Choose your enemies carefully s-2

by Robert N. Charrette

  Clearly, the Circle was under attack. The apparently coincidental actions were obviously planned, designed to separate the members of the Circle. It had been cleverly staged. Glover suspected the enemy's goal was to isolate the members of the Circle and eliminate them individually. It was a clever strategy, but one he would not allow to succeed.

  So far, the only direct thrust against a member of the Circle was the assault on Hyde-White's residence. That would be the enemy's major thrust, barring more attacks to come. Whatever the case, the Circle needed to combine their strength as much as possible.

  As he reached his decision, the office door slid open to admit a disheveled Gordon. His face was fixed in an angry frown as he swept the room with his gaze. The narrowed eyes lighted on Glover and he strutted up to the archdruid.

  "What the devil is going on, Glover? I was enjoying a nice quiet evening preparing myself for the next ritual and then all bloody hell starts breaking loose. First, Barnett stops by my flat and informs me that there is some kind of row going on downstairs. Then, there's a bloody great explosion that shakes the whole building. Is it the shadowrunners again? You must have gotten some of them, since one of their bloody aircraft went tumbling past my window." Gordon stopped suddenly in the midst of his tirade. "Where is he? Is he all right?"

  Glover didn't need to ask to know that Gordon wanted to know what, if anything, had happened to Hyde-White. Bel's blistering face! Did no one accord Glover his pride of place as archdruid? Glover stifled the thought. The land came before any questions of dominance, and the needs of the land would not be met if the enemy succeeded. The foremost need was to end the threat to the Circle.

  "He is in his residence, Your Highness. Neville and

  I were just on our way there.''

  Gordon didn't see the surprised look on Neville's face, and his own words drowned out those of the old druid.

  "Then I'm going with you. I must know if he has been hurt. Those shadowrunners almost killed him before. If he's alone, he'll need our help."

  Glover shook his head as he stepped past Gordon and grabbed Neville by the shoulder. He hustled the former archdruid toward the door, saying over his shoulder, "There's no need for you to go, Your Highness. Sir Winston and I will deal with any problem that might have arisen."

  He might as well have saved his breath. Gordon fell in behind them, and his bodyguards behind him. The parade lasted all the way to the lobby, where Glover stopped in front of the GWN shaft. Gordon's constant babbling about Hyde-White's safety almost made Glover fumble the security code that called a car.

  Glover shoved Neville into the car as soon as the doors hissed open. He turned to insist that Gordon remain behind, but before he could speak the man brushed past him and entered the car. Realizing that argument was useless and time was passing, Glover entered the car himself. The two bodyguards crowded in behind him. Glover tapped in the code for HydeWhite's floor. The doors slid shut and the car began to rise.

  After only a few seconds, the car lurched to a stop.

  "Power's still on," observed one of the guards.

  "Must be a security check."

  "Are you sure you entered the right code, archdruid?"

  Neville's tone was unusually catty for the increasingly timid former archdruid.

  "It was correct," Glover replied. He didn't bother to hide his annoyance.

  "Well, call security and get this elevator moving again," Gordon ordered. "Hurry! He needs us."

  Glover snapped open the panel covering the emergency comm unit with more than the necessary force. The cover rebounded from the wall to rap him sharply. He cursed as the edge jarred his hand with pain.

  " Tis evocative, but hardly likely," a voice commented from the speaker. The comm screen glowed to life with the image of a white-haired, male elf. "Good evening, archdruid, Your Corrupt Highness. Ah, Sir Winston, I'm very glad you're here as well." "Who are you?" Gordon asked belligerently. Sudden suspicion bored in on Glover. ' 'What do you want?"

  "Much cooler, archdruid. As to what I want, shall we just say that I hope you're as cool in hell. Going down."

  The elevator began to plummet. The initial lurch of car threw its occupants off balance. As Glover recovered he could see fear etched in the faces of his companions. Even Gordon's bodyguards were afraida151their reinforced bones would not save them from a forty-story plummet.

  "No need to bother with the emergency brake," the elf said jauntily. "It's disconnected."

  One of the bodyguards slammed the button with his fist anyway. As predicted, there was no response. The guard slammed it again and again, denting the surrounding panel with the force of his blows. "Do something, Glover! Save us!" Gordon's voice was shrill with panic. Glover blocked it out and concentrated. Raising his personal protection spell only took the archdruid a momenta151a moment in which the elevator car gathered speed in its downward rush. Glover knew that maintaining the protective spell would make other magic difficult, but he was sure he would need the safeguard.

  Glover raised his arms above his head and spread them. He focused his energy and blew the roof from the elevator car. Fluorescent panels, structural members, and supporting cable volatilized. The sound of the car's downward passage no longer muffled, a rushing sound filled the car.

  Gordon grabbed Glover's shoulder, dragging down one arm. "What in heaven's name are you doing?" "I'm leaving. The land needs me." "What about me? The land needs me, too!" "There are others of royal blood." Glover struck the grasping hand away and pressed his palms together at chest level, fingers pointing out. He rotated his wrists until his fingers pointed up, and the elevator car dropped away. He remained floating in the shaft.

  The decker's frustrated cursing joined the screams of Gordon, the howls of the bodyguards, and the desparing wail of Neville. The din grew fainter as, driven by his will, Glover shot up the now-vacant shaft.

  Sam watched as an arcane bolt caught the last of the three drones that had escorted him. Its armor bubbled and darkened. With a burst that sent shards of the device in all directions, the drone exploded, its ammunition cooked off in the magical heat.

  A fragment whizzed past his head, scoring his cheek before its tumbling flight buried it several centimeters deep into the wall behind him. He cried out from the sudden pain.

  Hyde-White turned to face him. Red-rimmed eyes bored into his own.

  "So it is you. You should have heeded the warning, Samuel Verner, You've only brought death upon yourself by coming here."

  "Don't be so sure, monster," Sam blurred.

  The druid laughed, a deep booming sound. "Monster? Is that anyway to describe a person who only seeks the well-being of his fellows?"

  Hyde-White's reaction puzzled Sam. The savagery of the druid's fight with the drones had been unexpectedly replaced by a calm, and somehow sinister, playfulness. Sam didn't know Hyde-White's game, but every minute the druid talked gave Sam a chance to think of something to do. Unfortunately, every minute also increased the chances that the druid would get reinforcements.

  "Your deeds speak loudly enough of your nature.

  For all that you look like a man, you're not human."

  Hyde-White sighed. He looked around for a moment, then sauntered to a chair that remained mostly intact and threw himself down.

  "You had me fooled for a moment. I suppose I should have known better. I have been an initiate of my magical tradition for more years than you have walked this wounded earth. It was ridiculous to even entertain the thought that you might have penetrated the mask. I expect I was misled by your potential." Sam was confused by Hyde-White's ramblings. "You look so perplexed. It's quite a wonder." The fat man chuckled. "Since your death is inevitable now, the mask doesn't matter anymore. Shall I let you see the truth? You won't like it, and I suppose you might even find it a little frightening, which is all to the good. Fear adds a wonderfully subtle flavor." Hyde-White stood up again and stretched languidly.

  The stretch seemed to go on beyond the bounds of h
is flesh. He grew taller and slimmer. His arms lengthened, as did his legs, and the clothes covering his body changed to become a white pelt. Wrinkled, liverspotted hands widened and darkened as fingers elongated into taloned digits. His facial features melted and re-formed into a bestial visage.

  The thing that had hidden in the shape of HydeWhite looked down at Sam and smiled a carnivore's smile. Like a stage magician signalling a completed trick, he gave a twisting Sick of his hand and said, "You see, I haven't been human for decades."

  Sam stumbled back from the divider behind which he had crouched, and bumped into a wall. He straightened up, letting the wall take some of his weight. Otherwise, he feared his knees would buckle.

  The stench of decay and corruption emanating from the furred apparition was almost overpowering. Sam had expected the smell after his invasion of the sanctum, but he hadn't expected to see what he was seeing. Like the odor, the being's silhouette was familiar from his troubled dreams and frustrated attempts to enhance his magical power. He had seen a similar creature when they had raided the Circle's murder ritual. Both Willie and Dodger were right and wrong. Hyde-White was a wendigo, but he was very much alive.

  "You were the Man of Light."

  It was the wendigo's turn to look confused. "The what?"

  "The one who blocked my path to the totem realms."

  "Ah. You use the past tense, implying that you have breached the barriers I set in your mind. This is unfortunate. When I touched your astral form on the Solstice, and learned who you were, I sought to save you from yourself. You have been very persistent, as I should have expected from one with so strong a will. Perhaps I was not so foolish to worry about your ability to pierce the mask."

  Sam shuddered as the wendigo spoke. All lingering thoughts that the Man of Light was something he had dredged from his own subconscious vanished. His mind had been violated, his memories subverted by the wendigo. He felt sick and revulsed. He felt hatred. "You bastard! I'm not a toy for you to play with. I'm a man, you godless, soulless beast! You fragged with my mind just to frighten me away from the power I needed to stop you."

  "Stop me? A pup like you?" The wendigo laughed. "That's rich. But then, she said you had a strange sense of humor.''

  The muscles in Sam's face went slack. He felt chill all over as he remembered his not entirely strategic reason for selecting Hyde-White as the first target. "Janice," he whispered.

  "Of course, Janice. You knew she was here, didn't you?" The wendigo paused to study Sam's expression. "I see you did. So it was she who motivated you to come after me. So much for noble motives. It does always seem to be kinbonds that motivate the hunters. I, of all people, should not have forgotten the power of that draw."

  Indignation fueled Sam's anger. "How dare you call yourself a person? You're a murderer, an eater of human flesh, and a corrupter of minds. You have forfeited any claim of humanity. God as my witness, you have forfeited your right to life."

  "What right have you to judge me?" The wendigo pointed an accusing finger at Sam. "You are of the blood of man, a scion of the long line of corrupters of the earth itself. The human race has fouled its nest since its infancy. Humanity is the true despoiler, and I am relieved that I am no longer a part of that desecration. Were you able to understand your place in nature as I do mine, you would see the truth.

  "By blood, I am born of the earth and I act as my blood directs. By temperament, I have responded to the atrocities your precious humanity has visited upon its collective mother, and have learned to call the corrupted spirits of the earth. I will see the vermin of humanity scoured from the face of the planet they have defiled. I will turn the corruption back upon the real evildoers. All you need to do is look around yourself to see that I speak the truth. If you were truly moral, you would join my crusade."

  Sam felt the tug of the wendigo's words. He, too, hated what man had done to the environment. He felt his despair and frustration curdle into rage over the thought of the betrayed trust. Then, he remembered the filthy feel of the wendigo's previous presence in his mind and shouted. "Liar! You twist the truth to suit yourself, and I won't fall for it. You 're the corruptor, the seducer, the defiler, and the despoiler. You're evil by nature, and I will destroy you."

  The wendigo let out a low growl through clenched teeth. Then his lips closed down over his fangs, and he smiled.

  "If I am evil, what of your sister?"

  "I won't let you hurt her."

  "Hurt her?" The wendigo laughed. "I have no reason to hurt one of my own. You are her past and I am her future. She no longer belongs to your world, but to mine. Forget her."

  That was something Sam would never do. He felt guilty enough over how little he had accomplished in finding her. "Where is she?"

  "She is safe from your misguided attentions. When Glover told me of the disturbance at ATT-Multifax, I thought it best to take precautions."

  "What have you done with her?"

  "Brought her into the fold."

  "No!"

  "Oh, yes."

  "No!" Sam screamed again. He threw himself away from the wall and summoned his magic. Howling the words of Dog's song, he poured his will into the effort of summoning a spirit. As soon as he felt a presence, he demanded service of it.

  A luminous mist rose from the floor. Streamers of mist floated from the walls to join the cloud beginning to swirl in the space between Sam and the wendigo. The mist thickened, becoming almost liquid in density, and poured upwards to form a shape as if filling a mold. The last of the vapor joined the hulking shape, and the whole thing became more solid, taking on the texture of poured concrete.

  The floor groaned under the weight of the manifested building spirit. Between its wide, humped shoulders there was a knob that might have been a head. Two pits of darkness opened in the knob, and Sam felt the spirit's attention settle on him.

  The spirit's stare unnerved him even more than the realization that he had succeeded in summoning it. The spirit's intensity, underlaid by hostility, scraped stainless steel fingernails on the chalkboard that was the inside of his skull. The spirit was insistent; it wanted his orders, for only by discharging its duties could it leave the physical plane.

  "Destroy the wendigo," he told it. "End the blight on the city.''

  The spirit turned away abruptly. Spreading its arms, it advanced on the wendigo. Each step sent tremors through the floor.

  Sam had expected that his enemy might show some fear at this sudden manifestation of power. He was disappointed. The wendigo began to vocalize. The sound started as a deep rumble in the massive chest and occasionally burst forth in a feral growl. The stench of putrefaction increased as the wendigo also spread his arms wide.

  The spirit lumbered forward and raised one blocky, fistless arm to smash its victim. The wendigo stood his ground. His only action was to convulse his outstretched fingers closed into fists.

  The spirit froze as pain flared in Sam's head. The mystic bonds by which he directed the spirit tattered and tore. He tried to re-form them, but they slipped through his grasp.

  Across the room, the spirit turned. The smooth, seamless lines of its form had become more jagged, and its facade was pitted and marred. Like lurid tattoos, graffiti and slogans of violence defaced its surface. It took a step toward Sam. Portions of its outer covering flaked away as it moved. It stalked toward him, leaving footprints of garbage and sludgy residue. The wendigo gloated. "A poor choice, puppy shaman. Cities are one of the great blights that man spreads across the earth. Know now, if you had not already discerned it for yourself, that Blight is my totem. I have embraced the toxic defilement of the earth to turn it back on the source of the pollution. This cold, concrete tower has no true hearth. By its nature, the spirit you have summoned is more my servant than yours. All you have done is given me the tool for your destruction."

  Janice was worried as soon as she heard the explosion. Her failure to get through on the telecom only intensified her concern. Suddenly Dan's uncharacteristic reques
t, that she carry a message to a business partner who lived on a lower floor of the tower, made sense. It had just been an excuse to get her out of the residence.

  She detached her spirit and sent it upwards through the building. Dan was there and well, but he was being menaced by a hostile spirit. The shaman who had summoned it was there as well, fully capable of more mischief. Since she hadn't yet learned the secrets of casting magic through her astral body, she fled downwards and returned to her physical body.

  Hoping to reach the residence in time to help her lover, she ran to the elevator lobby. In her excitement, she fumbled her first try to enter Dan's code. She got it right on the second try, but there was no response, not even a call acknowledgment.

  The shaft was the only one with direct access to the residence floor. Frustrated, she slammed her fist into the door. The metal buckled. She hit the door again and a gap appeared between the two panels. She dug her fingers into the space and pulled until she forced the seal. As the pressure lock released, her strength proved too much for the structures. The left panel buckled and jammed, while the right folded and slipped out of its track. She flung the useless thing behind her.

  The shaft smelled of magic, making her fur rise.

  She stuck her head out over the abyss and looked down. The bottom of the shaft was obscured in a dust cloud. That puzzled her until she realized that there were no cables in the shaft. Someone had sabotaged the elevator, and there would be no car arriving to carry her to the residence.

  She leaned into the opening she had forced, keeping her balance with one hand gripping the frame of the opening. With her free hand, she grabbed the rungs of the emergency service ladder and tugged. To her relief, it seemed solid enough to support her weight. Careless of the jagged metal edges protruding in her way, she swung into the shaft. The gashes she sustained began to heal as she started to climb.