Wolf and Raven s-32

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Raven's head came up and a sardonic smile twisted his lips. "I was unaware that 'God' was a synonym for greed, Lawrence Roberts. I'm certain Tina Cole would be shocked at how you betrayed her trust."

  In the half-second Roberts' terrified gaze swept from Raven's eyes to mine, I knew everything Raven had pieced together about him was true. He started to stammer a denial, but an unearthly roar cut him off. Cooper came running through the front door and Braxen hunkered down behind his car door with gun drawn.

  Surging up and forward through the front yard I saw the thing I had heard and smelled before. More formless than humanoid, it writhed forward like an amoeboid centaur. A vast skirt of mud and gravel and debris swirled around to form a conical base that supported a lumpish torso with multiple arms. At the top of the torso I saw a shape that could have been described as a head, and when some of the slime dripped down I knew I saw bone.

  The Old One howled out a challenge that had my skull bursting. I drew my Viper and snapped a round into the chamber, but couldn't see any spot to shoot the thing that might hurt it. Cooper looked over at me with horror on his face and shouted, "Wolf, no!" He glanced at the creature and repeated the cry. "Hawse, no!"

  The creature went straight for Roberts. Multiple bubbles burst from the area of its chest as if the creature were trying to speak, but any sound it made was drowned out as Roberts held the Bible up and shouted something. The creature kept coming and, to my eye, picked up some speed. The good Reverend tossed the book at the monster, missed high, then turned to run toward his limo. Harse shifted left, tracking accurately even though I couldn't see anything on it even approximating eyes.

  Over the acrid burning stench of the creature, I caught a whiff of Roberts' flower and knew how Harse had tracked him. It had to be orienting on the carnation. I'd been wearing one before and it came after me until Cooper proclaimed me a friend. Now it went after Roberts.

  I briefly considered shouting a warning, then dismissed the idea. Whatever would happen to him, Roberts had brought it on himself. It was time for the money-changer to be cleared from the temple.

  Roberts screamed incoherent prayers as the monster chased after him. He cut back and forth, trying to shake it, but had no success. Harse tracked Roberts like the best cyberbacker going after the bitcarrier in cyberball, closing with each turn Roberts took. The creature slid forward on a pool of mud and oily scum, cutting Roberts off from the limo.

  His gun shaking like a china plate in an earthquake, Braxen looked over at me. I turned to Raven for guidance, but the Doctor just shook his head. He glanced at the children huddled around Cooper, then back at Roberts. Something in his eyes told me he wouldn't have stopped the creature if he could have. Denied his escape, the Reverend dropped to his knees. Screwing his eyes tight shut, he clasped his hands together and prayed furiously. I don't remember the words he shouted exactly, mainly because they all sort of ran together, but they amounted to a confession of his sins and a promise to sin no more. Mind you, this is just a layman's opinion, but his catalog of sins was quite enough for several lifetimes.

  He begged for God's absolution, and Harse made sure he was shriven.

  The creature slammed into him like a mudslide into a house. One second I could see Roberts, and the next he was covered in oozing muck. The Reverend half-stumbled to his feet, literally knocked back by the monster, then fell again as his legs melted away. The creature's acidic touch peeled Roberts' flesh off and smoked his clothing away. He tried to scream, but could only vomit mud.

  His body slumped face-first onto the ground, and Harse covered him with a cairn made of garbage. The tentacle arms dissolved into nothingness and the molten mound stopped moving. A small dust-devil danced up and away from the pile as if carrying off Harse's spirit.

  Braxen slowly stood from behind his cruiser and the kids left the safety of the front stoop. Cooper tried to dart forward, but Sine held him back. I took one last look at the barrow, shuddered, and put my pistol back in its holster. The Old One barked out one final challenge, then retreated to his den.

  Harry tipped his hat back. "What the hell was that?"

  "Justice?" Raven, on one knee, examined the Bible Roberts had thrown. "This, along with Roberts 'deathbed' confession, indicates that he murdered his partnerThomasHarrison for a fortune in bearer credsticks. Roberts buried Harrison in the basement here. Apparently the ghost remained quiescent until Roberts took an interest in this place. His hatred for his old partner was strong enough for him to fashion a new body out of debris found in his grave and elsewhere." Cooper sniffed. "I used to bwing Hawse things."

  I walked over to him and knelt down. "Don't be sad, Cooper. Harse-Harrison-protected you just the way you wanted him to. He's gone, but he's happy now. You want him to be happy, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." I stood slowly. "Well, Braxen, I think you can ignore the claim Roberts filed for this place."

  The ork frowned. "I'm afraid I can't, Kies. That claim is part of Roberts' estate."

  Raven scooped the Bible up and tucked it under one arm. "Actually, Officer, I think you'll find that the counterclaim filed against the property is valid. After all, Kyrie has been living here for the requisite time to make a claim."

  Kyrie stiffened.

  Braxen shook his head. "Nice try, Raven, but she's SINless so she can't own this place no matter how long she's lived here."

  Raven turned and stared at Kyrie. "I did some checking, Salacia. You might have tried to run away from your family, but you are legal. The house is yours under the squatting statutes. Pay the back taxes on it, and you own it free and clear."

  "Go for it, Kyrie," I said. I turned to the Lone Star. "Harry, how much to claim this place?"

  The ork shrugged. "Ten grand, I think."

  Kyrie's jaw dropped. "Where am I going to get ten thousand nuyen?"

  Raven tossed her the Bible. "Five hundred thousand nuyen in bearer credsticks belonging to the Koshiyama Insurance Combine is hidden in a place indicated by the code on the cover-liner. Standard recovery fee is fifteen percent, which should buy you the house and plenty of the things Roberts would have offered you."

  Sine picked Cooper up and hugged him, then he turned in her arms and gave Kyrie a kiss. "It's ah house now." "Yes, it is, Cooper, it's ours."

  "Fine, take the house and everything," Albion snapped bitterly, "I'm outta here."

  "What?" The hurt in Kyrie's eyes slashed through me like a monofilament whip.

  "You've got a SIN. We don't trust anyone who's legal." He slapped Sine's shoulder withthe back of his hand. "C'mon, Sine. She owns the house now, so we're leaving."

  Sine shook her head. "I'll stay."

  "Great. Hope the lot of you rot." He whirled around and ran smack into me.

  "You and I need to talk in my office." I grabbed him by the back of his neck and force-marched him to the street. "Has the glue you use on your hair gone straight into your think-box or what?"

  He stared at me sullenly when I released him. "She's legal. I don't trust anyone who's got a SIN."

  "Think for a minute, will you?" I pointed back to where Kyrie and the others were studying the Bible's clue page. "She's had a SIN for the whole time you've known her, but she's pretended not to. Why do you think that is?"

  "We'd kick her out if she told the truth."

  "Listen to yourself. You know as well as I do that she could head out for the Tir and get help from the elves down there. She doesn't need you, but you need her. Cooper and Sine need her. Kyrie hung in here because she didn't want the group to be torn apart."

  He spat on the ground. "Good for her."

  "They also need you. You provide the drive so things can get done."

  Albion folded his arms across his skinny chest. "Great, fine, well, someone else can give them the kicks in the pants they need, not me. I'm outta here." He turned and walked away into the darkness.

  I wandered back to me others. Kyrie looked up at me expectantly, but I just shook my head. "So
rry." Cooper blinked his eyes as he turned to me. "Is Albion coming back?"

  "I dunno, Cooper, I just don't know." I gave him a half-hearted smile. "Say your prayers and maybe he will."

  Numberunner

  I felt like I was trapped in one of those math problems: Wolf, sprinting south through the alley at 40 kph, has 50 meters to the street and safety. The car, going south at 100 kph, is 100 meters from the street in the same alley. How long will it be before a steel-belted massage ruins Wolf's day?

  Leaping over a grease-stained box oozing something noxious at the corners, I figured that my speed meant I was traveling 40,000 meters per hour, or 666.6 meters a minute, or 11.1 meters per second. That put me approximately 5 seconds from Westlake and a vague chance at being able to walk home under my own power.

  The Acura Toro cruising down the alley behind me, with a piece of newsprint fluttering from its radio antenna like a flag, boasted 100,000 meters per hour. That put it at 277.7 meters per second. Roughly translated that meant it would be through me faster than the curry I'd eaten the night before-a distinctly unpleasant prospect. The calculations checked and left no doubt.

  That's why I hate math.

  That's why I like magic.

  The Old One howled with glee as I let him share his wolf-born speed and strength with me. I stooped in the middle of the alley and yanked up the heavy bronze manhole cover. The driver, thinking I meant to drop into the sewer to escape him, punched the accelerator and centered his slender sports car on me.

  Like a matador with a metal cape, I cut to my right but let the manhole cover hang in space where I had been. The lower edge hit the windscreen about halfway down and shattered the glass like it was a soap bubble. The disk began to somersault, end over end, doing its best to turn the hardtop Toro into a convertible. It had better success with the driver, ensuring that while he might have lived fast and died young, he would not leave a pretty corpse.

  The Toro hit the alley wall pretty hard. Sparks shot up from where the fiberglass body scraped away to metal, then the scarlet speedster rolled out into traffic. A Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit hit it going east while a Honda truck rolled over its nose. Nothing exploded and no flames erupted, but the Jackrabbit's driver did vomit when he yanked open the Toro's door. I think he wanted to give the Toro's driver a piece of his mind, but ended up getting pieces of the driver's all over his white pants.

  I took one last look at the Acura as I left the alley and turned down toward the Sound. I didn't recognize it nor the half-second glimpse I'd had of the driver's face while it was still in one piece. It wasn't the first time a professional had come after me with intensive homicidal mayhem on his mind, not by a long shot.

  It was, however, the first time it took less than a full day for someone to decide to off me.

  New records like that tend to make me nervous.

  Cutting back and forth through the streets gave me the time I needed to make sure no one was following me. I did see another Toro, which spooked me a bit, but only because it was white and looked like a ghost of the car I'd killed. Other than that my trip through the heart of Seattle's urban gray jungle showed me nothing I'd not seen a million times before.

  My haphazard course brought me into what that had once been my old stomping grounds. Normally I'd avoid that area if I were traveling with anything less than an army because the local gang and I did not get along too well. The Halloweenies-Homo Sapiens Ludicrous-were led by Charles the Red, but he'd been feeling poorly for the latter half of the summer. That allowed me to go where I wanted without being hassled.

  As I entered the old neighborhood I suddenly found myself wishing for the return of hostility. A stretch of Westlake from Seventh Avenue to Sixth Avenue had gotten a significant toasting during the Night of Fire. I remember the blaze rather well as I relive that evening in more nightmares than I care to count. Every fragment of that frightful landscape was burned into my memory in exquisite detail.

  Standing at ground zero I couldn't recognize a thing.

  All the burned-out cars had been moved. Buildings had been refaced and the tarmac was more level and pristine than I'd ever seen it. Old, boarded-up apartments had been refurbished and, if the window decorations were any indication, already occupied by tenants. All the little grotty businesses on the street level had been replaced with sharp-looking boutiques with awnings.

  And not a single street light had a hooker grafted toil.

  Looking at the place where I'd grown up I finally understood the meaning of the word desecration.

  From deep inside me, in that lightless cave where the Wolf Spirit chooses to dwell, the Old One growled deeply.Now you know what I saw in the Sleeping Time. Your people, Longtooth, they destroyed the lands I loved. They crushed my people and savaged my world. And for what?

  "So you can complain."

  "Excuse me, young man?" An old woman with a dowager's hump stopped in front of me and let her little metal grocery cart come to a rest. "Did you say something to me?"

  I smiled at her. "No, I'm sorry. I was talking to myself."

  She squinted her eyes and I half-expected her to recognize me. Something did flash through her eyes and I desperately searched for a name to attach to her face, but I came up a blank. She, on the other hand, pointed at my tie. "We owe you a great vote of thanks."

  I cocked an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

  She jabbed my tie again. "You do work for Tucker and Bors, don't you?"

  For at least this week, if I survive it. "Yes-sorry, I just started with them."

  "Oh." She smiled in a kindly way. "Your company oversaw the rebuilding of this neighborhood. Did everything very fast. You'd never know it to look at it, but this place used to be horrible."

  "I can believe it." I smiled at her, then stepped into the street. "Good evening, ma'am."

  My smile grew as I saw a familiar narrow doorway with a pumpkin glaring down at me from above it. Tucker and Bors might have renewed this bit of urbanity after the Night of Fire, but there were some institutions that were too sacred to be touched and too disgusting to die. The Jackal's Lantern was one of them.

  I pulled open the door and reveled in the wall of smoke that poured over me. True, I'd never liked the place when I lived here, and the Halloweeners would have cut my heart out for invading their stronghold, but the Lantern was a life preserver to a drowning man. I let the door swing shut behind me and rubbed my hands together. Who says you can't come home again?

  Well, whoever said it was right. The Lantern might have been too sacred to touch and too disgusting to die, but apparently it wasn't that hard to buy out.

  The smoke didn't cling to my flesh like a toxic fog because it came from a smoke machine. The only light in the place still came from orange and black plastic pumpkins, but the wattage of the bulbs had been upped so you could see more than a few steps into the bar. They'd left the car fenders wrapped around the pillars the way I remembered, but all of them sparkled with a new coat of chrome. Barbed-wire jewelry still adorned various parts of mannequins, but all the rust had been polished off it and the razor wire was duller than your average chiphead's sense of reality. They still used cable drums as tables, but thick coats of epoxy sealed them, fossilizing graffiti left behind from when real people used to populate the place.

  A fresh-faced girl walked up to me and smiled. The two dark triangles surrounding her eyes pointed down and an upward-pointing one hid her nose, but they'd been drawn in a dark green make-up, not the black the Halloweeners demanded. Her clothing, while stylishly tattered, had obviously been washed within the last week. Instead of looking like a zombie summoned from beyond the veil to serve in the Jackal's Lantern, she looked like a creature from the Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost school of haunting.

  "Welcome to Jack O's Lantern," she smiled.

  Something inside me died. "Jack O's Lantern?"

  "The very same. Table for one?"

  I blinked twice, then shook my head. "I'm meeting someone. A guy, mid-forties…" Her nose wr
inkled in distaste. "In the back. He's nursing a beer."

  I smiled. "Bring us both another."

  Leaving her to traipse through the corpgeeks in synthleather trying to look tough at the bar, I made my way toward the back. Even though I didn't like the changes, I had to admit the added light was an advantage. I'd never noticed how big the place really was, or how tall the scarecrow crucified on the back wall. Of course the smiley face didn't really suit him, but not many people got this far back.

  I slid into the booth and noticed my name was still carved into the table top. Even the nine lines beneath it had been left intact. "Hi, Dempsey. How's it going?"

  Dempsey gave me a shrug. He's one of those guys who looks like absolutely everyone else in the world- you'd forget him in a second if you had no reason to remember him. That, and the fact that he knows people who know just about everyone or everything in the world, make him very good at what he does. Dempsey is a private eye and for someone who's got no magic and no chrome, he's lasted a lot longer than he has any right to.

  "Life goes on."

  "Easy for you to say." I laughed lightly. "Dropping cold intathe corp world means I have to wake up during this thing called morning."

  Dempsey kept both his hands wrapped around his sweating beer bottle and appeared not to hear what I'd said. "I've done some checking, just like you asked."

  "And?"

  Another shrug lifted the shoulders of his kevlar-lined trench coat. "There are plenty of folks who'd love to take a shot at Tucker and Bors for what they did to the Lantern here, but no one has anything that suggests TAB is angry at the Ancients. Moreover, there are no anti-metahuman groups with ties into TAB. This city positively stinks with Humanis Policlub members, but TAB is as clean as can be in that department."

  I chewed my lower lip. "What are the chances some snake is living under a rock you haven't overturned yet?"

  Dempsey showed no concern over my having questioned his ability. "Slim and none. The word whispered in some high dark places is that Andrew Bors had a daughter who goblinized right after the awakening. Her daddy got her out of Seattle and has her staying in a mansion up on Vachon Island. After that, employees were screened for their attitudes toward metahumans through their employment questionnaire. You show signs of being a bigot and you're out."