Crossroads

by Stephen Kenson

  Battle Beneath the Streets of Boston!

  In the magical world of 2060, street mage Tommy Talon has hit the big time. He's a member of Assets, Inc., one of the best shadow-teams in the business, but now he's drawn back to his home town of Boston by secrets from his past.

  Secrets that lead him into conflicts with megacorporations, yakuza gangsters, and a powerful spirit that's hunting for him. Talon must call on all of his magical powers and the abilities of his shadowrunning friends to unravel the mystery. Along the way, he finds out some unexpected things about his past, himself, and his true enemy: someone very close to him indeed....

  Ambushed.. ..

  The door exploded outward like it was hit by a bullet train. I heard yells of surprise and pain as the thugs waiting in the hall were struck by jagged fragments of flying synthwood.

  There were two other attackers awaiting me as I stepped out into the hall. I turned towards the ork and thrust my hands forward as though holding an invisible ball. Pale magelight flickered between them and the ork took a step forward, raising his gun. Then his eyes glazed and blood began to run out of his nose and ears as he toppled forward like a poleaxed cow.

  I started turning towards the woman, but she was too fast. She brought her gun to bear and I started a protection spell, knowing I wouldn’t be nearly quick enough. My attacker knew it too and gave me a nasty, feral grin that showed her sharpened canine implants just before tightening her finger on the trigger

  SHADOWRUN : 36

  CROSSROADS

  Stephen Kenson

  To Christopher, for everything.

  Acknowledgement

  There are many people who helped in the creation of this book whom I would like to thank. Thanks go to everyone from the Sprawls amateur press association, where Talon saw his first adventures; to Sean Johnson, for the use of Boom; to Jak Koke, for his loan of Jane and Ryan Mercury; to Lou Prosperi, for his advice and comments; to Donna Ippolito, for her editorial work under pressure; to my family and friends and to everyone at FASA Corporation who help to bring the Sixth World to life and keep it moving. Thanks, everyone, I couldn’t have done it without you.

  Prologue

  October 2060

  The sprawl is a beast that never sleeps. Even in the dark hours of the early morning the lights of the city change the course of nature to bring day where it is needed for people to continue about their business, heedless of the course of the sun, sheltered in their tall towers of glass and steel. Deep in the heart of the city, the subways rush like caged creatures mindlessly running the course of a maze over and over again without purpose, always moving, but never resting or reaching their destination.

  Anton Garnoff considered these things as he watched the dark walls of the tunnel rushing past through the dim reflections on the subway window. The night was a special time, when the sunlit world passed away and another took its place, a world of dark shadows and bright neon that could only exist through the genius of humanity. There was nothing like the unique world created by nighttime in the city, save perhaps nightfall in the jungle, which was the closest thing to the sprawling riot of city life that existed in nature. But Anton Garnoff was not interested in nature, and his errand on this particular night was in no way natural.

  He kept careful track of the subway stops, ticking them off in his mind in a kind of mantra as the train passed through each one and brought him closer to his destination. There were only a few other passengers in the subway car with him, each of them sitting behind a personal wall of silence, careful not to allow a misplaced look or unusual sound to open their walls and draw attention to themselves. Like prey frozen in the undergrowth waiting for a predator to move on. Garnoff wondered idly if he should kill any of them.

  An old ork woman sighed quietly and licked her lips as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her dark skin was heavily seamed with lines and wrinkles that made her face look like a raisin beneath a rumpled mass of dark hair. The tusks protruding over her upper lip were yellowed and chipped, and she worried slightly at her lip with them as she sat, quietly mumbling to herself. She wore a tiny gold cross on a chain around her neck. Garnoff wondered if she really thought it would protect her against the creatures he knew were lurking in the shadows of the city.

  Several seats further down a young man, human, sat listlessly looking out the window. But his eyes were focused on nothing anyone else in the car could see. A thin cable ran from the chrome jack behind his left ear to a small box cradled in his lap. The boy was lost in a fantasy world of someone else’s making, reliving the scripted emotions of another person through a playback in his neural pathways. Living a life he’d already decided he could never have, that no one, in fact, could have, since it existed nowhere but in the mind of the person who had written and engineered it. Garnoff wondered how long the boy had been riding the train and how it was he knew when he reached his destination. He concluded that such a person really had no destination and didn't really care, one way or another.

  The few other people on the train were in similar sorry states, each wrapped in their own meaningless little worlds. No, Garnoff thought, these pitiful souls would not do. They were too dry, too drained of life. The city had already drawn the most pleasing juices from them, leaving only husks to walk about the streets and ride on the trains in the dead of night. He needed far better than this sorry lot. He needed energy: emotion pure and strong and undiluted by the minutiae of daily life in the sprawl. He needed it desperately.

  The train hummed to a stop, the doors hissed open, and Garnoff’s new victim stepped into the car. He spotted her at once, a young woman, in her mid-to late-twenties, dressed in a smart black coat, collar turned up against the slight autumn chill in the air. Her hair was a lustrous brown, cut short and styled fashionably. She wore black leather gloves, and gold gleamed from her ears. Dark stockings and suede boots clad a pair of shapely legs. She quickly found a seat in the car and took a small datapad from her coat pocket. As the doors hissed shut and the train began to move, she settled back to read.

  She is the one, Garnoff thought. She seemed ideal, provided she met all the other criteria. Settling back in his seat, anonymous behind his dark glasses, Garnoff allowed his gaze to roam over the young woman, taking her all in. He opened his awareness to the astral plane and observed the colorful play of light in her aura. It was bright and strong, without any blemish to indicate illness or artificial implants. Not like the poor, tired things taking up the other seats. This aura was clean, energetic, perfect for his work. Yes, she would do nicely. With a slight smile, Garnoff allowed his vision of her aura to fade from his sight and stood up.

  Moving across the shifting floor of the subway car like a sailor crossing the deck of a swaying ship, he approached the young woman casually. She didn’t even look up from her reading until Garnoff settled into the seat next to her. She glanced over at him for a moment, barely a flicker, then again, a bit longer this time, then returned to her reading.

  Garnoff paused a moment to savor the experience, then gathered his will and focused on the woman before him.

  “Excuse me.” he said in a low voice, barely audible above the screech and grind of the subway’s progress through the tunnels. The young woman looked up at him, an expression of quizzical concern on her face, and Garnoff struck. The force of his will surged across the short gap between them and she was his. The struggle was over before it even began, and the quizzical look was quickly replaced by one of shock, then fear, then a blank and vacant stare. The mage’s spell took hold and Garnoff almost laughed out loud at the ease of it all. His power truly was growing. Just as he was told it would.

  With a corner of his awareness, he directed the young woman to return to her reading and she did so. She was completely under hi
s control. The effort of the spell hardly drained him at all. In fact, it left him feeling almost giddy from the warm rush of power at his command. He could hardly wait to feel it again.

  When the subway hissed to a halt at the proper stop, Garnoff was pleased to make his leave. The sad scene of these pitiful people disappointed him. He could not imagine how they could choose to live like such sheep when they knew deep within themselves that they were doomed for doing so. He could see it in their eyes, the dull acceptance of animals being led to slaughter. They had surrendered themselves to the inevitable. It was sad that so few people in the world were capable of being anything more than victims, and most of them weren’t even worthwhile as that. As he stood, he touched the woman gently on the arm.

  “Time to go, my dear.”

  She looked up at him with a blank expression, but her body moved to obey him. She rose and allowed herself to be led from the train. To anyone watching, the two were simply a handsome couple out for a late evening. Not that anyone on the train had the slightest interest in anyone else’s business. That wasn’t a healthy occupation.

  The platform of the subway station was all but abandoned. Only a few people stood in protective groups awaiting the next train. Somewhere out of sight a man was loudly muttering and cursing to himself, and the people gathered at the edge of the platform looked nervously in his direction from time to time.

  Garnoff suspected they had little to fear. The man doing the cursing was likely where the boy on the train would be before too long, once he’d been compelled to run ever more outlandish and daring fantasies through his abused neural pathways to satisfy the void created in him by his empty world. Eventually he wouldn’t be able to handle the sensory input his fantasies demanded and would be quite rudely thrust back into the real world he thought he’d left behind forever, a useless burnout. Pitiful.

  Garnoff made his way to the edge of the platform, too quiet and unalarming within the cloak of his own thoughts to be noticed over the fears of the people who stood nearby, tears more real to them than the flesh and blood around them. He guided the young woman to walk in front of him, and they followed the edge of the platform into the tunnel. Garnoff paused to let his eyes adjust to a dimness broken only by the flickering lights embedded in the ceiling, then touched the woman’s elbow and guided her on.

  “What is your name, slave?” he said casually.

  “Elaine, Elaine Dumont.” she replied in a hollow voice.

  “Well, Elaine, you’re a prize catch.” Garnoff said, almost to himself. “You should be able to help me nicely. You want to do that, don’t you, Elaine?”

  “Yes.” she said, then added, “Master.” Garnoff smiled to himself. So easy.

  In short order, they arrived at a juncture between the present and the past. An old tunnel entrance lay off to the side of the main line, closed over like an old scar in the underbelly of the city when the underground system had grown and expanded long ago. Garnoff turned and made his way through the darkness of the tunnel with the ease of familiarity and continued for some time in the blackness, needing almost no light to guide his steps. Elaine walked at his side, Garnoff guiding her with a grip on her mind like an invisible leash.

  A muffled creak echoed quietly through the tunnel, like the sound of an old rocking chair or a ship at sea. It was a rhythm with which all the other small sounds in the passageway seemed to harmonize, from the dripping of rusty water to the scurrying of unseen things in the shadows. Garnoff pulled his heavy overcoat closer around him in the chill dampness. Even his steady footfalls had begun to unconsciously synchronize with the steady rhythm of the creaking. He quickened his pace with anticipation as they neared the end of the tunnel.

  A cursory examination of the stone wall sealing off the end of the tunnel revealed that all was as it should be. With a smoothness born of repetition, Garnoff drew a slim white wand from one of the many pockets of his coat and used it to sketch symbols in the air in front of the wall, leaving faintly glowing traceries behind as it moved. Alow, whispered chant began under his breath and seemed to follow in time with the tunnel sounds and the steady, dull creaking. After a moment Garnoff lowered the wand and turned to Elaine with the mockery of a courtly bow.

  “Ladies first.” he said. Without question, the entranced woman moved toward the wall, as if she would walk right into it. Another step forward and she passed through the dark stone as if it weren’t even there, then disappeared from sight. The illusion was perfect. Even someone closely inspecting the wall wouldn’t imagine it was nothing more than a magical trick of light and shadow. Garnoff pocketed the wand and stepped through the wall himself, disappearing from view. The dark stones swallowed up his form like a heavy fog and the tunnel again grew silent.

  Before him hung a figure from the rusting pipes overhead. It swung gently from side to side, like a pendulum, despite the fact that it was utterly limp and unmoving. The dull creaking of the heavy rope looped around its neck was louder here than in the tunnel. The only other sound was that of Garnoff’s footsteps as he entered and moved deeper into the room to look up at its permanent occupant.

  The hanging figure seemed very old, its skin withered and yellow like dry parchment beginning to peel at the edges. Dark, brittle hair hung lank around a face contorted in pain. The whiteness of bone peeked out in spots on the figure’s face, its eyes bulging and mouth open in a silent scream. The head hung at an unnatural angle, and thin limbs hung slack below. The figure was dressed in a jacket of black synthleather, cracked and discolored with age. It also wore a T-shirt, blurred and threadbare, and a pair of jeans faded and worn with holes in places. Stained and dirty sneakers covered the limp feet. The clothing hung on the skeletal frame like garments on a scarecrow. Parts of them looked scorched and burned as if by a great heat.

  Garnoff stood silently looking up at the gently swaying figure. The corpse’s bulging eyes shifted to look down at him, and Garnoff suppressed a shudder at the fire of hatred gleaming in those blue orbs.

  * * *

  The dry rope creaked relentlessly as it sawed against the heavy metal pipe. Even though it had been doing so for years, the strong hemp showed little sign of fraying or weakness. The lone, limp figure had long ago blocked out the endless, maddening sound from its consciousness. Its presence was more like a whispering, subconscious reminder of its imprisonment.

  Once, time had no meaning for me, it thought, but years of waiting, locked in this dry, dead shell have taught me much about the suffering of isolation and the endless, drawn-out boredom of the slowly passing years as they tick by, minute by minute, second by second. I have watched each grain of sand fall in the hour glass of time. I have learned my lessons well. Soon the world will know just how well. . .

  A stirring at the base of the scaffold alerted Gallow to his servant’s presence. The servant’s stylish suit and overcoat were in stark contrast to the ancient and decayed surroundings. Behind him, near the entrance to the chamber, stood a young woman, held in the grip of Garnoff’s spell like a trapped animal. Gallow could sense her life force, bright and strong, like a thirsty man scenting water on the desert wind. Below the outward calm imposed by Garnoff’s spell, he could sense her terror welling up, like sweet nectar. Although Garnoff concealed his fear well, Gallow could sense it radiating off him in waves as well. He drank deep of that heady brew for a moment before acknowledging Garnoff’s presence.

  “ Well? ” he said in a whispery, dry voice that crawled through Garnoff’s mind.

  Garnoff swallowed once and mastered himself enough to answer. “She has escaped, and she is on her way to him.”

  “Good. Very good. And she will bring him to us. ”

  “Are you sure? She may just disappear into the shadows, try to lay low. There are other reasons she might have gone to DeeCee . . .”

  “Do not be concerned, Anton. All is proceeding according to our design. The girl will bring him to us and then no one will be able to threaten us. She is the perfect tool. She will find h
im and he will want to help her. I know his nature. I know it very well. They will come here. Then we will deal with the both of them. Do not be concerned, ” Garnoff bowed his head in respect to the swaying corpse. “As you say.”

  “ Tell the barukumin to prepare for the ritual. The time grows near and I want to be ready. ”

  Garnoff bowed again and a slight smile tugged at his lip. “Even the power of our rituals is nothing in comparison to what will soon be yours, my friend. Now go and make ready. ”

  The mage turned and walked to the stone wall. He passed through the solid stone and then out into the tunnel again, quickening his pace as he made his way back to the platform. As he hastened to inform his own servants to prepare for the night’s working, he listened to the muffled creaking recede behind him. It seemed now to sound very much like a low, dry laugh.

  * * *

  Elaine Dumont’s first thought as she slowly made her way back to consciousness was to wonder why her grandmother's rocking chair was creaking away all on its own. She had a dream that granny had come and spoken to her as she often did when Elaine was little, taking her granddaughter in her lap to rock her gently to sleep. The dull, relentless creaking seemed to pound into her brain and prevent any attempt at going back to sleep. Elaine stirred a bit and started to wake up.

  When she realized she couldn’t move, a memory sparked in her mind and she was suddenly wide awake, only to discover that the waking world was the true nightmare.

  She lay on a dry wooden surface, worn silvery gray with age. Its surface was covered with painted symbols and designs and surrounded by a ring of candles that cast the only light in the room. Plastic ropes bound her arms and legs to the platform, and dark shapes moved in the flickering light just at the edge of her vision. Elaine looked straight above her and let out a scream that echoed in the chamber and brought titters of laughter from the shuffling shadows.