The point is almost irrelevant. The board will not tolerate even the suggestion of impropriety. Ohara’s days are numbered.
With an expression both grave and uncompromising, Torakido-sama looks pointedly from one member of the senior board to the next, then finally to Enoshi, and says, “Domo, Enoshi-san. You may go now.”
Enoshi bows again, first to Torakido-sama, then to Shimazu-sama, then turns and exits the board room.
In the antechamber, one of the tea-ladies in her blue corporate uniform serves tea to a pair of blonde-haired women who Enoshi recognizes, though their names elude him. They look like Swedes and are as ravishing as any Western women Enoshi has ever seen. Enoshi recalls Ohara referring to them as his “twins”.
Enoshi doubts they’ll be Ohara’s for much longer.
If in fact they ever were.
48
“This isn’t right.”
The neighborhood is decrepit. Rancid garbage clogs the alleys. Burnt-out autos, building debris, and piles of junk and rotting litter line the street. The buildings themselves are three- and four-story husks, their windows smashed, facades seared by fire. There is no question she’s on the right block in the right part of town, but she still can’t believe what she is seeing. The four-story tenement at the middle of the block is a wreck, like every other building. That’s exactly where Adama’s town house ought to be. In front of it an ancient Lincoln American limousine sits at curbside. Battered and rusted, it isn’t quite ready for the scrap heap, but it’s close. That is where Adama’s sleek black Nightsky ought to be, the exact spot.
Tikki shakes her head to clear it and looks again. It must be magic. She can think of no other explanation. She glances at the stocky male standing with her at the end of the alley and tries to put her confusion into words, but nothing comes out.
“You’ve been under the influence… of a powerful mage,” Raman says quietly. “Your eyes were veiled, as Eliana said.”
Tikki grunts.
“Perhaps this is the first time you’re seeing this place… the way it really is.”
Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. It doesn’t mitigate Tikki’s confusion or her uneasiness with Eliana’s plan. She agreed to go along with it because she had no real choice. That doesn’t help her mood.
It now seems very likely that she, rather than Fat André or anyone else, has been manipulated through magic. That doesn’t help her mood, either.
The street looks clear.
“Go,” she says.
Smoothly, almost silently, Raman lopes across the street. The black satchel dangling from his left hand doesn’t seem to affect his stride in the least. He’s as agile on two legs as he is on four, Tikki notices in passing.
She up-angles the muzzle of her shoulder-slung M22A2 assault rifle with forty-round box clip and integral grenade launcher, preparing to give covering fire if necessary.
Raman drops to the pavement and slides under the Lincoln American limo across the street. He’s under there for about two minutes. Tikki could probably have done this part of the job a bit faster, but there are other considerations. She’d rather be doing back-up, rather than having to rely on someone else to back her up, and Raman doesn’t like guns. Raman much prefers blades, which are fairly useless for some tactical applications, such as providing cover.
She walks across the street, meeting Raman as he stands up beside the limo. She still can’t believe that she could mistake a decrepit Lincoln American for a Mitsubishi Nightsky. Be that as it may. She hands Raman his machine pistol.
The weapon seems absurdly small in his grip.
“We should leave,” he says.
Tikki shakes her head.
That’s what Eliana wanted them to do, fix the car, then get out and await the next part of the plan, but that isn’t enough. For all she knows, Eliana is only fixing to get her killed. Tikki can’t just sit back and wait while a couple of mages decide her fate. She’s going all the way.
Maybe that’s foolish, she doesn’t know. If it is, she deserves what she gets.
When people frag with her, she frags them back. That’s the way it must be. That’s why she did what she did to Nickels the fixer. That’s why she came to Philadelphia in the first place.
She also wants to see with her own eyes if Adama is really living in a decaying wreck of a tenement rather than a luxury town house.
She could tell Raman to go ahead and leave, but she doesn’t. She wants to know just how far he’s willing to follow.
“It’s time.”
The front door opens at a touch and leads into a small room like a foyer. The walls are dirty and scrawled over with graffiti. A puddle of water fills the center of the sagging floor. Tikki runs her eyes around and breathes the damp, rank-smelling air, wondering if she’s ever been here before. She remembers, clearly now, lying in the front room of Adama’s town house under a hazy shaft of moonlight. Was that just a dream? A mage’s fantasy? Maybe so.
They head downstairs.
This part is just as she remembers. The room of onyx. Glaring trid screens covering the right-hand wall. Adama in his intricately carved throne. The marble stand supporting the huge white gemstone at his right. The only thing that’s different is the person standing at Adama’s left. She’s beautiful for a human. Red hair, voluptuous, and clad in a clinging black gown that bares her shoulders, arms, and a remarkable depth of cleavage. The glaring trid screens on the right-hand wall all display a full frontal image of her face and hair.
Adama smiles. “Welcome, tigress.” His eyes flicker briefly over the assault rifle in Tikki’s hands, pointed at him, then turn slightly aside. “You’ve brought your friend. I’m glad.”
Raman comes up alongside Tikki.
“You owe me money,” she says.
Adama smiles. “Do I?”
If her guesses are correct, and that’s a big if, Adama never paid her anything. He made her believe that she’d been paid or else he paid her in fantasies, lies, the Sixth World’s equivalent of fairy gold.
Adama waves a hand in a vague gesture. A glowing orb of white briefly surrounds the hand, then dwindles. If this is proof that Adama is a mage, it’s the first that Tikki can recall seeing with her own eyes. She suppresses her surprise, resists a sneering smile, and tightens her finger slightly on the trigger of the M22A2. Nothing further of a magical nature seems to happen. Adama frowns, looks at his hand, then at her, seeming puzzled. Tikki’s mildly surprised about that, too.
“Ahh,” Adama says, freshening his smile. “You’ve escaped my enchantments. Or have you?” One eyebrow slowly tilts upward. “No. Another mage. A shaman.” Adama chuckles softly. “You wear her protection.”
That’s true, apparently. Under her red synthleather jacket, Tikki wears a gold medallion marked with a peculiar cat-like face. Raman wears one, too. Gifts from Eliana. The things are supposed to protect them from magic. How a pair of stupid medallions might do that Tikki doesn’t know. Till this moment, she doubted that the one hanging from her neck would do anything but annoy her. She wonders how Adama detected it.
Magic, obviously.
She hates it.
The redhead at Adama’s left looks directly at Tikki, moving just her eyes. It’s the first time Tikki has seen her move.
“How interesting,” Adama says. “The tigress dances with shamans. I only wonder… Did you come here to kill me?”
Tikki could deny it, but that would be stupid, counterproductive. She came here to get answers, maybe get money, maybe pay back Adama for using magic against her. She isn’t exactly sure what she’s going to do. She’s never been in this kind of situation before. Facing a mage like this. “Killing’s a possibility,” she snarls quietly. “First, I want my money. Mage.”
“You’re aware of my power,” Adama says, smiling as if pleased. “I was wondering when you would notice. I’ve been at pains to keep it a secret. You don’t like mages do you?”
“I don’t like lying skells.”
“H
ave I lied to you?”
“There is no Adama Ho. Hong Kong’s never heard of the name. The only Triad gang in Philly is quietly doing biz in Chinatown.”
Adama’s smile broadens. He tilts his head back and laughs softly. He’s some moments regaining his composure. “Forgive me,” he says, still smiling broadly. “Your indignation is quite understandable. I’ve treated you unfairly. I admit it. You’ve given me more pleasure than any servant in my memory, and I’ve given you no reward. You must think me very ungrateful.”
“I think you’re due to get aced.”
There’s something wrong with the redhead, Tikki realizes. She doesn’t smell human. She doesn’t smell like anything.
Adama chuckles, smiles.
“How would you like your money?” he asks. “In weapons? Or gold perhaps?”
Tikki could swear she’s heard Adama ask similar questions, not so long ago, possibly of a black-clad man or elf named Tricks or Sticks, something like that.
“What would be fair?” Adama extends a hand. On the floor before his throne appears a pile of gold coins, enough to fill a good-sized duffel bag.
“No?” Adama says, looking at Tikki. “More?” He moves his hand slightly again and a pile of platinum credsticks appears on the floor beside the coins. “Even more?” Adama moves his hand again and a pile of paper currency appears next to the credsticks. “Is that better?”
Tikki doesn’t believe what she’s seeing. For one thing, Adama is offering a fortune beyond anything that makes sense; for another, the credsticks and the coins and currency smell like the redhead, like nothing. Like a dream.
She risks a quick glance at Raman. He is wide-eyed and smells very tense. She looks back at Adama.
“No?” Adama says, still smiling. “You refuse my offer?”
“I want real. Real sticks.”
“I have a better idea.” Adama withdraws his hand. The coins, the credsticks, and the currency all disappear. “Do one last job for me and I’ll forgive this little indiscretion of yours.”
“Are you bulletproof?”
“I’m better than that.”
Somewhere, a wind begins to rise. Tikki can hear it. In another moment, the rustling ascends into a cyclone’s howling. Things begin rattling and groaning and banging as though the building is about to rise right off its foundations. Tikki glances swiftly around, then realizes Raman has vanished, is nowhere in sight. His smell is gone from the air as though he’d never been here.
Tikki growls.
She doesn’t stop to think. She doesn’t pause to wonder what has happened. She doesn’t consider the diversity of things that Adama might have done to make Raman disappear, or seem to disappear. Her senses tell her that Raman is gone, just gone, and in her surprise she interprets that as meaning he’s gone forever, that he’s dead, as good as dead. Instinct and anger direct her response. She adjusts her point of aim and squeezes the trigger. The assault rifle stammers, but the thunderous noise is nothing compared to the fury rising inside her. She doesn’t care if Adama is a mage, doesn’t care if he’s powerful enough to make her vanish, too. Were she in her natural form, she would hurl herself forward with a roar, with every intention of ripping Adama into bloody, shredded bits.
Adama tilts his head back, laughing uproariously, and fades slowly from sight. Everything else goes with him: the redhead, the wall of trid screens, the throne, the marble stand and gemstone. The roar of the cyclone fades into silence. Tikki is left standing in a dank, gloomy basement, her heart pounding like a jackhammer. The ceiling is stained and warped and dripping water. The walls are bare concrete, some missing small chunks, as from bullets. Tikki looks down to find her right foot in the shallows of a broad puddle.
Abruptly, she slaps a fresh magazine into the assault rifle, but then looks around blankly. There’s no point in shooting.
Shoot at what?
Adama’s voice rises out of the empty air. “You must do one last job for me, tigress. One last job. Then our time together will be complete. You’ll be free again. And if you’re good, very good, I’ll even return your mate to you. That will be your reward.”
Tikki swallows, struggling to think amid the din of her own hammering pulse. Do one last job for this mage? She’d have to be mad to even consider it. “Suppose I don’t?”
“Oh, but you will. You will, tigress. I choose my weapons with great care. You want your friend back. And I want the man responsible for the death of my beautiful Leandra.”
“And who might that be?”
“Bennari Ohashi.”
49
Without warning, the lights go out and Raman finds himself immersed in a blackness more complete than any he has ever experienced. For a moment more, he hears a howling like that of a violent storm, and then the sound fades to nothing.
It’s as if he’s suddenly gone blind and deaf. He can see nothing, hear nothing. A worrisome strangeness, but one he doubts. A powerful mage could easily cast such illusions. The question is, what does he do now? He looks to his right, where Striper was standing, but sees only blackness, blackness everywhere, in every direction. He can feel the gun in his hands, but cannot see it, even when he lifts it in front of his face.
He descends to a crouch. There is a hard, stable surface beneath his feet. To his hand, his left hand, it feels rough and gritty, like concrete. Is that part of the illusion, or a flaw in it? The latter, he suspects. Fooling his eyes and ears is one thing; also deceiving his sense of touch and his sense of his own body would be much more difficult. The more senses that must be fooled, the greater the magic required. A mage intent on merely neutralizing him would have no need to go to such lengths.
Briefly, he speaks into the darkness, if only in hopes of advising Striper of his situation, but hears no reply.
He wonders what to do next.
Striper may need his help.
50
When the elevator doors open, she’s already in motion, tossing a Winter Systems flash-pak and a MECAR SA MP-76 riot grenade into the hallway.
The flash-pak ignites at once, firing a series of blinding micro-bursts designed to disorient any animal relying on visible light, and powerful enough to overcome the reactive flash compensators of most military-style helmets. The riot grenade bangs immediately, but takes a second or two to achieve full effect. Fragmentation damage is negligible. The MECAR MP-76’s plastic shell tends to split like the skin of a fruit rather than shatter into lethal shards. The minimal explosive charge serves primarily as a propellant for the grenade’s potent fumes.
Four seconds later, Tikki steps into the corridor, wearing a combat gas mask with five-stage filtration and flash-elimination faceplate. That makes the air she breathes distasteful and reduces the light in the hallway to darkness, but she’s used to smelly air and working in low light.
The hallway is short, extending only a few meters to the left and right. Seven males in full body armor lay sprawled about with a variety of military-style weapons. They’ll be unconscious for about an hour and too sick to move for an hour or two after that.
Tikki turns toward the door at the left end of the hallway. Even as she turns, the doors snaps open, revealing a man in mirrorshades and a dark suit. The machine pistol in his hand makes his function apparent. He doesn’t collapse because the gas from the riot grenade has already cleared from the air.
Tikki fires a three-round burst with her JAMA-5 narcoject submachine gun. The man staggers back and drops to the floor. He’ll be out for about five hours. The door stays open, which is lucky. Tikki follows through with another flash-pak and riot grenade.
About three seconds later, she steps into the anteroom and foyer of the condo belonging to Bennari Ohashi. The three plainclothes guards sprawled there look unconscious. Tikki pulls off the gas mask. Beneath it, she wears a balaclava pull-over face mask, a tactical assault vest, and commando-style pants and shoes, all black.
The double doors to the rest of the condo snap open, letting in a man in a white servant�
��s uniform and carrying a tray laden with sandwiches. He gapes and stops, gazing wide-eyed at Tikki. She steps toward him, pointing the JAMA-5 at his chest.
“Put the tray down.”
The man turns, hesitantly, smelling of fear, and puts the tray on a small table beside the double doors. Tikki pushes the man back against the wall and points the muzzle of the JAMA-5 at his face.
“Where is Bennari Ohashi?”
The man gapes and stares at her, then stammers in frantic Japanese, “I… I don’t know… I don’t know!”
Irritating.
She drops the muzzle of the JAMA-5 to the man’s shoulder and fires a single shot. The man slumps. She’s not going to stand here and argue. She’ll spend less time searching the condo.
She knows the layout of the place, knows all the particulars. Adama laid it out previously, when she still believed his lies, before he took Raman captive. She isn’t exactly sure how she feels about Raman, what exactly he means to her life, but she’s sure he means something, and she’s willing to kill—kill anyone necessary—if that’s what it takes to get him back.
That Adama is compelling her to do this job is infuriating, but she can live with the anger. What she can’t live with is the idea of losing what may be the chance of a lifetime.
She steps from the foyer, JAMA-5 at the ready.
Ohara wakes with a start, gripped by the realization that the ruthless demon-creature haunting his sleep is coming for him. Every night that passes without news of Striper’s death is one night closer, one night closer to him that the vicious primitive gets. If she isn’t killed soon…
If the assassins Enoshi has hired waste any more time…
The inevitable conclusion is beyond his capacity to bear. He stumbles from the bed and into his private bathroom. He grabs a handful of pills from the bottles along the expansive marble counter, hurriedly swallowing them down. He’s always had a delicate constitution—just another indication of superior intellect. The pills help to stabilize his physical chemistry, and thus counter the deleterious effects of his horrifying dreams. A half-dozen bursts of DeeVine from his chromed pneumatic injector temper his emotive upset with a vague, wispy sense of euphoria. He sorts through the P-fix BTL chips scattered across the counter and slots The Almighty! into the datajack behind his right ear. The chip helps restore the unity of his thoughts, his clarity of vision, his objective perspective on the truth. Such aid is necessary in a world on the brink of social and economic collapse.
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