On the subject of transport, the manager forced me into some serious negotiations. Ultimately, I had to promise to get Jimmy "Spike" Mackelroy of the Seattle Seadogs baseball team to his shop for an autographing. In return, the manager let me boost one of Dominion’s bowling shirts, baseball caps, and a delivery truck.
Settling the bulbous, red Domo-the-Clown nose on my face, I punched in the ignition code and Nadia and I headed off into the night. With pizzas in the warming ovens in back and me saying "Gosh, wow," every so often, we managed our promised delivery in thirty minutes or less.
At the roadblocks, the Lone Stars took Nadia for my supervisor and sped us on our way.
V
All during the trip to the Howell estate, I figured that the clown nose and red and blue pizza delivery shirt would make me look decidedly strange at our destination. That it did not relieved me of the hideous fear of committing a gross faux pas with my social betters. At the same time, it made me kind of proud not to have a SIN.
A two-meter-high wail of bricks, capped by jagged glass set in concrete, surrounded four hectares of perfectly manicured lawns that stretched over roiling hills. To the immediate left of the shattered gate, back beyond where Stealth and the Redwings waited with the half-track, the Howell mansion stood as a monument to conspicuous consumption. The clone of a castle in Bavaria, it looked to me like a yellow brick house with towers metastasizing from every wing or corner of the structure. With the dark woods in the background, the building actually might have achieved the medieval effect, but the television dish antennae spoiled it for me.
I turned off the van’s headlights because the tall stadium lighting on the right made them redundant. The dozen banks of light dispelled the night over an area easily as large as the Seadogs’ playing field. So effective were they that many of the women strolling about the verdant lawn carried parasols, and most of the men wore sun-visors.
The lawn had been divided into a half-dozen croquet courts, where scores of people dressed in dazzling white clothing ran about chasing colorful wooden balls. Polite applause greeted shots that deftly hooked their way through one or more wickets. The chant of "Poison, poison," arose from the spectators surrounding one court as the Master of that Universe and his green ball stalked prey. Socially correct lies granted solace to those who lost.
In and around the crowds of spectators, I saw clowns capering, fire breathers shooting jets of flame into the air, and a man leading a muzzled bear. Servants, dressed in white formal clothes instead of the more casual sweaters and slacks of their masters, circulated with silver trays of champagne glasses. At white tents set in strategic locations, I saw what looked to be mountains of strawberries and silver fondue services filled with steaming chocolate.
I glanced over at Nadia. "Welcome to the world of the ultra-rich. Set your watch back a hundred and forty years." She shivered. "It is as if the world beyond these walls does not exist for these people."
"They make their own reality," I growled. Because the bright lights from the croquet arena might disturb anyone keeping a normal schedule in the manor house, huge curtains of black velvet hung from steel towers. Larger than any sails ever unfurled on a ship, the dark shrouds draped the house in the proper shades of midnight. "They put up lights to turn night into day, then they hang shades to reverse it again. Incredible."
Back about 500 meters from the manor house, on a grassy knoll overlooking the furthest croquet court, I saw a white pavilion that was open on one side. Not only did it appear larger than the refreshment tents below, but two green heron standards stood at either corner of the open side. If I’d not remembered that design from the kimono I wore aboard the zeppelin, the presence of a Yakuza phalanx standing between the players and the oyabun would have clued me to our destination.
I parked the delivery van next to Raven’s Rolls Royce. The Blue Beast had crisscrossing lines of bullet dents scourging its whole hide. Zig. Zag, and Tom Electric had staunched their scratches and cuts with rapidly reddening bandages, then taken up positions around the Rolls. Inside I saw Tark, with a pressure bandage covering a hole in the left side of his chest. He gave me a brave smile, but looked awfully pale as he used the mobile phone.
By the front gate, Kid Stealth and his Redwings looked like they’d tried a flock migration through a steel typhoon. Stealth, perched on the bed of the track, manned the fifty-caliber machine gun and seemed little worse for the wear. In fact, he seemed to be impatiently awaiting more fighting
On the other hand, his chummers looked like they had caught whatever had missed him. One never knew how many of the Redwings would show up when Stealth put the word out, but the half-dozen gathered near the track looked like a smaller group than I would have expected for this venture. Most of them were tattered and torn, and I saw two stretched out on the grassy lawn. They didn’t move much.
Jerking my thumb toward the back of the vehicle, I smiled at Tom. -‘Help yourself to whatever you find in the back. No anchovies. "
While they descended on the pizza, and a couple of the ultra-rich wandered over to sample this new delight. I pulled on my leather jacket and let it hide most of the Dominion uniform shirt. I tugged the plastic nose off my face, but let it hang by its elastic cord around my neck. The Viper went into my waistband at the small of my back and I carried the MP-9 in my hand.
I looked over at Nadia. "Let’s do this by the numbers. I’ll get the door for you and will announce you to Yamamoto
She looked at me with steely resolution in her eyes. "I’m not going to sign a contract putting Natural Vat’s shipping in Yakuza hands. Your friends, Yoshimura. even the children in the street—they died at his instigation. I won’t let him win.
Visions of the Lady of Light flared like magnesium in my brain, I nodded. "I was gone and you brought me back. Do what you gotta do." I slapped a new clip into the MP-9 and fed a bullet into the chamber. "You call the tune and I’ll play it for you."
Slipping out of the van and coming around the front. I opened the door for her. She took a deep breath and made one last check of her hair in the mirror. She took my hand to steady herself as she alighted from the vehicle and gave my fingers a reassuring squeeze. I winked at her. then led the way up toward the pavilion.
Raven met us halfway. I smiled, though I really didn’t feel like it. "Sorry we’re late. Doc."
"Deadline’s still ten minutes away." He watched me carefully. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I will be." I exhaled slowly to calm myself. "Traffic was heavy on Westlake. My car overheated. I’ll fill you in later."
Lattie headed straight down the knoll toward Nadia, but I waved him off. "Wait for her up there."
His head snapped up and he looked at me with an inhuman stare of rage. "She’s been crying ... If you’ve hurt her . . ."
"Any time but now. corporator . . . " I let the Old One's growl form itself into my words. "With the oyabun, she needs to be her own master. Play the strong, silent type. That’s what she needs from you now."
As I approached the oyabun, lieutenants moved to cut me off and deprive me of my weapons. I stopped and tightened my grip on the submachine gun. "I've been to hell and back because of you. Move them or you'll have cabins to sublet on the zeppelin."
A single crisp clap from Yamamoto scattered his men as effectively as Nadia's clapped spell had devastated the Halloweener ranks. In my eyes, the kobun ceased to exist. I walked straight to where Yamamoto knelt behind a low table and let the Old One’s silvery wolf-eyes meet the other man's ebon stare.
I bowed to him in a proper manner. "It is my honor to present to you Nadia Mirin." I moved to the left, to stand facing Sam Cortez and Wakako Martinas, and cleared the way for Nadia's entrance.
With her green eyes flashing like that, Nadia reminded me of nothing so much as a black panther stalking forward. Lattie and Raven backed her, but walking spine-straight and head-up, she reduced them to an honor guard instead of muscle reinforcing her. She moved with purpose and strength, which on
ly enhanced her sensuality.
I glanced at Cortez’s pale face and saw instantly in his terrified expression why he had tried to have her killed. I looked at Yamamoto, and for the barest of moments, I saw he wished Cortez had succeeded. Nadia stopped to bow to Yamamoto, then the oyabun returned her bow and honored her with the depth of his gesture.
He invited her to kneel with him at the low table, but she refused with a slight shake of the head. Yamamoto did not let that disturb or deter him. "I am most pleased. Ms. Mirin, to see that the reports of your death were premature." He shot a hooded glance at Cortez. "It appears, once again, that Mr. Cortez was in error."
Nadia graced Cortez with a withering stare. "I’ll be certain to put that in any recommendation prospective employers request of me."
Yamamoto placed his right hand on the contract in the center of the table. It had been oriented with the lines for a signature toward Cortez, but a deft twist of the wrist brought it around to Nadia. "As I am certain Dr. Raven told you, I but require your signature on this contract to verify your identity"
"No."
"No?" Yamamoto managed to put a dozen levels of regret into that single word.
Nadia stood her ground. "No. I intend no slight to you. but I will not indenture Natural Vat to a Yakuza organization because of coercion or the suborning of my underlings. If North American Transport wishes to win the trucking contract through normal channels, that is something quite different."
Yamamoto shut his eyes to think, but Cortez never gave him the chance. "Ha! She won’t do it! I’ll sign. I win."
What he won was a trip to Ground Zero for Yamamoto's temper "You have not won. You are a worm. You were weak and that is why we chose to use you. That is why we seduced you into this set-up." The oyabun snapped his fingers. "Wakako. come here. I will subject you to this chimpira no longer. You have served me well. The vehicle we have chosen did not. You. Mr. Cortez, are nothing."
Cortez's jaw dropped like the price of a "sure-thing" investment. then bounced back shut with an angry click. "No. I’ve still got time!" He glanced at his watch. "You gave me until 5:00 A.M. to deliver you confirmation of Nadia Mirin’s death. I will deliver."
He laughed aloud and dropped a hand to the two-way pager clipped on his kimono sash. When he hit the red button on it I feared he’d triggered some sort of explosive device. Pulling Nadia away from him. I put her directly between Lattie and myself. Only when the shooting started did I figure out what he had really done.
Cannons blazing. George Van Housen’s Lone Star helicopter swept up and over the estate wall. The double-line of bullet tracks sliced bloody grooves through the croquet courts, exploding strawberry mountains and splashing chocolate everywhere in addition to leaving broken bodies in newly soiled whites. The strafing run carried almost all the way to our pavilion, but veered off as the Yakuza chased the copter away with ground fire.
Nadia whipped her hands apart and started to bring them together. I lunged over and grabbed her wrists before she could complete the spellcasting, grounding the magical energy she’d gathered. White-hot agonies drove me to my knees, but it was the backhanded slap by Lattie that knocked me tumbling across the knoll.
Tasting blood in my mouth. I held my right hand up to prevent her from attempting the spell again. "No! Stealth and the others . . ." I breathed. I rolled to my feet and met Lattie's stare. "I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I just wanted to save them."
The helicopter hovered above the manor, its downdraft snapping the curtains like a flag in a hurricane. A rocket pod snapped out on the left side of the craft, but before I could recover my MP-9 and push my luck even further. Stealth opened up on the flying machine. The fifty-cal gouged great holes in the copter’s black flesh, obliterating the Lone Star insignia.
The pilot whirled the helicopter and let the cannons scatter the ambulatory Redwings. Fire ignited in the launch pod and a rocket streaked down to hit the half-track amidships. The explosion knocked the twisted vehicle back and through the estate wall, but I saw Stealth’s silhouette leap free of the wreckage and tumble to safety.
As the chopper swung back toward us, time seemed to slow almost to a standstill. I looked over at Nadia and hoped to see her hands clapping together to get the rigger piloting the craft or the linked gunner. The deionizing spell might hurt my friends, but a missile heading our way would definitely kill me. Given what I’d been through earlier, that was an experience I devoutly wanted to avoid.
Nadia did not move, but Lattie did. He wrenched the dragon bracelet from his left wrist and tossed it to me. The instant I caught it, the name "Haesslich" echoed through my mind in a hollow voice. I shook my head to clear it, then met his stare and knew Haesslich was Lattie’s true name.
The look in his eyes went from being mildly apologetic to inhumanly amused. In the blink of an eye, his human form evaporated and his golden wings spread to catch the air. His powerful hind legs launched him into the air and his tail just missed me as it whipped by.
The main difficulty with fire-and-forget missiles is that they only target the things the gunner designates for them. The Lone Star gunner, I figured, could be excused for losing a second or two of reaction time when a golden Dragon appeared out of nowhere and rose to challenge the helicopter’s dominance of the air. Of course, had I been the gunner, I would have made damned sure the Dragon became my new target and that I hit what I was aiming at.
He tried, he really did.
Another missile jetted from the rocket pod. It corrected only once, then shot in at its target. Haesslich dodged the missile with a neat little twist and roll. A short puff of flame-breath and the guidance circuitry melted away. The unguided missile arced off into the night, following the last set of commands it had been given, and detonated on impact with the Sound.
The chopper pilot immediately pulled the copter up and back to bring his Gatling cannons into play, then sidled the craft over toward the street as if planning to duck and dodge its way back through Seattle’s concrete canyons. Haesslich took some hits from the Airstar’s guns, but his roars sounded more like outrage than pain to me.
With two powerful pumps of his wings. Haesslich soared above the helicopter. Rearing his head back, then lunging it forward, the Dragon vomited a yellow-orange inferno. The whirling rotor sucked the flames down and in, wrapping the chopper in a brilliant cocoon. Engorged with fire, the helicopter exploded. Its flame-filled skeleton dropped like a wingless bird to the ground below.
Absorbed in watching Lattie's transformation, I didn’t immediately notice that Cortez was trying to run away. The second I did, the Old One flooded new power through me. A low, sinister laugh-growl rolling from my throat, I sprinted across the croquet courts after him. Pulling parallel and dropping my pace to match his, I barked, "I’m poison; you lose!" Grabbing a double handful of his hair, I sped up. Halfdragging him through fields of wickets, I steered him along, then hurled him forward. Off-balance and utterly out of control, he slammed into a mountain of strawberries and nearly drowned in a tidal wave of molten chocolate. I walked over, and filling my fist with his right ankle, I hauled him back to the pavilion.
I deposited him in a heap before Yamamoto. "It’s five in the morning. Do you know where your underlings are?"
Yamamoto ignored me.
Cortez shook off the effects of his clash with class and pulled himself into a proper kneeling position. Blazing eyes looked out from a dripping brown face. "It’s all your fault, Nadia Mirin, but I know your secret."
He looked up at Yamamoto. "You want the contract? I’ll give Mirin to you." He thrust a finger back at her. "She’s not Nadia Mirin. Her name is Dawn McGrath and she’s a wagemage on the run from Hondisumi. Now she’ll have to sign the contract or you'll expose her!"
Neither Nadia nor Yamamoto moved a muscle. They both stared at Cortez, willing him to melt beneath their gazes. Cortez somehow believed that he could still be a competitor in the same league as his two superiors and use Nadia’s secret to bargain for his o
wn life. Expectantly, he watched the oyabun.
Yamamoto looked up at Wakako. He nodded once. Cortez’s Yakuza lover produced a small pistol from the folds of her kimono. I saw a red targeting dot appear in the middle of her right eye. Without any sign of emotion, she shot him between the eyes.
Above us, Haesslich soared through the twilight to intercept another approaching helicopter. He veered off when he saw it had no weapons and bore the logo of the zeppelin line. With one more slow circuit of the grounds, he surveyed us all, then flipped through the air with incredible grace and vanished into the night.
Despite the breeze from the new helicopter landing behind the pavilion, Yamamoto composed himself most serenely as he stood. "I apologize for the necessity of killing Cortez here, but I cannot abide a liar." His shark-eyes shifted past me to where Raven knelt to attend to one of the wounded croquet players."I congratulate you on summoning that Dragon spirit. Imagine Cortez thinking he could trick me into believing Ms. Mirin a sorceress."
He bowed to Nadia. "I thank you for giving North American Transport this opportunity to bid on your trucking service. I regret we could not come to satisfactory terms."
Beyond him, in the distance, I saw the lights on the Graf Zeeland spring to life again. "I look forward to our doing business in the future."
With Wakako in tow, Yamamoto boarded the helicopter and it lifted off. The downdraft from its rotors blew the unsigned contract from the table. Nadia gestured at it covertly and it burst into flame. The ashes blew across Cortez’s body, then crumbled away to nothing.
I reached out and pulled Nadia into a hug that I thought we both needed. The fires from the helicopter and the halftrack combined with the shocked state of the rich folk wandering about to remind us of the neighborhood to the south. The carnage in both places was due to the same catalyst, yet Yamamoto simply flew away, a puppet master casually dropping his toys.
Into the Shadows Page 31