now, even if they wanted to. You have to do this alone, and you’re not strong enough. You will fail—”

“Shut up!” he yelled, pressing his fingers into his temples.

He couldn’t feel his physical body anymore, but he didn’t have to. He knew its reserve of energy was nearly gone.

The door opened onto darkness.

He slid open the metal cage and stepped out, expecting the lights to come up again, wondering what new horror-show panorama he’d be presented with this time.

Nothing happened. The darkness remained absolute.

The dead-earth smell was stronger here: a primal, nearly palpable force rendered more potent by the fact that its source wasn’t visible. From somewhere up ahead came a slow, vast, rumbling double-beat sound—so low-pitched that it was more a physical sensation than a sound. Winterhawk stopped, feeling it resonate through his body as his brain put together what it was:

It was a heartbeat.

“Come in, come in…” whispered the voice. “We should meet before you die.”

“You seem quite sure I’m going to die,” he rasped. He stepped forward, feeling the darkness and the walls and his own amplified fear pressing in on him.

“I am sure,” the voice said. “Come closer, and you’ll be sure too.”

The lights came up, and he clamped his teeth around a scream.

“Hey, look!” Dreja pointed at something on the cage floor. “Was that there before?”

Ocelot followed her gaze to what looked like a small covered switch, dead center in the middle of the floor. He couldn’t be certain whether it had been there before and they just hadn’t noticed it, or if it was new. “You think that’s the way to open it?” He rattled the bars. “’Hawk! If you can hear me at all, try to hit that switch on the floor!”

“He’s not listening,” Dreja said. She didn’t need to say it: it was obvious the mage wasn’t aware of their presence. If anything, he was growing more agitated. He’d dropped to his knees only a short distance away from the switch, but was ignoring it just like he ignored everything else that wasn’t going on inside his own head.

Ocelot flung himself down on the dusty ground and stretched out his arm toward the switch, but the bars were too close together. He was only able to get his forearm through, and even if he’d managed more, it wouldn’t be anywhere near close enough. “Try your rifle,” he told Dreja.

She mirrored his position on the other side of the cage, poking her assault rifle through the bars. She got closer than he had, the long barrel coming up only a few centimeters away from the button. It might as well have been a kilometer.

Ocelot got up and let out a loud sigh. “Give it up,” he said. “I think the metaplanes are tryin’ to tell us that we can’t push that button. I bet even if we could reach it, it wouldn’t work for us. Remember what Thuma said? ’Hawk’s gotta fight this thing himself. Maybe that means he’s gotta push it.”

Dreja looked dubiously at the mage. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen, do you?”

It wasn’t enough to say that Winterhawk’s brain didn’t have words to describe the thing in front of him. In his years as a magical practitioner, he had seen dozens, perhaps hundreds of sights that would drive the average person screaming away to cower beneath their blankets—things that the mundane mind, unaccustomed to what lived out beyond the clean, well-lighted place most people voluntarily confined themselves to, simply could not comprehend.

He’d seen the insides of insect-spirit hives, and the twisted abominations summoned by the most insane of toxic shamans that lived there. Things from the unfathomable depths of the Deep Lacunae that couldn’t adequately be explained to anyone who hadn’t shared the experience, and that had condemned him to months of nightmares and insomnia.

Whatever this was, it didn’t even operate on the same scale.

In front of him was a vast cavern, stretching up so far that he couldn’t see its roof. The walls were made of bare earth, dark and rich, and poking from them were ropy, writhing roots as thick as a man’s arm that reached out like the hands at the doors, blind and probing. Those barely rated notice, however, in the shadow of the monstrous thing suspended from the ceiling.

It hung from chains, dozens of chains, each one made up of links the size of devil rats, stretching up to disappear into the shadows at the top of the cavern. The chains ended in hooks driven into what passed for its skin; at each point where a hook sank in, thick, black liquid oozed and dripped downward to sizzle onto the floor.

Aside from this, Winterhawk couldn’t get a clear enough look to form a proper description. It was like the humans’ nametags or the plate on the door: mortal eyes simply couldn’t gaze upon it for more than a few seconds. He got the impression of eyes, and mouths, and festering red-brown skin slicked with shining slime. The stench was overpowering, overwhelming the earthy odor of the cavern with something that was the essence of unwholesomeness. He was reminded suddenly of a line from Lovecraft: “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

If the metaplanes had pulled this thing from somewhere in the deepest corners of his subconscious, he made a mental note to seek out more upbeat reading material in the future.

If he even had a future. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t from anywhere he had ever been.

“Truer than you know,” whispered the voice. “Now do you see? You can’t destroy me. You’re not strong enough. Just trying to look at me threatens your sanity.”

Winterhawk took several deep breaths, trying to force himself to remain calm, to think rationally. He glanced around, almost expecting to see his friends imprisoned here, but aside from himself and the tentacles in the walls and the massive thing overhead, the cavern was empty.

“That would be so easy, wouldn’t it, if I imprisoned them? That way you wouldn’t have to accept that they’ve deserted you.”

“I am getting very tired of listening to you,” Winterhawk growled.

“Then die.”

Before he could move, before he could gather his defenses or even prepare for an attack, something struck him hard, throwing him backward and smashing him into the cavern’s wall. Some part of his mind registered that the elevator was gone as bright points of light exploded in his vision and his consciousness wavered.

He fought it, scrambling to his feet, breath coming fast. Without pause or thought he gathered all of his rage, his power, and his skill, formed it into a weapon, and flung it at the thing with a roar.

He knew two things with certainty at that moment: the first was that the bolt of magical energy he threw at the creature represented the best he could muster—the culmination of years of study and practice, the kind of attack that could level a small building. It carried with it all his frustration, his anger, his desire to strike back against the man who had done this to him.

And he knew that it hadn’t even made a dent in the thing’s horrific, viscous hide.

He watched it hit and fizzle away, its energy dissipating with no more effect than a child hitting a wall with a blast of water from a garden hose.

The thing laughed, the inhuman noise scraping across his brain. “If that is your best, then this will be quick. Or perhaps it will be very, very slow. I shall enjoy feeding on your suffering.”

He staggered back against the wall, panting with the effort of throwing the spell. Magical drain didn’t seem to work the same way as it did in the material world; if it did, that spell would have wiped him out. Instead, he merely felt a little winded, as if he’d run a block or two. He looked up at it again, still unable to get a good view—but he could see the chains. Why is it imprisoned? He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about what was strong enough to chain up this thing, or how much worse a threat it would be if it were freed.

He flung another spell, this time trying to aim for one of the larger eyes. It had the same effect: the spell flared up and died, and the creature’s mocking laugh echoed inside his mind.

“You’re pathetic. You’re useless. No wonder your friends left you to die. What good are you to them?”

It struck him again, much harder this time. The blast lit up every pathway of his nervous system with white fire, like he’d experienced back in the restaurant with the Johnson, but a thousand times worse. He hit the wall hard and went down, screaming and clawing at his head.

But in the midst of that, a thought came to him: Why does it keep going on about my friends?

He remained where he was, curled up into a ball, feigning immobility, and fought to wall his thoughts off from the thing, if only for a moment.

This meant something. The metaplanes never did anything that didn’t mean something.

His teammates weren’t here, but he knew they hadn’t deserted him, despite what the thing was trying to make him believe. If they weren’t here, then they weren’t here for a reason.

Why would the metaplanes separate them from each other, when Thuma had said that having allies could help him defeat the thing inside him?

And it came to him, with sudden clarity: Because I didn’t believe it.

Because I thought I had to do it on my own.

He struggled back to his feet, glaring up at the chained thing. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?” he yelled. “You think you know me, because you’ve got your nasty little hooks into me!”

The thing swayed in the chains, its countless eyes glaring at him. His brain lit up again and he staggered backward, but this time he didn’t fall. Instead, he focused on shoring up his mental defenses, fighting the whispering voice insinuating itself into his thoughts like inky tendrils flowing around a barrier. He felt like his head was going to fly apart any second, and instinctually he knew that his physical body was teetering on the edge of death.

Gathering the last of his strength, Winterhawk flung his head back and screamed up into the unseen shadows: “Ocelot! Dreja! Help me! I need your help!”

Ocelot was pacing again. He couldn’t help it: it was nearly impossible for him to remain still when his mind was this unsettled.

“Sit down,” Dreja snapped. “You’re driving me crazy. He’s bad enough.”

Winterhawk still hadn’t moved, but his agitation was growing. Ocelot was afraid the mage was going to stroke out—if you could even do that on the metaplanes—if something didn’t happen soon. He had turned dead pale, his whole body shaking, veins standing out on his neck and his forehead like he was pushing against some great weight. “You’re gonna have to go crazy, then,” Ocelot snapped. “I’m sure as hell not gonna—”

Suddenly, Winterhawk rose and took a decisive step forward. Without looking down, he flipped the cover off the floor switch with his foot and stomped on it.

The cage door swung open.

And the world changed.

CHAPTER 37

METAPLANES 
UNKNOWN LOCATION

Ocelot looked around wildly as his vision cleared. He and Dreja stood inside a tiny, featureless metal cubicle. For a moment he thought it was the cage, but no—it had no bars. From somewhere beyond it came a deep, electronic humming, barely audible through the door on one side, which was slightly ajar.

“Come on!” he snapped, shoving open the door and pulling out his shotgun. “Before it changes its mind again!”

He’d barely gotten out when he skidded to a stop. Dreja nearly barreled into him. “What the frag?” he yelled.

Dreja simply stared.

They were standing in an enormous space, bigger than an aircraft hangar for a jumbo jet. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling—what they could see of it that wasn’t wreathed in shadow—were formed of pattern-stamped steel plates.

Suspended from the ceiling by what looked like kilometers of conduits and plastic tubes and glowing cables was a thing that looked like what technomancers dreamed about after a three-day bender and a full complement of mismatched psychoactive drugs.

Behind him, Ocelot felt Dreja tense. “What…is that?”

“It’s not real,” he said grimly. “Remember that. It’s all symbolic. Whatever it is, that’s not really what it looks like. That’s how it works in the metaplanes.”

It was hard to believe it, though. The thing looked real: halfway between biology and technology, as big as a house, its night-black skin punctuated by blinking circuits and metal plates. The tubes and conduits connected to its skin at puckered, angry-looking entry points, as if some colossal deranged surgeon had grafted them onto it. It shifted back and forth, flashes of energy arcing between the conduits. The hum was much louder now that they were outside the small room, resonating with Ocelot’s own cyberware, and setting his teeth on edge. The air crackled, full of the tang of ozone.

“Look!” Dreja pointed past him to the other side of the room. “Is that—?”

Ocelot followed her line of sight. A tiny figure, so far away it was barely visible, flung a bright ball of electric-blue energy at the thing, yelling something unintelligible. The energy hit some kind of glowing green force field that flared up around the creature and winked out. The figure dropped to its knees.

“’Hawk!” Ocelot was already running, Dreja pounding along behind him. He let off a barrage with his shotgun as he ran, but like the spell, the shot bounced harmlessly off the barrier.

As he got closer, the figure resolved itself into Winterhawk. He was dressed in his usual suit and longcoat, but they were torn and tattered. For a moment, it appeared that he didn’t recognize Ocelot and Dreja. Then he lit up with a fierce grin that transformed his pale face.

“Ha!” he screamed, and Ocelot didn’t think it was aimed at them. “See? You don’t get it! You’re wrong!” He flung another ball of crackling energy, and didn’t even seem disturbed that it failed to have any effect.

Ocelot skidded to a stop and grabbed his shoulders. “’Hawk! What happened? What is that thing?”

“I can’t beat it on my own,” he said between breaths, and again it didn’t sound like he was fully speaking to Ocelot and Dreja. “I can’t beat it alone—but we can beat it together! We can. I know we can!”

“How?” Dreja demanded. She aimed her rifle and let loose a burst, and once again the force field flared. “We can’t even get past its armor!”

Ocelot studied it for a moment. He had to be missing something. Thuma had also said they had a chance of defeating the thing. If he was right, then they had to be able to do something to breach its armor, and so far nothing they’d done had even come close.

“Wait!” Dreja yelled. “Hit it again! I want to see something!”

Both Winterhawk and Ocelot took aim and fired shots at it. The force field flared, but nothing happened. Nothing except the thing retaliated with what looked like a bolt of greenish lightning that hit Winterhawk and drove him backward into the wall.

Ocelot hauled him back to his feet. “We can’t do it,” he said through his teeth. “We’re not even scratching it.”

“Yeah we can!” Dreja crowed, pointing. “Those cable things are outside the force field!”

Ocelot replayed the hit in his mind, then grinned. “You’re right! The conduits! They’re outside the field, and they’re feeding it.”

“What conduits?” Winterhawk demanded.

“The tubes. The cables. Dreja! ’Hawk! Aim for them! Ignore that thing. Hit the cables up high!”

“What bloody cables?” Winterhawk grabbed his arm. “Do you mean the chains?”

Ocelot ignored him. Whatever the mage wanted to call them, Dreja was right: they were its weak point. They had to be. He adjusted the shotgun’s choke to a narrow pattern and aimed at one of the bigger tubes. His cybereyes’ AR locked in his smartgun’s targeting, and he pulled the trigger.

The tube exploded in a satisfying haze of black fluid, whipping back and forth, spraying more of the thick liquid everywhere. The thing bucked and jerked. “Yes!” Ocelot yelled, pumping his fist.

Winterhawk grabbed his arm and pulled him back with surprising strength. “What are you doing, man?” he yelled, his voice taking on the bright edge of panic.

Dreja lunged forward and locked her hand around his wrist, yanking him away from Ocelot. He struggled to pull loose, but she was too strong.

Ocelot switched targets and blew apart another cable, one that looked like an electrical conduit as big around as his arm. The subsonic humming grew more intense, the cable shooting out sparks the same green as the force field. But there were so many of them. This was too slow! “Dreja! Help me!”

“No!” Winterhawk screamed, still trying to free himself from the ork’s grip. “Don’t you see? You’re letting it loose! You can’t break the chains, or we’ll never stop it!”

“What are you talking about?” Dreja yelled. “What chains? There aren’t any chains!”

Ocelot shot a quick glance up at the thing; it was humming louder, and he could feel its anger, even though he had no idea how. They had to get this done. Why did Winterhawk keep talking about chains?

And then he got it.

He whirled and gripped Winterhawk’s shoulders. “You see chains, don’t you?”

“Of course I see bloody chains!” He pointed with the arm Dreja didn’t have hold of. “They’ve got it imprisoned! If you let it loose, then—look out!” He flung himself sideways, crashing into Dreja and knocking her off balance. Another bolt of green lightning smashed into the wall where they had stood.

“’Hawk!” Ocelot backed off, keeping his eye on the hanging thing. He was panting with the effort of running over here and trying to convince his friend. “You gotta trust me, man. Trust us. There aren’t any chains. It’s got—cables and tubes. They’re feeding it—powering it—and the force field’s not protecting them.”

“There isn’t any force field.” Winterhawk took advantage of Dreja’s momentary unbalanced position to wrench his arm free. He pointed both hands at the thing and fired off another blast. “What are you seeing? It’s chained!”

Ocelot’s frustration grew. He wanted to grab the mage and slam him into the wall to make him see. Instead, he forced his voice down to a calmer tone, though he still talked fast. “Listen. This thing is inside you. It’s got its hooks into you. You don’t even know what you’re seeing anymore. You aren’t hurting it with what you’re doing. You have to trust us, ’Hawk. Or you’re dead. Maybe all of us are.”

“Thuma said we could help you!” Dreja added. “You heard him. This is where you have to do that! Don’t you see?”

Winterhawk paused. He blinked. His eyes were wide, his jaw set, his body shaking.

“They’re deluded. Their minds are weak. They’re trying to mislead you.”

“No…they are not,” he bit out through clenched teeth. He looked at Ocelot, then shifted his gaze to Dreja. “He’s right? That’s what you see, too?”

She nodded, looking as terrified as he felt. “Yeah. It’s not chains. It was never chains.”

Another look at the thing. All the eyes were focused on him. 

All the mouths were screaming in cacophony, so loud that he couldn’t hear himself think.

But he didn’t have to think. Not just now.

What he had to do was trust his friends.

“Do it,” he said.

He pointed his hands, not at the thing itself, but at the nearest chain, and let loose.

This time, the blast didn’t dissipate. The screams grew louder as the chains broke, and the thing canted off to one side like a basketball hanging in a broken net.

“I WILL KILL YOU!” This time it wasn’t a whisper, and it wasn’t calm. It was a shriek of such malevolence, such hatred, that it was all Winterhawk could do not to clamp his hands over his ears and roll up into a ball to block it out.

But he didn’t, and neither did Ocelot and Dreja. Both of them took aim and fired. Dreja opened up with her assault rifle on full auto, the muscles in her arms knotting as she strafed the thing right and left. Ocelot threw open the choke on his shotgun and worked on the other side. They seemed to have endless ammunition, never having to stop to reload.

“Save your strength, ’Hawk,” Ocelot ordered. “We got this. But I think you’re gonna have to kill this thing on your own once its support system’s gone.”

It didn’t take long under their combined assault. The thing’s screams echoed through the room and through Winterhawk’s mind, evoking images of every nightmare he’d ever had, every horrific thing he’d ever seen, every doubt and fear he’d ever experienced. He sagged back against the wall as the last of the chains came free and the thing dropped. He expected the whole cavern to shake when it hit.

It didn’t hit.

It disappeared—or rather, it looked for a moment like it had disappeared, because the enormous thing writhed and shrank until it was a whirling shadow about the size of a large van twisting its way toward the ground. The screams didn’t get any quieter, though.

Ocelot and Dreja didn’t wait to see what it was—they just kept shooting it. They might as well have been yelling insults at it for all the good it did, though: their rounds and shot now went through it like it wasn’t even there.

Winterhawk studied it for a moment, then pushed himself off the wall and walked forward. He moved steadily, at an unhurried pace, until he was only a couple of meters from it. “You’ve lost,” he said. His voice was even, cold, contemptuous. “You’ve failed.”

Pain lanced into his chest. “It does not matter. It is too late. You are dying. And when you are dead, your soul will be my plaything for all eternity.”

“Well, then, I’d better make sure you’re not around for that, then, hadn’t I?”

Raising his shaking hands, he pointed them at the twisting shadow-thing, and focused every shred of magical energy he had left into a beam of pure white light.

This time, it didn’t bounce off. The shadow’s screams rose to a crescendo. It made one last effort to penetrate Winterhawk’s mind, but too late. As it surged forward and tried to engulf him, the light took it apart, scattering it into tiny, shrieking wisps. And then they were gone, and so were the screams. The silence left behind was almost deafening in its enormity.

Winterhawk stood swaying, staring at the space where the thing had been. “Well,” he said. “That was fun…”

And then he fainted.

CHAPTER 38

ABORIGINE CAMP 
TUESDAY MORNING

“So you’re sure it’s gone now?” Ocelot asked.

Winterhawk nodded, his eyes closed. “Gone. Destroyed.”

He was half-sitting, half-lying in the back of the Jeep, which was jouncing back to the main camp. Dreja was driving, with Ocelot in the shotgun seat. Thuma, exhausted from the effort of conducting the ritual, rested in the back next to Winterhawk; the old koradji appeared to be deep in meditation.

“How do you feel?”

Winterhawk considered. “Tired. Starving. But—good. Better than I’ve felt since this whole thing started, all things considered.” He hadn’t said much since he’d awakened, still lying in the center of the spent ritual circle. As soon as his awareness had returned, he’d felt it: a lightness to his body, a sense of wholeness that had subtly eluded him all week. It was an odd combination of feelings: like he could sleep for days or leap out of the car and run the rest of the way back to the camp. He supposed at least some of that had to be the profound sense of relief that he was no longer operating under a death sentence.

Ocelot nodded. “So that’s it, yeah? We leave the snake with Thuma and his people, and we can go home.”

“Can’t see any reason why not. I’ve got some unfinished business with Mr. Ortega, but that’s for me to deal with. I—”

“What’s that?” Dreja interrupted, pointing at something off in the distance in the direction they were headed.

Ocelot leaned forward. “Is that smoke?”

Suddenly Thuma’s eyes flew open and he sat upright. “No…” he muttered.

“What is it?” Winterhawk demanded, sitting up too.

“Oh, spirits, no…” Thuma gripped the back of Dreja’s seat, hands shaking. “Go faster. We need to get back to the camp. Quickly!”

“What’s going on?” Dreja asked, increasing the Jeep’s speed as fast as she dared on the rutted, uneven road.

“Something’s wrong,” Thuma said. “I’ll be back.” He slumped back in his seat without another word.

By the time they pulled into the Aborigines’ camp a few minutes later, Thuma hadn’t returned to his body yet. They didn’t need his report, though: smoke rose from a couple of the small, temporary huts, and even from a distance they could see bodies littering the ground.

Narrah, Thuma’s apprentice, hurried out to them. His arm was in a makeshift sling made from a leather strap, and he was obviously struggling to keep calm.

Ocelot leaped out of the Jeep before it stopped moving. “What happened?” Beyond Narrah, several Aborigines tended to prone forms in a small area near one of the few surviving huts.

“They came—a half-hour or so after you left with Thuma,” Narrah panted.

Winterhawk climbed more slowly out of the back of the Jeep. “Who came?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know who they were. But—they took it.”

Winterhawk stiffened, a chill running down his back. “They took the serpent?”

“Where’s Tiny?” Dreja demanded. “Scuzzy, and Bodge?”

“Tiny’s dead,” came a voice behind them. They all turned to see Scuzzy limping toward them. He had a bloodstained cloth wrapped around his head and he favored his right leg.

“What?” Dreja’s gaze flew wildly around the camp.

Scuzzy’s pale, greasy face face looked uncharacteristically serious. “They came—wanted to know where the serpent was. The Aborigines wouldn’t tell them, so they started shooting. I ran up to the cave—I was gonna try to hide it so they couldn’t get it. But Tiny was already there. He—” he swallowed. “He was trying to grab it. To run off with it.”

Ocelot’s gaze hardened. “What happened to him? Did he—”

Scuzzy swallowed again; he looked like he was going to throw up. “I…I killed him.”

“How?” Winterhawk stared at him.

“He…he tried to shoot me when he saw me. Yelled at me to mind my own business. I ducked behind a rock and…” He took a deep breath. “I hacked his cyberarm. He couldn’t stop himself in time. He…he put his own cyberspur through his throat.”

Dreja looked at him with new respect. “Frag…” she murmured.

“But what about the serpent?” Winterhawk demanded. “Where is it now?”

“They took it,” Narrah said. He looked miserable. “They figured out where it was, and we couldn’t fight them off. We tried—”

“Yeah,” Scuzzy said. “I was useless, though. I saw them coming, and there were so many of them…I just hid. I’m sorry…” Then he looked at Winterhawk, as if surprised to see him moving around under his own power. “Listen,” he said, his voice urgent. “She was with them. Kivuli.”

Winterhawk stared at him. “Are you sure?”

Scuzzy nodded, still trying to get himself under control. “Yeah. She’s hard to miss.” He let out a loud sigh of frustration. “I hate it out here. Without a Matrix connection, I feel fraggin’ useless!”

Thuma sat up with a sudden gasp in the back seat as his spirit returned to his body. He looked ashen. “You must go after them,” he whispered. “You must stop them before they unite the two serpents. I think they mean to do the ritual to summon Akurra’s spirit.”

“But we don’t even know where they’re goin’,” Ocelot said, eyes narrowed. “If they’ve got a head start, and we don’t know where they’re—”

“Can you follow them?” Dreja asked, turning to Winterhawk. “On the astral plane?”

Winterhawk shook his head. “Not now. That thing isn’t inside me anymore, but I haven’t the strength for that kind of astral tracking right now. And in any case, the astral plane here is too hostile to foreigners to try it.”

One of the Aborigine men hurried over and said something to Narrah. He replied and the man took off again. To the group, Narrah said grimly, “Cole says they found one of them alive.”

“One of their guys?” Dreja asked.

“He’s in bad shape. Cole says they must have left him for dead.”

Winterhawk gripped Narrah’s shoulder. “Take me to him,” he ordered.

“Why?” Ocelot asked, eyes narrowed. “What are you gonna do?”

“What needs to be done,” the mage said, his tone cold.

They left Thuma in the Jeep, assisted by two more Aborigines, and set off to follow Narrah.

The man was inside one of the intact huts, stretched out on the dirt floor. An Aborigine man holding an old, battered rifle sat on a low bench, guarding him. He looked up as the group came in, and he and Narrah carried on a low conversation.

Winterhawk examined the captive. He was a human Aborigine, dressed in bloodsoaked bush clothes with an armored coat tossed in a heap next to him. His dark skin was sweat-dotted and blotchy, and he didn’t look like he would be alive much longer.

“Anyone have a stim patch?” Winterhawk snapped as he dropped to his knees next to the prone form.

Dreja produced one and handed it over. He pulled the man’s shirt aside and slapped the patch on a non-bloody part of his chest. After a second, the man gasped and his eyes flew open. “Wha—” he began, then his gaze moved past Winterhawk to the small arsenal of guns trained on him.

“Where are they going?” Winterhawk demanded. “Your friends. They’ve left you here for dead. Where are they going?”

The man appeared confused for a moment, then a smug calm settled over his features. “You won’t find them,” he said in an unsteady voice that was nonetheless full of conviction. “Not until everyone knows where they are.”

Ocelot’s gun clicked behind Winterhawk. “Better talk, asshole,” he said.

The man’s smug expression deepened. “Kill me,” he said. “I’m not important. I’ll tell you nothing.”

Winterhawk glared at him. He considered for a moment: what he was contemplating was not something he liked to do, and it wasn’t something he did casually. It was, however, something he, unlike many mages, was willing to do if it was necessary. “Oh, but you’re wrong,” he said through his teeth. “I am completely out of patience right now, my friend. That means you don’t get a choice.” His right hand shot out and clamped on to the man’s forehead. The man struggled feebly, but his strength was gone.

“’Hawk—?” Ocelot started.

Winterhawk barely heard him. He was fully focused on his task now.

The man’s mind was harder to crack than he expected, but he soon discovered why. Fanatics’ minds were disordered, chaotic, but their mental defenses were often stronger than a normal person’s. None of this mattered, though: the man’s barriers didn’t stand a chance against the onslaught of a trained and determined mage with Winterhawk’s magical power.

He screamed, both inside his mind and aloud. Winterhawk ignored him, probing further, sifting through memories, pouring mana into making the spell as effective as he could manage so he could get as much information as possible before the man died. At this point, whether he was causing discomfort to his subject was not even on his list of considerations.

When he had what he wanted and loosed his grip on the man’s mind, he bowed his head for a moment, panting. His own head pounded—he shouldn’t have done anything that magic-intensive this soon after everything else he’d been through—but at least it was an honest pain. It would pass soon.

And he had his answer. He glanced down at the man’s dead body and turned back to his friends. Ocelot, Dreja, Narrah, and the Aborigine guard all stared at him with expressions ranging from horror to disbelief.

“What?” he demanded. He didn’t have time for this. They didn’t have time for this. He hauled himself to his feet and motioned toward the door. “Come on. Let’s find Bodge. I know where they’re headed, and we need to get going.” Without waiting for them to respond, he stalked out of the hut.

“Where are we going?” he heard Ocelot yell after him.

“Sydney.”

CHAPTER 39

EN ROUTE TO SYDNEY 
TUESDAY MORNING

<Base, we have secured the package. We’re in the air and on our way. Anticipate arrival in approximately two hours.>

<Excellent. Advise us when you reach Sydney, and we’ll have someone on hand to make the exchange. Well done.>

Kivuli settled back in her seat, glancing at the rest of her group with a feeling of satisfaction that had eluded her ever since the debacle with Toby Boyd. The box containing the serpent figure was nestled securely in a large, black backpack between her feet: there was no way she was going to let it out of her sight again until it was delivered into the hands of the people who were paying her to procure it.

She wondered idly what they wanted with it. They’d never told her, and she’d never asked. None of her business. Probably some wealthy collector, she figured. She’d worked with their type before, people who accumulated rare items just for the sheer joy of owning them. She had no moral opinion regarding such people; they could do what they liked with the serpent—once they’d paid her for delivering it to them. After her nuyen was safely tucked away in her account, she didn’t care if they blew the thing up. It had certainly been enough trouble to everyone connected with it that she would shed no tears at its destruction.

The only loose end, as far as she was concerned, was Winterhawk and his team. When her group had assaulted the Aborigine camp and secured the serpent, they’d reported seeing only two of the others: the decker and the big ork samurai. Winterhawk himself, along with Ocelot and Dreja, were nowhere to be found. Where had they been? Was Winterhawk already dead from the poison? Had they been killed or diverted somewhere along the way? Or had they been off doing something else, and only returned after she and her team had left with the serpent?

She doubted they were following now—how could they be? They’d only left a couple of teammates behind, both dead. She hadn’t known them; in fact, she hadn’t known any of the people her employer had arranged to meet her. Most of them were Aborigines, hard-eyed men and women who kept to themselves and spoke in a language Kivuli didn’t understand when not conducting team business. The other three were shadowrunners like her; Perth natives hired to help with the retrieval, and who now traveled with them as well.

Kivuli was looking forward to getting to Sydney and taking her leave of the Aborigines. There was something particularly odd about the group; they gave her the creeps. Maybe it was the way they kept glancing at the backpack containing the serpent when they thought she wasn’t looking.

Only a few more hours and you can go back to Seattle, she told herself, tightening her grip on the pack. Just keep it together until then.

The Aborigines who’d been part of Kivuli’s team were creepy. The ones they met up with to deliver the serpent, she discovered, were stone cold, card-carrying freaks.

The plane landed in Canberra, where they transferred to a high-speed train to Sydney because there wasn’t anyone willing to fly into the city. When they arrived, a VTOL craft met them at the station and delivered them to the top floor of a high-rise just outside downtown.

By the time the craft reached its destination and everyone piled out, Kivuli was ready to chuck the serpent at the nearest person who looked important, collect her cred, and get the hell out. She didn’t know what was going on with these new Aborigines, but they all had the same odd, fanatical gleam in their eyes as the other ones, and they never took their eyes off the bag she carried. Biz was biz, but this whole op was making her skin crawl.

The man who met her was yet another native Australian, this one sporting a thousand-nuyen suit and a slick corp-style haircut. He smiled as she and her team approached, flashing a mouthful of pricey dental work. “So pleased to see you at last,” he said. “Excellent work. May I?” He reached out as if to take the bag containing the serpent.

Kivuli shook her head, gripping the bag tighter. “No way, chummer. This job’s been more trouble than it’s worth, all the way along. You pay up first, then you can take your snake and we’ll get out of your way.”

“Of course, of course.” He pulled out his commlink, tapped something into it, and nodded. “Please verify the amount. I’ve even added a little bonus for the…inconvenience.”

Kivuli called up an AR window and checked. At least something had finally gone right: the cred was all there, including an additional ten percent.

“That will be—” she began, but she didn’t get any more words out before the slight ffft of an air dart and a sting on the back of her neck scrambled her thoughts into incoherence.

She watched her teammates fall as if through a haze of oily water. Around them, the Aborigines were all drawing weapons, but she no longer cared.

CHAPTER 40

ABORIGINE CAMP 
TUESDAY MORNING 

Ocelot, Dreja, and Scuzzy caught up with Winterhawk after only a few steps.

“Sydney?” Dreja demanded. She grabbed his arm, pulling him up short. “What the hell? You can stop for five minutes and tell us what’s going on. You just mind-fragged that guy, didn’t you?”

Winterhawk spun on her. “You might be glad I did when you find out what his little friends are up to. Where’s Thuma?” he asked Narrah, wrenching free of Dreja’s grip and continuing forward. “I only want to explain this once.”

The apprentice took them to where Thuma had been helped into one of the other intact huts. He was lying back against a stack of folded blankets, his eyes agitated. “You have to go,” he pleaded as soon as he saw Winterhawk. “Find them. Stop them.”

“Have you ever heard of ‘Nanga Mai’?” Winterhawk asked abruptly.

Thuma went pale and swallowed hard. “Where did you hear that name?” He closed his eyes for a moment, muttering something Winterhawk couldn’t understand.

“The man who was still alive. He was some sort of cultist. A fanatic,” Winterhawk said. “That’s what I got from his mind.”

“I thought Nanga Mai was long gone,” Thuma said. “I haven’t heard anything about them in years. They’re a splinter group of the Children of the Rainbow Serpent.” When everyone but Winterhawk and Dreja looked at him questioningly, he continued, “The Children are—” he paused, obviously weighing his words with care. “They have their uses. Some consider them an extremist group, while others, including many of my friends, believe them to be exactly what Australia and the Aboriginal people need.”

“They’re a militant group among the Aborigines,” Dreja said, nodding. “I’ve heard of them. They’re fighting for the rights of their people.”

“And they can be terrorists,” Winterhawk added. “But that’s beside the point. How is this Nanga Mai different?”

Thuma looked uncomfortable. “The Children can be an extremist group, yes, but they still mostly operate using conventional tactics: attacking strategic locations, assassinating enemies, that sort of thing. Nanga Mai are more spiritually focused. The name means “dream,” and they’re said to communicate with some of the angrier spirits of the land. They want nothing less than to scour Australia free of anyone who isn’t of Aboriginal blood. Violently.” He spread his hands. “Even most of the Children won’t have anything to do with them. Like I said, I haven’t heard of them doing anything in years. I thought they had died out.”

“Apparently not,” Winterhawk said grimly. “From what I got from that man’s mind, they’ve already got the other piece of the artifact. They’ve been trying to get hold of this one ever since it surfaced, and now they’ve got it.”

“So, they want to reunite them?” Dreja asked. “So they can—what? Summon this spirit?”

“Exactly,” Winterhawk said. “From what I got—and believe me, at the level I went in there’s no way he could have been keeping anything from me—the plan is to summon Akurra’s spirit, and then he’ll call in a whole army of angry Australian spirits to kill anyone who isn’t on their side. He wasn’t clear on whether that meant only the Aborigines would survive, or whether it was only the people who supported them specifically. Either way, if they can manage it, I think things could get unpleasant for a lot of people in a hurry.”

“This all sounds like some kind of old myth,” Ocelot said. “Are you sure it’s real?” He looked at Thuma. “I mean, I know the spirits are real, but can combining these artifacts really do that?”

Thuma nodded, looking weary. “I won’t say that it will certainly happen. But I will say that it can. If Akurra’s spirit is anywhere near as powerful as the legends say, if they can summon him, he’s got more than enough power to call the kinds of spirits that most of us koradji spend a lot of our time keeping an eye on to make sure they don’t get loose.”

“Come with us, then,” Dreja said. “You’re the powerful Aborigine shaman. This is your fight, isn’t it?” She looked at Winterhawk. “No offense, ’Hawk—I’m sure you’re a magical badass and all, but I’m guessing ancient Aboriginal vengeance spirits aren’t exactly your specialty, right?”

“She’s right,” Winterhawk admitted to Thuma. “This isn’t my area. I’ll certainly do what I can to help, but—”

Thuma shook his head. “I can’t go,” he said, looking as if the words pained him to say. “I’m too weak now to be of any help, and anyway, my place is here. Many of my people are dead or injured. I can’t leave them now. I’ll keep an eye on the astral, and try to deal with anything that might come up, but that’s about all I can do. I’m sorry.”

“But how are we even gonna find this thing?” Scuzzy asked. “He says we gotta go to Sydney, but Sydney’s a big place.” To Winterhawk, he asked, “Can you track it with magic or something?”

Winterhawk considered, then sighed. It was possible he might be able to track the serpent’s astral signature once they got closer to it, but it was by no means certain. He’d deliberately avoided removing it from its protective warding to prevent anyone from tracing it to them. He shook his head. “Doubtful.”

“Then we’re screwed?” Ocelot said. “If Thuma can’t go, and you—”

“No,” Thuma said. He was still looking agitated, as if he wanted nothing more than to shoo them all out and set them on their way. “No. Take Narrah with you. He examined it with me. He can track it when you get closer to it. He can help you find where they have taken it, if you can really narrow it down to a single city—even one as big as Sydney. He can help you deal with it if you find it. I wish I could send more, but—” He waved his hands around at the destroyed village.

Winterhawk nodded, rising to his feet. “Right, then. It’s up to us.” He turned to face his teammates. “Or is it? Are you in? This is well beyond even the most farfetched of what I hired you to do. Your involvement is over—if you want to call it a day and head home, you’ve more than earned your pay.”

Ocelot shook his head. “I’m here now. And who’s to say if those nutjobs manage to summon up those spirits, they won’t decide maybe they need to cleanse more than just Australia before they’re done? Besides, I owe Kivuli some payback for fraggin’ us over in the first place.”

“Hey, if it’ll get me back to someplace with a decent Matrix connection, I’ll go anywhere at this point,” Scuzzy said.

“Looks like it’s down to you again,” Winterhawk asked Dreja. “What do you say?”

She shrugged. “Ocelot’s got a point, especially since those spirits will probably show up before we get the hell out if we don’t do something about them. And I want a shot at that slitch Kivuli, too.” She frowned. “Sydney’s a long way off, though. We gonna be able to get there in time?”

“Let’s go talk to Bodge,” Winterhawk said. “Perhaps he’s got some ideas.”

“What about Tiny?” Scuzzy asked when they got outside. “We just gonna leave him here?”

“Why not?” Winterhawk’s voice was dead cold. “I’ve got no more use for him. He’s got some pricey cyberware—maybe Thuma’s people can barter it for some things they can use to rebuild.” He glanced at Dreja, expecting her to object; Tiny had been a fellow ork, after all.

She just nodded, looking as cold as he did. “I hope they can,” was all she said.

They found Bodge out in the camp, helping some of the injured. When they explained the situation to him, he gave them his take on it. “We’re still closest ta Perth,” he said. “But even if I drive like a bat outta hell, it’ll take us eight hours to get there, minimum. And that’s if nothin’ goes wrong. You can never assume nothin’ will go wrong in the Outback.”

“What then?” Dreja asked.

“Once we get Matrix connectivity back, I can call ahead and arrange a plane,” he said. “I can find somebody who can get you there, but you’ll have ta pay up front.”

Winterhawk nodded. “How long?”

He shrugged. “Few hours. Have to fly the long way ’round—can’t risk the manastorms. But you know that.”

“They’ve got a couple hours head start on us,” Dreja said. “How long you think it’ll take to set up whatever ritual they’re gonna do?”

“Who knows?” Winterhawk said. “If they’ve already been preparing for it, it might not be long at all. And as for how long it will take—there’s no way to tell without more information. It would be best if we can find it before they start.”

“They’re gonna have to fly the same way we are, right?” Ocelot asked.

“If they’re smart,” Bodge said. “Flyin’ through the middle of the Big Red is dangerous as hell.”

“Maybe not,” Winterhawk said, as if talking to himself.

Bodge stared at him. “What do ya mean?”

He looked at Narrah. “Do you think that between the two of us, we could keep an eye out for manastorms, enough that we could give a pilot enough time to change course?”

Narrah tilted his head, dubious. “It’d be tricky,” he said at last. “It’s not just the manastorms. It’s the spirits: for whatever reason, they don’t seem to like people flying through their space. They’ve been known to interfere with planes.”

“But you’re in tune with the spirits around here. You could have a chat with them and ask them to play nicely with my spirits, and grant us safe passage, yes? That would give us a wider range.” When Narrah still appeared skeptical, he waved an impatient hand. “Dangerous. I get it. But more dangerous than what will happen if they summon up Akurra and his spirit friends before we can get there?”

“Good point,” the apprentice said.

“Wait,” Bodge said. “I might have an idea. I got a mate with a T-bird. If I can get someplace with a half-decent Matrix connection, I can contact her and have her fly out here and pick ya up. She could take ya back ta Perth and hook ya up with somebody who can fly ya t’Sydney. Not as fast as commercial, but a hell of a lot faster than me drivin’ ya back. If ya really can talk ta the spirits and protect yerselves from manastorms, ya should be able ta fly straight in.”

“Would she do it?” Winterhawk asked. “I know how hard it is to get anyone to come out here. A T-bird was our first choice to get us here in the first place, but my associate who put me in touch with you couldn’t find anyone willing to go on our schedule.”

“She owes me one,” Bodge said. “It’ll cost ya, though. Yer gonna have ta make it worth her while ta come out here and take her chances with the manastorms. It won’t be cheap.”

“I’ll chip in,” Ocelot said. “If it’s either that or millions of people in Australia get eaten by spirits—including us—I say it’s worth it.”

“Don’t worry,” Winterhawk told Bodge. “You find us someone, we’ll make sure they’re paid.”

“Good deal,” he said. “Now the trick is ta find a connection that’ll hold up long enough for me ta make the call.”

“Come with me,” Narrah said. “I can take you to a place a couple of klicks out where there’s some connectivity. It’s still spotty, but maybe your decker can do something to boost it.”

“Show me,” Scuzzy said, his eagerness to get any sort of Matrix connection lighting up his thin face.

CHAPTER 41

EN ROUTE TO SYDNEY 
TUESDAY MIDDAY

Winterhawk, accustomed as he was to the liberal application of Murphy’s Law to all but the most simple of shadowruns, was surprised when Scuzzy was able to establish a connection at the spot Narrah took them to, and Bodge was successful in raising his friend and convincing her (with many assurances that the pay would be worth her while) to come out and pick up the team.

To save more time, they arranged to rendezvous at a location that would allow Bodge to continue driving them back toward Perth while the T-bird was en route. They met up at a spot a couple of kilometers off the road, at a derelict former oilfield that still sported a large patch of clear ground that hadn’t been reclaimed by the area’s scrubby plant life.

They didn’t have time for long goodbyes, but Winterhawk paused a moment to pull Bodge aside while the others transferred their gear to the T-bird, assisted by the rigger’s scarred, serious-faced friend. “Thank you,” he said. “If you ever need anything I can provide—assuming we survive this mess, of course—please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

Bodge grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. “Quite the adventure, mate. Somethin’ ta tell the grandkids about. If I ever have any. That I know about, I mean.” He nodded toward the T-bird. “Better get goin’. Yer decker has the info about how ta contact the pilot. He’ll have the plane ready ta go when ya get ta Perth. Good luck!”

The T-bird rigger, whose name was Risa, was able to fly faster on the way back, with Winterhawk, Narrah, and their summoned spirits keeping watch for manastorms and any other hostile magical threats. She landed at a small, private airfield outside Perth, where a small, private jet was waiting as promised. They thanked her, paid her, and once again transferred their gear. Shortly after that, they were in the air and on their way to Sydney.

“Now, we wait,” Winterhawk said, settling back. Despite the urgency of the situation, it was the first time he’d been able to get an uninterrupted rest since this whole thing had started, and he planned to take advantage of it.

“And we eat,” Dreja said, discovering the stash of food in the plane’s tiny galley. “I think I could eat one of you guys right now.”

Winterhawk nodded, still working things through. “Kivuli’s group had about two hours’ head start on us—no way to know what kind of travel arrangements they had, though. If they had similar transportation out of the Outback and were able to fly commercial to Canberra, they might already be there.”

“We’ll do what we can do,” Ocelot said. “We’re still alive, so whatever they’re doing hasn’t happened yet.” He paused to pop a packaged meal into the microwave and grab a beer from the tiny fridge. “’Hawk, if you can’t track the snake, can you maybe track Kivuli?”

“Possible,” he said. “If we don’t have any better leads by the time we land, I’ll do that while Narrah is trying to track the serpent. But remember, Kivuli is probably just a hired operative. For all we know, she’s already handed off the serpent and gone on her way. I doubt she’ll know where they end up taking it. I’ll bet she probably doesn’t even know about the ritual.”

“Hmm,” Ocelot said, nodding. “Yeah, probably right about that.”

Scuzzy was in the back of the plane, knees pulled up, deck in his lap, tapping away with the fervor of a starving man who had just been presented with a five-course banquet. He’d been doing that at every opportunity since they’d gotten close enough to Perth to get a solid connection again. Now, he came up for air. “Hey, guys,” he called. “I might have something relevant here.”

Winterhawk turned his seat around. “What is it?”

“Take a look at these.”

They all fiddled with their commlinks as windows popped up in the AR view. Winterhawk studied them. The one in front was a news story from an underground Sydney publication, describing the theft of an Aborigine artifact from a small private museum. He started to ask Scuzzy what this was about, but then another window popped up, showing a blurry security-cam image of the item. It was in a glass case and hard to make out, but it had the same general contours as their own carved serpent. His eyes widened. “It’s not just an artifact…” he said softly. “It’s another serpent just like ours. A mate.” He shifted the windows again, looking for a date on the story.

“This one was stolen only a few days ago,” Scuzzy said. “They think it’s an inside job. And the weird thing is that I looked up some other stuff about this museum—it’s a membership-only place, so it’s harder to find details—but I can’t find any mention anywhere of this thing being magical. Far as they’re concerned, it’s just an old example of Aboriginal art.”

“How’s that work?” Dreja asked. “It can’t be the other half of this thing if it’s not magical.”

But Winterhawk was already thinking. “No…” he said. “It makes sense.” He turned to the others, almost unconsciously slipping into the ‘lecture mode’ he used when addressing his classes. “If these things are connected, then it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t magical…until the other one was discovered. If the one Toby found was buried deeply enough in the earth, it wouldn’t be able to ‘broadcast’ until it was free.”

“So, freeing that one sort of—what—activated the other one?” Ocelot asked.

“Exactly. And if Nanga Mai knew what it was, they were probably keeping an eye on it. That’s how they knew the other one was discovered. They probably tracked it, but weren’t able to get hold of it before it disappeared again. Once they figured out that Toby had it, he’d already returned to Los Angeles.”

“Which is why they hired Kivuli,” Dreja said.

Winterhawk nodded. “Apparently. And the fact that the other item is in Sydney means they’ve almost certainly got both pieces. We suspected that, but I think we can safely confirm it now.”

“Great,” Ocelot said. “And we still don’t know where it is.”

CHAPTER 42

SYDNEY 
TUESDAY EVENING

It was hard to say whether the final approach into Sydney was more stressful for the rigger flying the plane, for Winterhawk and Narrah as they teamed up with Maya and two other spirits to navigate through the treacherous manastorms surrounding the city, or Ocelot, Dreja, and Scuzzy, who had to watch the whole process without having any input into it.

The problem with trying to land in Sydney—and why most people didn’t even try it—was that, unlike the Outback, the manastorms surrounding the city were constant. They ebbed and flowed, gaining and losing power and potency according to some plan that no one had been able to divine even after all these years, but they never receded completely.

It wasn’t for lack of trying that no one had figured out the manastorms’ secrets: Sydney was a subject of great interest and even greater expenditure of funds among academic researchers and corporations alike, though obviously for different reasons. Countless explanations had been proposed for the manastorms’ existence, many of them focused on the shifting, magic-rich song lines crisscrossing the area, but if there was some kind of discernible formula that could predict the storms’ actions, it remained stubbornly elusive.

It didn’t take long for Winterhawk to find out why nobody in their right mind flew a plane into Sydney.

Narrah, the rigger, and he had made their plans en route: he would watch for astral-based threats, Narrah would try to persuade any hostile spirits to let them pass, and the rigger would keep an eye out for physically manifesting manastorm activity.

It sounded so easy in theory. People did do this—sure, it required a lot of magical support and an ace pilot, but they had those.

Still, even with a summoned spirit each for Winterhawk and Narrah, and Maya helping with general overwatch, it had been a long time since Winterhawk had concentrated this hard. He was sweating rivers, and his head throbbed with the stress, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about either at the moment.

Storms, both astral and physical, swirled all around them; if he took his eyes off the astral for longer than a few seconds and failed to spot something, they could be dead before he realized it. It didn’t help that the sheer level of magic they were flying through was staggering. It pressed on him like a physical weight; the feeling was somewhat like sinking into deep water, but with the added component of random images, wild flashes of color, and otherworldly manifestations that flickered in and out of existence before he could get a fix on them. If he didn’t feel like he would faint from the strain, he would have found the whole thing beyond fascinating. He made a mental note to come back later…if he survived. Now, though, he just wanted the whole thing to be over.

Why had he proposed this again? It was faster, but it was incredibly reckless. They could have taken the train from Canberra. Sure, it would have added time to the trip—time they might not have. But it also didn’t come with the very real threat of going down in flames or having their minds fried on the way. After all, they couldn’t stop Akurra if they were dead.

Too late now, though. They were here, and there was no turning back. He just hoped his confidence that they could succeed at this wouldn’t get them all killed.

He glanced over at Narrah. The boy looked worse than Winterhawk felt. His eyes were closed: the things he was looking for didn’t require physical sight. His lips moved slightly, his hands twitching and shaking in his lap. Sweat also ran down his face. It was a lot to ask of an apprentice, but so far Narrah was holding up his end. Especially since he was still grieving the loss of so many of his friends and family back at the camp.

The rigger probably had the easiest job of the three of them: coordinating the information Winterhawk and Narrah sent him and adjusting the plane’s flight path accordingly, while simultaneously dealing with the more mundane aspects of the storms such as fog, swirling hail, and rain. “Easiest” was relative, though. Unlike other riggers Winterhawk had dealt with recently, this one didn’t lounge in his seat as though half-asleep. His every muscle was taut, his hands gripping the plane’s console and his glowing green cybereyes darting constantly back and forth far faster than natural ones could ever manage. Scuzzy, networked in to the plane’s PAN, did what he could, but this was clearly not even close to a standard run for the rigger.

They made it through—somehow. Winterhawk wasn’t entirely able to reconstruct how they managed it, especially when something bigger than the plane and shaped vaguely like a crocodile had loomed in the sky in front of them around the halfway point, before any of them saw it coming. Narrah managed to convince it to leave them alone, but not before the plane flew through its lower half and everyone inside was hit with two seconds of what could only be described as the world’s most abbreviated multisensory hallucination. In the weird way of astral space, those two seconds seemed to stretch across a lifetime before they were clear again. Winterhawk barely recovered in time to yell for the rigger to veer left, narrowly missing the trailing edge of a ferocious astral eddy.

By the time the plane landed at a small airfield used mostly by smugglers, Winterhawk felt like he’d just run a few laps around the Outback. He slumped back in his seat, closing his eyes and allowing his muscles to unclench and his mind to relax for the first time since they’d approached Sydney airspace. In the seat next to him, Narrah looked similarly exhausted. The rigger, for his part, had an expression that suggested that this was the last flight into Sydney he’d ever attempt, for any price.

Scuzzy and Dreja had arranged transport while they were still in the air, so a van was waiting for them at the airport. Winterhawk checked to verify that the rigger would be able to find another magician to help him get back out of Sydney (“Yeah, maybe after a few days’ sleep and a whole lotta drinking,” he replied), then trudged after the others. It was already getting dark; visions of the Nanga Mai reuniting the two serpents and weaving their dark rituals haunted his thoughts and made him move faster. He’d have plenty of time to rest if they succeeded; if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

They didn’t have another rigger to drive for them, so Dreja took over, navigating according to Scuzzy’s direction as he studied traffic maps of the city and hacked signal lights to facilitate their progress when he could do so without causing accidents. Normally, Winterhawk would have been interested in where they were going, in watching the shifting patterns of the manastorms high above them with his astral sight, but this time he was content to take a seat in the back and close his eyes, trying to rest a bit before they arrived at their destination. He roused himself only long enough to request a stop at a lore store so he could pick up ritual materials; Narrah had brought his with him in a leather bag, but Winterhawk hadn’t expected to be doing any ritual magic. The plan was that he would look for Kivuli while Narrah searched for the location of the serpent. He hoped Narrah would be successful, because he was still convinced that Kivuli was nothing more than a hired agent, a shadowrunner like they were. She might not even be in the country anymore.

By the time they negotiated Sydney’s snarled streets, took a couple of wrong turns despite Scuzzy’s maps, and arrived at their destination, it was fully dark. Ocelot glanced around nervously; they were in a warehouse district, standing next to a single-story building with a series of large, roll-up doors. “I guess we’re still okay. No sign of anything nasty yet?”

“Not that I can see,” Winterhawk said, and Narrah shook his head. The boy looked nervous and overwhelmed; Winterhawk suspected he’d never been in such a large city before. He patted Narrah’s shoulder and gave him what he hoped was an encouraging look. It didn’t seem to work.

“What is this place, anyway?” Dreja asked Scuzzy.

“It’s kind of an artist space,” he said. “People rent studios to do sculpture and stuff. You wanted something big and fast, and this was the first thing I found. Can’t very well do magic in a hotel conference room, right? Too conspicuous. This should be big enough for you both to do your thing, yeah?”

“Should be,” Winterhawk said. “Open it up and let’s get started. We—” He paused as his commlink buzzed. He pulled it out; its display showed no identifying information. “Yes? Who is this?”

The voice on the other end sounded fast and shaky. “Winterhawk? This is Kivuli. Please don’t hang up on me. I hope you’re in Sydney, because I need to talk to you right away. Something’s going on that you need to know about. Something bad.”

CHAPTER 43

SYDNEY 
TUESDAY EVENING

They met at a kaf shop a couple of kilometers away. After checking astrally, technologically, and visually to verify no one else was paying too much attention to them, Winterhawk and Dreja went in while Ocelot, Scuzzy, and Narrah remained outside with Maya, keeping watch.

Winterhawk’s first impression of Kivuli was that she was stressed nearly to the breaking point. A quick glance at her aura confirmed this. She stood as they approached. One of her hands was wrapped in a white bandage spotted with bloodstains; a handcuff bracelet encircled her opposite wrist, the other bracelet dangling loose underneath.

“What do you want?” Winterhawk asked, his tone icy. “Haven’t you done enough already?”

“Listen,” she said. She swallowed, her gaze darting around as if expecting someone to ambush her. “I know what I did before. I understand you probably want to kill me. I get it. But that was biz. This is—something else.”

“Talk fast,” Dreja growled. “If you’re trying to stall us—”

She held up her hands, shaking her head. “No. I’m not. I’m just—scared. It’s not every day somebody tries to fraggin’ sacrifice you in a magic ritual.”

“What?” Winterhawk and Dreja demanded at the same time.

Kivuli swallowed again. When she spoke, her voice was manic, shrill with fear. “I give you my word, I didn’t know anything about this. Assense me if you don’t believe me. All I was supposed to do was find out where the artifact was, get it, and take it back to the people who hired me. I thought they were just rich collectors. I had no idea they were some kind of nutball cultists planning to use it in a freaky ritual.”

“Calm down,” Winterhawk said. “Tell us the whole story. But quickly.”

She nodded several times, too fast. Her normally steady hands shook as she picked up her cup of soykaf and gulped it. “I went to deliver the artifact to the place they told me to go. I took my team with me—not the Aborigines. They’d already left. When we got there, we were ambushed. They took us to where they were setting up this huge ritual.” She swallowed again. “A bunch of Aboriginal shamans were there—or at least that’s what they looked like, and others, including the Aborigines from my team. And they were—” she swallowed again. “—the shamans were sacrificing people. Teenagers. Street kids. And then they started killing my team, one by one. They handcuffed us—I managed to get loose by compressing the bones in my hand and using blood as a lubricant. I ran—thought they’d follow me, but they didn’t. I guess they were too busy setting up their ritual.”

“When was this?” Winterhawk asked, gripping the table.

“Less than an hour ago. They took my commlink—I had to find somebody to borrow one from. I had no idea if you were here or even alive, but I took a chance. I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Can you take us to where the ritual is?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s not far from here. They’ve taken over an abandoned building. I’ll help if I can, but I don’t have any weapons.” Her eyes hardened. “They killed my team. They killed kids. Hell, they tried to kill me. I want to help take them down.”

Dreja looked at Winterhawk. “You trust her?”

The mage nodded. “I’ve been assensing her. She’s scared witless and angry. I don’t think she could fake that.” To Kivuli, he said, “Come on, then. Show us where to go. I warn you, though: if you try anything—”

“Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t think there’s much time before they finish that ritual. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do, but with all those sacrifices, I don’t have to be a mage to know it’s nothing good.”

“Wait.” An unexpected voice spoke. The others turned to see Narrah, who had entered the shop. He stared at Kivuli, his dark eyes full of anger. “This is one of those who attacked my people?”

Kivuli seemed to notice for the first time that Winterhawk’s team included a new member. She stared at him, but did not speak.

“Is it?” Narrah demanded, rounding on Winterhawk. “And you are just going to trust her? She should be brought back to my people, to receive justice for what she’s done. She and her group killed many of my people. They made this whole thing possible.”

Winterhawk nodded, glancing between the two of them. They didn’t have time for this right now. He kept his voice even. “She wants to help now, Narrah. Nanga Mai lied to her. They misled her. She realized it, and now she wants to make it right. I’m not happy about it either—she’s caused us a lot of trouble, too. But right now we need to think about the big picture.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Can you do that? Because I don’t think we’ll have time to find them otherwise.”

Narrah paused for a long moment, eyes narrowed, clearly weighing his grief and anger at the loss of so many of his family group against the need to move fast. Finally he sighed and nodded. “All right,” he said. “I will agree—for now.” He glared at Kivuli. “But after—we will discuss it further.”

She didn’t look like she cared much for this idea, but she nodded too. “Yeah,” she said. “But we need to go now. I’m not sure how much time we’ve got left.”

“They’re in there,” Kivuli said, pointing.

The area she’d directed them to was a deserted industrial park, its buildings long abandoned and in the process of being reclaimed by the elements before they could be demolished. The structure she pointed at loomed up, its dark bulk rising at least two stories into the night sky. It looked like it might have been a warehouse or perhaps some kind of big-box store at one time, but it had clearly been a long time since anyone but squatters had occupied it. A wide, overgrown parking lot surrounded it, and around that was a substantial fence topped with razor wire and peppered with DO NOT ENTER signs. There were no functional perimeter lights. 

As the group watched from the van, Winterhawk thought he saw intermittent flashes of light coming from the building’s small, high windows. He shifted to astral sight and spotted the glowing auras of several figures patrolling around the parking lot. “You see them?” he asked Narrah, who also had the halfway-there look of someone who was assensing.

The apprentice nodded. “Something bad is happening in there. I can feel it. We need to stop it.”

“Let’s go, then,” Winterhawk said, hand on the door.

“Wait,” Dreja said. “You just want to go right on in? No plans or anything?”

“No time,” Narrah said, and his voice was urgent. “I think they’re getting close. I can feel the energy building.”

“You heard the man,” Winterhawk said, stepping the rest of the way out. “This is it. Last chance to back out.”

Nobody backed out. They all got out of the van, checking their weapons.

“I don’t think they have many guards,” Kivuli said, stowing the Predator they’d lent her in its holster. “I don’t think they’re expecting anyone to show up. The mundane guards are probably just to keep away squatters or homeless people.”

“’Hawk, could you see how many guards there were?” Ocelot asked.

Winterhawk was silent for a moment as he communicated with Maya. “Four,” he said. “They’re patrolling the parking lot. Maya thinks they all have guns.”

“Should we split up?” Scuzzy asked, sounding apprehensive about the idea.

“Two groups of three,” Dreja said. “’Hawk, Ocelot, and Scuzzy, Narrah, Kivuli, and me. That gives both groups magical support and firepower.”

Winterhawk nodded once. “Narrah and I can each summon a spirit—they should be able to take out the other two. If we time it right, we can get all four of them at once, before they can communicate with each other or anyone inside.”

“Stay in contact,” Dreja said. “Let’s go.”

They took off in opposite directions, slipping into the shadows. Winterhawk followed Ocelot, and Scuzzy stayed close to Winterhawk, looking around as if expecting someone to jump him at any second. They rounded the corner and Ocelot held up a hand, then wiggled his fingers in an imitation of magic and jerked his head toward the area ahead of them.

Winterhawk nodded and summoned a spirit of air, quickly relaying instructions to it. It darted off, invisible against the night. “Ready,” he whispered into the link. “Is Narrah’s spirit in place?”

“Good to go,” came Dreja’s quick reply. “Go on my mark.” There was a long pause, then: “Now.”

Winterhawk gathered mana, formed it into a simple stunbolt, and loosed it at the approaching guard. The man didn’t see what hit him, just slumped silently to the cracked pavement. After a moment, the spirit reported that its target had also been neutralized.

“Got ’em,” came Dreja’s voice a moment later. “If you guys counted right, that should be all of ’em.”

“Let’s meet up on your side,” Ocelot said. “If they’re watching, they’ll be watching the front for sure.”

“Tell Narrah to keep his spirit on patrol out here. I’ll do the same thing. They can tell us if anyone else approaches once we’re inside.”

Five minutes later they were back together, hidden behind a derelict car across the street from the warehouse.

“How do we want to do this?” Dreja asked. “Big and loud or quiet and sneaky?”

“We need to hurry,” Narrah said again, shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly agitated.

“If they’ve got a ritual circle in there,” Winterhawk said, “they’ll be concentrating. We might be able to take them out fast if we can get in without them seeing us. I’m afraid to do any astral recon—if they have spirits on patrol, they’ll spot us and raise the alarm.”

“Play it by ear, then,” Dreja said. “Let’s get moving before they realize their outside guards aren’t answering.”

They hurried across the open space between the car and the fence; a couple of quick levitation spells from Winterhawk later, they’d all sailed high over the razor-wire fence and landed silently in the parking lot.

“I’m not getting any cameras,” Scuzzy said. “I don’t think they’re watching us.”

“Spread out and head for the door,” Winterhawk said under his breath. “If they are watching, we don’t want to be sitting ducks for any area spells.”

They reached the front doors without incident; apparently the guards were intended to discourage anyone from approaching. Scuzzy examined the doors: they were armored glass, covered on the inside with a black coating that prevented any view of what was going on beyond them. “That’s a pretty sophisticated maglock and alarm system for an abandoned building. They don’t want anybody getting in here.”

“Can you crack it?” Ocelot asked.

Scuzzy snorted. “With my brain tied behind my back. Just give me a sec.” He pulled out his deck and concentrated as the others kept watch for anyone approaching. After less than a minute, the tiniest of buzzes broke the silence and Scuzzy grinned and stowed his deck. “There. Maglock’s neutralized, and the system won’t go off when the door’s opened.”

Ocelot, Dreja, and Kivuli drew their guns and took up positions on either side of the door. Winterhawk and Narrah stepped back with Scuzzy, and Winterhawk used a spell to pull the door open. When nothing attacked, they moved inside.

A few meters inside was a solid wall blocking their view, but intermittent, flickering light shone through wide openings at both ends. <Same groups,> Winterhawk sent. <We’ll go left, you go right. Wait at the end, and let me get a look first.>

Without waiting for a response, he crept down to the end of the wall. He had already masked his potent aura before they arrived; now he wreathed himself in an invisibility spell and cautiously poked his head around the end of the wall.

<What do you see?> Ocelot sent. <Are they there?>

For a moment, Winterhawk didn’t answer. He didn’t even notice Ocelot’s text, because he was too busy staring at what was spread out in front of him.

It might not have been the most impressive ritual he had ever seen in his many years of practicing magic, but it was certainly near the top of the list. The cavernous building housed a single enormous open area, its roof held up by massive pillars at wide, regular intervals around the cleared floor. In the center, spreading out at least ten to twelve meters in diameter, was an intricate circle of large, painted standing stones, delicate sand paintings traced on the carefully cleared floor, and braziers burning with reddish fire that provided the room’s only light. Between the stones stretched a shimmering reddish field that rose in a dome, completely enclosing the circle. Outside it, a dozen figures moved restlessly around, dividing their attention between what was going on in the circle and the remainder of the building’s empty floor. The ones Winterhawk could see clearly all cradled weapons in their hands: SMGs, shotguns, pistols. They all looked like Aborigines.

<’Hawk?>

<A moment,> he sent back, distracted, squinting to see past the barrier and into the center of the circle.

There were fewer people there: perhaps six in total. Each wore what Winterhawk assumed to be Aboriginal ceremonial dress, but each outfit was different, most likely indicating that they were from different geographical areas. They faced inward, each at one point of the circle. Their arms were raised, their attention focused upward. Around the center of the circle, several obviously dead bodies lay. As Kivuli had said, some of them looked like raggedly dressed teenagers—street kids.

In the exact center was a small stone platform. On top of this was a familiar sight: the serpent sculpture Kivuli’s group had stolen from Narrah’s people. Now, though, it wasn’t alone: another one, its twin as far as Winterhawk could tell, coiled around it, the two of them joined together in a way that would have been impossible had they been carved of mundane stone. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw them both move, adjusting their coils as if getting more comfortable.

However, of all the compelling sights within the ritual circle, it was the subject of the koradjis’ focus that claimed most of Winterhawk’s interest. Floating above the circle, above the dome, was another barrier, this one vaguely egg-shaped. Inside was a single man, tall and powerful, his bare chest painted with mystical symbols, his arms spread wide in a gesture of summoning. He too was an Aborigine, also dressed in ceremonial garb, though his was more elaborate than his fellows’. It was his eyes that Winterhawk noticed most, though: blazing with a mad and unearthly light, they illuminated the man’s face in a harsh, unhealthy glow. When Winterhawk shifted to astral sight, the man’s aura lit up the circle, radiating out from his body to a distance of more than a meter. “Bloody hell…” he whispered.

“What?” Ocelot demanded.

“They’ve already done it. They’ve already summoned Akurra’s spirit. He’s got to be possessing the man inside that floating force field.”

And at that moment, the man turned, and his gaze fell on Winterhawk. A cold smile split his face and he pointed his hands at the wall the mage was hiding behind.

CHAPTER 44

SYDNEY 
TUESDAY EVENING

“Go! Go!” Winterhawk flung himself backward, barely getting a barrier up in time to protect himself, Ocelot, and Scuzzy as two meters of the wall they stood behind exploded into a haze of dust and flying debris. Invisibility forgotten, he landed in an ungraceful sprawl on top of Scuzzy, while Ocelot used his augmented dexterity to remain upright and leap out of the way.

Precious seconds ticked by as Winterhawk and Scuzzy extricated themselves and got back to their feet. “Oh drek oh drek oh drek,” the decker muttered under his breath, looking terrified.

“Stay back here,” Winterhawk ordered, moving fast. The sound of gunfire came loud and fast around the barrier. “Anyone gets near you, shoot them.”

“Y-yeah,” Scuzzy said from where he crouched near the ragged end of the wall. “I’ll watch through Ocelot’s and Dreja’s cybereyes.”

When Winterhawk rounded the wall, the battle had already begun. Ocelot, Dreja, Kivuli, and Narrah had spread out, taking cover behind nearby support columns, where they were exchanging fire with the mundane Aborigines.

<Can’t shoot through the barrier,> Ocelot sent. <Just bounces off.>

Winterhawk triggered his glowing magical armor and spared a quick glance toward the center of the circle as he found cover behind another column. Oddly, the man in the floating egg-shaped field had not pressed his advantage, and once again seemed to be focusing on something none of them could see. The six koradji behind the reddish barrier had neither moved nor appeared to notice the intruders, leading Winterhawk to believe that they were concentrating on keeping the barrier powered and their leader safe.

He noticed something else too, just before one of the mundane Aborigines spotted him and opened up with his SMG, taking chunks out of the column and forcing him to duck back under cover: Something was forming above the leader’s head.

It was small and indistinct, but Winterhawk knew what it had to be: the gateway Akurra was opening to bring in the spirits. He couldn’t be allowed to do it. They would have to take care of these mundane opponents fast if they had any hope of figuring out how to bring down that shield before Akurra was successful. He gathered mana to him again, reveling in the feeling of it flowing, smooth and surging with power, through his body. The chance he’d had to rest and eat, even despite the exertions getting into Sydney, had restored his strength now that the malevolent spirit was gone from him, and he didn’t hold back.

Muttering words of power, he flung the spell at a group of three of the Aborigines who had unwisely gotten too close to each other. Their armored jackets provided no protection against the power of his magic; all three screamed, clutched their heads, and dropped, their weapons clattering to the floor. <Three down,> he sent over the link. <We have to hurry.>

<On it,> Ocelot sent. He darted out from behind one of the pillars near Winterhawk, stowing his shotgun and pulling out his monowhip. Keeping low and moving so fast none of the Aborigines could get a bead on him, he closed on one, lashing out with what looked like a sharp hand movement. The Aborigine shrieked in pain and doubled over, dropping his gun as a fan of blood spurted from his abdomen. Ocelot didn’t stop, but kept his forward momentum and disappeared behind another column just ahead of another volley of gunfire. <Four,> he sent.

The Aborigines weren’t stupid, and were almost certainly in communication with each other. When Winterhawk had taken out three of their number with a single spell, the rest quickly got out of his line of sight. One was now parked behind a column on the other side of the circle, keeping up covering fire on Winterhawk’s column. The mage waited for him to duck behind it to reload, then recast his invisibility spell and hurried to another nearby column. He pulled up his AR, noting the red dots where his teammates had marked the positions of the other Aborigines. Eight left, but he couldn’t currently see any of them. He’d have to move again.

He was about to do just that when Kivuli shot out from behind another column, clearly attempting to move to the next one and resume firing. <Look out!> Ocelot sent, but it was too late. The long cable of a grapple gun snaked out from behind another column; before any of the others could stop it, it snagged Kivuli’s armored jacket. She was yanked forward, whipped around, and flung directly toward the glowing red barrier.

Winterhawk looked on in shock from his vantage point as she screamed, struggling in vain to stop herself, but the man on the other end was too strong, her forward momentum too great.

She crashed into the barrier.

Her screams abruptly stopped as her body disappeared, instantly vaporized into a red haze that hovered for a second as a cloud around the barrier’s edge, then dissipated.

“Kivuli!” Winterhawk yelled.

<Holy drek!> Ocelot sent.

<Did that thing just fry her?> Scuzzy sent. <Tell me I didn’t see that right!>

<Focus!> Dreja ordered. From the other side of the circle, she took advantage of the confusion and fired a burst. One of the red dots disappeared. <Five. Got the one who killed her.>

<Stay the hell away from that barrier!> Winterhawk sent.

<You think?> Ocelot sent back. He darted out, moving fast and low, and snatched the grapple gun dropped by the fallen Aborigine, then hurried back behind cover as a flurry of rounds stitched the area he’d run through a moment before.

From his new vantage point, Winterhawk could see Narrah, crouched behind another pillar. <You all right, Narrah?>

<Yes,> the apprentice sent back. <I’m not trained for combat, though.>

<Just keep under cover. We’ll need you once we take care of these.>

Gunfire chattered again. “Drek!” Dreja yelled. Then over the link: <I’m hit. It’s not bad, though. And…six.>

Winterhawk gritted his teeth. Six mundane Aborigines left. He spared a glance at the circle; as yet, nothing had changed. The six koradji were still turned toward the center, with Akurra’s host still floating in his bubble. The snake-things still coiled and writhed at the middle.

Wait. Something had changed.

Above Akurra, the glowing, shifting gateway had grown larger. It was now about the height of a man, its colors becoming more distinct. Winterhawk thought he could see things shifting around on its other side. <We need to hurry this up!> he sent.

<Okay,> Ocelot sent. <Let’s use their own weapon against them.> He rushed out from behind his column as one of the Aborigines stepped out to fire another burst at Dreja. The man didn’t see his quick and silent approach until it was too late.

Winterhawk watched as Ocelot seized the Aborigine bodily and flung him toward the barrier. He winced, bracing himself for the scream and the red haze…

And nothing happened.

The man flew through the barrier as if it weren’t there, managed to regain his balance before falling over, and surged back out of the circle. He opened fire on a surprised Ocelot, who was barely able to dive out of the way in time to avoid being hit. <What the frag?>

Winterhawk frowned, mind spinning as he flung another spell at the Aborigine before he could press his attack on Ocelot. The man stiffened and dropped. <Seven. Five left. They must have designed that thing so it won’t hurt their own people.>

<How will we get to the guys inside if we can’t get through the barrier?> Dreja asked.

<Working on it,> Winterhawk sent. <Mundanes first.>

<I’ve got a shot,> Narrah sent suddenly. <Taking it.>

<Narrah, wait—> Ocelot sent.

Winterhawk glanced at the AR. Narrah’s green dot was only a few meters away from a red dot that had moved out from behind another column. The Aborigine must not have seen him since he’d been hiding the whole time in the same spot. The green dot moved too, but there was no sign of Narrah. He’s invisible, the mage realized, shifting to astral sight and spotting the boy’s glowing aura as it moved. The figure stopped, appearing to take aim with a spell on the unwitting Aborigine.

What Narrah didn’t see, probably because of his unfamiliarity with the group’s AR targeting system, was the other red dot behind him. Moving nearly as fast as Ocelot, the hulking Aborigine hurtled out from behind another column, directly toward Narrah.

<Narrah! Look out!> Winterhawk sent. <He can see you!>

Narrah moved fast, but not fast enough. The big Aborigine got his arms around the slim youth and bulled him forward toward the circle, yelling something that Winterhawk’s Aboriginal-languages linguasoft rendered as “Die, enemy!”

<They’re both gonna hit it—> Dreja sent as the other Aborigine, the one Narrah had been targeting, spun and fired at her, forcing her to throw herself behind a column.

“Narrah!” Winterhawk yelled, gathering mana and trying to grab the apprentice telekinetically before he hit the barrier, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Screaming, flailing, trying desperately to break free of the larger man’s hold, Narrah made contact with the glowing red field—

—And went through, along with his attacker.

Both of them, off balance, fell hard. The attacker, surprise showing on his face, leaped up and lurched free of the barrier. That was Ocelot’s chance. He drew his shotgun and hit the man full force in the chest and head, dropping him.

Winterhawk was only tangentially watching that. Mostly, he was watching Narrah. The apprentice appeared dazed, but unhurt. The koradji inside the circle ignored him. What the hell was going on? If the circle was aspected to allow the other group to pass through it safely but kill anyone else, how had Narrah—

And then it came to him. Of course! It was the only thing that fit.

<Aborigines!> he sent through the link. <That’s what Nanga Mai is about. Preserving anyone of Aboriginal bloodline. They can pass the barrier safely, but anyone else is killed!> 

<They didn’t expect us to have an Aborigine on our team,> Dreja sent back. <Makes sense! But what do we do with it?> More gunfire erupted from her side of the room.

Winterhawk spun, mind still working fast. <Narrah! Are you all right?>

<Yes. Just shaken.> The apprentice stood unsteadily, looking around. The koradji all still faced the center of the circle. They didn’t appear to notice the interloper in their midst, but as Winterhawk once again shifted to astral sight, their auras belied that. They were agitated, but clearly couldn’t take their focus away from their task to deal with the threat.

Winterhawk looked closer, noting that both Narrah and his attacker had landed in a cleared area just outside the circle.

<’Hawk!> Dreja sent. <One heading for the circle!>

She was right: another red dot was approaching the circle from his side. He got a look at the man’s face: it was lit up with rage and some kind of insane fervor, eyes locked on Narrah. He didn’t even appear to be paying attention to the rest of the armed group surrounding him. His intentions were clear: get Narrah out of the circle.

Winterhawk grinned, an idea taking hold. <Destroy it!> He sent to Narrah. <Break the circle! Smudge the sand. Knock over the stones. Quickly!>

<Is that safe?> Ocelot demanded, taking aim at the Aborigine. <Won’t it blow up or something?>

<Doesn’t matter,> Narrah sent. <He’s right. It will disrupt the ritual.> As Winterhawk watched, he appeared to take a deep breath and steel himself. Then he moved forward into the circle. He kicked over the nearest stone, then began smudging the intricate sand paintings and knocking over braziers.

Almost instantly the reddish dome dropped, fizzling and then disappearing. The koradji staggered, clutching at their heads as the psychic backlash of the barrier’s sudden catastrophic failure slammed them. 

<Go! Go!> Winterhawk sent. <Take them down while they’re weakened!> He glanced at the AR and noted that only two of the red dots representing the mundane Aborigines remained on the field.

The koradjis’ ceremonial garb wasn’t armored, and in their confused and disoriented state they had no chance to erect armor spells before they were cut down by the automatic fire from Ocelot’s and Dreja’s assault rifles. One by one they screamed and went down, their bleeding bodies falling alongside of the innocents they had sacrificed.

<Did we do it?> Scuzzy sent. <Is it over?>

Winterhawk started to answer, but then froze. He was still viewing the scene through astral sight, and noticed several things simultaneously: the egg-shaped barrier containing Akurra’s host had not been destroyed, and still floated several meters off the floor, as strong and brightly glowing as ever. The nascent gateway, growing larger and more distinct by the minute, was still present, as were the coiling snake sculptures in the middle of the pile of bodies.

None of these things were the most immediate focus of his attention, however. That would be the two spirits shimmering into being on either side of the circle. One rose from one of the intact braziers, a tall, reddish-flamed being of vaguely humanoid shape.

The other, horrifically, was forming from the corpses of the sacrifice victims, twisting the bodies together to compose a kind of shambling abomination of flesh and bone.

<What. The Frag. Are those?> Ocelot demanded, diving and rolling to avoid a volley from one of the two remaining mundane Aborigines. A couple rounds hit his armored jacket, turning his roll to a jerky lurch, but Winterhawk didn’t see any blood.

<Spirits,> Narrah sent. <I will try to speak with them.>

<They don’t look like they want to talk,> Scuzzy sent.

<We need to blow them away,> Dreja sent. <Look at the gateway—it’ll be finished soon.> She fired a burst into Akurra’s barrier, but the rounds bounced off like they were hitting solid steel. <We still can’t get in there.>

<Deal with those last mundanes,> Winterhawk sent. <Narrah. Help me. You understand these spirits better than I do.>

He stepped out from behind his cover and pointed his hands at the spirit closest to him. It was hard to look at it: somehow it had managed to create its humanoid form out of the bodies of the dead sacrifice victims, twisting and warping them until it rose twice the height of a tall man and began lumbering in Winterhawk’s direction. He was reminded suddenly of the strange writing at the asylum in his metaplanar ordeal: like that, this was simply wrong, in a way that made normal metahuman sight want to slide away from it or risk losing sanity. If he had any doubt that Akurra was irrevocably insane before, it departed when the ancient koradji summoned that spirit.

He focused his will and concentrated, forming the banishing spell in his mind, wondering if he would be able to do it. The spirit was huge, which most likely meant it was potent. As he shifted his perception to the astral plane to get a better look, it pointed a hand made of two metahuman legs at him and all of the mouths gurgled out the same syllables.

Instantly, he felt his mind recoil. This thing was wrong. It was unnatural. It was going to kill him. It would rip him to pieces! He had to run, to get away, to flee! Runrunrunrun…

No!

Gritting his teeth, fighting as if he were pushing against a physical force, Winterhawk steeled his mind, bringing his mental discipline to bear against the onslaught. He was not going to flee. He was not going to be afraid. He was done being afraid. He gathered the banishment spell again, pointed at the spirit, and let it fly.

The spirit screamed, the sound again coming from different mouths, different throats, different voices. The sound rose until it threatened to break the creature into pieces. It flung itself forward, its corpse-pieces writhing and shrieking, its freakish arms flailing at Winterhawk. It seized the mage and picked him up, throwing him with augmented strength toward one of the columns.

He hit the column with a thundering crash and slammed to the floor, pain flaring. If he hadn’t had his armor spell up, he knew he’d be dead now. As it was, he might have a cracked rib or two, but no time to worry about that now. Adrenaline would take care of it until this was over. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, preparing to face the shambling monstrosity.

It was gone. Absent the spirit inhabiting them, the corpses had fallen into a grotesque, untidy heap a few meters from where Winterhawk had landed.

<You got it, ’Hawk!> Scuzzy sent.

<You okay?> Ocelot sent. He stood braced on the other side of the circle, keeping a column between himself and the suddenly cautious mundane Aborigines, monowhip at the ready.

<Fine,> he sent. But how had he banished it so easily? He was good, but he wasn’t that good. Banishing wasn’t easy in the first place, but a spirit that size should have taken a lot more effort.

He looked around for the fire spirit, and found Narrah locked in astral combat with it. So far neither seemed to be getting the upper hand, but at least it was occupied. Far more worrisome was the fact that the floor was beginning to smoke. <We need to take that thing out before it sets the place on fire,> he sent, gathering mana for another banishing.

Dreja fired another burst at one of the Aborigines, then pulled out a long knife and rushed the spirit, slashing at it in fast and precise motions. Ocelot took aim with his grapple gun and fired at the other Aborigine, yanking backward when it caught on the man’s armored jacket. As Winterhawk split his concentration between the spirit and Akurra, he saw the unsuspecting man pulled backward—straight into the spirit. He screamed, flames catching his hair and his pants as Narrah’s and Winterhawk’s banishing spells both took effect and the spirit vanished. The Aborigine, still screaming, ran headlong away from the circle. Ocelot and Dreja followed, and Dreja took him down with a flying tackle. Together they rolled him over and put out the flames.

Winterhawk turned his attention back to Akurra in his bubble. <Why hasn’t he finished the gateway yet?> he sent. <He should be done by now!>

Narrah too was staring at Akurra, clearly assensing. His expression was troubled.

<This doesn’t make sense,> he sent.

<What?>

<He’s…arguing with something. It’s almost like he’s…negotiating with whatever’s on the other side.>

<You mean they don’t want to come here?> Ocelot demanded. <I thought they were some kind of evil vengeance spirits that want to eat everybody who isn’t an Aborigine.>

<So did I,> Winterhawk sent. He focused on Akurra, eyes widening. With everything that had been going on, he hadn’t had a chance to get a close look at what Akurra was doing—he just assumed that the koradji was occupied with creating a gateway while his nutball buddies stalled for time. But it was more than that. The gateway was taking far too long. Almost as if something was resisting its creation.

Something on the other side?

<Narrah! Come with me!> he sent. <The rest of you—make sure nothing attacks us.> Without waiting for an answer, he dropped to the floor and sent his spirit free of his body in astral projection. “Maya, you too. With us!”

The astral plane in the abandoned store was a curious mix of utterly boring and wildly beautiful, like an acid trip in an empty room. The store itself, the columns, and the corpses of the sacrifices, the koradji, and the mundane Aborigines were nothing more than gray forms, indistinct and uninteresting. Ocelot’s and Dreja’s auras glowed faintly, their bodies packed with so much cyberware that they barely registered above the base-level grayness. Narrah’s aura, by contrast, glowed strong and pulsing, its colors brilliant and pure.

Winterhawk had never seen anything like Akurra’s aura. For a moment he just stared, shocked and fascinated. His brain refused to provide words for what he was seeing, so he settled for taking in impressions: 

Power.

Vast, nearly limitless power.

Colors that didn’t even have names in the real world, straining against the fabric of an astral plane struggling to contain it. Colors so bright and intense that they bled over into the other senses: jangling otherworldly sounds, jarring odors and flavors, discordant sensations.

And layered over it all, madness—a deep, abiding madness.

Madness and some sort of—echo, for lack of a better word: a smaller, less potent reflection of the dazzling aura, like an aura within an aura.

Next to this screaming visual cacophony, the glow of the gateway’s astral presence was barely brighter than the surrounding environment—something that should have been beautiful in its own right rendered muted and subdued by comparison. Behind it, a series of shimmering black things roiled and danced, approaching its entrance like curious fish, but never coming through.

Curious, but reluctant.

What was going on?

Narrah had planted himself behind Akurra as he stood in front of the gateway. “I was right,” he said. “They don’t want to come. He’s trying to convince them. I think it’s working. What should I do?”

Winterhawk’s gaze darted between Narrah, Akurra, and the gateway. “How should I know?” he demanded. “This isn’t my area! You’re the koradji. Talk to them. See if you can get them to go back. I’ll try to shut down the gateway from here.”

“How can I do that?” Narrah’s pure-bright aura flared confusion and panic. “I’m not a koradji yet! I’m just an apprentice! I’ve never done anything like this before!”

“No time like the present to start!” Winterhawk replied. “You can do this. If they’re Aboriginal spirits, they won’t listen to me. You’re the only one who can make them see. I can give you power, but I can’t make those things do what we want. You have to do it, Narrah!”

The fear flared again, but then Winterhawk felt the boy gather himself and nod. Narrah faced the gateway, moving up next to Akurra. Winterhawk saw Akurra glance sideways, a look of consternation and impotent rage on his face, but incongruously he also saw strain.

“This is hard for him,” he sent to Maya, unwilling to disrupt Narrah’s fragile concentration. He caught snatches of what the apprentice was telling the spirits in shaking but persuasive tones: something about how times had changed, how most Aborigines no longer hated the outsiders, how they no longer wanted to destroy them, but he couldn’t give the negotiation his full attention. He had his own issues to concentrate on. Why is it hard for Akurra? If he’s got the power to hide his spirit in an artifact for thousands of years, to reach out over thousands of kilometers, this should be nothing to him.

He focused on Akurra again, taking a closer look. The koradji’s aura shook a little with the strain now. Why isn’t he summoning something to deal with Narrah? Why isn’t he doing anything about me?

And then he saw it.

The strain.

The madness.

The instability.

The echo.

The echo is the key!

He wasn’t looking at one being here; he was looking at two.

Akurra, and the koradji who served as the vessel for his spirit.

His gaze swept between Narrah, who shook with the effort of trying to persuade the spirits to stay where they were, and Akurra. “He’s not all here!” he told Maya in triumph. “He’s wearing a mask! His body isn’t strong enough to contain all of Akurra’s spirit, so he can only hold part of it.”

Akurra was trying to mislead the spirits! “Narrah! Keep talking!”

“It’s not working,” the apprentice said in a desperate tone. “He’s too strong. They’re coming. They’re—”

The cacophony rose to a fever pitch, screaming and roaring in Winterhawk’s mind until it caused physical pain. He dropped to his knees, clutching the sides of his head, and saw Narrah do the same. It felt like his brain was trying to fly to pieces. The gateway swelled as more of the black things pressed against it. Akurra, radiating magical energy like a small sun, grinned in triumph and raised his hands—

Winterhawk focused like he had never focused before. Reaching out, he pulled in as much mana as he could manage, and then grasped for a bit more. At this point he didn’t care what it would do to him—it had to be done, and he only had one shot at it.

Narrah screamed, falling back.

Winterhawk let the magic go. “Look!” he cried to the things on the other side of the gateway. “Look at what’s trying to deceive you!”

Now it was Akurra who was screaming. That vast, potent aura ripped free, spinning off, disoriented as the small part of it that the vessel’s body could cope with was once again returned to its pure astral state. It didn’t fragment or split apart: Winterhawk was no more capable of destroying a spirit this powerful than he could knock over a skyscraper with a spell. But the effect was the same: the vessel’s aura was left unmasked, naked before the gateway.

And it was afraid.

It was still strong: dragging himself back to his feet, grabbing Narrah and staggering backward, Winterhawk saw that the mad Nanga Mai koradji who had served as Akurra’s host was at least his equal magically. But compared to what he and Akurra had been together, he was nothing.

The koradji screamed.

Something else screamed, loud and primal and as deeply visceral as the dark things that lived in the places where no metahuman in his right mind would ever dare to go.

The Nanga Mai koradji’s aura was lifted up and pulled toward the gateway, flailing and shrieking in naked panic.

“Look!” Narrah said, pointing at the gateway, his face transfixed with wonder. “Look! They’re beautiful! I can see Snake!”

Winterhawk looked too, then stared. The things had resolved themselves into forms now: it was hard to see them in the swirling haze, but he thought he could make out a vast rainbow-colored serpent, a lizard, a spider, a doglike creature, and a kangaroo before the koradji’s aura was sucked though and they fell upon it.

The screams didn’t stop; in fact they grew louder until they threatened to engulf everything around Winterhawk and Narrah. They were so loud that they felt like a kind of pressure, growing and squeezing. “Come on!” Winterhawk yelled to Narrah, shoving the boy to break his fixation on the gateway. “We have to get out of here before that thing blows!”

Narrah looked at him, wild-eyed, then nodded and disappeared along with Maya. When he was sure they were gone, Winterhawk took one last glance at the glowing gateway, in time to see the bright, unworldly madness of Akurra’s aura being drawn inexorably toward it as it collapsed inward on itself.

He was sure that the screams echoing in his ears as he departed would haunt him for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER 45

BLUE MORAY RESTAURANT 
SEATTLE 
THREE DAYS LATER

When Winterhawk strode into the back room at the Blue Moray Restaurant, it was with a sense of coming full circle. Though it had only been a bit more than a week since he had last been here, it felt like an eternity. Funny how time seems to move more slowly when you’re counting every minute of it, he thought, and felt Maya’s gentle chuckle in his mind.

The scene was nearly identical to that of his original meet with the Johnson: same room, same oval table, same pair of immobile and emotionless bodyguards. The only difference was that a different man sat at the table’s central spot, taking the place of Mr. Bland Johnson.

Winterhawk recognized him immediately. Richard Ortega wore a tailored corp power suit, a perfect haircut, and an expression of smug anticipation. The latter slipped just a bit when his gaze fell on the mage.

“Mr. Ortega. What a surprise,” Winterhawk said, his tone suggesting it was anything but. He slipped out of his overcoat, tossed it over one of the empty chairs, and sat down in the other one without being invited. “I expected you to send your toady along to mop up.” He smiled. “But then, I suppose you’re in a bit of a hurry to get your hands on the package you’re expecting.”

Ortega’s eyes shifted past Winterhawk.

“Looking for someone else?”

“You don’t seem to have the item with you,” Ortega said, his previous hint of unease already smoothed over. “I thought perhaps you might have brought along an associate.”

Despite Ortega’s attempt to shield it, Winterhawk was enjoying watching the man’s confused aura squirm. He shrugged. “You’re right. I don’t have it with me.”

Ortega seemed ever more perplexed, though he was making an admirable effort to hide it. He shifted in his seat and plucked an imaginary bit of lint off his immaculate sleeve. “If you need to retrieve it, then—”

“I don’t need to retrieve it. As I said, I don’t have it.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone?” Ortega’s eyes widened, and Winterhawk watched his aura flare fear even as his voice’s pitch crept up a bit.

“Gone. Destroyed. You might not have heard about it—I think the media is trying to keep the story under wraps to avoid a panic.”

Ortega frowned, clearly trying to recover the upper hand in the exchange. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But in any case, I’m afraid that’s quite unfortunate for you, then. As I’m sure my associate made clear to you, without the delivery of the item, we’ll be unable to—”

“—to take care of that nasty little spirit you attached to me?” Winterhawk’s smile grew wider, predatory. “Oh, no need to concern yourself with that. I’ve got it all sorted. I must admit, that was a nice bit of ritual work you did. I’ll be needing to spend quite some time studying the video of that ritual at my leisure. Perhaps I’ll learn something.”

Ortega’s façade of calm was slipping, bit by bit. “What are you talking about?”

“Assense me, Mr. Ortega, if you like. I’ll drop my masking. I’m sure you’ll be able to see that your spirit has departed for greener pastures. That is, if you can’t tell by my general aura of good health and cheer.” He tilted his head. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? You’re failing your duties as a host.”

Ortega stared at him, gripping the table. “How—how did you—?”

Winterhawk’s wolfish smile became a grin. “That, I think, will remain my secret. I hope you understand. You should—after all, I know how much you like secrets. I have a friend who likes secrets, too. He likes to find out other people’s secrets, and he’s shared a couple of them with me. They’re about you, Mr. Ortega. Would you like to hear them?”

Ortega glanced backward at his bodyguards, who remained impassive. “I—”

“It doesn’t matter, actually. You’re going to hear them whether you’d like to or not. They’re good secrets—far too good not to share. For example, the one about how you’ve buggered up a certain high-profile project so badly that as soon as your superiors find out about your incompetence, you’ll be lucky to get out with your head still attached.” He nodded. “That’s a good one. So is the one about the little side deal you made with your boss’s boss, to get you out of this mess in exchange for a large payoff.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head. “A large payoff, I might add, that you don’t have, due to the fact that a certain mage you attempted to coerce into retrieving it for you is perhaps a bit more clever—or at least has more resourceful friends—than you might have given him credit for.”

Ortega didn’t reply. He stared at Winterhawk, his grip on the edge of the table tightening until his knuckles whitened. His hands shook.

“Shame about that,” Winterhawk said. “Really, it is. And this friend I mentioned, the one who told me these secrets? He’s got quite the mouth on him. Can’t keep anything to himself, you understand. Frightful character flaw. By now, I’m sure I’m not the only one he’s told. I expect that a number of your superiors have received some very interesting communications in the last hour or so.”

Ortega leapt to his feet, his expression darkening with rage. When he spoke his voice shook with it. “How…dare you?” he bit out through gritted teeth. “You have no idea what you’re messing with. You might have worked out a way to deal with the ritual, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of danger. You’re here at my favor, and you might not be aware of it, but my guards here aren’t the only members of my team at this restaurant. You won’t leave here alive, I promise you.”

Winterhawk rose too, still smiling. Goading people like Ortega into losing their cool and showing their hands was one of the simple pleasures in his life, and one of the few that didn’t involve magic. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Mr. Ortega. It tends to make people distrust you.” With studied disregard, he picked up his overcoat and draped it over his arm. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ve got some friends who are waiting for me, and believe me, they’re much more pleasant company than you’ll ever be.”

Ortega glanced sideways at the two bodyguards, who still hadn’t moved or shown any sort of expression. “Kill him,” he said in a cold, even tone.

Winterhawk turned his back on Ortega and headed for the door.

“Did you hear me?” Ortega barked. “I said kill him! I gave you a direct order!” A pause, and then, in a strangled tone: “Wait. What are you doing? You—”

Winterhawk paused and turned back around as he reached the door. The two expressionless guards had raised their elegant little SMGs, pointing them not at him, but at Ortega.

“Come with us, sir,” the elven woman said. “The others are waiting out front.”

“What is this?” Ortega’s gaze darted around from one guard to the other, to their weapons, and finally to Winterhawk.

“A proper reward, I’d say,” Winterhawk said with a smile and a nod at the guards. He opened the door and two more grim-faced, suit-clad men stepped into the room, also holding weapons trained on Ortega. “I’d wish you all the best, but—well—I’m afraid I wouldn’t mean it. Cheers.”

A couple hours later, he sat at a table at the Glass Onion. Ocelot, Dreja, and Scuzzy rounded out the party. By mutual, unspoken agreement they’d kept the conversation light while finishing up a good meal and a few rounds of drinks, but as it always did with shadowrunners, the talk eventually turned to biz.

“I’d love to have seen the expression on old Ortega’s face when his own guards turned on him,” Dreja said. “What do you suppose will happen to him?”

“Nothing good,” Scuzzy said. “I intercepted some messages earlier—sounds like they’re gonna be sending him to Tenochtitlán. Something about a ‘special project.’”

Ocelot’s smile was nasty. “Special. Yeah, I’m guessin’ he’s gonna end up as the main course in some nice new blood magic ritual they’ve just been itching to try out.”

“One can only hope,” Winterhawk said.

“By the way,” Dreja asked, “did Narrah get home all right?”

Winterhawk nodded. “I heard from him last night. He made it back with no trouble. He’s got quite a few stories to share with Thuma. I suspect when he’s finished telling them, he might not be an apprentice anymore.” His mind went back to the aftermath of the fight: he had awakened along with the others in the center of the vast open space; the circle was dead, the gateway gone, along with the Nanga Mai koradji who had been Akurra’s host. The coiled pair of serpents were nothing but a pile of crumbled dust. The team had escaped before anyone else had shown up, which was a good thing, given the number of twisted, bloody, bullet-ridden bodies they’d left behind.

He paused, then looked around at each of them in turn. “Listen,” he said. “I’ve never been much for sentiment, but—well—I just wanted all of you to know how grateful I am for your help. If not for you, I’d be dead now. And since I have far too many things I still want to do before that happens, I want you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dreja said, her tone gruff, but with a grin lurking behind her tusks. “Sorry, though—not gonna kiss you. You’re not my type.”

“Don’t look at me,” Ocelot protested, also grinning. “I’m not gonna kiss you, either.”

“I didn’t think I could be any more relieved tonight, but apparently I was mistaken,” Winterhawk said, eyebrow creeping upward. He shot Scuzzy a warning glance, only to see the decker raise both hands and shake his head.

“So,” Dreja said, “what will you do now? You going back to chasing down artifacts for the DIMR?”

Winterhawk shrugged. “Quite probably. But I’ll try not to cross paths with you if I can manage it.”

“Yeah, same. I still got Gianelli to pay off, but the money from this run will make a good dent in that.”

“Ah,” Winterhawk said. “I nearly forgot about that. If you’ll check your account, you’ll find funds that should more than cover your debt to Mr. Gianelli. You’ll see a deposit as well,” he added to Ocelot.

Dreja checked her commlink. Her eyes widened. “How did you—?”

“You can thank Scuzzy for that,” he said. “I don’t remember whether I mentioned the involvement of a certain Ms. Lydia Duvall in this affair, but I felt that she owed me a bit of compensation for all the inconvenience she set in motion.”

“I still say you shoulda let me take more,” Scuzzy said. “She’s so fraggin’ rich she won’t even miss it.”

Winterhawk shrugged. “I suspect she had no idea about the details of what she was getting herself into. That should be enough to settle her debts. And yours,” he said to Dreja.

She nodded, still looking a little shell-shocked. “Y-yeah. That’ll get Gianelli off my back. And help a lot of people, too.” Chuckling, she added, “Maybe you’re not the elitist bastard I thought you were after all.”

“Oh, no doubt I am,” Winterhawk said cheerfully. “But even we elitist bastards are grateful when someone helps us out of a fix.”

“So, I guess you’re back to retirement now, yeah?” Ocelot asked. “Can’t say I blame you, actually. Though if you ever decide you’re bored—”

Winterhawk stood. “No promises,” he said. “But give me a call if you ever come across something you think I’d find interesting.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugged and grinned. “Anything’s possible.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been a long time coming for me. Ever since I discovered Shadowrun back in 1989, it’s been one of my fondest bucket-list items to add to the world by contributing to the novel line. Finally the stars have aligned, and for that, I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to the folks at Catalyst Game Labs—not just for letting me write this book, but for letting me bring Winterhawk out to play.

Particular thanks go to John Helfers for encouragement, support, commas, and just generally making my story better; and to him, Jason Hardy, and Loren Coleman for letting me live the dream.

And last but definitely not least: thanks to Dan Nitschke, my spousal unit, best friend, and the first audience for everything I write, for patience and general awesomeness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R. L. “Rat” King is patiently hoping that the Awakening is just a few years late, because she’d really like her magic powers to show up one of these days. When she’s not spending time in the Sixth World or working on her original urban fantasy series, she writes technical documentation for a Silicon Valley megacorp and enjoys hanging out with her understanding spouse, herd of cats, and a gecko named Lofwyr. Find her at rlkingwriting.com.