Shadowrun: Shaken: No Job Too Small

by Russell Zimmerman

  We turned, I knelt over Caboose, and he was gone. Sledge half-spun again, putting his back to Skip’s, who was almost as broad-shouldered, and they held there for a heartbeat while I did what I could for Caboose. Sammy didn’t give us much time to catch our breath between his first and second passes.

  The ghoul blurred in again, Sledge’s Yamaha barked and bucked, and the ork turned a half-circle, chasing Bones with the stream of autofire, not quite catching him. Sammy doubled back as Sledge’s empty magazine dropped free, and he was in—in and slashing, snarling, feral—before Skip could get a bead on him. Sledge slashed back with implanted blades, Skip kicked, and in a heartbeat the ghoul had scurried back into the darkness on all fours, but not before taking off half of Sledge’s right cyberhand in his mouth, and not before his claws raked dangerously high on Skip’s leg, barely missing that artery.

  We knelt in the darkness, me whispering in Enochian, “Cnila, cnila, cnila,” over and over again, keeping Caboose from bleeding out, then pouring myself into Skip. Sledge had his sidearm out in an awkward, off-handed grip, Skip still had her new Ares, silly pink plastic bright in the shadows.

  Against an adept like this, just the few of us, just a couple of guns weren’t going to cut it. His magic gave him too many tricks, honed him into too sharp and quiet a monster, for smartguns and toughness alone to take him out. He was faster than cybereyes could process, he was claws in the dark, a nightmare come to life in a building this dark, his natural environment.

  Out of nowhere, Skip glared and whisper-snarled at me. She kept her gun up, but gave me a sidelong look even as her Ares scanned her part of the room fruitlessly.

  “You wanna know why I hate you sometimes, Jimmy?”

  I licked sweat from my upper lip, trying to keep the casting going, trying not to let her remarkably ill-timed question distract me. She didn’t care that I didn’t answer, just kept badgering through gritted teeth, frustrated with everything about this cat-and-mouse situation, and scared enough to finally tell me the truth.

  “Because you keep tryin’ to act like one of us when you ain’t.”

  I looked from bleeding ork to bleeding ork, met Skip’s eyes and couldn’t hold her glare.

  “So do your fucking job, elf.”

  She was right. I wasn’t her or Caboose or Sledge. I wasn’t more or less than them, but I was different. I had more to offer than guts and guns, more weapons to use than blades and bullets. Adversary in my corner or not, Ariana in my pocket or not, I had a different job to do. So I did it.

  It just took an eyeblink to look on the astral, where no living thing could hide, only take cover. Sammy Bones’ adept-bright aura flared, made him easier to spot, not harder, where his internalized magic did the opposite to regular eyes. I pointed—with my Colt, Skip wasn’t all right about me only being a spellcaster—and started shooting, and the orks poured on fire in the right general direction.

  Bones scrambled away, ninja-quick, still slippery, still magically so. He sprinted to put walls between us and blocked my line of sight, astral or not.

  I shifted my weight, careful not to pin Caboose, just kneel over her with the other two, and turned my head. Slowly, like Bones was a big cat and too fast movement might provoke him, slowly I turned, eyes up, watching for the glimmer of his aura.

  Then I got a better idea.

  “Ooanoan hami,” I chanted, feather-soft, using Enochian, old words for eyes-creature, eyes-creature, eyes-creature. Detection spells reach farther based on raw power. I didn’t spot him, didn’t know where he was.

  “Ooanoan hami,” I kept at it, maintained the spell despite the strain, the exhaustion, the week I’d had. Despite the fear, the pain at seeing my friends hurt and killed, despite the unnatural, sorcerous terror that Sammy Bones’ adept magic allowed him to instill. Skip couldn’t cast it, Sledge couldn’t cast it. Only me. There was only me.

  I didn’t sense him, didn’t feel him close, kept chanting, tense, praying that when he did break the radius of the spell, did ping on my sorcerous radar, I’d be fast enough to keep him from reaching us.

  “Ooanoan hami,” I croaked, throat raw from a long night of similar chants, soul-aching chants, from channeling more magic in the last twelve hours than I had in ages.

  “Ooano—” There. My Colt snapped around, my finger squeezed just right, iron sights cold and hard and lined up against the brightness, the sickly-bright wrongness of his aura.

  He was fast. In the time it took me to register that he’d breached the range of the spell, the time it took me to twitch in the right direction, he’d gotten within just a few meters.

  It took the whole magazine, plus whatever Skip and Sledge threw in, but it did the trick. Stumbling, staggering, roaring at us as he charged, he eventually fell, clawed at the floor to reach us, then—whew—stopped, riddled with holes.

  I slumped onto my butt, exhausted to my core. I just wanted to lie down in that filthy hovel covered in ghoul’s blood, and sleep.

  Skip kept her head better and messaged Trace that we were okay, told her that we were coming out, sweetly reminded her that it would be lovely of them not to shoot us. Sledge got Caboose up in a fireman’s carry and was already moving toward the rickety stairs, sparing just a second to grunt and kick Bones’ corpse on his way.

  There. Fucking there. It was over.

  I hoped.

  CHAPTER 41

  We got some mileage out of Chase’s fancy medkit, I’ll tell you that. By the time I made it back outside, there was already a DocWagon med-evac taking off, with the elven gunslinger firmly aboard and the outside crew left staring down the barrels of miniguns, like they were to blame for him being hurt. Rook didn’t get so much as a thank you for pouring mana into the tridshow star to keep him alive—DocWagon wasn’t in the ‘thank you’ business—but the upside came when Blitz revealed he’d lifted Chase’s keys—old-fashioned Americana, like the rest of his public image, but with RFIDs that granted full access to his whole vehicle—during the mess.

  The trauma kit was something special, and it helped the rest of us get patched up a bit. There were some Ares prototypes back there, too, guns and big Bowie-style knives Chase was supposed to show off in upcoming episodes. I waved for everyone else to divvy it all up, chewing on WhiteBrite and trying to keep my energy up. Something troubling was nagging at the back of my head, tickling at the tip of my brain, but I was doing my best to ignore it, to enjoy the victory, to smile while I watched my friends score some pretty sweet guns.

  The Ancients, last to show up, were the first to leave. Rook took Chase’s big Suburban—whole kit and caboodle—with a couple of the other rowdy street-punks I’d recruited, off to joyride and have a wake for their dead. None of us complained about them getting the up-armored truck. The elven go-gang had paid a heavy price for having my back today, the least we could do was let them keep the priciest spoils of the little war.

  Sledge and Hardpoint milled around a bit while grunting goodbyes, the ork bitching about his hand, the dwarf bitching about his drones. They’d both lost more oil than blood today, but neither was happy about it. Sledge had carried Caboose right into the back of the GMC Bulldog, and—according to Skip—he’d promised to drop her off, nice and polite-like, at a nearby Underground entrance. Gentry’d be in touch about their cut of the bounties, I figured, and I just gave them a tired wave as Hardpoint’s blocky van trundled away.

  Daisy had Sterling settled into the Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit she somehow folded herself into. She had a medicine lodge not far away, and I knew he’d be safe there. The little electric car rolled away, engine straining like always, Daisy’s only concern for her hurt passenger stretched across the folding bench seat.

  Blue was gone, too, not long after. She was wobbly on her streetbike—they were made for folks with, y’know, two hands—but before long her wireless compensated for the lack of a good grip, and she was cruising out of there. She was headed for the nearest Draco Foundation office, I was pretty sure, and was likely alr
eady doing math for how much a new arm would cost her. If she’d had the hand for it, I had the feeling she’d’ve liked to flip me off as she rode away.

  Pink slapped me on the shoulder before he left, and then it was just me, Skip, Trace, and an ash-covered parking lot full of dead men’s bikes, littered with a few corpses.

  We were too far south for Knight Errant to respond, too far from the district halls, the lower-middle-class rows of townhomes. Chase had needed his super-platinum DocWagon to get them to show up. This deep into the Barrens, we could’ve set off a nuke and the cops wouldn’t have checked. Tillman, or rather his day-shift twin, would probably laugh and hang up on me if I tried to call any of this in.

  I leaned against the side of my Ford, barely able to keep my head up, not wanting to think.

  Skip stood there next to me, companionably silent for once in her life. Trace stretched out on the hood like it was a recliner, head propped up on the windshield, ankles crossed on the push-bar.

  “We did good work today, Jimmy,” the decker said, reaching out to punch my shoulder.

  I nodded back, too tired to talk, taking a drag off a Target as I watched over the cycles and cars and the slain, the field of corpses and the motorbikes standing over them like tombstones. It was quiet. Almost peaceful, in a way. If Ari’d been there, it would’ve been a nicer moment. I pushed the thought aside, didn’t follow it, didn’t let myself go down that road.

  Before too long, another pack of Ancients rolled up, a few riding double on combat-hogs, a bunch of them piling out of a low-to-the-ground sport coupe like it was a clown car. Blitz was with them, posing on his Yamaha Rapier in case Skip or Trace were looking. They weren’t.

  “We’ll watch over the leftover wheels,” he said, hollering over the whooping and engine-roaring of the younger elves behind him, a bunch of kids who’d never been in the sewers, who thought the whole day was just good fun.

  I knew they would. I knew eventually Sterling’d send some chummer for his, the Underground would have someone pick up Caboose and Bricks’ wheels, and all that.

  Skip and Trace steered me away, Trace behind the wheel, Skip in the back seat, glowering like usual.

  I worried about Ricks’ old Nomad truck. Who’d be by to pick it up? I had Bushido’s word on it, the Ancients wouldn’t molest the thing, wouldn’t take off with it, wouldn’t let anyone else, either, but…who would Ricks have wanted to send for it? He didn’t have a family. He didn’t have friends.

  How long would it sit there, gathering ash because of me?

  Skip basically carried my ass upstairs, but I barely remember it. The Long Haul had worn off. The week—the night, the morning—I’d had finally caught up to me, and I crashed, hard. Someone tucked me in, and I’d bet nuyen to nickels it was Trace, not Skip.

  CHAPTER 42

  Adversary pounced while I dreamed. In the comfortable darkness that consumed me, I heard him before I saw him: yowling, snarling, that high-pitched wail that keeps everyone in a big city awake at some time or another. He was a scruffy little bastard of a stray cat this time, all scarred up and covered in patchy, dirty fur.

  “What?” It was the best I could muster.

  “Look at you, taking a cat-nap.” The mangy stray looked smug, but then all cats do, even with one ear mostly missing.

  “Piss off. I’m tired. You saw the night I had?”

  “Oh, big man, conjuring some spirits. Whoopty-do, Jimmy. You did a little mojo, get over yourself.”

  “More’n a little.” I scowled, floating in nothingness while the cat got to somehow walk around me, stretch, rub its filthy self against my legs, “Where’s Ari?”

  “Eight tiny spirits and a handful of spells is hardly yeoman’s work.” It let loose a rusty purr, enjoying my discomfort.

  “Yeah, well, it got the job done.” I bristled, kicking a little, nudging the mangy feline away. The Adversary-cat lifted its tail as it sauntered away from me, showing me its butt the way they love to do. Fuckin’ cats.

  My Mentor cast a yellow-eyed look over my shoulder, eyes half-glowing again, gaze locking onto mine.

  “Did it?”

  CHAPTER 43

  I jolted awake, almost falling out of bed. A fresh host of Corpsman warning messages let me know about my purpling body, the various stages of contusions that covered me from head to toe, the muscular stiffness that would invariably follow, warned against hairline fractures in my ribs, let me know it was monitoring me for continued concussive signs.

  “Good morning to you, too,” I groused, dragging myself to my feet, trying to stretch and not quite managing it.

  I settled for slumping against the wall, leaning there long enough to check my chronometer and see what time—hell, what day—it was, trying to clear my head from the after-effects of the Long Haul, the strain of the summonings, bindings, castings, overcastings. Everything was fuzzy, a little out of focus, a little off-kilter, and not just because I was still missing Ari, not just because Adversary was still being a prick.

  A shower didn’t help, and neither did my empty fridge.

  Things weren’t right. My power wasn’t all back, much less increased. Ariana wasn’t swooping around brightening my day, the Initiation hadn’t worked, Adversary wasn’t holding up his end of the deal.

  Could they…do that? Could he?

  I dragged on the cleanest clothes I could find—hell if I was going to try a fashion spell to clean anything today—and stumbled down the stairs. Chanchai had his noodle joint going, since it was late evening, a day and a half after we’d killed Nimbus and Bones, and I grabbed a handful of satay from him. The chicken was spicy, greasy, and nothing but meat on a stick, which suited my mood.

  I gnawed and swallowed while the Ford did most of the driving, letting me think. I watched the sun go down, Seattle pollutants overpowering Seattle clouds, the sky turning brilliant reds and yellows, lighting the world on fire before darkness fell and the neon strove to push it away. Traffic was a bitch, but I didn’t care. I took my time, brooding.

  The moon was up by the time my Americar parked itself outside Reynolds’ place. I made one last call before I got out. I checked my crumpled, much-abused pack of Targets before I headed over to knock on the door.

  “Come in, Mr. Kincaid.” He didn’t sound surprised through the stoop intercom. I blinked over to the astral, checked out his wards on the way in, and ducked inside.

  “I’m upstairs,” he called, and I followed the sound of his voice to his study.

  Reynolds sat behind his desk, smiling as I entered. He had paperwork everywhere, both classical and digital/virtual, I’d caught him in the middle of something.

  “Preparing for tonight’s lecture, you see.” His long arm swept across the whole table, gesturing to all of it and none of it, “My night class starts in just a bit, but come, come, sit down. How is the case progressing?”

  “Done.” I slumped into his guest chair, glad to sit after the stairs’d taken the wind from me.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Done,” I said again, leaning forward to poke through the stacked datatablets and folders, finding the ashtray.

  “May I?” I jiggled my pack of Targets.

  “Yes, of course, of course.” He waved back as I fished in the box for a smoke. “This is certainly worth celebrating!”

  “Yeah, it is,” I nodded, flicked my Target into my mouth. I jostled the pack, got him one to poke halfway out of the box, offered it up.

  He took it, long fingers dexterous and nimble, sure with a cigarette. He’d quit, maybe, but the hands never quite forgot.

  We lit up, and I leaned back, letting out a smoky sigh.

  “It was a vampire,” I said, lip curling a little. “Like I thought. ‘Nimbus,’ she called herself.”

  “‘Nimbus,’ you say? Isn’t that the one that maimed you?”

  “Yup.” I nodded, sighed again. “That’s her. Spotted her coming and going from Minirth’s office, regular meetings, like.”

  “
I do believe…” He puffed away, brow furrowed, but plucked something from a desk drawer, “Yes, here it is. Here. Could he have been integrating her into his research?”

  He slid a little datachip across the table toward me. I knew the sort. Ridiculous memory in a tiny package, the sort of thing that’d fit snug in the bottom of his low-end commlink, the tablet I’d had Gentry crack for me that first day.

  “What’s on there?” I looked up, dragged my gaze away from that treasure trove of files, eyebrow raised.

  “Haven’t the faintest.” Reynolds shook his head, his cigarette already half-gone. He missed the tobacco; I could tell from how he was going to town. “It was encrypted, you see. Might be, still, for all I know. It was for you, he said.”

  I almost coughed.

  “Left for you in his will, Mr. Kincaid. Upon completion of this investigation. There’s also this, of course.” Like an afterthought, he produced a credstick. One with a gold band on it, high value. Important to me, forgettable to him.

  “Of course.” I pocketed the credstick, Reynolds’ eyes on my hand while I did, like he was waiting for me to grab the datachip.

  “Aren’t you…Mr. Kincaid, aren’t you curious to see what’s on it?”

  “For the week I’ve had? I’m hoping ten, twelve grand, maybe.”

  “Not the money, you…the data!” His hands waved, gesturing with the glowing cherry. “The information, Mr. Kincaid! The knowledge! Who knows what he could’ve left you?!”

  I shrugged.

  He stabbed the cigarette out—not much of it was left, anyhow—angrily, rubbing, grinding, like he was close to losing his temper. My PeopleWatcher confirmed it, though the biometrics data was a little wonky, obfuscated by the vanity-driven illusions Reynolds draped himself in to look younger.