Choose your enemies carefully

PART 2

London stank.

It wasn't just the fumes and garbage stenches that permeated everything, although the city had those, just like every other major metroplex. London's peculiar effluvium was a legacy of the terrorist attack of 2039, when the radical group called Pan Europa had released a bioagent in retaliation for England's supposed part in the break-up of the EEC. The bug had been supposed to break down the sheathing element of the metroplex's newly completed dome. The terrorists must have been pleased to see the biofabric skin had evaporated under the ravenous organism. But had they known what effect their organism would have on other biological fibers?

Intentional or not, once the bug was released, there had been no way to recall it. Much of London's historical legacy had been destroyed when the uncontrolled organism had devoured the city's paper and wood. The panic riots that had followed had devastated the city, vandalizing its present and almost completely devouring its past. The spirit of London's people had failed as well, the dreams of leading a new Europe dying in the mouldering aftermath. Now, the bones of the abandoned dome arched over

the city like the broken ribcage of a rotting antediluvian beast, as the fungi of skyscapers, towers, and communications arrays clawed toward the sky through the bleached struts.

Sam saw those gleaming spires of the new plex as monuments to the megacorporations' contempt for the common folk. Instead of nurturing the people's hopes, the corps had defied the growing power of the Green Party and taken advantage of the chaos and built to their own whims. With bought votes in Parliament and sweetheart deals for the still-landed aristocracy, the megacorps had twisted English law, shattering the people's dreams of safety and protection. Despite the restored constitutional monarchy, George VIII, the Lord Protector, and Parliament didn't govern the country alone. The megacorps ruled much of England as surely as they ruled their own boardrooms.

But London was a modern metroplex, and in the shadows of the corporate towers there was another world; one the megacorps and the Lord Protector's Greens didn't rule. London had its shadow world, not unlike Seattle's. In the corners and the darkness, men and women, shadowrunners, fought the aggressive, uncaring domination of the corporate powers. And when the corps struck back, the runners hid… in the abandoned stretches that reminded Sam of Seattle's Barrens, in the teeming hives of the Public Zones beneath the corporate towers, and in the dank tunnels of the service ways and sewers that made up the undercity. Especially in the sewers.

The cold, slimy water trickled through his closecropped hair. If his hair were longer, the chill splash would have been softened; he wouldn't have felt dampness until the noisome liquid threaded its way unto the bare skin on the back of his neck.

Why was Hart late? Fifteen minutes already. In their three weeks of haunting the London shadow world, she had always been on time, if not early. Even in those rare moments when they had met to relax, she had been prompt. Unlike Sally.

Sally wouldn't like it here. She hated the dark, closed-in places. He remembered her curses when they broke into the Renraku arcology so long ago. So long ago? Little more than two years had passed. He had been living in another world then, living a different life. Since then, he had entered the shadows and found a new life. Was he on the verge of starting down yet another new path?

When he thought about Sally, he remembered the good times they had had in bed, the intensity of it all. But he also remembered the fights and the sniping. He had always had the feeling that he somehow didn't measure up to Sally's standards. Well, drek! He didn't measure up to his own most of the time, but that didn't make him worthless. Times changed; people changed. He had. Had something happened to her? Sam's worry was real, but the face he attached to it was Hart's. That surprised him. How easily she had slipped into his thoughts to displace Sally. Almost as easily as they had slipped into bed together. At the time, it had just seemed right somehow. And now? Well, now it still seemed right. What about Sally?

"What about Hart?" Estios whispered belligerently.

"She said she'd be here."

Sam wished he felt as assured as he sounded. Or did he sound confident at all? Estios seemed as nervous as he ever got. The tall elf was always so cocky; the absence of his partners didn't usually affect him. Was he worried about Hart, too? It seemed unlikely. Ever since they had met in the circle of Stonehenge, Estios had distrusted Hart. Even though she had saved them all from blundering into the ambush at Glover's estae that night, Estios had remained distrustful. His every comment was laced with his suspicions. She just laughed off the hostility, but Sam worried. How could they all work together without trust?

Who was he to talk? These days he had to weigh every word Dodger said, wondering if there was a new lie hidden among the flowery phrases. Then there was Estios and his crew. Chatterjee seemed innocuous enough, quiet and competent. O'Connor was the friendliest of the bunch, but she seemed to know Dodger from a long time ago. Who knew what that meant? Certainly Dodger did, but he wasn't talking. Estios himself was a very cold fish. As much as he resented Hart, he seemed to resent Sam even more. Beneath the surface of politeness, Sam sensed that the tall elf was chafing under some kind of restraint, almost as if someone had ordered him to remain on relatively good terms with Sam. Perhaps someone had. As far as Sam knew, Estios was exclusively employed by Professor Laverty. That made Sam wonder what interest the professor had in the current situation. Just who could Sam trust?

Himself, he supposed. Inu, too. But Inu was only a dog, and besides, he wasn't here. In London, the elves with whom he hunted the druids were his only close contacts. The elves had shadow connections in the plex, almost all normal humans. Sam trusted most of those connections less than he trusted the elves, but he would be lost in the plex without them. Then again, without them, he would be on his way back to Seattle.

A short series of taps reverberated faintly down the tunnel. Estios drew his weapon and faced toward the source before Sam had sorted out the echoes. There were familiar scents beneath the sewer stink. Feeling secure that Estios would handle any physical threat,

Sam activated his astral senses and scanned the tunnel.

The approaching aura was familiar, and comforting. It showed no sign of injury or emotional distress. A further probe revealed that she was not being followed.

"Is this the whole party?" Hart asked as she arrived.

"Where were you?" Estios snapped, scowling.

She ignored his question. "Let's go see Herzog."

"I don't like it," Estios said.

"Do you like anything? You didn't have to come." She brushed at a drip spot on the arm of her Scaterelli jacket. Her annoyed frown would seem to be | directed at the spoiled fabric, but Sam knew better. Estios pressed.

"We need not involve him in our affairs, Hart. You have compromised our security enough by sending Twist to him."

"She hasn't compromised anything, Estios. Herzog is just a teacher. You should be grateful for that; it'll make me more valuable."

"Learning from the gutter is worse than no learning."

Hart laughed. "Learning is learning. I suggest that you keep your attitude to yourself. I don't think our host will take kindly to your carping. If Herzog were here…"

"But Herzog is here."

The new voice belonged to a bulky figure that emerged from the deeper shadows of the tunnel. Sam had smelled Herzog's distinctive odor and had known that he was somewhere nearby, but the others, for all their darkness-piercing elven eyes, hadn't seemed aware. Estios swung his weapon to bear and Hart tensed. The newcomer rumbled with amusement. "No fight today," he said.

Herzog was big for a human, weighing more than many orks. Most of his mass was muscle and bone, hidden under a layer of smooth fat and a mound of patchwork clothes. He was unnaturallystrong, agiftof nature boosted by his totem ratherthanbyartificialenhancement. Despite hiS bulk andthearrayof fetishes festooning his garb, he moved almost silently as he stepped up to them.

"Good evening, Herzog," Hart said. "I'm pleased to see you."

"You have work for me."

"Direct," Estios commented. "The night still grows, elf. I must be about my own work. If you find my manners abrupt, you need not deal with me."

"Ignore tall, dark, and ornery, Herzog," Hart said.

"We need your help."

"To do?"

"To get us going. Our probes are getting nowhere; our adversaries seem well prepared for our hermetic intrusions. I thought that your talents might offer a more productive approach."

"Your adversaries are not mine."

"They are everyone's," Sam said. Herzog turned to Sam. "So. Why have you not done what the elf asks?"

Sam didn't want to answer. Had he been alone with Herzog he might have, but in front of Hart he felt inhibited. He didn't want her to know how much he hated talking to Dog, how much he feared the irrationality of the spirit form's essence. And he didn't want her to know about that other presence that so terrified him.

"I can't," he said.

Herzog half turned in a sudden rattle and clash of fetishes and power objects. "You have the power. You know how to free your spirit. Why have you stopped this time? The Dog or the Man of Light?" Sam hesitated and Hart shot him a look, "What is the Man of Light?" she asked.

"Nothing," Sam said quickly to keep Herzog from answering. "It's nothing. Just some kind of subconscious symbol. I'm still having trouble breaking through to the spirit realm that I'd need to reach to do what you want."

Hart stared at him but said nothing. Sam gave a brief prayer of thanks when she returned her attention to Herzog.

"So, shaman. Will you do some recce for us?"

"I will. It will take time."

"Then we will leave you to it," Estios said. The deal made, the tall elf vanished into the darkness. Hart delayed to thank Herzog, then reached for Sam's arm. The shaman stopped her.

"He stays."

Sam saw the surprise in Hart's face flash to annoyance. He himself felt afraid. "Why?"

"You need to learn."

Sam started to object, but Hart spoke. "He's right. You need to learn as much as you can. Besides, if you're here, you can make a first call on whether what Herzog finds out is important. It might save a lot of time."

"But you\a151"

"But nothing. You know he won't work with anyone other than a shaman present."

"I'm not a\a151"

Herzog exploded with the huff of air that was his laugh.

"You are what you are. You must come with me now; the badges are coming."

Sam looked around. He could see little in the darkness, but he could hear distant splashes. Someone coming all right, several someones. There was too much noise for them to be runners, so the approaching persons were most likely one of the local constabulary's periodic sewer patrols, and magic wouldn't hide from the patrol magician. When he turned back, Hart was already gone. She had slipped away silently into the dimness, where her elven eyes could see what he could not. He would never catch up to her. Left with no other choice, he followed the retreating Herzog. Even the grumpy Gator shaman was preferable to a brush with the metroplex police.

They stopped when Herzog was sure they were safely away from the sweep patrol. Herzog leaned against the tunnel wall, immobile. Sam could barely hear him breathe. The Gator shaman had never shown much altruism before, yet he had accepted Hart's charge without dickering on the price. "Why are you doing this?" "Need."

"But we haven't offered you anything. Don't think Estios will pay whatever you ask. You didn't name a price, so he won't pay one."

Herzog's huff was soft, too soft to carry back down the tunnel, but Sam heard it clearly enough.

"I do not do this for the ice-eyed elf. Nor for your paramour Hart. I do this for you. You must see that the way is safe, that you can walk the path if only you accept what you are."

"I have accepted it. I've learned spells. I can project astrally at will."

"You delude yourself. If you had accepted your shamanic nature, the path to the spirit planes would not be blocked. Until you accept the other reality, you will not achieve what you seek. Until then, you are your own worst enemy."

What Dan Shiroi said made sense to Janice. His attitudes and reactions were all reasonable, given the context in which he had to live his life. But that context was hers, now. Like Jaime Garcia and Han and all the others who were part of Dan's hidden organization. Wherever in the world they lived, they were all the same breed of metahumanity.

Dan was a good teacher. With his guidance, she was doing things she would not have believed possible. The spells and the focusing of astral senses came so easily. Already she could mask her appearance with a spell and walk among norms without their knowing what she was. Her childhood dreams of magic were being fulfilled.

The magic had come with her second change. It was a blessing. And a curse. Masked by magic, she heard the norms talk when they thought that they were among their own kind. She heard the slurs, the jokes, and the put-downs. She heard the hate. It curdled her soul.

Dan was right; their kind had to band together. Norms hated anything that was not just like themselves. They hated metahumans worst of all. The larger and stranger the metahuman, the stronger the norms hated. Once, she had believed that the hate was driven by fear, the terror of the strange and unknown. She had begun to suspect that the hate came from somewhere else, some dark part of the human soul. Wherever it came from, the hate was real.

And there were so many more norms than metahumans. Even great strength and superior senses couldn't keep her safe from a mob. That early excursion when she had let her concentration slip had shown her a vulnerability that she had thought she had left behind. Her thoughts fled back to that awful snowy day when her illusion had faltered and she had stood revealed on the street. The norms had turned on her, calling her a monster and an eater of children. She had fled from their shouts and they had chased her, cornering her in an abandoned building too much like the one in which Dan had found her. But this time, it hadn't been ghouls who pursued her but normal people, people who had only moments before been conversing politely with her. And this time she had been healthy, for what little good it had done her. The mob's hatred and invective had flayed her worse that their fists. If Dan had not found her again, she would have been ripped to pieces by the norms. Though they had hurt her badly, Dan's healing touch had soothed her.

She had learned who her friends were. She had been taught her place in the world.

She looked down at Dan's sleeping form. The setting sun's rays insinuated themselves through the shuttered windows to tint his fur with rosy color. He would awaken soon and be about his business. He always said it was her business as well, but as of yet she had little to do, save study the magic he taught.

With the magic, she could touch an essence that was pure, and strong, and free. Dan had led her through a cave at the center of the world and shown her the marvellous land that lay beyond. There, she had met her totem. She had seen His flashing eye and felt the full softness of His fur. In the stillness of the night, she had heard His soulful call and looked up to see His silhouette racing across the sky to dance with the moon. Wolf had chosen her as His own. She felt proud that the old woods runner had found her satisfactory. She was slowly coming to understand Wolf, coming to feel the predator in herself. Her heart was full of the clannish pull to stay with and defend her own kind. Her limbs held the strength of the wild. She was ready to stand against those who would sunder her from the pack. Wolf offered her the power to make her own way and rend the weak-willed souls who would keep her from her destiny. Yes, she was beginning to understand Wolf. And she was a bit frightened of herself.

Dan's hand on her shoulder awakened her from her reverie. She realized she was standing at the window, staring at the darkness gathering over London's old East End. The rebuilt district was little different from its predecessors. Killers stalked the dark streets and purveyors of every vice made their lairs there. The East End was still a teeming hive, full of nasty, ugly people and suffused with their sufferings and depredations\a151an urban wilderness. Dan said that made the area suitable for her current stage of magical development. And so they stayed in a fortified apartment building. He promised that soon she would be ready to move on.

"Is something bothering you?" he asked. "No," she lied. Her fears and concerns were too vague for words. Her inability to articulate them would lessen her in his eyes. He prized strength, and she would be strong for him.

"Good." He kissed her. "I thought that tonight we might try another journey to the other realm. Your last was encouraging."

' 'All right.'' She felt a thrill at the thought of seeing

Wolf again.

He took her hand and led her down to the basement where they held their practice sessions. Han was already there, spreading herbs to scent the air. As usual, he said nothing, but nodded in acknowledgment of Janice's greeting before settling his furry body behind the drum. Janice lowered herself to the floor, stretching out while Dan intoned the spells that would ensure their privacy.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Eager," she replied.

He sat cross-legged by her head and rested his palms on either side of her face. He began to sing the travel chant, and Han picked up the beat with the drum. Janice listened to the music until the words were lost to her as voice and instrument blended.

The sound throbbed through her, its pulse filling every cell of her body. She let herself drift into the cadence, riding the flow deeper into a shamanic state of consciousness. The dark hole opened before her, but she had become familiar with it and was not afraid. She slipped through the opening and flew downward. The passage was short, free of hindering shadows, and she emerged in the other world.

The moon shown, just clear of the horizon. It was full and lovely. She greeted it and heard the answering response of Wolf. Her joy swelled. This was how she was meant to live, unfettered and free to do as she would, feeling the cool air on her fur and smelling the myriad glorious scents of the other side of day. The night had become her favorite time. She ran.

There was no urgency in her pace, just exuberance. She ran because she wanted to run, to feel her muscles moving in vital rhythm. A white wolf ran at her side. He was larger than she, stronger too, but he was no threat. This was her mate and they ruled the pack. They were strong and healthy. None could challenge them. They ran.

The moon hung in the sky, but she didn't need its light. Her eyes were keen, her nose keener. Little escaped her notice, least of all the scent of prey. A flash of white\a151a startled rabbit burst from hiding. They gave chase, bounding over obstacles and racing past obstructions to herd the prey. Sometimes she would close on it, only to have it make a rapid turn and elude her. Sometimes he would crowd it, forcing it toward her.

A hedge of tangled brush loomed ahead. The rabbit, sensing safety, redoubled its speed. He surged ahead, cutting across its path. The prey hauled up short, quivering. It turned, ready to continue its flight. Seeing her so near, it froze. He pounced, slapping the rabbit to the earth with a paw. It struggled against his indomitable strength, to no avail. He looked at her, offering her the honor of the kill.

The rabbit sensed their exchange and turned fearful eyes on her. It pleaded for its life. Didn't it know that its place in the natural order was to serve as her prey? Why did it struggle harder as she approached? This was the way of things. The wolf was the hunter, the rabbit the prey.

Frightened, terrified eyes.

She hesitated. It's just prey, he said. Meat,

Yes. Just meat. Why couldn't she bring herself to close her jaws on its throat? She hung her head and turned away. She didn't want to see the scorn in his eyes.

The rabbit gave a soft cry as he dispatched it. She listened to the sounds of him tearing up the carcass. When he finished, he offered her meat.

She took the meat. Its juices rushed the taste through her mouth, blasting the sensation to her brain. This was the food she was meant to eat, no other. Wolves ate rabbits. It was the way of the world. She bolted another strip of meat.

In time, he said. There was no accusation, no scorn. She felt his patience and basked in his love. He understood. He would wait for her to take the steps at her own pace. He had promised that there would be no pressure, and he was living up to his word.

She loved him.

After they had eaten their fill, they ran again, racing the moon to the horizon. She was exhilarated by the physical effort, made more alive than she had ever been before. Their running pace eventually slowed, speed waning as their fleet paws matched rhythm to the measured beat of the drum. The journey was ending.

She awakened from the trance, feeling rested and well fed. Dan had her recount the experience and said he was pleased. She knew he meant it.

He had some things to take care of before bed, so he went away. She wandered back upstairs and stood at the window, wrapped in the lassitude of satiation. Down in the streets of the East End, the morning crews were cleaning up the debris of the night. Scavengers. No doubt they helped themselves to whatever the true predators had left behind. She watched a scruffy pair haul a maimed body from a building. Another derelict being taken away, another victim of the plex. Another day in London.

An ebon boy in a glittering cloak of silver danced along the electron pathways, but the pattern faltered. A whirling measure would abruptly end in a few stumbling steps. The dancer was eager, but his steps were constrained as though the dance floor was slippery. In every direction there were datapaths in all of their myriad multitudes, but none offered what he sought. Following any one only led to frustration, the dance halting as the pathway expanded into a diffuse and indistinct mass of branches. Each branch was a trail of connections that vanished, becoming an array of untraceable links. The only ones that stayed solid led to unbreakable ice or mundane and unimportant data.

He was frustrated. And angry. The ebon boy folded his cloak around himself. Dodger jacked out, and the boy vanished from the Matrix.

Dodger stared down at the datajack. He couldn't figure it out. There should be more connections than he could follow in a day. The circle of druids they chased were prominent people in England. At least the ones whose names they knew were prominent\a151highly placed businessmen and — women or members of the aristocracy, whose everyday lives were matters of public record.

The Hidden Circle was living up to its name.

Why couldn't he make connections? Secret societies rarely managed to avoid leaving a trail, especially in these modern times when no organization functioned without some computerization. Magical organizations were usually even easier to track down; their members rarely comprehended the intricacies of the consensual hallucination that was the Matrix, that hypothetical pseudoreality that was a second home to Dodger. In the Matrix, a good decker should be able to trace the connections between people and organizations. And Dodger knew that he was better than good.

These druids, despite all their magic, were a technosavvy bunch. There was not a hint in the Matrix that any of them were more than they appeared to be in the mundane world. He had not even been able to learn the names of the unknown members of the Hidden Circle. Without records of the Circle's organization, he couldn't tell who among the contacts of the known Circle members were also members. Looking for registered druids was no real help. Many practicing magicians didn't bother to comply with the Registration Act, and the members of the Hidden Circle seemed likely candidates for such an act of civil disobedience.

From the absence of data, he might have given up, believing that there were no other members. But Sam insisted that there had to be more, and Hart had backed him up. They said that a druidic circle was three times three. The runners had names for six of the Hidden Circle and two of those were dead.

The Hidden Circle was too well hidden. Three weeks and Dodger had gleaned next to nothing. There had to be another way to track them down.

A soft hand slid along his shoulder. He knew that touch, and it triggered a rush of memories he struggled to suppress. The past was the past.

"No luck?" Teresa's tone made the question a statement.

Dodger didn't bother to answer. She knew him well enough. Having seen his expression when she entered the room, she would have had her answer. He looked over his shoulder; she had come alone. "Pray, tell. Where is our chaperone?" "Chatterjee is downstairs."

With a slim-fingered hand, she slid away the Fairlight cyberdeck and perched on the edge of the desk. Her slim hips spread slightly under the pressure, edging the hem of her skirt higher on her thigh. In his memory, he felt the exquisite smoothness of that graceful arch. His eyes traced the familiar curves up until he reached the equally familiar lop-sided smile of amusement. Her eyes sparkled.

"Have something in mind?" she asked. He stood and reached out his hand to caress her cheek. Memory blurred with current perception as if there had been no gap. She slid from the desk and into his arms.

"I thought that meat was a drag on the electron spirit."

" 'Tis true."

"I've missed you."

"And I you."

"Estios would not approve."

"Estios can…"

She hushed him with a kiss. The moment seemed an eternity.

"Dodger, why didn't you stay?"

"Why didn't you come with me?"

There were no words to say, for they had all been said before. He had no new answers that would mean anything. They held each other closely, entwining the rhythms of their hearts. Her voice was muffled by his shoulder.

"Some things never change. They only fall apart when things around them change."

"It need not be so."

"Are you so sure?"

"No." He wished that he were.

"Neither am I. What's to become of us, Dodger? I thought that I'd be able to work with you without remembering. I'm not as strong as I thought."

"You have more strength than I."

"Liar."

"Is our fate to be the doomed lovers, then?"

She hugged him harder instead of answering.

"I would not compromise you with Estios," he said.

"I would not let you."

That wasn't the answer he wanted to hear.

An unwelcome sound intruded on them; Chatterjee was coming down the hall. For an elf, he was making a lot of noise. Did he know?

Teresa heard the other elf as well. She moved almost as quickly as Dodger. By the time Chatterjee walked through the archway, Dodger was back in his chair and Teresa was sitting demurely on the desk.

"The keyboard was quiet, so I came to see what progress you had achieved. You have information?" Chatterjee asked.

The frustration of the flesh was bad enough. Dodger didn't need to be reminded of how little he had achieved in the Matrix as well. "Nothing new." "Estios will not be pleased." "Tough," Dodger snapped. "That slick is never pleased unless he's got his butt…"

"Dodger!" Teresa's voice was suitably chastising, but Dodger caught a hint of her quirky smile.

So, the lady has not been totally wooed by the party line.

Chatterjee remained unperturbed. "Your personal evaluation of any member of the team is irrelevant. However, your lack of results is pertinent and distressing. It limits our course of action too much. I had been informed that you were a decker of exceptional competence."

" 'Tis a fact. For the moment, however, 'tis also a fact that there is no joy in the Matrix." "You have exhausted all avenues?" "All? A decker of my 'exceptional competence'? Hardly. 'Tis true that I have run all of our current leads to ground. Beyond confirming that the younger Neville is dead, we are no nearer to them than we were on the Solstice."

"Without their full circle, they are weak," Teresa said.

"Yet not weak enough," Chatterjee said. "The optimal result would be their complete dissolution, but reduction beyond the ring of three should be sufficient for present purposes."

"One cannot 'reduce' the unknown effectively. We are no closer to naming all of the Circle than we were three weeks ago. And without knowing all of their identities, we dare not move against those we have identified."

"Precisely," Chatterjee agreed. "You must intensify your endeavors."

Dodger folded his arms and stared at the ceiling.

"Let Estios intensify his."

"He already has," Chatterjee said. He would have. Always going one up. Fragging slick. "Then when he returns with usable data, I shall use it."

Chatterjee frowned. "Time passes."

"What matters time to an elf?"

"Flippancy is inappropriate. Estios prepares for action and we must all be ready to move if the arcane reconnaissance results in useful data. Even if the shaman learns something of worth, it will be unlikely to have much pertinence with regard to your Matrix efforts. I suggest that you immediately pursue whatever avenues remain open."

"Verily? Then I suggest that you…"

"Dodger," Teresa warned.

Dodger sighed. Baiting Chatterjee wasn't worth upsetting Teresa. "Perchance I shall try a blind shunt; some of the data we do have should serve as hooks."

"Explain," Chatterjee ordered.

So ho, Squire Chatterjee. Must you now acknowledge that the Dodger may indeed be of exceptional competence? "A blind shunt utilizes a sophisticated series of mask and camouflage programs that render transparent a decker's presence in the Matrix. Unfortunately, the technique leaves the decker vulnerable as well, but what isn't seen by intrusion countermeasures is not attacked by such defenses. While cloaked, the decker waits; for to take active measures is to destroy the illusion of transparency. The hooks are data bits to which the decker attaches his invisible persona, waiting for the data to move. The assumption is that the hook will be taken legitimately into a place where the decker cannot gain entry through conventional hacking. The procedure takes time, but I don't see anything else to do. Mayhap we shall be lucky."

Teresa reached out and laid her hand on Dodger's arm. He could feel the electricity through his leathers. She didn't seem to care that Chatterjee was watching. "Dodger," she said. "Don't do that. It's too dangerous. A blind shunt could drag you into heavy ice." "Fear not, fair maid. The Dodger has not yet met the ice that can trap him."

He was lying, of course. He had been trapped by ice\a151once and only once. It was an experience that haunted his nightmares. But he didn't need to fear a repeat of that experience. The artificial intelligence\a151 if that's what it really was\a151that controlled the deadly ice lived locked away in the Renraku Matrix, and he was never going to enter that terrible black pyramid again. No matter how slick these druids were, their deckers couldn't be playing in the same league as the megacorp that controlled most of the world's public data structures. He would be safe from anything he would encounter.

Teresa's eyes bored into his, her expression flickering with an emotion he couldn't read. Her hand left his arm as she stood. Had she read the lie? "Yet," she said softly. Dodger was sure she hadn't intended him to hear.

The man entering the room was not a man at all. He went by the name Hanson, and looked like a man to the unaided eye, but Andrew Glover knew better. Glover had assensed Hanson when he had first shown up bearing Hyde-White's letter of introduction, and Glover's exercise of his mage sight had shown him that Hanson was not human. What Hanson was remained an open question; Glover had never before seen such an aura or astral image. There were no astral image files, no aura records to consult that would reveal what kind of metahuman Hanson was.

The fat, old man could not have failed to penetrate the illusions cloaking the metahuman from the ordinary eye. So why was he recommending a nonhuman like Hanson?

Hyde-White had sworn the same oaths as the rest of the Circle, dedicating himself to restoring the rightful monarch and purifying the land. Such purification applied not just to the pollution but to the corrupting influence of metahuman genes as well. Glover's ancestors had fought to preserve British purity against the influx of the less advanced races. Their struggle seemed petty compared to the battle he fought against the scourge of mutated humanity that threatened to overwhelm even the debased blood of the lower classes.

Metahumans were little better than beasts, and Hanson, with the bestial aspect he presented astrally, was clearly one of the worst kind.

Hyde-White was devious, but he was also a practical man. Like all well-brought-up men of his class, he understood the nature of the underclasses. Just as Glover himself did. Which was, of course, the answer. Hanson would only be a tool, a resource to be used up and disposed of when he was no longer useful, That made sense. It was only an unpleasant necessity that required Glover to deal with Hanson personally.

Hanson seemed unaware of Glover's distaste for him. Or, if he was aware, he was indifferent. Either way suited Glover. Hanson's repugnant presence was a temporary annoyance, one more burden to bear in the furtherance of the cause.

"They are ready," Hanson said,

"Then we should not delay." Glover swept past Hanson and entered the room. In its center five people lay bound. They were dregs chosen from the flotsam of the metroplex, three of them orks. They were a far cry from the pure bloodlines of the sacrifices in Neville's ritual. Glover personally found such submen repugnant. There would be no room for them in his resurrected Britain. The mongrel half-breed foreigners who made up the rest of the sacrifice were little better, but what they were was unimportant. It was what they represented that mattered. Power.

Such sacrificial offerings had given their energy to aid the Circle, restoring the power lost by the deaths of Young Neville and Fitzgilbert. Even without the full nine, Glover could feel that their ritual workings were stronger, and Hyde-White had suggested that they would grow stronger still. Each completion of the cycle would double their power. It was an added benefit that they could purge the land of such misfits while they gathered strength to restore it.

Too bad there were no elves among tonight's participants. Their legendary physical beauty belied their deceptive and corrupt natures. They had cost Britain dearly. When the restoration came, they would pay for the land they had stolen and for the souls they had corrupted, but first the Hidden Circle needed strength. He turned his mind to the matter at hand.

Glover shrugged back the shoulders of his topcoat, revealing the golden pectoral he wore in his office as archdruid. Hanson's solicitous hands removed the outer garment. Gordon straightened from where he had been bent over to talk to one of the orks, and took his place among the acolytes. Glover nodded to each of the druids present. Of their diminished circle, only Hyde-White and Neville were absent. Neville would attend the next ritual and Hyde-White the following one as they brought the current cycle to its conclusion.

As each druid walked solemnly to his appointed place, Glover stretched wide his arms and intoned the blessing. His words called the earth's spirit to witness the ritual they enacted here tonight for its benefit. The other druids sang counterpoint.

Across the circle, Gordon echoed his words. His eyes were closed and he spoke with prayerful intensity. Glover suspected that Gordon believed in this new path more fervently than did any of the druids themselves. Glover was pleased. Hyde-White's tutoring was having a most salutory effect; the royal heir was wholly committed, embracing their course with all his heart.

Glover was momentarily startled as Gordon's eyes suddenly opened and met his. The belief he had supposed lay there, mantled in the strength and authority of the true king. Glover bowed, an acknowledgment of Gordon as the heir to the land, its heart and the barometer of its health. The bow was not subservient, though. As the keeper of the land, its magical arm of retribution, and its physician, the archdruid was a sovereign of sorts as well. Both king and archdruid had their spheres of power. Together they would lead the way to a new era.

Gordon returned a nod to Glover's bow. The archdruid bowed again, this time to the sacrifices stretched on the floor between them. The derelicts stared with wide eyes, frightened beasts. The first didn't start to scream until he saw the golden sickle in Glover's hand.

Willie's signal indicated that she had found something of interest in the derelict building. Sam thought that the structure looked unsafe, teetering on the edge of disintegration. That made it just like all of its neighbors. The whole neighborhood seemed to be decaying.

It had been several hours since they had lost Glover's trail at the edge of the sleazy East End. Sam had held little hope of picking up the druid's trail, but Estios had insisted that they sweep as much territory as possible. Expecting little, Sam had agreed. They all felt the pressure of time.

Willie signaled again, just after Sam had conducted his own astral reconnaissance of the building. The whole place had felt uncomfortable, and he hadn't been able to get a good look at several areas; the psychic static was too strong. It was as if something terrible had happened within, something… he really wanted to say evil, but it sounded silly and he had no desire to be laughed at by Estios. He tried to shrug off the sense of foreboding. At least he hadn't seen any live opponents. Willie's signal confirmed that there was no one there.

Estios went in first. The tall elf was arrogant and unlikable, but he had courage. In this benighted part of the plex, there was always the possibility of a trap. Some thrill seeker might set one for kicks, or some paranoid squatter might be defending his stash. Astral senses couldn't detect mechanical or electronic mechanisms with any reliability and Willie's sensors weren't infallable.

O'Connor remained with Sam and Hart. The division of forces was uneven but had become standard procedure. The suspicious Estios always wanted one of his party with Hart at all times. Sam suspected that O'Connor had orders to kill Hart if anything went wrong.

Estios waved from the doorway. Trying to appear casual, Sam and the others crossed the street one by one and disappeared into the building. Estios led them to the basement, toward the place where the psychic static had been the worst. Before they reached it, Sam could smell the stink of blood and feces.

The room was an abattoir. In characteristically opportunistic fashion, the sprawl's scavengers had gone to work. Already the remains of the butchers' handiwork were being spread around. Sam counted five skulls, three orks and two norms. Chittering and squalling at the interruption, the scavengers fled.

Willie's drone sat in one corner. A red telltale winked several times in greeting as its camera eye swiveled to track the motion of their entrance. The upper ring of blades just under the comm dome began to whirl, buzzing as they did. The lower ring began its counter-rotation. As soon as both sets achieved speed, the drone lifted from the floor and folded its five-part landing gear together into a cone. The halfmeter-long cylinder, with its twin whirring necklaces of distortion, flitted through a window. Willie would be standing sentry while they investigated.

There were little more to the remains than skeletons. Organs were strewn and dragged around, but there was a noticeable absence of meat. A close look showed that the bones had been cut and there were scrape marks where flesh had been razored away. "This is a Bone Boy kill," Estios said. "What's this got to do with the druids?" Sam asked. No one answered. Sam stood in the midst of the carnage. He could do no more than stare. He had heard of the Bone Boy killing spree on the media, but it had seemed no more than the everyday violence associated with the overcrowded sprawls. Even the most sensational reports didn't match the reality of standing in the place where helpless victims had died. He understood the psychic static now; his astral senses had been defeated by the pain and suffering of the dead. His stomach roiled.

"No, Hart," O'Connor said. Sam turned to see what she was forbidding Hart to do and found O'Connor staring at the skeleton. Hart and Estios were in conference by a doorway that led deeper into the building. O'Connor had been talking to herself.

She had said no heart.

O'Connor looked up to find him staring perplexedly.

"There's no sign of the hearts of any of the victims."

Among all the organic debris, Sam wondered how she could be sure. "It could have been eaten."

"The other organs have been gnawed. Some have been almost completely devoured, but there's enough left to identify them. I don't see any heart tissue at all. The killers must have taken their victims' hearts along with the flesh."

"Then, it's not ghouls," Sam said. "Not their pattern," O'Connor confirmed. "They might have taken the meat, but if they were organ eaters, they would have taken the rest as well."

"The kills were physical, but there is residual spell energy," Estios said.

"It isn't random violence," Hart said.

"Did you seriously think for a minute that it was?"

Estios asked sneeringly.

Sam didn't like it when Estios talked to Hart that way. His anger leaked heat into his voice. "Why couldn't it be? There are senseless killings every day. The sprawls are full of crazies and people who would kill for any one of a thousand reasons, including the thrill. Some of them even use magic."

"Why, then?" Hart asked Estios as if Sam had never spoken.

"Isn't it obvious?" Estios replied. "It's a ritual killing."

"The Hidden Circle?" Sam didn't really want an affirmative answer.

"Insufficient data." Hart's brow furrowed as she thought, "The timing of the Bone Boy spree is suggestive. Our having lost Glover even more so. If he had help, there would have been more than enough time for this atrocity."

"There was help. Marks in the blood show at least a half dozen individuals," O'Connor said.

Sam was distracted from the continuing evaluation of the evidence by the receiver he wore tucked in his ear. Its insistent tone told him that Willie had spotted somebody. The coding of the tone said police.

"Badges coming," he told the others nervously.

"We'd better get out of here.

Estios cast a spell to clean their shoes and garments as they left the massacre room. They would leave no tracks of blood. It was only a short walk to a tube station, where they buried their trail in the crush of humanity.

Eyes of molten gold stripped away her soul. Janice was as she had been, a human woman. She was weak, powerless. She could not lie to those eyes. They knew when she lied.

The man with the golden eyes had been asking her questions. It seemed as if her whole existence had been a cycle of questions and answers. He asked and she answered, but somehow her answers didn't satisfy him. The truth, her father had said, would set her free. She had told the truth and remained shackled.

''What is your importance to them?'' the man asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied.

"Denial will not save you," he said sternly.

Pain.

Her muscles spasmed as the fiery agony shot through her. What had she done to deserve this? She had told the truth. Why wasn't she free?

"Tell me."

"I don't know!"

Tears streamed down her face. He touched her shoulder and she flinched. His touch was a spider crawling along her neck and onto her face. She tried to flinch away, but her limbs would not obey her. Something held her in place. She looked down to see dark bands encircling her wrists and ankles. Had the restraints been mere iron, she would had struggled to break them, but her bonds were hard chitinous bands, alien things from which there was no escape.

"Do not resist."

Fear seized her. No longer able to endure the horror at his touch, she screamed. Despite the hopelessness, she threw her head from side to side and wrenched at the restraints. She wanted to be free. She had to be satisfied with dislodging the hand which caressed her faff

"Remarkable."

The next words were distant, lacking in the obscene clarity of the previous ones. It was as if someone else spoke in a language that she did not understand.

"It is as you say."

More bodiless voices murmured to the man and he spoke back. His comments and questions melded with the susurrus of the distant voices until at last he said, "She shall at least be useful."

A new face rose before her eyes. It was masked and hooded, swathed in cloth of pale green. Dark eyes regarded her without emotion. She might have been a bench. An impossible mouth opened in the masked face, its teeth a glittering array of hypodermic needles. The mouth drew nearer and she screamed again. And again. Unable to move, unable to even turn her head, she stared in deadly fascination as the obscene visage drew closer. Closer. The violator's lips touched hers and her mouth went numb.

Her vision fogged and star-shot darkness swirled around her. She felt detached as the violator's face lifted from hers. The needles were gone. There were only dark, lustrous, slightly slanted eyes behind the green mask. Then the mask melted away and she beheld the face of Hugh Glass. His fine elven features were as beautiful as ever.

How had he come to be here? He had rescued her from Yomi, promising to take her to safety. Had he come to take her away again? But she had been an ork when she had met Hugh. Now she was human. She reached out, longing to convince herself that he was real. She so desperately wanted the nightmare with the golden-eyed man to be over that she was happy to see even Hugh. She looked at the hand she was lifting to touch his face. It was furred and taloned. She wasn't human anymore. She would never be human again.

Hugh smiled at her. His lips parted as his grin grew, and the perfect white teeth that she remembered were not there. In their place was a writhing mass of corruption. He laughed as she screamed.

She clawed at him, feeling grim satisfaction as she felt flesh tear under her talons. Then her arm was restrained again with a harsh, hot pressure around her wrist. But she smelled blood. It was good. It was real.

She awoke.

Her wrist was held by Dan's strong hand. Bright Wood welled from scratches in the dark skin of his face, but his expression was not one of anger. His eyes were full of concern; for her, she realized. As soon as he understood that she was fully awake, he released his grip. She started to shake and he embraced her, murmuring soft reassurances.

In her dream, she had seen him as Hugh and struck out. But he was not Hugh. He would never be Hugh. Hugh would have struck her back. Dan was always gentle with her, a kind spirit in a bestial body, the exact opposite of the handsome Hugh.

Teary-eyed, she examined the wound she had caused. It was already healing. She sniffed and gave him a weak smile.

"It's all right," he said.

And it was. She felt safe, secure. Shiroi's love was real, unlike the false promises of Hugh. If she had harbored any remaining doubts, his patient, caring reaction to her violence banished them. Shiroi's love was no sham, no ploy to use her for his purposes. She knew Shiroi loved her for herself. How could she not love him back?

The man of Light confronted Sam again, blazing with the intensity of the sun. Sam could not look at him, could not stand before him. The heat scorched Sam's skin, driving him to retreat. Sam's earliest manifestation of shamanic power had been a spontaneous protection from fire, but this was a fire from which he was not safe. He howled in frustration, a frighteningly animal sound.

The Man of Light laughed.

Sam fled the laughter all the way to wakefulness. The room in which he had been sleeping was cold, but the sheets were soaked with sweat. Seeking comfort, he reached out for Hart and found she was gone. He was alone in the twilight gloom.

Through the open door he could hear the tapping of ringers on a keyboard in the next room. The rhythm wasn't Dodger's; there were odd patterns in the tapping, so it must be Willie rigging. There were no voices. Most likely, the technomancer was alone. Sam wondered where Hart had gone.

Sam threw back the clammy sheets and got out of bed. He was shaking, and he knew that it was from more than a chill in the room. Every time he even thought about the Man of Light, he felt the terror rise.

He didn't know where the Man had come from. It seemed to Sam that He hadn't always been there, blocking the way to the shamanic planes. But Sam wasn't sure. Sam had never been comfortable with the idea of being a shaman. Perhaps the Man of Light was only a manifestation of his own fears. The Man might simply be a symbolic representation of his own reluctance to practice the shamanic powers.

The water from the sink didn't flow very quickly. His fingers were numb from its frigid touch before he had gathered enough to splash into his face. The shock was bracing and cleared his head a bit. He ran his damp hands through his hair and beard, smoothing them into place. Trying to put his night fears behind him, he dressed.

"Hoi, Twist," Willie greeted him as he entered the room where the dwarf woman was engaged with her hardware. "Kaf on the plate."

"Thanks," he mumbled. He got some juice out of the refrigerator. "Working?" "Just testing my eyes and ears." "Hart say where she was going?" "Neg."

"How about when she'd be back?"

"Neg."

Great.

"Null the glum, chummer Twist. Let me give you a little something for your other set of brains. Stayed around after you meatfeet left the squat with the bods and watched the badges. They didn't spend a lot of time, but they did mess up the scene and didn't take any evidence. In fact, it looked to me like they were deliberately destroying some. So I got suspicious and followed them. They met with Inspector Burnside. He didn't seem very surprised by their report, and that got me really suspicious." She waited for Sam's reaction and shrugged when he had none. "That didn't add, Twist. Burnside's a copper's cop, straight as they come. The whole shadow world knows that he's a hardnosed, real believer in justice that don't bend the law. But those jokers reporting to him had done just that. And he just listened. I tell ya, Twist, it don't add." "Maybe he's changed."

"Burnside's immutable."

"Maybe somebody's blackmailing him."

"Possible, but unlikely. Even if he'd done something wrong that your somebody could hold over his head, Burnside would more than likely bring them up on charges, even if he took a fall himself."

"I wish we knew more. Dodger could deck into his files, but he's not here. I don't suppose you could do it, Willie."

"Why don't you do it yourself? You've got a jack."

"I don't deck anymore."

Willie gave him a look that told him she thought that his mind was short-circuited. In her world, nobody ever gave it up until they died or brain-fried.

"I suppose I could, since your elf buddy is still busy. If you've got access to a good enough deck. No guarantees, though. It's not my line. A rig may look like a deck but it's completely different where it counts."

"I understand. I'll see what I can do."

It took Sam less than an hour to make a deal with a fixer he had met through Hart. The negotiation wasn't easy, and Sam came away owing more than he cared. He also came away with the cyberdeck he needed.

A few hours later, Willie jacked out and said,

"Don't that beat it."

"What?"

"Burnside is the officer in charge of the Bone Boy Murders investigation. Has been since the third batch of skeletons turned up. Direct transfer from on high."

"Who?"

"Been taking a course in interrogatives, Twist?" Willie's laugh would have been a giggle if it had been higher pitched. "Well, there are the usual official orders, but they're not quite right. Wrong incept codes. It took a little doing but I found a trail that leads right on up to the Ministry of the Interior.''

"The government's involved." Rogue druids, megalomaniac corporates, and fanatical aristocrats weren't enough.

"Part of it, anyway." Willie positioned the soles of her boots against the edge of the table and rocked her chair back. "What now, Twist?"

"Let's start with the police. Check Burnside's duty roster and compare it with that of the two officers you followed last night. See where they coincide. We'll want to know how wide the conspiracy is. And see if there are any shifts from a regular schedule. Back check it, too."

Willie grumbled, but she went back to work.

When she jacked out again, Sam said, "I'll bet you came up with a correlation between sudden duty for Burnside and his friends and the dates and times of Bone Boy hits. Or at least a correspondence with the discovery of the bodies."

"So why did I have to do all this work?"

"I was just guessing. We can't afford to guess."

"Yeah, well. Did you guess that there's a pattern to the Bone Boy killings?''

"What kind of pattern?"

"A nasty one. There's a few breaks in the first set, but it's pretty clear, anyway. The second set confirms it."

"Confirms what, Willie?"

"The pattern. The number of bodies goes one on the first night, two the next time, three after that, and so on until there are seven victims. Then it starts again."

"Seven? Not nine?"

"Affirm."

"There were nine druids in the Circle."

"And two of them croaked on the Solstice."

"They might have restored their number. That would be the smart thing for a magical circle to do. Maybe the Bone Boy killers aren't the Circle."

"Whoever is doing the killing, they're methodical. Seven days between the first and second killings. Six between the second and third, and on down to two between body count six and seven, Just one day, then a single Bone Boy kill. Seven days later, a double. And so on. Three days ago, we got five bodies. Get the picture?"

"Very methodical. Tonight should be a six-victim killing. Whether it's the Hidden Circle or not, this is a ritual spree."

Willie and Sam progressed from arguing the possible connection to the druids to using Willie's spy drone to monitor the progress of the police. If they followed the pattern, the Bone Boys would be active tonight, and if the police were involved, the runners might lead the watchers to the site in time to determine the nature of the perpetrators. At the very least, they might be able to rule out police collusion. Willie's drone headed for the Burnside's stationhouse, and they only had to wait a half-hour before he left. He was joined by the two detectives the runners had previously almost encountered. Willie and Sam watched the trio set up a tail on an individual who emerged from a fancy townhouse in Regent's Park. They were hunched over the receptor screen when Hart returned.

"What's going down?" she asked.

"We're waiting for something to happen," Sam replied abstractedly.

Hart squinted at the display screen. "That's Burnside!"

"Uh-huh."

"What's going on?"

Sam explained what he and Willie had found out and the theories the data had spawned. Hart joined them at the screen.

Willie's drone was focused on Burnside and the two officers who accompanied him. All were dressed for undercover work and blended in with the street crowd. The only thing which set them apart was their apparent nervousness. After some minutes, Burnside sent his two officers away. Willie sent the drone flitting after them and discovered that they were taking up independent surveillance positions around the building the man had entered. The policemen had set up an oldfashioned stakeout. They could have used a drone similar to Willie's, but they didn't\a151a sure indication the operation was not official, since police use of remote pilot machines needed to be recorded.

Willie sent the drone higher to cover the whole block. It was another hour before anything happened. Then Hart spotted someone leaving the building and directed Willie to send the drone in for a closer look. Careful to keep her machine out of sight, Willie positioned it for a zoom-in shot of the persons exiting the building. A woman led a pack of three men, who struggled with plastic sacks. None were familiar, but Willie recorded their images.

The drone returned to station in time to catch a second group almost vanishing from its camera range. The sacks on the backs of that group's laggards prompted a quick pursuit. This time, the runners were rewarded.

"Glover," Sam said quietly.

There was no doubt about his identity; Sam knew the face too well. Willie recorded the images of the strangers accompanying the druid.

"Back to station, Willie," Hart ordered. "They're leaving in small groups and we don't want to miss any. If the pattern holds, my guess is that all but one were present tonight."

"Roger."

The drone flitted back. It swooped four more times to record the passage of furtive groups leaving the scene. When the last group had left, the policemen began to move in. Taking a risk that the badges would spot the drone, Willie sent it in ahead of them for a fast pass to confirm the contents of the building. Deep in its heart lay six skeletons, already being attacked by scavengers.

"Do we tell Estios?" Willie asked.

"Not just yet. Let's run down the images first,"

Hart suggested.

"It's your call, Twist," Willie said.

Sam sighed. "We'd better identify them first."

"Roger," Willie responded. She dumped the recordings to the cyberdeck and began the process of image enhancement and correlation.

Sam hoped it wouldn't take long. If the pattern held, and he had no reason to believe it wouldn't, seven more innocents would die in less than forty-eight hours.

"Your report was most enlightening, Katherine." Bambatu smiled, his teeth a dazzling white against the darkness of his skin. "But I fear that you must change your plans. The Lady has considered the information and is determined on a new course of action. The foolish druids of the Hidden Circle have embarked on a course that the Lady believes will be their downfall and that of the Lord Protector. She is convinced of it. In fact, she is sure that they will collapse in such a decisive and spectacular manner that they shall need no help from us. Such self-destruction suits the Lady's plans better than the original plan to disrupt them from outside. Therefore, she wishes that you no longer par — _

172 Robert N. Charrette ticipate in any operations that will curtail the Circle's activities."

"What about Verner and the Estios's crew?" "They must not be allowed to disturb the Circle, either.''

That was a troublesome order. Sam was not going to be easy to dissuade. She had encountered his dogged persistence during the doppelganger affair. And since they had become lovers, she had learned how deeply his passion for justice ran. He would not give up on this chase until it was concluded. He would be impossible to live with if she forced him away from his quest to make the Circle pay for their evil. To her surprise, she found herself worried about that possibility. Why? He was just another bedmate. Wasn't he? She hadn't even begun to consider the implications of her concern when Bombatu resumed speaking.

"The Lady has decided that eliminating Verner from the situation would disrupt the runner operations most effectively with the least repercussions. She expects you to handle the details with your usual efficiency. "I'll get him out of the country immediately." "Oh no, Katherine. That will not do. He must be killed."

"West on Romford Road."

The audio signal was a surprise. Willie didn't often speak while rigging. She claimed that it disturbed her rapport with the machine.

She was trailing one of the newly identified druids,

Thomas Alfred Carstairs, Lord Mayor of the industrial Birmingham District of the London Sprawl. The Lord Mayor was accompanied by a pair of toughs who registered as enhanced on Willie's scanners. All three were carrying weapons. Beyond his bodyguardservants, the Lord Mayor had dispensed with the usual entourage. He had business tonight; private business.

The pattern of killings predicted that tonight would see another kill of seven, one for each druid. The runners knew now that the Hidden Circle had not replaced the members lost on the Solstice. They had not recruited replacements to restore their number before engaging in further ritual activities. Did they feel the press of time? Were they facing some deadline? The runners were still in the dark as to the reason for the Circle's nefarious activities.

Sam hoped that Carstairs was going to be easier to trail than Glover had been when they had first discovered the connection between the Bone Boy killings and the Hidden Circle. The runners could not afford the time to search house-to-house if he lost them as he neared his proposed murder site. Sam didn't want to see anyone else die to serve the Circle's ends.

Following Inspector Burnside was also no longer an option. That course had gotten expensive when he had spotted one of Willie's spy drones and had it skragged by a stiage from the precinct anti-surveillance squad. The dwarf rigger had flatly refused to send any more with him.

With the night of sacrifice upon them, they had just finished identifying the Circle's members by name, and there had only been enough time to locate one of them, the Honorable Mister Carstairs. Like all of the druids, the Lord Mayor was a magician, and that made it risky to follow him astrally. The ground team worked a mundane trail, supplemented by Willie's drone.

The group of hunters managed to move through the crowds and cold winter fog without incident. Willie signaled that Carstairs had reached a destination, and the runners regrouped. Carstairs had entered an old warehouse, its name and trade long obliterated by time and the corrosive action of the London atmosphere. The broken pavement of the street sloped and Sam knew they were somewhere near the river; the fog was always thicker there.

"Recon, Willie," Sam ordered. "Find out where they've set up and signal when they begin the ritual. We'll want to catch them then. That'll be as low as their guard will get before they start killing people."

One beep signaled Willie's affirmative.

They waited.

Estios and his team checked their guns, returning them to concealment under their long coats whenever a passerby wandered close. Hart fingered one of the decorations on her belt. They were deadly throwing weapons but looked like mere decorative flash. Fidgeting wasn't like her. She had seemed distracted for the past two days, but she had shut down his every attempt to talk with a shake of her head and a sad smile. Her attitude only increased his own nervousness. He jumped when Willie sent twin beeps to the receiver in his ear.

That wasn't the pre-arranged signal. Sam's mouth went dry.

"Willie?" he asked tentaively.

"What's going on?" she replied. "Where are you guys? It's been twenty minutes."

"We're holding for your signal. You didn't signal."

There was a pause. "Couldn't you hear the screams?"

"Drek!" No sound had reached the watchers.

Sam leaped up, drawing his Narcoject Lethe as he did. The tranquilizer gun felt light and insubstantial. People were being tortured to death and all he had was a toy gun. Was that justice?

Estios was already halfway across the street by the time Sam left the sidewalk. Chatterjee and O'Connor were only a couple of meters behind their leader. As usual, the tall elf was going to be the first one in. Hart hung back, pacing Sam. He knew she could move faster than that. Didn't she feel the same urgency as the rest of them? They were only five people and a drone against the seven druids and an unknown number of flunkies. Sam wished Dodger and his Sandier were along, but the elf was still haunting the Matrix.

Estios barreled through the doorway, only to be flung immediately back. Sam skidded to a halt and shifted to his astral senses. A glow lit the doorway, a magical barrier. Estios picked himself up, his own aura flaring as he did. Sam watched the color shift toward the hue of the barrier as Estios attuned himself to its psychic frequency. The tall elf leaned grimly on the luminescent wall until the tones matched and he passed through.

Chatterjee grabbed O'Connor, enveloping her with his own power and dragging her through. Sam shifted back to normal perception and followed. Maybe it was a good thing that Dodger wasn't there; Sam didn't know Chatterjee's trick and Dodger would have been unable to pass the barrier.

Hitting the wall felt like pressing through a plastic bag. It stretched and strained until it suddenly released him and he was inside in the deeper darkness of the building. Now he could hear the screams. Impelled by a new urgency, he barreled forward, only to be caught by O'Connor.

"No so fast, Twist. You're no shock trooper," she whispered urgently. "Dodger would never forgive me if I let you rush to death."

She was right. Getting themselves killed wouldn't help those poor unfortunates, and rushing blindly in would get them killed. There had been one barrier, and there might be more. There might be physical traps as well. Or hidden guards.

Estios, Chatterjee, and O'Connor scanned the dark with their elven eyes. Feeling inadequate, Sam tugged out his light amplification goggles and donned them. The murk lightened a little.

Estios cursed. "This fragging rattletrap distorts sound. Call the halfer and get a precise location. I want numbers of hostiles and weapons."

"What about electronic intercept?" Sam asked.

"They're busy. Remember?"

A long quavering scream punctuated Estios's question.

Sam passed Estios's request on to Willie and switched his receiver to full speaker mode.

"Two flights down in the sub-basement," she reported. "About ten meters northwest of main door. Seven druids and eight assistants present. Don't know where the rest went. All have knives. All assistants and most of the druids are packing\a151nothing heavy. Access on north and west."

"Frag it! I wish we had a picture," Estios said. "Can't be helped. Chatterjee and I will take the north approach. It'll take us a while to get into position, so the rest of you get to the west entrance and wait. Nobody moves until we go in. Got it?"

"Yes," O'Connor answered.

Sam nodded.

It wasn't until he and O'Connor were crouched just outside the entrance to their destination that Sam realized Hart was not with them. But the shattering impact of the scene before him drove all worry about her from his mind.

The chamber was huge. Great arches and porticoes extended it beyond Sam's line of sight. The floor on the east side dropped away abruptly in an embankment. An arm of the Thames had been diverted into this area. Sam noted distortion on the water surface and searched the shadows until he found Willie's spy drone, hovering near the vaulted ceiling. From the scattered piles of moldering crates, this place had once been a loading dock. In olden times it had held the hustle of honest workmen, or perhaps dishonest ones. Now it hosted workmen of an evil bent. Its stone walls range with the screams of their tortured victims, scattering the echoes into an infinity of agony.

The druids were gathered in a cleared area about five meters south of the west entrance. Magefire lit their work, providing enough light for Sam's goggles. Far too much light. He had no need to see them slicing flesh from the victims who remained alive. They were moving briskly; there already were three skeletons on the dank floor.

"This one is diseased," Carstairs announced as if observing the color of a house.

"Dispose of the affected parts. Such flesh is unsuitable," Hyde-White told him.

Carstairs nodded. The golden sickle in his hand rose and fell. The Lord Mayor's victim shuddered and went limp, her screams abruptly cutting off as she fainted. Or died.

Sam's mouth filled with bile as he watched Carstairs hold out a severed limb to one of the assistants. The man who took it was tall, well-dressed, and almost regal-looking. He seemed pleased to be of service. He carried the arm reverently across the chamber and stopped a foot from the stairs that led down to a river landing. Throwing underarm, he pitched the limb far out into the polluted waters where it splashed softly and disappeared. The man returned to his station, oblivious to the blood on his hands.

A flicker of motion caught Sam's attention. Two men were moving in from the north entrance. Estios and Chatterjee. Sam watched them crouch in the lee of a pillar and begin a mystical centering process. He turned his attention to the druids, drawing a bead on Glover. He was not happy to see the pectoral of the archdruid on the man's chest.

Estios and Chatterjee unleashed a brace of fireballs. Mystic energy exploded on either flank of the druids' gathering, flinging flaming men and women in all directions. Sam saw Carstairs go down.

At the sudden violence, Sam flinched involuntarily, but his target reacted better. Glover's body flared with a defensive spell as he ducked for cover. "Hanson," he shouted. "Protect me." Sam lost his clear shot as the big acolyte stepped between him and Glover. Just delaying the inevitable, Glover. He shot Hanson, but the man didn't go down. Another dose of the Lethe tranquillizer might overload his system and kill him, but given the man's involvement in the druids' affairs, Sam didn't care. He fired again. Hanson staggered, but still didn't go down. He showed no sign that the drug was having any effect at all. Sam emptied the rest of his clip into Hanson, rapidly reloading as the man stumbled forward.

By Sam's side O'Connor opened fire, raking the crowd with her H amp;K G12. Sam watched her hose down a group clustered around Hyde-White. His protective flunkies fell like mown wheat. The fat old druid sagged as O'Connor's slugs reached him. He joined his followers on the cold, damp stone.

Taking down half of the Circle's numbers wasn't enough to stop the fight. The enemy had split up, scattering around the chamber in search of protected firing positions. Fortunately, the enemy's actions remained uncoordinated. Better still, they were indecisive. That was good; the druids probably didn't realize that they had the runners outnumbered, outgunned, and outmagicked. The imbalance of magicians was what worried Sam the most. Flashes and bursts of sound and smell from the far side of the chamber raised his worry to fear as Estios and Chatterjee came under magical attack. Their defenses and luck were holding, though, and the sharp buzzsaw sound of their G12s made it clear that they were still functional.

A throbbing moan announced the arrival of the runners' equalizer, Willie's combat drone. Unlike the smaller spy drone, this machine was armed and armored. It was also far from quiet; only the sound of the combat had allowed it to approach undetected. But it was here now and odds shifted more in the runners' favor. The drone's high-tech nature made it largely immune to magic, and its firepower alone was probably more than the druids could deal with. Panels slid back along the cylinder's side and gun muzzles snouted forth.

Before the drone could open fire, the room was suddenly lit by an enormous flare of white light. Sam screamed as his amplification goggles overloaded, the compensators not quite quick enough to spare him from all of the burst. The shouts and howls from the druids' forces showed that the runners weren't the only ones caught unprepared for the tactic. Sam dropped to the floor and ripped the goggles free. He rubbed at his eyes as if he could scrub the whirling spots of color away. Blind, he was helpless. The drone wasn't firing. Had Willie's sensors been affected too? If so, they were hosed. Several people ran by his position, but he could do nothing. He heard O'Connor's G12 fire and send slugs into the wall. Her sight was affected as well. They would have been dead now if the druids hadn't been more interested in escaping. Sam's eyesight cleared with maddening slowness.

But when he began to focus on his surroundings, he almost wished he couldn't. Some kind of dark slimy sludge was puddled near the body of an acolyte who had fallen near the open sewer. Contrary to the slope of the floor, the puddle was moving. Sparkling with an oily iridescence, the polluted surface of the river was flowing up and over the cornice. The leading edge of the slick reached the fallen woman but instead of creeping along and under her outstretched arm, it crawled up and over. Black smoke rose hissing where sludge contacted flesh and cloth, Sam saw bone where spatters of the slime had leaped ahead of the puddle's leading edge.

As the body disappeared under the advancing foulness, the slime began to bubble. A mound humped where the woman had lain, welling up into a hideously humanoid column.

Sam flashed on a warehouse in Hong Kong, remembering the thing Glover had raised there. Then, the toxic spirit had saved Sam's life, even though the result had only been incidental to saving Glover. This time, it was Sam who threatened Glover. The noxious parody of a man lurched toward him. As the slime thing rose, the remaining druids and their acolytes burst from hiding. Under cover of magical and mundane firepower, they made a concerted break for the northern entrance. Estios and Chatterjee, unable to reply to the concentration of firepower, couldn't stop them. Leaving their dead and wounded behind, the druids fled.

As soon as he had a chance, Estios fired at their retreating backs. He rose from his hiding place and shouted for the runners to follow him in pursuit. He didn't wait to see if he was obeyed. Chatterjee was hard on his heels, and O'Connor hurried to join her fellow elves. Sam hesitated, unsure of the wisdom of pell-mell pursuit into the dark; he had lost his goggles. In that moment, the thing moved between him and the northern door. Like an angry wasp, Willie's drone buzzed the slime shape, 5.56mm machine guns blazing. The drone's high velocity slugs tore through one side of the thing and out the other with no apparent effect. The thing's half-formed head swiveled to track the drone as it circled.

Willie concentrated the fire of both guns on the shape's malformed shoulder. Bullets slammed into the viscous goo, perforating the limb. The guns raked up and down, dumping a volume of fire that eliminated in-pouring slime before it could reseal the breech. The right arm that had been reaching languidly toward the drone dropped to the floor and splashed on the hard stone.

A rapid series of beeps from the drone was Willie's cheer.

Sam didn't join in. He was watching the puddles of the arm coalesce and flow into the base of the shape. Willie wouldn't be seeing it; she would be concentrating on amputating the thing's other arm.

The second limb splashed down only to trickle back to the parent mass. Willie was keeping its attention but doing no significant damage. Sam thought it would be wisest to get out as soon as he could. A bulge was beginning to develop on the monster's right shoulder. It would be restored to itself soon, and Willie's ammo supply was limited.

Sam was looking for a way past the thing when he realized that it wasn't reforming an arm. Its shoulder just continued to bulge until it began to look hunchbacked. Willie's fire gnawed at its neck, but the thicker attachment was proving more resistant to the drone's fire.

With appalling speed, a tentacle burst from the growth on the thing's shoulder, whipping out and wrapping itself around the drone. The shock and mass almost brought the machine down, but Willie revved the rotors. The blades sliced gobs from the pseudopod and the drone rose again, but it was still trapped.

The monster pumped its substance into the tentacle, becoming thinner and thinner as the portion gripping the drone bloated. It was nearly a caricature stick figure by the time the mass overcame the drone's lift capability and the machine crashed to the floor. The drone's landing gear was still retracted and the rounded lower end offered no stability. The cylinder canted sideways immediately. Guns firing wildly, the drone toppled.

With the drone down, the massive cord wrapped around its middle sagged. The walls of the tentacle relaxed, letting its toxic substance flow across the surface of the captive machine. The shining metal pitted and blackened everywhere the slime touched. A shower of sparks erupted as the first drip slithered through the open gun ports. The drone crackled with miniature lightnings, and acrid smoke billowed out through seams and service ports. A strangled machinery sound began to come from somewhere inside the drone, rising to an unbearably high pitch before suddenly cutting off. The lights which had begun flashing as soon as the drone hit the ground winked out.

The hovering spy drone's rotors cut out, and it dropped into the river with a splat.

Sam hoped the electronic feedback had only knocked Willie off line. There was no one there to jack her out if the destruction of her combat drone had caused a lethal interface loop. She might be dying alone.

He, on the other hand, was facing a messier death. He watched the slime flow and reshape itself into its hulking, humanoid shape.

Hart knew that she should have done something sooner, but she had been paralyzed by an uncharacteristic indecision. While she had dithered, the runners had set out after the Circle. Her arguments against precipitous action had been overriden by an equally uncharacteristic agreement between Dodger and Estios that they could not wait. Having those two elves backing him was all that Sam had needed.

His obsession with seeing the Circle stopped was every bit as strong as his fixation had been with bringing Haesslich to justice. But this time it was purer, more noble. It was more than just a revenge scheme. He was working against the Circle because he had been tricked into helping them with their plots. Deep down, though, he was out to stop them because they needed to be stopped. And he was right.

Maybe that was why her arguments had lacked force, why she had not found other ways to handle the problem.

When she had not been able to deflect the runners from charging in on the Circle's ritual, she had gone along. Opportunities could not always be predicted. Besides, if they had all been out of her sight, she would have had no way of keeping track of their actions, no hope of guiding them. She had still been looking for a way to short-circuit the raid when the precipitous rush into the old warehouse had begun.

The Lady would not be happy.

Hart had seen most of the druids escape the runners' attack. Given their capabilities, she had no fear that they would not escape Estios and the others, especially now that Willie's surveillance drones were neutralized. The Hidden Circle would re-form to perform their dirty magic. They were still a functional ritual group; even though they had lost members, their leaders and strongest magicians survived. Perhaps that would be enough for them to do whatever it was that the Lady expected them to do. If so, Hart's lack of action would be excusable. Except for one matter. Sam.

From beneath the cloak of her invisibility spell, she watched him scramble about the warehouse looking for a weapon. He snatched a pistol from the hand of a dead acolyte and began firing at the slime thing stalking him. His calm was commendable; he grouped his shots neatly between the dark pits that would have been eyes if the monstrosity had had a face. His shots inflicted no significant damage.

The stubbornness that made him so persistent had betrayed him. Had he faced his true nature, he would have known how to deal with this summoning. This was a thing of magic; evil and twisted magic to be sure, but magic nonetheless. Short moments ago he had seen how ineffective the combat drone's machine gun fire had been. Had he studied spirits as he should have, he would have known that the minimal firepower of a pistol could not affect it. Magic must needs be fought with magic.

It would be so easy. All she had to do was turn her back and it would be over. She wouldn't even have to do it herself. Sam would be dead and the Lady would be satisfied. Or reasonably so. Distracting or eliminating Estios's crew wouldn't be so hard. By the letter, her contract would be fulfilled.

So why didn't she? Why was her heart racing and her palms sweating? She felt her concentration slip, and the invisibility spell die.

Sam's attention flickered from his opponent to her as she appeared. She saw fear in his eyes, and when he shouted, she knew what he feared.

"Get out! I can't stop it! Save yourself!"

Could she?

She summoned energy, twisting it into the shape of her most powerful spell of banishment. She felt the thing become aware of her. If she failed, it would come for her and she, exhausted from the attempted dismissal, would be easy prey. She unleashed the first tendril of magic to bind the spirit into submission. The spirit howled astrally as the ribbon of azure energy touched it. It struggled.

She sensed a vague familiarity-a feeling of previous acquaintance\a151as contact was made, and shuddered. She had never summoned such a thing. This was a toxic spirit such as could only be summoned by a demented magician. She would have no truck with such warped evil.

Her revulsion fed her will. The second tendril wrapped the spirit, adhering more tightly than the first. The spirit struggled against the bonds. Its efforts tore the first, but Hart replaced the sundered binding with a third and fourth. The thing's attempts at escape weakened. It began to plead wordlessly, but she had no pity for such a monstrosity. She tightened her spell, squeezing the toxic spirit out of existence. What should never have been, was no more. The world spun and her vision greyed as she slumped against the wall. The sludge spirit was banished, its animating presence terminated. Sam ran to her, carefully avoiding the puddles of caustic slime that were all that remained of the thing.

Practical. Even when running on emotion. If she had been so practical… She blacked out.

Sam didn't know what kind of magic Hart had worked to destroy the sludge monster. He hadn't thought her capable of such a feat. Maybe she wasn't\a151 she had collapsed almost as soon as she had finished the spell. He hoped she was all right. He knew that it was possible for a magician to cast a spell more powerful than she normally handled, and that the price for such sudden power was almost always death.

He was relieved to find her still breathing when he arrived at her side. He crouched and felt for the pulse in her neck. It was strong; she would be all right. Thank you, he prayed. He kissed her, thankful for the grace that had allowed her to perform the rescue and more thankful that she had survived it. He felt her return his kiss and knew she had revived. "Ain't that a touching sight?" Sam froze at the voice. Hart's narrowed eyes told him that the newcomer was armed. Moving slowly and carefully so as to not alarm him, Sam straightened from his crouch and turned around.

The man who had spoken wore a trenchcoat and a battered tweed hat. Sam didn't need to see a badge to recognize him as a London Metroplex detective; the outfit was almost a trademark. If they had been any doubt one look at the square, pock-marked face would have dissolved it, for Sam recognized the man as one of the detectives they had been investigating.

The policeman held a gleaming, big-bore pistol, pointing it unwaveringly at Sam. Though not a hardware fanatic, Sam knew enough to tell that this was no tranquilizer weapon. It was a mankiller. Sam had read that British police had once gone about their ordinary business without firearms, issuing weapons only in dire circumstances, but that practice had long since been abandoned. From his stance, it was clear that this man knew how to handle this weapon.

"Let's see your sticks. On the floor and roll them."

Sam cautiously accepted Hart's credstick and rolled it and his own across the floor as ordered. The detective retrieved them without taking his eyes from his captives. With deft motions he slotted Sam's stick into a reader he fished from his coat pocket. The reader gave oif a two-tone beep after a minute. In another two minutes, it gave the same response to Hart's stick.

A second detective arrived.

"What have you got there, Delicti?"

"Two of the downsiders that were hanging around outside."

"ID?"

"Nothing real. SINs are d-code."

Dellett didn't sound surprised. Sam was only surprised at how quickly the cop's system had flagged the System Identification Numbers on their credsticks as belonging to deceased persons. The knowbots the detective had accessed were very good.

"Hey, Inspector," Dellett said. His face was lit as if he had gotten a bright idea. "Maybe we just caught ourselves the Bone Boy killers."

The inspector stepped out of the darkness. "Go help

Rogers."

Dellett slid his pistol into a concealed holster and walked jauntily over to his fellow cop. Rogers was busy divesting Carstairs's clothing of anything secreted in it. Dellett began to strip the body. Saying nothing, the inspector watched Sam watch the process. When the two detectives had Carstairs's effects bundled together, they lifted the naked body and walked it awkwardly down the stairs to the river. Sam listened to the count that preceded a heave that forced a grunt from each of them. Dellett cursed when the splash threw some sludge onto his trenchcoat.

Given the disposal of Carstairs's body in such a way that his death would look like a simple downsprawl killing, Sam knew that the policemen would not be leaving until they had eliminated all evidence of the highly-placed people who had gathered here. He expected them to perform a similar duty for HydeWhite's body, but the detectives stood talking quietly at the top of the landing. Sam was confused. Why one druid and not the other? He sought out the spot where he had seen the fat old man go down, looking for the corpse. He didn't see it. The only body approaching the druid's bulk was that of a large furry thing. The metahuman's head had been raggedly severed from its body and was nowhere to be seen. Sam had met a similar creature once before, and it had concealed its true form behind an illusion. In that encounter, Sam had learned that his astral senses could pierce the illusion, but Sam had never had a chance to assense Hyde-White. The fat old druid's appearance must have been a lie. His reversion to true form at his death was saving the corrupt cops a bit of work. There was no need to conceal the manner and location of death, since no one would know the furred metahuman had been the fat industrialist.

But cops were supposed to stop crimes, not help commit them. The whole thing had smelled when he first learned of the apparent cover-up. It stank worse now that he had encountered it personally.

"I'd heard you were incorruptable, Burnside. Guess

I heard wrong."

The inspector gave him a sharp look, and Sam knew he had made a mistake by using the inspector's name.

"Shut up, cypher," Burnside commanded.

"Don't you understand what's going on here? Do you have no idea what you're helping hide? Have you any idea how widespread the influence of this evil is?" "I said shut up. I don't need a sermon from a cypher. Just because I'm part of the system doesn't mean I'm stupid. I understand what's going on here better than you do." Burnside let his gaze slip away from Sam and survey the carnage. "You're not just a cypher; you're a Yank cypher. That means that you couldn't have the faintest idea of what's important here and why.''

Sam didn't think the English had a monopoly on knowing what was important. ' 'I understand evil when I meet it. I know it has to be stopped."

"Maybe you should understand this, cypher. What happened here tonight is unhealthy. For you. For your friends. You're going to come along with us and be our guests until I'm satisfied that you're not trouble. For your sakes, I hope you don't know too much."

' 'I think you're trying to cover this up. I think you're as dirty as they come." "Think what you want."

Sam could see that the inspector was nettled about something. Burnside was no happier about what he and his detectives were doing than Sam was. Sam suddenly thought he knew why the inspector was involved. "It's Gordon's involvement, isn't it?" "I told you to shut up, cypher." That touched a nerve. "You can't muzzle us." "Can't I?" Burnside asked. "Remember, you're cyphers. Nobody'11 miss you, or even know you're gone. You should know enough to choose your enemies carefully. If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, don't expect to see tomorrow. Keep your mouth shut, and maybe you walk away from this."

Sam decided that keeping his mouth shut was a good idea; aggravating the inspector would only make things harder. His silence seemed to mollify Burnside. The detective called Dellett over to watch the runners and went to have a conference with Rogers. Dellett leaned against the west doorway and ignored Sam and Hart. He knew they weren't going anywhere as long as he was in their way.

As soon as he felt sure that Dellett wasn't paying attention, Sam whispered to Hart, "We've got to get out of here."

"Do tell. I'm too bushed to do much."

"Can you run?"

"If I have to. But no magic." "Leave it to me. I've been wanting to show you something Herzog taught me when you weren't around."

"You sure you can do it?"

"No."

"No second chances, Sam, but you can't fly with your feet on the ground."

Sam concentrated, trying to remember the words Herzog had used for the spell. The memory was slippery, and he struggled to get it straight. ' 'Forget the words, remember the song.'' Sam stiffened. Drek, not now. Why does stress always trigger this schizoid stuff? Go away, Dog.

"It ain't the stress, it's the pattern. Sing the song, or sing for the coppers.'' I know.

"Then do it. "

Get out of my head.

"Do it," Dog's voice said in a faded musical echo.

Sam caught the tune and sang silently to himself.

The power gathered, shaping itself to the melody.

When he had the rhythm just right, Sam released it.

Angry voices drifted into the chamber from somewhere beyond the north entrance. They grew louder, as if they were approaching.

Burnside cursed and rushed for the archway. The other two policemen drew their weapons and followed. For the moment, their captives were forgotten. The spell had worked. While the detectives paid attention to the illusory voices, Sam and Hart slipped through the west entrance and away.

As soon as they hit the sidewalk, Hart started a staggering run toward the riverside.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked. "Had a boat arranged in case we got hosed. The landing is only a couple of blocks." " What about Willie?" "We'll come back for her." "She might need help now. The slime shorted her drone, and the feedback could have hurt her. Drek, it might have killed her.''

Hart looked over her shoulder as if she expected Burnside and his goons to come pelting out of the warehouse at any moment. "If she's dead, we can't help her. If she's alive, we can't help her by getting locked up. Let's get out of here."

"If she's alive and we don't help her, she might not stay that way long. The Bone Boy may not be a ghoul, but that doesn't mean there aren't any in the East End. If Willie's out cold and exposed, she's easy meat." "Sam, we…"

"I'm going after her. I can't abandon her."

Hart shook her head. "Okay. Let's go."

They ran up the street away from the river. Since she disliked operating at extended range in the plex, Sam knew that she would have parked her van somewhere close by. He and Hart started checking likely places. They found the battered panel truck in the third place they tried. It looked barely functional, more like a derelict than a working vehicle. Appearrances were deceiving; its motor and running gear were superbly maintained and its cargo area contained a multi-slot rigger board, multifrequency transceivers, trideo monitoring systems, and drone storage cells. In short, it was the rigger's camouflaged, rolling command center. Sam fidgeted while Hart disarmed the truck's protection, relaxing only when they opened the back to find Willie semi-conscious. The rigger let go her hold on awareness as soon as she realized her friends had found her. Hart gave the van a set of coordinates and told him that they were headed for a place she had used before.

They had been at Hart's safehouse for an hour before Willie responded to the drugs from her van's medical kit. When she opened her eyes her pupils were dilated, but Sam wasn't sure if it was because of the drugs or the rigger-loop feedback. Willie's words were slurred.

"What happened? Where's everybody?"

"Hart and I are here, Willie. You're going to be okay."

"Others get out?"

"Haven't heard from Estios and his crew since they took off after the druids. Nice of them to leave us with that slime thing."

Willie started to shake. Sam reached out to steady her.

"It's okay. Hart got it. It's gone, Willie."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

"I hate magic."

Me too, Sam wanted to say. He thought it more useful to stay positive. "Raid's over now. We must have done something right, we survived."

"What was that furry thing?" Willie asked.

"Looked like a sasquatch to me," Sam said.

"More likely was a wendigo," Hart opined.

"Though the two look a lot alike. Can't always tell even from the aura."

"Why do you think it was a\a151what did you call it?"

"Wendigo," Hart replied. "The flesh angle. A wendigo is a pananormal thing that eats human flesh. The Circle was probably stripping the corpses to keep it fed. Nasty business."

"Well, it's gonna be hungry for a long time now that its mouth don't connect to its stomach. I stitched the head clean off the furball."

Willie's smile stayed plastered on her face as her eyes sank closed and she began to snore.

It had been three microseconds since the activity monitor had registered data manipulation. A long time. Dodger considered the merits of opening the bubble that sealed his persona within the masked credit file he had uncovered in Glover's ATT discretionary funds. The number of manipulations the shunt bubble had passed through had been high, much higher than a legitimate or even an ordinary illegal transfer of funds. The bubble had traveled far, perhaps as far as the druids' innermost computer system. He knew he should wait longer. The operator who had called for the data he had piggybacked on might not be out of the system. Tired of waiting, he was ready for action. While it was a risk breaking out now, remaining encapsuled could be a greater one. He cancelled the program, restoring his ordinary Matrix persona and functionality. The ebon boy stretched as if awakening from sleep,

then froze. There was no swirl of glitter around him. His dazzling cloak was gone, replaced with another kind of shine. His arms were encased in gleaming metal that was articulated in the style of antique armor. More than just his arms, his entire body was armored. The construct imagery was superb, but not his style at all. Dodger hit the reformat key, but the construct remained. He tapped out a routine to alter the imagery, and still got no result. A diagnostic on the cyberdeck registered nominal, which meant that the persona construct imagery was being imposed by the host system. Such an effect required a powerful system.

A look around told him just how powerful. Most systems, even imposed imagery systems, had a hint of the electron reality about them. Even the best virtual recompositers didn't always provide a truly realistic image, and they only supplied the specific translations to their slaved deck; other users still perceived the basic interface illusion. But this place was beyond the ordinary. Had he not known that magic was impossible in the Matrix, he would have thought the landscape touched with enchantment.

All around him lay a green and pleasant land. He stood at the edge of a forest looking out on rolling hills lush with croplands and scattered copses of woods. The forest behind him, a beautiful climax system, stretched away to the horizon in either direction. It was lush and burgeoning with woodland life. The sight, sound, and smell of it filled him with wonder. If it were real…

Dodger turned away and stared once more across the open vista. He could not afford to lose himself in amazement. For the moment, the forest was only a distraction. Perhaps when he had done what needed doing and seen what needed seeing, he would comeback to explore this marvelous construct. For now, he had to be about his work.

A careful visual search revealed no signs of habitation beyond the fields. Given the imagery, he thought it likely that any datastores or other useful computer nodes would appear as man-made structures. Given the girdling forest and the lack of buildings, he felt sure that he was on the fringes of the system. He would need to get deeper to find out anything.

Obstructed somehow by the interface, his standard programs failed to move him through the architecture at a reasonable pace. He tapped keys, improvising variations in a search for a compatible set of parameters. Frustrating minutes later, he finally realized that many of his tricks were inappropriate. Passwords and subroutines here would be strongly influenced by the imagery. Symbolically, not literally, for nothing was literal in the Matrix. He suspected that many programs in this system would have strategic orientations that could only be expressed in such a way as to manifest an appropriate construct imagery. A clever, if convoluted protection system. Any decker unwilling to accept the parameters of the imposed imagery would be paralyzed. But, as he had told uncounted admirers, he was not just any decker.

His fingers flew across the keyboard, searching out the avenues of correspondence with self-contained routines. Having grasped one of the master program's constraining strategies, he was able to formulate more appropriate responses and begin to manipulate the system. Successes began to accumulate, culminating in a soft whicker. He turned to pat the destrier that stood by his side. The horse nuzzled his hand and bumped his shoulder with its snout. Like a proper steed, it was eager for adventure. He mounted the milk-white stallion and settled into the high-can tied saddle. Then they were off, the horse's alabaster mane and tail streaming back in the wind.

The destrier's stride was steady and strong. The countryside rolled past. Despite deviations into likely valleys and detours to check out farmed land, Dodger found nothing more elaborate than thatch-roofed sod huts. Such were certainly nodes, but unlikely to hold anything of import. This system's imagery pattern demanded that what was important look important. He rode on until at last he glimpsed golden spires on the distant horizon. Turning the horse's head toward the structure, he spurred the beast forward.

The destrier climbed the last rise between them and their destination as swiftly as it had climbed the first. The road they had followed for the last several apparent miles led down the gentle slope to a bridge that spanned the valley's wide river. Beyond the water, the road climbed a well-grassed knoll and disappeared through the gates of the structure Dodger sought. The magnificent castle spread over the crown of the hill and its nacreous walls shown in the sunlight. Bright pennons fluttered on the conical peaks of dozens of subsidiary towers, but the spire of the great central tower flew a single flag. There a red banner with the three golden leopards of Britain flapped boldly in the breeze.

Was this the computer system of the English crown? There was one way to find out. Dodger urged the horse forward.

The destrier's hooves thundered on the wood of the bridge, the noise of them jangling Dodger's nerves. Stealth and the roundabout way were his preferred approach. The bridge seemed to go on and on, its span stretching far further than it had appeared to do. Dodger's suspicions were only beginning to rise when the black knight appeared at the far end. The knight's midnight steed reared slightly as it began its charge.

Clattering steel and the ringing of iron-shod hooves filled Dodger's ears. Ah, a countermeasure at last. The need for action released his tension. Dodger's fingers flew across the keys of his cyberdeck, priming his attack and defensive programs and tweaking them to suit the imposed imagery. The ebon boy in the mirror-polished armor held out his gauntleted hand and a crystal lance appeared in it. A shield as reflective as his armor came into being on his left arm. He lowered his weapon into the slot on the shield, using the resting point to steady his grip as he spurred forward.

"Have at thee, Sir Ice."

The two charging chevaliers met in a crash. The black knight's weapon was longer and he struck first. Dodger felt the lance point slam into his shield. For a terrifying instant it hung, pressing him back against his saddle's cantle and threatening to unhorse him. But then the point slid free and slithered along the curve of the shield and away.

His own point slipped past the knight's shield, catching him full on the helm. The shock ran straight through the lance into Dodger's arm and threw him back into the cantle again. His point had struck cleanly and he had braced well for the shock. The knight's helm lifted from his shoulders and flew backwards to strike the bridge surface with a clarion ring.

Unmasked, the knight was revealed as an empty suit of armor. He and his destrier faded and vanished even before Dodger came abreast of them. Unimpeded, the milky stallion raced on.

On a whim, Dodger dipped his lance and speared the fallen helm. He lifted it high, allowing the lance point to pass through the eyeslit so that the helm could slide the length of the weapon. Since he had no further need for the shield, it vanished, allowing him to use his freed hand to remove the red and yellow plume from his vanquished foe's headgear. Dodger retired the attack program as well. When the lance misted to nothingness, the knight's helm volatilized into smoke and blew away.

Feeling exhilarated by his victory, Dodger affixed the plume to his own helm. A suitable token of prowess, he thought.

He slowed his destrier as he approached the gate to the castle. No sense rushing in before gauging the opposition. He expected another black knight at the very least. The castle was moated; might he face a monster?

To his surprise, nothing moved to bar his path as he started forward. The drawbridge even remained down. The inhabitants of the castle continued about their business. The gate guards even greeted him pleasantly when he drew near. He was puzzled at his acceptance until he noted the predominant color scheme of the castle's denizens. Everyone wore a favor or plume of red and yellow, if not full livery of the two colors. The plume he had snatched from the black knight's helm was red and yellow. No doubt, it was a passcode. Grinning, he guided his horse across the drawbridge and into the courtyard.

He dismounted, his horse vanishing now that it was no longer needed, but he kept a copy of its program in storage. He might need it for a getaway. The courtyard was bustling with activity, servants and craftspeople attending the multitude of tasks necessary for the running of a castle. How much was analog for computer activity and how much was simply local color he didn't know. He wandered about, looking for a way into the keep.

Long minutes of searching proved useless. Either he was missing something, or he hadn't understood the parameters. If this were a real castle, and he a real knight, all he would have to do was stop a servant and ask directions.

That, he realized, was the answer. Interrupting a working functionary would be too obvious a disruption of routine. Dodger waited until one of the many liveried folk who appeared to be messengers of some sort passed near him. He stepped into the servant's path, blocking him only long enough to learn his destination. He heard his own voice asking directions. The imposed imagery again, converting his realworld decking into apparent actions that suited the milieu.

He got into playing the game. From servant to servant he passed, each one dressed in fancier clothes than the last. He passed through the ranks of the castle's hierarchy until he faced the seneschal. Dodger was pleased. The seneschal was the keeper of the castle, the repository of all having to do with its function. He suspected that he had reached the main databank. Unlike the other constructs, this one, a beefy red-haired man wearing a furred cloak over his rich garments, spoke to him before he had said a word.

"Good day, Sir Knight. I am at your service, save you demand aid at variance with my fealty to my liege. I am Cai."

"Cai the Senescal?"

"Certes."

"As in foster brother of King Arthur?"

"That is my honor."

"And this castle is?"

"Camelot, of course."

"Of course." What else would it be? "And what is

Camelot, Good Cai?"

"Camelot is the stronghold of Arthur, my liege and the rightwise true king of all Britain. All the lands you see about you are his realm. From here he sallies forth to fight the forces of encroaching darkness with the aid of his loyal knights. The land is all."

If this was Arthur's turf, Dodger had just taken down one of his knights. Or had he? "Do his knights wear black armor?''

"The knights wear whatever they find suitable to their own nature. They are a brave and hearty lot and serve our liege well. 'Tis they who have won him the lands from which his revenues come. Had they not done so, this castle would not be so great. Arthur is well served."

"And where are these knights? I see none in the court."

"On quest at the moment. As always, the king's knights strive to enlarge his realm. Soon Arthur's loyal vassals shall win him more followers, the king's retinue shall grow, and he shall establish his rule over all the land. Then, the land shall prosper and Camelot shall come again unto the world. All of its might shall stand in service to our lord's right." "And where is the king himself?" "He sits at table, enjoying the royal entertainment."

"May I see him?"

"I regret that he sits not in open court, but you may enter the vestibule and gaze upon him, if you so wish."

"I so wish."

Cai led Dodger to the great hall. Cai was careful to remain between Dodger and the door, but Dodger could see most of the interior. It was thronged with courtiers, entertainers, and servants whose moved in a kaleidoscope of color and sound.

An elevated dais ran the width of the far end and was backed by an opulent cloth of estate. The king's throne was positioned in the center. The king stood before it, his face turned away. He was leaning on a long table that ran before the throne. Golden plates and goblets adorned the table, which was covered in brilliant white samite cloth on which had been embroidered scenes of the hunt. The king's fidgety stance suggested that he was waiting for something. A flourish of trumpets pulled Dodger's attention to the other end of the hall. Obviously, a feast was in progress, for servants were carrying a great roast beast from the kitchens. They carried their burden the length of the hall to lay it before the royal presence. As it passed by, Dodger thought that there was something odd about the animal; although it looked mostly like a pig, the roasted corpse seemed to be too long in the body. Its oddity did not bother the king. As soon as the servants set it down he took up his knife and sliced himself a portion.

Having served himself, the king sat and Dodger was able to see his face. The decker had been expecting some idealized noble visage but instead saw a very human face. That was startling enough; Matrix imagery was normally not configured that way. This system was really strange. A wisp of fear flitted across his mind. Was his own face on display?

The king's face was one Dodger had seen recently. It took him a moment to remember where: this man's picture had been among those Willie had taken of the druids' acolytes. Why was he here playing the role of King Arthur? What kind of place did he have in the system? If his was some kind of position of control, what about the druids?

The king was not the only one sitting at the table. The faces of the others were veiled in shadow, however. Were this a real court, they would have had to be great lords and high vassals to sit at the king's side. All the seated figures were as still as statues, but none of the courtiers in the hall seemed to notice. A system operations sign? Were the shadowed constructs placeholders for other members of the cabal who were not presently active in the system? "GoodCai."

"At your service, Sir Knight."

" Tis I who may perhaps be of service. To His Majesty, that is. But before I petition to enter his service, I would like to know my place lest I inadvertently offend one of the nobles of the court. Pray, tell me of the great ones. Who are the greatest of His Majesty's servants?"

Cai smiled and gestured toward the hall. Soft light from an unknown overhead source illuminated the seated figure on the king's immediate right. "Without a doubt, his enchanter stands closest to His Majesty's ear. The wizard is the king's tutor and dear to my liege's heart. Merlin is his name. He is a mighty wizard as well as a master of statecraft. 'Tis Merlin who gathered the knights of my liege's Round Table."

Dodger recognized the new face: Hyde-White the fat druid.

The light died over Merlin and the figure to the king's left was bathed in light. Cai continued. "Foremost among the knights of the hall is Lancelot."

The seated knight bore the face of Andrew Glover. Dodger's expression tightened but Cai apparently didn't notice his audience's reaction.

"He and the Orkney Knights are all the remain in the inner circle of knights, Arthur's closest confidants and staunchest defenders."

Lights played across faces. All were those Willie had tagged as druids. "All that remain?"

"Alas, some of Arthur's truest knights have recently fallen in battle. There is evil abroad in the land, foul foreign knights who would frustrate Arthur's dream and throw the land into turmoil. This must not be."

Cai's eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

"The land is all," Dodger said quickly. Cai smiled, and Dodger relaxed. He had chosen the right password to escape the intruder detection routine. For the moment, he was still safe. He didn't know for how long. The Cai program obviously had triggers near sensitive points, or a random check function on interfacing users, or both. Already Dodger had gathered a lot of information, even if it was couched in arcane form. Analysis would surely straighten some of it out.

What else could he do here that would not raise immediate alarms? What might a travelling knight be free to see? Not the defenses certainly, or the treasury.

"Cai, I have travelled a long way and seen many strange things. Have you a sage or a chronicler to whom I relate my tale?"

"Certes. Do you wish to see him?"

"Iso wish."

They turned around to find a page standing in their way.

"Sir Dodger, I bear a gift from an admirer," the young boy announced in a reedy voice.

Beware of constructs bearing gifts, a wise decker had once said. What was going on now? Was this some sort of subtle attack by the ice?

"I may not accept a gift," he said, improvising. "I have made a vow.''

"You cannot refuse," Cai said. "This page is in the service of the Lady Morgan Le Fay. None may refuse her gifts."

" 'Tis true, Sir Knight," the page concurred. "Accept the Lady's gift, given in all honor and courtesy, for she sends it with all good will. She knows of your recent victory and is impressed by your skill with the lance. She finds you worthy of reward. Please, Sir Knight."

The page held out the packet. Wishing he could think of something else to do, Dodger took the offering. When it did not discorporate his construct, lock the persona into stasis, or send him into instant brain seizure, he felt relieved. He unfolded the wrappings to reveal a jumble of computer chips, credsticks, and corporate identification cards. A quick survey showed that they all had the same codes; he held in his hands the complete Matrix record of one Samuel Verner.

"What is going on?" he asked aloud.

The page answered, obliquely. "My lady wishes as well to apologize for her lack of courtesy when last you met. She thought that this offering would please you and demonstrate her good will."

"The last time we met?" Dodger felt faint, but persona constructs don't pass out. He didn't like the way this new twist pushed against the limits of the imposed imagery.

"She comes now." The page bowed and indicated an approaching figure before vanishing as if he had never existed.

The woman wore a long, flowing dress that fit snugly to her full and fetching figure. The gown was midnight itself, swallowing all light. The skin of her throat and neck was brilliantly contrasted against the fabric. It seemed to gleam. It did gleam. Her skin was not the pale tone fashionable in the court, but a faint silver. As silver as her perfect face and delicately rounded, hairless skull.

He recognized the woman identified as Morgan and felt his loins heat up.

This is impossible!

When last they had met, she had effortlessly hijacked him through the Renraku Matrix and held him prisoner. He didn't know why; he didn't want to know. The thing calling itself Morgan Le Fay was neither decker nor system construct. Though he was not sure, he suspected it was something that should not exist; an artificially created machine intelligence, an AI, a real ghost in the machine. During his first encounter with it, the AI had presented itself to his perception as a female counterpart of his own persona construct while simultaneously displaying an entirely different image to another decker. This thing had abilities he couldn't understand. It was apparently sentient, but if its actions were any indication, it was slightly crazy. But crazy was defined by the human norm, and who could know what the norm was for an entity dwelling totally within the electron space of the Matrix? He had thought the AI confined to the Renraku Matrix.

He was obviously wrong.

Morgan Le Fay smiled warmly at him. He fled the only way he could be sure to evade her. He jacked out.

Sam didn't like Dodger's analysis one bit, but it made sense. It matched too well against the data they had gathered while Dodger was pursuing the blind shunt that had led him to the Camelot system. It fit with the police cover-up. Most of all, it explained the strange alliance of corporate and political figures who made up the Hidden Circle.

The druids were apparently operating in the interests of Gordon, Their patron wasn't the crowned king, but only barely. In the turmoil of political compromise and under the economic pressure of the corporations, Windsor-Gordon's faction had lost the bid for his affirmation as the true heir to the throne. George Edward Richard Windsor-Hanover, the other principal claimant, had been crowned instead.

Since his ascension to the throne, George Hanover had often favored corporate interests. No doubt, the European Corporate Community was pleased at having found the technical loophole that assured the superiority of Hanover's claim to Gordon's. But minor technicalities couldn't change Gordon's bloodline. His connection to the House of Windsor made him successor to the throne should George VIII and his children die without heirs. Given Gordon's strong association with the Green Party, the ECC would find him an uncooperative king. Thus, while the ECC made sure that their boy George and his family were well protected, they would not mind seeing Gordon do something to bar himself forever from the throne.

Their attitude was not universal. Gordon's bloodline was more than enough for royalists like Burnside. Whether they favored the current king or Gordon, the royalist factions had worked too hard in restoring the shattered monarchy. The last thing they wanted was to see their handiwork be swept away in a scandal. They would do whatever they could to cover up Gordon's misdeeds and polish his image as a suitable member of the royal family. The inspector and his cronies would suppress Gordon's part in the killings if they could.

The whole arrangement stank. It was a stench Sam was coming to know well, the corruption of power. Power was what it was all about. Gordon grasping for the throne and the druids of the Hidden Circle reaching to further their own interests. It was just barely

conceivable that they sought to install Gordon as king because they believed he was the rightful king. More likely, they wanted a puppet who owed them everything.

Gordon courted the druids for the power they represented. No doubt, he expected to control them once he was king. No ambitious man could ignore the power a circle of druids offered. The Hidden Circle commanded considerable magical power as well as substantial mundane power through their advantageous placement in political and corporate struc tures. So great a concentration of influence would be hard to duplicate in such a small number of British citizens.

Sam didn't know who was using whom in this arrangement, and it didn't really matter to him. They were all participating in the magical sacrifices. They were all guilty.

Justice seemed further and further away, as the runners' forces disintegrated. Two nights ago they had disrupted the druids' ritual and achieved one confirmed kill and a second probable, but it had cost them. Estios, Chatterjee, and O'Connor were still missing. Dodger was fretting and had abandoned his affectation of ornate speech. He had to be pulled away from his cyberdeck to eat, and he barely stuffed down food before jacking back in. Hart maintained that the raid on the warehouse had effectively scuttled the Circle's scheme. She insisted that there was no need to do anything else, and that it was too dangerous anyway, as the disappearance of Estios's crew showed. She refused to do any legwork or magical searches. If their sack time hadn't been full of heated apologies, Sam would have thought she had finally gotten bored with him and was anxious for a more attractive partner. Only Willie seemed to be staying on track. Her payments had vanished along with Estios, but she was still the job and sending second-rate drones anywhere she thought she might pick up a lead.

The night's arguments had wearied Sam more than the long days without enough sleep. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky from black to indigo. He rubbed at his eyes and felt their puffiness. Almost a new day and they hadn't heard anything yet. Maybe Hart was right.

"There it is," Willie announced.

Sam's stomach flopped.

"Hey, Hart," Willie called from her seat by the rigger board. "I thought you said that with the wendigo dead the Circle was out of business. Morning screamsheet's got a Bone Boy kill. One victim. Just like we never bothered them."

"Must be a copycat," Hart said sourly.

"Sweet dream, elf, but no joy. It's them, or I'm an unjacked ferrophobe. Wendigo or not, they're still on course."

"We can't let this go on," Sam said.

"What are we supposed to do about it?" Hart asked. "They know about us now. Willie can't get a drone near enough to follow even the acolytes. Dodger's off chasing who knows what. Without surprise, we won't be able to crack their security. If we try to catch them in the act again, they'll be waiting. Even if we still had Estios and his bunch, we'd only get ourselves wasted."

"We've got to do something. We can hire muscle."

"With what? We don't have the resources. Even if we had muscle, what about their magic? Those druids are pulling down some powerful mana."

"We'll get the resources," Sam insisted. "We'll find a way to cancel their magic."

"How?"

"That's a question I've got to ask too, Twist," Willie said. "I'm not gonna quit on you, but you gotta know that we ain't gonna get much help on the street. Burnside's been spreading the word that anybody who works with us, crosses him."

"He's just one cop."

"Maybe he's just one cop, but he's got a lot of hooks in the shadow world. Most runners still got to live in this plex with that one cop.''

Sam hung his head and massaged the back of his neck. After a few moments he let his hand drop. "Then we'll do it ourselves. Dodger can slice loose some of the druids' own money. With enough nuyen we can refit your drones, Willie. Cog's a good connection; he can get us combat drones."

Hart forced a hissing breath through her teeth. "Willie's firepower didn't do much against their summoning in the warehouse. The mundane approach won't work without some serious firepower. Even then, it's not sure. With preparations, and they will be prepared, they can raise stronger spirits. Lots of them."

"Then we'll need magic to take care of the spirits." Sam stared her in the eye. He willed her to put aside her negativism. They all knew it wasn't going to be easy, but they had to do the right thing. Why was she being so difficult?

"Don't look at me that way," Hart snapped. "I'm not sure I have the juice. Putting down that last one almost broke me."

Sam was disappointed. Had the dismissal of the spirit really been so hard for her? Since that night she had been so defeatist, not like herself at all. As much as he hoped that she would be by his side to face the Circle, he knew he would face them without her if he had to. The Circle and their pawn-patron Gordon had to be stopped. If she wasn't going to be there, he'd find another way.

"Herzog will help," Sam said. He tried to sound assured. "He's always said he's a master of spirits."

"He won't leave his sewers."

Hart's statement was made with utter confidence. Sam's hope sank. She had known the Gator shaman longer than he had; he feared she was right.

"Then he'll have to teach me how to handle the spirits, because I won't let those druids sacrifice another person."

Dan had not come home for days, but Janice wasn't worried. He was strong; nothing could harm him. With him gone, her lessons had perforce stopped. She had grown bored and begun to prowl the maze that made up the residence floor. It was a fascinating place, full of mementos, books, and art. There seemed to be artifacts from all seven of the continents. Many of the more curious items were magical, and those were the most fascinating. She had never dreamed that there were so many different kinds of aids for magical operations. When Dan returned, she would badger him into explaining them to her.

She had known that his corporate holdings were widespread, but her browsings in his library and databank showed her just how extensive they were. Through networks of holding companies and brokerages, he held controlling interests in more than a dozen corporations of varying sizes. GWN was the largest, but not by much. He could go to any of the world's major cities and find one of his corporate enclaves.

Her readings uncovered a curious fact. None of the heads of his corporate empire had ever met, despite a strong interweaving of business efforts. The presidents and GEOs must be very good to pull off such an arrangement, considering the disparate natures of their businesses and the spheres in which they operated. Dan must have chosen his subordinates well. Intrigued with how he had found so many loyal followers, she delved deeper.

She began to wonder if all of Dan's top corporate officers shared his metatype. Garcia and Han were both of the metatype and so were important officers of his operations on different continents. While the computer records showed all of the principal officers as norms, she knew better in at least one case. Dan himself was head of GWN despite the registered smiling face of a blond man named Doug Randall. Therefore, there was no reason to believe that the other records told the truth. The photographs accompanying annual reports could only be considered circumstantial evidence at best. Some megacorps deliberately published false pictures of their officers as a security measure.

In the beginning, Dan had said that he wanted her to join his organization. At the time she had been scared and disoriented by her change. She had thought him hypocritical for hiding his own nature within an illusion of normal humanity. She had learned otherwise, been educated in the necessity of his approach.

In her second change she had lost her self, but with his aid she was finding that self again\a151or rather, redefining it. She no longer wanted to consider herself human. Humans were petty beings full of hate and prejudice. She wanted no connection between herself and those awful creatures.

She had come to see Dan's mask as the way of survival, appreciating its necessity and adopting one of her own. Thus, she was not surprised when the bits and pieces began to fall into place, and she realized that all of the presidents and CEOs were Dan himself. There was no need for them to communicate with each other. Each knew all of the others' plans, hopes, and aspirations. Each agreed whole-heartedly. It was a wonderful joke.

She scanned the executives' pictures over and over, imagining Dan's toothy grin lurking behind each face. The collection was a wide sampling of racial and bodily types. The choices showed a clever imagination. Would he ever consent to wearing one of his masks as they made love? Most of his guises were handsome in human terms, but a few were less than appealing, especially the grossly fat Hyde-White. She wouldn't care to share her bed with that one. She finally decided that it wouldn't matter. Her astral senses were becoming so tuned that she could pierce an illusion spell almost automatically.

She hoped he would return soon. She missed him.

Hart kept her face carefully neutral. She didn't want to give anything away. Bambatu's expression was one of stern disapproval.

"You have not fulfilled your orders, Katherine. You know that the Lady will be displeased."

"But you haven't told her, have you?"

Bambatu's mouth quirked up in irritation. It spoiled his good looks.

"Are you guessing, or are you better informed than

I think?"

His question answered hers, but Hart just smiled in response to his query. Let him worry.

"The actions of the Tir elves continue to be a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Since their split from Verner's team, they have done little to harass the Hidden Circle. Burnside's efforts are keeping the elves off balance and ineifective. However, Verner is still alive. He remains a focus for the efforts against the Hidden Circle, and I expect that sooner or later the Tir elves will rejoin their efforts to his. If they do, there is a reasonable certitude that the Circle's plans will be disrupted before they can become the undeniable embarrassment to the Lord Protector that the Lady desires them to be. With minimal planning and firepower, Verner's team and the Tir elves managed to reduce the Circle's numbers. Further reductions might prove sufficient to disrupt their plans completely. The Lady no longer wishes to see the Hidden Circle die a quiet death in the shadows. She wishes to see these druids fail spectacularly, damaging the credibility of their uncorrupted brethren and drawing the House of Britain down with them."

Hart shifted uneasily. Did he know she had actually saved Sam? "I'll take care of it. I have my reputation to consider."

"You must take positive action, Katherine. Your results to date have been unsatisfactory.''

She rose to leave.

"Soon, Katherine. The Lady has a habit of discarding unworthy servants."

"Worried about your own butt?"

"I am an elf who wishes to live a long and full life."

"That makes two of us."

The first-level precautions had proved adequate; there had been no interference in the first ritual of the new cycle. Glover felt charged with energy. He wanted to call Hyde-White, but his secretary reported that the fat man still had not arrived at his office. Glover had not seen him since those wretched American runners had ruined the second cycle's closing ritual. Hyde-White might be dead, but Glover doubted it. He felt sure that the fat man's death would resonate in the Circle's ritual. Glover had felt no diminution of power; therefore, the fat man must still be alive.

He thought it unlikely that the runners had captured the fat man. Hyde-White was too powerful, too resourceful to be held captive by the inexperienced magicians in the runners' team. Perhaps Hyde-White had been injured and was lying low, while he recuperated. Careful treatment was required to restore a magician to health without harming the delicate mana pathways through which he channeled his power. If the fat man was licking his wounds in private, he would not want to be disturbed.

The Hidden Circle had lost one member to the surprise raid by the runners. But then, Carstairs had been something of a weak sister, though not as bad as Neville. Too bad the fireballs hadn't caught him instead. The simpering old fool was weak-willed despite his considerable mana-manipulatkm ability, and Glover would gladly have accepted the drop in the Circle's power. Such a power loss would only be temporary, for the rituals were raising the pool of mana which he, as archdruid, could direct.

The day of restoration approached nearer with each soul whose blood bathed the land.

Still, it would be some time until they could complete the full cycle of rituals as Hyde-White had prescribed. Until men, mosquitoes such as the American runners could continue to plague them. Perhaps something more direct should be done about them.

Glover poured himself another brandy and reseated himself before the fire to contemplate the situation.

Sam's eyes jerked open. He tried to force his muscles to relax, but they only tightened more. His shirt stuck to his sweat-soaked torso, chafing the sensitized skin. As his breathing slowed from panting to a more normal rate, he levered himself up on his elbows.

Herzog was watching him. The Gator shaman's face was shadowed by the snouted headdress he wore, but Sam didn't need to see that visage to know that it bore an expression of disgusted contempt. Herzog reverently placed his drum to one side and stood. Fetishes and power objects clattered against each other and the bone-studded vest that the shaman wore as he heaved his bulk upright.

"You returned far too soon," Herzog said.

"The Man of Light was there."

"You knew he would be. He has been there as long as Herzog has known you, Herzog does not believe you thought tonight would be different."

"I had hoped. You said that if my need was great,

I could transcend the barrier.''

"Did you really try?"

Sam rolled over to escape Herzog's stare. He was ashamed. His consciousness had fled from the Man of Light as soon as the apparition had turned its blazing eyes toward him.

"No," he whispered as he stood.

"Louder! Admit what you have done! Accept what you are! If you do not, you cannot progress. You learn nothing from Herzog. Herzog is wasting his time."

The Gator shaman stamped his foot. The slap of his bare foot against the concrete was a sharp crack of thunder in the small chamber. The echoes of the sudden noise were engulfed by the rustling of the shaman's accoutrements. The cacophony subsided, damping down into a heavy silence.

"Go away," Herzog boomed.

Sam wanted to go, but he knew he couldn't. As much as he disliked and distrusted magic, it seemed to be a permanent part of his life now. Certainly magic had its attractions and uses; it had saved his life time and again. But those magics had been spells and the use of enhanced senses, things which were relatively easy for him to accept. Spells were just manipulations of energy. The ability to see into the astral planes was a sensory ability. Natural, or rather paranatural, stuff. But now it seemed that he needed to master another aspect of magic, one that touched the supernatural. He didn't like it at all, but he knew he had to find a way to come to terms with it.

"I need you to teach me how to harness my power so that I can control spirits," he said.

"You tell Herzog that Dog speaks to you. You tell Herzog that you have seen Dog. You do not lie when you say these things, but you do not believe in Dog. You think that you have power in yourself." Herzog huffed his laugh. "Power you have. But Herzog tells you that the universe is not just man's playground. Herzog tells you that you are a chosen one. Dog is your guide. Dog himself. You must listen because Dog is you and you are Dog. Listen to Dog and not yourself, for Dog is the way of your power."

Herzog's logic made Sam's mind reel. Logic? Too rigorous a word for arguments that doubled back on themselves. "I wish you could just explain things more clearly."

"There is nothing for Herzog to explain. Dog is your totem."

"Totems aren't real. I read Isaac; they're just symbols, psychological constructs that allow a shaman to focus his personality and will. They're not true spirits or even angels. They're not reai."

"Totems are. You must believe."

Sam could see Herzog believed in his totem. Did he worship it? Many shamans seemed to do just that. Sam could not follow that creed. "I believe, all right. I believe in God, not some mystic canine archetype. I'm a Christian, not a pagan. The Lord told us not to put false gods before him. What is a totem but a false god?"

"Totems are, " Herzog said flatly.

Sam waited for Herzog to say more. He wanted to hear how the Gator shaman would defend his beliefs. But Herzog remained silent.

Frustrated, Sam took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Herzog professed Gator as his totem, yet he lived and worked powerful magic in the sewers of a great metroplex. The shamanic mindset often put restrictions on its traditional practitioners. Commonly, the magic available to a shaman was limited if he was not operating in an environment believed to be favored by the totem. Despite decades of urban legends, alligators lived in swamps, not cities. Where was the favored environment? Herzog operated in England, where there were no swamps. As far as Sam knew, the burly shaman never left the metroplex, and he rarely stirred from the tunnel complexes. Still, Herzog's magic was effective. Was that a contradiction? Or a clue?

You must believe, Herzog had said. Belief was the key to shamanic mindset. Belief also terrorized generations of urban children who had heard and believed that alligators dwelt in the sewers of their cities. Did that make Gator an urban totem? If that were the case, a totem was no more than a symbol, a way to place the mind in a receptive frame. Issac's writings had implied as much, but Sam hadn't grasped the emotional core of the concept. Now, he began to see.

"Look," he said to the implacable shaman who was still frozen in his stance of dismissal. "I understand symbols. I used to do work in the Matrix, where computer programs take on imagery to make it easier for the human mind to grasp. I can see that magic could work like that. Magical theory is full of stuff about symbols. I don't know how it works or why I picked the imagery, but I can see that Dog is a symbol that my mind has conjured to allow me to manipulate magical energies. If I need to learn other symbols to manipulate the magic imagery, teach me. I can do it. I have to do it."

Herzog simply stared at Sam.

"Herzog, I've listened to your lessons and I've learned some spells from you. I'd be happy if that was all the magic I'd need. The spells don't need this Dog construct to work. But I've seen what the druids of the Circle can do, and I know that it'll take more than spells to stop them. We need the energies of spirit constructs to fight the spirits they can call up. It smacks of devil worship but, Lord help me, if it takes spirits to fight spirits, I'll call them up."

Herzog pretended an interest in the ceiling. "Your need lends you strength."

"Show me how to use it."

The Gator shaman lowered his head and gazed at Sam out of the corner of his eye. "You accept Dog as your totem?''

Hadn't Herzog been listening? "I'll have to, won't

I? If the image of Dog as my totem is the key to using the magic, I'll talk to the damn hound. If I don't, people will die. That's something I won't let happen while I can do something about it."

"You know what Herzog tells you is true, but you do not accept." Herzog shook his head slowly and sighed. "You will fail."

"I will not!"

Sam stared Herzog in the eye. The Gator shaman's pupils were contracted despite the low light level, making more of his uncanny yellowish-green irises visible. The shaman's stare was unnerving, as much for its intensity as for its uncanniness, but Sam held his gaze fixed.

Several long minutes passed before the Gator shaman bowed his head. "Herzog will drum."

The shaman shambled back to his instrument. Sam waited until Herzog had settled down before stretching himself out on the cold floor. Sam began the exercises of relaxation, readying himself for the shamanic voyage. Lying on his back, he could smell the must in the cracks of the concrete. At least the floor wasn't wet.

"Accept Dog," Herzog said as he began to beat the drum.

"I'll use the image for all its worth." "Accept Dog," Herzog repeated. The shaman's drumming blended with his words, the music repeating the phrase over and over with increasing insistence.

Sam felt himself slipping down into trance. Closing his eyes, he let himself go. The darkness behind his eyelids shifted like a field of dark stars whizzing past a trideo starship. A brief perception of light intruded on the pure sensation of motion and he recognized the tunnel before all went dark again. The tunnel is the passage to the otherworld, Herzog had said, the way to the land of the totems.

Although he knew he was in the tunnel, Sam really couldn't see anything. There was no indication of which direction he should take. He felt lost and abandoned. Herzog had said that the tunnel would lead him; all he had to do was follow it. How did one follow something that led nowhere?

Dog is your guide, Herzog had said. Well Dog, where are you? I need guidance. Feeling remarkably silly, Sam called out. But nothing answered to Dog's name. He called again. Nothing again. He turned in place, trying to perceive some difference in the darkness. Slowly he realized that he was beginning to see the walls of the tunnel. A distant sound reached his ears, like a faraway trickle of water striking stones with a steady beat. The drumming. Herzog was helping.

A faint glow appeared almost straight down from his position. Sam stepped forward, feeling a certainty that the passageway led toward the distant light source. Though the tunnel led directly downwards, Sam had no trouble negotiating a passage. He simply floated along the gallery. Anxious to get on with it, Sam flew down the tunnel. The sooner it was done, the sooner it would be done. He sped down the passageway, the light growing ever stronger.

"All right, Dog," he called. "Here 1 come."

The light grew brighter as he traveled. The walls became visible, then washed out as the illumination increased. Light filled the passage. In the midst of the harsh brightness stood a massive figure.

Sam rebounded.

The Man of Light blazed before him, glowing bulk filling the tunnel. There was no way around the Man. Sam darted away into a side passage and almost immediately pulled up short to avoid running into the

Man of Light again as the gleaming figure suddenly flared into existence in Sam's path. Sam spun to retrace his path and was confronted again by the Man. The dying of the light behind him and its flaring as he turned had barely been noticeable. He twisted his head to look over his shoulder. It was dark. By the time he had turned his body around and taken his first step in that direction, the Man was there. Sam raised a hand to shield his eyes from the brilliance. The Man of Light laughed at him. In the Matrix, one operates by accepting the imagery and responding appropriately. If one's software was good enough, one's action was translated into a computer reality. Here in this magical realm, Sam was faced with a terrifying obstacle. He wanted to run and hide, but he knew the results of that response. There had to be another way.

When one ran into trouble in the real world, one yelled for help. Would that work here? "Dog!" Sam shouted. "Help me! Where are you?" Sam was relieved, surprised, and a little frightened when he got a response.

"Here, boy." Dog's voice was faint, as if the words were muffled by an intervening door.

"Where?" Sam asked. He could see nothing through the burning radiance of the Man of Light.

"Here," Dog answered.

"I can't see you."

"But I'm still here."

"If you're here, you can help. Come to me. I need i your power.''

["Come yourself. What do you think I am? A cocker spaniel looking for a handout? If you want power, you come and get it. You'll have to take matters into your own hands." "How?"

"That's your problem. I've got more than enough to share, but you haven't been very nice to me lately."

Lord above! Was that how magic worked? Did one have to bargain with one's own psychological constructs? Sam began to think that maybe he was crazy. Holding conversations with yourself was a sure sign that a chip wasn't seated right. Symbolic imagery, he told himself. Fighting the constraints of the imagery would only make it harder to manipulate the energy. Lacking any idea of what to offer, he said, "I'll be better."

"Promises, promises. I've heard it all before. You want it, come and get it."

"Frag it! How do I get to you? The Man blocks the way.''

"That he does. You're a man, too. But then, not all men are men and sometimes you've got to solve problems mono a mono, eh?" Dog was silent for a moment, leaving Sam puzzled and frustrated. When the totem's voice returned, it was fainter. Sam had to strain to make out the next words. "I understood that you felt a certain amount of time pressure. Get a move on. I may have four, but two legs are enough to run on."

"Dog, what are you talking about?"

There was no answer.

"Dog? Dog!"

Sam was alone again, save for the Man of Light.

Holding a hand before his face, Sam tried to see through the glare. The looming shape of the Man was indistinct, his outline blurred by heat haze. He was white as if burning brightly. Sam had no doubt that the Man was the source of the heat he felt.

Well, Sam had dealt with heat and flames before. He shuddered at the memories of Haesslich's toothy head rearing back. Sam had been sure he was going to die that night. He hadn't because Dog's song had aved him. The song had been a protective spell which had saved Sam from the dragon's flaming weath.

Confronted by another blazing threat, Sam began to ing the song. Confident in its power, he stepped for ard. Even if the Man didn't evaporate, Sam felt sure e fire would be no threat.

At first, his confidence seemed justified. Sam aproached the Man with no increase in discomfort. He seated a lot, but that could have been nerves as easily t heat. The Man seemed to radiate an aura of fearful enace.

The Man stepped into Sam's path.

"Stop," he said.

Sam was astonished. "You can speak!"

"In your mind."

If Sam's evaluation of the process of magic was Direct, the whole experience was in his mind. Subctive or objective, time was passing. Sam straightted his carriage, trying to nullify the creeping sense 'peril that clawed its way up his spine. "Let me BS."

'No."

Sam tried to step around the Man. A arm that felt irred in fire smashed into his chest and knocked him ckwards. He landed butt first and then sprawled to un his head painfully against the floor of the pasgeway. Dazed, he stood again. He had to get around i Man of Light.; "You shall not pass," the Man said. f "I must," Sam insisted. Did one of his teeth feel

Jose? "Get out of my way."!"I oppose you because you hunt me and mine. cave us in peace and I shall not trouble you. She is

no longer part of your world. Return to Seattle and brget all you have learned here in England. It will be etter for all."

"Better for you, you mean." "Yes. But for you also. I have been lenient. Trouble me further and I shall show no mercy.'' "Mercy? What mercy? I've seen your crimes." The Man laughed. The sound was loud, almost painful. "You have no idea what you have seen. You are a foolish norm who seeks to meddle in affairs that are not his own. You are manipulated by other forces and you can't even see them. How could you perceive what I am or what I have done? Tell me, little norm. Do you remember your woman in Seattle? What would she say about your little arrangement with Katherine Hart? Your affair is an infidelity by her rules as well as yours. And you can't even remember when it started, can you?"

Sam started to protest that his feelings for Hart had grown naturally and that she had responded just as naturally, but he suddenly realized that he couldn't remember when they had first expressed such feelings to each other. His feelings were strong and clear; he loved her. She was beautiful and caring and…

The Man's laughter cut into his thoughts. "Does she feel the same for you?"

"Of course!" Sam remembered the first flare of passion on the cold Solstice night they had found the druids' ritual circle empty. He remembered her eagerness and his. He remembered the heat, the Tightness. He remembered…

Remembered that the druids' circle hadn't been empty. The false memory of the empty topiary circle faded, and he saw the chalk pentacle, smudged and broken. He saw the blackened heap of ashes and the burned corpses within it. He saw the pile of debris and felt the residual wrongness of its presence. But impressed on his memories like an afterimage was the Man of Light, his burning figure encompassing and shielding the ritual circle.

The Man of Light had been there that night.

"And in your dreams since, little norm," the Man said.

Sam felt violated. When he, Hart, and Estios had attempted an astral reconnaissance of the site, they had met the Man. In a searing moment of pain, they had fallen under his sway. Somehow, the Man had altered their memories, played with their minds.

"So much for your mercy." Sam felt his stomach tighten with cold, congealing purpose. A righteous desire for justice had driven him before. More than the repugnance he felt at having been manipulated into physically aiding the druids, this raping of his mind made it very, very personal.

Was this the taste of hate?

He dropped his hand from before his face. He no longer needed to shield his eyes from the glare now that he perceived more of the nature of the Man who was not a man. The thing he had called the Man of Light no longer looked human. Its three-meter-tall body was furred with a pelt of snowy white, a complete contrast to the dark skin of its face, hands, and feet. Fangs filled the grinning mouth and a dark talon glinted sharply at the end of each of its fingers and toes. Its aura shrieked its nature as a predator in a way he didn't understand. He felt the power of the being and knew the Man of Light as a mere echo of the truth. The Man was not a real entity, but a spell entity cast in the image of its maker. Sam had been ensorcelled.

He was furious.

There was no way for Sam to know jf the spell entity spoke for itself or was a conduit for its maker. It might even be no more than a set of preprogrammed responses. But what it was seemed unimportant; what he would do about it mattered. He addressed the spell entity as if he were speaking to the caster. "I will stop you."

"You have not the power, nor will you reach the power.''

"I will."

"You will die."

"To hear Dog tell it, I already have."

The flames flickered briefly while Sam spoke, but the Man's voice was still strong. "If so, you will die again. The true death; and your soul will howl as it feeds me."

Despite the dire words of his adversary, Sam felt emboldened. Mention of the totem had triggered a change, an ever-so-slight weakening, in the Man's aura. Maybe now that he knew it for what it was, the Man was weakened. Perhaps Dog was the key, the symbol Sam needed to manipulate to cross this barrier. Dog had told Sam to run. Maybe he was supposed to do that literally, or at least as literally as one could in this never-never land of the mind. Sam squinted, trying to gauge the stance of the Man of Light, to read the readiness of his pose. The Man was tall and massive; maybe he was slow. Big things in the real world were often slow.

Sam steeled himself. The Man seemed to notice Sam's tenseness and began to shift. There was no more time for hesitation. Sam bolted forward, legs pumping. The Man shifted to block him, reaching out with a long, furred arm. Sam dove under it, hands stretched out to break his fall. His palms scraped against the floor of the tunnel and Sam scrambled faster, using all four limbs to keep moving. The Man's clawed hand crashed into the wall next to Sam's head. Sparks leapt in a spray of fire where the talons scratched furrows in the tunnel wall. Sam kept moving, pushing himself upright again and running for all he was worth.

The light expanded around him, filling his vision with an emptiness of white despair. Sam ran. There was too much at stake. Too much he had to do. Then the light and the Man were gone. The tunnel was gone as well.

Sam stood on a dirt road. He felt the soil and stones under his bare feet. A soft breeze caressed his skin. All of it. He was naked, but somehow that seemed all right. The Man of Light was nowhere to be seen or felt. Sam had escaped him. He looked around.

The texts on shamanic experiences had spoken of what the voyager experienced on the far side of the tunnel. Those accounts had led Sam to expect a pristine and vibrant wilderness. The scene that lay before him was hardly that.

There was wilderness here. He could see it on the horizon where the dark shadow of a forest lined the far hills. But the countryside nearer to hand had been transformed from its original state by the coming of man. The dirt road upon which he stood led across gentle rolling knolls, most of which were covered by well-tended cropland. Hedges lined the road and broad shade trees cast their shadow to lessen the sun's burden. Here and there, fruit trees stood in ordered rows quite unlike the irregular clumps of woods scattered about. In a dell just the other side of the first hill, the thatch-roofed buildings of a rustic village clustered around the road and a few lanes that led away from it. Smoke rose from stone chimneys and laundry hung from stretched ropes in rail-fenced enclosures, suggesting that the houses were occupied. Sam saw no people. He also looked for a church, but found none. Save for that lack, it was idyllic.

Sam had never seen anything like it outside of a historical trideo or an art gallery.

"Comfy, don't you think?"

Sam mastered his astonishment and turned to look at the canine sitting by his side. Dog grinned his doggish grin.

"I was beginning to think you were a waste of time."

"What is this place?" Sam asked.

"Here."

"I asked what, not where."

"So you did. Does it really matter?"

Sam chuckled. "Since it's all in my head, I suppose not."

Dog stood and began walking down the road away from the village.

"Am I supposed to follow you?"

"There are always choices, Samuel Verner called

Twist. Make your own."

Sam did. He started out after Dog. The totem animal began to trot, so Sam did too. Dog only ran faster. "Hey, wait up," Sam called.

With looking back, Dog replied, "I don't wait for any man, man."

Sam bit back a response, saving his breath for running. In all his years of raising and caring for canines, Sam had learned that no man, not even a boy with boundless energy, could outrun a dog; the animals always seemed to have more than enough speed to race circles around the slower humans. Sam ran as fast as he could, and to his surprise, the gap between him and Dog closed. As he drew abreast of the racing animal, Dog grinned at him. Curiously, Sam felt unwinded.

"You've got a lot to learn," Dog announced.

' 'I know.''

"That's a start."

For hours they ran and walked and talked. Along the way, Dog taught him a new song.

"That's why I wanted to talk to you alone," Sam concluded.

Hart seemed edgy, as if something about his tale of his encounter with the Man of Light bothered her. The nervous play of her fingers in her hair had increased as he told her what the Man had said. Her reaction unsettled him, eroding the confidence he had felt since he'd returned from Dog's green land. So he had edited the story and had not told her of what the Man had said about their relationship. What would she say if confronted with the Man of Light's story that their love was concocted by mind-controlling magics? Would she deny their love was forced upon them? He hoped she would, but he couldn't be sure. Even if she did profess a real love for him, would that be real or just an implanted reaction?

For a minute after he finished, she continued twisting ringlets into her errant locks. Then she tossed her head back, shaking her fashionably curled hair back into place, and gazed out over the rooftops as if searching for a response. He waited. No one would disturb them up here for a while, since Willie was sacked and Dodger still roaming the Matrix. Without looking at him, she spoke.

"Whatever your apparition was, he was a liar. Nobody is good enough to affect all three of us at once. You maybe; you're still learning. But while Estios is an ass, he is a strong mage." She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. ' 'If something raped all of our minds that easily, I don't think I'd want to face it when it wasn't busy." Hart walked away from the edge of the rooftop and sat on the rusting hulk of a climate control unit. "But I don't think that'll be a problem."

' 'Why not? Are you sure that our memories of what we found at Glover's estate are correct?"

"Yours match mine," she said, as if that were confirmation enough.

She unslung her bag and dumped its contents onto the flat surface. She unholstered her onyx-handled Crusader machine pistol, laying the weapon by her side before fishing among the haphazard pile of matte black containers she had released from her bag. She chose the largest, the one which held her Crusader's accessories in custom-fitted compartments. She snapped open the lid and removed the cleaning kit. Checking her gear was one of the ways she calmed her mind. Sam let her get the gun disassembled before he crossed the roof to continue the conversation. *'If the Man of Light wasn't what he said he was, what was he?"

Hart shrugged and continued cleaning her weapon. "Don't know. I'm not a shaman, but I've heard that some voyagers encounter a being that blocks the way to the higher planes, some kind of guardian they call the dweller. From the descriptions I Ve heard, it could look like anything, even your Man of Light. The way I figure it, this Man was the dweller\a151and the dweller, like the tunnel and the totems, is a construct, a way for a mind to wrap itself around the possibilities of magic. All those things are just symbols for a mind structured toward a mystic rather than an hermetic approach."

That was what Sam had thought before he experienced the Man's presence and before his last conversation with Dog. How could Hart be so sure? She wasn't a shaman and had never talked with Dog. More importantly, she hadn't been there and felt what he had felt. The whole thing didn't add up unless the Man was telling the truth.

Sam watched Hart wipe clean the parts of the Crusader and begin reassembling them. Her hands moved with a practiced quickness; those slim fingers, whose touch he knew so well, deftly fitted the pieces together with a precision born of long habit. Any turmoil that might be roiling her mind was submerged in the routine. To watch her was to see a professional machine that matched her reputation in every particular.

Sam knew better. In their time together he had touched a different Hart, one that yearned for tenderness and love as much as he did. She was hiding that need now, avoiding his eyes and his touch. He wished that he knew what to do, to say, but for all their intimacy, there was a lot he still didn't know about her. Then there was the doubt the Man had left in him. Her own supposition that the Man was a barrier Sam had constructed for himself made him doubt his own feelings. He wanted reassurance that what he felt was real, not planted in his mind for someone's perverted pleasure or, worse, a fantasy of his own to hide his guilt over violating Sally's trust.

' 'But if the Man of Light was a construct of my own mind, why would he claim he had altered my memories?"

"I'm a runner, not a psychologist. Maybe you were projecting your fears and frustrations onto a convenient scapegoat. I know how much you hate that shamanic mumbo-jumbo. Maybe you should just give it up. We could get out of this place; go somewhere else, where you could study hermetic magic."

"You were the one who suggested I work with Herzog in the first place."

"So maybe I was wrong. Wouldn't be the first time."

Her voice held an unfamiliar note of bitterness; it stung his heart. She had always banished his ill tempers with her sarcastic humor. Trying to use her own medicine, he laid a hand on her shoulder and quipped, "A rare confessional moment from the unequalled shadowrunner.''

"Don't push it, dogboy," she snapped, slapping away his hand.

Sam was taken aback. She was not acting like herself at all. Something was seriously wrong. The only thing he could see was that she had lost confidence in him. Confidence and more. How did shadowrunning elves brush off their no-longer-interesting paramours?

"Are you telling me now that you don't think I can cut it?"

"No, Sam," she said softly. For the first time since he began the tale of his power ritual, she met his gaze. Her bronze eyes glistened in the twilight. "I know better. You'll do all you can. That's the problem."

Instead of continuing, she dropped her head and concentrated on her weapon.

"You're not making sense," he said.

He watched her bite her lower lip. When she spoke, her voice lacked her usual resolution.

"It's too dangerous, Sam. The payback's just not there."

' 'I thought you were a hot-shot runner.''

"That's not the point and you know it. The Hidden

Circle is bad business. We were outclassed before Es tios and his people went missing." "I've got magic now and Dodger cutting a deal that'll get Willie all the combat drones she can handle.

We can do it."

"We can get ourselves all killed. The druids have resources we can't match, and we no longer have the element of surprise. If they've taken Estios or one of his people, which is highly likely, they know who we are and what we can do. They'll be ready for us. Is that what you want? Are you trying to get us all killed?"

"I'm trying to see justice done. I'm trying to see that no more innocent people die to feed some lunatics' ideas of the path to power. I'm trying to…"

"You're trying to get yourself killed," she said bitterly.

"I don't want to die, Katherine. But I can't let those druids go on with what they are doing."

"It's not worth it, Sam."

She finished reassembling the Crusader. He heard the soft click of plastic as she sought the magazine. Sam took her by the shoulders, but she wouldn't look him in the eyes. He felt the movement in her arms as she loaded her weapon. The job was done and offered no more distraction. Only then did she meet his gaze.

"Are you asking me to run away, Katherine?"

"Would you if I did?"

"You know the answer to that."

"Yes, I do."

He felt her tense and looked down to see the Crusader pointed at his belly.

"I'm sorry, Sam," she said.

Sam threw himself violently to his left. He felt the bullet snag his long coat. The smell of propellant harsh and accusatory in his nostrils, he vaulted over the climate control unit onto a lower level of the roof. He ran toward a workshed that offered safety only a few meters away. Her second shot gouged the wall of the shed as he reached it. Sharp fragments of brick spattered into his cheek. He threw himself forward and down, hoping that the sudden maneuver would spoil her aim as he tried to get out of her line of fire. It was a vain hope. His body twisted as he felt a slug slam into his shoulder. Striking the rooftop out of control, he scraped more skin from his already lacerated cheek. He tried to push himself up, but the muscles of his arms failed and he collapsed. His injured arm was numb and cold. He managed to roll over onto his back as she approached him, gun held ready. Her eyes were sad, but her jaw was clenched with determination.

Feeling betrayed, he blacked out.