Black Madonna

7

They parked the car a safe distance from the Brent address they’d been given and, pistols in pockets, walked quietly across the concrete parking lot. It was still night, with the promise of a morning chorus just beginning to insinuate itself, though it was yet to grow light. The street lights were erratic here, as much because of vandals as because the power company wasn’t always supplying juice. The local council was notoriously adept at misplacing public money, and not even street lighting could be taken for granted.

“Are you sure about this?” Michael said for the fifth time.

“I checked with Jim twice. He’s not a man you slot off by asking three times,” Geraint replied tartly.

“It’s a housing project,” Michael said dubiously.

“What did you expect? A mansion? Have you ever been here before?”

“This is a part of London I was never in the habit of frequenting,” Michael said. “Seems incredibly down-at-heel for a cultural attache.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it? A safe bolthole where no one would go looking for it?” Geraint said.

“I suppose so.” Michael still seemed dubious. They walked across the concourse toward the looming concrete monstrosity, which betrayed rather less concrete-rot and acid corrosion than might have been expected. Unlike many of the surrounding edifices, it didn’t look in danger of imminent sudden collapse, but then appearances were definitely deceptive in this instance. The only human decor in sight were a couple of junkies splayed around in the entrance doorway of one of the smaller satellite blocks, a small pool of already half-clotted blood testifying to their nocturnal habits of despair.

The elf slid silently out of his nonexistent cover. Even in the erratic lighting, there seemed to be nowhere anyone could hide, but he’d managed it.

Goes with the training, Geraint thought once his first instinctive alarm subsided. Might as well get that if you pay what I did for these guys.

“There’s been a slight cock-up,” the elf said quietly.

“Oh, wonderful,” Geraint sighed, “Tell me about it. At least there hasn’t been a firelight, since everyone’s sound asleep hereabouts.”

“Dead drunk, more like!” the elf chuckled sarcastically. “Well, you’re going to owe us blood money.”

“What?” Geraint was astonished.

“Jim’s throat was cut from ear to ear. Cheesewire and strangulation,” the elf said with a slight hint of disturbing relish. Geraint guessed he hadn’t liked the team’s leader all that much.

“What the hell-”

“There were some visitors ahead of us,” the elf said. “Jim must have surprised ‘em. He weren’t expecting any grief, so he went in while we covered him. Forgot basic routines, though I did warn him.”

“You said you had Seratini,” Michael groaned.

“I said no such thing. Jim told you we were on our way. We didn’t know someone would be lying for us. By the way, Gungrath’s waiting for an order to let those hostages go. They’re just office grunts-secretaries and clerks-and they don’t know anything.”

“Okay, okay, let them go then. You saw who did it? Here, I mean?” Geraint demanded impatiently.

“Sort of,” the elf said.

“Sort of?”

“Look, the bastard was bloody fast,” the elf shot back. “Ran like a Derby winner on methoxy. Seemed like he knew his way around. He went ‘round the corner and next thing I heard was a bike heading off south. Must’ve been him.”

“What did he look like?”

The elf shrugged. “It’s dark, chummer. And he was wearing a long black coat and you might as well ask what the ace of spades looks like down a mine shaft at midnight on a moonless night. But the troll had a little run-in with him.”

Ah, the troll, Geraint registered. No love lost here. At least Jim was Jim, even though this one doesn’t seem to care that he’s dead. But the troll-well, he’s obviously just “the troll”.

“Cut him,” the elf said with a grin of relish. “Slashed him in the side with his knife. Got him on head cam. No way the troll could have followed him, of course. He’s far too slow and there wasn’t a blood trail to follow. Could have used IR on his footprints, but he still couldn’t have kept up with him.”

Geraint hadn’t even noticed that the troll samurai had cybereyes. Behind them, implanted inside his skull, was a tiny camera that would have recorded the events of the struggle.

“Downloading it right now, back in the van,” the elf said.

“What about-”

“Your Italian term? Dead, Your Lordship, dead as a dodo with its giblets in an oven-ready pack.” The elf grinned. “Throat job, just like Jim. The bugger must have been inside the apartment when we arrived. Nice work, too. Very professional. A trained professional, you know what I mean?”

Geraint looked at him hard. The elf was saying that this was not even an ordinary hit-man; this was military work. When an ex-SAS man called someone a “trained professional” that’s what he meant.

“What if this was down to his dabblings in the illegal art trade?” Michael asked Geraint.

“Hardly.” The Welshman’s mind was racing. Something important was going on out of the frame, something that had led to a very professional assassination of a man who’d been tracking him, and maybe had a magical assailant invading his home that very night; and Geraint didn’t like that. He was too used to being in charge, of calling the shots himself.

“Wanna take a gander?” the elf said, his South London accent seeming to get broader with every minute. “Scene of the crime? Make sure all those heavy nuyen you paid were earned?”

“What if the police arrive?” Michael said anxiously.

“Frag me, what a spoilsport,” the elf spat out with an expression of barely contained disgust. “Look, do you wanna see the stiffs or don’t you?”

Geraint’s mouth felt dry, and he badly wanted a cigarette, but this was hardly the time or place. He nodded assent and they entered the building through the stark, bare foyer and approached the elevator. To his amazement, it was working, and the smell of urine inside stopped just short of overwhelming, which was a bonus.

The cramped and drably painted apartment was as starkly functional as one could imagine. Beside the basic kitchen utilities, a battered trid unit, and some bedding, there were but a few scraps of furniture. The only thing any of them had in common was that they all looked as if a pack of psychopathic and crazed felines had sharpened their claws on them, more or less continuously, for twenty years or so.

“I didn’t touch a thing, inspector,” the elf said dryly.

Almost despite himself, Geraint was beginning to warm to him a little. Suddenly he realized he didn’t even know his name.

“You can call me Streak,” the elf told him. “Now get your arse in ‘ere before someone else gets interested” He almost dragged them inside and shut the door carefully behind him. His dwarf fellow was standing guard within, a corn unit half-sticking out of his pocket, awaiting the obviously desired signal to get out.

“They’re here, Thumper,” the elf said needlessly “We can get our cred and blow soon. Show them the stiffs.”

“Thumper?” Michael couldn’t help but splutter.

“Named after some rabbit famous for its kicking,” the elf told him. “Kicked me in the bonce once over a minor disagreement. I had double vision for the best part of a week. Gave him some respect for that.”

Streak pushed at the corpse of his sometime leader just inside the doorway. “Here’s the first one. If you want to get the slash close up, you’ll have to turn him over.”

“I think we can dispense with that,” Michael said.

“We’re going to bag him and get him out,” Thumper said. “Can’t leave him here for the filth to find.”

Surprising that an ex-soldier should use such a term for the police, Michael thought, but said nothing of it. As the elf and dwarf sheathed the body in a resilient plastic body-bag, he could see the amazingly thin, smooth, deep cut in the man’s neck. There was less blood somehow than he’d expected, and the pale corpse face looked oddly peaceful. Not what one would have anticipated from the victim of such an attack.

“Your Mr. Seratini is in the bathroom,” Streak informed them. Geraint hardly needed telling; the flat was so small that it was the only place the as yet unseen stiff could be. He needed only a few seconds to take in the scene.

“How about that when you’re just about to have your annual bath?” Streak said. “Such a waste of that pine fragrance too. Costs a fortune, that Luxo stuff. Made from real trees, apparently. None of your chemical crap.”

“I’m afraid not,” Geraint told him, giving in to his cravings at last and lighting up, to the obvious disgust of the dwarf. “It contains three coloring agents, one of which is probably carcinogenic, at least to metahumans, and two rather noxious scent enhancers.”

“What are you, a scientist?” Streak enquired as he tugged at the zipper of the bag.

“I’m a director of the company that owns the people who make it.”

“Well, that’s the last time I sink myself in that crap then,” Streak said. “You want to give us a hand with this or you going to stand there like a plonker till lunchtime?”

“You’re taking him down in the goddamn elevator?” Michael said, surprised.

“Nah, you dumb git,” the elf said. “We’ll do what the locals do-chuck it out the window.”

For a moment Michael thought Streak was joking, but then the elf and dwarf dragged the bag to the window. They hefted the body into a sitting position, opened the window, and on a count of three jerked the black bag and its contents out into midair.

“I don’t believe this,” Michael said, turning away.

“It’ll hardly hurt him now,” Streak pointed out. “Look, our terms have just picked it up. No one saw. Much the fastest way. Thumper sent the signal.”

“How?” Michael was astounded. The dwarf had said nothing.

“Cybercom,” Thumper said. “Thought-to-sound unit. Wired to radio. Paired with the rigger.” Clearly, he didn’t want to waste any time on superfluities like connecting principles or verbs here. “Told him, special delivery. In the van now. That’s three hundred thou, mate.”

“I’m not carrying that much,” Geraint said, perfectly reasonably. “Come back to my apartment. You’ll have the cred in five minutes.”

“Fine by me,” Steak said. “But it will be going to his family.” The elf looked deadly serious for a moment. Behind the joking and facetiousness, and the seemingly awful fact that he barely seemed to care that a comrade had been killed in this place and his body treated like refuse, the elf had some honor remaining. He would see the man’s family right, at any rate.

They were just about to leave when Michael spotted the slightly out-of-place cushion and told them to Wait. Underneath the red wine-stained cover he found a small padded envelope stashed there, and pocketed it. He wondered whether to search the whole place, and then realized that apart from the wardrobe there was precious little to search. A quick check eliminated the wardrobe as an object of suspicion. Streak was beginning to get jumpy; the coast was clear and he wanted to get out now. Michael obliged and went down in the elevator.

“What did you get?” Geraint asked him.

“UPS package,” Michael said. “Non-standard packaging, but, they delivered it. The sticker with the ID is gone, but we could trace it easily enough.”

“So, come on, what’s in it?”

Michael fumbled with the packaging. It was, as courier deliveries usually are, rendered impossible to open without recourse to a sharp object of some kind. His nail-file didn’t quite come up to scratch. By the time Thumper had offered him a combat knife, the elevator doors were about to open.

Standing before them was a large clutch of Metropolitan policemen. They even had riot shields and were obviously expecting some serious trouble. The electric stun batons they carried were further evidence of that, if any were needed. The two at the front of the wedge were orks, and they looked as if the police had recently taken to recruiting from hospitals for the criminally insane. Or perhaps doing so more openly and with less pickiness than usual. Michael’s heart almost stopped dead and it was all he could do not to gasp aloud.

After twice catching Michael and company at the scene of a murder in a single night, the police weren’t going to look at them any too kindly. They wouldn’t get out of this again.

Michael and the others stared at the police, who stared back at them.

There was something horribly wrong.

“Rather fine gentlemen to be in a place like this,” one of the orks said in an obviously assumed semiposh accent. He was staring at Geraint and Michael.

“Well, officer,” Streak chimed in before either of the men could open their mouths, “that’s because they were kidnapped and brought here. I’m glad to say we’ve just now persuaded their ‘hosts’ to release them, without any due trouble. Ransom job. Quietly and efficiently dealt with. No harm done, nothing to frighten the horses.”

Geraint was amazed at his quick-wittedness. He was even more amazed at the response of the ork.

“I see, sir,” he said, continuing with his brave attempt to Sound like a BBC newscaster. “Well, then, we need not detain you any further.”

“I assume you have other business here, officer,” Streak said mischievously. The ork looked very uncomfortable. “Well, we won’t get in your way. These places,” be said, shaking his head, “such hot-beds of depravity and crime. Good to know London can rely on you brave fellows.” He led them out, past the shifty-looking uniformed squad, and into the safe anonymity of the night. When they were a safe distance away, and the police safely inside the building, the elf almost doubled up laughing.

“I don’t know how you got away with that,” Michael said, shaking his bead.

“Got away with it?” the elf hooted. “Police, my arse. They were local slints. Disguised as coppers. Gets them in the door and that’s half the battle when they’re out on a job, steaming a flat or thrashing some poor tosser senseless. There’s been a rash of it lately. Good outfits though. Not bad gear. Probably bought it as knock-off from some sub-station somewhere.”

Geraint shook his head ruefully. The ork’s attempt at posh English had been so absurd, but he simply hadn’t thought of the possibility. Understandable, really. Few people, exiting from the scene of a murder, would have thought of it.

“Funny thing is, one look at a real toff and they go all slobbery and weak at the knees. The old hand starts tugging at the forelock before they know it,” Streak said, still chuckling. They knew you were class, Your Lordship. Tangling with you would be trouble. Get the real cops in, right? Not what they wanted at all.”

“Makes two of us,” Geraint said.

“Come on, let’s get to the van, get those pictures for you,’ Streak said to Michael, “and then our cash. It’s been a long night.”

“It certainly has” Michael said in fervent agreement. Too long by half.

By five AM., back in Mayfair and with their unexpected guests long gone back into the anonymous dawn. Geraint and Michael sat down to a brandy and waited for their over-stimulated systems to calm down to where sleep might be a possibility. Michael was painfully stiff across the shoulders and of course there was the permanent weakness in the small of his back. Whenever he exerted himself too much, he felt as if he’d spend a day on a rack. An image flitted across his tired mind of being tortured by devilish hooded figures from some historical Inquisition. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was psychic, but he dismissed it at the time.

Then he remembered the package he’d picked up in the apartment. lie took a dagger-shaped paper knife from Geraint’s desk and slit it open. Inside was a slim, leather-bound volume whose contents was written in Latin. He took in the long-winded title and shook his head slowly.

“Don’t tell me, it’s a book of fairy tales.” Geraint said.

“Actually, you’re not so far off. It’s a treatise on undines.”

Geraint looked thoughtful. “Go on. Refresh my memory.”

“I’m not sure myself,” Michael admitted. “Some kind of water spirit or something. Let me check.”

A few quick recourses to dictionaries and a database had the answer before too long. Michael summarized the spew of words. “Yes, nature spirits in watery form. Often female. The Rhine maidens, that sort of thing. Want me to go press some macros and call up more detail?”

“I think it can wait,” Geraint said, yawning at last. Finally, his body was telling him that it might be able to sleep after all. “But what does a-”

“…cultural attache want with a book on undines?” Michael finished his sentence for him. “Indeed. What does it mean?”

“Maybe it was intended for Serrault?” Geraint suggested. “His mage frend? The one absent from public records?”

“Could be,” Michael said. “Only one thing to do. Find out who sent it.” His rubbed his hands together with the smug grin that prefaced any decking activity he expected to be very straightforward. “I think we’ve got to go trawling through the databases again.”

“You do that, old man,” Geraint said as he got up, rubbing his eyes. “I need some sleep like the Conservationist party chairman needs a punch in the face. Let me know what you find.” He knew the expression in Michael’s eyes from old, and guessed his friend would be busy for some time yet. Whenever they gambled with cards, or just played some game for the fun of it, Michael would always want one more. One more hand, one more twist, one more puzzle or riddle to crack. Because you couldn’t have too much of a good thing. Geraint was just a couple of years older, and much less prone to riding waves.

“Later,” Michael said, but his back was already turned and he barely registered the Welshman trooping off to the bathroom. The Matrix beckoned like a warm swimming pool after a long, dusty day. He dived in.