The Way responded, turning toward my destination. I took two quick steps, my shoulders hunching slightly as TechTown burned into place around me. Flowers of light opened on all sides, cajoling, pleading, commanding, all in the name of an economy that never slept and under the auspices of a culture that spent its most powerful communication techniques on advertising. The streets were remarkably bare of pedestrians. In TechTown, the skies bore the brunt of the traffic snarl. Between the vast heights of TechTown’s superalloy towers snaked layers of flyers, so thick that it has been said that night in TechTown outshines the day, despite the harsh light of the naked sun.
I turned left, strolling down the block toward a small familiar door. It slid noiselessly aside before my hand even brushed its matte black surface. Inside, Joseph Cartaphilos met my eyes, jerked his head toward the side counter, and gave his attention back to the only other customer in the shop. I leaned against the side counter, studying them.
Joseph’s customer, a small pale man, shook his head. He wore a purple, mesh muscle shirt and plastic pants. The curling white traceries of cheap implant surgeries covered every exposed inch of skin. “That’s not what I’m looking for,” he said harshly.
Joseph looked sincerely apologetic. Joseph always looked sincere. It was his gift. “That’s what you’re paying for. You want current military reflex boost wetware, you pay current military price.”
The small man cut his eyes toward me, a snarl curling his lip. His face went slack (his version of thoughtful) and then he nodded sharply. “I’ll be back.”
Joseph gave him a cheerful smile and secured the door behind him as he left. “Zethus. I’ve been expecting you.”
I gave him a curious look. “Oh? I didn’t think I was so predictable.”
“It’s a little less between visits each time,” Joseph said with a smile. “You’re developing a reputation.” He reached beneath the glass cases, manipulated something, and pulled out a small box. He placed the box on the counter. His eyes on my face, he flicked the lid up. “That what you’re looking for?”
My breath hissed between my teeth. I ran one finger lightly down the barrel of the injector. I paused on the single ampule. “Is it a ten?”
Joseph spread his hands. “Hey. I know your current balance better than you do. It’s a ten. You wouldn’t come for anything else. One golden hour for each year of rejuvenation. Ten golden hours for ten years of life. You’re actually slightly ahead of the silver curve right now. You must work your ass off.”
I gave him a tight grin. “I’m motivated.” I closed the lid carefully and caught his eye. “Make the transfer.”
“Done.” He cocked his head curiously. “You mind me asking why you do this? Not that I’m complaining, of course. I love a loyal customer. But you’ve no fondness for the sparkle of Tech-Town or the things we have to offer. I know there are more … traditional … paths to get what you want. Paths you should be more comfortable with than this. Less expensive paths.”
I tucked the box safely beneath my arm. “I have no great love for the life in this place, that’s true enough. But those other ways you speak of have costs of their own.” I met his eyes squarely. “I know those costs too well to think them any less expensive in the long run.”
He pursed his lips as I turned and stepped through the opening door. Blade stood ready, though I did not believe I would need him.
The other man had waited for me, of course. I expected that. He was fast. Worse, he was enough machine that it took me longer to touch his will than I had anticipated. He landed a glancing strike with the edge of his hand to my left temple before I managed to shut him down. Even though I rolled with it, for a few moments I saw nothing but star-shot darkness. I found the wall of the shop and braced myself until the ground steadied under my feet. I leaned back against the cool stone of the tower wall and looked at my attacker. He swayed where he stood, his eyes open and unfocused.
My eyes moved past him to a tall man in a brown cloak who had stopped to regard us both. Beneath the cloak, I knew, he wore a habit as severe and plain as his outer garment. Under that he would be wearing NeoTemplar composite armor, standard equipment along with the variety of weapons he always carried about his person.
The tall man’s dark eyes met mine. “Witch.”
I rose to my feet slowly. “Knight Commander Vayne.”
A number in my Host bristled or quailed, depending on their nature, as he weighed me with his eyes. “Feeding your habit, I see.”
Suddenly sweating, I retrieved the box from the ground where it had fallen. I’d lost track of it during the attack. I flicked the lid back. My legs went rubbery with relief as I saw that the ampule remained unbroken. Shaking my head, I pulled the injector out and fitted the ampule in place. I didn’t intend to take the chance of losing it again after coming so close to seeing more than five years of hard labor vanish in a single foolish instant.
Vayne’s voice thickened with distaste. “You could have the courtesy to indulge your vices in private.”
I met his eyes as I triggered the injector and felt ice hit my veins. “You don’t have to watch.”
He gave me a grim smile. “Yes I do. I still bear responsibility for bringing you to this place. Your sins weigh on me, but one day I will see your soul brought to the light.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and smiled as I felt the substance of my purchase spread through my body. A tingling intensity built, an earthy pleasure like a long, slow orgasm, and when the wave passed, the small pains had faded, or at least diminished. Even the throbbing in my head became little more than a memory. “Does your debt weigh so heavily on you, then?”
“A debt is a debt,” Vayne said sharply. “I would, of course, prefer to return your favor by saving your eternal soul rather than your miserable life.”
“Then you shouldn’t take such offense at these treatments. The longer I live, the more chances you have to convert me.”
Vayne frowned. “I do not care to be mocked. This unnatural extension of your allotted span is a defiance of the will of God. It gives you nothing more than an opportunity to stray further from the path of righteousness. Your dependence on this drug is a weakness. Not unlike your dependence on that horde of captive demons.”
I flexed and stretched, caught again in the wonder of youth renewed. “Damn, the little pains add up so slowly, you forget them until they’re gone.”
Vayne’s hard features suddenly relaxed, and he laughed. “You never listen.”
I gave him my best rolling two-step. “Would you rather waste youth on the young? Just let me continue as a cheerful pagan and potential convert for a while longer. You know I am no enemy of the Faith.”
“Only by example,” Vayne growled.
I neatly tucked the injector and empty ampule back into the box, and tossed the package into a nearby recycler. I turned to my attacker, who still stood loosely, and gave him a single silent command. He folded like an empty suit of clothes.
I grinned at Vayne. “Maybe someone will relieve him of the burden of any loose cash, and he’ll wake up a wiser man.”
Vayne looked down at him unsympathetically. “I doubt he’ll gain any wisdom, though he may lose some cash, if he’s foolish enough to be carrying any.”
“So were you just passing by, or what?”
“I had an errand to the local Chapter, but I have been trying to find you. You might as well know. Some old friends of ours are back in town. They’ve been asking about you.”
My eyes narrowed. “Whitesnakes?”
He nodded.
I allowed myself a brief pungent editorial, then sighed. “The sons of bitches are persistent, I’ll give them that.”
“Banishing their Avatar gave you a certain … prominence.”
My lips twisted. “You mean I’m still number one on their list of people to do.” I gave him a sideways glance. “You’re in their top five, you know.”
He gave me a feral grin. “I always wanted to be popula
r. Just means I don’t have to look as hard for them. I don’t like cultists. Give me an honest unbeliever like yourself any day.”
“You’re becoming corrupt. Too much philosophy. Perhaps one day I will convert you.”
Vayne snorted. “Not with your arguments.” He gave me a direct look. “Watch your back.”
“You as well.” I watched him walk back down the lonely street, and disappear down a narrow Way.
A strange man, Anthony Vayne, Knight Commander of the Knights of the New Temple. He’d been my ticket into this land of wonder and wastrels, introducing me to my Master in the Ways as a favor for having helped him out of a sticky situation in a desolate place, back when I’d first lost my way and found myself on the outskirts of CrossTown. From what I’d heard, he’d been around CrossTown for as long as any could remember. He undoubtedly came from down a Way where man’s allotted span was considerably longer than it was where I came from—which gave him a certain comfortable room to talk about my desire to stretch what few years I had. I had to admit, though, that in the light of his unexpected depths, I occasionally found myself tempted to curiosity about the faith he followed.
Broke again, feeling ten years younger (guaranteed by warranty) than I had before I’d come to TechTown, I set my feet on the path Vayne had taken, but I chose a different Way. I cut off quickly into the narrow mouth of an alleyway unmarked by anchor lights. As I strolled along, I reached out to the fabric of the Road with senses tuned to years of wandering the Ways. That particular path had been so well used that the Road ahead blurred with myriad destinations. The opposite of the safely anchored main Ways, a wild WanderWay like that small alley could dump an unwary traveler into any one of thousands of variant possibilities.
I touched the living murmur of the Road and ran my senses across it like a bow across the strings of a violin. The Road responded to my touch, throwing up countless promises: smells of rich, spicy food and the sound of low laughter on a quiet summer evening; the full moon riding high in the velvet sky, fat and bright and rich; the quiet lap of water in a cold gray harbor empty of ships, the evening sky dark with the threat of a squall; the sun rising over a hillside house of glass and steel, the lights of the City, father of all cities, spread out below like the fading glitter of fool’s gold, the illusion fading but not yet out of reach …
I shook my head, pulling back from the promise of the Road, and played a careful, familiar tune, soothing the wild Way and turning it toward a place full of the scent of rain and wet wood, the sound of the storm stalking through the forest on cat’s paws to curl around the cold chimney and scratch gently at the cracking paint of the too-thin wooden doors. Ragged wisps of cloud opened and closed against the stars, teasing me with the glimpse of a clear night, and the lights of the city were no more than a bright fog off to the west, while the voice of the wind swallowed all but the sharpest sounds of the bustle of that place.
I took my first step down that Road as my destination solidified, felt the temperature drop, and smiled. I raised my face to taste the rain, letting my long coat catch the wind and spread behind me like the cloak I no longer wore. The house rose before me out of the rocking clasp of the trees, and the gate flapped in welcome. I crossed into the yard, stopped to secure the gate—reminding myself again to fix that damned latch—and paused to run my hands across the silky cold heads of my jade spirit dogs. They slept peacefully, dreaming light dreams of the hunt and the kill at the end, their slumber undisturbed by any visitors.
I took my front steps two at a time. Mine was a small house, clinging to the edge of CrossTown in a patch of woody real estate secured only by my will and the anchors I had built there over the last few years. When winter came, the wind always found whatever chinks I had missed the summer before, but it was private and it was mine, and that was all that mattered to me. Not least of the benefits of having the skills of a WayShaper is the ability to carve lebensraum out of amorphous possibility. The rural nature of my neighborhood meant there were no other dwellings in immediate proximity to my own, and I liked it that way. Chimereon, my closest neighbor, was a carnivorous serpent-goddess whose realm extended into a forest much deeper and darker than my own quiet patch of woodland. That stretch of wild lands buffering my place from her temple suited us both. We had exchanged visits when I first came to stake my claim out at the edge of her realm, and she turned out to be good company, with a mutual interest in chess. I hadn’t seen her for some time. Good fences, good neighbors, and all that.
The front door opened at my touch. As I stepped over the threshold the lamps flared to cold brilliance and fire leaped in the hearth.
“Welcome home,” Silver said quietly.
I shucked my coat and tossed it casually across the back of an overstuffed chair, sprawling and split from years of shaping itself to my body. “Anything happen while I’ve been away?”
“Nothing much. A couple of stray dire wolves from Goblin-Town. The riders were most apologetic.” Silver’s voice had no more inflection than usual, which is to say, none at all. A mote of light danced at the edge of one wall. Silver’s voice radiated from that. Everyone should have a housekeeper like Silver to watch over the grounds while they’re away.
“Any damage?”
“None to the property. They were too smart to cross any boundaries. Terrorized the local wildlife a bit. Nothing serious.”
I sat and pulled off my boots. “I’m surprised Chimereon didn’t take umbrage.”
“She was out hunting. I would imagine that’s the reason the goblins were so apologetic. No one wants to be on the bad side of that daughter of Quetzalcoatl.”
I laughed. “She does take her cold-bloodedness to an extreme. Any messages?”
“One moment.”
I sat back, stretching while he checked with the Bank of Hours. He would also have the water heating and let me know when it was ready for my shower. My muscles were loosening, relaxed as the rejuvenation treatment continued to work through my system. A hot shower would be a nice way to help that process along.
“Four messages,” Silver said abruptly. “One from Chimereon. One from Grimly Carvebone. One from Eliza Drake. One from undisclosed source. And your balance has been updated.”
My eyes narrowed. “Undisclosed source? What’s the disclosure fee?”
“More than your current balance.”
I frowned. “Chimereon’s message is predictable, given the Goblins and their unruly mounts. She probably wanted to know if I had any axes to grind that she could add to her own. As a courtesy, of course. Carvebone would be one of the Goblins, yes?”
“Correct. And the Lady Drake will undoubtedly be extending the usual invitation.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Undoubtedly. I’ll give her one thing: she’s persistent. What’s my current balance?”
“One golden hour, twenty-seven silver hours, thirty-four iron hours, and three bronze hours.”
I opened my eyes, my frown deepening. “Not that I’m complaining, but that’s one gold more than I thought I had. Have you been holding out on me?”
Silver refused to be baited. “With the message you were advanced one conditional golden hour from an undisclosed source.”
“Open the message.”
On the wall across from me, a vertical line of light flared to life, and then turned sideways. Distinctive black calligraphy flowed across the white background silently:
To the human sorcerer known as Zethus, I send salutations. The advance you have been given is conditional on meeting my messenger at Sidelines Altaforte within one hour of opening this message. You are bound to nothing beyond this meeting by the deposit to your account.
Silver closed the display. “That short text is all that the message contained.”
I sighed and reached for my boots. No rest for the wicked. “Trash the Goblins’ message. They’re just trying to drum up some support, now that they know who they crossed. Chimereon can deal with them as she sees fit. I’ll lo
ok at her note later. The messenger will already be traveling to Sidelines Altaforte, I would imagine.”
“You don’t suspect a trap?”
“I can’t turn down the fee. And since that message had all indications of a Faerie invitation, I certainly would not rule out the possibility of a trap. But Nuada Silverhand’s more subtle than that, and I have more favorable than unfavorable contacts over past the fields we know, so it’s worth the risk.”
“And the message from Eliza Drake?”
I thought about my earlier conversation with Joseph, about the prices paid for immortality. I’d had conversations with Eliza in mind since then. I’d known her a long time. I’d met Eliza Drake originally while I had been on a job for my Master in the Ways, Matthias Corvinus. Eliza had her own skills in WayShaping, as well as other abilities in the domains of life and death. Those abilities were rare among vampires, and that gave her a certain independence. She also had to deal with certain limitations, due to her circumstances. Undeath isn’t a free ride. Vayne, of course, didn’t approve of Eliza. Eliza had become too comfortable with darkness for Vayne’s taste, but I didn’t share Vayne’s prejudices. “Save it too,” I told Silver. “Always keep your options open.”
“As you wish.”
I stood, pulled my coat around my shoulders, and walked out into the wind, deciding that I must have imagined the distaste I had heard in Silver’s voice at the last.
CHAPTER III
THE IDES of March had come to Rome, and Caesar had that hunted look in his eye. I watched the odds shift in the top left corner of the big screen as he descended the steps of Pompey’s Theater, and idly wondered what the variation on this particular line of possibility might be, down some distant Way.
Senators poured down around him, and Caesar’s eyes rounded with fear as he saw the glitter of knives rise above him. Surround sound clearly delivered the scraping of the blades on bone, the dull impact of hilts meeting flesh, and then the crowd pulled back and parted for a tall, muscular man who wore his toga with spare elegance.
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