Doc Sidhe

by Aaron Allston

  The cab's wheels screamed as it turned right, too sharply, and disappeared behind a long residential building. Doc sent his more maneuverable roadster into a tighter turn and got the cab in sight again. It was accelerating, a straight-line run past cross-street after cross-street.

  Doc stood on the accelerator and gained on it. Within a block, he was on the taxi's bumper. He made sure his automatic pistol was still in the shoulder holster.

  The driver gave up. He pulled to the curb and switched off the red light on the hood that said he was engaged. Doc pulled in beside him and jumped out, leveling his gun at the taxi's occupants.

  Occupant. The streetlight showed only the taxi driver, a man with a lined face and a startled expression. The driver raised his hands.

  "Where is he?"

  "Most amazing thing I ever saw," said the driver. "Dropped me a full lib and said to keep going. Just off Island Way, he jumped clean out of the car! Hit so hard he bounced. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"

  Doc sighed and holstered his gun. Well, at least Harris and Jean-Pierre still had Eamon Moon under observation.

  "Are you really with the Sidhe Foundation?" asked the driver. She was tiny, blond, and naturally wide-eyed even after her composure returned.

  "Yes, I—"

  The boy beside her asked, "Are you after a gunman? A spy?"

  "Well—"

  "Do you know the prince? He's to swoon for."

  "I think he's wearing makeup. Are you wearing makeup? Your face is running."

  "How did you get so big?"

  Harris stretched on tiptoe. Over the roof of the car in front he could still see the taillights of Moon's car. It was turning. He crouched again, holding tight. "Take a right at the next street."

  The girl braked and turned expertly; the maneuver pressed Harris against the door. "How do you join?" she asked. "Is there a test?"

  Suddenly there were no cars between the kids' and Moon's. Harris returned to a crouch. "Hell if I know. I just sort of fell into it."

  "Well, that's not very helpful. You can't plan to fall into things, can you?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Is that the one, the red Bellweather?"

  "Yeah. Is that what it is, a Bellweather?"

  "Last year's."

  "How do you know?"

  "By the taillights."

  "That's good, very good. You know a lot about cars?"

  "I love cars. I plan to be very rich so I can have one for every day of the moon."

  "Good plan." The car made another right turn; he held on tight as the girl followed. "That taillight thing is a good trick. Learn lots of neat stuff like that. It'll probably improve your odds with Doc."

  "Truly?" She beamed a smile like a headlight at him.

  The boy beside her asked, "He lets you call him Doc?"

  They were on a broad four-lane that ran along the shore of what would have been the Hudson River. Between warehouses and dark businesses, Harris had frequent glimpses of the river and of the piers arrayed along it.

  Ahead, the Bellweather turned left beside a large warehouse building. Harris said, "Stay on the road. But go slow, please."

  They cruised past. Harris saw the Bellweather stopped in front of a big warehouse. The car honked. Just before the building hid them, Harris saw the big door begin to slide open, light shining from beyond.

  They passed in front of the office building in front of the warehouse, a part of it. The painted sign above the main entrance, dimly lit by a small spotlight, read "Aremorcy Waterways." "Okay, can you stop here?"

  She pulled the car to the side and braked. He stepped off, staring at the building. A heavy, monolithic thing of dark brick. Three stories. Shuttered windows on the upper stories. "What street are we on?"

  She laughed at him. "Western High Road. How many roads do you think run along the river?"

  "Oh."

  "Are you carrying fire?" asked the older of the two girls in the backseat.

  The boy in the middle asked, "Doesn't the Foundation give you an auto?"

  "Can I drive you somewhere else?" the driver asked. "The guard-station?"

  He smiled at her. "Sure." He stepped back up on the running board. "How about the Monarch Building?"

  "Oh, good."

  Back in the laboratory, Doc managed a derisive snort. "Perhaps if I'd enlisted the aid of a car full of university students, I'd not have been outmaneuvered so easily. No, you did very well, Harris." He turned to face everybody. "Harris, Gaby, the rest of us will be visiting this place in Morcymeath. It's likely to be the center of their activities in Neckerdam. This will be a raid, possibly very dangerous. The two of you will stay here."

  Harris started to nod.

  Gaby said, "No way in hell."

  Everyone looked at her. Doc said, "Why not?"

  She took a deep breath before answering. "Doc, I'm not going to let you all go out and risk your lives for me. Not while I stay safe on the top of your ivory tower. What if you got hurt? What if you got killed? How could I live with that?"

  Doc shrugged. "It's what we've chosen to do."

  "Well, it's what I—" She looked startled. "It's what I'm choosing to do."

  Harris saw Doc's face brighten and Joseph's face fall. The taciturn giant looked as though he'd just come to the funeral of a friend.

  In spite of his smile, Doc said, "You're not trained in it, Gabriela."

  "So tell me where to go and what to do so I don't put any of you in danger."

  Harris fumed. If she went, he had to go. He fought down the urge to strangle Gaby.

  Doc looked at Harris. "Do you agree with her?"

  "Oh, absolutely." Harris spoke the biggest lie of his life with utter conviction. Gaby turned her smile on him. That made it a lot better.

  "Then you're a pair of fools. Make yourselves ready."

  In the bouncing back of the Sidhe Foundation's delivery truck, Harris sat on a bench and unfolded one of Fergus' maps of Neckerdam. He saw that if this were Manhattan, Morcymeath would have been the entire southern tip of the island, and there were more piers here than in the corresponding area on the grim world.

  He glanced around at the others arrayed on the two benches. Everyone but Doc and Jean-Pierre, who were in the truck's cab. Alastair had his Klapper autogun partially disassembled; as he put it back together again, Gaby watched in grim fascination. She held a tarnished bolt-action rifle; it looked incongruously big and old in her hands. There were wooden cabinets bolted to the truck walls above their heads; Harris had already seen the weapons racked inside them, had been given more firepower than he'd ever carried before. This was a primeval SWAT van.

  Joseph, beside him, looked gloomier than ever. Harris nudged him with his knee. "Hey. What's eating you?"

  "You and Gabriela should not be here."

  "Tell me about it. What about you?"

  "I am hard to hurt."

  "You stand in front, then."

  "I will."

  "I was joking."

  They all slid a few inches toward the cab as the truck slowed and stopped. The lightbulb against the van roof went dark.

  A moment later, Doc pulled open the back doors of the truck. Atypically, he wore black clothes and his hair was tucked up under a black felt cap with earflaps; it looked hot. "Out, and quiet," he said.

  They disembarked into the deep shadow cast by the monstrous skyscrapers of Morcymeath. Though a few of the buildings had windows lit, at this hour most of Neckerdam's businesses were closed for the night, and Doc had chosen a dark side street.

  Two other trucks were parked behind Doc's. Harris saw people climbing out their rear doors. They seemed young but quietly professional, perhaps a dozen men and half a dozen women, all clad in uniforms made black by the night.

  Doc waved one over. The burly, bearded man who approached was better dressed than the others; in addition to the uniform trousers, tunic, boots and holster belt, this man had elaborate gold trim on the tunic and a hip-length cloak. He saluted Doc—at least Harris assum
ed it was a salute; the man held his open palm on his breast for a moment as though he were listening to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

  Doc returned the salute. "Good to work with you again, Lieutenant Athelstane," he said. He gestured at the hulk of a building down the block and across the intersecting street. "Position your men on the south, north, and west sides; my associates will be on the east. There's the chance that this is a legitimate business, so be cautious. But I think it's more likely this will be similar to any glitter-bright distillery raid."

  "Meaning they'll fight like trapped rats."

  Doc smiled sourly. "Rats with autoguns. You're to wait for my signal, but use your discretion. If you hear shouts or gunfire, don't bother to wait. Dismissed." They traded salutes, and Athelstane turned to rejoin his troops.

  As the lieutenant led his people away into the darkness, the others clustered around Doc. Jean-Pierre was not in his usual elegant dress; he wore baggy workman's clothes and a cloth cap.

  Doc said, "We have to assume the doors are watched. Noriko, you and I will creep up beside the front door and wait for Jean-Pierre. Alastair, I want you and your Klapper on the other side of the street on the north corner for fire support." He frowned at Harris. "You're not carrying a long arm."

  "I've never fired a rifle. I took a couple of revolvers from the truck, on top of my usual." Harris patted his coat pockets, felt the reassuring weight of the weapons and ammunition they held.

  "You'll need to be close, then. Like Alastair, but south corner. But you won't be entering; stay at that position and keep any gunmen from leaving the building."

  "Sure."

  Doc looked at Gaby. There was nothing but joyless resolve in her expression. "Jean-Pierre, how is she with that?"

  "Straight and true."

  "Gaby and Joseph, stay here with the truck. You're our final line of reinforcement on this flank. Don't act unless you have to. Any questions?"

  There were none. Doc nodded at the rest of them, then he and Noriko melted away into the shadows.

  Harris looked at Alastair. The doctor gestured for him to wait; then, after several seconds, pointed at the wall behind Harris. Harris moved there and walked in the deep shadow beside the wall, while Alastair matched him beside the building across the street.

  Harris' heart pounded. Prefight jitters again. He concentrated on his breathing, tried to make it slow and even.

  In a minute, because of Gaby's damned insistence that she come along, he might have to shoot somebody.

  Kill somebody.

  He reached the corner of the building, the closest approach to the cargo house, and stopped there within its shadow.

  A few feet ahead, cars were parked along the sidewalk. Beyond them was the broad four-lane street, and beyond that was the combined warehouse and office he'd seen before. There were no cars parked in front of the office. Traffic was not heavy, but the cars that did pass were moving fast.

  Across the side street to his right, Alastair had set up just short of the corner of his building. The doctor's attention was fixed on the front of the building they would soon be assaulting.

  He took another look at the building, evaluating it in terms of what Doc planned for them to do. In the middle of the building face there was an inset a dozen feet deep; there, the steps of a stoop rose half a dozen feet to the heavy, round-topped wooden door that seemed to be the place's main entrance. There were shuttered windows above the entrance, and Harris could see another window on the right wall of the inset; if there was yet another window on the left wall of the inset, Alastair would be able to see it. Harris saw no street-level stairwells leading down to a basement entrance.

  Doc appeared on the stoop as if by magic. He stood to the left of the door, back flat against the wall. Harris could see only his face—in profile, turned toward the door—and his left hand. Doc gestured, and Noriko appeared almost as suddenly, climbing up over the right concrete banister of the stoop. They flanked the door and froze into immobility.

  From his pockets, Harris drew out the two pistols he'd been given in the truck. They were both bigger than the one he'd been carrying, the one he still wore just over his kidney. Instead of having swing-out cylinders, they were break-loaders, long-barrelled weapons, comfortingly heavy. He broke each one open to make sure it was loaded.

  Jean-Pierre, carrying some sort of clipboard and a package wrapped in brown paper, breezed past him with a wink. He had copper-red hair and a bristly beard to match, courtesy of Harris and Siobhan Damvert's makeup case. "You'll do fine," he whispered.

  Jean-Pierre dodged traffic to cross the street, then trotted up the stoop of the office building and knocked loudly.

  There was no immediate response. Harris saw him stand there, slouching, the bill of his cap drawn low, as relaxed and indifferent as though he weren't flanked by two people carrying dangerous weapons.

  Harris saw a little rectangle of light appear in the doorway at about face-level. A small panel, like Harris had seen in movies about speakeasies. A face appeared in the opening.

  Cars roared by and Harris couldn't hear any of Jean-Pierre's words. He could see Jean-Pierre offering the package, gesturing with the clipboard, shaking his head.

  The little panel closed. Jean-Pierre froze.

  Doc swung around and put his fist through the panel. Harris heard a crack of wood. Doc jammed his arm in the hole, almost to the shoulder, then pulled. He yanked the man's head through the hole, splintering wood above and below. The man squealed, harsh and loud as an angry wildcat.

  Harris moved forward to kneel behind the nearest car. He set one of the pistols down beside him, brought the other one up in a two-handed grip, and readied himself to kill.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Across the street, Doc shoved the guard, then yanked hard. The guard's head, now bloody, emerged a second time. This time he didn't scream. But the door didn't budge.

  Jean-Pierre pulled out his pistol and fired it at the lock, two quick shots. Harris saw one of the passing cars swerve at the sudden noise. Doc yanked again and the head of the guard bobbed, but the door still didn't move. Harris thought he saw Doc curse.

  The shutters above and to the right of the stoop swung open. Harris saw two men lean out into the light. One held an autogun.

  "Shit, shit, shit!" Harris aimed at the window and squeezed off a fast shot. He saw the man in the window flinch. It was too dark to line up the gun's sights; he thumbed the hammer back and aimed as best he could for the second shot, the third, the fourth, the gun kicking in his hand.

  The men in the window dropped back out of sight. Harris cocked the revolver again and sighted in on the window, waiting.

  Across the side street, Alastair opened fire with the autogun; Harris flinched at its jackhammer roar. The doctor hosed down the left wall of the inset. There had to be a window there, too, and it must have opened.

  There was gunfire from the far side of the office building. Harris saw Doc curse again. The building's door still stood resolutely closed. The thing had to be massively reinforced.

  The man with the autogun appeared in the window. Harris fired. This time he saw the man jerk and drop back. The autogun fell; Jean-Pierre, his attention on the windows, caught the weapon before it hit concrete. He swung around and, like Alastair, directed gunfire against the window Harris couldn't see.

  A quick exchange between Doc and Noriko. Harris saw her draw her blade, a silvery line glinting in moonlight. Doc released the guard; the man hung in the doorway. Doc stooped and cupped his hands.

  Noriko stepped into the stirrup his fingers made. Doc straightened, swinging his arms up. Suddenly Noriko was flying, leaping up to the window Harris was covering. She got one hand on the pane and came down with her knee on the sill; Harris saw her face twist in pain. Then she slashed at something beyond the window and scrambled in, disappearing from sight.

  A blur of pink to Harris' right. He glanced that way and saw Joseph charging toward the front of the office.

  Jos
eph ran like a child, with tottering, off-balance steps, his arms waving awkwardly out in front of him. He didn't pause for traffic. A gleaming green Hutchen swerved to miss him; the driver honked and kept driving.

  Joseph hurtled up the stairs. Doc and Jean-Pierre leaned out of his way.

  The clay man hit the door like an awkward football lineman in full charge. The door didn't slow him; it just broke with a noise like a gunshot and was instantly gone. Harris didn't want to think about what had become of the guard behind it.

  Jean-Pierre charged in after him, the autogun pointed high, and Doc followed.

  Alastair emerged from cover and crossed the four-lane, dodging traffic. He paused at the corner of the inset, scanning the entrance and the window he'd fired on. Then he scrambled up the stairs and disappeared into the office building.

  And then there was nothing but muffled gunshots. Shouting that Harris couldn't make out.

  He concentrated on his breathing again.

  How many shots had he fired? He broke open the gun in his hand, ejected the brass. One cartridge was still unfired. He replaced it in the cylinder, then reloaded the weapon from the ammunition in his pocket.

  They started firing on Joseph the moment he crashed through the door: two autoguns, pistols he couldn't number. He dimly felt impacts before he plowed through the line of gunmen, cracking limbs and ribcages, scattering them.

  It was sad. But perhaps if he broke them now no one would have to shoot them later.

  Ahead, more men were rolling a metal door into place, blocking the opening into the warehouse beyond. Joseph picked up speed.

  He hit the metal door as hard as he'd ever hit anything. He heard its scream of protest, felt it buckling under his mass as though it were a light roasting pan. It tore free from its housing and crumpled around him as he drove it before him; he went off balance and tripped, skidding across the concrete on his malformed metal sled, scattering more men.

  Harris watched as, across the street, one of the sections of concrete sidewalk levered open. It was just like the hidden door at Duncan's Wickhollow house. He came alert, closed his pistol, aimed it across the hood of the car.