by R. L. King
The problem with trying to land in Sydney—and why most people didn’t even try it—was that, unlike the Outback, the manastorms surrounding the city were constant. They ebbed and flowed, gaining and losing power and potency according to some plan that no one had been able to divine even after all these years, but they never receded completely.
It wasn’t for lack of trying that no one had figured out the manastorms’ secrets: Sydney was a subject of great interest and even greater expenditure of funds among academic researchers and corporations alike, though obviously for different reasons. Countless explanations had been proposed for the manastorms’ existence, many of them focused on the shifting, magic-rich song lines crisscrossing the area, but if there was some kind of discernible formula that could predict the storms’ actions, it remained stubbornly elusive.
It didn’t take long for Winterhawk to find out why nobody in their right mind flew a plane into Sydney.
Narrah, the rigger, and he had made their plans en route: he would watch for astral-based threats, Narrah would try to persuade any hostile spirits to let them pass, and the rigger would keep an eye out for physically manifesting manastorm activity.
It sounded so easy in theory. People did do this—sure, it required a lot of magical support and an ace pilot, but they had those.
Still, even with a summoned spirit each for Winterhawk and Narrah, and Maya helping with general overwatch, it had been a long time since Winterhawk had concentrated this hard. He was sweating rivers, and his head throbbed with the stress, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about either at the moment.
Storms, both astral and physical, swirled all around them; if he took his eyes off the astral for longer than a few seconds and failed to spot something, they could be dead before he realized it. It didn’t help that the sheer level of magic they were flying through was staggering. It pressed on him like a physical weight; the feeling was somewhat like sinking into deep water, but with the added component of random images, wild flashes of color, and otherworldly manifestations that flickered in and out of existence before he could get a fix on them. If he didn’t feel like he would faint from the strain, he would have found the whole thing beyond fascinating. He made a mental note to come back later…if he survived. Now, though, he just wanted the whole thing to be over.
Why had he proposed this again? It was faster, but it was incredibly reckless. They could have taken the train from Canberra. Sure, it would have added time to the trip—time they might not have. But it also didn’t come with the very real threat of going down in flames or having their minds fried on the way. After all, they couldn’t stop Akurra if they were dead.
Too late now, though. They were here, and there was no turning back. He just hoped his confidence that they could succeed at this wouldn’t get them all killed.
He glanced over at Narrah. The boy looked worse than Winterhawk felt. His eyes were closed: the things he was looking for didn’t require physical sight. His lips moved slightly, his hands twitching and shaking in his lap. Sweat also ran down his face. It was a lot to ask of an apprentice, but so far Narrah was holding up his end. Especially since he was still grieving the loss of so many of his friends and family back at the camp.
The rigger probably had the easiest job of the three of them: coordinating the information Winterhawk and Narrah sent him and adjusting the plane’s flight path accordingly, while simultaneously dealing with the more mundane aspects of the storms such as fog, swirling hail, and rain. “Easiest” was relative, though. Unlike other riggers Winterhawk had dealt with recently, this one didn’t lounge in his seat as though half-asleep. His every muscle was taut, his hands gripping the plane’s console and his glowing green cybereyes darting constantly back and forth far faster than natural ones could ever manage. Scuzzy, networked in to the plane’s PAN, did what he could, but this was clearly not even close to a standard run for the rigger.
They made it through—somehow. Winterhawk wasn’t entirely able to reconstruct how they managed it, especially when something bigger than the plane and shaped vaguely like a crocodile had loomed in the sky in front of them around the halfway point, before any of them saw it coming. Narrah managed to convince it to leave them alone, but not before the plane flew through its lower half and everyone inside was hit with two seconds of what could only be described as the world’s most abbreviated multisensory hallucination. In the weird way of astral space, those two seconds seemed to stretch across a lifetime before they were clear again. Winterhawk barely recovered in time to yell for the rigger to veer left, narrowly missing the trailing edge of a ferocious astral eddy.
By the time the plane landed at a small airfield used mostly by smugglers, Winterhawk felt like he’d just run a few laps around the Outback. He slumped back in his seat, closing his eyes and allowing his muscles to unclench and his mind to relax for the first time since they’d approached Sydney airspace. In the seat next to him, Narrah looked similarly exhausted. The rigger, for his part, had an expression that suggested that this was the last flight into Sydney he’d ever attempt, for any price.
Scuzzy and Dreja had arranged transport while they were still in the air, so a van was waiting for them at the airport. Winterhawk checked to verify that the rigger would be able to find another magician to help him get back out of Sydney (“Yeah, maybe after a few days’ sleep and a whole lotta drinking,” he replied), then trudged after the others. It was already getting dark; visions of the Nanga Mai reuniting the two serpents and weaving their dark rituals haunted his thoughts and made him move faster. He’d have plenty of time to rest if they succeeded; if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter anyway.
They didn’t have another rigger to drive for them, so Dreja took over, navigating according to Scuzzy’s direction as he studied traffic maps of the city and hacked signal lights to facilitate their progress when he could do so without causing accidents. Normally, Winterhawk would have been interested in where they were going, in watching the shifting patterns of the manastorms high above them with his astral sight, but this time he was content to take a seat in the back and close his eyes, trying to rest a bit before they arrived at their destination. He roused himself only long enough to request a stop at a lore store so he could pick up ritual materials; Narrah had brought his with him in a leather bag, but Winterhawk hadn’t expected to be doing any ritual magic. The plan was that he would look for Kivuli while Narrah searched for the location of the serpent. He hoped Narrah would be successful, because he was still convinced that Kivuli was nothing more than a hired agent, a shadowrunner like they were. She might not even be in the country anymore.
By the time they negotiated Sydney’s snarled streets, took a couple of wrong turns despite Scuzzy’s maps, and arrived at their destination, it was fully dark. Ocelot glanced around nervously; they were in a warehouse district, standing next to a single-story building with a series of large, roll-up doors. “I guess we’re still okay. No sign of anything nasty yet?”
“Not that I can see,” Winterhawk said, and Narrah shook his head. The boy looked nervous and overwhelmed; Winterhawk suspected he’d never been in such a large city before. He patted Narrah’s shoulder and gave him what he hoped was an encouraging look. It didn’t seem to work.
“What is this place, anyway?” Dreja asked Scuzzy.
“It’s kind of an artist space,” he said. “People rent studios to do sculpture and stuff. You wanted something big and fast, and this was the first thing I found. Can’t very well do magic in a hotel conference room, right? Too conspicuous. This should be big enough for you both to do your thing, yeah?”
“Should be,” Winterhawk said. “Open it up and let’s get started. We—” He paused as his commlink buzzed. He pulled it out; its display showed no identifying information. “Yes? Who is this?”
The voice on the other end sounded fast and shaky. “Winterhawk? This is Kivuli. Please don’t hang up on me. I hope you’re in Sydney, because I need to talk to you right away. Something�
��s going on that you need to know about. Something bad.”
CHAPTER 43
SYDNEY
TUESDAY EVENING
They met at a kaf shop a couple of kilometers away. After checking astrally, technologically, and visually to verify no one else was paying too much attention to them, Winterhawk and Dreja went in while Ocelot, Scuzzy, and Narrah remained outside with Maya, keeping watch.
Winterhawk’s first impression of Kivuli was that she was stressed nearly to the breaking point. A quick glance at her aura confirmed this. She stood as they approached. One of her hands was wrapped in a white bandage spotted with bloodstains; a handcuff bracelet encircled her opposite wrist, the other bracelet dangling loose underneath.
“What do you want?” Winterhawk asked, his tone icy. “Haven’t you done enough already?”
“Listen,” she said. She swallowed, her gaze darting around as if expecting someone to ambush her. “I know what I did before. I understand you probably want to kill me. I get it. But that was biz. This is—something else.”
“Talk fast,” Dreja growled. “If you’re trying to stall us—”
She held up her hands, shaking her head. “No. I’m not. I’m just—scared. It’s not every day somebody tries to fraggin’ sacrifice you in a magic ritual.”
“What?” Winterhawk and Dreja demanded at the same time.
Kivuli swallowed again. When she spoke, her voice was manic, shrill with fear. “I give you my word, I didn’t know anything about this. Assense me if you don’t believe me. All I was supposed to do was find out where the artifact was, get it, and take it back to the people who hired me. I thought they were just rich collectors. I had no idea they were some kind of nutball cultists planning to use it in a freaky ritual.”
“Calm down,” Winterhawk said. “Tell us the whole story. But quickly.”
She nodded several times, too fast. Her normally steady hands shook as she picked up her cup of soykaf and gulped it. “I went to deliver the artifact to the place they told me to go. I took my team with me—not the Aborigines. They’d already left. When we got there, we were ambushed. They took us to where they were setting up this huge ritual.” She swallowed again. “A bunch of Aboriginal shamans were there—or at least that’s what they looked like, and others, including the Aborigines from my team. And they were—” she swallowed again. “—the shamans were sacrificing people. Teenagers. Street kids. And then they started killing my team, one by one. They handcuffed us—I managed to get loose by compressing the bones in my hand and using blood as a lubricant. I ran—thought they’d follow me, but they didn’t. I guess they were too busy setting up their ritual.”
“When was this?” Winterhawk asked, gripping the table.
“Less than an hour ago. They took my commlink—I had to find somebody to borrow one from. I had no idea if you were here or even alive, but I took a chance. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Can you take us to where the ritual is?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It’s not far from here. They’ve taken over an abandoned building. I’ll help if I can, but I don’t have any weapons.” Her eyes hardened. “They killed my team. They killed kids. Hell, they tried to kill me. I want to help take them down.”
Dreja looked at Winterhawk. “You trust her?”
The mage nodded. “I’ve been assensing her. She’s scared witless and angry. I don’t think she could fake that.” To Kivuli, he said, “Come on, then. Show us where to go. I warn you, though: if you try anything—”
“Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t think there’s much time before they finish that ritual. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do, but with all those sacrifices, I don’t have to be a mage to know it’s nothing good.”
“Wait.” An unexpected voice spoke. The others turned to see Narrah, who had entered the shop. He stared at Kivuli, his dark eyes full of anger. “This is one of those who attacked my people?”
Kivuli seemed to notice for the first time that Winterhawk’s team included a new member. She stared at him, but did not speak.
“Is it?” Narrah demanded, rounding on Winterhawk. “And you are just going to trust her? She should be brought back to my people, to receive justice for what she’s done. She and her group killed many of my people. They made this whole thing possible.”
Winterhawk nodded, glancing between the two of them. They didn’t have time for this right now. He kept his voice even. “She wants to help now, Narrah. Nanga Mai lied to her. They misled her. She realized it, and now she wants to make it right. I’m not happy about it either—she’s caused us a lot of trouble, too. But right now we need to think about the big picture.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Can you do that? Because I don’t think we’ll have time to find them otherwise.”
Narrah paused for a long moment, eyes narrowed, clearly weighing his grief and anger at the loss of so many of his family group against the need to move fast. Finally he sighed and nodded. “All right,” he said. “I will agree—for now.” He glared at Kivuli. “But after—we will discuss it further.”
She didn’t look like she cared much for this idea, but she nodded too. “Yeah,” she said. “But we need to go now. I’m not sure how much time we’ve got left.”
“They’re in there,” Kivuli said, pointing.
The area she’d directed them to was a deserted industrial park, its buildings long abandoned and in the process of being reclaimed by the elements before they could be demolished. The structure she pointed at loomed up, its dark bulk rising at least two stories into the night sky. It looked like it might have been a warehouse or perhaps some kind of big-box store at one time, but it had clearly been a long time since anyone but squatters had occupied it. A wide, overgrown parking lot surrounded it, and around that was a substantial fence topped with razor wire and peppered with DO NOT ENTER signs. There were no functional perimeter lights.
As the group watched from the van, Winterhawk thought he saw intermittent flashes of light coming from the building’s small, high windows. He shifted to astral sight and spotted the glowing auras of several figures patrolling around the parking lot. “You see them?” he asked Narrah, who also had the halfway-there look of someone who was assensing.
The apprentice nodded. “Something bad is happening in there. I can feel it. We need to stop it.”
“Let’s go, then,” Winterhawk said, hand on the door.
“Wait,” Dreja said. “You just want to go right on in? No plans or anything?”
“No time,” Narrah said, and his voice was urgent. “I think they’re getting close. I can feel the energy building.”
“You heard the man,” Winterhawk said, stepping the rest of the way out. “This is it. Last chance to back out.”
Nobody backed out. They all got out of the van, checking their weapons.
“I don’t think they have many guards,” Kivuli said, stowing the Predator they’d lent her in its holster. “I don’t think they’re expecting anyone to show up. The mundane guards are probably just to keep away squatters or homeless people.”
“’Hawk, could you see how many guards there were?” Ocelot asked.
Winterhawk was silent for a moment as he communicated with Maya. “Four,” he said. “They’re patrolling the parking lot. Maya thinks they all have guns.”
“Should we split up?” Scuzzy asked, sounding apprehensive about the idea.
“Two groups of three,” Dreja said. “’Hawk, Ocelot, and Scuzzy, Narrah, Kivuli, and me. That gives both groups magical support and firepower.”
Winterhawk nodded once. “Narrah and I can each summon a spirit—they should be able to take out the other two. If we time it right, we can get all four of them at once, before they can communicate with each other or anyone inside.”
“Stay in contact,” Dreja said. “Let’s go.”
They took off in opposite directions, slipping into the shadows. Winterhawk followed Ocelot, and Scuzzy stayed close to Winterhawk, looking around as if expecti
ng someone to jump him at any second. They rounded the corner and Ocelot held up a hand, then wiggled his fingers in an imitation of magic and jerked his head toward the area ahead of them.
Winterhawk nodded and summoned a spirit of air, quickly relaying instructions to it. It darted off, invisible against the night. “Ready,” he whispered into the link. “Is Narrah’s spirit in place?”
“Good to go,” came Dreja’s quick reply. “Go on my mark.” There was a long pause, then: “Now.”
Winterhawk gathered mana, formed it into a simple stunbolt, and loosed it at the approaching guard. The man didn’t see what hit him, just slumped silently to the cracked pavement. After a moment, the spirit reported that its target had also been neutralized.
“Got ’em,” came Dreja’s voice a moment later. “If you guys counted right, that should be all of ’em.”
“Let’s meet up on your side,” Ocelot said. “If they’re watching, they’ll be watching the front for sure.”
“Tell Narrah to keep his spirit on patrol out here. I’ll do the same thing. They can tell us if anyone else approaches once we’re inside.”
Five minutes later they were back together, hidden behind a derelict car across the street from the warehouse.
“How do we want to do this?” Dreja asked. “Big and loud or quiet and sneaky?”
“We need to hurry,” Narrah said again, shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly agitated.
“If they’ve got a ritual circle in there,” Winterhawk said, “they’ll be concentrating. We might be able to take them out fast if we can get in without them seeing us. I’m afraid to do any astral recon—if they have spirits on patrol, they’ll spot us and raise the alarm.”