by Carl Sargent
But he felt there was something real bad at the end of all this. Sure, he listened to the Englishman’s arguments and facts and took it all in. But Tom didn’t feel facts. He could only feel what he could tangle with.
I ain’t tangled with this nosferatu thing, but I can feel its badness from thousands of miles away, he thought. Tom couldn’t image what he would do when they got there. Just have to wait and see, he supposed.
His daydreaming was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Troll Roll is here. You need a workover?”
* * *
The red-haired elf trembled as he waited at the airport. He’d survived by a miracle, though he couldn’t be sure whether there really was such a thing.
If she finds out .. . Maybe he believed me. Maybe he’s seen the light, he’s a brother, he can't betray us, he just can’t. That would be blasphemy.
If I go back to Jenna, she’ll have me killed. Worse. She’ll rip my mind apart to find out what really took place and then . . . his mind flashed to the nightmare portrait of Jenna back in Tir Taimgire. Her beautiful face, but on her body the thorns and the endless blood. She could do that to me.
I’ve got to get to Luther, he realized. I have to warn him direct. Phoning is no use. Not from here.
Magellan raced to the ticket counter to change his destination.
25
Michael was delighted to find that, by chance, George from immigration was lurking around the departure checkpoint at JFK.
“You again, huh,” the man growled. “You really seem to get around.”
“Honeymoon, chummer,” Michael beamed happily.
“Sure. With those two coming along as bridesmaids, I suppose,” he sniffed, looking Serrin and Tom over.
Michael laughed at the man’s feeble joke. The good humor got them through with little more than a cursory check.
“Let’s hope he’s still here when we get back,” Michael said. “I don’t want to go through all that drek again.”
“We could always go to Cape Town afterward and get Kristen a real ID,” Serrin said.
Michael whirled round, a beatific smile on his face, and threw his arms around the elf, hugging him tight. Serrin winced. His body still felt like it had been hammered with a meat tenderizer after the troll masseuse had done her work.
“I love you, you’re a genius,” the Englishman babbled.
Serrin looked at him, uncomprehendingly.
“From Cape Town, we can hit Bop. Sun City, it’s a stinking drekhole, but there’s something there I’d totally forgotten about until this moment.”
“Which is what?” Serrin asked, trying to figure out what this crazy Englishman was bleating on about.
“Quickie divorces. Valid for any marriages within the Confederated Azanian Nations. I read about it somewhere,” Michael said delightedly. “If both parties are present and in agreement, just pay the fee, and presto-chango, no more mister and missus. Automatic.” He raced off into one of the shops, returning in minutes with an indecently large bouquet of roses. They looked as if they might be real, but silk wasn’t a bad substitute. He half-forced them on to Kristen and got down on one knee before her.
“Darling, will you do me the honor of divorcing me?”
The girl almost fell backward laughing, but Serrin thought her beautiful wide smile had never been so lovely.
“Well, I don’t know, Michael. That’s a big decision for a girl. But, yes,” she laughed, “I do.”
Michael smiled as he got to his feet, dusting off his hands to show a job well done. “Now, let’s go and blow that bloodsucker into the next universe.”
As they made their way to the departure gates, the troll turned to Serrin.
“You got some crazy friends, chummer,” he said happily.
“Yeah, he is kind of strange.”
“And she’s beautiful,” the troll said quietly.
Serrin felt his heart skip a beat. It hurt to think that they were about to plunge into something that was as powerful as it was infernal. They didn’t know if they’d still be alive tomorrow and yet he was dragging Kristen straight in it. For one moment, he wanted desperately to turn around, to walk away, to say this isn’t our struggle, let someone else do it. But he knew he couldn’t. There wasn’t anyone else.
* * *
Niall bought a wristwatch in Paris. He looked at the gold Fuchis and the rest of the gleaming trays filled with absurdly overpriced ostentation for people who wanted to advertise their wealth, then settled on an economical Korean model. He hardly needed it to know what the time of day was, however. He always knew that from the sun and moon, from the feeling inside his own body. But, for some reason, maybe superstition, he thought he needed one.
He felt alone. Mathanas was gone from him, away in his astral form, investigating their route, assensing for any pursuers, drawing on his own energies for what lay ahead. Niall sat in a sidewalk cafe along the Champs Elysee, skewering a garlic-coated snail from its shell and sipping what the French laughably referred to as beer. It tasted like a mix of bad British lager and something extracted from the bladder of a devil rat, but at least it was cold. He set the fake stein down on the table before him and wiped the foam from his lips.
I am truly an idiot, he thought. Who comes to France and orders beer? Serves me right.
The wristwatch told him he still had thirty minutes before the train to Charles de Gaulle airport and the flight to Munich. He ordered a Cointreau chaser and drained the glass in one gulp.
Here’s to the next life, he thought philosophically, and then went to find a cab to the airport. He’d abandoned any surveillance of the Americans well before this; it was too late for them now.
* * *
They made Berlin by four, feeling better for the naps they’d taken in flight. Serrin, in particular, was happily surprised to find that Michael was right about the massage. Some of his muscles even felt like they might be on the verge of relaxation.
Serrin had never been in the city before, but hadn’t really believed Michael’s description during the flight. Surely no place could be so chaotic. It was just too plain dumb, and Germans were too sensible.
Except in Berlin, as he realized once they got there.
Immigration barely looked at their IDs; the inspectors merely threw a glance at the covers of their passports, smiled at the marriage registration, and offered Michael congratulations in a tone of voice that suggested they’d recently got lucky intercepting the importation of something both interesting and illegal—and chipped or imbibed most of whatever it was.
The airport was Babel rebuilt to feature runways. The concourses seemed to be filled with street-theater freaks, jugglers, puppeteers. Dadaist mime geeks, religious lunatics proclaiming the end of the world next Monday, Wednesday, or Friday depending on the cult, burned out chipheads, street girls, street boys, street whatevers, and drunks. Occasionally, passengers like themselves did their best to weave their way through the human detritus blocking their path. Security, such as it was, seemed totally oblivious except where outright violence was threatened. Serrin’s little group hadn’t gone ten yards without being offered girls, boys, expansion of consciousness by guru or pill, redemption by mail order, and membership in societies and organizations catering to every inclination imaginable and a few that weren’t.
“I’ve never been here before,” Serrin said as Kristen ciung to him, “and I’m never, ever, coming back again.”
“Oh it’s not so bad, chummer. It’s just that the Free City has abandoned pretty much everything worth having from the last six thousand years of civilization,” Michael grinned. “But the beer’s good. And the place isn’t all like this. Of course, some of it’s worse. Most of it, if I were to be truthful. But the Metropolitan, where we’re staying, that at least is an oasis of sanity. Well, it’s got security anyway, which is what we need. And we can get things here we couldn’t get anywhere else in the German Alliance. We’ve got a busy evening ahead.”
Serrin was hugely relie
ved when they reached the hotel, where Michael had booked them a four-bedroom suite. The trid screen on the wall of the salon was the biggest he’d ever seen.
“This is class,” he admitted reluctantly while Michael burrowed into the fake mahogany bar for beers. “I think we’ve got three options,” the Englishman said, forcing the top off a bottle and taking a long drink.
“One: we find the most efficient-looking mercenaries money can buy before midnight. We’ve got to move that fast. Taking any longer will give people more time to start checking us out more closely. Not a complication we want. I can spread enough money around to buy us quality, but let’s face it, you can’t pay anyone enough to risk his life against a nosferatu.”
“A nosferatu mage,” Serrin said.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Michael replied. Serrin's look told him to take some things on trust.
“But mercenaries might cut and run,” Michael continued. “Which wouldn’t be very convenient for us. That leaves us two other possibilities. One I’ve already discounted, but I’d like to mention it so you can follow my thinking.”
He’s back in form, Serrin thought. He has that hypo-manic glint in his eye, and I think he actually believes his line that Englishmen are almost bulletproof.
“Forgive me for this one, but it’s Humanis.”
Tom was half-out of his chair when Michael, genuinely afraid that the troll might deck him with a watermelonsized fist, waved him back.
“I said I'd discounted that. It’s just that the master race would die willingly to deal with the problem we’ve got. We might not even have to pay them. Come on, be fair, you have to admit they’d be motivated.”
“I’ve put about maybe a dozen of those guys into the ground over the years and I’m not ashamed to say I’ve never lost a minute’s sleep over it,” Tom growled.
“That leaves us a third possibility. There’s the Ork Liberation Army. I should say the Ork Anarchic Commune, the Wardogs, half a dozen of ’em, but it’s the same thing. Orks are a quarter of the population here. The real activists divide into two groups. One bunch, the ones I’ve mentioned, are hard guys, but they protect what they’ve got and work to get a bigger slice. They’re organized, so there’s a general ork policlub. The other bunch are the ones to avoid. The Horde. They just like killing anything that doesn’t look like a big, bad ork. The trick is to recruit from the former and not from the latter.”
“Can we do that?” Serrin wondered.
“There’s a bar, the Meld In, in Grenzstrasse. Ironically enough, it’s a hangout for Berliners who actually want to improve relations between metatypes. Won't find any Horde members there. But we’ll find everyone else. Now this is a tricky one. We need types smart enough to be enraged by the idea of what Luther’s doing, while avoiding the ones so over-motivated that they’ll want to rip our heads off first.”
“Why orks, specifically?” Tom asked.
“Just because they’re the most numerous and best-equipped muscle available here. But, slot, if there are dwarfs, trolls, or anyone else willing to come along and help us out, the more the better. The other good thing about orks is that they’ll keep it to themselves.”
“And what about me?” Serrin asked. “We’re going to ask them to blow away a megalomaniacal elven racist, and here’s an elf asking them to do it. Isn’t that going to look rather suspicious?”
“No,” Michael said slowly. “Not if they see you’re really there with Kristen.”
Avoiding Serrin’s uncomfortable look, he continued. “Look, let’s do a quick inventory on ourselves. One troll. One elf. One white man. One black woman. Are we a plausible group for furthering some kind of racist plot?”
“Probably not,” Serrin agreed.
“No. We’re actually not an unlikely collection of folks to oppose that very thing.”
“Maybe it would be better if Serrin didn’t actually go along to meet the orks. Your logic is right,” Tom told Michael, “but life isn’t logical.”
“More’s the pity,” Michael said dryly. “No. I don’t want to deceive them, even by omission. We go in on this together. That’s what we’ll be asking them to do.”
“What about a compromise? Maybe I arrive a little later at this Meld place? Without me around, it might be easier for you to prepare the ground,” Serrin offered.
“Good idea. Now, let’s start making a shopping list of what we’re going to need in the way of hardware. Sadly, not even in Berlin can we lay our hands on a tacnuke—not in the time we have available to us—but apart from that we’ve got enough money to get what we want.” Michael began to unpack his cyberdeck from its travel Case. “I think I should also investigate some places less well-known than Meld In. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour.
“While I’m doing that, maybe Tom could hit the place and just kick back, have a drink, be seen. Then, when we go back, it will look like we’ve sent someone to scope matters out and that we like what we heard. When the time comes to parlay, it might get us some respect, like we know what we’re doing.”
“Makes sense,” the troll said, getting to his feet. “Where is this place again?”
Michael gave him the exact address. “Hang around for half an hour maybe. Try not to look obvious, like you’re checking everyone out.”
“Look, chummer, I may not be smart, but I’m not dumb either,” Tom retorted.
“Sorry,” Michael said sheepishiy. “I’m just a bit twitchy, that’s all.”
When Tom had gone, Serrin questioned Michael as he was rigging up the Fuchi. “Look, why should you go along on this? You’re no samurai.”
“I’m a damn good shot with the Predator, though. Come on, I live in New York. It’s basic survival instinct, old boy. Anyway, I intend to stay behind the front line. Isn’t that the same deal you made with Kristen?”
Serrin looked ruefully at the Englishman. Once again, he’d proven to be one step ahead in his guesswork. It would be nice if he would only guess wrong now and again.
Michael readied himself to jack in. “Now, let’s find ourselves somewhere to buy things that make pleasingly big explosions.”
26
Despite some initial qualms, Tom immediately felt at home in the bar. He’d hardly gotten through the door before various people had forced at least a half dozen pamphlets into his hands, each espousing the virtues of racial co-existence in all its many-faceted glory. He judged that the capabilities of the eager, but innocuous-looking, clientele probably didn’t match the grandiose ambitions in the pamphlets. Somehow it seemed wrong to sit in a German beer cellar with a mineral water, so he ordered a stein of the alcohol-free variety. Back in UCAS, alcohol-free beer tasted like devil rat piss, but surely that couldn’t be true in Germany.
The troll’s eyes widened as he took a gulp, then studied the half-empty stein. It was excellent. Yeast and hops, barley and something indefinable hit his taste buds. He was just pondering ordering another when all hell suddenly broke loose in the doorway. Shock waves rippled through the bar and Tom was hurled off his chair. He hit the ground hard, dazedly taking in the faces and metal and fire sprouting around the door, the screaming in German and the hefting guns ready to follow up the concussion-grenade hit. Broken glass and shards of furniture flew around him. He dimly felt one or two cuts on his arms, but nothing hit him in the face.
The Roomsweeper wasn’t the right weapon under the circumstances. He should have had a pistol for standing outside and dumping heat inside rather than the other way around, but he rolled with it, took aim and emptied the clip in the direction of the doorway. He could only hope that everyone originally within it had been blown far enough by the shock wave to be out of the arc of fire.
Smoke obscured his view by the time the clip was empty. Gunfire chattered all around, echoing off the walls, deafening everyone. Half a dozen bleeding bodies lay, some at horribly unnatural angles, on the floor. Looking up, Tom saw a female ork swaying and muttering as she cast a spell. Then a bolt of fire ripped throug
h the doorway and hurtled into the street outside. The effects weren’t visible through the smoke, but the screams were audible even over the yelling and shooting inside the bar.
Welcome to Berlin, Tom thought. He’d been told it was anarchy. Michael wasn’t kidding.
Someone had managed to slam the bar door shut and was drawing metal bolts the thickness of a troll’s arm across. Noting that the door was lined with metal on the inside, Tom guessed that they must be used to raids here. Unfortunately, there was a distinct lack of communication among the beseiged, because while the elf was busy bolting the door, a hefty ork with an SMG had just smashed a window and was pouring machine-gun fire into the street outside.
Managing to get onto all fours, Tom looked up again, breathing heavily. He found the female ork watching him. That she was a Cat shaman was immediately obvious. Tom had no need to do any assensing. Her black eyes widened as she looked at him, and then she started to shout. He could barely hear her, still mostly deafened, but what difference did it make? She was probably speaking German, so he wouldn’t have understood a word of it anyway.
Grabbing him by the braid, she yanked him upright. She started to shout to him, but when he mumbled, “Sorry, don’t understand,” and looked at her helplessly, she simply pointed to the back of the room. Two orks had already opened a trap door in the floor, and most of the bar’s clientele was pouring through it and down the stairs. Tom got up and followed them.
* * *
Michael sat quietly in the Tarantel, sipping his Gewurtztraminer, looking around for a plausible candidate to approach. This unassuming little bar was rumored to be the principal hangout for arms dealers from all over Europe. Among those present, the Brits and Arabs would be the major players, here to make deals in the millions. The South Americans looked like their probable customers. Wearing suits as classy as his, they were hardly what he was looking for. He had deliberately dressed to look like one of the big boys, thinking it would permit him to make the approach rather than having to field a lot of queries. But that wasn’t the way it worked out.
