by Kai O'Connal
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many voices that played a role in the creation of this book, and I heard them in a number of ways, and much of the time I heard only the voices, and did not see the people who accompany those voices, which can be disconcerting if it happens often enough and is not occasionally offset by conversations with people who appear before you in the flesh; disconcerting enough, as it turns out, that it can be important to acknowledge the voices you hear if only to prove to yourself and to anyone who may read your words that the voices are in fact real, and belong to real people, people who contributed great value in making this manuscript, which was the purpose of starting this acknowledgment, which means it is high time we get to the main business of acknowledging some of those people, such as: John Helfers, who not only edited this manuscript, but provided some of the early whispers in my ear that shaped its direction; Marc Tassin, who talked to me of dark deeds and corrupt people in ways that quite suited my mindset while writing this; Jason Schmetzer, whose dashing energy carried me forward when my passion for the project was lagging; Phaedra Weldon, who helped me remember that telling stories of people connecting is always worthwhile; Jason Hardy, who I enjoy talking to if only because I can feel safe in doing the opposite of whatever he says; Loren Coleman, who danced at the periphery of this book like an elusive leprechaun, always in sight yet impossible to pin down; and there are probably others, but their nature is such that I fear that putting their names down in print might confirm their insubstantiality instead of doing the opposite, so I believe I am safest stopping right here.
FOR YOU.
PROLOGUE
“The only true secret to life is knowing what people want, and how much they are willing to do to get it.”
Hearn sighed. “Conversations go a lot quicker, you know, if you could resist the urge to sink into aphorisms.”
The troll smoothed the lush brown hair that fell over his shiny horns. “I say these things because they are things that you need to learn.”
Hearn paced back and forth in the library, wishing for a window he could look out of. Spending time in this room with only a troll and several stacks of books was starting to make him feel claustrophobic. It didn’t help that the room had no trace of Matrix access. There were no devices in sight, no AROs that Hearn could call up. He patted his right cyberleg occasionally just to remind himself that it was still the twenty-first century.
“I assume this means you think you know what this Elijah Tish wants.”
The troll nodded gravely, turning his double chin triple.
“And what he’ll do to get it.”
Another nod.
“So that means …”
“You just have to follow him. Stay far enough away that he doesn’t make you, but close enough that you can take the map from him shortly after he gets it. If not sooner.”
“You understand that that’s not going to be a simple journey, right? It’s not like the map is just sitting in some library like this somewhere, waiting for him to grab it. There’s probably going to be a lot of travel on short notice. It’s not going to be cheap.”
“That’s my concern, not yours. If there comes a point where I feel things are becoming too expensive, I’ll tell you.”
Hearn nodded. His hand wiggled near his hip, instinctively looking for the gun that wasn’t there.
“Got it,” he said. “We’re on the case until you say we’re not.”
The troll, who called himself Tempest, had provided transportation to and from his home or office or wherever the hell they had just met. That meant Hearn had about forty-five minutes to himself in the back of a sedan on the way back to civilization. He’d roll down the window, let the wind run over his black-gelled helmet of hair, and enjoy breathing in the air until it got smoggy.
That sounded great in theory, but in practice he started itching to get closer to civilization. For twenty minutes of the drive, he was kicking himself for not bringing a device with satellite Matrix access. The signal from above would have been perfect, with nothing around to block it, only scrub brush and rocky hills. There was no regular Matrix access until they started to get closer to home. As soon as he got access, Hearn dove in, looking for as much information as he could find about this map the troll had talked about.
The way Hearn figured it, the troll was missing one part of the equation. It was good to know what people wanted and how much they wanted, but sometimes if you wanted to figure out what they were up to and how they were going to act, you had to find out why.
Hearn had been paid a decent chunk of money in advance, and he figured he could sacrifice some of it to help him feel better about working with a cartographically inclined troll.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
“Man, I feel as out of place here as a Humanis thug at a Red Rovers rally.”
Surveying the well-dressed crowd through her violet-tinted Evo Nightwear eyeglasses, Kyrie raised a crystal flute to her lips and sipped, her eyes widening as the champagne slid down her throat. “Bubbly’s real, though. Good, too.”
“Glad it meets with your approval—I’m sure our host would be pleased,” Elijah said. “Any security measures I should be particularly concerned about?”
Kyrie pulled at the choker around her throat. Elijah smiled. You could put the adept next to any person in the world, and she’d be confident enough to hold her own—as long as she didn’t have to dress up. But that’s what this situation required, and he didn’t mind. With his salt-and-pepper hair, muted gray Mortimer’s Berwick Noir 505 suit, and his own pair of stylish eyeglasses perched on his classically Roman nose, he blended perfectly with the rest of the nouveau chic art lovers swirling around. Holding a champagne flute that matched hers, he sipped his drink absent-mindedly. He couldn’t stop looking at the marble set of half-stairs leading to the hallway and the room beyond—and their target.
“Try not to look too eager, Elijah,” Kyrie said. “And don’t worry—I’ve got his back. When are we going?” Her kaleidoscopic sky-blue and white floor-length Zoe Moonsilver dress swirled around her, making her look fetching enough to draw the attention of a handsome, ebony-haired elf gliding by. She gave him a look that made it clear that he couldn’t handle her even if she wanted to give him a chance. Elijah was a little depressed that he didn’t have anything like that look in his repertoire, especially when he saw the dark-haired elf break eye contact with Kyrie and slink away.
“Don’t worry, I’ll let you know. I need to make sure the path is clear.”
“Fine by me—I’ll just keep playing with the magic furniture.” Kyrie drained her drink—they’d both taken alcohol inhibitors, so they could guzzle a gallon of the bubbly and remain stone-cold sober. She began to set her flute down, and as she did, the floor extruded a slender column to meet the bottom of her glass. “How the hell does it do that?”
The room had nothing that was not built in. They were surrounded by blank, silvery-gray walls that exuded their own lighting, enveloping the space and everyone in it in a soft, relaxing glow. The room needed no separate furniture because it could supply anything on demand. The entire place was constantly shifting, reconfiguring itself to meet the needs of the guests. A person only had to begin sitting down, with nothing below them, and the motion would make a section of the floor rise to meet them, fashioned into a chair that flowed seamlessly out of the rest of the room.
And it wasn’t just seating. Shelves popped out of the far wall at random intervals, each one containing trays of delectable hors d’oeuvres that waiters passed to the guests. The food was all created from real ingredients, not a hint of soy or krill anywhere. Fitting the evening’s theme, it consisted of wild game and fruit from what had once
been Central America—the vast jungle area now controlled by the Aztechnology Corporation. Music drifted from the walls as well, a somber set of deep bass drums underscoring a swirl of pan flutes piping a merry melody.
A text message appeared in a window in Elijah’s vision, a small square projected by his glasses.
That was the third member of their team, a dwarven hacker called Slycer. He was across the room, wearing a lapelless, pinstriped Laurentine de Lion Millennium 3000 suit that minimized his stockiness. He seemed to feel a little left out to not be right there with Elijah and Kyrie.
Elijah would have rather worked with a more independent, less chatty decker, but Slycer knew the man who had hired Eijah, and bringing him on had seemed like a good idea at the time. He was on the talkative side, but seemed capable enough; he had been effective in getting them closer to their destination, at least so far.
The glasses also allowed her to project holographic images that only she could see—like the small window showing the outside of the front of the house. As she watched, a shadow of a strange, stubby, wingless aircraft passed over the driveway, appearing only for a second before vanishing into the night.
“The possible skyline exit is still being watched,” she told Elijah. He frowned, while still scanning the whole room for threats, but somehow he kept returning to that hallway.
“Security grid down yet?” he asked.
Kyrie glanced left then right, looking at images only she could see through her augmented reality glasses. “Nope. Slycer’s still working on it—whoops, hold it, looks like he’s got it. Let’s move. Turn on the charm.”
Elijah didn’t even bother making a gesture; he simply cast a spell that made him more charismatic and persuasive than normal. He could feel the mana moving through him, making his stride more confident.
With a last casual glance around to make sure they weren’t being observed, Elijah crooked his elbow out. Kyrie deftly inserted her arm through his, and the pair strolled to the stairs, casually trotted up the flight, and strolled into the hallway.
Elijah lightly grabbed Kyrie’s arm. “Hold up.”
“What’s going on?” she asked. “We’re almost there.”
The message from Slycer almost left a flame trail on its way to Elijah.
Elijah didn’t hesitate, steering Kyrie toward a featureless panel in the wall that slid open at their approach. Glancing back down the hall, he saw the sleek head of a low-slung animal crest the top step as she stepped inside the room.
“I guess you saw that biodrone, too,” she said.
“Yes. Let Slycer take care of it—we don’t need to draw attention right now.”
“Fine, but I want visual.” She followed that up with a quick text.
In a small augmented reality object that opened in the bottom left quadrant of her vision, Kyrie watched the guard dog stop at the doorway they’d just entered. It was a solid piece of work, a deep-chested mix of German Shepherd and pit bull—and probably twice as deadly as both too, she thought. Watching its eyes as it looked up at the security cam she was observing it through, Kyrie shivered. The dog’s gaze was cold and soulless—probably a complete cyberware refit.
Although her eyes were slitted and her lips tight with suppressed anger, Kyrie kept her tone calm and professional.
The hacker was good enough to convey tension through font choice.
“How about you two break it off now?” Elijah said. “And perhaps focus?”
Kyrie scowled. “I’m never taking another job with a hacker we haven’t worked with before. Never fucking again!”
But that was the moment Slycer picked to come through.
<‘Bout damn time.> Kyrie sent. Smoothing her handsome-but-not-pretty features into a carefree party mask, she walked to the door and listened to the receding clicks of the dog’s claws as it resumed its patrol. The door reacted to her presence by sliding soundlessly into the wall, revealing an empty hallway.
While Elijah watched her carefully, Kyrie nodded toward the far end of the hallway. “Heading for the door.” Despite the upscale home’s carefully calibrated temperature, he felt a bead of sweat on his neck, creeping under his starched collar.
The door to the room that held their objective still flashed red in her AR as they approached. Kyrie fired off a terse message before Elijah had time to compose a more diplomatic text.
Elijah tried not to smile at the exaggerated roll of Kyrie’s eyes. She raised her hand and placed it on the palm reader on the left side of the door.
Elijah didn’t like working with a stranger any more than Kyrie did, but he had to admit the dwarf was getting the job done. He slipped into astral perception as the door slid open, and his eyes widened. Their host had a good sense of the value of Awakened artifacts, it seemed. But there did not seem to be anything that was an immediate threat, so he gave an okay sign to Kyrie. Cautiously, they walked forward.
Unlike the rest of the sprawling house, decorated in ultra-sleek modern, this room appeared to have been transplanted from a twentieth-century museum. Dark wood paneling covered the walls, while the floor was swathed in thick, beige carpet that reduced footfalls to silence. The lighting was recessed and indirect, with much of it coming from the dozens of glass-covered recesses in the walls, each with a single object inside, all lit to display them at their best.
Elijah was almost paralyzed. Seeing the auras was one thing, but confronted with the collection right in front of him was almost too much to take. Each item was practically calling to him, begging to tell him its story. How it had been made, who made it, who took it, then who took it after that. The hands it had passed through, the lives taken in order to obtain it. The knowledge, the pure knowledge each item had brushed by during its existence. If he could get a portion of it, the merest fraction …
But he was working. He broke out of his reverie to notice Kyrie was focused on one object in particular.
The dagger was beautiful, its double-edged blade fourteen in
ches long and razor sharp. It was obviously old, the hilt carved from a single piece of horn with three silver studs and two ornately etched wraps securing it to the blade. The sheath was also bound in bands of similarly decorated silver, and the entire weapon shined.
Elijah walked up behind Kyrie as she stared at the dagger. “No time for window shopping, my dear,” he whispered. “Although I commend your taste. It’s a beautiful antique—Russian kindjal, late 18th to early 19th century, probably commissioned by a minor noble house. Oh, and it’s bound as well.”
“You mean—it’s a focus?”
“Exactly—probably why you were drawn to it in the first place. But speaking of focus, let’s get back to the job at hand, yes?”
Kyrie threw a last wistful glance at the enchanted weapon, then accompanied Elijah to the main attraction in the middle of the room.
Behind thick glass, what appeared to be a very old, orange-and-tan ceramic bowl rested on a sleek wooden pedestal. It looked to have been assembled from two parts: an inverted, tapered lower portion, and above that a slightly concave ring of fired ceramic as tall as Elijah’s hand that formed the bowl’s upper part. Etched decorations—alternating blocky spirals and what looked like crude, three-leaved trees—ran in a band of beige around the upper part, while the bottom was glazed in alternating stripes of orange and tan.
Kyrie did not seem impressed. “This is what you’re supposed to authenticate?”
Elijah unconsciously reached out toward the bowl, but he kept enough control to stay clear of any alarms. “That’s it. And if it’s genuine …” He looked over at Kyrie and smiled. “If it’s genuine, our host really should be keeping a closer eye on it.”