by R. L. King
“They’re wary,” she said. “I think they’re as afraid of you as you are of them.”
That was very odd. He watched them as they drew closer: four shabby, pale figures dressed in ragged clothes and threadbare coats, their eyes shining bright little pinpoints out of deep-set hollows in their gray faces. None of them appeared to be armed, and they flinched away from the lights Ocelot and Cosworth’s little drone were shining on them.
“Cosworth, tone down the light a bit,” Winterhawk said. Then, louder, to the ghouls: “You lot: That’s quite far enough.”
“Why are you wasting time talking to them?” Dreja asked over the link. “Fry them with a fireball or something so we can get the headware and get the frag out of here.”
“So quick to kill,” he murmured. “Just be quiet a moment.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the four ghouls, who had stopped at his order.
“’Hawk…” Ocelot’s voice was tight with tension.
“Shh.” To the ghouls, he said, “We’re here because we want something you’ve taken from us. If you let us have it, we’ll leave you in peace.”
For a moment it looked like they weren’t going to answer him, but then a thin, older-looking male shook his head. “You can’t have him…” he said. His voice was creaky, as if he’d fallen out of the habit of using it.
“He’s ours now,” said another one. Younger: a bit more muscle on his spare frame. “And so are you.” From up in the balcony, some of the other ghouls murmured agreement.
“Mind your manners,” Winterhawk replied in an even tone, “and we’ll mind ours.” He kept his focus on the older man, who was apparently the group’s leader. “Make a move on us, and we’ll have the lot of you dead before you can get near us. I’d advise you not to test us on that.” He paused, letting the words sink in for a beat, then added, “But it doesn’t have to come to that, does it?”
“There are only three of them,” said the group’s sole female. “Look at them. So much lovely flesh…”
Winterhawk started to reply, but before he could, the old man jerked his head in her direction. “Quiet, Clarice!” he ordered, waving at her with a gnarled, clawed hand. She hissed, but faded back. “You will go now. We won’t attack if you leave.”
“We’re going,” Winterhawk said. “But first we need to talk.” He took a deep breath. He didn’t like what he was going to say, and he doubted his teammates would either. Whatever else he was, Toby Boyd had been a decent enough dwarf. He didn’t deserve this fate, and in a way, Winterhawk felt as though it was his fault that the dwarf had ended up here. He should have realized that Kivuli was planning something. How he should have realized it, he wasn’t quite sure, but that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty about it. “We’re not here for the dwarf. We know he’s already dead, and we know you didn’t kill him. It’s something he…has on him that we need.”
“He had nothing,” one of the young male ghouls said. His voice was raspy, his posture oddly twisted. “Guignol, he’s stalling. There are more of them outside.”
“There are,” Winterhawk said quickly, “but they won’t come in unless we give the word. Isn’t that right, Cosworth?”
“You’re the boss,” the rigger’s voice, full of skeptical confusion, came through a tiny speaker on the drone. “Hurry it up, though. Those gangers are gettin’ a little restless out here.”
The old ghoul, Guignol, considered. “Ezra is right,” he said at last. “The dwarf had nothing on him.”
“He has headware,” Winterhawk said. “All we need to do is let our decker come in here and retrieve the data from it. It will be quick.”
“We could sell that,” Ezra protested. He tugged at Guignol’s sleeve. “We could—”
“I don’t believe this,” Dreja said over the link. “Quit fragging around. Let’s just take ’em down and get on with it.”
Winterhawk ignored her. “Make your choice,” he said. “Let us take what we want and leave peacefully, or—” he shrugged. “My friends here are frightfully fast and well-armed, and not feeling charitable at present. And you can see my aura, so you know what I am. Do you think you can take us down, as well as our friends outside, before we level this place and everything in it?”
The other younger male ghoul made a strange sound, halfway between a groan and a whimper. Ezra glared at them, but didn’t move. Clarice remained silently behind Guignol, regarding them through narrowed, filmy-white eyes.
After a moment, the old ghoul sighed, and his bony shoulders sagged. “All we wanted was to be left alone.”
“There’s no reason we need to tell anyone you’re here,” Winterhawk said softly.
The ghoul’s eyes came up, his ugly face searching the mage’s. “Don’t lie to an old man, boy.”
“Are you going to let us retrieve what we came for?”
Several seconds passed. The ghouls were silent. The rats skittered around beneath the seats, and the stench settled more oppressively over the auditorium. Finally, Guignol nodded, once. “You have ten minutes,” he said. “I can guarantee your safety until then. After that…”
Dreja was already on the link. “Send Scuzzy in here. Fast.”
“Like hell,” the decker’s voice protested. “I’m not goin’ in—”
“Get your ass in here, kid, or I’ll shoot it off when I get back out there,” she growled. Then she glared at Winterhawk. “You better know what the hell you’re doing.”
Guignol waved his clawed hand, and the two ghouls blocking the entrance moved over to join those on the other side.
The little drone trundled back up and disappeared out the door, and after a minute returned with a very nervous-looking Scuzzy trailing behind it. He got a look at the ghouls and stopped, eyes wide and mouth open.
“Come on,” Ocelot said. He was still crouched behind the seats, as was Dreja. Neither of them had lowered their weapons. “Clock’s tickin’.”
Scuzzy stood where he was for a moment, clearly poised between moving forward and bolting back the way he’d come. Finally, he crept forward and joined Winterhawk.
Without a word, the four ghouls turned and began to walk back to the short stairway leading up to the stage. The runners followed, with Winterhawk taking lead this time. Scuzzy went next, and Ocelot and Dreja brought up the rear.
“Keep the drone out in the auditorium,” Dreja said over the link. “Let us know if they make a move.”
“Roger that.”
The smell, if anything, got worse as they mounted the stairs and crossed the stage. Their feet creaked on the rotting wood. A tattered, mold-eaten curtain that looked as if it had once been made of fine red velvet hung at the back of the stage. The ghouls passed through it, motioning for the runners to follow.
Winterhawk paused a moment to check with Maya. “Are they waiting to ambush us back there?”
“No. There are four more of them, and they’re gathered near the body.”
He nodded, motioning the others forward, and stepped through the curtain.
On the other side was a large, open space. Boxes and old furniture were arranged to make the place look like some kind of clubhouse. The ghouls had dragged in a row of four theater seats from the auditorium and, along with a ripped sofa, a couple of boxes with cushions on them, and a scarred old coffee table, created a sitting area. The other four ghouls were seated here.
Toby Boyd’s body—or what was left of it—was on the table. It was missing both legs, which were nowhere in evidence, and had been neatly eviscerated. Clearly the ghouls had been hungry, and just as clearly they worked fast.
Behind him, Winterhawk heard Ocelot swallow hard a couple of times, and Dreja make an odd, strangled noise. He himself tightened his jaw and tried not to look too closely at the body. Not because the sight disgusted him—it did, but only because of the regret he felt for Boyd’s fate and his hand in it.
Scuzzy had no such restraint. He shifted from foot to foot, gurgled in the back of his throat, and then darted off to the side, wh
ere he was loudly sick all over the floor.
“Scuzzy, get the hell over here!” Dreja ordered, hurrying over to grab his arm and drag him back, none too gently. She pointed in the vague direction of Boyd’s body without looking straight at it. “Get to work.”
The decker swallowed again and nodded. His pasty complexion had gone an unhealthy shade of green, clashing with his blue hair.
Guignol, obviously aware of their discomfort, herded his companions away from the body. They complied, reluctantly, and gathered on the far side of the room. Their expressions suggested a pack of predators acutely aware that someone was about to run off with their kill. Guignol himself drifted off to the other side of the body, his gaze never leaving it.
Winterhawk moved to approach him. Ocelot grabbed his arm and gave him a what the hell are you doing? look, but he just shook it off and continued. He studied the old ghoul for a moment in silence. “How long have you been here?”
Guignol shrugged. “We don’t pay much attention to time these days.”
“The gangers outside. They help you, then?”
He nodded. “We help each other. We keep the neighborhood clear, and they bring us anyone they kill.” A pause, and then: “You could have killed us. I see what you are. You and your friends.”
Winterhawk watched Scuzzy as he crouched next to Boyd’s head. “No point. We’re in a hurry.”
“Whatever is in that headware must be very important to you.”
He nodded, but didn’t otherwise answer.
The link crackled. “Uh, guys?” Cosworth’s voice was a little too loud. “We got trouble.”
“What is it?” Dreja snapped.
“Incoming. Cops, it looks like.”
“Close?” Ocelot asked.
“Not yet. Picked it up on the scanner, and sent up the drone to spot ’em. They’re headed this way. You got maybe five minutes before we gotta jet.”
Winterhawk stepped forward. “Scuzzy? Anything yet?”
“No!” The decker’s voice was distracted and strained. “This drek’s encrypted. You want me to work in the middle of a pack of fraggin’ ghouls, it’s gonna take time.”
“We don’t have time,” Dreja said, glancing back toward the curtain. “We need to go. Now.”
“You can’t rush this!” Scuzzy whined. Glistening beads of oily sweat stood out on his forehead. “You want the data or not? If I screw this up, you’ll have a big, fat, corrupted pile of nothing!”
Winterhawk considered, then made a decision he didn’t want to make. “Take his head.”
“What?” Ocelot demanded, looking at him like he’d gone crazy.
“We can’t wait. Take the head.” He looked at Guignol. “Sorry. No choice.”
“But the brain—” Ezra protested, stepping out of the pack.
Guignol silenced him with a look. His gaze shifted from his group to the runners, then he nodded.
Winterhawk turned to Ocelot. “Do you still have that whip of yours?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Fastest way. Do it.”
“’Hawk—”
“Do it.” Winterhawk took several deep breaths; suddenly his heart was racing and it was too hot in here. He heard the stress in his voice but did nothing to temper it. In the shadows the ghouls crept forward a step, obviously sensing his weakness. There wasn’t time for diplomacy. “After all the times you’ve accused me of losing my edge—”
“Frag!” Ocelot snarled. Then he jerked a small object from his pocket. “Get outta the way, Scuzzy.”
The decker scuttled backward. “What are you gonna—”
Ocelot took careful hold of the counterweight on the end of his monowhip, then stretched it out. The line was so thin that he looked like he was doing nothing more than spreading his arms, as if getting ready to conduct an orchestra. He paused for just a moment, hovered his spread hands over the dwarf’s neck, then made a fast downward motion.
Toby Boyd’s head separated neatly and mostly bloodlessly from his body. It rolled sideways and came to rest, its open, staring eyes fixed on the runners.
“Holy drek,” Scuzzy breathed. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
Guignol silently offered a discarded bag. Winterhawk motioned for him to hold it open, then made a gesture and the head levitated upward and dropped neatly into it. “Thank you,” the mage said, taking the bag.
“I hope you were speaking the truth,” the old ghoul said. “About not telling anyone about us.”
He nodded once, then hurried to follow the others.
Cosworth’s voice grew more agitated as they hurried back out to the street. “They’re almost here,” he said. “Couple more blocks. Come on!”
They piled into the Bulldog. Tiny had already moved the dumpster out of the way, and apparently the gangers hadn’t bothered him while he was doing it. As soon as they were all inside, the rigger spun the van around and rocketed off into the night.
It wasn’t until they were a couple of blocks away that Cosworth let his breath out. “That was close. I hope you guys got what you were after.”
Winterhawk regarded the bag, the bottom of which was wet with blood. He blinked a couple of times, trying to fend off the headache and lightheadedness that had nothing to do with the fact that he was holding a severed head in a sack. “So do I.”
CHAPTER 22
SAFE HOUSE
LOS ANGELES
SATURDAY MORNING
They made it back to the safe house without attracting any attention from law enforcement. Winterhawk left Boyd’s head with Scuzzy and retired to one of the bedrooms to lie down. As he was leaving, the decker had put the head on a cookie sheet he’d found in one of the kitchen cabinets, covered it with a dish towel, and was trying not to look at it as he tapped away at his deck.
Winterhawk flung himself down on the bed and stared up at the cracked ceiling. He couldn’t get Toby Boyd out of his mind. He had barely known the dwarf—he’d hardly had a chance to connect with him at all before everything had gone pear-shaped, and the dominatrix illusion hadn’t been one of his finest moments, magic-wise—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he and his team had done their jobs better, Boyd would still be alive. If he’d assensed Kivuli, maybe he’d have spotted some duplicity in her, or if he’d managed to put up with Scuzzy long enough to ask him to do some background research on the others, then—
He shook his head and sighed. That kind of thinking was counterproductive. What was done was done, and now they had to make the best of the leftovers. He just hoped whatever Scuzzy found in Boyd’s headware, it truly would point them at the next stage of the run. He was acutely aware of his remaining time ticking away, already wondering if he had enough left for them to finish the job and get back to the Johnson. He wondered if he should have already made arrangements to get the team on their way to Australia, since that was where the man had said the object they had to retrieve was located. Australia was a big place, sure, but regardless of where they chose to land, they’d be a lot closer to their goal than if they waited here for Scuzzy to extract the data. The only thing that stopped him was the lingering idea that Boyd might have made a last-minute change to the plan and hidden the item somewhere else. The last thing he wanted to do was end up halfway across the world only to find out that the dwarf had somehow smuggled the item back into North America.
So many choices. Normally he didn’t have trouble making decisions: over the past few years he had headed up numerous expeditions of a similar type, directing the activities of anywhere from a few to dozens of people. But it was a hell of a lot harder to do when you could practically feel the poison’s insidious tendrils creeping through your own body, wondering what sort of damage they were already doing, and how much of it would be irreversible.
He was about to get up and locate his stash of painkillers when there was a knock on the door. Thinking it was probably Ocelot, he called, “Come in.”
It wasn’t Ocelot. Instead, Dreja’s lean, muscul
ar form filled the doorway. “Got a minute?”
He sighed. The last thing he wanted to do right now was get into it with the ork again, but maybe Scuzzy had found something. He sat up, shrugged, and waved her into the room.
She paced for a moment, which was a departure from her usual direct approach.
“Is there something I can do for you?” Winterhawk asked, a bit of impatience touching his tone.
She turned and faced him, but when she spoke, her own tone was quiet, with no trace of challenge or belligerence. “I want to talk about those ghouls.”
“What about them?”
Her eyes shifted away. “I—wanted to kill them.”
“Yes, I know.” He didn’t try to keep the contempt from his voice. “Listen, I really don’t want to—”
“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant. I wanted to kill them. You treated them like people. Why did you do that?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Because they are people.”
She began pacing again, looking troubled. “Yeah. They are. And I wanted to blow them away because I wouldn’t see that.”
The mage frowned. The conversation was taking a completely different turn than he’d expected. “Is there a point you’re trying to make here?”
“I don’t know,” she said, still refusing to be provoked. “How did you know they weren’t going to attack us?”
“The fact that they didn’t,” he said. “Feral ghouls don’t hang about conversing with their meals. They just strike, fast and preferably from ambush.”
She appeared to consider that. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “A pack of ghouls killed a couple of my old teammates a few years back. Ripped ’em to pieces, right in front of the rest of us. Ever since then, I’ve been happy to cack ’em and turn ’em in for the bounty when I can. I’ve heard of the ones that aren’t like that, but I never actually met one. You have?”
“A few, actually. One of them’s a bloody good decker. I wish I could have brought her along for this run, and not just because she smells better than Scuzzy.”