shadowrun 40 The Burning Time

by Stephen Kenson

  Gallow knew that the two of them were involved, but it had little understanding of human feelings. To it, sex was simply another tool for manipulating people into doing what it wanted, for luring them to their destruction through one of the weakest points of the psyche. It had no idea how deep O’Donnel and Trouble were into each other. But its place was not to question, Gallow thought bitterly, only to obey. It would inform Mama Iaga of what it had seen, and she would react as she always did, acting like she’d known all along what would happen. Gallow didn’t care, so long as it ultimately got what it wanted. Then, perhaps, Mama Iaga would find out how dangerous it was to consider such a powerful spirit nothing more than a servant.

  The motorcycle roared down the street as Gallow began searching. It had to make a stop before returning to the KRB headquarters. Fortunately, the streets of the metroplex offered what it needed in abundance.

  It spotted a small cluster of three women standing together on a street corner, and a smile curled Bridget’s lips. It brought the motorcycle to stop at the corner, pulling closer than the turn required. There was little traffic, most of which simply went around the bike, ignoring the little scene at the corner.

  "Ladies," Gallow said with a nod. The three women looked at each other, then one of them shrugged and stepped forward.

  "Hi there," she said. "You looking to party?" She was young and wearing a latex body sheath that left little to the imagination. Chrome rings were spaced around her waist like piercings through her second-skin. Her hair was dark, but tinted with blue highlights that matched her eyes. Gallow doubted either was natural.

  "Yes," it said, drawing a credstick partway from its wrist-sheath in a provocative manner. The woman’s eyes lit up, and Gallow almost laughed out loud from the hunger it could taste in her. "Three hundred enough?" it asked, and the woman’s aura flickered with pleasure and a tinge of resignation.

  "Not usually my scene," she said, "but why not?"

  "Get on, then," Gallow said, indicating the back of the bike. The woman walked around the bike, swung one leg over the saddle and circled Bridget’s waist with her arms. She leaned close as Gallow revved the motorcycle and pulled away from the curb. In moments, they were speeding away.

  They had gone only a short distance before Gallow picked out a suitable alley and turned into it, slowing as it passed a dumpster where something squealed and chittered at the noise. Near the dead end of the alley, Gallow killed the engine.

  "Here?" the woman said, with a look of surprise and alarm.

  Gallow didn’t speak. It climbed off the bike, pulling the girl along with the supernatural strength that flowed through Bridget’s slim form. The spirit pinned her against the wall and pressed Bridget’s body against hers, feeling the movement of flesh against flesh. What sensations the physical world had to offer!

  It slipped Bridget’s fingers into the tight neckline of the whore’s suit and tore it down the front, the latex ripping almost like skin, exposing the white flesh beneath. The woman moaned, although Gallow saw no fire, no passion, in her spirit. That would change soon enough. It pressed Bridget’s hand against the exposed flesh.

  "Oh, you’re so hot," the woman whispered in Bridget’s ear. "I. . .owwww!" she cried out, trying to break away from the other hand holding her like a vice. Gallow pulled Bridget’s hand away, and the woman looked down in horror at the handprint burned into her flesh like a brand. Her eyes welled with tears from the pain.

  "Oh, God," she whispered, looking into Bridget’s eyes, and the fear poured from her like a geyser. Gallow gasped and drank it in, the most delicious nectar imaginable. It raised Bridget’s free hand, which suddenly burst into flames, earning it a shriek of terror from the woman and another rush of fear. Gallow wanted to savor the moment, but it didn’t have much time.

  "Please, please, don’t kill me!" she begged, sobbing.

  The burning hand reached out toward her face. She shrieked and tried to get away before Gallow clapped its hand over her face, muffling her screams and filling the air with the sound of sizzling and the smell of burning flesh. The spirit threw its head back as it drank the woman’s life-force to the dregs. Her body withered under its touch, becoming dry, brittle, and oh so flammable. When Gallow released her and stepped back, nothing was left of her face but a blackened skull. The body pitched forward onto the ground, and flames licked across the dry, dead flesh. In moments, the corpse was burning rapidly, and soon there would be nothing but ash and fragments of bone.

  Gallow turned and walked back to the motorcycle, starting up the engine and driving out of the alley. It felt the power of its victim’s life thrumming through it, and how it savored the feeling. But this was only a pale substitute for what it truly desired—to do the same to Talon’s friends, enjoying every morsel of his fear before devouring the mage’s soul and taking his body as a new shell to continue the hunt.

  Soon, it thought. Soon enough, Father, I will see you again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "Okay, Talon, we’re in place," Val said as she killed the van’s engine. "In place," as it happened, was a public parking garage just down from the Merrimack Valley Bio-Medical facility on Amherst Street. It had been less than twenty-four hours since they’d placed the personafix chip into Dan Otabi’s eager hands, and now the run could begin.

  The garage was almost empty. The day commuters were on their way home by now, and most of the remaining cars belonged to those working late or on the second shift. There were even fewer cars or people up here on the top floor.

  "All right," Talon said. He keyed open a comm channel with his headware. "Trouble, we’re in position and ready to go."

  "All set here," came the reply in his head. "Just say the word."

  "Stand by. Boom, how’s our ‘friend’ doing?"

  "He’s still inside the facility," the troll said, "and his shadow Kilaro is still outside."

  Trouble had cracked the system files of the car rental agency Kilaro had used and was able to get his name and System Identification Number. From there, it was a simple matter to find out that he was a systems analyst with CATco, living and working in Montreal. They still weren’t certain what he was doing in Boston, but they’d decided to risk going forward with the run as planned.

  "Make sure they both stay there," Talon said. "The minute Kilaro makes a move, give Trouble a yell. I’m turning coordination over to you, Trouble, and going on radio silence. Let’s do it."

  He clicked off the commlink and shut down his headware. He didn’t want any distractions for this.

  "Ready?" he asked Val, who was sitting in the front seat of the van. She turned and gave him a thumb’s up..

  Talon turned to Hammer, who was at the wheel. "Remember, if anything goes wrong, just give me a good slap, and I’ll know to get back here. Otherwise. . ."

  "I know, I know, no unnecessary jostling of the body," the big ork said. "I know the drill, Talon. You take care of the magical security, and I’ll worry about the rest."

  "Well, I’m hoping we won’t run into anything major."

  Talon had laid out a colorful Indian blanket in the back of the van. Sitting on it was the same Sikorsky-Bell Microskimmer they’d used to trail Kilaro the night before. Constructed from lightweight plastics and alloys, it was the size of a trash can lid and equipped with a powerful, quiet turbine engine.

  Val settled the remote control deck into her lap and snapped the cable into the jack behind her ear. A moment later, the Microskimmer powered up with a hum and rose about ten centimeters off the floor of the van, creating a stiff breeze.

  Talon took a silver ring in the shape of a snake biting its own tail off the middle finger of his left hand.

  "Tape," he said to Hammer, who tore a piece of silvery duct tape off a roll and handed it over. Talon took the tape in his left hand while lightly holding the ring in his right. He looked at the hovering drone through the circle formed by the ring and began chanting quietly in Latin, focusing his attention on the Microskimmer.


  He knelt down and tapped the ring against the surface of the drone three times, then secured it to the Microskimmer’s hull with the tape. The drone listed slightly, shimmering and distorted like something seen through a haze of heat, then vanished from sight.

  "Frag," Hammer said softly. "I never get used to that." Though the drone was now invisible, the hum of its engine and the breeze from its fan were audible.

  "Val?" Talon said.

  She spoke slowly, her senses caught up in the experience of merging with the drone.

  "All systems still go, Talon. No interference from the spell. This is wiz." She smiled, her eyes closed and her hands dancing absently over the remote deck.

  "Okay, Hammer," Talon said. "Let it out, and we’ll get going."

  Hammer climbed out of the van and made sure the coast was clear before opening the rear doors. The invisible Microskimmer hummed its way out. Hammer shut the doors and got back in the van. Talon was stretched out as best he could on the blanket in the rear of the van, a small Japanese pillow under his head.

  "Aracos," he said in his mind

  "I’m here," Aracos said instantly.

  Talon settled easily into a trance, leaving his body and focusing his senses on the astral plane. His heartbeat slowed and his breathing deepened as he loosed his astral form from his physical body, slipping into the astral like an amphibian sliding into water.

  The astral plane unfolded around him as he escaped the bonds of physical reality. The van seemed the same as before, but he could see glowing auras of light around Val and Hammer. Their auras revealed to him their emotions—excitement and nervousness combined with the control and restraint of true professionals. He could see Aracos hovering near the roof of the van in the form of a golden eagle, his aura glowing with mystic power. Talon’s astral body wore clothes much like his regular street gear, and on his hip was a shimmering dagger. A fire opal gleamed from the pommel of its golden hilt. A silver chain with a dark, silver-wrapped crystal hung around his neck, duplicates of items worn on his meat body.

  "Let’s go," he said to Aracos. They passed easily through the van’s armored doors, for those doors were only shadows of the physical world. To Talon’s astral senses, the Microskimmer hovering outside was perfectly visible, surrounded by the telltale glow of his invisibility spell. So long as his enchanted ring remained in contact with the drone, his spell would keep it hidden from the physical world.

  As the Microskimmer began to move, and Talon and Aracos followed. The drone traveled quickly, but two beings impeded by neither gravity or matter had no problem keeping up. Val piloted the Microskimmer expertly toward the Cross facility, a short distance away.

  "Stay with the ‘skimmer," Talon told Aracos. Then he shot forward, the world around him becoming a blur as he moved at the speed of thought toward the building, arriving almost instantaneously. The exterior looked the same as when he’d scouted it in astral form for the run. Dull and blocky, it radiated a heavy feeling of apathy built up by the workers who trudged through their jobs day to day. He did not note any magical defenses, but that didn’t guarantee none awaited within.

  Talon hadn’t dared investigate too far inside the building for fear of tipping off security too soon. Security was the main reason he and Aracos were along on the run. Before the Awakening, it used to be possible to penetrate security using just technology, but now that security included magic, you needed magic to counter it.

  The Microskimmer and Aracos arrived shortly after Talon did. The drone took up position close to the roof of the facility, hovering over the bulky air-conditioning system. There was a faint pinging sound as a small metal object detached itself from its underside and dropped onto the rooftop. It was domed, oval-shaped, and about ten centimeters long. While the Microskimmer hovered, the small metal object sprouted legs. It was a Shiawase Kanmushi, or "beetle" drone, used primarily for surveillance work, though Val had a slightly different use planned for this run. The Kanmushi scuttled across the roof to the ventilation duct and climbed into it.

  "In we go," Talon said to Aracos. "Hope you’re not claustrophobic.""Likewise," the spirit shot back with a flicker of mirth. Following the Kanmushi, they passed through the roof as easily as through the doors of the van. The ventilation shaft was dark, of course, but that proved no hindrance to Talon and Aracos’s magical senses. The beetle operated through its onboard sensor package, guided by Val. It moved unerringly down the shaft, making its way through the ductwork as the tiny servomotors in its legs whirred faintly. It traveled across the duct and then down, taking the path they had plotted using the building plans Trouble had dug up for the team.

  Talon and Aracos trailed the Kanmushi down the vent shaft, and they could see a faint glow coming from the bottom of the shaft. The beetle didn’t seem to react to it, so the light must have been invisible to its sensors. Talon felt a faint breeze whistle up the shaft. Even though he was immaterial, the breeze was present on the astral plane as well.

  "Air elemental," he muttered. He’d heard that the research facility had "discreet" watcher elementals on site. What better place for an air spirit to hide out than in the ventilation ductwork?

  "C’mon, Aracos," he said. They had to take care of the watcher before it could alert someone to their presence or, worse yet, interfere with the Kanmushi. Even Aracos couldn’t materialize in the narrow vent shaft, but an air elemental’s material form was gaseous. It could fit through any space, but was solid enough that it might damage the drone if they let it.

  Talon drew the dagger at his waist as he and Aracos charged forward. The elemental saw them and tried to flee, but too late. It was not a particularly powerful spirit, and the fight was over almost before it began. Aracos’s astral form seemed to flow like quicksilver as he became a silvery-colored wolf, and seized the wispy form of the elemental in his jaws. Since they were both spirits, Aracos could hold the elemental, although it struggled and tried to flow out of his grasp.

  "Good work," Talon said, rubbing his familiar’s head. "Hold it here and keep it from giving an alarm while I follow the drone."

  The wolf nodded, and Talon continued after the Kanmushi as it completed its journey into the building. It stopped at a ventilation grate. Two of the drone’s spindly legs reached out and tapped gently on the grate. A moment later, a hand reached down and pulled the grate away.

  Talon slipped through the wall into a storeroom filled with office supplies. Kneeling on the floor was Dan Otabi, his aura showing the same mix of excitement and control that Talon had come to associate with runners at work. Damn, he thought, he really does think he’s Ethan Hunt, heroic shadowbreaker, on an undercover mission.

  With cool efficiency, Otabi withdrew an optical chip from his pocket as the silvery carapace of the Kanmushi opened with a pop to reveal a tiny storage compartment. Otabi slipped the chip inside and closed the compartment, his aura flashing a measure of satisfaction and concern.

  "There’s the evidence we need, Vince," he muttered. Vince was one of Ethan Hunt’s teammates in Shadowbreakers. To Otabi’s mind, the pilot of the tiny drone was another member of "his team," and this was part of a mission. The programming on the personafix chip had done its work as advertised.

  The drone backed into the vent opening, and Otabi carefully replaced the grate. Then he straightened up and wiped his hands on his pants before leaving. Talon passed through the wall again to follow the drone back up to the roof. They encountered no further resistance on the way out.

  "How’re you holding up?" Talon asked Aracos.

  "Well enough, although this thing seems too stupid to know when to give up."

  "They don’t build ‘em all like you, chummer," Talon thought with a grin.

  "That’s for sure," Aracos shot back. "I have to admit that you really know how to summon a spirit."

  Talon felt a momentary surge of pride. It was true that he’d done a great job in summoning up Aracos. Then he thought about the spirit he’d called up to avenge Jase’s death, a
nd the feeling of satisfaction evaporated. He’d certainly learned a lot about summoning spirits since then. Or so he hoped.

  When they reached the roof, the beetle drone exited the vent and crawled under the Microskimmer, which dropped down to pick it up. There was a "plink" sound as the skimmer’s magnetic gripper grabbed the Kanmushi. Then its engine whined, and it lifted smoothly off the roof and back toward the garage. Talon and Aracos followed it. When they reached the parking lot, Talon glanced down to see whether Roy Kilaro’s car was still there. He saw no sign that the "shadow" had moved from his stakeout, which was good.

  Back inside the garage, Talon slipped through the side of the van and back into his body lying on the floor of its rear compartment. He took a moment to reorient himself as his physical senses came rushing back to him. He opened his eyes, blinked a couple times, and sat up while Hammer went around to open the back doors of the vehicle.

  The Microskimmer glided in and dropped down to the floor as its motor wound down. Talon willed the invisibility spell to end, and the skimmer emerged into visibility as he bent to remove the tape and recover his ring from its hull.

  "Okay, cack the spirit and meet us back here," Talon thought to Aracos. The air elemental’s master would sense the spirit’s destruction, though he wouldn’t know exactly how it had happened. The team couldn’t afford to leave the spirit behind to reveal something about its attackers.

  Moments later, a golden-feathered falcon appeared and alighted on the seat back as Val jacked out of her remote deck. She and Hammer had changed seats, so she jacked into the van’s controls and started the engine.

  Talon keyed his commlink and opened a channel to the rest of the team.

  "Team One to Two and Three," he said. "Mission accomplished. We’re heading back. Nice work, everyone. Now all we have to do is wait for the drek to hit the fan."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Roy Kilaro was still doggedly tailing Dan Otabi, but he was getting tired of it. For one thing, Otabi showed no further signs of unusual behavior, where before he had seemed furtive and nervous. Like tonight, Roy thought. Dan Otabi had left work late that evening, then went straight to his car and drove home, where he stayed for the rest of the night. Roy was convinced that the change in Otabi’s demeanor had something to do with his visit to the Avalon the night before. He guessed that he’d gone there to score chips, or drugs, or something else along those lines.