Shadows Down Under: Shadowrun, #8

by Jean Rabe

  “She broke in,” the big man cut in.

  “I’m working for Cadi,” Ninn said. Was the troll pimping out some of his entertainers, in the joygirl business on the side? “Private investigator.”

  The man smiled warmly and extended his hand. “Looking into Ella’s death. Hamfyst told me he’d hired someone from the neighborhood, doesn’t trust lumpers much.” He laughed. Ninn thought it was a good laugh. “Doesn’t like lumpers, I should say. Sometimes Hamfyst’s business wanders into gray areas.”

  Ninn heard thunder, the building trembled, and Mordred intruded. “Singing in the Rain, 1952, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds. Had a two and a half million budget and pulled in almost eight. We’re gonna be singing…” She didn’t turn off the smartlink, but pushed his banter to the background.

  “You own the building?”

  Siland smiled, perfect teeth. “I own a lot of things, Miss—”

  “Nininiru Tossinn.”

  He gestured to the door. “Come into my office, Miss Tossinn. Max here will get us something to drink. I’d like to hear about your investigation. This Cross Slayer…it’s not good for the neighborhood. I hope you’re getting somewhere with it. AISE isn’t saying much. But AISE doesn’t like the Cross. Max…those drinks?”

  Max growled low in his throat, but nodded to Siland.

  The office was incongruous to the building. Where the first floor resembled an antique boxcar, this looked elegant. Thick carpet, walls painted burnt orange, pictures in elaborate and tasteful frames, furniture upholstered. The desk was real wood and gleamed in the light of an expensive-looking brass lamp. A certificate hung on the wall behind the desk, Ninn’s optic system magnified the fine print: Hudson Siland held a doctorate degree in biophysics from the University of Canberra, couldn’t read the date on it. Another certificate showed a doctorate in physics, and one more a doctorate in veterinary medicine. What the hell was a biophysicist-physicist-veterinarian doing in an office above a tawdry house in the Cross? There was a framed image on the wall of Dr. Siland presenting a clear case with three platinum credsticks in it to a woman in front of a red cable car. Another framed image showed Dr. Siland posed with three men in front of the Sydney Aquarium. A small, framed image was of Siland and a young woman near the El Alamein memorial fountain. In all the pics, he was well dressed and impeccably groomed. There were other pictures, antiques, showing someone with a resemblance, some ancestor.

  “Look, Dr. Siland.” Ninn stood near the chair across from the desk. Siland sat in the high-backed leather chair behind it and smoothed a wrinkle in his jacket. “No offense, but you seem out of place here, and—”

  That warm and wonderful laugh again. “Oh, I am indeed out of place, Miss Tossinn. And yet I am right at home. Aren’t we all out of place in the Cross? My great-great-grandfather Hudson owned this entire block, eventually passing it along to my father, who kept most of it and passed it on to me when he died. I have an office building near the harbor, but I find I can get more work done here in this neighborhood. The Cross is…oddly quaint…by comparison to Sydney proper, and pleasantly quirky. Besides, I can catch Hamfyst’s shows…any of the shows along this strip…any time I please. I love a good song and dance routine. Don’t you?”

  Ninn leaned forward to get a closer look at him—no obvious tech, and his eyes appeared real. But the expensive stuff ranged from difficult to impossible to spot. An armored longcoat hung from a hook inside the door. A pressed leaf from a Chicago Grey, an Awakened marijuana plant, was displayed under soft lighting in a shadow box. A smaller pressed leaf—Hellhound’s Tongue, an Awakened plant from the Milwaukee area—hung nearby. She was familiar with the plants from her time with Lone Star. On a corner of his desk sat an old-style photograph of a man resembling Siland, perhaps that great-great-grandfather he mentioned, standing in front of a pristine Mercury Oort sedan. Out of habit, she recorded everything.

  “I was devastated over Ella,” Siland continued. “I’ve rented to Hamfyst for a dozen years, and Ella…she was the best vocalist he’d ever signed. Her loss will hurt his business. Perhaps impossible to replace.”

  “How well did you know her?” Ninn cut in. “I’m trying to get a good picture of her life.”

  “Not as well as I knew some of the other girls. But I was a fan.” Siland’s eyes twinkled. “I prefer elves on a more personal level, Miss Tossinn. But I liked Ella nonetheless. I knew she was one of the original people, an Aborigine, that she enjoyed the company of men and women, and that she occasionally took trips to the Blue Mountains; she went with me once. I enjoy the scenery there. Had she been an elf…who knows…we might have been very close friends.”

  Ninn felt her skin crawl.

  “I spoke with her after shows from time to time, went out to dinner with her and some of the other singers once or twice. Beautiful person, beautiful voice. Such a waste.” He shook his head. “Such a terrible waste.”

  A silence crept between them, and in it Ninn realized she couldn’t hear music from the theater downstairs, as if the floor was soundproofed. But not the roof. She heard thunder rumble faintly, a siren keened softly in the distance. “And not just her death that makes this all a waste. The other entertainers…Dezi Desire comes to mind, beautiful Summer Peacock. Artists silenced by some disturbed killer. If the RighteousRight is—”

  “I’m looking at all of them, Dr. Siland. Cadi only lost Ella, but he hired me to find the Slayer, and that means I’m looking at all of—”

  “Good for you, Miss Tossinn.” He glanced to the door, seeming impatient. “I told Max to bring drinks.”

  “I don’t need anything, thanks.” But Ninn thought she did need something—alcohol, a slip; she was feeling jittery, and something to smooth her edges would help. Shouldn’t have left all her slips in her office. Wrong time to go cold turkey. She did have that one slip of Crystal Dream riding in her pocket.

  “Tell you what…I will financially reward you, Miss Tossinn, if you can catch the Cross Slayer. If you are successful—”

  “Cadi’s already paying me, and—”

  “That’s fine. But if you are successful, I will give you a bonus. I have more nuyen than I know what to do with. And if you can put an end to this killing blight, I will compensate you…no doubt more than what Hamfyst is able to. I am, as I said, a patron of the arts, and quite fond of elves. This is my neighborhood, and I’d like it kept safe.”

  “We’re in the Money,” Mordred cut in softly. “Directed by Ray Enright, 1935, Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, whopping sixty-six minutes. Chicago here we come. You better solve this case, Keebs.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Siland. But I can’t guarantee success. Apparently the Slayer took another girl last night, and—”

  “I know. I heard. Hamfyst told me. That was Summer, as I said. Beautiful Summer Peacock. At the edge of the Cross.” He spread his hands on his desk. His long fingers were manicured, no rings. “Have you made any headway? In all of this? What can you tell me? I’ve talked to AISE. They have nothing…that they’re releasing in any event. But you, Miss Tossinn, what do you have?”

  Not much, I’ve not been working on it that long. And I spent a chunk of time passed out from overindulging. “Well, I—”

  The big man from the hall came in with a silver tray, a brandy snifter, and two glasses on it.

  “Thank you, Max,” Siland said.

  “Your girl’s waiting in the hall, Dr. Siland. Says she can’t hang around too long, says she has another number coming up. I could tell her to come back between shows.”

  “No, don’t do that. I can see you’re busy.” Ninn stood. “We can talk some other time, when I’ve some solid information to share.” The brandy looked inviting, and she almost caved. Would have caved if she had liked the man. “I need to get back to work.”

  “Another time then, Miss Tossinn.” Siland stood and escorted her to the door. “But on that future occasion, please knock first.”

  Thunder boomed again, and the building q
uivered. The distant siren was joined by a second. She stepped into the hallway and saw one of the elves from the tap-dancing trio.

  “Knock, you hear?” the big man said, as he thumped the stock of the gun at his waist and pointed to the stairwell. “Dr. Siland says knock if you want to keep eating dandelions.”

  Ninn hurried down the stairwell…and kept going into the basement. Might as well take a little look down there as well, she thought. It was dry in here, and it wouldn’t be in the alley. Might as well put off going outside for a little while longer. “Raining hard, Mordred? Mordred?”

  “It’s raining, Keebs, and we ain’t singing in it. Good thing it’s warm tonight, or the geezer’d catch his death.” A pause: “Death Wish, 1974, Charles Bronson. Death Becomes Her—”

  “Death’ll become you if you don’t stop with the antique vid trivia.”

  The basement was black as pitch, and the light in the stairwell was too high to reach past the bottom step.

  “Frag. Frag. Frag it to hell and back again.” At least Ninn had the thermographic vision in one eye, which meant she had to close the other and deal with the initial dizziness. Maybe she should cave and get the good eye replaced…right after the nose filter, and right after she netted enough from this contract to afford a visit to a legitimate doc. Maybe she should switch the order of her future surgeries. Or maybe, if she didn’t spend her spare nuyen drowning her senses in graypuppy and whiskey, she’d have enough to buy—

  “Frag it.” She shut down the thermographic module and relied on her low-light vision. The dizziness stopped.

  Mordred had a TAC flashlight attachment, but a world of good that did her, with the gun being out in the alley. Ninn felt along the doorframe and then the wall, finally finding a light switch and discovering that tripping it did nothing. Her skin itched…did she need another slip already? Probably. Too long without slips and alcohol could make her feel dizzy. Shouldn’t have left her remaining graypuppy in her office. One itty-bitty slip of that good stuff would hit the spot and last a while. Helluva time to try to sober up. Wrong time.

  What the hell had nudged her down into this cave? She should leave; Barega and Mordred had been sitting in the rain long enough. Didn’t need to be nosing through Dr. Siland’s basement. Go to another tawdry house and poke around, get one slip, go—

  Her audio receptors picked up something ahead in the darkness. Shuffling? Was someone down here? In this ink? Rats? The Cross had them in its old buildings, some of the pests the size of a wombat.

  Ninn reached for her Renraku Sensei commlink. It had a software app to make it glow like a flashlight. It yielded just enough light to complement her natural vision and chase away the closest shadows. She crept forward.

  Racks of dresses, most covered with a protective film to keep them clean, stretched away from her. A palm tree leaned against a wall; its leaves looked to be dyed ostrich feathers. Stools, vivid overlarge watering cans, freestanding coat racks, stuffed animals, plywood lollipops the size of garbage can lids, music stands, boxes of colorful garland—all of it props for Cadi’s shows. Crates were stacked to the rafters in a few places, all of it a jumbled crowded collection of stuff that held a tinge of dampness.

  The floor was earthen, evidence that this building was probably two hundred years old. It dipped in places, but felt as firm as duracrete.

  “Mordred, I’ll be out in a few. Still nothing in the alley?”

  “Rain,” the gun said. “Bricks. Me and the geezer. He’s dreaming, Keebs. Wonder what I’d see if I was smartlinked to—”

  “So, nothing?”

  “Nothing, 2003, 49th Parallel Productions, directed by Vincenzo Natali. Nothing.”

  Nothing here either, she thought. “Gornischt. Ekkert. Wala-lang.”

  She smelled the fustiness of the place, traces of old cologne clinging to some of the garments…and she detected something else. Ninn had been without work for a time, and had spent too many hours on Sydney’s nude beaches. A very familiar scent teased her—saltwater. Odd.

  “Wala-lang,” a deep voice whispered from beyond the edge of her light.

  Ninn wondered if she was hearing things again. Were her audio receptors playing dirty tricks again?

  “Wala-lang,” he repeated, liking the sound of the word and the way it rolled off his thick tongue. “Wala-lang.” He wondered what it meant.

  He watched the elf glide past the feathered palm tree, many steps beyond the bottom of the stairs—the familiar elf, the one he’d seen a short time ago above in the alley. Had she followed him down here? Not through the tunnel; he doubted anyone knew about the tunnel he’d dug and concealed behind the crates. He had several tunnels under the Cross, all secret, all his. But she had found him nonetheless.

  Elves were special. Perhaps this one was magical. Why else would she come into one of his secret caves? It looked like she was following the sound of his voice.

  She had a light with her, and was shining it at all the glittery feathery treasures of this place, at the pretty dresses and the fake flowers, the mound of stage props he hid behind.

  He had someone on his list tonight, not this elf…but now indeed this elf. Did she know he was the Cross Slayer? Was that why she followed him? Prying into his doings? Was she trying to stop him? He would, instead, stalk her. He would catch her and drag her body through his secret tunnel and into the sewers, let the rats and worse nibble away until all that remained were bones. There were things in the sewers that would eat bones, too; it just took a little longer. He would erase her from Sydney.

  “Wala-lang,” he said, louder, again puzzling at its meaning. Maybe it was the name of some object in this basement. He added a snarl to it and again raised his voice. “Wala-lang. Wala-lang. Wala-lang.”

  He saw the elf stiffen, alert, a trace of fear mixed with curiosity. He had keen senses and fear was the easiest emotion to smell, even amid the scents emanating from this clutter of treasures. He savored the smell of fear, and he sucked it in deep; it made him happy.

  “Wala-lang!” He moved closer, disturbing a rack of dresses that made a shush-shush-shushing sound, knocking over something that clattered against the hard floor—an interesting sound. He circled to the right, picking up a shoe and tossing it to his left, where it thunked against the wall. The elf shone the light in that direction. He threw another shoe and she started toward that.

  Easy prey.

  Silent, he edged up behind her. The Cross Slayer drew the blade and flicked it so the edge crackled and made the soft humming sound he cherished.

  “A heater—” the elf whispered as she whirled.

  The Cross Slayer put his head down and drove into her, striking her squarely in the chest and sending her back into a pyramid of hatboxes, her light dropping and the beam playing crazily against the wood beams of the ceiling. He punched her with his free hand, flattening her, shared her breath as the air rushed from her lungs. The fingers of his free hand closed on her throat. He squeezed lightly, and watched her eyes widen.

  It would be so easy to crush her neck.

  Kill her fast? He should, then be about the business of slaying the soul on the top of his list tonight. But the scent of her fear was too delicious to hurry. He leaned in close and licked her cheek, put a knee on her stomach to keep her down.

  “Stop wiggling, wala-lang.”

  “Get off me!” she hollered, kicking with legs that seemed surprisingly strong for her size. Elves were tricky. And this one might be magical. Or mechanical, he thought; one of her eyes didn’t look right. Bet she had metal in her.

  But so did he. Bet he had more.

  The Cross Slayer snarled, drool dripping in a string over his lower lip and plopping on her face. “Wala-lang, elf. Wala-wala-wala-lang.”

  “No! Yousonofabitch!”

  Foul language. His mother had told him never to curse. But his mother was long-dead, and so her manners did not matter.

  The elf twisted one way and then the other, unpredictable, fast, reaching for so
mething, shooting! A gun! He’d seen her give the old man a gun in the alley, hadn’t counted on her having another one.

  It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. Pain danced a jig in his stomach.

  She shot at him again, higher. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

  Furious, he swept the knife back, the edge crackling and humming, the dust floating in the air around it looking like baby fireflies. He brought the heater down, but in the same instant she’d freed one of her legs and rammed her knee into his crotch. More pain danced and threw off his aim. The knife pierced a hatbox, not the elf, and sparks set the antique cardboard on fire. She rolled out from under him and jumped to her feet, but she dropped her gun in the process.

  He was up a heartbeat later and coming at her again, slashing right and left, lunging, cutting her arm as she brought it up to ward him off. Cutting both arms, one slash deliciously deep; he’d found bone. There was another, smaller gun in her other hand. How many guns did the elf have? Was that her magic? To summon guns from thin air? He hurt. He hurt. He hurt.

  She took aim and shot, grazing his cheek. The pain was hot this time, and it added to his anger.

  The fire his heater had started was spreading to other hatboxes, the air smelled smoky, and he heard a crackling that sounded both ominous and interesting.

  She shot again, striking his chest, the agony burrowed. This hurt worse than the other stings. He gritted his teeth and felt tears forming.

  The Cross Slayer stumbled, howled, and slashed faster. Erratic because of his wounds, he managed to knock this new hated gun into the darkness, slicing her again. He smelled her blood, a better scent than the burning things in this basement. Too bad the heater cauterized wounds so quickly. Another thrust as she came at him, and the blade sunk into her shoulder—not where he’d aimed, but he was feeling woozy, and his blade arm wasn’t working the way he wanted. Nonetheless, the sound of her scream was pleasing. Her scream and the sound of the fire played like a song. He yanked the blade out and pressed his attack, but withdrew as he heard someone racing down the stairs.