Headhunters

by Mel Odom

  The elemental howled in pain and anger as Skater fought to keep the motorcycle upright. He geared down, shoved the sword into the scabbard across his back, and brought the Offroader around in a tight circle that scattered gravel in all directions only a few meters from Elvis.

  The samurai troll held the Panther assault cannon to his shoulder and sighted on a group of mercenaries coming up on the right from between a cluster of abandoned vehicles. The Panther whooshed a jet of hot flame out the back of the superplast warhead as the liquid propellant caught. It sizzled into the cluster of cars less than a heartbeat later. The explosion rocked the cars and threw armored bodies to the ground.

  Swiveling his head back to the earth elemental, Skater watched the thing staggering on its wounded leg, roaring up against the night as it continued to lean on the Landrover. “Son of a slitch,” Skater muttered, not believing what he was seeing. He accessed the commlink. “Gun the motor, Archangel!”

  The Landrover’s power plant kicked in again. All four wheels churned dirt, sinking lower into the ground as it helped dig its own grave. The ground level was to the middle of the doors now.

  Then, for an instant, Skater thought maybe the slash across the back of the thing’s leg had been enough. The elemental shuddered with the effort of restraining the Landrover, its feet sliding back centimeters.

  Abruptly, the leg snapped back into position, the slash healing almost instantly. Then the creature slammed both hands once more across the front of the Landrover with renewed effort. Its scream of fury was bloodchilling, sounding like an amplified echoing of a shovel being thrust deep into bedrock.

  “Fraggit,” Skater said. “Abandon the Landrover. Archangel, try to get back with Wheeler.” The dwarf rigger was several car-lengths behind the Landrover, unable to bring the Tsarina’s weapons in line to target the elemental. Even then, machinegun fire wouldn’t have done anything to the creature. Skater shifted on the Offroader, bringing the engine back up to high rpms. “Duran, is Trey—”

  “I’m here, chummer,” the mage replied.

  Skater focused on the unsteady figure that stepped from the side of the Landrover.

  “Elvis,” Trey said. “Have you another rocket left, my friend?”

  “More than one,” Elvis said.

  “I’ll have need of it.” Hands spread out at shoulder height at his sides, palms facing outward, Trey walked toward the earth elemental.

  The creature took notice of the mage at once. Its misshapen head rocked back, offering a flinty profile in the moonlight, and it acted like it was snuffling the air.

  “Shoot the elemental with it,” Trey said. He stopped only five meters from the creature.

  “Can’t,” Elvis said. “You’re too close. Frag, the Landrover’s too close.”

  Skater scanned the line of mercenaries less than forty meters away. At any moment he knew they’d make the break and leave whatever concealment they were using as cover to overrun their position.

  “Trust me, omae,” Trey said.

  “Done.” Elvis lifted the Panther assault cannon and pointed it at the elemental. “Coming.” He squeezed the trigger and the warhead whooshed from the barrel.

  When the rocket hit the earth elemental, the superplast warhead went off in a much more pyrotechnic blast than normal. Skater knew that the effort Cullen Trey had expended casting the spell must have been considerable. He’d never seen anything like the spell, hadn’t ever heard of anything like it. A fountain of green fire erupted from the creature’s side. In spite of all the bridled force unleashed by the explosive, the elemental wasn’t affected at all.

  But that was only true at first.

  Skater expected to see the Landrover’s front end blown to hell. Instead, it had acquired only a few dozen new scratches. The brunt of the blast was contained in the shimmery cloud Trey had created. The pocket swelled from the explosion, encompassing the earth elemental.

  The winds trapped inside the shimmering reached gale-force intensity in seconds. The ululating howl of it whipping around even in its confined space echoed over the parking lot, covering over all but the most strident screams of the approaching Border Patrol sirens.

  The wind flayed the earth elemental alive. Soil went first, freeing up the chunks of rock and gravel it had used to manifest itself on the physical plane. Even before it crumbled and fell into the cycling windstorm, the creature lost its hold on the Landrover.

  Archangel steered the big rig through the wind. Breached by the Landrover, the wind carried the earth elemental up and over the vehicle. The creature’s howls of pain suddenly echoed, and its physical representation went completely to pieces inside the cyclonic wind.

  “Cover them!” Skater yelled to Elvis.

  The troll samurai gave him a tight nod, then rearmed the Panther and fired another round.

  Archangel brought the Landrover to a halt long enough for Duran to shove Trey inside, then clamber into the shotgun seat himself. The front line of mercenaries broke cover, charging after them as Elvis fired the Panther once more.

  Reloading his pistol, Skater watched the arrival of the Border Patrol. The Amerind protectors were hardcases of the shoot-first-and-identify later school. When they were called in, usually a situation had already gone critical and a lot was at stake.

  Skater dropped the Offroader back into gear, popped the clutch, and roared after the Landrover and the Tsarina. Both the vehicles had already cleared the edge of the parking lot and were disappearing into the thick forest.

  Skater knew pursuit would last for a time, but none of Luppas’s vehicles had been in prime position to move against them. He only hoped the Border Patrol hadn’t marked their vehicles for pursuit.

  43

  “Luppas and his people escaped,” Wheeler said over the commlink.

  Seated behind the steering wheel of the Americar they’d boosted less than ten minutes ago, Skater wasn’t surprised. Luppas getting caught would have been more surprising, and not being able to leverage his way out of the Border Patrol’s grasp if he had been caught would have been even more surprising still. The elf mercenary remained a threat, and Skater could almost feel the man’s breath coasting down the back of his neck in spite of the distance they’d created by running from the scene.

  Skater and Elvis had ridden their motorcycles almost two kilometers east along the highway to another bar they’d found on the area map Archangel had accessed through her deck. The Cocked Hat Saloon was a border bar as well, but it was in Everett, not the tribal lands. Specializing in cyber-delights like the addictive better-than-life simchips and restricted pharmaceuticals that the Amerinds couldn’t get easily in tribal lands, the saloon did a bang-up after-hours biz. That’s where they’d boosted the car they now buzzed down the highway.

  Further down the incline that led to the highway up ahead, Wheeler sat in the Tsarina, a dark shadow among the many others thronging the forest. He kept surveillance over the group’s back as Skater and Elvis searched for the Landrover.

  The escape from the Neon Sunsets bar was almost a half-hour old. Having the team stationary this long in potentially hostile country wasn’t good, but the Landrover—even if it hadn’t become an instantly recognizable visual eyesore—wasn’t trustworthy enough to get them back to the safehouse where they could hole up. Scanning the heavy line of forest on the other side of the highway, Skater spotted the brief white-yellow obelisk of Duran’s flash as he flagged him down.

  “Got him?” Elvis asked from the passenger seat. The big troll samurai held one hand cupped over his ear, listening intently while his eyes took in the dark landscape. He was monitoring the Lone Star transmissions on another frequency Archangel had made available on the commlink, just as she’d provided Wheeler with the passcodes to the link to the Border Patrol.

  “Got him,” Skater said. He swerved the Americar over to the side of the highway and pulled off into the brush. His clothing was damp with perspiration, and fear still slammed adrenaline charges through him that left h
im exhausted enough that his hands quivered. The shakes left by the violence were always better tended when he was quiet and when he was alone. They didn’t have time for that now.

  He slid the Americar over the rough terrain to a stop beside the wreckage of the Landrover. The vehicle had finally given up, collapsing at the side of the highway when the engine overheated after the holed radiator emptied.

  Skater opened the door of the Americar and stepped out, then walked over to the Landrover. Archangel and Duran stood just outside the sliding side door, peering in.

  Duran’s features looked wan and grim in the headlights of the Americar. “Don’t know if taking the Johnson with us was such a wiz idea, kid. If somebody got a tissue sample on him, they’ll have a good chance at tracking us. And you know Luppas traced him once or they’d never have found us.” Skater wrestled with that as he looked over Archangel’s shoulder. The Johnson lay sprawled in the back of the Landrover. Grayish foam flecked with blood bubbled at his mouth, and his open eyes tracked independent orbits. His color had washed away, leaving skin like old parchment in its place. “Frag,” Skater said. “What happened to him?”

  “Trey said it was a mana dart,” Archangel said.

  The Johnson breathed harshly and unevenly, the bubbles spilling from his mouth and leaking down his chin.

  Skater thought about the LTG number the Johnson had claimed to have. He glanced at Cullen Trey crumpled up in the middle seat. “Get Trey into the car.” Skater climbed in next to the Johnson, and felt the Landrover shift as Duran gently hoisted Trey from the vehicle.

  A thick purple tongue erupted from the Johnson’s mouth and weakly licked at the froth covering his lips. “Fragger . . . fragger ... got me pretty good . . . didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Skater said, wishing he could lie and tell the man everything was going to be okay. But he could tell from looking that it wasn’t going to be. He felt guilty for not getting the medkit from the front of the Landrover and adhering a tranq slap patch onto the man.

  The Johnson shoved a shaky hand out. “Hold my . . . hand . . . please . . . more scared than . . . than I thought . . . I’d be.” He tried a feigned laugh at himself, but it came out more as a choked gurgle.

  Skater took the man’s hand. The fear inside him was feral, running rampant. Thinking that Emma might be lost to him almost send him over the edge. Only the realization that he was her sole provider kept him together. He felt the man’s strength fading, the callused hand in his going weak.

  “Woman ... woman I talked to,” the Johnson said, “she . .. sounded hard ... but... but she sounded scared ... she needs ... somebody ... said she was ... was all alone ... in this.” The Landrover shifted again as Duran stepped inside. “Kid, we gotta beat feet.”

  Skater nodded. “In a minute.” He looked into the Johnson’s rolling eyes. “You said you had an LTG number for the woman.”

  “You gotta promise ... to take this . . . this son of a slitch out. . . first.”

  “If I can,” Skater said. “That’s the most I can promise.”

  The Johnson focused on Skater’s face briefly and with difficulty. “Woman . . . said you could ... be trusted . . . maybe ... just maybe ... I’m gonna trust you too.” He struggled to take a deep, shuddering breath. “LTG number’s . . . 9206 . . . 75 . .. 9991.”

  He breathed again, with increasing effort, the effort sounding drowned in his chest. “Supposed to call . .. call between . .. twenty-two ten and twenty-two fifteen .. . tomorrow . . . said she’ll... have the rest of the money then . . . password’s liberty . . . don’t even know her name.”

  Skater repeated the information to himself, watching as the Johnson’s last breath hissed out of him, sounding wet, miring down at the end in the fluid-filled lungs. The eyes finally halted their endless cycling, stilling with different views but sharing the same perspective. Skater found his own breath locked tight in his chest. Maybe he’d been unwilling to breathe in the man’s death, and maybe he’d just forgotten. He wasn’t sure.

  Gently, Skater reached out and closed the dead man’s eyes. “Sleep easy, Mr. Johnson.” Then he turned and followed Duran out of the Landrover.

  44

  Outside the Landrover, the air was fresh, cooler, filled with the scent of the pines in the forest. Skater breathed it in, willing himself to think. It was his gift, the ability to plan and adapt and see things that most people wouldn’t guess at. He’d been left alone with his imagination as a child, ostracized from so much of his mother’s people’s daily lives. All he’d had was his grandfather, and that was divided between Daniel Ghost-step’s other progeny, as well as his counseling duties to the tribe. His mind had become razor-edged, a weapon he could use. But it also became something that could devour him if he let it.

  He took a final glance at the Landrover. It had nothing that could tie them to it. They’d all been careful.

  He forced his breath out one last time and slid into the passenger seat of the Americar. Archangel and Trey were already in the back. Elvis strode down the incline and joined Wheeler at the Tsarina. The dwarf rigger popped the Tsarina’s locked doors and let the troll in.

  “Let’s roll,” Skater called over the commlink. There was nowhere else for them to go but the safehouse. At least they’d be secure there, able to examine their options. And all of them were slicing pretty fragging thin, Skater knew. He checked his retinal clock: 22:06:18. Little more than an hour had passed since the meeting with the Johnson.

  Duran slid behind the Americar’s steering wheel. He placed a heavy foot on the accelerator. The tires skidded through the loose soil of the highway embankment for a moment, then the vehicle roared onto the pavement.

  Checking the side mirror, Skater saw the Tsarina ghost along in their wake, moving powerfully and smoothly. He turned around in the seat and glanced at Trey. “How is he?” he asked Archangel.

  She nodded but didn’t look at him. Her attention was focused on Trey as she wiped moist towelettes over his face, removing the blood. “He’ll make it.”

  “I know a rat shaman in downtown Seattle who can work some healing magic on him. She knows how to keep her mouth shut too. She’s expensive, but she’s worth it,” Skater said.

  Archangel turned on him, fire blazing in the gold flakes of her eyes. “I think he should be consulted.”

  “I think he’ll understand.”

  “You think he’ll understand,” Archangel repeated. She stared at him for a moment, then broke their locked gaze and threw the used towelette into a plastifoam container she was using as a trash receptacle. “Jack, how the slot is it that you know so much about how other people feel all of a sudden? How do you know what is best for everybody when you didn’t even know what you were going to do with your daughter just this morning? It comes to my mind that you’re only sure of what suits you.”

  Skater managed to stifle the angry retort before the words left his lips. It helped that he was unaccustomed to seeing such strong emotion in Archangel. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me,” she snapped. “It’s what’s wrong with you that’s throwing everything off, Jack.”

  Skater peered through the dust-covered windshield and forced his breath out, keeping the anger at bay. They were running for their lives, from an enemy who could reach out and geek them in a moment’s notice if he caught up with them, from a corporation able to reach into every nook and cranny of anywhere they could run. Dissension in the ranks wasn’t a good move.

  “Actually, chummers,” Cullen Trey said in a weak voice, “a visit to this rat shaman doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Even if it will do nothing more than ease this headache. Feels like I’ve got the worst hangover in history.”

  “What about someone you know?” Archangel asked. “Wouldn’t you rather go there?”

  Skater knew the suggestion was a deliberate barb aimed in his general direction.

  “Dear lady,” Trey said, “Luppas knows me. It could be that anyone I know he may know as
well. Or know of. We’d be better off staying away from the circles he and I frequent.” Trey slid his bloodshot and slightly unfocused gaze over to Skater. “Jack, I leave myself in your hands.” Without another word, Trey’s head lolled to the side.

  Skater started over the seat, trying to remember how to do CPR, wondering if there was a trauma patch in the medkit. “No,” Archangel said. “He’s fine. He’s just sleeping.”

  As Skater watched, the mage’s breathing became more regular, sounding calmer and less strained.

  Archangel took her long coat off and pulled it over Trey, creating a double layer with his cape. “I think you’re right about the rat shaman, Jack.”

  Skater looked at her, trying to figure out what was going on between them. They’d never had really cross words with each other before. In fact, of them all, Archangel had always been the most professional in handling the interpersonal relationships of the team even in times of chaotic stress. He didn’t know what had changed. “You weren’t sure about that a minute ago.”

  The brighter lights of Everett’s downtown area filled the car. The neon glare left apparitions of advertising staining the windows around them, twisting shadows into elongated patterns.

  “That was then,” Archangel said. She wrapped her arms around her upper body. Her gaze was distant and defiant.

  Skater was speechless for a moment. He remembered how irritating Larisa could be when she got moody, how he’d never understood how she jumped from one emotional theme to another in the space of seconds. Women were mutable and he understood that, but he wasn’t used to it from Archangel. He started to say something, even knowing there was nothing correct he could say, but mad enough just the same to not let it pass.

  Instead, Duran spoke up first. “You given any thought to what we’re going to do with Luppas next?”

  “We avoid him,” Skater said. “With the leads I gave Lone Star and the media, Luppas and Fuchi should be coming under some kind of investigation, and probably exposure in the public eye. Hopefully either or both will cause Fuchi to put a tighter rein on Luppas’s actions and give us more room to maneuver. In the meantime, we try to find out who this woman is.”