Shadows Down Under: Shadowrun, #8

by Jean Rabe

  Barega nodded.

  “Silence of the Lambs,” Mordred said. “1991, based on the novel by Thomas Harris.”

  “Do it,” she said. Adding a heartbeat later: “Please.”

  He was already knitting. Could he teach her these spells, enchantments…whatever the hell they were? She knew the Awakening had brought some kind of magic with it; the perpetual cloud over Sydney was evidence of that. Did she really have some kind of magic in her?

  Ninn rubbed Draye’s cheeks. “C’mon, c’mon, wake up. I didn’t hit you that hard.” To Benzo: “You keep watch. Can you do that? Let me know if anyone’s coming back here?”

  “Good good dog.” The collection of furniture pieces sprinted away.

  Ninn didn’t know if the spirit understood, but it was worth a try. “C’mon, Draye. C’mon!”

  He rolled his head and opened one eye. She noticed the other was swollen; he must have hit his handsome face against a rock when Barega tripped him. The AISE elf’s lips curled and he tried to stand. Ninn straddled him and pressed a shoulder back against the tree, brought her head in close. Barega loomed in, too. The koradji had taken Mordred from under Ninn’s arm and pointed the weapon at the AISE. The double threat seemed to amuse him.

  “Should’ve stayed out of this, Toddlin’ Town.”

  So he knew who she was, the disguise be fragged.

  “Should’ve stayed drunk on Darlinghurst and left the Cross Slayer alone. Healthier for you.”

  “And how’s your health, eh, choob? If you want to stay healthy, talk. Fast.” Ninn was worried there’d be company soon, didn’t matter that the other AISE couldn’t hear them. They were tracking them somehow. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the sniffer. A soft red glow pulsed in the center of the screen. Bullseye. “How are you tracking me?” There were better questions, but this was the most immediate.

  He laughed. “You’re a homing beacon, Toddlin’ Town. We’re tracking your tech. Been tracking you since you hit the morgue. You’re history, Chicago.”

  Not possible, she thought. All the stuff riding around in her innards, she’d bought trackless, paid the extra nuyen for stuff with no signatures, went with a smartlink with Mordred because wireless, while more convenient, could be hacked and traced.

  “He can’t be tracking you, Keebs. Can’t be tracking me either. How ’bout you tell Barega to pull my trigger, put the elf out of his misery. He can’t track nothing if he’s dead.”

  But the dwarf might also have a sniffer, or that tribal-looking ork that was with them.

  “So why do you need to geek me?” Again, there were better questions, but the selfish ones rose to the top.

  He didn’t seem to mind answering those. “You looked too close, asked too many questions.”

  “But I didn’t learn anything.”

  “Couldn’t be sure. And you certainly could have, nosy as you were. Learned something if you were at the aquarium, and now here.”

  “Just looking,” she said. Ninn glanced up, seeing birds fly from the jarrah; maybe something spooked them. Besides, I’m nothing, she almost added, a piss-poor private eye who follows ex-wives for enough nuyen to buy slips and booze and pay the rent. “But that made me a loose end.”

  He grinned wide. “Snip snip, Toddlin’ Town.”

  “Why’d Siland turn a monster loose in the Cross?” Finally, Ninn was getting to the heart of the matter. “A monster I geeked, by the way.”

  Draye shook his head, defiant rather than oblivious.

  “What’s his game?”

  He made a tsk-tsking sound.

  “Bam,” Mordred coaxed.

  “Since when did you get so bloodthirsty, Mordred?” Ninn noted that Draye’s eyes went right and left, looking for whoever she was talking to.

  “Since your keister’s been close to taking a dirt nap, Keebs. How ’bout we go back to following ex-spouses so you can keep breathing? And how ’bout you take me from the Koori and shoot this sucker? I ain’t any more bloodthirsty than you. La Cage aux Folles, 1978, Ugo Tognazzi.”

  “What’s Siland to you that you’re so far in his pocket you’ll never get out?” Ninn watched Draye’s smug smile fade.

  “Nuyen.” She guessed he figured that question was all right to answer.

  “That all?”

  “A lot of nuyen, and I’m not the only one.”

  “The dwarf.”

  “His name is Damarcus, Sergeant Damarcus.” A pause: “And he’s not the only other one.”

  Lots—that’s what it translated to in Ninn’s mind. Siland had a lot of AISE on his payroll, probably Cross lumpers, too. “Put the right cops on the job and the job’ll never get done, the murders never solved.”

  The shit-eating grin again.

  “All right, the murders’ll get solved all nice and tidy with a doer that didn’t do it. The real murderer doesn’t get caught. And the real motive never gets revealed.”

  “You’re goin’ down, Toddlin’ Town, just ’cause you’re nosy. Killing Elizabeth, the street doc, the explosion at the aquarium, millions of nuyen in damage. AISE has an order to shoot to kill you. Snip snip on the loose end. Too bad you didn’t actually do that stuff. Wait, there was the arson.”

  “I didn’t do that either, drekhead.” Ninn pressed her thumb into his neck and twisted. She saw the pain flicker on his chiseled features. “So, what was the motive? Why did Siland need a biologist geeked? And folks in the Cross? What’d they do to get on the kill list? What’s Renaixement, eh? What the hell is Renaixement therapy? Some program to churn out ugly oil-black monsters?”

  His eyes were hard, glass beads that reflected her angry face.

  Stalling, she thought. He’s drawing this out so his buddies will find him. “How the hell are you tracking me?” she repeated, each word spit out like it was a piece of rancid soybeef. “How the bloody blue blazes are you—”

  Benzo bounded back, tail wagging, fabric tongue lolling out.

  “Dr. Tarr!” Draye had called her Elizabeth. He knew her; maybe she was on Siland’s payroll too, maybe a lot of people in the Cross were. “Something Tarr did to me. That’s how you’re doing it. Tarr put something in me or did something to me, and they got the signature from the fragging dwarf. And then they killed her. Snip, snip.”

  Ninn shoved Draye’s head against the tree, knocking him unconscious again. She pushed off him and slammed her heel down on the sniffer, shattering it.

  “We have to move,” Ninn told Barega. “Benzo says someone’s coming.”

  “Good good good dog.” The collection of furniture parts raced after them.

  Ninn glanced up as a shrill cry speared into her. Two galahs circled.

  Twenty-Five

  Coffee Clutch

  Ninn would have enjoyed the rainforest aviary under most any other circumstance. She raced down the path, Mordred in her pocket, her pulling the Aborigine along and weaving between the tourists. Together, the two of them had one useable pair of arms, and she yelped when a boisterous teen bumped into her broken wrist.

  “Sonofa—”

  “Sorry, sorry lady!” he called.

  She tried to tug Barega along faster.

  Parents with children in tow gave her dirty looks as she jostled them on her mad dash, a go go go flipped a foul gesture at her, and one of the zoo employees got on her comm. Ninn caught something about reported felons in the area—so their current disguises weren’t disguises anymore. Maybe Draye had come to and passed on their images; she could tell he had cybereyes; no doubt he’d recorded their current looks and broadcast it.

  The birds of the aviary were splashes of amazing color amid the greens, and she jogged along she recognized stubble quail and painted snipe on the ground; lorikeets, cockatiels, and cockatoos of various sizes and colors perched above the heads of the visitors, squawking, singing, adding to the clamor. Glossy swiftlets swarmed overhead as thick as gnats; she’d read somewhere that the little birds spent most of their lives flying. Two galahs flew with them. />
  She followed the galahs and shoved a thickset man with a cyberarm out of the way, Barega apologizing in her wake.

  “Good dog dog good dog.” Benzo stayed on her heels.

  “Where we going, Keebs? Chicago, I hope.”

  “This whole escapade has been nothing but bad ideas, Mordred,” Ninn said. And it had…taking Cadi’s case; thinking the RighteousRight was involved in the Cross slayings—which they weren’t, though they most certainly were guilty of being narrow-minded rude bigots—letting Talon into her office; and not having a rigger or decker in her small circle of friends to pursue the leads through the Matrix—which would have beat the hell out of getting chased by AISE at the zoo. Shoot to kill order on her, how awesome was that? At least there were too many people around for the dwarf to pull his gun. He had to be getting close, though. “We’re going there. Over there.”

  She tugged him harder, worrying that an old man like him might have a heart attack or stroke or just give out. Should’ve dropped him on a tram to the hospital, shouldn’t’ve let him come here…but then she shouldn’t have come here either.

  Ninn angled down a narrowing path that cut between a line of red bopple nut and shaggybark trees. No Entrance, the sign on the path said. A chain across it also made it forbidding, but was easy to slip past.

  The path swept around behind a dunny and a storage building with a maglock on it. Couldn’t waste a beat opening it. Another glance over her shoulder—no dwarf…yet. He’d find her; Draye had admitted they were tracking her. The next building was squat, green, and said Canteen on the side, likely the cafeteria for zoo employees. The door was propped open, and she darted in, dragging Barega. What would running in here do for her? Nothing. Maybe buy her a few minutes to think.

  Three men—two of them human, one an elf with a tall camouflage mohawk, sat at a table drinking coffee or soykaf—zoo maintenance workers from their coveralls. Engrossed in their conversation, They’d probably come in here to get away from the press of tourists being ushered out. Ninn slipped right past them like she was supposed to be here and continued through a door at the back, which led to a kitchen. No cooks, no dishwashers, the place was empty. Staff would have probably been prepping for the lunch crowd if the zoo hadn’t closed. She released Barega’s arm, bent, and breathed deep. Benzo settled at her feet.

  “Stay here,” she said between gasps. “I’ll lead them away. They’re following me, tracking me, and until I can get rid of whatever is in me that they’re homing in on, I can’t shake them.”

  “I will stand by you, Nininiru.”

  “Stand by Me.” Mordred’s tone was sad. “1986, based on a Stephen King novel about kids finding a body.”

  “They’ll find two of them, Mordred.” She locked eyes with the koradji. “Listen, old man, I’ve got Talon’s death on my hands, as well as whoever else died in the fire because I made some Double-Rs as mad as a cut snake. I’m not getting you geeked, you understand? I can run faster without you. We’ll stand a better chance. I don’t have time to argue about it. Stay the hell right here, and after a while leave. Just go…somewhere.” She glanced at the door next to a double-tub sink, EXIT stenciled on it. “Nice knowing you.”

  She had her good hand on the door when the dwarf and ork burst into the kitchen behind her.

  “Moses on a moped,” Mordred said.

  The dwarf had a Fichetti machine pistol in his right hand—looked like a Military 100 model, and pulled a small Colt Agent Special out of his waistband with his left. He had a comm lead on the side of his head. “Got her, Draye. Taking her down now.”

  He fired both guns, but Ninn was moving, ducking and rolling behind an island counter, springing up and firing Mordred at the dwarf. Her aim wasn’t as good left-handed, and the first three shots went wild, though one nearly hit the ork. She got a better look at him, the light streaming in from high windows around the kitchen making his body art practically glow. The tats weren’t Aboriginal, but they were nothing she could describe, dizzying patterns that covered skin pulled so tight it looked like his rib bones were going to poke through. There was something arcane about him, she could sense it. He raised his hands and gestured at a row of pots hanging on the wall above the sink, they flew off and pelted her. The heaviest struck between her shoulders hard enough to almost make her drop Mordred.

  The dwarf spun and then leaned out into the canteen. “Frag! The others’re gone,” he announced.

  She took advantage of the dwarf’s distraction and fired, clipping him in the shoulder, in the thin space between armor plates, hitting him in the back of the arm, the bullet lodging in padding. She fired on the ork, trying only to wound him, and catching him in the thigh. He dropped and grabbed his leg.

  “Bloody bogger!” the dwarf shouted, whirling back and firing just as she ducked again, bullets hitting the stainless counter and ricocheting around the room.

  “What the hell?” she hollered, skittering for a better position behind the counter, holding Mordred tighter, peeking up and firing again, this time hitting the dwarf square in the chest, which was so thickly armored he didn’t even wince. “Why’d you have to shoot them? Those people out there! They did nothing!”

  “Snip. Snip.” The dwarf answered. Then he swung the gun on Barega. “Drop it, Tossinn. Drop your gun or I’ll drop your mate here. I don’t give a whit that he’s not carrying. I’ll splatter his brains. Drop it!”

  Ninn paused, and more pots crashed into her, a fry basket hit her on the side of the head and she tasted blood. Her tongue ran over the remnant of a tooth.

  “We’re in the canteen, Draye,” the dwarf said into his comm. “Tell Siland it’s wrapped up. Right, she’ll be.” A pause: “Urlu, you ain’t hit that bad. Finish her if she don’t drop the gun.”

  A butcher knife hovered at the edge of Ninn’s vision, held by invisible strings. The ork was on his feet, leaning against a counter. His eyes were ice blue, and she couldn’t see any pupils in them. His face was heavily lined and dark, as if he’d spent a lifetime in the sun. One of the patterns on his skin moved. He wasn’t without tech, though; wires led from a port high on his chest and wrapped around behind him. She should’ve shot to kill him when she had the chance.

  “I’m gonna plug the old man, Tossinn. Last chance,” the dwarf said. “If you don’t drop it now. Now!”

  “You win.” Ninn set Mordred on the counter, held her arms out in a gesture of surrender and stepped back from the counter, which sat square in the center of the small room. She bumped into the double sink.

  “Don’t do this, Keebs,” Mordred cautioned. “Don’t be letting me go. He’s gonna kill the Koori anyway. You know that. And he’s gonna kill you.” Softer: “And then what’s gonna happen to me?”

  “Snip, snip.” The dwarf fired at Barega anyway, turning and firing next on Ninn, who presented a much better target standing away from the counter. At the same time, the ork gestured and the knife came at her, slicing through the air where her head had been. Ninn had dropped to her knees, saving her skin, somersaulting until she was up against the counter, too far away to grab Mordred. But…she spotted the spirit dog.

  “Fetch, Benzo! My gun. Fetch it.”

  She heard a sound like an angry wind makes when it rushes in under a door, followed by more shots, and the clang of pans. A stack of heavy ceramic dishes cascaded on her, knocking her flat. Benzo appeared and dropped Mordred in front of her. Woozy from the onslaught of crockery, Ninn bit her lip to focus, pushed up with her good arm, grabbing Mordred’s stock in the same notion.

  The ork and Barega had squared off near a stove top, the ork with two hands raised and fingers wiggling, the koradji with one hand up, like they were in a magical showdown.

  “You are a mere summoner, little dark man,” the ork sneered. “I am your destruction. I can counterspell whatever hint of magic you toss at me. And I will utterly crush you and feed on your astral essence.”

  Barega bled from two sizeable holes in what had been his good arm, made
by rounds from the dwarf’s machine pistol. Ninn couldn’t tell if the koradji was hit anywhere else. But it was a testament to the old man that he could still stand after the impact from those heavy bullets.

  So where was the dwarf? In the other room? Ninn didn’t hear him, didn’t see him at first, the counter blocking her view of the floor. She stepped around it, feet crunching on shattered plates, edged closer to Barega. A clear shot now, she fired repeatedly on the ork, not caring he wasn’t armed. The bullets hit some invisible barrier and dropped like wads of spit-out gum.

  “Getaway, 2013,” Mordred said. “Keebs…get away.”

  There was the dwarf…flat on his stomach in the kitchen doorway, the butcher knife that had been poised near Ninn protruded instead from the back of his thick neck, in a gap between pieces of his armored clothing. Blood pooled around the body.

  “I did that,” Barega said. “Stay out of this, Ninn.”

  The air felt electric and the hairs stood up on her arms. At first she thought it was her body crying for a slip, as she’d been way the hell too long without one. But the sensation changed, becoming hot and cold waves that chased each other from her heels to the top of her head. Her throat tightened, and she nearly pulled the trigger again, but stopped when a ring of flames sprung up around the ork.

  Who’d done that? Did he? Some kind of defense?

  There were faces in the fire, and it made a laughing, cackling sound. The ork cried out in agony. Barega had brought the fire. Then the flame wall suddenly dropped and a dozen kitchen knives flew past her at Barega, striking an invisible barrier—perhaps the same enchantment he’d used in the tunnel. The blades clattered to the floor.

  “Nice,” the ork said. “But it will only delay your death.”

  The comm on the dwarf’s corpse squawked. “On my way,” Draye said. “I called Siland.”

  “Get out of here, Nininiru.”

  She’d never heard that tone from Barega before. It sent a chill down her spine.

  “The back door, go through it. I’ll join you in a few minutes, or I will not.”