Shadowrun: Borrowed Time
Page 30
The other, horrifically, was forming from the corpses of the sacrifice victims, twisting the bodies together to compose a kind of shambling abomination of flesh and bone.
He stepped out from behind his cover and pointed his hands at the spirit closest to him. It was hard to look at it: somehow it had managed to create its humanoid form out of the bodies of the dead sacrifice victims, twisting and warping them until it rose twice the height of a tall man and began lumbering in Winterhawk’s direction. He was reminded suddenly of the strange writing at the asylum in his metaplanar ordeal: like that, this was simply wrong, in a way that made normal metahuman sight want to slide away from it or risk losing sanity. If he had any doubt that Akurra was irrevocably insane before, it departed when the ancient koradji summoned that spirit.
He focused his will and concentrated, forming the banishing spell in his mind, wondering if he would be able to do it. The spirit was huge, which most likely meant it was potent. As he shifted his perception to the astral plane to get a better look, it pointed a hand made of two metahuman legs at him and all of the mouths gurgled out the same syllables.
Instantly, he felt his mind recoil. This thing was wrong. It was unnatural. It was going to kill him. It would rip him to pieces! He had to run, to get away, to flee! Runrunrunrun…
No!
Gritting his teeth, fighting as if he were pushing against a physical force, Winterhawk steeled his mind, bringing his mental discipline to bear against the onslaught. He was not going to flee. He was not going to be afraid. He was done being afraid. He gathered the banishment spell again, pointed at the spirit, and let it fly.
The spirit screamed, the sound again coming from different mouths, different throats, different voices. The sound rose until it threatened to break the creature into pieces. It flung itself forward, its corpse-pieces writhing and shrieking, its freakish arms flailing at Winterhawk. It seized the mage and picked him up, throwing him with augmented strength toward one of the columns.
He hit the column with a thundering crash and slammed to the floor, pain flaring. If he hadn’t had his armor spell up, he knew he’d be dead now. As it was, he might have a cracked rib or two, but no time to worry about that now. Adrenaline would take care of it until this was over. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, preparing to face the shambling monstrosity.
It was gone. Absent the spirit inhabiting them, the corpses had fallen into a grotesque, untidy heap a few meters from where Winterhawk had landed.
He looked around for the fire spirit, and found Narrah locked in astral combat with it. So far neither seemed to be getting the upper hand, but at least it was occupied. Far more worrisome was the fact that the floor was beginning to smoke.
Dreja fired another burst at one of the Aborigines, then pulled out a long knife and rushed the spirit, slashing at it in fast and precise motions. Ocelot took aim with his grapple gun and fired at the other Aborigine, yanking backward when it caught on the man’s armored jacket. As Winterhawk split his concentration between the spirit and Akurra, he saw the unsuspecting man pulled backward—straight into the spirit. He screamed, flames catching his hair and his pants as Narrah’s and Winterhawk’s banishing spells both took effect and the spirit vanished. The Aborigine, still screaming, ran headlong away from the circle. Ocelot and Dreja followed, and Dreja took him down with a flying tackle. Together they rolled him over and put out the flames.
Winterhawk turned his attention back to Akurra in his bubble.
Narrah too was staring at Akurra, clearly assensing. His expression was troubled.
Something on the other side?
The astral plane in the abandoned store was a curious mix of utterly boring and wildly beautiful, like an acid trip in an empty room. The store itself, the columns, and the corpses of the sacrifices, the koradji, and the mundane Aborigines were nothing more than gray forms, indistinct and uninteresting. Ocelot’s and Dreja’s auras glowed faintly, their bodies packed with so much cyberware that they barely registered above the base-level grayness. Narrah’s aura, by contrast, glowed strong and pulsing, its colors brilliant and pure.
Winterhawk had never seen anything like Akurra’s aura. For a moment he just stared, shocked and fascinated. His brain refused to provide words for what he was seeing, so he settled for taking in impressions:
Power.
Vast, nearly limitless power.
Colors that didn’t even have names in the real world, straining against the fabric of an astral plane struggling to contain it. Colors so bright and intense that they bled over into the other senses: jangling otherworldly sounds, jarring odors and flavors, discordant sensations.
And layered over it all, madness—a deep, abiding madness.
Madness and some sort of—echo, for lack of a better word: a smaller, less potent reflection of the dazzling aura, like an aura within an aura.
Next to this screaming visual cacophony, the glow of the gateway’s astral presence was barely brighter than the surrounding environment—something that should have been beautiful in its own right rendered muted and subdued by comparison. Behind it, a series of shimmering black things roiled and danced, approaching its entrance like curious fish, but never coming through.
Curious, but reluctant.
What was going on?
Narrah had planted himself behind Akurra as he stood in front of the gateway. “I was right,” he said. “They don’t want to come. He’s trying to convince them. I think it’s working. What should I do?”
Winterhawk’s gaze darted between Narrah, Akurra, and the gateway. “How should I know?” he demanded. “This isn’t my area! You’re the koradji. Talk to them. See if you can get them to go back. I’ll try to shut down the gateway from here.”
“How can I do that?” Narrah’s pure-bright aura flared confusion and panic. “I’m not a koradji yet! I’m just an apprentice! I’ve never done anything like this before!”
“No time like the present to start!” Winterhawk replied. “You can do this. If they’re Aboriginal spirits, they won’t listen to me. You’re the only one who can make them see. I can give you power, but I can’t make those things do what we want. You have to do it, Narrah!”
The fear flared again, but then Winterhawk felt the boy gather himself and nod. Narrah faced the gateway, moving up next to Akurra. Winterhawk saw Akurra glance sideways, a look of consternation and impotent rage on his face, but incongruously he also saw strain.
“This is hard for him,” he sent to Maya, unwilling to disrupt Narrah’s fragile concentration. He caught snatches of what the apprentice was telling the spirits in shaking but persuasive tones: something about how times had changed, how most Aborigines no longer hated the outsiders, how they no longer wanted to destroy them, but he couldn’t give the negotiation his full attention. He had his own issues to concentrate on. Why is it hard for Akurra? If he’s got the power to hide his spirit in an artifact for thousands of years, to reach out over thousands of kilometers, this should be nothing to him.
He focused on Akurra again, taking a closer look. The koradji’s aura shook a little with the strain now. Why isn’t he summoning something to deal with Narrah? Why isn’t he doing anything about me?
And then he saw it.
The strain.
The madness.
The instability.
The echo.
The echo is the key!
He wasn’t looking at one being here; he was looking at two.
Akurra, and the koradji who served as the vessel for his spirit.
His gaze swept between Narrah, who shook with the effort of trying to persuade the spirits to stay where they were, and Akurra. “He’s not all here!” he told Maya in triumph. “He’s wearing a mask! His body isn’t strong enough to contain all of Akurra’s spirit, so he can only hold part of it.”
Akurra was trying to mislead the spirits! “Narrah! Keep talking!”
“It’s not working,” the apprentice said in a desperate tone. “He’s too strong. They’re coming. They’re—”
The cacophony rose to a fever pitch, screaming and roaring in Winterhawk’s mind until it caused physical pain. He dropped to his knees, clutching the sides of his head, and saw Narrah do the same. It felt like his brain was trying to fly to pieces. The gateway swelled as more of the black things pressed against it. Akurra, radiating magical energy like a small sun, grinned in triumph and raised his hands—
Winterhawk focused like he had never focused before. Reaching out, he pulled in as much mana as he could manage, and then grasped for a bit more. At this point he didn’t care what it would do to him—it had to be done, and he only had one shot at it.
Narrah screamed, falling back.
Winterhawk let the magic go. “Look!” he cried to the things on the other side of the gateway. “Look at what’s trying to deceive you!”
Now it was Akurra who was screaming. That vast, potent aura ripped free, spinning off, disoriented as the small part of it that the vessel’s body could cope with was once again returned to its pure astral state. It didn’t fragment or split apart: Winterhawk was no more capable of destroying a spirit this powerful than he could knock over a skyscraper with a spell. But the effect was the same: the vessel’s aura was left unmasked, naked before the gateway.
And it was afraid.
It was still strong: dragging himself back to his feet, grabbing Narrah and staggering backward, Winterhawk saw that the mad Nanga Mai koradji who had served as Akurra’s host was at least his equal magically. But compared to what he and Akurra had been together, he was nothing.
The koradji screamed.
Something else screamed, loud and primal and as deeply visceral as the dark things that lived in the places where no metahuman in his right mind would ever dare to go.
The Nanga Mai koradji’s aura was lifted up and pulled toward the gateway, flailing and shrieking in naked panic.
“Look!” Narrah said, pointing at the gateway, his face transfixed with wonder. “Look! They’re beautiful! I can see Snake!”
Winterhawk looked too, then stared. The things had resolved themselves into forms now: it was hard to see them in the swirling haze, but he thought he could make out a vast rainbow-colored serpent, a lizard, a spider, a doglike creature, and a kangaroo before the koradji’s aura was sucked though and they fell upon it.
The screams didn’t stop; in fact they grew louder until they threatened to engulf everything around Winterhawk and Narrah. They were so loud that they felt like a kind of pressure, growing and squeezing. “Come on!” Winterhawk yelled to Narrah, shoving the boy to break his fixation on the gateway. “We have to get out of here before that thing blows!”
Narrah looked at him, wild-eyed, then nodded and disappeared along with Maya. When he was sure they were gone, Winterhawk took one last glance at the glowing gateway, in time to see the bright, unworldly madness of Akurra’s aura being drawn inexorably toward it as it collapsed inward on itself.
He was sure that the screams echoing in his ears as he departed would haunt him for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER 45
BLUE MORAY RESTAURANT
SEATTLE
THREE DAYS LATER
When Winterhawk strode into the back room at the Blue Moray Restaurant, it was with a sense of coming full circle. Though it had only been a bit more than a week since he had last been here, it felt like an eternity. Funny how time seems to move more slowly when you’re counting every minute of it, he thought, and felt Maya’s gentle chuckle in his mind.
The scene was nearly identical to that of his original meet with the Johnson: same room, same oval table, same pair of immobile and emotionless bodyguards. The only difference was that a different man sat at the table’s central spot, taking the place of Mr. Bland Johnson.
Winterhawk recognized him immediately. Richard Ortega wore a tailored corp power suit, a perfect haircut, and an expression of smug anticipation. The latter slipped just a bit when his gaze fell on the mage.
“Mr. Ortega. What a surprise,” Winterhawk said, his tone suggesting it was anything but. He slipped out of his overcoat, tossed it over one of the empty chairs, and sat down in the other one without being invited. “I expected you to send your toady along to mop up.” He smiled. “But then, I suppose you’re in a bit of a hurry to get your hands on the package you’re expecting.”
Ortega’s eyes shifted past Winterhawk.
“Looking for someone else?”
“You don’t seem to have the item with you,” Ortega said, his previous hint of unease already smoothed over. “I thought perhaps you might have brought along an associate.”
Despite Ortega’s attempt to shield it, Winterhawk was enjoying watching the man’s confused aura squirm. He shrugged. “You’re right. I don’t have it with me.”
Ortega seemed ever more perplexed, though he was making an admirable effort to hide it. He shifted in his seat and plucked an imaginary bit of lint off his immaculate sleeve. “If you need to retrieve it, then—”
“I don’t need to retrieve it. As I said, I don’t have it.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s gone.”
“Gone?” Ortega’s eyes widened, and Winterhawk watched his aura flare fear even as his voice’s pitch crept up a bit.
“Gone. Destroyed. You might not have heard about it—I think the media is trying to keep the story under wraps to avoid a panic.”
Ortega frowned, clearly trying to recover the upper hand in the exchange. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But in any case, I’m afraid that’s quite unfortunate for you, then. As I’m sure my associate made clear to you, without the delivery of the item, we’ll be unable to—”
“—to take care of th
at nasty little spirit you attached to me?” Winterhawk’s smile grew wider, predatory. “Oh, no need to concern yourself with that. I’ve got it all sorted. I must admit, that was a nice bit of ritual work you did. I’ll be needing to spend quite some time studying the video of that ritual at my leisure. Perhaps I’ll learn something.”
Ortega’s façade of calm was slipping, bit by bit. “What are you talking about?”
“Assense me, Mr. Ortega, if you like. I’ll drop my masking. I’m sure you’ll be able to see that your spirit has departed for greener pastures. That is, if you can’t tell by my general aura of good health and cheer.” He tilted his head. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? You’re failing your duties as a host.”
Ortega stared at him, gripping the table. “How—how did you—?”
Winterhawk’s wolfish smile became a grin. “That, I think, will remain my secret. I hope you understand. You should—after all, I know how much you like secrets. I have a friend who likes secrets, too. He likes to find out other people’s secrets, and he’s shared a couple of them with me. They’re about you, Mr. Ortega. Would you like to hear them?”
Ortega glanced backward at his bodyguards, who remained impassive. “I—”
“It doesn’t matter, actually. You’re going to hear them whether you’d like to or not. They’re good secrets—far too good not to share. For example, the one about how you’ve buggered up a certain high-profile project so badly that as soon as your superiors find out about your incompetence, you’ll be lucky to get out with your head still attached.” He nodded. “That’s a good one. So is the one about the little side deal you made with your boss’s boss, to get you out of this mess in exchange for a large payoff.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head. “A large payoff, I might add, that you don’t have, due to the fact that a certain mage you attempted to coerce into retrieving it for you is perhaps a bit more clever—or at least has more resourceful friends—than you might have given him credit for.”