“You enacted violence against me through no fault of my own. I came here for a social challenge. I was meek, and obedient, and unflinchingly polite. I didn’t even call any of you motherfuckers motherfuckers.”
I glared past their balding heads, stared right in the lights rigged up behind them, looked the Dweller on the Threshold right in his eyes. Everything else in the room froze, everyone else in the room went magically stiff, put on hold, paused.
“I talked my way through your test, and you initiated physical aggression against me anyway. Here, in the Place of Charisma.”
Just like they had in real life. It had been the salt on the wound, then, of course, the shit icing on the failure-cake. All those years ago, it had been the drumming out of Lone Star that hurt, and the little taste of violence at the end, the insult added to injury, hadn’t really mattered. But here, here and now, it was my words that counted, and theirs were the actions that weren’t supposed to happen.
The Dweller had sent me here to make me snap, give me the chance to flip over a table and strangle some fat bastard with his tie, to grab a bailiff’s gun and get back at Lone Star for kicking me to the curb, for smearing Jessica’s reputation, for talking about Ariana like she was some dirty toy. But I hadn’t. I’d followed the rules, for once, and they’d broken them, and that got me the game.
“So fuck off, Dweller. I win. Get me out of here.”
CHAPTER 23
There wasn’t a face-full of smoke this time, wasn’t anyone who did anything to me. I was in one place one second, and somewhere else entirely the next. The glare of the interrogation lights felt a little brighter, and as I squinted against it, suddenly, I was squinting against ash getting in my eyes instead.
Ash everywhere.
I was standing ankle-deep in the gritty stuff, it floated overhead and all around me, fell onto my shoulders and into my hair, coating everything in shades of grey. I knew—I felt—that I was in the right place, but the last time I’d been here, the only time I’d been here, the Metaplane of Earth hadn’t been like this. It had been a cave, all rock, all crystal, all veins of rich ores running through it. This time it was ash. Just ash, and the impression of mountains looming overhead, and somewhere far off, maybe a soft glow from lava flowing just out of my sight.
“Ariana?”
I turned, one hand up to shield my eyes, missing my cyberoptics.
“Ariana, are you here, kid?”
“Nope.”
I spun, slipping a little, wingtips slick on the stone and ashy grit. It wasn’t Ariana. It wasn’t the Dweller. I knew, deep down in my bones, who—what—I was talking to.
It looked like a mutt. A Barrens-born mongrel, flea-ridden, mangy, ribs showing against patchy hair, blind in one eye, notched ears from a lifetime of fighting.
It was my Mentor Spirit. My totem. My inner self, moral compass, magical guide. An avatar, manifested just to reach me during my metaplanar quest. Well.
“New look, huh? What a twist.”
“Yeah,” the mutt sat in the ash, tongue lolling, tail swooshing lazily. It had a Brooklyn accent, which made as much sense as it talking in the first place. “I gotta mix it up sometimes, you know? Appear differently to different supplicants—”
“Followers.”
“—supplicants, depending on what message I think they gotta hear. Right visual for the right time, all that jazz.”
“So, what do I need to hear?”
“Why’re you here, Jimmy?”
“I didn’t come here for a question, bub, I can tell you that.”
“I came here for a question, so answer it.” Those scarred ears went back a little, serious, dangerous. The playfulness left the dog’s voice, and it asked again.
“Why are you here?”
“You know why I’m here. I’m here for Ari.”
“Who’s Ari?”
“Don’t be li—”
“Who is Ari?”
It hopped up onto its paws, ridged up a little, tail went high, ears forward, bristling.
“She’s my ally spirit. Ariana. You know that.”
“Why’re you here for her?”
“Because she got disrupted. Combat mojo, de Vries—”
“The leech.”
“—de Vries took her out. She attacked him, he defended himself, she got clobbered. I know she’s here somewhere.”
“Where’s ‘here,’ Jimmy?”
I glanced around, saw the ash, the smoke, the looming ridges, the red-hot glow of lava.
“Metaplane of Earth?”
It came out a question when I didn’t want it to be.
“Look again,” the dog’s tail wagged a little, enjoying the game. “You see a lot of Earth here?”
“So what? The Dweller sent me to another Place? Another challenge?”
“Nah.” The dog shook, the way dogs do when they’ve got something in their ear, but I knew it was meant as a head shake. It plopped its butt down again, tongue lolling out.
“Dweller sent you where you were supposed to go. Where I wanted you to go.”
I looked around again, stomped the toe of my wingtip down deeper, dug in the ash. There wasn’t stone down there, just more ash, packed tight. The looming mountains I thought I’d seen, thought I’d felt, were the shadowy impressions of buildings. The dog wasn’t sitting on nothing—it was sitting on a curb.
I spun and took a better look. Not just a curb. A curb at a corner. Through the drifting ash and smoke I saw a street sign.
“We’re in Puyallup?”
“Winnah, winnah, chicken dinnah!” The dog’s tail wagged cheerily, one eye bright with mirth, the other clouded and dead.
“Why th’hell’d you take me to…to…what, the Metaplane of Puyallup?”
“I took you where I wanted to, to make you answer the question. You’re really hung up on this joint, Jimmy. Poo-y’all-up. Your head’s a fucking mess, pal, lemme tell ya. You dig this place an awful lot, self-identify with it, maybe to an unwholesome level. Seattle, too. The whole thing. I mean, I guess I can’t blame ya, though, look at how great shit goes when you leave town, am I right? Fuckin’ Georgia trip, that was a hoot, wasn’t it? You really aced that road trip, buddy, lemme tell ya.”
I sighed. Fuckin’ mutt.
“Why’m I…wherever this is?”
“Golly, Jimmy. I don’t know, I just asked you that.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, bub. I already said it. I’m here for Ariana.”
“Why?”
“Because she got disrupted!” Jeeze, I’m glad no one was here to see me arguing with a dog.
“Why are you here for her?”
“Because I need to get her back. We’ve got a case.“
“What was that? Sorry, my hearing ain’t what it once was.” It flicked one ragged ear at me.
“Because I need to get her back, I’ve got a—”
“One more time, Jimbo.”
“Because I need t—”
“Couldn’t make that out. Come again?”
“I need…”
“What’samatter? Cat got your tongue?”
Fucking dog, being all smart.
“I get it, okay?” My voice sounded small.
“Pray enlighten me.”
“I’m not supposed to need her.” I swallowed, glared at the dog that was maybe just a hallucination, or was maybe meaner’n the devil.
“I’m not supposed to need anyone.”
“Almost right.”
“What?”
“You’re supposed to need me.”
Another lazy wag, looking pleased with itself.
“Fuck that,” I said, wishing it was louder.
“You need me, Jimster. You’ve needed me since that tramp tore you up, inside and out. You’ve needed me since you lost your mojo, the spring in your step, the twinkle in your eyes. I’m your little blue pill, pal. I made you mine when Lone Star taught you following orders was for suckers. I took you under my wing when you and that Bunny
broad were out to fuck each other to death. I taught you how to get a little magic back, Jimbo, and you still need me to make all your little tricks keep working.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, Jimmy. Yes. You. Do.”
I kicked ash in its stupid doggie face.
“The hell I do, mutt. You need me. You need followers to be real. The shit you Mentors hand out, they’re toasters to get us t’open a bank account.”
“You’re my dogs, and I keep you on leashes!” It bristled, grew, got waist-high on me. “You couldn’t even beat that pimply-faced nobody without me! I taught you to bind, boy. I taught you how to really nip someone else’s mojo in the bud. I’ve helped you every day since then, keeping you—”
“Fuck off, mutt. I don’t need you.”
“Then you don’t get me.” The dog loomed over me, bear-tall, breath hot and foul as it washed over me, snarling. “And you don’t get her.”
I felt it. A little tug on my soul. A little weight lifted, like someone had picked my pocket.
“You want to say I don’t own you? You want to say you don’t need me? Fine. I remove my gifts from you, and I remove your access to Ariana.”
“You can’t—”
“I can do anything I want. Poof. Done. Suck it, elf.”
“I made it past the Dweller, I made it to the Citadel, I want my ally spirit back!”
“No.”
“I followed the rules, mutt, and—”
“And I’m telling you, that ain’t enough to win this game.”
The dog started shrinking again, but its voice stayed loud, rolling like thunder amidst the smoke and ash.
“Rules don’t make you win, Jimmy-boy. Lone Star shoulda taught you that by now. Drawing inside the lines is for coloring books, not masterpieces. You don’t get to ignore the rules half your life, and then insist you followed ’em to the letter for the other half. Save that shit for Hermetics, pal. You made your call. You picked your team. You chose me, not just the other way around.”
The dog was normal-sized again, underfed, mangy. Sitting, again, scratching and making a face, eyes never leaving mine, voice never stopping.
“You wanna prove you don’t need me? We’ll make a game of it. I bet you can’t. You do this job, you finish this gig, and I’ll give her back to you. I’ll give you my blessings again. But you gotta prove it, Jimmy. You gotta ditch those crutches and walk on your own two feet.”
Ariana’s absence was an itch I couldn’t scratch. The off-balance feeling of my Mentor—my totem—pulling away was a mild vertigo. I was all pins and needles, all spinning head. I had to run my mouth, though. Had to try to flip it. I had to take a shot.
“No, more.”
“‘No more,’ Jimmy? Jesus, listen to you, you’re pathe—”
“No. More. I do this thing, you give me more. I don’t just get back like I was. You gotta sweeten the pot, muttley. We call it a Deed. An Ordeal. I kill the vampire that killed Minirth, I complete this job? Then I get your tricks back, I get Ari back, and you bump me up a notch. Initiation.”
The dog laughed right in my face.
“Double or nothin’, huh? The stones on you, Jimmy. Ha! Man. Dragonslayer’s missing out, brother, and cryin’ in his beer over it. Wolf could’ve almost had you, too, you crazy fucker. You got guts, Jimmy Kincaid. Fine. Fine, I’ll take that bet. If you get the leech that killed your pal, you get me, you get what’s-her-name, and you get an uptick.”
“Paw,” I said, holding out my hand like the dog was really just a dog, like I’d ordered it to sit, and was ordering it to shake.
It clawed at me with one forepaw, tail swishing, going along with it. We shook on it. A bet’s a bet.
My Mentor was a dick, but at least it had a sense of humor sometimes. The metaplane started shifting, started getting lighter and cooler. Less harshly dry, less mouth-of-the-volcano and more muggy summer day.
“Hey! What about Dog?” I said, as the ash started to clear, as the buildings became more distinct, as the lava-warmth started to recede.
“What?”
“Dragonslayer, Wolf, blah blah blah. Other Mentors you said almost got me, ’cause of my stones. I’ve read up on ’em. What about Dog? He’s all about loyalty, right? Why didn’t I go to him?”
The mutt raised a hind leg as the wind swirled, and started pissing a hair’s-breadth from my imaginary shoes. I was about to hear my Mentor Spirit’s final words before this plane vanished around me.
In the trids, in the stories, they’d be something profound. Something amazing. Something that would reaffirm my confidence as a spellcaster, and lead me on the right path in an upcoming magical battle.
“I don’t know, dumbass,” Adversary said through the stray dog’s grin, eyes catching the light just right and glowing a fierce red. “Why didn’t you?”
CHAPTER 24
I came to in my study, sitting in the half-lotus I’d settled into—I’m not big on kneeling—prior to my out-of-body experiences. My stomach grumbled. My head hurt. My throat was sore. It took my Transys a few seconds to boot up, and as I checked the time my stomach growled again, louder.
It had felt like an hour, maybe two. I’d been under for a day and a half.
My legs were wobbly and half-dead as I staggered to my feet and toward the apartment proper. Opening the library door let in a blast of Puyallup chill, and the whole interior was coated in a thin layer of ash that made me suppress a shudder.
“No.” I scowled, straightening up, walking barefoot across the light skin of grey. “Bastard ain’t takin’ that from me.”
The stuff was everywhere in Puyallup—including the inside of my place, after two days without a front window—and he wasn’t gonna ruin that. The shades of gray gave my city its charm. Some otherworldly bastard that might just be a group hallucination wasn’t going to make it something scary, something ugly.
I trudged into the kitchen and went digging for grub. I came up with a couple slices of bread and another damned protein shake, but it’d do for now. I scarfed it down, leaned heavily on the counter from sheer exhaustion, and eyeballed my place. It was a mess. It wasn’t just the grit, the mess, the broken window, it was that Ari was gone, that my Mentor had turned its back on me. I felt off-kilter, hung over, tired. Things weren’t quite right.
Standing in my empty kitchen, I figured it was time to clean up. Normally I’d let Ariana handle it—she actually loved that sort of thing—but that wasn’t an option. Instead I braced myself against the counter, focused on the wind whistling through the window, and threw myself into a summoning rite, calling up about as large a spirit as I could safely handle, which wasn’t saying much.
The air elemental was in the classic Hermetic style, a vaguely anthropomorphic whirlwind, a little cyclone with a face cartoon-drawn on, the slender base of its tornado hovering just off my ash-coated carpet. I did my best not to show it how dizzy I was from the summoning, kept a hand on the countertop but tried to turn it into a casual lean.
“Heya pal.” I gave it a conversational nod as I headed toward my bathroom. “Swirl the place clean, do something to maybe keep some air on the other side of the broken windows, then call it a day, yeah? Don’t care how many services I called you up with, you do those two, then you split.”
It got to work, I got a shower. Everyone won.
Cleaned up, wearing my spare suit—no Ari to fashion-cast my usual into freshness, and I didn’t want to push my luck with the mojo—from the closet, I eyeballed the hole in the wall. A little spirit magic had guarded the opening from the bad luck of stray gusts breezing inside, and for now that would have to do. Flush from de Vries’ deposited nuyen, I figured that problem could take care of itself after a few phone calls, including a long-past-due heads up to the folks that ran the Thai joint downstairs; they could let one of the neighborhood handymen in and keep an eye on things, I figured, and I could pay both them and the repairman less than a proper company’d cost.
Me?
I
hit the streets.
My Transys had a monstrous backlog of missed calls and spam messages, but I sorted them out while I sorted myself out; getting pavement back under my wingtips, walking the blocks, seeing folks out living their lives, hitting up street vendors, soaking up the life of the place. Nothing else would get my head on straight, not after the places I’d been and the memories I’d just faced, the deal I’d made.
I know the place ain’t never gonna be perfect, but it’s home. Talking to people, seeing the sights, tasting the food, being out there in it—in the life of the place—was how I got my feet back under me.
What’s more, it was how I got started on cracking the case.
I knew what I was after—Nimbus dead—but it was going to take some work figuring out where she was and how to kill her. I strung along one of those detect vampire spells while I walked, but that was more out of paranoia and practice than really thinking I’d pinpoint anything. Without Ari around to hang onto spells for me, I was going to have to re-learn how to do my own heavy lifting and sustaining. Martin de Vries had left a hefty pile of nuyen to clean up the apartment and not worry about rent, so I could focus on the Infected-slaying for a little bit, but he hadn’t dropped enough scratch for me to hit up a talismonger and pick up a focus or anything like that. If I wanted a spell held onto, I was going to have to hold onto it myself.
Thinking about that first meet-up with Nimbus, all those years ago, left me thinking about another problem, though; ghouls. When I’d first tripped over her—or walked into her like a sucker punch, I guess—we hadn’t even been looking for her. We’d been on a sweep-and-geek, a kill-team mission to clean out a nest of other Infected. Those with the Krieger strain were a little different than vampires, banshees, and the other immortal-sorts of Infected. Ghouls lost all their hair. Their skeletons warped a bit, made them stronger, leaner, gave ’em a heck of a reach in a fight. Their skin went all weird, eyes turned milky white and dead, and they turned into half-astral critters, with one foot in the real world and one on the other side, making up for their lost real-world vision by being able to see life forms and auras—because that was how they hunted. Ghouls ate meat, but not just any meat. Metahumans; the fresher, the better. Clinical parabiologists and their fancy books said your average ghoul didn’t need much per day. Your average ghoul—gone crazy from the Krieger warping his brain, suddenly looking at their neighbors like walking, talking entrees—didn’t always agree.
Shadowrun: Shaken: No Job Too Small Page 14
