Choose Your Enemies Carefully

by Robert N. Charrette

  Dodger sighed. "I thought you would understand. I thought that you would see the need to stop these people."

  "Oh, I can see the need to stop them, all right," Sam snapped. "Anyone planning their kind of evil magic must be stopped. I would think so even if you hadn't dragged me into the middle of this. You could have just asked me, but instead you had to play the puppet master. You made sure that I was involved, didn’t you? You made me a party to their crime."

  Dodger straightened away from Sam's accusing finger. "We both became involved inadvertently, Sir Twist. I will not take your guilt on my shoulders alone. You agreed to and completed the snatch on Sanchez before anyone knew what these druids planned."

  Dodger was right about that. They had gotten involved before Dodger had shown him the false list. Sam had been the one who had arranged the run with Mr. Johnson-Glover. Dodger had had nothing to do with it beyond his decking responsibilities.

  If Dodger hadn’t led him into sticking with Glover, Sam might never have learned of the druids’ plan until after they had performed their sacrifice. Then, he would have been an accessory without any chance to avert the crime. As things stood, he had a chance to rescue Sanchez and Corbeau and the others. Were Sam’s hurt feelings worth people’s lives?

  "Your London friends have resources?"

  Dodger nodded.

  "Then we’d better figure out where and how to apply them."

  Dodger offered a tentative smile. Sam returned it, offering a truce. Once the druids were foiled, there would be time to sort things out. Until then, there was work to do. Constant argument would not get it done.

  "I will contact my friends immediately," Dodger said.

  "Hold on. I want to make sure we are in agreement as to exactly what is going on. We can’t know what we need to have until we know what we need to do. I want to have as little involvement with your ‘friends’ as possible."

  "Very well, Sir Twist. I trust you will evaluate the problem clearly. I trust you."

  Dodger paused, offering Sam the opportunity to make a statement of reconciliation. Unready to do so, Sam let the silence grow. Dodger cleared his throat and said, "So, Sir Twist, where shall we start?"

  "If this ritual involves the shedding of royal blood, it is designed to channel a lot of power. That kind of magical energy needs to be confined and focused. They would need a special ritual site, someplace that would allow them to concentrate and then direct the energies they unleash."

  " ’Tis a reasonable conclusion. From the look in your eye, Sir Twist, you have a thought."

  "Yeah. Remember what I told you about the druids being something of a religion?"

  "Yes."

  "Well. Religions have holy places and an important shrine would seem a likely place for their ritual. For the druids, holy places were groves of trees and circles of stones. Once Britain was dotted with them. By now though, most of them are gone."

  "Mayhap archaeological survey records?"

  "It would take a lot of time to sort through. England’s got a lot of history. Besides, we don’t really know what might be druidic and what’s not. We could play guessing games for days."

  " ’Twould seem that there is no other choice."

  "I recall a theory that stated all magical places are connected magically. According to the model, there are connections between such places through which mana can flow, sort of like datalines in the Matrix. Once the magic came back, some magicians found that these connections actually worked sometimes, allowing spells to be cast beyond normal parameters. Nobody really understands what these manalines are or how they work, but most of the research was done in Britain since there seems to be a high concentration of them crisscrossing the island. A lot of the pathways coincided with a network of religious and archaeological sites charted about a hundred and fifty years ago by a guy named Watkins. His charts don't match the modern ones exactly, I don’t know how; my memory’s kind of fuzzy on the subject. I do remember that these pathways use the name he coined, ley lines. If we can find where bunches of these ley lines meet, we might find a likely place for the ritual."

  "Render unto me the references for the magical texts, Sir Twist. If they are on-line, I shall strip them of the pertinent material and mate the data with current orbital cartography. Within half an hour, we shall have a map of places of power and the highway of your ley lines."

  In manipulating the Matrix, Dodger was as good as his word. Using a hookup to the squat’s trid unit, the elf displayed the map he had constructed with his cyberdeck. Sam stared at the screen, scrolling the image and tracing the lines. Line after line converged on a nearby nexus, but the node was small compared to a greater one to the southeast. He checked the map reference and sighed. He should have known from the start, but how could he have been sure that it was still there? So much had changed in the world, so many antiquities destroyed, and England had seen its share of turmoil. But the site remained. And it was only two steps from a minor nexus at Glover’s mansion.

  Sam tapped out commands on the cyberdeck’s keyboard, expanding the image until a ghostly picture of sarsen stones filled the image area. Dodger’s eyes widened in recognition.

  "Stonehenge," they said together.

  13

  Hart knelt by the heel stone. She had felt the power of the place as soon as she entered the avenue. Even at a distance, astral perception had been difficult; this close to the henge the residual energies produced a kind of glare, effectively cutting off that avenue of scouting. Cautiously, she rose and moved ahead. At the slaughter stone, she cut across the path and slipped down into the ditch. She worked her way past the north barrow before cutting in toward the megaliths of the inner rings.

  She halted almost at once.

  An elf woman was briefly visible in the open space of the outer ring. She was gone almost before Hart registered her presence, but the sighting was enough to check Hart’s approach. There were others present at the henge. Hart waited, but no one else appeared for a quarter hour.

  She studied the shadows into which the woman had disappeared. Scrutiny of the megalith’s shadow found the woman and revealed another elf, a dark-haired man. Both of the skulkers wore black suits similar to Hart’s. She flicked the control on her goggles, switching from unaided to IR reception, and found that their garments masked their body heat. The thermal dispersion factor seemed to be even more efficient than her suit. Their equipment was top notch and their lack of nervous movement marked them as pros. As yet, they seemed unaware of her presence. Were they scouts?

  Movement in the darkness caught her eye. A third elf approached. The one wore black synthleathers, and his pale hair was cut in a sprawl shag that rippled as he moved. He had a flat case strapped to his back, which she recognized from its silhouette as a cyberdeck carrying case. There was no use for decking equipment here; the leather elf was out of his element tonight.

  A fourth person followed him, not an elf but a human. He moved with a slightly awkward run that nevertheless covered the open ground quickly. The fringes of his jacket swayed with his movement, blurring his outline.

  Alert and quiet, the four waited at the side of the sarsen stone for several minutes. Apparently satisfied that they had tripped no alarms, they held a hushed conference before spreading out to take up ambush positions among the stones of the henge.

  Interesting. Were they also after the Hidden Circle?

  She worked her way in. With others already present, she was denied the perch she had thought to take; climbing to the capstone would attract their attention. Without knowing who they were and what they wanted here, she could not afford their attention. After all, she had no proof that they weren’t an advance party for the Circle, come to secure the site.

  It took nearly an hour to get into her alternate position, almost due east from the altar stone. The view of the interior of the circle was nearly as good, but more than half of the approaches, including the avenue, were screened by the megaliths.

  Her researches h
ad not told her what time might be appropriate for the ceremony, only that it must take place before dawn. She settled in to wait.

  She was not sure when she became aware of it, but she realized that the energy of the henge was shifting.

  Somewhere, someone was creating a powerful magic that touched the henge. She slipped into astral consciousness and tried to assess the nature of the energy. It didn’t feel like a normal ritual, and she could assense no spotter making a ritual link to the henge. The astral glare of the henge was shifting, breaking up. She could discern spirit presences amidst the energy that swept among the stones, like fish on a reef. Those spirit forms were agitated. Moving ever faster, they began to stream out of the henge. Others drifted in, only to follow the path taken by earlier spirits. She shifted her perspective, floating high above the stone circle, and saw that the spirits moved along distinct paths. The ley lines were active.

  "Damn!"

  The oath focused her attention back to the mundane plane.

  The human had come out of hiding and was standing in the center of the circle. His hands were on the altar stone and his face turned to the sky. "They’re not here," he shouted. "Those druid bastards are doing their black magic somewhere else."

  She recognized the voice, though it had been months since she had heard it. Samuel Verner. She had heard that he’d taken the street name Twist since their last encounter. She had not recognized him when she had seen him, but that was easily explained by the darkness and distance. From his curse, it was clear that he was not part of the druids’ plan. Verner was a runner, not a mover; his presence meant an unknown faction was involved.

  The other skulkers left their places to join their partner in the center of the ring. The decker elf would be Sam’s buddy, Dodger. The other two she didn’t know, but as soon as she saw them plainly, she realized that she recognized them. They were the pair who had been leaving the Seelie Court as she had been entering. Was Lady Deigh running parallel teams, or were they the agents of some other power? Had the Lord Protector learned of his renegades? Whoever these runners were, they hunted the Hidden Circle as she did.

  Already she had been misled by the quarry. If would take fast work to make up the ground. If the energy she had sensed building was as great as she thought, she would need help. And luck. Verner had been lucky before. Since Sam’s group was already after the Circle, they might be willing to share the hunt. She wouldn’t have to pay them, and might even be able to arrange for them to take any heat the operation generated.

  She left her hiding place, arms held clear of her sides, and walked forward. She was acutely conscious of the Beretta Model 70 hanging on its TEAM sling and slapping against her butt. It wouldn’t do to be shot by friendlies.

  "I’d wish you a good evening, but it doesn’t seem to be one. It appears that we have all been disappointed."

  The dark-clad elves drew weapons and trained them on her. Dodger, still fumbling to clear his gun from an entanglement with his cyberdeck, stepped into the woman’s line of fire. She looked annoyed, but shifted competently to get a new line. Sam tensed and Hart felt a flicker of power. Something in the air, she thought. Sam had not been magically active when they had last met. She waited while they searched the surrounding darkness, seeking to assure themselves that she was alone.

  "Perhaps we can join forces," she said. "With some fast transport, we might be able to raid them before they finish their ritual. The circle’s not too far away."

  "What do you have to do with this?" the dark-haired elf asked.

  Sam ignored his companion, took a step forward, and asked his own question. "To the southwest?"

  She nodded.

  "Glover’s estate," Dodger said.

  Sam slammed his fist onto the altar stone. "We were right on top of their site and never knew it. If we’d stayed, we might have done something, but we’ll never fight our way in now." Turning to Hart, he said, "Unless you’ve got another dracoform for a partner."

  "No more dragons," she said. He gave her an odd look, and she knew that she had not masked all of her emotions. What signal she had sent him, she didn’t know. Months later, she still didn’t fully understand her own feelings on the matter and Sam’s place in them.

  "Well, I guess I’m not surprised. A strike team, maybe?"

  She shook her head.

  "We’ll have to try, anyway," he said. "They can’t be allowed to complete their ritual."

  As Sam started to leave the henge, the dark-haired male elf stepped in his way. "Can she be trusted?" Sam looked up in the elf’s face. He waited until the cool blue eyes met his, then said, "I was once told never to trust an elf, Estios. It’s always seemed like good advice around you."

  Sam looked around at his companions, making Hart very conscious of her metatype. The points of her ears felt hot with blood.

  "But it seems that I have little choice. I’m a minority of one in this crowd. At the moment, I have to trust anyone who looks like they can do something about the druids. Hart’s a professional shadowrunner, ready for action, and willing to help. You want to pass up another soldier? The druids will be prepared for trouble and Glover will have tightened his security. We’ll need all the help we can get."

  Estios remained stiff for a second, as if to assert his command of the situation. "Very well. I will call the aircraft."

  14

  The wicker man stood to the south, facing across the chalked lines toward the bare, shield-shaped patch of earth across which they had all entered the ritual area. The silver bowl of blessed water rested in the western point, and the scent of burning herbs rising from the eastern point’s brazier filled the clearing. Only the upper portions of the wicker man would be visible from beyond the surrounding topiary maze.

  Save for the wicker man, Glover found it all very familiar. Normally, the golden-tipped spear stood at the southern point, but this was no normal ritual. This was a ceremony of high sacrifice, the holiest of druidic rituals. Bound within the wicker were the six chosen sacrifices, the scions of untainted blood. Each limb held one, another lay wrapped within the body and the last was curled in the head. Gordon stood before the mannikin holding an unlit torch half concealed by the flowing sleeves of his plain white robe. He seemed pensive and subdued. Was he contemplating his forthcoming role?

  The symbols were all in place; it was time to begin. Gordon abandoned his vigil in front of the wicker man and walked to his place near the center of the ring, careful to avoid stepping on any of the chalked lines. As he reached the unfinished pentacle in which he was to stand, he was met by David Neville. Gordon took his place, and young Neville completed the diagram. Across the clearing, the druids moved to their stations, ghostly white shapes drifting in the dark. Each wore a ritual robe topped off with the golden brow band and head cloth of an initiate. Sir Winston, leader of the ceremony, was distinguished from his peers by a heavy gold pectoral bearing the sun-in-splendor insignia of his totem.

  Everything was in order. Glover could find nothing amiss, nothing to hint that Hyde-White might be right. The ceremonial ring was laid out exactly according to the specifications in the ritual they had all worked out. The geometries were accurate, the symbols appropriate. What could go wrong?

  Neville stood in the center of the ring, naming each participant and building the protective magics. Glover studied the archdruid. Neville appeared steady and in control; only a touch of anticipation marred his calm. A faint glow was beginning to manifest around him as the energies awoke.

  Glover joined the circle, adding his energies to the spell. Neville continued around the ring until he reached Hyde-White. With the inclusion of the fat man, the ritual circle was complete. Glover noticed that Hyde-White’s aura was subdued, as if he had not committed himself wholly to the ritual. A less competent shaman might have fatally flawed the ritual by such reservation, but Hyde-White's power was well above the commitment needed.

  Neville led the opening chant, his reedy voice ringing out to be answered by the co
mbined voices of the other druids. He called upon the earth to heed their call, offering praise to all that was natural and stating the Circle's commitment to restoring the land's balance. He paused before making the offer of sacrifice.

  Neville nodded to Gordon, who held his unlit brand on high. Gathering strands from each of the druids’ power, Neville wove them into a lance of light and speared it toward Gordon. The amber beam struck the torch, igniting it in a burst of flame and spark.

  To the accompaniment of the rhythmic spell chant, Gordon walked to the edge of the ring and faced the wicker man. He held the torch to the end of the mannikin’s left arm until the flames caught. Then, he thrust it deep into the leg and released his grip, leaving it to kindle another nest of hungry fire. He bowed to the wicker man before returning to his place in the center of the pentacle and facing Neville.

  "We give holocaust. Let the sky accept our offering," he said.

  The druids continued their spell song, raising their volume as the fire spread through the wicker man. Sanchez, the first of the sacrifices to be consumed, died without a sound. The druids sang louder.

  The howl of tearing metal and the crack of splintering wood ripped across their voices, driving the chant to an abrupt halt. The cacophony issued from somewhere near the house. Glover searched for the source.

  Behind the outbuildings, an unkempt shape was rising. The irregular mass of shifting material humped up into a huge, dark mass of refuse and debris until its top was several meters higher than the roof of the nearest structure. The thing taking shape beyond the hedges lurched, its bulk shifting toward the circle. It might have been tottering, about to fall, but a second lurch dispelled that illusion. Whatever the thing was, it had begun to move toward them.

  "David," Sir Winston called calmly above the excited questions of the other druids. "We must not be interrupted."

  "I will hold it, father."

  David Neville eased his energies from the complex that the druids had created. Glover pushed harder, taking his share of the slack. His concentration was lacking, for his eyes were continually drawn to the approaching entity.