Nosferatu s-14

by Carl Sargent

  "Look, if this place is so rich, how come they can't afford decent aircraft?" he complained above the noise of the engines.

  "We're tourists, old boy. You win some, you lose some," Michael replied rather off-puttingly. "Besides, almost no one gets eaten on safari anymore, so maybe this is how you even up the odds, huh? You can't cheat the odds, matey."

  "You're frizzed," the elf shouted at him.

  "Of course. It runs in the family. Barking mad for generations," Michael yelled back. "I mean, why the hell else would I be here?"

  Serrin sat back and didn't say anything more. He dozed off and didn't wake until yet another descent jerked him from sleep with the thump of rubber hitting tarmac. He couldn't keep track of how many times he'd felt that in the last few hectic days and nights. He looked around sleepily at Tom.

  The troll sat impassively, a faraway expression on his face. Serrin realized that it had been hard for the shaman to resist attacking Shakala sooner than he had. Bear was vicious when wounded. Serrin had seen it only once, a Cajun woman from his Lafayette days. A soul gentle as any he'd ever met until she went wild after getting slashed in a bar fight. Even a pair of ork samurai had run for their lives.

  The weary little group straggled into yet another airport, collecting their baggage and heading for the row of cabs almost robotically. By the time the taxi driver delivered them to the center of town, Serrin felt almost hyper-alert. He was tired, but not sleepy, and he needed some distraction.

  "I think I'll hit the town. Michael, what do you think?"

  "It should be safe," the Englishman said carefully. "It looks as if our quarry has bolted. We're chasing him now, not the other way around. Just stick to the safe places if you can figure out what they are."

  "We did some wandering the other day. Spirits, was it only two days ago? I'm losing track of time."

  "Just be sure to be back in bed for your cocoa by half-past ten," Michael chuckled. Ignoring Serrin's injunction that he go slot, the Englishman climbed out of the cab at the entrance to the hotel and paid the driver.

  "Can I come with you?" Kristen asked Serrin.

  He grinned and took her hand. "Sure," he said with a mischievous grin. "Let's go and have some fun. Catch you later," he called to Michael and Tom as the cab pulled away with him and Kristen still in the back seat.

  Tom looked worried as he and Michael entered the lobby. "Don't like it," the troll fretted. "I'm supposed to be his protection, but I can't go with them. I'd be in the way."

  "You could hail a cab and tell the driver to follow them," Michael laughed. "Just like in the trid. Hang easy, chummer. They'll be fine.

  "Meanwhile, term, I've got some work to do. After dinner I'm going to track down whoever owned that place. What about you? You can sit in if you want. I don't expect any problems, but I wouldn't mind having you around on the off chance I do run into some bad 1C. I could use someone to pull the plug if steam starts coming out of my ears."

  The troll smiled. "Can I get room service?"

  "Eat the place out, matey. Be my guest." Michael smiled at him, more at ease with the huge troll now. He guessed that Tom felt he'd done something important by getting them Shakala's help. Perhaps the troll wouldn't be so stand-offish with him now.

  "Where's all this going to end up, I wonder?" Tom said in the elevator after Michael had reclaimed his deck from hotel security.

  "God knows. Ask Nostradamus," Michael said.

  "Who's he?" Tom was truly puzzled.

  "Middle linebacker for the Seahawks," Michael replied, laughing at his own joke while the troll looked on, uncomprehending.

  "Seriously, Tom," he said. "I haven't got a clue where all this is going to end up. Honestly. But give me a few hours and we'll be another step closer."

  Serrin knew he shouldn't have risked the spicy beef strips at the club. He'd been happy enough listening to the music, enjoying a drink, laughing and talking with Kristen, and just generally observing the scene. Now the food wasn't doing his digestion any favors.

  'Scuse me, Kristen," he said, getting up from the table. "Be back in a minute." His guts were telling him loud and clear that he needed to get to the men's room fast.

  Too busy groaning in discomfort, Serrin didn't register the magical warning from his spell lock fast enough. He'd just entered the cubicle when the door to it was suddenly kicked open and two hard-faced men with Predators stood staring menacingly as he struggled to get his pants up. They gestured him to put his hands on his head, a request with which he wasn't in any position to argue. A gun held to his back, he was led past an astonished group of men at the urinals and out to a back door; not through the bar, but through the back of the building, past the crates of empty bottles littering the rear. Waiting just outside the door were two more men with SMGs.

  Slot, Serrin thought, I shouldn't have taken the chance of showing my face in town tonight. Now that they know we've been out to Umfolozi, they're going to dispose of me damn quick.

  He considered a suicidal last spell, trying to take out as many of them as possible, when he remembered that Kristen was still in the bar. When he never came back, she'd beat feet to Michael and Tom. Perhaps it wasn't over yet. When he thought of her, the idea of self-immolation lost its appeal anyway.

  The pair of muscleboys forced him into a waiting limo at gunpoint and then the auto sped away along the highway.

  "Don't try to shout or scream at the robot, no one will hear you. The doors and windows are soundproof as well as bulletproof," said an elven voice coming from the darkness-shrouded figure sitting on one side of Serrin, opposite the gunman who'd forced him into the car.

  "Robot? What robot?"

  "Sorry, mage. Local term for traffic lights. Guess you haven't had time to pick that one up yet." The elf leant forward to the driver; in the brightness of a passing streetlight Serrin saw the details of his lean face. That red hair wasn't common among American elfs, though his accent was pure Tir Tairngire. Tir Tairngire? The name of that elven enclave had never showed up on Michael's

  lists. Serrin suddenly began to wonder about this in a way he wished he'd done a lot sooner.

  "So I've got the right blood type," Serrin said very cautiously. The other elf reached for a button with his right hand and a glass barrier hissed upward, separating them from the driver's compartment.

  "I think I might enjoy it if you talked a little more," the red-haired elf said, grinning. On his left side, Serrin felt a gun-barrel pressed into his side. "But not here. Later, somewhere else. If you reach into the compartment in front of you, you'll find a small plastic cup with a blue liquid in it. Tastes quite pleasant. I suggest you drink it. It's merely a sedative. Something to make sure you won't be able to remember what route we'll be taking to our destination.

  "So be a good boy and drink it," the distinctive elven voice continued with a harder edge. Serrin had no choice. Within two minutes, the street lights seemed to become a dazzling kaleidoscope, and then everything was swallowed in a darkness black as pitch.

  21

  His head felt truly dreadful, like a migraine or the fog of a terrible cold. It was late, he knew, but the drug had apparently played havoc with his system for he felt his heart pounding faster than normal. Oh well, he figured, standard interrogation procedure. Keep me awake when my resistance is low.

  Serrin sat up on the cot to find himself in a room that was bare except for the makeshift bed, a table, and a rickety chair. Lit only by a naked bulb on the ceiling, the place would have made a barracks look like a gaudy Turkish brothel in comparison. The red-haired elf sat with his elbows resting on the back of the chair, legs splayed indolently to either side. He broke open a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Serrin. The mage hesitated.

  "Oh, come on," the other elf said. "Go ahead. If I wanted to drug you, I've got some friends outside who'd just love to help me out."

  Serrin took the cigarette. His own brand. He accepted a light from the elf and breathed in the smoke.

  "Who are you
?" he asked him.

  "I think I'm the one who'll be asking the questions, wouldn't you say? But you can call me Magellan. You've been causing some trouble, I'm afraid. Oh, before you consider doing any flashy stuff with your magic, I'd advise you to forget it. We've spread a powerful magical damper around here. You wouldn't be able to get off the feeblest little squirt. There are also half a dozen big Zulus with a variety of exciting weapons outside, so you don't have a hope in hell of getting out of here."

  He was confident, Serrin realized. Maybe too confident. And didn't even seem to be packing a weapon.

  "Trouble?" he asked.

  "Well, let's put it this way," Magellan said, pouring himself a glass of red wine from a bottle sitting next to the ashtray on the small table, "you've been trotting around the globe a lot lately. Which, I'd guess, must have something to do with that business back in Heidelberg."

  "Why don't you just ask me what you want to know?" Serrin said, then wanted to kick himself for being so dumb. He should be playing for time, but the after-effects of the drug were playing havoc with his ability to think straight.

  "It's more a question of my finding out what you do know and what you don't," Magellan said evenly.

  "And what depends on that?" Serrin asked.

  "Stop playing games, fool. Somebody tried to snatch you, but you got away first. So now you want to find out who called the hit, and get revenge on him."

  "Right on time," Serrin said. Things weren't really as simple as all that, but Magellan seemed to have everything so scripted that he decided to go along to see where it would all lead.

  "You got the troll for muscle and Sutherland for brains. The decker does some investigating into missing mages. Clever but predictable. You start putting pieces together and find someone else who escaped a snatching. You make it to the Zulu Nation to talk to him. Tell me why you hit Cape Town first. I want to hear that."

  Serrin judged that Magellan didn't actually know, and his heart skipped a beat. This elf wasn't one of the original kidnappers, he was sure of that. He was working for someone else. It also meant he genuinely needed to know some things.

  "Michael said we should go there first because he knows the city. We picked up some weapons and some medikit stuff. We needed that out at Umfolozi."

  "What about the girl?"

  "Look, Michael knows this brothel, says no one would ever find us there. The girl, well, she's a little bit of a looker, right? I enjoyed myself." Serrin hated himself for those words, but it was a story Magellan might just buy.

  If Serrin could keep some of his cards close to his chest, he might yet have a chance in this poker game after all.

  Magellan looked at him intently. Serrin met his gaze and didn't flinch.

  "So you jazzed around a little," the other elf said. "That doesn't explain why you took her along to the Nation? If Sutherland's been there before, he knows that her Xhosa face would make her about as popular as a garlic pizza to a vampire."

  The analogy was deliberate, Serrin was sure. He gave a slight start, deliberately, to clue Magellan that he knew that part of the puzzle.

  "She said she knew about the local critters. Button spiders, poisonous snakes, that kind of thing. Said that would be useful to us."

  "Hah! What would a kaffir know about the wilds of Umfolozi?"

  "You got me," Serrin said, "but that's what she told us." He spoke with a forcefulness based on the fact that he was actually speaking the truth. "Guess she liked the money and thought it might be a kick to go along for the ride."

  Magellan looked long and hard at him, then nodded. "All right. So you find Shakala. What does he tell you?"

  "He saw enough to describe one of the kidnappers. The description matched someone who'd also come after me. Guy with a scar."

  Magellan nodded again. He poured a glass of wine for Serrin and the mage took it, sniffing it suspiciously.

  "Didn't I already tell you that if I wanted you drugged "

  "And I heard you, loud and clear. But what I ate played hell with my guts back at the club and I don't think either one of us wants to see me zooking it all up right now."

  Magellan leaned back slightly and laughed. "Serrin, I like you. I really wouldn't want to kill you unless I have to."

  "Thanks," Serrin said, risking a sip of the wine.

  "I mean it," Magellan insisted. "Not someone like you. But it all depends on where we go with this conversation."

  Someone like you. The other elf gave those words a peculiar emphasis that made Serrin wonder if his survival would depend on figuring out exactly what Magellan meant by that. And he'd have to be figuring it out at the same time he was thinking hard about every word he uttered. A bead of sweat formed on his brow and trickled down to his eyebrow.

  Michael had barely jacked in to begin his work before the sound of the girl frantically hammering at the door forced him to jack out again double-quick. Sobbing uncontrollably, she ran in and flung herself into Tom's arms. It was several long minutes before they were able to get the story out of her.

  "Try to think, Kristen. Please," Michael said exasper-atedly, ignoring Tom's hostile glare. "We can't help Serrin unless we know exactly what happened. Listen to me. Think carefully amp; who followed him into the men's room? Did you see anyone unusual, anyone you might be able to recognize again?"

  She shook her head and started to cry once more. Michael was desperate to keep her talking, but had to back off and leave her weeping in the troll's arms. By the time he'd poured a drink and got the urge to shout at her under control, she was finally managing to mumble some more details in response to Tom's gentler queries.

  "So you're sure he didn't come back into the club? That probably means they went out a back door from the men's room. And if you didn't see anyone unusual follow him in, they must have hired locals to do the job. And that means, almost certainly, that someone at the club knows what went down. We'll have to ask some questions."

  "What about the police?" Tom asked.

  "Not an option. We're traveling on fake IDs, remember? That plastic got us through immigration, but we can't risk anyone looking too close," Michael said. Then something occurred to him.

  "Tom, that spell lock of Serrin's. Have you ever handled it? Could you trace him, astrally?"

  The troll shook his head. "Slot, man, you don't go around handing out your locks for another magician to play with. Besides, I don't have the skill to trace him." Tom shook his head sadly again. "I just can't do it."

  "But you've got to try. There are lots of his things here. You've got a link."

  "Even if I could, it would take many, many hours. Face it, chummer. I just can't do it," the troll said wretchedly. He knew only too well his own limitations as a shaman.

  "Tom, you've got to try," Michael pleaded.

  Tom breathed in hard and cast his eyes down at the floor. "All right amp; I'll try, I'll do what I can. But it ain't gonna work," he said. He let go of the girl and plodded slowly toward the door. "I need to be alone. Peace and quiet," he said, then shut the door behind him.

  "Kristen, you're going to have to take me back to that club. But first I have to ask you something," Michael said, not sure how to ask the question without offending her. "Did you get looks from people? For being a Xhosa?"

  She nodded.

  "Then it will be better if you don't come inside with me. I'll have to go in alone. If I spread enough money around, I might learn something. They may be hostile to Serrin if seeing your face reminds them too strongly of who he came in with, right?" He tried to say this gently, then added, "It's just a fact of life, kid."

  "Don't I know it," she said miserably.

  "But if it wasn't for the description you've given us, we'd have nothing to go on. You've already done your bit."

  They took the elevator down to the street and hailed a cab, which Kristen directed to the club. Michael got out, then paid the driver and told him to take Kristen back to the hotel. Too agitated to sit quietly as they rode along, Kristen
began to search through her bag for the key card to her room, coming up with two instead of one. She sat looking at them blankly for a moment, then suddenly remembered that Serrin had given her his to carry in her purse.

  By the time she got back to the Imperial and was riding

  the elevator up to her room, a plan was already beginning to form in her mind. Sure, it was crazy, but she'd seen where Serrin kept his things and if there was enough money and if she could just figure out how to make the transfers amp;

  Michael was back from the club within an hour. Money had bought memories. Of four men, members of a known street gang, and the part of town they claimed as their turf. He was puzzled, though. This wasn't how the previous snatchings had been carried out against Serrin, or even Shakala in this same country. A gentle knock at Tom's door told him the troll was still deep in reverie, trying to trace the elf. He was contemplating disturbing him, since he'd gotten his own trace of a kind, when Kristen suddenly burst out into the corridor.

  "I think I know where he might be," Michael told her. "Trouble is, there could be an entire street gang around him."

  "That won't be a problem if you can find ten thousand nuyen," she said cheerfully, sashaying past him into his room with a grin. He closed the door behind her and lounged against it, looking at her intently.

  "What have you done?" he asked. She told him.

  "You don't seem to like Humanis much," Magellan probed. "I hear you helped out in a few paybacks."

  Serrin tried to work out where this sudden change of subject was leading. And he was also still cogitating over that phrase: someone like you. An elf. Me. Him. The kidnapper at the top of the pile. Elves.

  "Got to protect your own," Serrin growled.

  "Damn straight," Magellan said, with just a little too much wine in his voice. Then he again made an abrupt shift.

  "Let's see what else you know. Sutherland's identified the ownership of the Umfolozi plant by now?"