The elevator glided smoothly to the appointed floor, the doors opening with a faint pneumatic hiss and a musical chime. LaValle guided her along the carpeted hall to a private conference room, holding the door open for her to enter.
The room was larger than most apartments in Seattle. The far wall appeared to be floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the vista of the city of Montreal, but Eve knew they were actually holographic crystal matrices layered over the walls, projecting an image of the view on the far side of the heavily reinforced exterior wall. Real windows, even bulletproof ones, were too much of a security risk in this part of the building.
The conference table was oak, stained with a warm finish, surrounded by comfortable chairs covered in soft leather. A sideboard offered refreshments, while the opposite wall was dominated by a wide flatscreen display and wood-finish cabinets concealing sophisticated electronics: voice operated communications and multimedia equipment, all linked with the company’s computer network and the building’s internal systems.
"Please make yourself comfortable, and prepare whatever materials you need," LaValle told her as she was taking in the room. "Monsieur Cross will join you shortly for the meeting. If you should need anything, please let me know."
Eve thanked him, and the assistant withdrew, closing the door behind him. She allowed herself a moment to sink into one of the chairs at the table, enjoying the comfort of it after the long flight from Seattle to Montreal. She was tired, but felt elated, charged with excitement, and she quickly tucked her carryall under the table, withdrawing her pocket secretary and flipping open the cover.
It took only a moment to access her secure node on the company’s main server in preparation for retrieving the data files she had prepared for the meeting. The system asked for her passcode a second time, so Eve entered it again—she must have mis-keyed the first time in her eagerness to get ready. This time, the system accepted it and gave her access. She pulled up the files and opened the program she needed to connect to the conference-room display. While she waited for Mr. Cross to arrive, she reviewed her notes. A few minutes later, the conference room door opened and Eve stood, pushing back her chair.
A woman wearing sunglasses and a dark suit entered the room. Her blond hair was short and slicked back, making her look almost plastic. She scanned the room with a quick but professional glance before stepping aside to allow La Valle and two other men to enter behind her. Eve didn’t recognize one of them, but she instantly knew the other.
Lucien Cross, the founder and CEO of Cross Applied Technologies, had the distinguished and mature look appropriate for a man in his position, but his age seemed to hover at an indeterminate point somewhere between late thirties and late forties, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and magic. His dark hair was immaculately swept back from a high forehead. The traces of gray at his temples and in his neatly trimmed beard could have been affectations, and were certainly there by choice. The same was true of the lines around his eyes, the corners of his mouth, and across his brow. His whole persona spoke of a man in complete control of everything around him, including his image. Cross wore a hand-tailored suit, a crisp white shirt and a silk tie. His only other ornamentation consisted of the heavy ring he wore on his right hand and the polished chrome of the datajack discreetly located behind his right ear.
"Ms. Henshaw," he said in a deep, unaccented voice. "You understand this meeting will be necessarily brief."
"Of course, sir," she replied respectfully, as Cross’ bodyguard closed the door behind them and took up a position beside it.
"It wouldn’t be happening at all," Cross continued, "if what you related in your proposal was not so promising."
"Yes, sir," she answered. Cross and his companion took up seats at the conference table directly across from Eve, facing the display screen on the far wall. LaValle stood behind and slightly to the left of Cross, dataslate in one hand. Eve remained standing and, at a nod from Lucien Cross, she began.
* * *
Akimura spoke up before any of the others could reply. He nodded his head toward the peak of the mountain. "There’s a cave up there where a powerful spirit is trapped," he said in a voice that sounded far more like a native speaker of Japanese than his usual diction. None of his companions reacted to the change, as if they didn’t notice it.
"And you’re looking to free it?" Gabriel asked.
He shook his head. "Just the opposite. We’re looking to make sure it stays there."
"On whose behalf?"
"I’d say it’s in everyone’s best interests," Akimura replied.
"I’d guess the two ladies ahead of you disagree."
"You’ve seen them?" Orion asked, and Gabriel seemed to notice him again. There was a fractional pause, then he nodded.
"We’ve been keeping the area under surveillance," he said, returning his gaze to Akimura. "So whom do they work for, and whom do you represent?"
A howl of wind blasted through the trees, shaking branches and scattering dead leaves in front of it. Gabriel’s team didn’t waver in covering the shadowrunners, but everyone in the clearing looked up at the dark clouds rolling across the sky.
* * *
"So you can see," Eve concluded, the screen on the far wall displaying a satellite map of the Pacific Northwest, with a slightly smaller inset focusing on the elven nation of Tir Tairngire, "we have a prime opportunity—" She paused when Mr. Cross held up a hand, indicating he had heard enough.
"Michael?" he said to the man sitting at his right hand. This second man had remained silent since entering the room, and Eve had ignored him, assuming he was another assistant or junior executive. Now she looked past the studiously bland exterior and saw a penetrating intellect. She felt sure that this man had missed no detail, no implication of what she had presented. He took a pocket secretary from inside his jacket and manipulated the controls for a moment. The wall display responded to what he was doing, and Eve watched as the information she had acquired was run at optical processing speeds through comparative analysis.
"The genetic map and physiological data is a match for our records, sir," Michael told Cross, poring over the palmtop, "but it has been altered to make it so. The signs of tampering are subtle, but they’re there."
Lucien Cross’ eyes narrowed. "Ms. Henshaw?" he asked in a dangerous tone of voice. "Do you have an explanation for this?"
"I ... I don’t, sir, but—"
"Did it not occur to you to confirm that your information was genuine before deciding to come all the way here to waste my time?"
"Of course!" she said. "I mean ... yes, sir. I doublechecked the information against the company records, and it was an exact match. There were no signs of tampering!"
"To the less experienced eye, perhaps," Michael said quietly.
"I checked these facts myself," Eve said angrily. "I trust my source. Maybe you’re mistaken!"
The other man didn’t react, but Cross leaned forward slowly, dark brows drawing together over his stormy gaze. "Are you saying, then, that the director of the Seraphim doesn’t know his business, Ms. Henshaw?"
"The . . ." Eve began, the words dying in her throat. She glanced at Michael again—Michael—who was regarding her calmly, no emotion showing on his face. No one ever saw the director of the Seraphim. His identity was a secret closely guarded at the highest levels of the company. She turned back to her boss.
"Mr. Cross—" she began, but he cut her off, speaking to Michael as if she wasn’t even in the room.
"So the data is a forgery?"
The Seraphim director nodded. "Almost certainly. A job this well executed means someone either had access to our records or to original genetic samples, but given the way the information matches up with ours, I’d say it’s the first. The match is almost too good. Add that to the evidence of alterations in the file . . ." He laid the pocket secretary on the table. "I’d say someone wants us to believe he’s still alive."
"And you authorized this operation?"
Cross said to Eve, pointing to the map displayed on the wall screen. She mutely nodded her head. The CEO turned back to Michael.
"One of your agents is in place?"
"As usual."
"Get me a line," Cross said. "Now."
* * *
"As fascinating as all this is, I think it’s going to become quite inhospitable out here quite soon," Lothan said, looking at Gabriel. "What is it exactly that you plan to do?" The team leader turned his attention back to the troll.
"I should just leave the lot of you to rot," he said, "take care of the other two up the mountain, and call it a night."
"Assuming that’s what your employer wants," Akimura countered. "After all, we all know how . . . unforgiving companies can be when people fail to live up to their expectations."
The wind roared again, and a flash of lightning momentarily lit up the sky, the peal of thunder immediately following suggesting the strike was uncomfortably close by.
"Personally, I don’t . . ." Gabriel began, then he trailed off, eyes focusing past the fixer, as if listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear. Orion gathered himself as if to strike, and Akimura practically prayed for the adept to wait. The rest of Gabriel’s team didn’t react, keeping their weapons closely trained on the shadowrunners, who would still be caught in a killing zone if they made any sudden moves.
The slight movement of Gabriel’s jaw made it clear he was subvocalizing responses. He suddenly gave a short, humorless snort of laughter, and a sardonic half smile curled one side of his mouth. His thumb rested on the hammer of his pistol. Everyone tensed, but then Gabriel uncocked the gun and raised it so it was no longer pointed directly at the runners.
"The mission’s scrubbed. We’re moving out," he said to the rest of his team. "Seems you get to live," he said to the shadowrunners.
"Lucky us," Akimura replied quietly.
Gabriel suddenly leveled his gun directly at the fixer, its targeting laser painting a red dot squarely on his forehead, like a glowing caste mark in the darkness.
"Don’t fool yourself," he said. "I could kill you right here and right now, orders or no orders, and be done with it. Who would even know?" There was a dreadful pause as he waited to see how Akimura would respond, but the fixer remained completely still, locked eye-to-eye with the Cross company man. After what seemed like an eternity, Gabriel raised his weapon again.
"But I’m a professional," he said, "and I don’t want to waste the time or the ammo. Stay out of our way and hope our paths don’t cross again, street trash."
He gave a hand signal, and his team went into motion, backing away into the shadows of the trees, their weapons still carefully trained on the shadowrunners. Another flash of lightning illuminated their retreat for just a moment before Gabriel, too, backed away. Then the Cross team was gone, vanished into the darkness.
"What the frag just happened?" Orion asked, glancing around to make sure the sudden withdrawal wasn’t some sort of trick.
"We got lucky," Akimura said, drawing his gun. "Damn lucky. For the first time in a long time, I think somebody up there likes me. Let’s move. I don’t think we have a lot of time left." He glanced up at the sky just as the wind howled, shaking the trees, and a heavy rain began to fall.
* * *
Midnight guided Kellan unerringly to a ridge along the mountainside and the narrow entrance to a cave. The rocks and rubble scattered around the cave mouth still smoked from what looked like some sort of explosion. From the blackened marks, Kellan wondered if one or more of the lightning bolts they’d seen had struck there. Though the cave was cloaked in shadows, a faint, golden light shone from within the mountain.
"Inside," Midnight said curtly, and Kellan picked her way over the debris, ducking her head to step into the passage in.the rock.
She somehow wasn’t surprised to feel a sense of familiarity as she moved into the cave. It looked exactly like the place she’d seen in her dreams, only from a different perspective. At the widest point, where the ceiling was high enough that she could have reached up and not been able to touch it, Kellan saw the source of the light filling the cavern.
The glow came from a figure kneeling on the stone floor, as if in prayer or meditation, made up entirely of golden light, with white-gold wings furled around its body. As they approached, the shining head rose, crowned in a bright halo, and its eyes opened, their depths filled with white-hot light that seemed to look right into her soul.
"Kellan, say hello to Morningstar," Midnight said.
Hello, Kellan, came the voice in her mind. I have been waiting for you for a very long time.
Chapter 20
Kellan looked at the fantastic, shining spirit, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
Waiting . . . for me? she thought.
Yes, it replied. Ever since the day your father summoned me.
My father? Kellan remembered her dream of the elven mage calling and binding a spirit, and now she understood that in the dream, she had been the spirit. She had seen Midnight shoot her father!
Yes, said the spirit, Midnight killed him. You and I have long been connected by the amulet, and it was my vision I sent you. Kellan looked at the jade necklace now in Midnight’s possession.
"Impressive, isn’t it?" Midnight said, nodding toward the spirit, her eyes reflecting its golden glow. "Can you imagine what a spirit this powerful can accomplish?"
"Is it enough to be worth so many lives?" Kellan said.
"So, you’ve started figuring it out," Midnight mused. "All those and many more, Kellan. I hope now you understand that you should not cross me."
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Because I might need you," the elf replied. "I have Thierault’s notes, what I remember from the original summoning, and this," she held up the necklace, "but they might not be enough to command this spirit. I might still need a magician, perhaps even one related to Thierault by blood."
"My father," Kellan said quietly, and Midnight nodded.
"That’s right. I figured as much from the timing. Too bad you didn’t take after him in more ways than just inheriting his magical talent; you’d have made a good elf."
"Not if it means being a fraggin’ slitch like you!" Kellan shouted, the anger she’d been stoking in her heart for the last twenty-four hours finally flaring.
"Temper, temper," Midnight said, pointing her weapon at Kellan’s heart. "If you play it smart, you can still walk away from this, Kellan. Once I get what I want, I’ll have no further use for you, and we’ll call it quits, but if you force me . . ." She left the remainder of the threat unsaid, but her intent was crystal clear.
For a moment, Kellan wondered if Midnight was fast enough to kill her before she could get off a spell that would fry the lying murderer to a crisp. What did she have to lose, after all?
No, Kellan, Momingstar’s voice came back into her mind. There is another way. I can help you, if you will help me.
Help you?
Help to free me, the spirit replied, and we can both have our revenge.
Kellan didn’t look away from Midnight. Why should I trust you?
What choice do you have?
"So," she said to Midnight. "What now?"
"Now I perform the ritual, and you keep an astral eye on things and tell me what’s happening. Any tricks and . . ." she waved the gun in Kellan’s direction.
She will be vulnerable during the ritual, Kellan, Morningstar’s voice whispered in her mind. Just do as I ask. . . .
Kellan felt completely empty and entirely filled with rage. She simultaneously understood that she could not trust either of them, and had no choice but to behave as if she did. Her mind was empty of any other options. "All right," she said out loud, answering them both at once, "let’s get this over with."
"I knew you’d see it my way," Midnight said with a smug smile.
* * *
Outside, the storm intensified, until the shadowrunners were leaning heavily into the wind as they s
truggled up the mountain slope. Rain slashed down in driving sheets, with the wind slapping it in their faces, lightning flashing and thunder booming overhead. One bolt came close, splintering a tree and sending part of it crashing down near Orion, but the elven warrior rolled nimbly out of the way.
"There!" Akimura shouted, pointing to a tiny, glowing dot of light in a fold of the mountain’s rocky flank. Orion squinted to see it, then broke into a run, the others close behind.
* * *
Kellan stood close to the wall while Midnight spoke the words of the ritual. If Midnight had any concerns about keeping one eye (and her gun) trained on Kellan while speaking the mystic phrases, she didn’t show it. Much of the ritual was in Sperethiel, which sounded both lyrical and oddly familiar to Kellan’s ears. She realized as Midnight spoke that the words she’d heard in her dream were in Elvish as well, but she’d somehow understood them at the time.
"Seterin’ranshae!" Midnight intoned, then switched to English, holding up the necklace in her free hand. "Known as Morningstar, by the power of your name do I compel you, by the rites and powers of the elements, I bid you, be manifest here to do my will and no other. By this token, you are so bound. Arise! Arise and do my bidding."
The necklace, Morningstar said to Kellan. She must put on the necklace.
"You have to wear the amulet to command it," Kellan advised her, speaking for the first time during the ritual. At Midnight’s questioning look, she added, "The power is there, I can see it, but the amulet needs to be worn to gain its full effect."
Midnight gestured for Kellan to approach. "Put it on me, then," she said, "but don’t get clever."
Fallen Angels Page 20