"Damn." I'd been inserted into Tucker and Bors because the Ancients had gone to Doctor Richard Raven with their suspicions that TAB was backing gangs making attacks on them. As the Ancients are a rather powerful and militarily adroit street gang, the invasion of TAB headquarters was a distinct possibility and Raven started to work on the problem to forestall that from happening. The waitress arrived with our beers, and I handed her some corp scrip. She looked at it and laughed. "You should have told me you were one of us."
I frowned. "Come again?"
"You're a TABbie, just like me. Tabbies get a discount," She scooped up the bill and headed back toward the front.
The Old One did not like being called a tabbie, but I managed to keep him in check. "Dempsey, I need you to keep digging on the policlub angle. This whole thing smacks of race hatred to me. Something has to be there."
He nodded. "Anything else?"
"Yeah. I need you to find out if anyone has a hit out on me."
"You mean besides La Plante?"
"Yeah, besides La Plante." It was an open secret that Etienne La Plante had a contract out on Dr. Raven and any of his associates. It was also well known that hurting a single hair on any of our heads would set Kid Stealth on the assassin-proving once and for all that capital punishment, if applied quickly and without mercy, could be a deterrent to crime. "Some gillette in a Toro tried to interest me in tarmac fusion. I declined, and he flipped his lid and had an accident."
Dempsey took it all in stride. "Do I still relay information through Valerie Valkyrie?"
I thought for a moment, then shook my head. "Takes too much time. If you get anything on the hit angle, call TAB and ask for Keith Wolverton."
"And if Mr. Wolverton is not at his desk and I want to leave a message?"
"Say a relation is coming to visit. The greater the danger, the more distant the relative."
Dempsey's eyes focused distantly, then came back with a twinkle in them. "So if I say Adam and Eve are coming to see you…"
"I'll know Stealth is freelancing again." I glanced at my watch and slid out of the booth. "Stay and have another if you want. I've got to go meet Raven."
Dempsey shook his head and left the booth. "If I stick around here, they'll come by and give me a new trench coat."
"It's hell being a fashion trendsetter." I looked at the refurbished bar and shuddered. "I think this is the first time I've been in here and not felt like taking a bath afterward."
"It's the only time I haven't needed a bath afterward," Dempsey quipped. "Those were the days."
I signed for the tab up at the front, then walked a couple of blocks to the parking garage where I'd left my Fenris. The black coupe waited for me in a darkened corner of the basement like a feral creature hiding from the light. I disarmed the anti-theft devices-you only forget to do that once-and climbed in. I punched in the ignition code and cruised out into the light evening traffic.
The trip to Raven's headquarters took longer than it should have because of the series of turns and cutbacks I used to make sure no one was following me. After Raven and the rest of our crew had done various things to anger some of the more powerful individuals in the sprawl, paranoia had become a survival trait. Just because Kid Stealth would descend like a bloody avenger on anyone bothering us did not mean we were inviolate. Insanity becomes a courtroom defense because lots of folks do irrational things, and I had no desire to have bits of me in baggies labeled Exhibit A.
I parked the Fenris in the basement garage below Raven's brownstone, then took the stairs two at a time as I climbed to the main floor. Adjusting my tie and rolling down my sleeves, I marched straight to Raven's office and paused in the doorway. "Would have been here sooner, Doc, but someone wanted me to play immovable object to their irresistible force."
Raven leaned back in his black leather chair, pressed his hands together and rested his index fingers against his lips. Seated there in a custom-built chair, behind his individually hand-crafted desk, he looked normally proportioned. The pointed tips of elven ears jutted up through his long black hair as the only clues to his heritage. If not for that, his coppery skin, high cheekbones, and broad-shouldered, muscular build would have marked him as an Amerind.
His dark eyes focused above and beyond me, but I found myself entranced by their steady gaze. The blues and reds weaving through them in an aurora-like fashion flickered past in what I imagined was a mirror of how quickly thoughts strobed through his brain. The lights slowed, then he closed his eyes and I felt myself in control of my own mind again.
"Interesting." His hands fell away from his mouth as he leaned forward and stood. "I will want a full report later, of course, but I should introduce you to our clients. This is Sting and her lieutenant, Green Lucifer."
Elven women are often described with plant imagery, but with Sting you'd have to make that an industrial plant. Sure, she was long and lean like most of them, but you could only describe her as willowy if you thought rebar swayed in light breezes. I heard she had a temper to match her fiery mane, and her yellow Opticon eyes certainly reflected none of the warmth in her soul-if she had one. She had an edge to her that made it clear why she was running the Ancients, but likewise told me why, though she was attractive, I didn't find her seductive.
"My pleasure." I smiled but didn't offer her my hand. I knew her street name had been earned because of the metal claws that could shoot from the backs of her hands and rake through flesh like it was water.
"So you're Wolfgang Kies. Makes sense, I guess."
Before I could even begin to work my way through the maze of tone and inference in her words, the nearly imperceptible stiffening of her partner drew my attention to him. Unlike Raven, Green Lucifer had the typical starveling build of an elf. His chin, or under-abundance of it, suggested a character flaw that the burning light in his gray eyes used as fuel. Green Lucifer clearly did not like the fact that Sting had paid me any notice at all, and he was aching for any opening to exert his territorial rights. That told me they were more than just partners in power and that Green Lucifer was the jealous type.
I immediately put him on the list of folks I didn't want in possession of a chainsaw while my back was turned.
"Mr. Kies, or 'Mr. Wolverton,' " he began with mock sincerity, "what have you learned?"
I stared at him for a second, then turned to face Raven. "I spent most of the day getting situated. Valerie's transferring Mike Kant to Shanghai was accepted without question, as was my being sent in to replace him. Ms. Terpstra acts more like a school marm than a supervisor, but Bill Frid is helping me get squared away in Kant's office. In fact, I've not really had to do anything because Frid did it all while showing me what I'm supposed to do."
Raven sank back in his chair again. "Good. What about this attempt on your life?"
The mention of an assassination attempt caused the fourth individual in the room to take conscious notice of the conversation. Kid Stealth, sitting back on his haunches, turned his head to watch me. The light flashed off his Zeiss eyes and his brows nearly touched as they pointed down at his nose. I knew better than to think he was concerned about me-he could see I'd survived-but his concentration came from his desire to hear how a rival assassin had failed in his job.
Having Stealth crouched behind Green Lucifer and Greenie surreptitiously trying to keep an eye on him made me feel loads better.
"I found a couple of things in some files and made copies of them. I tossed them into my trash basket, then bagged the litter and dropped it in the disposal chute. After work I went back around to the alley and fished the bag out." I reached into my back pocket and retrieved the folded-over papers. "They're several pages of receipts Kant got while, as nearly as I can figure, making money drops to the folks fighting the Ancients."
Green Lucifer's face darkened. "That's hardly a substantial amount of evidence, Mr. Kies." Scorn rolled from his words like crude oil off a duck's back.
I continued to speak to Raven alone. "It has to be
something because a razorboy in an Acura Toro mistook me for an on-ramp."
"Did you get anything from him?" Raven asked.
"Sorry, Doc. The dead don't like talking to me. Chances are my cover is blown. I think we should consider taking me out of there."
Raven nodded solemnly. "If you think it best."
Green Lucifer hammered a fist into the arm of his red leather chair. "This is too important and has taken too long to set up just to let him drop it like this. We're being systematically exterminated. Order him to remain in place."
Raven leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk. "Being new here, you do not understand…"
"I understand this human operative of yours has no stake in or concern about elven lives being lost." Green Lucifer gave me a gray-eyed stare that started the Old One growling defiantly in the back of my mind. "He's your employee. Order him back in."
"You donot understand," Raven repeated slowly. The threat arced like lightning in his words and anger reverberated like thunder in his voice. "These people are not my employees. They are my aides, my companions, my friends, and my allies. They work with me, not for me. What they do, they do because I ask, not order. I have never found myself called to doubt their judgment or their courage or their compassion. If Wolf believes his life is in danger, then I believe that as well."
Green Lucifer managed to hold his composure better than the other half-dozen people I'd seen invoke Raven's wrath like that. He settled back into his chair like a steel beam being bent by the inexorable progress of a glacier, but his defiance did not drain away. Still, he knew better than to open his mouth.
His tone lightening only slightly, Doc continued. "Wolf is fully cognizant of your situation. He knows that your alternative to a peaceful solution to this problem is for the Ancients to wage war with Tucker and Bors, and that is not likely to be pretty. It is for the sake of your lives, and the lives of the innocents who might be caught in any crossfire, that we began this investigation. Wolf knows I would not ask him to return there unless I believed the risk was justified, but if he chooses to decline my request, I will think no less of him and my confidence in him will not diminish."
I'd have said I was leaving Seattle for Japan if I thought it would deepen the scowl on Green Lucifer's face, and I knew Raven would back my play unques-tioningly. I started piecing together the perfect way to drop that bit of information on Greenie, but I caught Sting's eye and saw a hopeless determination in her expression and shifting posture.
I knew the Ancients had gone through a nasty battle recently with another street gang. The Ancients, supposedly under direction from someone in TAB, had tried to expand their territory into the turf held by the Meat Junkies. The battle got nasty fast, and looked really grim for the Ancients when an ork sniper killed their leader. At that moment, however, Green Lucifer smoked the sniper and used his rifle to ace the Meat Junkies' top dog.
Both gangs retreated to lick their wounds, but over the following weeks other gangs had taken shots at the Ancients. That wouldn't have attracted any attention except that no one was picking on the similarly weakened Meat Junkies, and the Junkies themselves started sporting very new and very expensive guns and bikes. As TAB had stopped bankrolling the Ancients, anyone with more than two working brain cells could deduce a shift in corporate policy that was not beneficial to the elves. Sting clearly knew her gang had to deal with the problem of TAB's shifting loyalties or the Ancients would become fodder for the "Obits and Old Bits" newsfax files. If Raven couldn't help her-and looking for outside help, even from another elf, showed how desperate she saw the situation to be-she had to go to war. Given that TAB, like any other multinat, had its own army, long odds for betting on the gang were not hard to find.
Even knowing that, she would have no choice. If she didn't go to war, she'd be replaced by someone who would. The outcome would be the same, but when you whisper "I told you so," from inside a grave, very few folks listen or care.
"Actually, Doc, I have Dempsey looking into the contract angle. That could be a shortcut to whoever is ramrodding this campaign. If I bow out, the bait will be gone. I'll just be more careful." I glanced over at Sting. "As I'm replacing Kant and he appeared to be the boss-man's courier of choice, I should see some action soon. If we let it slip that you're bidding on a shipment of arms coming into Seattle, our man should move to procure that shipment before you."
Raven smiled. "If someone wants you dead, Dempsey will find out. Good choice, Wolf."
I painted a wide smile on my face and proudly displayed it for Green Lucifer. He started to get a bit restive in his chair, but Stealth's flesh and blood right arm snaked over the back of the chair and his shoulder. Pointing in my direction, it stopped just short of Gree-nie's face. From the sleeve of Stealth's waist-cut coat, a blocky little derringer slid down to fill his palm. The delivery device retracted silently, then Stealth arced the gun across the room to me.
I caught it gingerly. "What's this?"
Stealth didn't exactly smile, but his expression grew as pleasant as I've ever seen it sans anyone actually dying in the vicinity. "Richard said he found your being unarmed disturbing. I customized a design based on a Remington Double Derringer1.1 expanded the caliber to.50 and have crafted some of your 'silver' bullets to fit it. It is single action. You get two shots."
I turned the pistol over in my hand, then slipped it into my pocket. Getting it into TAB would not be a problem, and I could feel safe even without nearby manhole covers. "Thank you, maestro."
I knew it was loaded because Stealth wouldn't have it any other way. The Old One knew it too and snarled something derisive about my dependence on the tainted and artificial when his tools were so pure and natural. The only problem with the Old One and the abilities he lent me in times of need was that I couldn't always be certain I would remain in control of my actions. In light of that, using a hand-detonated nuclear bomb could be seen to have an up side.
"So what is your next step?" Green Lucifer leaned forward and leaned his chin on his right hand.
"Well, tonight I'm going to go check on a former client, Lynn Ingold. That's a very important part of this case." I saw Raven suppress a smile. Lynn Ingold was a woman we had rescued from La Plante earlier in the summer. She and I had begun seeing one another and I'd been planning to take her out to a Seadogs2game well before the TAB problem came up. "Then, tomorrow, I return to work and wait."
His face screwed down into a sour expression as if
1Because Stealth knows I like using a Beretta Viper and an HK MP-9- both of which he thinks should be in a museum-he's decided I can't really handle any weapon crafted for use in the twenty-first century. Taking the specs for a Derringer from some docudrama about the old, old West (I think it was calledDeadlands), he manufactured the gun for me. I mean, I was glad to have it, and even happier that he had a hobby, but I kind of wished his hobby was more benign, like model trains. Then again, I didn't really want to see what the Murder Machine would do with model trains.
2I had gotten the feeling, at the time we rescued Lynn, that she was special. The fact that she was a Seadogs fan proved it. And I do mean she was aSeadogs fan-I don't think I ever heard her call the team the Mariners. he'd been sucking sulfur schnapps through a straw. "We can't afford to wait long."
Raven looked over at Stealth. "Kid Stealth has agreed to let it be known that he and his Redwings are just waiting for someone to start shooting at you so they can raid undefended territory. Again, this steps up the pressure on TAB and will make it easier to find out who is behind all this."
"Fine, Raven, just so long as you know we won't wait until forever." Greenie leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "You have until Fri…"
Sting laid her right hand on his left arm. "You have as long as you need at this point. If things change, I'll let you know."
Greenie didn't like that very much, but he and Sting exchanged a pair of glances I can only describe as cobra and mongoose. I smiled broadly at his di
scomfort, earning myself a big jump on his enemies list, I do not doubt, and nodded to her. "We'll get you results."
"Good, Mr. Kies." She looked me up from my toes to the tippy-top of my head and back down. "Just so you know, if they do get you, Stealth will have all the help he needs in avenging you."
Damn, I just love it when women talk lethal.
Lynn didn't talk lethal to me, but she did say some other things that made me think I'd died and gone to heaven. I was tired enough in the morning that I almost slay-tested Stealth's pistol on my alarm clock. I refrained because I was too lazy to want to patch the hole I knew a bullet would leave in my wall-and that of the other two tenants on this floor-and dropped back to sleep for another half hour.
The Blavatskys downstairs woke me up for the second time with a loud discussion of things that shouldn't be mentioned in daylight. After a quick shower and shave, I headed downtown to Tucker and Bors. I arrived ten minutes late and, as an afterthought, I considered what a good idea that might have been. Whoever had set me up to be killed would probably faint when he saw me come strolling in.
In fact, the only person who seemed to notice me was the matronly Ms. Terpstra. She stared at me hard enough to melt my brain, but I scampered to my cubicle too quickly for her to properly focus her powers. On my monitor I read the note she had sent me at precisely 9:00:01: "Punctuality is a virtue and the virtuous are rewarded. Those without virtue face perdition."
Bill Frid appeared at the doorway to my private domain and handed me a steaming cup of soykaf. "I see you got a perdition memo."
I accepted the soykaf and sipped. "Is that bad?"
"Naw, wait until you get an 'eternal damnation' note. That's bad. She's been in a bad mood since Reverend Roberts stopped doing video." A jovial guy, Bill had a double-chin and curly blond hair that made him look softer than I figured he saw himself. Right from the start I had him pegged as one of those types who's learned all the shortcuts to getting things done. They're workhorses, and no corp could get anything done without them, but contempt for the bureaucracy barred them from ever getting into the power structure.
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