Sidhe-Devil

by Aaron Allston

  "Lad, it's time for you to shut up and start following ord—"

  Rudi hit him, a fast hook that caught the surprised Albin full in the face. Albin staggered back, turning, and fell, smashing a low table into splinters.

  He rose, pressing a finger to the blood welling from his lip, and smiled. "You always could throw a good punch, baby brother. But if you don't want me to have Jorg pound you into paste, you need to settle down so we can get on with the planning."

  Rudi shook with the fury running through him. "I'm out, Albin."

  "Are you? Are you giving up your share of all that silver downstairs?"

  "I wouldn't take a penny of it, or anything else to do with you, you vomitous pile." Rudi turned and left through the front door, still shaking.

  Albin shook his head sadly, turned to the other two. "Don't worry. He's just feeling his oats. I'll go talk him out of leaving."

  But once in the hallway outside their quarters, he pulled his revolver from beneath his coat before hurrying after his brother.

  * * *

  From blocks away the damage was evident: burning rubble in the street, people running from the site of the impact, traffic snarling as drivers coped with panicky survivors of the fireball. Doc waited until the driver got to the point where traffic began to congeal and leaped from the running board to run the rest of the way.

  Up close, the damage was worse. Where the old Kingston Guardian newspaper building, a rounded three-story mound, had once sat, there was now a heap of burning brick. Fire had spread to buildings on three sides of it and had spilled into the roadway before it; cars and bodies that had been charred to blackness lay on the street. The injured who were capable of thought and movement ran, walked, even crawled away from the spreading fire.

  Others moved among the wreckage. A doctor, identifiable by his bag and stethoscope, the sleeve of his coat charred, moved from one still form to the next. A beat guardsman with a blanket put out flames on the bodies of the dead and injured.

  And Zeb, a full-grown man across his back in a fireman's carry, moving at a half trot away from the wreckage, Noriko beside him, a child in her arms.

  The heat from the burning wreckage finally reached Doc, a wave that caused him to break out in a sweat. He walked past the charred, lifeless form of a young woman and the still-burning perambulator she had been pushing. A coldness settled in his chest, and he knew that those who had caused this damage, should they ever fall under the sights of his gun or the point of his sword, could not expect mercy from him.

  * * *

  Albin, creeping up the hall, heard the building's lift rising toward this floor. Ahead, Rudi stood before the door to the liftshaft, his pose one of stiffness and anger.

  Albin stopped several paces back, lifted his revolver, and thumbed the hammer back.

  Rudi straightened and turned at the sound. His expression became bitter. "So much for family loyalty," he said.

  Albin shrugged. "You're not as important as the plan. Neither is the Bergmonk clan."

  "Care to make it an even contest? I have my pistols right here."

  Albin merely grinned.

  "Albin Bergmonk, drop your gun!"

  The voice was female, from paces behind the graybeard. Albin started and glanced over his shoulder. It was the woman whose wedding he'd attended on the grim world. She was several paces from him, holding a revolver in a two-handed grip.

  Albin heard the whisper of metal on leather as Rudi's pistols cleared their holsters. He cursed to himself.

  Then another voice, Egon's, from well behind the woman: "Albin! We have Otmar on the talk-box; he says there's—who's she?"

  Albin shoved hard against the wall, throwing himself back, and shouted, "Trouble!"

  Rudi's first shot hit the wall where Albin had been standing. Albin dove forward, into the hallway before the elevators, taking two steps toward Rudi. He returned fire against his brother, fast shots intended to force Rudi under cover, and they did; Rudi scrambled back around the corner of the elevator shaft, and Albin veered to head toward the stairs.

  He'd almost reached the door to the stairs when he felt ripping pain and heat in his leg, knew that one of Rudi's shots had clipped him. He hit the frail door hard, shattering it off its hinges. He tripped and rolled down half a flight of steps.

  * * *

  Trapped in the corridor between two Bergmonk brothers, one definitely armed and the other probably so, Gaby threw herself to one side, grabbing the knob of the closest door within reach, twisted, prayed—

  It came open and she shoved her way through, slamming the door behind her.

  It was an ordinary flat with a hardwood floor and dusty circular rugs. A surprised-looking man in boxer shorts and undershirt sat with a cereal bowl on the table before him. Music blared from a sound-only talk-box.

  Gunfire sounded from the hallway. "Don't move," she told the man.

  "I don't have anything—"

  "Get on the floor." More gunfire, but not as loud. She dared to pull the door open, poked her nose out, glanced up and down the corridor.

  Albin was gone. So was Rudi. So was the third Bergmonk, the one who'd emerged from the brothers' flat behind her. She swore to herself and, hoping that Lieutenant Athelstane and the city guards she'd summoned were close enough to hear the gunfire being exchanged, she slipped back into the hall and moved as quietly as she could toward the Bergmonks' door.

  * * *

  The pain is nothing. Suffer it later. Albin ran down the stairs. He forced himself up to his usual running speed; the flesh wound in his thigh and the sharp pains where his fall down the stairs had bruised his ribs threatened to slow him. He heard Rudi trotting down above him, but his baby brother was not exposing himself to fire.

  This wasn't good. Albin carried one revolver, six shots, only two shots left until he reloaded. Rudi, the best shot of all the brothers, carried two Greenling semiautomatics: eighteen shots total, no more than three of them spent. Albin's chance of winning a gunfight had disappeared with the advantage of ambush gone. He put on more speed.

  * * *

  Gaby slid up to stand, her back to the wall, just beside the Bergmonks' door. She listened, but her ears were still ringing from the gunfire; she might hear shouting, but nothing quieter.

  She heard nothing at all.

  She wished all these events hadn't scattered the associates across Neckerdam, wished she knew where Harris was right now.

  Then she tapped on the doorway. "Novimagos Guard! Open up!"

  No answer. At least they hadn't replied with gunfire.

  With her revolver at the ready, she twisted the doorknob and shoved. The door swung in easily. She leaned in for a fraction of a second and then yanked herself back, as much to force them to fire early as to catch a glimpse of the interior.

  No gunfire. No one visible in the seedy living room.

  She glanced again, took a moment longer this time. There was a talk-box on the table, the handset still off its cradle. Doors left and right were open. So was the window on the far wall, its curtains flapping.

  Gaby took a moment to catch her breath and wonder where her saliva had gone. She kicked off her pumps, then moved in as noiselessly as she could, straining to hear, keeping her revolver pointed wherever she looked.

  Door left—bedroom. Spartan and tidy. No Bergmonks unless they were under the beds; with their thick torsos, she didn't think so.

  Door right—kitchen. Also neat. One of the brothers had to be compulsive about cleaning. Still no Bergmonks unless they were hiding in the icebox . . . and since this kind had a door latch that made escape impossible, she doubted it.

  There was a metallic clatter from the street below the window—more like metal bending than cars colliding. Then there was a crash. She ran over to look.

  Two Bergmonk brothers were on the fire escape, two stories above the street and hurrying down. Halfway up along the building, a truck had come crashing through a garage doorway.

  She knew the truck,
Doc's rust-colored deuce-and-a-half, and she was momentarily confused. Then she saw the last Bergmonk brother through the windshield, saw the bandage across the nose her husband had broken, and knew this wasn't part of the Sidhe Foundation's efforts. She slid through the window and began trotting down the fire escape stairs.

  The truck pulled to a halt beneath the fire escape. The Bergmonks didn't wait to reach the street; they threw themselves over the last rail, landing on the hardy cloth top over the cargo bed. One shouted, "Go, Otmar!"

  She heard the reply, words she couldn't make out, and heard both brothers shout, "Go, go!" Then Otmar got the truck into gear and it began lumbering up the street.

  As Gaby reached the midpoint of the fire escape, a pair of Novimagos Guard cars roared up the street. She waved frantically at them; one screeched to a stop just where the truck had rested a moment ago while the other continued in pursuit of the truck. The driver—Lieutenant Athelstane, with another officer to his left side—waved in return.

  The rough bronze of the fire escape tearing at her hose and feet, Gaby continued down.

  * * *

  Albin raced through the building lobby and out onto the street, King's Road.

  Luck was with him. The traffic signal's HALT sign was up, and waiting at the corner was a roadster with its canvas top down.

  He ran across the street and jumped onto the back of the car. He winced as his weight came down hard on his injured leg, and again as he dropped into the left-hand passenger seat. The driver, a thin, mustachioed man in green-and-yellow tweed and a roadster's cap, stared at him in confusion.

  Albin put the barrel of his gun against the man's forehead. "Drive or I kill you."

  Then Rudi emerged from the building lobby. Albin shifted his aim, moving the barrel just behind the driver's head, and fired. Rudi must have seen the motion of Albin aiming; he was moving before the hammer fell, diving behind a mail box. The driver screeched and put a hand up to his ear.

  One block over, the rust-red money truck roared southward. Albin shouted, "Follow that truck!" and again pointed the gun at the driver.

  * * *

  Athelstane set the car in motion, accelerating fast after the deuce-and-a-half and the other guard car. In the back seat, Gaby checked out the soles of her feet—scratched and a little bloodied, not bad, but the stockings were a loss.

  Before their car reached the corner, a painfully yellow roadster turned from a side street to follow the red truck; Athelstane accelerated in its wake.

  "Dammit." Gaby leaned forward. "That's Albin. Is that one of his brothers with him?"

  The other officer, a guardsman whose name Gaby remembered as Paddaddin, shook his head, setting his red beard into wavy motion. "Bergmonk has a gun on him."

  Athelstane said, "And he's too skinny to be a Bergmonk. Albin has a hostage."

  A checkered-green taxi screeched into line behind Athelstane's car. Gaby looked back. "There's Rudi," she said.

  Rudi, a mad grin or a rictus of pain on his face, was the sole occupant of the taxi. Gaby wondered what had become of the driver.

  Ahead of them, the other guard car accelerated and drew abreast of the car Albin had commandeered. Gaby thought for a moment that the guardsmen were trying to force the yellow roadster off the road, then realized it was merely trying to pass. "They're just concentrating on the truck," she said. "They don't even know—"

  Athelstane honked, trying to get the attention of the other guard car, and pointed frantically at the roadster. But it was too late. Albin merely leaned to the left, pointed his revolver at the guard car's right front tire, and fired.

  Gaby saw the tire deform. The guard car weaved to the right, banging into the yellow roadster, then veered off to the left, up onto the sidewalk, crashing into the corner of a building at an alley mouth. Athelstane swore as they passed the wreck, then said, "Sorry, ma'am."

  "Apology accepted. Now get that son of a bitch."

  Albin's roadster tried to take advantage of an opening in traffic and whip past the truck, but a car turned onto the street and drove side by side with the truck, forestalling him. Gaby could see the two Bergmonks she'd chased in the back of the truck, kneeling by the rear panel, probably ready to fire . . . though their guns were not yet in sight. "What was the big boom a couple of minutes, I mean half a chime ago?" Gaby asked, though she suspected she knew.

  "A fireball came down. But I think it landed north of the Gwall-Hallyn Building." Athelstane's tone was grim. "Two cars were all I could bring to support you. Everything else was being sent to the fireball."

  Rudi's taxi pulled alongside Athelstane's car, to the left. Gaby brought her gun up, but Rudi merely tipped an imaginary hat at her. Then he surged ahead, the taxi's lighter mass giving Rudi more acceleration than Athelstane could summon. Rudi aimed a pistol out the window . . . at Albin.

  Albin, not hampered by a window, pulled his trigger first. But nothing happened; Gaby didn't hear a gunshot. She saw Albin say something curt and break the gun open to reload. Rudi fired and blood blossomed high on Albin's left arm.

  Athelstane said, "He's on our side?"

  "No, but he's against Albin. Albin tried to ice him upstairs." Then the brothers in the back of the truck brought revolvers up and opened fire on Rudi's car; sparks flared off the radiator grill. "Dammit, stop firing, there are people all along the street!"

  It didn't much matter. None of the brothers' shots missed to endanger innocents.

  Then a shot found one of the taxi's front tires. The driver of the roadster braked, allowing the taxi to careen forward. Rudi wrestled with his wheel; the taxi slid forward and rightward in a skid across Athelstane's path and into the oncoming traffic lane . . . and he fired one last time through his driver's side window.

  Albin jerked and redness sprayed from the back of his head. More blood poured down from his hairline. He turned back toward Rudi, his expression one of surprise turning to blankness. His gun and a handful of bullets tumbled from his hand, across the roadster's rear, and into the street as he slumped backwards against the car door. The roadster's driver braked harder.

  Gaby watched as the two cars in the northbound lane missed Rudi's taxi, then the third, a longnose roadster, smashed into it, spinning the checkered-green car around like a top. Then Athelstane's car passed the taxi and the roadster. In moments both cars were too far behind them to worry about.

  The brothers in the back of the truck might have been confused about what to do about the gunplay between their brothers, but with Rudi and Albin gone they had no such problems concerning the Novimagos Guard car. As soon as the car closed a few paces, they opened fire.

  Their shots were accurate; the windshield before Athelstane starred and glass rained across the guardsmen in the front seat. Both men flinched, then came upright again and shook glass out of their beards. Guardsman Paddaddin aimed his own revolver through the hole fortune had offered him, but held his fire: There were still too many innocents ahead who might act as backstops.

  Athelstane continued gaining, then whipped up beside the truck and passed it on the right. As he came alongside, the truck's driver veered toward him, ramming him into the oncoming traffic lane. He yielded rather than be hit, and slid rightward an extra lane to allow an oncoming taxi to roar by. Then he angled left again and came back into the southbound lane ahead of the truck.

  Gaby and Paddaddin leaned half out of their passenger-side windows and aimed. The driver flinched, but as if by prearrangement both fired at the truck's tires. On their third set of shots, the right front tire rippled and tore itself to shreds, sending the truck's front end into shudders.

  The truck swerved left, toward the line of cars parked alongside the street. The driver yanked his wheel right, overcorrecting, and abruptly the truck was skidding on its left front quarter, turning, rolling.

  It performed a complete rotation and a little more, then came to rest on its left side, its bed twisted further than the cab. Athelstane braked. Before he got the guard car turned ar
ound, they all saw the truck's driver clamber out of the cab and go running back up the street.

  Athelstane pulled to a stop beside the truck's bed; the car behind him screeched to a halt barely in time and began honking for him to clear the lane. "You deal with the men in back," Athelstane said. "I'll run down the driver."

  Gaby and Paddaddin hopped out. Gaby bit back a curse as her bare foot came down on an irregularity in the bricktop road. The honking driver saw her handgun and stopped making noise. Athelstane roared off after the driver. Gaby and the guardsman moved to where they could see the opening into the bed.

  The bed held bag after bag full of silver libs; miraculously, only a few had torn open.

  There were no Bergmonk Boys, unless they were buried out of sight under a ton and a half of silver and canvas.

  * * *

  They gathered in the bar of the Sidhe Foundation's suite in the Monarch Building. It was similar to any streetside pub, one long bar with shelves of liquor behind it, stools on the other side and small tables beyond that, most of the furniture in dark hardwoods and dark leather. But it was all dusty, little-used.

  Gaby, her feet still bare and her stockings discarded, did the honors, silently pouring drinks for the assembly.

  Harris, smelling of salt water and carrying a canvas bag with forty pounds of bronze plate inside, wouldn't sit. He paced beside the window, swinging the bag.

  Doc, hair mussed and the front of his shirt and trousers dirty, with blood—not his—across his right shoulder and breast, took the stool at the end of the bar, the seat with the best view of the room.

  Noriko, creases and sweat for once marring her clothes, as somber as the others, took one of the little tables.

  At the next table over sat Zeb, slouching in his chair. There were burn marks on his shirt and bandages under them, a bandage on his brow, bandages on his arms, and bloodstains—some his—across his clothing. He glared into distant nothingness with the war-face expression Gaby had seen him wear when he still fought professionally. Since he wasn't facing off with an opponent now, she decided, with a shudder, that he had decided to kill someone.