Shadowrun, p.6
Shadowrun, page 6
I nod to my bouncer. He rips the black hood from Sasha’s head. I gesture for the bouncers to leave us in the workroom. They close the door with an audible click of the latch and clunk of the deadbolt. I keep my silence wrapped about me like a cloak as I watch him gaze around the workroom and understand what it could mean.
A talismonger’s workroom is a thing to behold. Especially mine. Well, it usually is. I had to clean it out for what’s to come. I keep things in here I didn’t want messed up. Still, the room is impressive, if I do say so myself.
It’s a large stone rectangle with deep ebon cabinets secured with ornate silver locks. The walls, usually filled with tools of the trade, are bare. You can still see where some things used to hang. The walls are cleaner there. The floor is covered with chalked ritual circles and seals…along with wax drippings and old, viscous stains. It looks a little like the large stone table I have to one side of the room. The ceiling is black from years of candle soot.
The Hermetic tradition is not the neatest of magic, but not the messiest either.
Sasha twitches. First his hand, then his head. That means the paralytic has fully worn off. I added that side effect to the drug so there’d be no feigning being paralyzed while plotting me bodily harm.
I step into view. “Welcome to my workroom, Sasha. Usually it’s got a bit more in it, but I don’t need you seeing how the sausage is made. Of course, a talismonger is more than the sum of his telesma…more than even the unspoiled and exotic telesma I sell here. Do you know what I mean?”
Sasha shakes his head in tiny jerks. I’m not sure if his silence is because he hasn’t quite regained control of his brain yet or because he’s suddenly developed some common sense. Either way, it allows me to go on uninterrupted.
“Talismongers are the heart of their magical society. We buy and sell telesma, lore, and knowledge. We’re the one place that those with eyes to see can go for all things enchanted. Especially for those who cannot create for themselves. We have connections everywhere. As such, we have a duty to the magical society we tend to.”
Sasha is panting now, sweating in his panic. “John, I can explain. Please—”
I continue, overriding him, letting my anger show. “I have a duty to my clientele to make sure they get the best foci, telesma, and formulae. That everything I sell is well made, properly collected, and exactly what they paid for. Safe, unspoiled, exotic…exactly what that narwhal horn should’ve been, but wasn’t.”
I watch the fear crawl across his face. Then I soften my words, lacing them with the promise of salvation. “What was it exactly that you sold to me? It left a lovely young woman in a coma. Perhaps, we can undo the damage before it’s too late. Perhaps, it’s not too late for any of us.”
“It was narwhal. I swear…just not awakened…or fresh. But you gotta understand, I didn’t have a choice. Mr. Jones said he’d pay me double to bring it to him instead. And if I didn’t, he’d ruin me.”
This is the confession I need to save my own ass. “Mr. Jones?”
Sasha shrugs and twitches a little. “I don’t know his real name. Just Mr. Jones. You know the deal. He tells me what I need to do for his client…and I get paid.”
It’s interesting that it’s a “Mr. Jones” rather than “Mr. Johnson.” Tells me that the anonymous employer is from Great Britain rather than North America. That means this might have been a personal vendetta against my client. Same continent, different side of the border.
“Did your Mr. Jones hire you to steal from me or to give me fake components…or both?”
“Will you let me go if I tell you?” Sasha’s eyes beg me to lie to him.
So I do. “I’ll let you go…when we’re done here. I promise.” I don’t tell him that I’m not the one in charge for the moment. I won’t be done with Sasha until they are.
Sasha relaxes, believing me. “It was both. There’s some who don’t like you as the main talismonger in town…and they specifically told me to give you the regular narwhal horn. Gave it to me, actually, to give to you.”
The competition wants to play rough, do they? Well, we’ll work that angle after this business is done. No one threatens me or mine. Not in my city. I’ll set my people looking for who the up-and-comers are as soon as I get a chance.
“Thank you, Sasha.” I turn to the wall behind me. “Have you seen enough?”
The illusionary wall disappears, revealing three elves—the beautiful woman who hid them, a young woman in a wheelchair, and an equally beautiful man. They have the same Germanic look and family resemblance that tells even the most casual of observers they are related. The man and woman glare at Sasha, while the girl in the wheelchair looks at nothing.
“Let me introduce you to Herr and Frau Schmidt. My clients.” These, of course, are not their real names. I’d rather die than reveal such to scum like Sasha. I point to the girl. “And she is the young lady your fake telesma hurt. It’s much more complex than a coma, I’m afraid. You see, she’s very much alive, but caught on the astral plane.”
“You said you’d let me go. You promised!” Sasha struggles against his bonds, panic beating about his head and shoulders.
“Oh, I will let you go…but first, reparations must be made.” I put a hand to my chest. “Not by me, of course. I’m not going to punish you. They are.”
I straighten and nod to Herr Schmidt. “He is all yours, sir. And if you’ll excuse me—”
“No.”
That single word freezes me in mid-turn. “Sir?” I fight to keep his real title under my tongue.
“This is a crime against our people, is it not? You will witness the punishment.” His face is implacable.
The compliment and the threat are clear in that first sentence. I bow. “Of course, sir. I will witness it.” Part of me is terrified. Part of me is ecstatic. Our people. After all these years, to finally be accepted.
I step back and watch the elven nobles lay out their magical tools on my stone table. I wish I had taken the time to give it a deep clean. Well, Hermetic mages recognize each other and understand the stains. I hope.
“What are they doing?” Sasha’s voice is a harsh whisper.
I hunker down next to him and keep my voice low as the pair begin the summoning. “I believe they’re going to have a talk with the free spirit that has their daughter’s astral form captured.” As the sound of the ocean reaches my ears, I add, “Remember, this is your doing, not mine. I bargained in good faith.”
“Let me go, John. Please. I’ll tell you who hired me. Then I’ll walk away. You won’t have to worry about me anymore.” His eyes dart to the elven pair. “And I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”
I know it for the lie it is. “You know who Mr. Jones is and who his clients are? You know exactly who they are?”
Sasha shakes his head. “No, but I can get you the contact numbers. I can lead you to them. I swear I’ll do it.”
I stop paying attention to him as I see the power of what my clients have summoned. It makes me catch my breath. I know Sasha can’t see what is gathering on the astral plane. He’d be a lot less calm. At the first sight of the free spirit in question—a huge sea creature with many tentacles—I wish I was anywhere but here. I stand and watch it come, glad I’d taken down my astral wards as requested. I don’t think they would’ve mattered anyway.
“What? What is it? John? John? What are you looking at?”
I shake my head. “You’ll see soon enough.” The power of the spirit is enormous. I’m almost breathless in my awe. I can’t help but take a step back as it enters the room. I know when Sasha can see it. He makes incoherent whining words in the language of pure panic. Shifting from astral to normal vision, the spirit is no less terrifying manifested in my workroom.
I lean over and whisper, “Silence. It may not notice you.” Sasha sucks in his words and panic, swallowing both with a will that would’ve been impressive in another circumstance. For now, it only proves he has a great desire to live.
Herr Schmidt bows and speaks in German to the spirit in a diffident tone I have never heard from someone of his stature. I listen to the request, the bargaining, and the terms the mage uses.
“John, what’s he saying?” Sasha hooks my pants with his pinky finger.
I slap it away. With a look and nod from Frau Schmidt, I realize they want Sasha to know what is about to happen to him. I return the nod and shift back to whisper in Sasha’s ear. “That is the spirit that holds their daughter. From what I gather, it has worked with this family for centuries, with some long-held traditions. It was disrespected by the girl’s poor choice of telesma…and has kept her astral avatar in recompense.”
I pause, listening as Herr Schmidt continues his polite bargaining. “Her father is explaining your deliberate choice to give her the wrong thing…and has offered you, a known killer of Awakened creatures, to the spirit…to do with as it will.”
“But it wasn’t me. I didn’t mean it.” Sasha all but wails these futile words.
The free spirit turns its full attention on Sasha and me. “Oh, look. I think it’s accepted the bargain.”
“John, move.” Herr Schmidt’s command brooks no argument.
I move—fast and without pretense—to my ally’s side.
Sasha struggles, straining against the straps holding him to the metal chair. “John, you fat-faced leaf eater! You can’t do this to me. You promised to let me go!”
“Oh, that hurt. Perhaps you should focus on what’s coming your way instead.” Actually, the insult did hurt. I shove my hands into my pants pockets to keep from touching my rounded face and my pointed ears. I glance at the elves next to me. Their angular cheeks and pointed chins made me ache. That is what I’m supposed to look like.
My own father threatened to disinherit me if I changed the way I looked more than just my ears. He doesn’t understand that I was born in the wrong body. He doesn’t care. All that matters to him is that I look mostly like him at all appropriate high society functions.
What I look like matters to me. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. Eventually, the old man will die, and I’ll be able to finally look on the outside how I feel on the inside. If that doesn’t happen soon, I may have to help him along. Especially with this new turn of events.
Our people… My pride swells as I glance between the two nobles next to me. I’ve finally been accepted. It makes the insult hurt a little less.
The girl in the wheelchair blinks a couple of times, then bursts into tears. Frau Schmidt gathers her daughter into her arms and hugs her tight. I know that she couldn’t have been trapped in astral form for more than a couple of days. She hadn’t had the telesma for that long…but time in the astral is different. I wonder how long it’s been for her.
“He has accepted our apologies and our offering. This should be interesting.” Herr Schmidt brings my attention from his daughter back to Sasha. “You should lower your blast shield.”
With a gesture, I lead my guests to the appropriate spot and activate the safe room. The walls of Securitglas surround us, making our ears pop as the room is fully sealed and pressurized. Not a moment too soon.
My workroom goes from dry to half-filled with water in a blink of an eye. Sasha screams and rips his skin bloody trying to escape his bonds. The water is up to his chest, but he thrashes as if it is already over his head. The spirit strokes a tentacle over Sasha’s hair, petting him like a dog.
Herr Schmidt points downward. I follow the direction he indicates. Fish that look like a cross between piranha and octopi tear at the shadowrunner’s clothing, then his flesh. Blood chums the water, exciting them. I can’t help glancing at the elven noble, and he challenges me with an arched eyebrow. I know what he’s saying: “If you want to be one of us, you remember this and treat all your enemies with the same mercy. If you have the fortitude for it.”
I turn back and watch Sasha’s pain, drinking it in. Another blink, and the workroom is filled almost to the ceiling. Sasha, still struggling, still being eaten alive, screams once more before sucking in a lungful of water. After that, it is a waiting game. Sasha takes another two minutes to die. I watch him every second of those two minutes.
Herr Schmidt bows to the free spirit, communicating telepathically with it. A moment later, the spirit, the water, and its pets disappear. I look into the astral, but they are gone from the immediate area, leaving behind only the echo of the ocean.
“I would like to go home.” Frau Schmidt’s words are polite, but no less a command.
That is my cue to release the safe room. The Securiglas walls retract after the room unseals. Everything, except the ceiling and my safe room area, is scoured clean, with only the faint, brackish smell of salt water lingering in the air. Even Sasha’s body is clean—though that won’t last long. While blood no longer flows in his veins, gravity still does its job, and those bite marks are already leaking.
Frau Schmidt and her daughter leave the workroom without a word or a backward glance. I don’t expect anything more. Family reunions after a near-death experience are a private matter. Or so I’ve been told.
Glancing at Herr Schmidt as he gathers his work tools from my now pristine stone table, I ask. “Sir? Are we good? My debt is cleared?”
Even in private, I can’t allow myself to speak his true name. My astral wards are gone. Anyone could be listening. And after the ruckus we just caused on the astral plane, people are bound to be out and about, looking for the reason.
“It is.” He nods his affirmation as well. “You’ve shown your mettle.” He gestures to Sasha’s body. “I trust you will deal with that?”
“Of course. The Dark Side is full service. There is nothing more for you to do. Though, when you wish, the club is always happy to receive you and your family as an honored guests.”
The elven noble finishes packing away his and his wife’s tools. “I think the next time we meet, you should be my honored guest. I’ll have my man set up a dinner engagement.”
“Thank you, my friend.” I make a calculated risk and offer my hand. I had just helped save his daughter, after all.
He accepts the gesture with a nod, and we clasp arms. “Until then.”
I walk him to the stairway to the private part of The Dark Side. There, his own retinue takes over as escort. I wait at the foot of the landing until my comm beeps and my security woman says, “The bluebirds have flown, sir. Would you like me to prepare your private suite?”
I look back at my pristine workroom with its lack of astral wards and dead body. “Not yet. Business before pleasure. I need a cleaning crew for one. Make sure this one is never found. Not one scrap of flesh. Not one bone.”
“Yes, sir.”
I return to the workroom and inspect my ebon cabinets. They survived. That will make tonight’s work so much easier. As much as I want to celebrate the evening and my new acceptance, when it comes to Dark Side matters…business always comes before pleasure.
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS
(404)
CHRIS A. JACKSON
Act 1 // Paying Respects
I walked beside Julianna Hennesy through a maze of white marble as the Caribbean sun tried to reduce us to ashes. Hennesy’s two kids, Vince and Carla, darted ahead through the hundred-forty-acre Colon Cemetery. My cream silk Armorani matched the hue of the angels, skeletons, and skulls staring down at us. It didn’t breathe as well as linen, but it deters gunfire. In my line of work, that kind of fashion trumps comfort.
My line of work…
I missed my corporate gig a little, but the money Julianna’s husband had unlocked when he transferred the decryption codes to a stolen NeoNET credstick—just before he blew his brains out—set his family and me up nicely in a secure Havana high-rise. It also pretty much obliterated any chance I had of working for a corporation again.
Done deal. Ice Cream was back in the shadows, risen from the ashes of corporate anonymity.
Now I was fulfilling my promise to Julianna’s husband, seeing after his family, at least until she could get a gig of her own. Hennesy had been a nice guy. I pay my debts. Today was part of that debt.
“Not too far!” Julianna called to her kids in broken Spanish.
“Si, mama!” Carla shouted for her younger brother to come back.
We continued on to Hennesy’s grave, one of thousands in the Colon Cemetery. While Julianna pulled in the kids and knelt to pay her respects, I scanned the maze of white stone. The cemetery was busy today, and old habits die hard.
Could be worse, we could be in Mexico City…
In Cuba, Dia de Los Muertos—the Day of the Dead—isn’t the party it is in Mexico. Respects are paid, remembrances renewed, tears shed. I let the family mourn, and remembered the man I’d almost saved.
Julianna placed flowers at the foot of the grave and stood. “Were you here already, Tiya?”
“What?” That took me aback. “No, why?”
She pointed to the waist-high marble slab. “I thought you might have left that.”
A photograph and a single white rose lay on Hennesy’s grave.
The hairs on my neck stood up.
“Someone who knew him, maybe?” Julianna speculated.
“Nobody knows where he’s buried.” I edged closer to peer at the photo, and realized it wasn’t one.
It was a playing card…no, a tarot card—not an old-style, but a modern one. I picked it up and peered at the glossy image, a woman with bones painted on her back, glossy stretch pants and high heels gleaming. She wore a full-face helmet painted with a skull, and held a white rose. A dead dove lay beside her foot. The Death card.
“Some sick joke?” Julianna asked, peering at the card.
“I don’t know.” I tucked the card in my pocket. “But I think we should—”
A high-pitched whine tweaked my augmented hearing. Something in my head said “Drone!” and my wired reflexes kicked into high gear. This wasn’t the low buzz of a surveillance or delivery drone, but the high-speed rotors of a killer.
