Hammer flattened against the wall, and Talon did the same as the men opened fire. Boom did his best to get out of the way, but there wasn’t anywhere in the hall for a three-meter-tall troll to hide. He leveled his pistol at the men and returned fire as Hammer leaned out around the corner to do the same. Gabriel and his companions dived for cover as bullets chewed up the walls around them.
"Get going. We’ll hold them," Talon said to Valkyrie, who then sprinted down the hall toward the exit. Talon pushed Kilaro after her. "Go with Val," he said, and Kilaro didn’t argue.
"Trouble, boss," Aracos said. "They’ve got spirits with them!"
Oh, great, Talon thought. "How many?"
"Two, and they look like elementals."
"Can you handle them?"
"Maybe one, but I’m not sure about both," Aracos said. "They look pretty powerful."
Talon reached down and drew the gold-hilted dagger at his hip. The cool metal came alive at his touch, and the fire-opal set into the pommel began to glow faintly with an inner light.
"Watch out," he told the others. "Enemy spirits incoming."
No sooner had he spoken than a roaring wind blew down the corridor. It resolved itself into a humanoid shape of dark mist, whirling like a miniature tornado the size of a man. A pair of glowing eyes looked out from within the dark funnel. At the same time, a spark further down the corridor appeared in the air and blossomed into a raging cloud of flames. At its center was a floating, lizard-like creature nearly two meters long from head to tail, surrounded by an aura of flames. It lashed its tail from side to side and glared at Talon with black reptilian eyes before charging toward him.
"Aracos, take the fire spirit!" Talon thought as he brought his blade up to defend himself. He shifted his attention to the astral plane to better assess the threat the spirits posed and to use his magical abilities against them. The invisible astral form of Aracos as a silvery wolf came between him and the oncoming fire elemental, grappling with it in combat. In astral form, Aracos was immune to the withering flames that surrounded the elemental, but Talon wasn’t. He turned his attention to the air elemental as it leapt toward Hammer, who was firing off shots in the direction of Gabriel’s group.
"Aw, frag, not again," Hammer said as the sprit lunged toward him, seeking to smother him with its gaseous body. This time, however, Hammer was ready for it. He rolled back and away from the spirit, and Talon stepped between them. He struck with Talonclaw, driving the magical dagger into the elemental spirit. Although it was nothing but mist, the blade’s enchantment let it bite into its spirit body. Talon felt his thrust strike home and saw the elemental writhe in pain, recoiling from him and gathering for another strike.
Boom’s gun roared as he fired off multiple shots down the hall, forcing their attackers to keep their heads down for the time being. The air elemental had recovered from Talon’s strike and turned its attention back toward him. A being of spirit and wind, the elemental moved with inhuman swiftness, lunging at Talon and wrapping him in a thick blanket of mist. A hideous, nauseating stench filled Talon’s nostrils, making him want to wretch as the air was squeezed from his lungs, driven out and replaced by the noxious mist. His eyes began to burn like they’d been exposed to tear gas. He held his breath as best he could and laid about with Talonclaw, striking at the spirit as it surrounded him.
Then something cut through the fog in front of him. The air elemental peeled away, coalescing in the air nearby for another strike. Talon didn’t stop to question his good fortune or wait for the elemental to attack again. He lunged forward and stabbed into the cloud. There was a crack like thunder that echoed through the astral, and the dark cloud began to break up, the spirit slain.
Talon turned his attention back toward Gabriel’s team. He whipped around the corner and fired off several shots with his Predator, calling out to Boom across the intersection.
"Go!" he shouted as their opponents tried to return fire. One took a round in the shoulder for his trouble, spinning him back around behind cover.
Talon leveled his gun around the corner to cover Boom, but stopped suddenly when he saw a translucent form standing there, heedless of the danger of gunfire.
"Jase!" he called out.
"Tal," said the ghostly form of Jason Vale. "They’re coming back, Tal."
"Who, Jase? Who’s coming back?"
"The dead. The dead are coming back."
As the image began to fade, Talon cried out, "Jase! Jase, wait!" But it was too late. He was gone.
Boom made a dash across the hall just as Gabriel took careful aim and fired. The round hit Boom just before he reached cover. He went down on one knee near Talon, who moved to help him.
"It’s okay," Boom said, getting back to his feet. "I can handle it." Talon saw blood staining Boom’s brightly colored shirt. They had to get out quickly, but the only way out was blocked by the fire elemental.
Aracos grappled with the reptilian spirit in astral form. The two seemed evenly matched, but Aracos had the advantage of greater intelligence and more experience. Though servitor elementals were often quite intelligent, they tended to be rather limited, and fire spirits were particularly dominated by their passions.
Aracos managed to dodge another of the spirit’s attacks, then lunged in, grappling with the elemental and driving it toward the ceiling. Although Aracos was immune to the flames surrounding the elemental, the ceiling tiles were not, particularly the sprinkler cap where the spirit’s shoulder struck.
The heat of the flames instantly triggered the building’s sprinkler systems. A fire alarm clanged as water sprayed into the corridor from all sides. The fire elemental hissed and shrieked at the touch of the water, and steam rose from its body. Its reptilian form dissolved almost instantly as it fled back into the astral plane, away from its elemental nemesis.
"Two can play at that game," Talon muttered. He cupped one hand and held it under the spray of water, murmuring words under his breath, focusing his magical powers and sending out the call across the astral plane. He had some spirits at his command as well. The call was answered when the water spraying from the ceiling took the form of a snake made up entirely of liquid. Talon pointed in the direction of the company men.
"Attack," he said, and the watery serpent lunged forward. Talon heard a cry of alarm coming from down the hall as Hammer stopped firing. The empty clip popped out of the ork’s gun as he slammed a fresh one home from the cartridges on his belt.
"Let’s go," Talon said, and they ran for the door.
"The fire elemental is going back to help the suits," Aracos said to Talon.
"Good. That’s just what I figured it would do."
They burst out of the door and raced down the fire escape to the alley, where Val had the van running, its side door open. Kilaro was huddled in the back as they climbed in, soaking wet. Hammer ran around to get into the passenger seat while Boom hauled himself in back along with Talon.
"Go!" Talon said, pulling the door closed. Val floored it, and the van burst out of the alley like a shot. The tires squealed as they pulled out into the street, and Talon’s headphone started ringing.
"Oh, frag it," he growled and mentally signaled the phone to switch off. Whoever it was, he couldn’t afford the distraction at the moment. He turned his attention to Boom, who had a hand pressed against the side of his sopping wet shirt, the blood partly washed away but more of it covering his fingers.
"Let me see," Talon said, and Boom pulled his hand away. Talon ripped the shirt open. It was a clean entry and exit wound, and that meant the bullet wasn’t lodged anywhere. He pressed his hand against the wound and heard Boom gritting his teeth in pain.
Talon closed his eyes and concentrated, blocking out the roar of the van’s engine and the sound of angry horns from other cars as Val wove her way through the late-night traffic. He felt his hand heat up as magical energy poured from it into Boom, strengthening the natural systems of the troll’s body, giving them the energy they needed to heal. Whe
n he pulled his hand away, all that was left of the wound was a bloody tear in Boom’s shirt. No break in the skin, no indication that he’d been injured at all.
"Nice work," Boom said admiringly, poking at the injured spot.
"We’re not out of this yet," Val said from up front. "Looks like we’ve got company, two MCT Roto-Drones coming in."
"Frag," Talon said. "Got any antiair in this thing?"
"Yeah, you," Val replied.
"That’s what I was afraid of." Talon settled back against the bench seat, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He sent out the call again, feeling a response, a growing presence. "Come," he called, "come to me."
"Yes, master," came the reply. Then Talon slipped the bonds of his material form, entering the astral plane. He flew up and away from the racing van, finding two spirits hovering obediently before him, similar to the elementals controlled by the company men, one fire elemental and one air elemental. He reached out with his senses but could not feel the presence of his water elemental. Most likely, the spirit had been destroyed, but it took the enemy fire elemental with it. That was one down, leaving Talon with only three other elementals at his command. He hoped he’d have time to conjure another water elemental, but his primary concern was to deal with the problem at hand.
The spirits hovering in front of Talon were in their astral forms, one a cloud of mist vaguely shaped like a woman with small wings, the other a pillar of flame. Talon could see the two drones Val had mentioned closing in on the van. They were cylindrical, about a meter high, with thick, metal-plated hulls and dark lenses that reminded Talon of an insect’s eyes. A rotating collar near the top of each drone held the whirling blades that gave it lift, and a machine gun was slung under its "chin," swiveling to track the escaping shadowrunners.
"I don’t think so," Talon said. He turned to the spirits.
"Those drones," he said, pointing toward them. "Materialize and destroy them."
"As you command," the spirits said in unison. They rocketed toward the drones, and Talon followed. When they neared the flying machines, the spirits took material form, appearing out of thin air from the point of view of the drones, and attacked. The fire spirit engulfed one of the Roto-Drones in a cloud of flames. Although the drone’s metal and composite body was resistant to fire, this was an intelligent fire, running across its surface, seeking areas of weakness.
The drone pivoted and gained altitude, turning and banking, trying to shake off the spirit, but it was futile. Talon heard a squeal of superheated metal, then the fire elemental found the drone’s ammo bin, which exploded like a bomb. The Roto-Drone rained fragments down onto the street below, while the bulk of its burning hull crashed down onto a parked car, crushing the roof and blowing out the windshield.
The air elemental appeared as a whirlwind around the second Roto-Drone. The drone fought against the spirit’s raging winds, its rotors whining in protest as they were pushed to their limits. The wind roared, and the drone veered off course, slamming into the corner of a building hard enough to crack brick and concrete and damage its rotor. Talon watched as the drone bounced off the side of the building, then listed and crashed to the sidewalk, its armored casing cracked and leaking smoke.
"Good job," Talon said to his spirits. "Follow me."
He flew off after the van. He slid through the back doors, through the seat and into his body again, feeling the weight of solidity upon him again as he opened his eyes.
"Nice show," Hammer said from the front seat, and Kilaro was looking at Talon with an equal measure of respect and fear in his eyes. It was obvious he’d never really seen a mage cut loose like Talon had tonight. Although most mundanes tended to overestimate the kind of power a mage had at his fingertips, the fearsome reputation of the Awakened was still well deserved.
"Well, chummer," Talon said to Kilaro, "I think you can safely assume that your bosses have decided you’re as expendable as the rest of us. Welcome to the shadows."
Boom shifted a bit in his seat. "I heard you call out Jase’s name in the club," he said. "You saw him again, didn’t you?"
"Yes," Talon said with a grimace. "I’m sorry about. . ."
"Null sheen," the troll replied, running the fingers of his other hand across where the gunshot wound had been as if testing whether it was still healed. If Gabriel’s shot had been a bit more to the right, things might have turned out differently.
"None of you saw him, did you?" he asked, and the others shook their heads. A golden falcon appeared out of thin air and alighted on the back of the seat between Boom and Talon.
"I saw him," Aracos’s thought-voice said. "Someone, or something, was there all right."
Thank gods, Talon thought. Maybe I’m not going crazy.
"Any idea what it was?" he asked.
Aracos gave a very unbirdlike shrug. "Not really. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Of course, I also didn’t know the real Jason."
"What did he say?" Val asked, expertly weaving them through the traffic.
"He said, ‘the dead are coming back.’"
Val shuddered slightly, and Hammer asked, "What the frag does that mean?"
Talon shook his head. "I don’t know, chummer, but I’ve got a feeling we’re going to find out."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
God, I’m such an idiot, Trouble thought after Talon left. How could she have done something so stupid? She dropped down onto the couch and reached into her pocket for the ring Ian had given her when he’d asked her to marry him. Marry him! And here she was actually thinking about it!
So, of course I kiss another man who I know isn’t interested and tell him I love him, she thought, turning the ring over in her fingers, letting it catch the light. Am I really that hung up on Talon, or am I just looking for excuses not to give Ian an answer? Like she really needed any other reasons. Whether or not she was interested in Talon or he in her, there were plenty of other reasons not to get involved with Ian O’Donnel. Not the least of which was that he was a wanted terrorist.
And you’re a wanted criminal, Trouble reminded herself, a shadowrunner. In a lot of ways, the authorities probably considered her as bad as Ian, if not worse. Ian didn’t go after the corps, after all. His goals were political, something he believed in.
Trouble sighed. What did she believe in? She didn’t even know anymore. She used to be proud of being one of the best deckers in the shadows. She’d loved the challenge of taking on the best systems the megacorps had to offer, and showing those arrogant corp programmers that a slip of a girl from the Boston streets could foil their very best. And she’d enjoyed the camaraderie of her team, especially since teaming up with Talon.
Talon, she thought. God, why did she always fall for the unavailable ones? First it was Ian, dedicated to his cause above anything else, including her. Then it was Talon, unavailable for a completely different reason. But now Ian said he wanted her back, said he was a fool for letting her go, and part of Trouble wanted to agree with that. She didn’t want to think that she was only seeking solace in his arms because it brought back the thrill of the days when she was making her first real forays into the shadows. Back then, she was full of fire, ready to take on the world. Then a dashing and heroic man from back home, the outcast rebel fighting to free Eire, had swept her off her feet and given her something to believe in. Now she’d let his passion and his charm almost carry her away again, but seeing Talon so vulnerable made her realize that what she felt for Ian paled next to her feelings for Talon. It made her so glad that he’d come to her, and she’d let some tiny part of her begin to hope again.
Now Gallow might be back, too. The spirit hated Talon and everything connected with him. He would do anything to destroy Talon, and Trouble wasn’t going to let that happen. She set Ian’s ring on the table, then took out her cyberdeck, which she set on her lap. She plugged its optical cable into the jack behind her ear and snapped the other end into the wall jack.
Time to go hunting for information, she thought
, and tapped the Go button. She let the virtual world of the Matrix unfold around her, leaving all her doubts and fears behind. In the Matrix, she was one of the best: confident, capable, unbeatable. In the Matrix, she wasn’t afraid. If Gallow was around, she’d track down the information.
A short while later, Trouble logged off and pulled the cable from her datajack with a deep sigh. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but she did discover one lead that made it look like Talon was right. Knight Errant had logged a burned body found in an alley, tagging it as one of the many Jane Does that turned up in the metroplex every day. The difference was that the routine autopsy didn’t find any signs of what caused the burns, and the forensic mage on duty had tagged it a possible magical crime, perhaps by a wizzer gang or even a rogue spirit.
The charred body fit the pattern of other victims killed by Gallow. Equally disturbing was that the killing had taken place only a couple of klicks from her doss. Was it possible that Gallow was stalking her? The spirit had tried to use her against Talon before. It had held her hostage, and Talon had given up the chance to banish Gallow in order to save her life. Trouble shuddered at the memory of the spirit’s burning touch.
She reached over and tapped Talon’s number into the telecom. The number rang a couple of times, then stopped as a musical tone came over the line. "We’re sorry," a pleasant synthesized voice said, "but the number you’re trying to reach is temporarily unavailable. If you’d like to leave a message, you may do so after the tone."
Trouble left a brief message, asking Talon to get back to her. She wondered why he’d turned off his phone. He’d gone off saying he was going to get the rest of the team together, so she decided to go over to the Avalon and see what was up. She put the cyberback back into its case and zipped it shut.
Just as she was putting on her jacket to leave, a knock at the door almost startled her out of her wits. God, I really am jumpy, she thought.
When she checked the spy-port, she was surprised to see who was at the door. She opened it cautiously, ready to draw the pistol packed in her shoulder harness if need be.
shadowrun 40 The Burning Time Page 15