Bottles and Cyberburger plastic clamshell cases rained down the steps around her. By the time she reached the 34th floor landing, the mess had become hip deep. She stepped on something soft and body-like when she approached the door out of the stairwell. A man’s moan came from beneath the trash. She peered down at her boot on the back of someone sleeping face down under three-foot-deep clutter, too drunk or stoned to notice her standing on him.
Kirsten shoved the door open and kept going. Dorian and the Harbinger followed without a sound. She bee-lined to an open door that matched the dot on the minimap floating over her left arm. Despite responding to a paranormal event—the 21-47 code meant a manifestation attacking the living—she drew her E-90 and entered using standard police tactics.
Not only did this building sit right next to a grey zone, it probably served as a crash pad for a cybergang. The apartment turned out to be a single smallish room with a Comforgel pad that folded into a couch, autoshower tube in the corner beside the only window, and an epic amount of clothing randomly thrown about. A small table in front of the bed/couch held two net decks, a scattering of small electronic devices, and three silver holo-bars, but none were on.
“Shit,” said Kirsten. “I’m too late.”
Dorian stuck his head through the door of the only closet. “Not hiding in here.”
“He’s got her right now. I bet he’s making her go somewhere this very moment… if she’s not already being raped.” Kirsten shivered with rage and frustration. She whirled on the Harbinger. “Malden Walker has been here, hasn’t he?”
The Harbinger nodded once.
“Where is he?”
It stared at her, its silver eyes in a constant shifting state of sparkling. The creature’s vaporous shoulders gave off an ever-so-slight sense of slouching in defeat.
“Dammit. You can’t interfere, can you? Some of that Seraphim-Harbinger rule stupidity. Argh!” She kicked a small box across the apartment. “This is ten times worse, knowing it’s happening right now and I can’t do a damn thing.”
Dorian looked around. “There’s no NetMini in here. Maybe he didn’t make her strip before leaving?”
Shaking with adrenaline, Kirsten swung her arm up and tried to control her fingers enough to pull up a device trace using Freya’s PID. When it came up—moving—she screamed, “Yes!”
The Harbinger backed out of the door, making way for her.
Kirsten sprinted to the stairwell and hurried up to the roof, barely breathing by the time she arrived at the patrol craft. Running up sixteen stories of trash-filled stairs sucked, but it hadn’t been the most grueling thing she’d ever done. If it made the difference for Freya, she’d do it ten more times. The bizarre circumstance of having a Harbinger in the back seat didn’t even register as she lifted off again, angled the car toward the NetMini trace, and accelerated in a dive.
Ad-bots, private drones, and a handful of delivery bots scattered out of her way. Something she didn’t see bounced off the car with a dull clonk, probably a personal bot with broken or deliberately-removed lights.
She leveled off at the third-story level, figuring Freya would likely be on foot, and drove as fast as she felt able to control the car in the tight confines of a plastisteel-and-glass canyon. The wide, heavy car threw trash and plasfilm scraps everywhere in its wake, tearing posters off walls, knocking a few pedestrians over, and in one case, smashing a window from the trailing air blast.
“I’d say you’re not supposed to do 285 this low to the ground, but I’m sure Freya will appreciate it.”
“Thanks,” muttered Kirsten, too focused on driving to lend much thought to his remark.
The blinking yellow triangle on the Navcon display stopped moving one sector north in 5109, nearly at the border with 5161 above it.
“She’s four and a half miles into the grey.” Dorian drummed his fingers on his knee. “And not moving.”
“I see that.” That girl’s a minute away from the worst day of her life… if even that long.
She slowed, mashing the button to extend the ground wheels, and set down hot, puffs of smoke chirping from the rubber rings wrapped around four e-motors. The ion thrusters shut down, and the louder whirr of the physical drive system kicked in. Intense azure snaps from the patrol craft’s bar lights painted the faces of nearby buildings in a bright shade of eerie. She squealed around a corner driving as close as she could get to an alley from where the NetMini signal originated. Kirsten swerved to a stop and leapt out of the car, not even bothering to shut it down, then hauled ass for the alley mouth, between an abandoned pizza place and an old electronics store.
E-90 up, Kirsten ran into the alley and aimed at—nothing.
“Fuck!” shouted Kirsten.
“Isn’t that what you’re trying to prev—”
“Not now. Please,” yelled Kirsten.
She stormed forward, searching around for signs of the NetMini. Thirty feet from the end of the alley, she found it on the ground behind a dumpster along with a skirt, top, sneakers, and underwear.
Kirsten hung her head. “Damn.”
“Now that’s odd.” Dorian walked up beside her. “The last two victims we know about, he made them undress at home, then walked them outside. Why do you think he did this?”
Kirsten shook with anger and guilt. Her brain couldn’t even figure out words at that moment, much less assemble a response to his question or consider the thought of it.
“Get off me!” shouted a woman. “Stop!”
The plea sounded almost rehearsed, like a not-terribly-skilled actress playing an assault victim.
“Go!” shouted Kirsten. She bolted into a run, unable to keep up with Dorian who didn’t suffer the handicap of having a physical body to slow him down.
A man’s scream came from deeper in the alley in time with a bluish shimmer of light in a rightward passage two buildings ahead. Someone let out a shriek like he’d had ice water poured over him.
Kirsten skidded around the turn into the side passage and stopped short, taking in the scene.
A skinny, pale woman with bright blue hair lay draped over a refrigerator-sized metal fan cabinet, naked, a pair of handcuffs securing her wrists around a pipe connecting the machine to the building. Scraps of wire bound one ankle to the bottom right corner of the machinery, another wire dangled from the hand of a stunned man making a face like a fish out of water. A few patches of translucent slime coated his arms and the front of his jacket.
Dorian, flat on his chest, picked himself up from the ground a few paces past the guy.
Ignoring the man for now, Kirsten stuffed her E-90 back in its holster. She charged at the woman, unfurling the Astral Lash into a swing. The shimmering tendril of light snagged on a squidgy presence inside her, like swinging a broadsword into a Comforgel pad. Amid a glowing blur, the figure of a pale thirtysomething man in a loose T-shirt and ripped cargo pants staggered into view.
“What the fuck?” whispered Freya. The soft clinking of handcuffs followed. “Oh, shit. Fuck! God dammit! What the fuck!” Soft clinking became thrashing and metallic banging. “Get these fucking shits the fuck off me. I’ll rip your goddamn balls off.”
She continued screaming curses mixed with threats and pleas.
Kirsten jumped at Malden, swinging the lash again. The ghost blurred out of the way, reappearing right next to her. Committed to her strike, she followed through on the motion to avoid landing on her ass. The ghost punched her in the head, his fist hitting her like a block of dense, icy foam. She flew off her feet, crashed into the wall, and slid to sit on the ground, the world around her spinning and full of flashing spots.
The Astral Lash unfurled over the alley like a giant glowing spaghetti noodle.
She stared up at the blurry form approaching her, barely aware of where she was until cold hands grabbed her by both cheeks. The pasty face of a man with stringy brown hair, a poor attempt at a goatee, and an expression somewhere between no-one-is-home and hunger hovered in front of
her. He definitely didn’t look quite right, the sort of person no one of sane mind would leave alone with children. He stared into her eyes. Kirsten sensed his consciousness starting to invade her mind; with every ounce of her psionic abilities, she slammed the door.
Malden stumbled away from her, bewildered.
“No damn way.” Kirsten dragged herself upright. “This body’s off limits to you.”
“The fuck are you talking to?” shrieked Freya. “Get this motherfucker off me! The fuck is wrong with cops?”
Kirsten glanced sideways at the young woman. The man Dorian had stunned struggled to tie Freya’s left leg to the machine frame’s other corner, as though she, a cop, didn’t stand ten feet away. Dorian tried grabbing him, but couldn’t manage much of a grip. Still, she couldn’t let Malden escape.
She swiped the lash in an upswing, scoring a phantasmal burn across his chest that knocked him reeling into the wall. Dorian gave up on the living fringer. He ran in and pounced on Malden, trying to wrestle him to the ground like a standard suspect.
Freya screamed.
“Hey, asshole!” shouted Kirsten.
The vagrant, crouched and wrapping wire around Freya’s ankle, paused to look up.
“Lie down,” said Kirsten.
The man let go of the wire and fell over backward, lying flat on the ground.
Dorian sailed past Kirsten and disappeared into the wall. Malden recovered from throwing him and glared at her. She feigned a quick sideways strike, then spun, the lash coiled around her body, hidden until she brought it around in an overhead swing. Malden fell for the fake-out and leapt straight back, which didn’t move him out of the way of the long energy whip coming down on top of him.
A burst of light accompanied the hit, which knocked him to the ground and set off a mild pulse of energy that sent phantasmal sparks crawling over glass surfaces nearby. Kirsten advanced, gathering the lash for another swing. Malden blurred, reorienting himself from flat on his back with his feet toward her to flying at her fists first.
Kirsten snapped the energy whip up in an attempt to block, but the spirit took the hit, flying into it while grabbing her around the throat in both hands. He lifted her off the ground and shoved her back until she crashed into the wall. He pinned her against the building by his grip on her neck, squeezing tighter while staring at her in a way that made her feel like a hunk of sushi he debated eating.
“What… are… you?” rasped Malden.
Freya, not far to her left, continued screaming curses and thrashing, trying to get her left leg out of the wires which currently held her in a most humiliatingly exposed position. The vagrant, still compelled to lie on the ground, stared lustfully up at her from behind.
Dorian jumped out of the wall and grabbed Malden, trying to drag him off Kirsten. The ghost removed his right hand from her neck long enough to punch Dorian in the head. The hit knocked him flying more than half a block away.
Shit… another Wharf Stalker… She struggled to breathe. This bastard’s strong.
“Stop staring at me!” screamed Freya. “Hey, cop!” The blue-haired woman looked over at Kirsten—and froze, wide-eyed. “Whoa. How the fuck are you floating?”
Kirsten gurgled.
“Little help, please? Kinda in a bad position right now.”
Kirsten gurgled louder.
Again, the sense of an invading entity brushed at her mind. Malden tried to possess her, but he may as well have been a living person trying to walk into a solid wall. Snarling, she let herself think about Konstantin, about being controlled, vulnerable, exposed, violated in the worst way by having her entire personality altered. This bastard of an entity in front of her did the same thing to any woman he felt like attacking.
Her fury sent a surge of intensity down the long energy cord. Pinned to the wall with little room to move, Kirsten made the tail end of the whip swipe up at Malden’s back. The hit didn’t feel all that strong, but Malden screamed in pain and let go of her throat. She dropped back to her feet, swung her arm up, and snapped the lash at him, dragging most of its length through his chest.
The Harbinger glided closer.
Malden emitted a belabored groan and fell to one knee. He shot a sideways glance at the approaching cloud of blackness before fixing Kirsten with an unsettling stare as if he found her simultaneously fascinating and deadly. The mere look on his face made her feel unclean. She roared and moved to strike again, but he dove into the ground barely a second before the energy whip would’ve hit him.
“What’s going on?” yelled Freya. “I can’t see anything bent over this fucking thing. Let me out. Oh, shit, this creep isn’t taking pictures is he?”
Hit with sudden inspiration, the vagrant pulled out a NetMini. The second he raised it to snap an image of Freya’s nether regions, Dorian grabbed the device. The screen flickered once and died.
“No!” shouted Kirsten, glaring at the ground. She swung the lash a few times, but the tendril met no resistance at all. Despondent and furious, she stood there fuming.
“Hey, cop chick,” said Freya. “It’s fuckin’ October and I’m naked on top of a goddamned metal box. I’m freezing my tits off and I got sharp shit poking me everywhere.”
Kirsten stared up at the Harbinger. She almost yelled at it, but held her tongue. “Not weak enough for you to take?”
It bowed its head.
She sighed.
The vagrant sat up. As if finally noticing a police officer standing there, he scrambled to his feet and took off.
Kirsten ran after him, jumping into a tackle that used her entire body weight to take him down and quite un-gently hammered his face into the plastisteel ground. She grabbed a fistful of his hair at the back of his neck, forcing him to make eye contact. “Don’t move.”
He went limp.
She secured him in binders, then searched him for weapons, removing two small handguns and three knives.
Freya managed to get her left leg out of the wires and tried stepping on the cords binding her right ankle. A continuous stream of curses flowed from her lips.
Confident the man wouldn’t be moving for at least four or five minutes, Kirsten trotted over to Freya. “Had to deal with that ghost. I’m really sorry for leaving you like this so long.”
Freya stopped struggling. Her anger gave way to shaking and tears. “Shit, perfect timing. You got here at like the last damn second, too. What the fuck happened to me?”
“A ghost possessed you.” Kirsten leaned over, peering into the narrow gap between the fan cabinet and the wall. A pair of non-electronic handcuffs looped under a two-inch-thick pipe kept the young woman bent over the machinery so far her feet couldn’t reach the ground. “Damn. How the heck did he cuff you like that? There’s no room in there.”
Freya’s cheeks reddened almost as much as the glowing pink raccoon band over her eyes. Other than emitting blue light, her cybernetic eyes appeared normal. “I cuffed myself here. But I didn’t want to! Something was controlling me. Seriously, I’m not into this kinky shit. And even if I was, I wouldn’t do it outside.”
Kirsten patted her on the shoulder. “Keys could be in the bag near the end of the alley.”
“Doubt that bastard brought keys,” muttered Dorian, still rubbing his chin. “He’s got a hell of a right hook.”
She pulled her Nano utility knife off her belt, ordinarily meant for cutting seat belts or wires. The dangerous synthetic diamond blade sat inside a housing that only allowed narrow items near the small cutting edge. It would work on the handcuff chain if she could reach it. She stooped and cut Freya’s right leg free, then wound up bending over the fan cabinet right next to her to reach into the gap. With little room to move in there, and a horrible angle, she spent a few minutes trying to squeeze her arm down far enough to get the blade on the cuffs.
“Well, well, well,” said a man. “Two perfectly-shaped asses in the air. What a treat.”
Kirsten’s cheeks burned with blush. She decided not to leave this gir
l helpless any longer, and risked the vulnerable position for a few more seconds to cut her free, but Freya pulled the binders against the pipe so tight, Kirsten couldn’t get the chain into the uti knife.
“Oh, fuck!” shouted Freya. “Don’t you even think about it!”
“Lean down, give it slack,” whispered Kirsten. “Hurry.”
Freya whimpered a few more curse words but scooted forward, stretching.
The uti knife made short work of the steel chain, cutting it as easily as a strip of pasta. Freya leapt up. Kirsten flung herself into a sideways roll off the top of the fan cabinet, landing on her feet beside it. Freya backed against the metal, covering herself as best she could with her hands and shivering.
A group about a dozen men, mostly scrawny and younger than twenty-five, surrounded them in an arc. The sight of Kirsten’s uniform made a few lose some of their enthusiasm, but none of them went anywhere.
Kirsten drew her E-90. “Police. You should all just keep walking away before you do anything I’d have to arrest you for.”
A man toward the left with spiked purple hair grinned. “You can’t get us all before we’re on you, sweet thing. Just be a good little girl and let’s all have some fun.”
The Harbinger emitted a low noise, like glass scraping over glass. Its vaporous body expanded, growing to about ten feet in height, arms held to either side, wispy claws of insubstantial darkness spread open.
Dorian simultaneously shimmered transparent, manifesting into the visible world and letting off a wave of radiant fear.
Only one of the punks noticed him. The others all stared at the Harbinger. One grabbed his chest and fell straight to the ground. Four fainted. Others screamed and darted off in random directions, many crashing straight into the wall, so desperate to get away they couldn’t even see the building in their way. They bounced off, and ran again. A foul, fragrant testament to how frightened the punks had been soon filled the air.
Freya blinked. “Giant shadowy thing with eyes.”
“Yeah.” Kirsten looked at the Harbinger. “Thanks.”
It bowed its head.
Harbinger Page 23
