Hammer of the Witches

by Kai Wai Cheah

  Frank was short, coming up to Eve’s nose. He had the pasty white skin of a man who spent an unhealthy amount of time indoors though he tried to look after himself. His arms and legs were huge, but his belly was soft and round. His clothes were utterly unfashionable: a green polo T-shirt with blue jeans and sneakers. He wore a massive backpack and carried a laptop bag in his left hand. He didn’t so much walk as bounce his feet off the ground, and when he spoke, his voice was a soft high-pitched monotone.

  “Eve!” he replied, extending his arm. “Guten Tag!”

  “Yes, guten Tag,” she said, and continued in Standard German. “You look healthier than when I last met you.”

  “Danke.”

  He beamed as they shook hands. He held his grip just a little longer than was strictly appropriate.

  “Eve, this is Luke. He’s the Hesperian helping us.”

  “Hello,” he said carefully in Anglian, with the clear, mechanical diction of a man tapping into a language implant.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I replied.

  His hand was moist and clammy, but he had the grip of a vice. I matched him foot-pound for foot-pound, smile for smile, letting go only when he did.

  “You are aware of our situation?” Frank asked, his eyes fixed on mine.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I want to let you know that I don’t think Hexenhammer is responsible for what happened at Chios. My organization is prepared to assist however we can.”

  “Then why are we still wanted? Why do the police still hunt us?”

  “Until we find evidence to clear your name, we are limited in what we can do. But I can help you with this.”

  “Very well. Let’s go to the safe house. We can talk more there.”

  “Hold on. There’s one more stop I need to make.”

  Eve groaned theatrically.

  At the baggage locker I picked up my package. It was a gym bag bulked out with what felt like newspapers.

  “Now we can go,” I said.

  “What’s inside?” Frank asked suspiciously.

  I smiled. “You will see.”

  9. The Offer

  When TripHome opened for business, I imagined the last thing it expected was to make life easier for the fugitive spy. The online hospitality marketplace was a wonderful thing.

  “I rented the apartment for three days,” Frank explained. “Long enough for our cell to come in. We are expecting seven people in total. We can walk there; it’s only ten minutes away.”

  “How did you pay for it?” I asked.

  “Bank transfer. The account belongs to someone who no longer exists in this world.”

  “A Kraken target?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Eve said. “I… we made him disappear. He was the ideal target: no family, no close friends, nobody who will miss him. After we disappeared him, we used his identity for our operational needs.”

  “What did he do to earn that treatment?” I asked.

  “He was a freelance cyber-criminal,” Frank replied. “He began working with the Sicilian Mafia but later offered his services to Dawla Wahiyye. He forced a power outage in a London hospital that left ten people dead.”

  Hexenhammer reserved assassinations for murderers and terrorists. I couldn’t fault that logic.

  As we headed out from the station, Frank made small talk with Eve. She morphed into a friendlier persona, chatting and smiling and sharing her experiences traveling across Pantopia by bus and train. It was as though she had sloughed off the fatigue in an instant.

  “What happened in Hellas anyway?” Frank asked.

  “Let’s discuss it in a secure place,” Eve replied.

  Our destination was a modern ten-story apartment complex sited by the main road. I insisted that we walk around the block to check for surveillance before we entered. The duo followed my lead without complaint. Satisfied, we headed up to the eighth floor. Our hosts, an elderly couple, greeted us at the door.

  “There are only three of you,” Mrs. Schumacher said.

  “The rest of our party was delayed,” Eve said, smiling. “We thought it best to check in first.”

  “I see.” She paused. “Your accent sounds interesting. Are you Swiss?”

  “Mol,” she said. “The differences between our languages can be incomprehensible sometimes, gäll?”

  Eve was hamming it up, reinforcing our cover as tourists exploring the country. Frank was supposed to be our local guide, but it was clear that she preferred taking the lead in social situations.

  “Ja,” Mr. Schumacher said, “although over here, we say nicht wahr instead of gäll. But anyway, let me show you around.”

  There were three rooms, six beds and a single bathroom. Everything else—kitchen, wireless Internet, iron, washing machine, holovision—was a bonus. The interior was clean and tastefully furnished, a mix of whites and creams and browns and blacks, wood and leather and metal and glass.

  “Thank you for hosting us,” Eve said.

  “Oh, thank you,” Mr. Schumacher said. “We hope you enjoy your stay in Germania.”

  The moment the Schumachers left, I whipped out my bug detector and swept the house.

  “Clean,” I reported. “We can talk freely.”

  Frank nodded. “Excellent. So what toys did you bring today?”

  I unzipped the gym bag and laid out its contents on the living room table. Agency-issued slate, with charger and other peripherals. Two bottles of military-grade ambrosia: fifteen percent enriched aetherium dissolved in alcohol and cut with water, highly illegal for civilians to own in Germania. A pair of secure radios and packs of spare batteries. A bag of fresh SIM cards. A collection of miniature surveillance cameras, each the size of a thumbnail, with a lens on one side and an adhesive backing on the other.

  “No guns?” Frank asked.

  “Weapons are a liability,” I said.

  And one of the few things O’Connor wouldn’t provide me.

  “Every police agency in the continent is chasing us.”

  “And if we kill a cop, we’re just going to make things worse for ourselves. Our best defense is stealth.”

  “I’d be happier if we could defend ourselves.”

  “That’s what the ambrosia is for,” Eve said soothingly. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “And you, Luke? You can fight, too?” Frank asked. He tried to make it sound casual, but I sensed the aggression in his voice.

  “I try not to,” I replied. “It can get a little messy.”

  Eve snorted and rolled her eyes.

  “What’s so funny?” Frank asked.

  “Nothing at all,” I informed him.

  ***

  As Eve and Frank made the apartment hospitable, I tended to our defenses. I placed the security cameras at the window sills and then went outside and planted more near the elevator and at both stairwells. The microcams streamed their footage to a secure website, which I accessed on my slate. Now we had three-sixty situational awareness.

  Eve and I went out to rent vehicles. She chose a sedan. I went with a four-panel van. Along the way, we picked up groceries and hardware, splitting up our purchases among multiple stores to avoid unnecessary suspicion. We parked the vehicles near our safe house; in the event of an emergency we could dash for the Dutch border or the airport.

  On the way back, I powered up my voidsight and checked the block around the safe house. I saw parents tending to children, teenagers doing homework or messing around on holophones and animals stalking the streets. There were no daimons and no police surveillance teams watching us.

  Back inside the safe house, Frank had set up a laptop in the living room and was busy typing away. Dedicated laptops were a rarity these days—slates tended to be good enough for most purposes—but I supposed someone like Frank would appreciate the additional processing power.

  “Any signs of trouble?” I asked, setting the groceries on the living room table.

  “No,” he replied, still staring at the screen.

  �
�Have you been monitoring the cameras?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Have you?” I insisted.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Someone has to watch the cameras all the time,” I said.

  “I was busy,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “If the police are setting up surveillance or preparing for an assault, we need early warning.”

  “I had to coordinate our activities, guide people in,” he insisted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I repeated. “If the cops storm the safe house because we didn’t have early warning, it doesn’t matter how busy you are.”

  “Fine, I get it,” he snapped, looking away from his screen.

  “Luke, he’s not an operator,” Eve said.

  “We don’t need operators watching the cameras,” I said. “But we’re still being hunted. If we don’t work together, we will be caught.”

  “You’re paranoid,” Frank said.

  “In my line of work, that’s a compliment.”

  Eve cracked a smile. Frank sighed.

  “Fine, I’ll help. Okay?” Frank said.

  I handed him the slate. “Start now. I’ve got work to do.”

  He muttered darkly to himself and stared at the slate. Eve puttered off to the kitchen, storing the groceries.

  From my luggage I grabbed a Wedge-It and jammed it against the front door. It wouldn’t hold off a properly-equipped entry team, but it would buy time for a response.

  “Anybody want soda?” I asked.

  Eve stared at me in disgust. Frank said, “Do you have energy drinks?”

  “No.”

  “Not interested,” he said.

  I had bought a six-pack of cola. One by one I popped the cans and emptied them down the sink.

  “That’s a waste,” Eve said.

  “Nobody wants them,” I replied.

  I washed out the cans, grabbed one and dropped a few marbles into it. They rattled around nicely. I tied one end of a strand of twine around the ring pull, still attached to the can, and the other end to a window handle, ensuring that the cans were out of sight from the outside. Now, anyone who tried to surreptitiously open the window would cause the can to fall and cause a racket.

  We still didn’t need anyone looking in, and the curtains were paper-thin. I taped up sheets of dark plastic against the window frame. The effect was similar to tinted glass. Nobody could see in, but we could still look out with our Mark I eyeballs when necessary.

  “This is boring,” Frank complained. “I’ve got other work to do.”

  “You’re only on duty because Eve and I are busy,” I said. “When I’m done, you can get back to whatever you’re doing.”

  I had bought another aethertool at a supermarket. I carefully disassembled it with my travel multitool—it had no blade, so I didn’t have to place it in checked luggage—and examined the working mass.

  Ten percent enriched aetherium. Good enough for my needs. The metal was engraved with complex designs. These were the manufacturers’ unique sigils, allowing psions to easily flash the metal.

  I extended my consciousness into the metal. In my mind’s eye, the metal looked like a pale glowing cloud, with lines of light leading into different directions. Each pathway terminated in a different shape: a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a corkscrew.

  I didn’t need all those. I placed the aetherium in a bowl, setting the bowl away from anything flammable. Then, I grabbed a bottle of vodka and carefully poured it over the alloy.

  Aetherium dissolves in alcohol. The stronger the alcohol, the better. And the vodka I had bought was ninety percent alcohol by weight. The liquid bubbled the moment it touched the metal. I poured just enough to cover the alloy and stepped away.

  No fire. No problem.

  Eve popped out of the kitchen and glanced at the bowl.

  “Clearing your aethertool?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could do that for you. No need to mess around with alcohol.”

  She had to be referring to her covenanter powers. No ordinary psion could override a sigil when set just like that.

  “Maybe next time.”

  “Next time?”

  “Still have work to do.”

  She sighed dramatically. “Men.”

  There were two beds in my bedroom. The one closer to the door was mine. Eve had the other. I checked the drawers and cabinets. No clothes. Good.

  I headed to another bedroom. Frank had strewn his clothes all over the bed and cabinet. I sighed, shook my head and left.

  “I’m done,” I said. “I’m taking over.”

  Frank nodded and returned to his computer.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Pack up your things. Take out only the stuff you’re using now and keep everything else.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? What the hell is this about?”

  “If we need to make a quick exit, you can grab your bags and go. The last thing you want is to leave your DNA or some other stuff behind.”

  “C’mon, that’s–”

  “Do what he says, Frank,” Eve said. “He’s the expert here.”

  Another eye roll. “Yes, Mütti.”

  Frank stomped off. Eve shook her head.

  “Frank can be… difficult,” she said. “But he’s a good kid.”

  “How old is he?”

  She shrugged. “Twenty-two, I think?”

  Twenty-two. A lifetime ago. I couldn’t believe I was ever that young.

  “Got any family?”

  “He left home when he was sixteen. Never looked back.” She licked her lips. “Don’t worry; his family won’t lead the police to us. They don’t even know he’s still alive.”

  “There’s a story there.”

  “Not mine to tell.”

  “Fine. Come over here. I need to show you how to use the cameras.”

  We had used the same kind of cameras last year when watching a terrorist. Back then, all I had said to her was, “If something goes wrong, wake me up.”

  Now I showed her how to use the devices, cycle through lighting modes, pick up audio and monitor the battery. Then, I left her to watch the cameras while I went to work.

  The vodka had eaten away the surface of the aetherium block, and the sigils with them. Donning a pair of kitchen gloves, I fished the hot metal out of the vodka and wiped it down.

  I reassembled the aethertool. The working mass felt like a brilliant cloud of infinite possibilities, waiting to be molded to my will. Closing my eyes, I focused, visualizing the shape I needed it to be.

  A curved blade flashed out of the opening. It was a pesh-kabz, what a Westerner would call a Persian or a trailing point knife. The blade was a full four inches long… but so thin it felt like it would break if I looked at it too hard.

  I flashed it again, reducing the length to three inches. Too thin, no go. Two and three quarters. Better. I refined the blade over a dozen iterations, widening the belly, sharpening the false edge, adding jimping to the spine, and most importantly, locking the blade in place.

  I swiped the knife across my arm. Hair fell off. Switching to a reverse grip, I stacked up a bunch of newspapers and stabbed. The knife went clean through.

  “Was that necessary?” Frank called.

  If something had a shaft and a point, I could use it like a knife. I didn’t need to reprogram an aethertool. But now that I had time to burn, it didn’t hurt to prepare my preferred tool.

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  Extricating the knife, I flowed through a series of drills. Thrust and cut, cut and thrust, working every angle of attack. I clapped, passing my knife to my left hand. Slash and stab, stab and slash, every motion deliberate and measured, focusing completely on how it felt in my hand. I transitioned between grips and hands, feeling the balance, the liveliness, the flow.

  Eve clapped, smiling brightly. Frank scowled.

  “I thought you didn’t like fighting?�
� he asked.

  “As I said: it could get messy.”

  Eve giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  She shook his head. “Luke, what martial arts did you train?”

  “I started with mixed martial arts and picked up kali later. Also cross-trained here and there.”

  I started MMA in high school. In the summers I worked on fishing boats, where I met an old Filipino who showed me the art of the blade. After I joined the military, I sought out training in Filipino martial arts. MAD, and later the Special Operations Support Detachment, also brought in outside experts to supplement our skills. Now that I was a part of the Program, hand-to-hand skills were critical, and we regularly engaged martial arts experts to refine our arsenal.

  “Good to be well-rounded,” she said.

  I didn’t tell her everything, of course. No need to tell her what she didn’t need to know.

  I set the blade down and etched in a sigil with my multitool. It wasn’t a complicated shape, just an asterisk, but as I worked, I impressed my will into the metal, locking in this form into the aetherium’s memory. I flashed the knife back and forth a few times, checking my work. It was acceptable, no slower than a folding knife.

  “Are you done yet?” Eve asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Finally,” Frank grumbled.

  ***

  Frank had arranged for his cell to stagger their arrivals. The first came in at half past eight in the evening. Frank welcomed him. Eve introduced me as the Hesperian who was helping them out. I delivered a security brief: keep your stuff packed; don’t meddle with the security systems; don’t leave the house without telling anyone.

  Over the course of the night I repeated the briefing three more times. The hackers spanned the range from basement-dwelling nerds to clean-cut white-collar workers. The last one was a scruffy auburn-haired woman.

  They came from all over the continent. A couple were German. The others came from Gallia, Italy and Anglia. The redhead came from Eire. Including Frank, there were eight hackers in all.

  They were all on edge, their nerves frayed to the breaking point. From their conversations I gathered that this was the first time they were seriously being hunted by the police. Sure, they knew the dangers of messing with terrorists and gangsters, but this was the first time they were cognizant that they were in physical danger.