Shadowrun: Shaken: No Job Too Small

by Russell Zimmerman

  I stood before him out in the swirling ash of Sunny Salvo’s parking lot, listening to his formal incantation of rank and ability, stuck in a circle with him that Enzo’s goons had carefully paced off, then dragged their shoes to mark. The Merlyns’d moved up in the world since just being a little mage-mischief gang, I’ll give ’em that. It was all very impressive.

  “I name as my second my patron, Enzo Gianelli! Honored member of the syndicate that rightfully claims this ground, he stands witness to my deeds this day.” There was no formal mention of the pair of broad-shouldered thugs, of course, with the guns in their hands and all that.

  “In the name of the Order of Merlyn and of Saturn, our ranking lord, I challenge you!”

  I tossed my head and gave a mental nod to go with it, and Ariana rippled into existence. Uranus didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. He was stupid, then. I could’ve had her kill…well…probably not just him, really. All of ’em. Easily.

  “I am James Kincaid. Member in good standing of the Hermetic Order of the Auric Aurora.” Sort of. I hadn’t really done anything but swear an initial oath and carry a membership card in all my years of membership, but who’s counting?

  “Initiate of the Fifth Grade.”

  Now he blinked. That’s right, asshole.

  “Master of the Arts.” Mine was an actual title, so suck on that, kid. “Trained at the University of Washington, Practical Hermetic Studies, Lone Star Tactical Sorcery courses, and specialized in the Apotropaic Arts. I am accomplished in the techniques of Centering, Masking, Shielding, Absorption, and Reflection.”

  I didn’t lie. Not about things like this. I really was somebody, back in the day. Back before the fangs and the shadows and the gaping, black wound where my personal batteries used to be.

  “I call as my second Ariana. Ally Spirit.” And thesis. Thankfully, she took on something of the grim seriousness of the scene and didn’t, I dunno, curtsey or go shake hands or anything. She just let her aura do its thing. Uranus could sense her power, even if mine was so diminished he thought he could take me.

  “In the name of getting this over with, I accept your challenge.”

  Then I stood there. He was nervous—he was smart enough to be—and almost cringed, expecting me to go on the offensive.

  I didn’t. I didn’t have to.

  Here’s the thing about my stolen power, about the way I’d diminished it—strategically, at first—with carefully selected and minimally invasive augmentions on Lone Star’s dime, about the way my Talent had then been basically ripped to shreds, my sense of self torn out of me by a dirty, stinking vampire while I was at my peak; I didn’t forget a damned thing. When I was in a down mood I was constantly tortured by the memory of my power and angsting about how I’d never be that strong again, and blah blah blah, sure. But, hey, I didn’t forget my old tricks, either. I was somebody. I was on the fast track. I was off the charts. I was trained by some of Seattle’s best and brightest, and I’d earned those initiate grades through hard work.

  Uranus here, he was an up-jumped punk from somewhere across town, still reading LaVey and feeling evil in a little, ratlike way. He’d killed, I was sure. You didn’t work for the Finnigans and the Gianellis without that under your belt. He had some talent, maybe, yeah. But he wasn’t me. He couldn’t do what I could do, and I’d just rubbed his nose in that in front of his boss.

  When I didn’t hit first, he lashed out, frantic to try and beat me while he could.

  He couldn’t.

  Uranus snapped up his wand and barked out some Latin—always Latin, with these guys—and send a flashing bolt of lightning spearing toward me.

  I whipped my wand out like a gunslinger, kept it waste high, and just said “Ag” in a voice not quite my own. It was Enochian for no. It was a warding word, a simple little monosyllabic smackdown.

  His lightning bolt fizzled to nothingness, leaving the tip of his wand smoldering.

  I’d lost my mojo, sure. Ol’ Jimmy Kincaid wasn’t knocking ’em dead with combat spells any more, right. But stopping magic, it’s a whole different animal than casting it yourself. It’s about the ties to the Astral, it’s about technique, it’s about deflection, finesse, not power. Jimmy doesn’t kill folks with combat magic, but combat magic doesn’t kill Jimmy, either.

  He tried again, this time one of those direct mana spells, a ball of pure force, a bolt of pure killing power.

  “Ag.”

  A second one, bigger this time. He took longer to cast it, chanted louder in Latin, gestured more grandiosely with his wand. It was a visible light, this one, not just a ripple in the air.

  “Ag.”

  Uranus gritted his teeth, roared, sent a stream of fire blasting at me; my cyberoptics picked up Enzo and his thugs backing up a pace or two apiece, Gianelli lifting a hand to ward off the heat from his face.

  “Ag,” I said, barely even a whisper, and the flames winked away before they got near me.

  Another chant, more Latin, more casting, more glowing wand—this time I recognized the spell as it came toward me, a sickly-green wave of sludge that, if it connected, would turn me into more of the same—as Uranus kept trying. He’d pulled out all the stops; that sort of physical-target spell, so grand a manipulation of the real world, was pretty potent stuff.

  “Ag.”

  Another swing, another miss.

  Uranus panted, wand wavering. I just stood there, a little Puyallup dust settling onto my shoulders. He stopped attacking me, figured a return assault had to be inevitable, started trying to think tactically. A little ripple washed over him, then a steady glow. Defensive spells, like the ones Ariana’d upkept on me in Tinman’s place. Armor, wards against danger, that sort of thing. He held onto them, clung to them, wrapped himself in them even as he sustained the enchantments.

  Then, bolstered, another offensive spell. This one was a purplish blast, a bolt of power somewhere between a pure mana attack and an elementally-grounded assault. It was weaker than the earlier ones, harder for him to cast after so many other channelings, all while maintaining his own defenses.

  “Ag,” I said, baring my teeth in a nasty smile.

  That one I channeled into myself, didn’t just dissipate harmlessly. Instead of rolling off me like water off a duck’s back, I internalized it, held it for a second, and threw it back at him. He staggered backwards from the blast, his own protections only just barely holding up.

  “Kid.” I held up my free hand, wand still at the ready. “Kid, we’re good. Your boss saw your light show. You gave it a go. You proved your point, I proved mine. You maybe want to cut this out now, yeah?”

  Uranus’ shoulders slumped, one hand drifted to his knees, breathing heavy, bent to steady himself like a tired out runner after a marathon haul. There were bags under his eyes, and one was bright red like he’d gotten jabbed in it. Bruises formed all across his face like he’d taken punches, visible on his acne-scarred skin. A little blood, dark and glossy, dripped from a self-induced nosebleed.

  He shook his head.

  Uranus held his wand up again, like it weighed a ton, in a shaky two-handed grip. He had salt, I’ll give him that.

  “Ag,” I grunted as I crossed the distance, then just kicked him in the same instant I snuffed out whatever new spell he’d been about to cast at me.

  It was a brutally simple front kick, straight on, the sort that I used to break down doors right before busting into a joint to shoot people. I shifted my grip on my wand as all the air left him and he jackknifed around the foot in his belly, doubled over and gasping.

  I used my power focus like a fistload, pure and simple—just a kid with a roll of quarters in his hand—and I beat the hell out of him. Nothing artful, nothing fancy, just a punch, then another, then another, until he went down. Then I straddled him, knees in the Puyallup grit, and kept hitting until Enzo shouted for me to stop; Uranus’ second, officially ending the high-and-mighty magical duel.

  My knuckles were split wide open, my Corpsman let me know
I’d hurt myself, and I panted as I stood up. My eyes were low and angry, teeth still set, bloody hand still on my wand, as I glared Enzo’s way.

  Ariana clapped and spun a somersault in the air. Enzo’s men shifted their grips on their guns, not sure if they were supposed to murder me or—ah, mundanes—if they could. Uranus groaned, spat out a tooth, likely not the first one this parking lot had seen.

  I looked at Enzo, my wand still in my hand, warm from the channeled magic, dangerous and ready. He didn’t need to know how little I could use it to attack, didn’t need to understand the theories behind what I’d just done, the technical prowess I’d shown without really being able to back it up with any offense of my own. He just had to know I’d beaten his mage, and he just had to wonder what I could do to him if he pushed me too hard.

  “Enough?” My voice was low, uglier than I’d meant it. I didn’t mind.

  His finger twitched, index on his right hand, his shooting hand. His trigger finger kind of wanted me dead, but his big wheelgun was still tucked in the front of his pants. The rest of him didn’t want to kill me, not really. We’d grown up together. We knew each other. I knew him, and knew what he couldn’t do. He knew me, and knew what I could. I was too useful to have around, too much a part of the city, too unpredictable, like I’d just shown him.

  “Enough! Two grand,” he said, tossing his head and forcing a smile like the whole thing had been a joke. “A show like that, my friend Jimmy Kincaid gets more than twelve hundred nuyen, huh?! I’ll take the difference out of this pezzo di merda’s pay, yeah?”

  “Nope. Just twelve,” I shook my head and stuffed my wand back into its holster, a nylon flashlight holder. “We agreed on twelve hundred, and Uranus ain’t to blame. He’s got potential, and he’s got balls. Don’t blame the kid, it’s not his fault I beat him. At least he tried.”

  Enzo came at me—finally stepping into the circle after he was sure it wouldn’t kill him, Uranus had made it all look like a ritual, but Enzo didn’t know it really was just a mashed-down circle in an ugly parking lot—and wrapped me in a big bear hug. Ari fluttered in close, following the behavior shown by the humans around her, and started to pour a little mojo into my hand. It itched as it healed.

  Enzo clapped me on the shoulder like he was proud of me.

  “Not his fault? Not his fault?! Hah! Jimmy, Jimmy, you’re just that good, eh?”

  “Yeah, Enzo. I’m just that good.”

  Something like that.

  CHAPTER 6

  I was so good I had to call Hank Weazely and tell him to stop hiding on his friend’s futon, so good I had to call his on-again, off-again wife Darlene and start the nuyen transfer. She still tried to pay me from the grand I got her, but I waved her off.

  “I didn’t get the money from Hank. I didn’t finish the job you hired me for. You just take the money, feed the kids, pay the rent, whatever. You don’t pay me, I don’t get that percentage we talked about, ’cause I didn’t do the job, okay?”

  “You’re a good man, Jimmy K. You come over here and have some dinner with us and the kids some time, okay? You’re a good man. Everyone knows.”

  I killed the call instead of correcting her. I drove, headed toward the apartment to unwind, maybe down a few beers, maybe crack open a bottle of something stronger. Between the day’s profits and the pay from last night, I had things covered financially for a few weeks. I could take it easy, grab a nap, then hit the nighttime streets to follow up on a few older cases, no big rush.

  Then the phone rang, because that’s how the universe works.

  “Darlene, I mean it, keep the money, okay? I’m good. Hell, I’m feeling kind of flush, all right?”

  “Mr. Kincaid.”

  My Ford nearly swerved off the road when I saw the caller identification pop-up. It wasn’t Darlene Weazely. It was the Hermetic Order of the Auric Aurora office.

  Shit.

  “Yeah, listen, I, uhh, I can get you those late dues, turns out.” There went my little bonus cash. What was it, two hundred a month, right? How many months behind was I?

  “This isn’t about that, Mr. Kincaid.” The caller ID just showed the office number, but I knew that voice even before I got the car back under control and got a good glance at the screen. It was Dr. Reynolds, an old professor of mine, and maybe the number three, number four guy in the Order.

  “It’s about Christopher, Mr. Kincaid. Dr. Minirth. He’s dead.”

  I didn’t answer right away, just sent mental commands to check traffic, cross-reference with local crime reports for street violence that might slow me down. Then I swerved wide, spun the wheel, and turned the Ford around, right then and there, across a couple lanes of traffic.

  “I’m on my way.”

  I didn’t go to the main Order house, over by Pacific. I hadn’t been there since getting sworn in. I went to Dr. Reynolds’ place, just down the street from U-Dub. It took me a while to get there, the city center being a good bit out of my usual stomping ground, but I didn’t question, didn’t think about not going.

  Chris Minirth. He’d been the one who taught me the most, easily. Half the techniques I’d used to deflect and absorb Uranus’ spells had been things I’d learned in his class. He’d been my favorite professor by a long shot, the one who wanted us to learn, wanted us to learn how to learn, wanted us to never forget how important our skills were, how amazing it was we could do what we could do. He was a straight-arrow Hermetic, like all the rest—good luck getting most shamans to settle down, even in the sometimes hands-off world of academia and tenured positions—but he’d always treated what we did like an art, not a science. He’d always kept magic…magical.

  The drive gave me time to pull up news reports, my Transys humming away, not knowing or caring that the files I was accessing weren’t for a case, they were me reading about a dead friend, teacher, and mentor. Natural causes, it said. I knew before I slewed my Ford to a stop outside Reynolds’ place that something was wrong. Minirth couldn’t have died of natural causes. He was in his sixties, sure, but he was—had been—an elf. Like me.

  Age doesn’t kill elves.

  I walked right in to Reynolds’ house. The wards didn’t bug me; I’d helped create and maintain them, and I knew he relied on them more than he did any mundane security; I just strode inside, wishing there was something I could hit.

  “What the hell, Doc? ‘Natural causes,’ it says? Come on.”

  “Please relax, Mr. Kincaid.” He’d called me that all through school, and every time we spoke in the half-a-lifetime since. Reynolds wasn’t Minirth, wasn’t as relaxed, as friendly. Minirth had loved the Hermetic Order of the Auric Aurora for their research and their knowledge. Reynolds loved them, I think, for their rules.

  I paced in front of his couch, long legs eating up his little living room in a few steps each time. He stood at the bottom of his stairs, shook his head, and let out a sigh.

  “Come upstairs to the office. Shut the door first, though, will you?”

  Still mad and petty, I slammed it hard. When I got upstairs, Reynolds was already seated, quirking one eyebrow at the chair opposite his desk. Some things never changed. He’d officially retired to part-time about the time I’d graduated, and only taught the occasional class here and there. None of us had been surprised at his retirement; during my time as a student we’d already snickered, sure of ourselves and barely old enough to drink, about how he was vain enough to hide his age with a few small illusions. He looked about the same, today, and acted about the same. His hair was still jet black, his skin still free of age spots, but I was sure it was still little spells doing it, locked in place by the University of Washington class ring he wore. His office on campus seemed to have just moved down here and turned into his office at home, all lined with old-timey books like so many other professors. The only concession to modernity was that he’d upgraded from his ancient, oak desk to a touchscreen one not terribly unlike mine; hell, maybe they just hadn’t been able to move the huge thing out of h
is office.

  I threw myself into his chair, sullen, impatient.

  “Mr. Kincaid,” he said before I could get started, “Would you like some tea?”

  “No thanks,” I forced myself to sit up a little straighter. It looked like he hadn’t wanted any, either, was just trying to cut me off and keep me civil.

  “I understand that you’re upset, Mr. Kincaid, and I’m sorry to have caused that. But I need you to be aware that that’s why I called you personally. Christopher would have wanted, I think, for you to hear about it from one of us in person.”

  “Natural causes, though, Doc? What happened, really?”

  There was a pregnant silence, then he reached out with a simple magic fingers incantation of his own, and the door shut behind me.

  “Do you remember my title, Mr. Kincaid?”

  “Your…what, now?”

  “Not the arcane vernacular, necessarily, but my position within the Order.”

  “Treasurer, right? Look, if this is about my dues, I think it can fucking wait, don’t—”

  “Partially correct, yes. But as the High Magistrate of the Exchequer, I don’t simply keep the dues and dole out research funds.” That part, I knew, was true. I’d been paid by the Order before, paid through Reynolds, when they needed something done on my side of town, on my side of the law. He handled paychecks and stuff, but so what?

  “I am also something of a record-keeper. Not the Loremaster of the Writ, no, but I am the one who handles the ugly necessity of paperwork for a group our size. Twenty-five members in good standing.” He didn’t quite arch an eyebrow at me, the black sheep twenty-sixth. “And regular comings and goings, research work, secure thesis storage, all of that. City certificates for our various activities, permits, and on and on. Christopher knows—excuse me, knew—how much I handled for the Order. He gave me something else to handle.

  “I want to hire you, Mr. Kincaid.”

  “You…Doc, what’s going on? C’mon. What happened to Minirth?”