by Lisa Smedman
The Biggest—and Last—High of Your Life
There's a new "drug" on the streets, promising a phenomenal—and deadly— high. But this time the dealers aren't selling a substance. They're working with a creature called a "corpse light"—a creature of pure magic that gives the customer a euphoric rush ...as it drains the poor sap's life away.
Romulus was the first to see this new scourge in action. As a shapeshifter, he's a freelance agent to the Lone Star police department. His wolfish strength and sense of smell keep him useful—and keep him from being admitted into the regular force. So when Jane, a beautiful, amnesiac woman, is caught in a dangerous web with the dealers, there's no way for Romulus to be assigned to the investigation. But that won't stop him from trying to save her, and to discover how she is tied into this case....
"Watch"
I shed my shirt and unzipped my pants, letting them fall around my ankles. As I dropped to my hands and knees, I heard the girl's voice, "Likes to show off what he's got, doesn't he?" Then I changed.
I swivelled my ears and caught the troll's sharp intake of breath as he watched my body shift into wolf form.
"You're the dog I saw in the garage," he whispered.
I panted happily, my tongue lolling. Then I shifted back....
SHADOWRUN : 37
THE FOREVER DRUG
Lisa Smedman
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to John Hart and Dana Noah for sharing their memories and stories of the Maritimes, and to all of those whose enthusiasm and ideas contributed to this novel.
1
There's no mistaking the "heroin nod." I could spot the junkie two blocks away. She was coasting, floating half in and half out of consciousness, struggling to keep her chin from bobbing down on her chest like a person who's trying to resist falling asleep. Dressed the way she was, I figured she was working tonight. Tight black pants, thigh-high red leather boots, and a blouse made from hair-thin optical filament, woven in an open spider web pattern. The material pulsed softly with light, illuminating her breasts like a marquee.
Business had probably been good. The UCAS aircraft carrier Leviathan had berthed that afternoon after two months at sea, and the four-thousand-plus sailors that made up its crew were out on the streets of Halifax in force. One of them was leaning over the back of the bench where the junkie slumped, eyeing the merchandise appreciatively. The working girl's breasts were fully developed, but from her size and bone structure I guessed her age at eleven—too young for a human to have reached puberty. Selective hormone treatments will do that.
The sailor noticed me looking at the girl and gave me a threatening glare. It was clear that he'd fight any man foolish enough to try and pick up "his" girl. I ignored him, deliberately looking away from the girl.
I felt sorry for the kid, but there was nothing I could do for her. Even Lone Star's Drug Enforcement Division wouldn't bother with her. Soft drugs like heroin didn't interest them. They were concentrating on BTL right now and the rash of overdoses that had occurred in recent weeks. But not in the North End, of course. In this part of town illegal simsense chips are sold openly on street corners and in restaurants, deals going down and chipheads slotting up in full view of anyone who cared to watch.
I continued down Gottingen and turned right. I had Duffus Street all to myself, aside from a pair of ork sailors who were half swaggering, half staggering, arms wrapped around each other while they sang lewd songs. The sidewalks were never crowded in this part of town, even on a hot summer night like tonight. The North End of the city isn't the sort of place you want to be after dark. Not unless you're SINless and desperate. Or a sailor wanting to mix it up with the bad boys.
The street lighting was almost nonexistent, the buildings dull and soulless, save for a splattering of graffiti on the walls. The city had replaced the antiquated public housing in Mulgrave Park a decade ago, finally tearing down the block houses that had been built back before the turn of the millennium. The "new" buildings were just as ugly: prefab concrete-slab structures painted in the same dull shades of gray, off-yellow, or government green.
The idea behind the project had been to give those without System Identification Numbers a warm, dry place to sleep. The residents were housed in "micro suites"—sleeping rooms with dimensions about those of a medium-sized closet, stacked horizontally. These were quickly dubbed "coffins," and that's what many of them became. Rumor had it there was more than one body stashed away behind the featureless plastic door of a Mulgrave Park micro suite.
I stopped at the intersection and left my mark, splashing it across some faded gang graffiti. The North End used to be my territory, back when I worked with the Star's K9 department, a part of its Division of Patrol. I hadn't patrolled these streets since I started working as an "irregular asset" for the Tactical Division, but I still liked to take a jander through them every now and then, just to freshen up my mark and let them know I'm still keeping an eye on things. I doubted anybody here would recognize me. In the old days I never used to patrol in human form.
It had been four months since my "promotion" to the Tactical Division. Technically, I wasn't really employed by Lone Star. I was more of a free agent, kind of like a bounty hunter. I got paid a flat fee: so much per containment, depending upon the size of the para.
Paranormal animals are my specialty. That's why I was assigned to the Magical Task Force. Although the Force falls under the Tactical Division, we work closely with the Division of Paranormal Investigation. The DPI officers are the ones responsible for anything with a thaumaturgical twist to it: magically capable criminals, nosferatu gangs, toxic spirits—the works. They also handle paranormal animal control.
I kept hoping that, one day, I'd get the call to go out on a really important assignment. Like the case DPI handled two months ago when a megalodon, a gigantic "prehistoric" shark the size of a whale, took a chunk out of a frigging freighter, for spirits' sake, right there in Halifax Harbor, and then feasted on all of the nice little bite-sized lifeboats that were launched as the ship went down. If I could take down a dangerous para like that, somebody might bend the rules a little for me, maybe even let me officially join the boys and girls in blue.
But I mostly got the small stuff. Like that assignment two weeks ago. Containment of a blackberry cat, a paranormal animal someone had illegally imported from Europe as a house pet, of all things. The magically active feline used its powers of mind control to amuse itself by causing its humans to "play" with knives. An entire family in the hospital, and I wasn't allowed to ice that little furball. Not when blackberry cats had been declared threatened under the Endangered Species Act of 2054. The best I could do was chase it up a tree—then hang tough after it used its magic to render me blind. Thank the spirits for my keen sense of smell or I'd have lost it entirely.
I hate cats.
I was the only shifter among all of Lone Star's irregular assets in Halifax. Which wasn't surprising in a corporate security force noted for its speciphobia. If you took a gander at the demographics of the actual employees, you'd see the scan laid out for you. More than eighty percent of Lone Star's officers were human, with only a smattering of metahuman. The only way most of the patrol officers and detectives felt comfortable with me was when I was in human form.
It helped that my human form was attractive. I've got dark hair and a beard that's longer and lighter near the chin and mouth, giving me a whiskered appearance. My eyebrows meet in the middle and curve up at the sides, accentuating what the ladies describe as a "wolfish" grin. My ears have a slight point to them—though nowhere near as defined as an elf's ears—and are topped with a tiny tuft of hair on the tip that's so pale it can only be felt, not seen. But although I mostly use my human form in the city, it'
s my true form that pleases me most. Long and supple, fast and sleek, with lush, gray-brown fur and clean white teeth. The epitome of animal power.
Were I to lope about in wolf form, however, I'd stand a good chance of being picked up by the DPI as an unlawfully-at-large paranormal. By unspoken agreement with Lone Star, I'm allowed to assume animal form within the city when on assignment. Otherwise, I maintain human form. Which is a bit ironic, since legally I'm defined as an "animal" by the UCAS government.
Maybe someday, shapeshifters will be granted metahuman status. But probably not in my lifetime.
Rubber squealed on pavement and a horn blared loudly in the street. My reverie broken, I looked up. A dwarf who was jittering across Duffus had stepped into the path of a Ford Americar. The dwarf, dressed in a stained track suit, had the purposeful, focused look of a cocaine user looking for his next fix. Single-minded in his pursuit, he was oblivious to the still-blaring horn and the shouted curses of the driver as the car swerved around him and off into the night.
I could smell the dwarf from where I stood, even over the thick smog that had built up during the course of the heat wave we'd been having recently. He had the sour smell of someone who hadn't bathed in a long time. Normally, sweat has a pleasant, earthy smell. But this fellow stank of nervous fear, city grit, and, faintly, of sweet crack smoke.
The dwarf's gaze skittered up to meet mine. He assessed me in one frenzied heartbeat as not-a-dealer, and his focus slid back to the sidewalk in front of him. In another moment he'd speed-walked down the block and out of sight.
I was just about to pass the last of the housing projects when I heard gunfire. Eight or nine shots in rapid succession from a small-caliber handgun, then a pause as the magazine was changed, and a half-dozen more shots. Someone was pumping out lead as fast as possible, and cursing in a loud, panicked male voice. Someone else—either a child or a woman— was screaming. The echo behind the sounds told me they were coming from inside an enclosed space— probably the parking garage in back of the projects.
I hesitated for a moment, but the screaming decided me. I wasn't with the Patrol Division anymore, but I still felt compelled to respond. There wasn't a police patrol in sight.
I unzipped my shirt and peeled it off, then stepped out of my pants and shoes. Nobody gave me a second look as I stashed them under a parked car. In this part of town, with all of its crazies and chipheads, a naked man didn't warrant more than a glance. Hopefully, the parked car wasn't going anywhere and my clothes would still be there when I got back.
Then I dropped to my hands and knees on the grimy sidewalk and ... changed.
My body lengthened, my limbs stretched, and my bones cracked as my knee joints articulated in a different direction. Lush gray hair covered my body in a silky flow and my ears swiveled erect. Claws sprang out of my fingers and toes, which formed into blunt paw pads, my spine grew a bushy tail, and my teeth elongated and sharpened.
The screams and gunfire shifted in pitch as my hearing changed, the lower tones becoming more muted and the higher tones becoming clearer. And my sense of smell intensified. Even from here, a block away from the action, I could smell the sharp scent of gunpowder, the stink of human fear and fresh urine, and something ... well, something unusual was the best I could describe it.
I loped down the block and around the edge of the nearest building, toward the confrontation. As I entered the parking lot and started to spiral down into its underground levels, past the derelict cars and squatters' trash, I saw four figures below. Two were down and not moving—I recognized them as gangers by the tattoos on their arms—and two were on their feet. One of the latter—a teenage elf—was standing utterly still, a look of rapturous joy on her face, her head tilted to one side and her arms held out. A ball of light about the diameter of a dinner plate hovered just behind her, its cold, blue-white light framing her head like a halo. She was dressed like a street shaman, her black leather jacket covered in runic signs and her hair braided with feathers. A medicine pouch hung from a cord around her neck.
The other upright figure—a burly troll with a single horn that spiraled out of the center of his forehead like a unicorn's horn—had his back to me as I descended the final ramp of the parking garage and emerged onto the lowermost level. He was firing wildly at the ball of light. Flame spat from the heavy pistol in his hand as he pumped bullet after bullet at the thing.
Suddenly, one of his bullets caught the girl in the chest. Red blossomed on her shirt front, and she sagged at the knees. But despite the intense pain she must have been feeling from her wound, the elf girl kept smiling. She moaned once, softly, but it sounded more like the satisfaction of sexual pleasure than pain. It made me wonder if the ball of light was the physical manifestation of some emotion-controlling spell.
The troll cried out in anguish as the girl suddenly collapsed. Now the ball of light was headed toward him. After two futile clicks of the trigger—his magazine was empty—the troll hurled his pistol at the thing. His aim was good. The weapon hit the ball of light square on—and sailed harmlessly through it. Still cursing, the troll turned and ran, his patent leather military boots slipping on the scattering of diamond-sparkle window glass that covered the concrete floor.
This had all taken place in the second or two it took me to lope around the corner. As the troll scrambled past me, I made the split-second decision to let him go by. The elf girl was still alive—but wouldn't be for long. The scent of her freshly spilled blood nearly overwhelmed me. Saliva dripped from my tongue as I fought to control my instincts.
The ball of pale blue-white light floated gently toward me, as if pushed by an unseen breeze. I felt the hackles on the back of my neck rise, and growled low in my throat. I couldn't say why, but the thing filled me with a sense of dread. And I don't scare easy.
The ball of light paused, hovering, giving me a chance to shift my perceptions into astral space. I had to know what I was dealing with. The cold gray walls around me blurred to gauzy, insubstantial surfaces and the writing on them disappeared. I could see the elf girl's aura fading rapidly as she died. The ball of light bulged and elongated ...
Spirits frig me. That was no spell effect. The ball of light was alive.
The creature was huge. It had the size and shape of an octopus, with a bulbous central body and as many as twenty long, writhing tentacles. Its flesh was a mottled purple and yellow, the color of old bruises. A single black eye the size of a dinner plate irised open and shut in a weird, spiraling blink. One tentacle caressed the back of the elf girl's neck, drawing the last of her aura up through sucking pores in the tip of the tentacle.
Frig, that thing was feeding on her. Eating her alive.
The other tentacles reached out toward me, billowing as if they were stirred by an invisible current. As they drew nearer, the scent of the creature engulfed me, making me gag. It was the smell of meat rotting in the sun; of fly-speckled, over-ripe fruit; of murky, algae-slimed water.
Every instinct screamed at me to run. And the logical part of my brain was in perfect agreement. What could I do? Bite one tentacle and hope the thing didn't use its other nineteen tentacles to ice me as it had the elf girl and the two humans who lay dead on the floor behind her? Back when I was with K9, it had been my sworn duty to serve and protect. I still felt bound by that oath, especially within the bounds of my territory. But now that the elf girl's aura had gone out, there was no one left to protect.
I backed away slowly, my fur raised, growling through bared teeth. I needed to call for some backup on this one.
The thing floated closer, its tentacles writhing in a hypnotic pattern. Too late, I realized that it was backing me into a corner. I ducked to the side as a tentacle floated into the space I had just been occupying. Thank the spirits this thing moved slowly, its tentacles drifting in a lazy flow. But there were a lot of them. Too many to keep dodging for long. And there was no telling what magical hicks the creature might have up its sleeves.
I noted its po
sition carefully, then shifted my perception out of astral space. The creature became a ball of light once more. Was its glow a little dimmer? I couldn't be certain. But those tentacles had been close. Too close. I crouched—then leaped across the gap to the next level of the parking garage. No time to waste, I thought as I ran back up the spiral to ground level. This was definitely one for the Magical Task Force to deal with. And I was willing to bet nuyen on it that I would get the assignment of tracking this para down. I'd gotten a good whiff of it, and would know its spoor anywhere.
I grinned as I hurried across the street to a public telecom booth.
2
The glowing ball of light was long gone by the time a squad from the Magical Task Force arrived. But the three bodies were still there. Aside from the elf girl— who had a large and rather obvious bullet wound in her chest—they were unmarked. Cause of death: unknown.
I hung around after the detectives who followed in the wake of the Force had finished interviewing me, watching and listening as the bodies were tagged and bagged. The two human victims were members of the Weeds, a gang of squatters who dossed down on the site of what used to be the Public Gardens. I'd recognized them by the patterns tattooed on their arms: morning glory vines and dandelions growing out of the eye sockets of grinning skulls. The pair had the usual sort of criminal records: drug-dealing, possession of stolen property, aggravated assault. Like the troll, they'd been carrying handguns. Except that they hadn't used theirs.
The elf girl was indeed a street shaman, residing on Summer Street. She'd been arrested only once, for using an unlicensed illusion spell. Otherwise, her record was clean.
As soon as the bodies were off to the morgue and the scene was magically assensed and declared clear, the procedural squabbles about which division was going to investigate the homicides began. Detectives from two divisions had come out to the scene, and now they were embroiled in a loud argument. The detective from the Division of Paranormal Investigation figured that the investigation fell under her jurisdiction, since a paranormal animal with magical capabilities was involved. The detective from Drug Enforcement insisted that it was his case, since these three deaths tied into his ongoing investigation of what had come to be known, in the past week, as the "grinning corpses."