by R. L. King
The PA crackled, jolting everyone awake. “Keep yer eyes open,” Bodge announced. “Looks like we’re gonna be havin’ some company.”
CHAPTER 27
NEAR KOOKYNIE
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
MONDAY NIGHT
Winterhawk switched on his AR and called up a view from the cameras on top of the Bison. Something behind them was sending up a cloud of dust against the setting sun, but it was too far back for him to make out what it was. “What is that?”
“Bikes, most likely,” the rigger said. “Hopefully it’s the Gypsies, and ya can talk t’em. Gonna have to make the turnoff soon to get out ta their compound.”
Winterhawk looked around at the others. They were awake and aware, tense and intent on their own ARs.
“They’re getting closer,” Ocelot said. “Definitely catching up.”
“Looks like about ten of ’em,” Dreja added. “Bodge, can you tell yet if they’re the Gypsies? Can you reach any of them?”
“Nobody’s answerin’,” he said. “Just stay frosty. I run into bikies all the time out here. Most of ’em know better than ta bother me. Hang on, here’s the turnoff.”
The Bison swung left, jerking them sideways as it left the main road for a narrow, unmarked dirt track. Winterhawk kept his focus on the AR view, and after a moment the mob of bikers slowed and also took the turnoff. They sped up now, until they were only a few car lengths behind the Bison.
The windows in the compartment all slid shut with little clicks. “Bodge?” Ocelot asked, voice tight.
“Sit tight,” the rigger replied. “Better ta be safe. Let’s see what they want. If they give us any trouble, I got enough armament on this rig ta give ’em second thoughts.”
The bikers, still visible on the camera view, approached the Bison, splitting apart to flank it on both sides. Winterhawk studied them: both they and their mounts were an eclectic collection. Though it was hard to pick out detail under their mismatched armored gear and layers of dust, he thought he spotted representatives of each of the five common metatypes, and vehicles ranging from battered old Harleys to whining sportbikes and one oversized trike piloted by a big female troll.
“I see some kind of colors,” Ocelot said, “But I can’t make ’em out.”
The Bison slowed and then stopped. “No worries,” Bodge called. “These are some o’ the Gypsies. They must just be checkin’ us out since we’re gettin’ close ta their squat. I hope you guys were tellin’ the truth.”
Through the camera view, Winterhawk watched the group as they pulled their bikes to a stop, still running, in a circle around the Bison. Engines rumbled menacingly, and every few moments another of the group would rev one for extra effect. A few of them had pulled out weapons from holders attached to their bikes’ frames; they weren’t pointing them at anything yet, but they held them with relaxed ease. He moved back into the cab and took the front passenger seat again; from here the view through the windshield was much more immediate than the one in AR.
One of the gangers, a squat ork with big shoulders, a bigger gut, and a black synthleather jacket caked with red dust, idled his patched old Hog slowly closer until he was only a couple of meters from the Bison’s front door. “You got thirty seconds to tell me what you’re doin’ here,” he called.
Bodge didn’t appear bothered by the obvious challenge in the ork’s tone. “Got some mates here who wanna chat with ya,” he said, his voice amplified through the Bison’s exterior PA system. “C’mon, put the guns down. Let’s keep this friendly. No reason not ta.”
They didn’t put the guns down, but they still weren’t pointing them at anything but the ground. The ork tried to peer in through the tinted driver’s window. “What mates? Who you got in there? What do they want with us?”
Bodge handed Winterhawk a microphone. “Tell ’em.”
The mage paused a moment, then said, “We’re here to see a woman named Bluey, assuming that you’re the Gypsies.”
The ork’s brow beetled until his eyebrows met in the middle, and a dangerous frown appeared on his weathered face. “Why you wanna talk to her?”
“Is she here? Our business is with her. Tell her we’ve been sent by her brother, Toby.”
Another biker rolled up next to the ork, this one a bald, dark-skinned female human with cybereyes that looked at least fifteen years out of date. The two of them conferred for a moment, then the ork faced the Bison again. “She ain’t here right now.”
Winterhawk sighed. He started to say something else, but Bodge held up a hand and spoke instead. “Listen,” he said. “They just wanna talk, that’s all. Dunno if you’ve hearda me, but I get out this way fairly often. Name’s Bodge. You make nice with them, I got a couple 20-liter jugs of water in the back I might see fit to send your way. Yeah?”
The ork and the human exchanged glances. “Just talk?” the ork asked, clearly interested in the offer.
Winterhawk was annoyed that he hadn’t thought of the bribe. Water was more precious than gold in the Outback; it was one of the scarcest and most valuable commodities to be had since there was so little of it available in the hot, arid climate. He leaned forward, waiting for the ork’s answer.
Finally, he shrugged. “Yeah, sure, we can do that,” he said. “But I’m not kidding: Bluey’s not here. She’s due back soon, though. C’mon—follow us.” He glared at the Bison. “No funny stuff. Any weapons come out, we’ll take you out.”
“No worries,” Bodge said again. “We didn’t come ta fight. Just ta talk.”
He rolled the Bison forward, and the bikers surrounded it, with the ork and the human woman leading the way. The little caravan moved on for about another kilometer before a cluster of dark forms grew visible up ahead.
“That’s it,” Bodge said. “Used to be a ghost town called Kookynie. Most of it’s gone now—I haven’t been out here, I’m guessin’ they’ve fortified the buildings in the best shape and closest together, to make ’em easier to defend.”
“Is there a lot of trouble with attacks out here?” Winterhawk asked. His trips to the Outback had been confined to sites of magical interest—the only contact he’d had with a bikie gang was when one of his expeditions had hired one called the Cowboys to provide some security for the team. Once he’d gotten past their formidable appearances, they’d been a relatively pleasant lot.
“Nah, not really. Mostly the bikies have their own turf, and they’ll work together a lot of times,” Bodge said. “It’s rough enough out here all on its own without messin’ with each other. They have their little spats sometimes, but mostly everybody’s frosty.”
As they drew closer, the group of dark forms resolved themselves into a half-dozen buildings, with smaller ones surrounding a larger one in the center in a rough circle. A few scattered lights illuminated the area. A stout metal fence ringed the buildings, leaving an open area of ten meters or so between them and the outer perimeter. The bikers headed toward a gate in the fence, which stood open and was manned by three more bikers holding rifles.
“Good thing they don’t fight much,” Ocelot said from the back. “This doesn’t look very defensible.”
The three stood aside and let the caravan in, then closed the gate behind them. The ork and the human led the group to the larger building, which on closer examination appeared to have been some kind of central meeting hall, or possibly a school for the town when it was still a going concern.
Winterhawk headed to the center compartment, where Ocelot, Dreja, and Tiny were stowing smaller weapons in their jackets. Scuzzy slung his deck bag over his shoulder, still looking grumpy. He had a small Beretta pistol, which he checked and slid into his pocket.
“Come on in,” the ork said when they exited the Bison. He indicated the large building. “We’ll talk in there.”
Bodge emerged last. He went around to one of the outer compartments, opened it, and pulled out a large container. “Here’s the first twenty liters,” he said, offering it to the pair. “You’ll get
the other one when we’re done, yeah?”
The human nodded and took the container. She opened it, sniffed, then handed it off to another biker.
Bodge headed back for the door. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna hang out in here,” he said. “Gotta drive my mates here back to Perth after they’re done chattin’ with ya, and I need a kip. Sleep regulators only go so far, y’know?”
The ork looked suspicious, but finally nodded. He waved the others inside, and several bikers trailed behind them.
“Maya,” Winterhawk sent, “keep watch around the area. Let me know if you see anything we should know about.”
“Of course,” she sent back. “There isn’t much else to do out here. The spirits won’t talk to me, but they say I can stay for now.”
Inside was a large, open room with a couple doors leading off to the left and right sides, and a rotting staircase, that the bikers had obviously reinforced, leading to a second floor. The windows were all covered in heavy plaswood, with narrow slits cut to look through. Graffiti decorated the walls, and the rank tang of heavy body odor and alcohol filled the air.
“You want a beer?” the ork asked. “Name’s Rhino, by the way.”
The others introduced themselves. Ocelot, Dreja, and Tiny took Rhino up on his offer, and everyone settled down in mismatched chairs. About a dozen of the bikers joined them, many of them pulling out cloths and beginning to wipe the ubiquitous dust off their battered weapons.
“So,” Rhino said, popping his beer. “You come a long way out here to find us. What you want with Bluey, anyway?”
“We told you—her brother sent us,” Winterhawk said. “Are you expecting her soon?” He had to make a conscious effort not to wrinkle his nose at the room’s stench: with the paucity of water in the Outback, bathing was rare and discouraged. It was considered the height of bad manners to acknowledge anyone’s personal “aroma.”
Apparently Rhino had gotten the update as well, because he perked up. “Ah, yer in luck,” he said. “I think they might be back now.”
Five minutes later, the door opened again and the three newcomers stumped into the room. Two of them were orks, one male, one female, dressed in the gang’s standard dusty leathers. They flanked a wide middle-aged dwarf woman with a lined face, a black eyepatch, and short-cropped hair dyed flaming red.
“Frag, finally back!” she roared cheerfully. “I could drink about five beers!” She had the kind of loud and gritty voice that belied her love of cigarettes; in fact, an unlit hand-rolled specimen poked out the side of her mouth now. Her eyes fell on the team. “An’ who are these, then? Saw the rig out front—Rhino, you bringin’ home strays again?” Her good eye, bright blue and squinty, twinkled.
Winterhawk stood. “Bluey, I presume.”
“Ooh, ‘presume!’” The dwarf woman twirled her hand in a ‘posh’ gesture. “Fancy! Who’s the pom?”
“Okay, clear out, you lot,” Rhino said, waving toward the rest of the bikers. “You had yer brews—Give us a little privacy.”
Grumbling, everyone but the human woman, Rhino, and the two orks left. Winterhawk waited until it was clear nobody else was going to leave, then faced Bluey. “We’re here because your brother sent us,” he said. “You’ve got something we’re to pick up for him.”
She eyed him with suspicion. “My brother, yeah? How’s old Bobby doing these days? He still got that stupid green mustache?”
Winterhawk smiled. “Perhaps you’ve already had a few of those beers,” he said, “if you’ve forgotten so much of your brother Toby so soon. Last time we saw him, his hair was brown and he was clean-shaven.”
Bluey relaxed a little. “Okay,” she said. “You know I had ta do that. Can’t just have anybody showin’ up.” She paused, studying the group. “He sent all of you ta pick it up?”
“Travel out here is a bit daunting for the unfamiliar,” Winterhawk said, shrugging. “We thought it would be safer this way.”
“That yer rig out front?”
“Yeah,” Dreja said. “Our rigger’s sleepin’ it off. We’ll be headin’ back right away, soon as we have the package.”
Bluey nodded. “So…how’s Toby doing? I haven’t talked ta him since he left a couple weeks ago—I’m sure you know we got no Matrix connectivity out here—”
“Tell me about it,” Scuzzy groused, rolling his eyes.
“So, I only get ta talk to him when we go into town for supply runs,” she continued as if the decker hadn’t spoken. “He got any news for me?”
Winterhawk took a deep breath. This was the sticky part. He didn’t want to lie to Emmy Boyd, but there was always the lingering fear that if they told her the truth about her brother’s fate, she might choose to turn her biker friends against them and refuse to hand over the serpent. His head was still pounding, and so was his heart. The overheated feeling was returning. He swiped a hand across his brow and drove the feeling down with a harsh effort of will. He couldn’t afford to have an attack right now.
He had only paused a couple of seconds, but Bluey obviously picked up on something. Her eye fixed on him, her lined face wrinkling as she frowned. “Something wrong?” she asked. “You said you saw Toby. He all right?”
Winterhawk paused again, aware of the others’ eyes on him, both his own team and the bikers. Mind spinning fast, he considered the odds that his team would be able to take out the bikers if it came to that. If things got bad he could do a mind probe on Bluey to get the information; he didn’t want to do it, but he would if he had to. He hadn’t come all the way out here to leave empty-handed.
“I’m—sorry to have to bring this news, Ms. Boyd,” he said softly. “I’m afraid your brother is dead.”
All around them, the bikers’ hands went to their guns as Bluey’s eye widened. “What?” she demanded, leaping up.
“I’m sorry,” Winterhawk said in the same soft tone. “We were hired to extract him from his employer, but one of our team members double-crossed us and escaped with him. By the time we caught up with them, he’d been killed.” He gathered mana around him, holding it in reserve should he need to cast something quickly. The tension in the room was nearly palpable.
She stared at him. “No…Toby…” Her voice shook, and her unlit cigarette fell from the corner of her mouth to the wooden floor.
“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Winterhawk said. “That’s hardly the basis of a good relationship. We did everything we could to save him, but—”
Bluey didn’t answer. Around her, the other bikers held their guns at the ready, but didn’t point them at the team yet. They were clearly waiting for a signal from Bluey about how she wanted to play this.
“How do I know yer tellin’ the truth?” she asked, glaring, her voice shaking with grief and anger. “How did he die?”
“He—was shot by a sniper,” Winterhawk said, carefully avoiding anything about the ghouls. The truth was one thing, but he was sure that saying her brother had ended up as ghoul chow and a severed head on a cookie sheet was taking full disclosure too far.
“So—” The dwarf was clearly having trouble processing all of this. “He gave ya the information about the thing he brought me and then he got killed? He’s not that stupid. He’d want ta be safe before he’d hand it over.”
“It was a terrible accident,” Winterhawk said. It was hard to employ his usual charm when he felt like he was about to faint, but failing wasn’t an option at this point. “By the time we got to him, he was already dead. Our decker here took the information from his headware.” He pointed at Scuzzy.
Bluey’s eye narrowed. “You…took it from my brother’s head after he was dead?”
Her hand went to her jacket, and she pulled out a Ruger Super Warhawk that looked even bigger gripped in her stubby fingers. She leveled it at Winterhawk. “I think maybe you and your friends had better go.”
Winterhawk didn’t back down. “Ms. Boyd, please. I’m afraid that’s not something we can do. Your brother wanted us to have that item.”
She snorted. “All I have is yer word for that. Maybe ya killed him. Maybe ya set him up. I don’t know. All know is that thing’s magical, and if Toby’s dead and it ain’t doin’ him any good, we’re gonna keep it. There’s a lotta things we could use out here, and that thing’s prob’ly worth a pretty price.” She pulled the hammer back on the Ruger with a decisive click. “Now. You and yer mates just head on out, get back in yer rig, and get the frag out of here before I forget my manners.”
“Ms. Boyd, you don’t want to do this,” Winterhawk said. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and drew another shaky deep breath. “It won’t end well for any of us.” The armor spell was ready in his mind. He doubted she’d get her shot off before either Ocelot or Tiny plugged her, but he didn’t want it to come to that. “Just, please, let us—“
At that point, four things happened at once. “Boss, big group coming fast,” Maya sent, her mental tone urgent.
The door slammed open and a rangy elf slid to a stop, his eyes wide with fear. “We got trouble, mates!” he panted.
Something hit the far end of the building with a loud BOOM, blowing everybody off their feet and filling the air with dust and flying debris.
CHAPTER 28
GYPSIES’ COMPOUND
NEAR KOOKYNIE
MONDAY NIGHT
“What the frag?” Rhino yelled, leaping up from the floor.
Winterhawk dragged himself up more slowly, brushing bits of wood and debris off his coat.
All around him, the others were getting up. None of them looked hurt beyond a few cuts and bruises. Whatever had hit them had hit far enough at the other end of the building that the big meeting room was still mostly intact, though the ceiling was raining down bits alarmingly.