Never deal with a Dragon

44

It was mid-morning by the time they returned to Sam’s new neighborhood. Traffic was light on the streets, but the walks were moderately crowded. Kids scurried through the pedestrians, playing games that seemed to have mutating rules. Vendors hawked from their stalls and parked vehicles. A few shops were still in the process of running back their bars before opening. Groups of locals gathered around the tardy merchants and exchanged gossip as they waited. The crowd was varied enough that an Elf, an Indian, and a Caucasian walking together did not seem out of place.

Ghost grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him under the awning of a noodle stall. Dazed with exhaustion, Sam couldn’t think of a suitable complaint as Ghost and Dodger appropriated two of the stools by the counter. Not understanding, Sam took the empty stool between them.

“Trouble?” Dodger asked.

Ghost nodded. “Think so.”

The cook snarled at them to order or move on. Dodger flipped him a credstick and called for three cups of ramen. As soon as the gnarled old vendor turned back to his stove, Ghost inclined his head toward the building where Sam lived.

“Across the street, there’s a dog barking at a Dwarf.”

Sam and Dodger looked. The yelping animal was easy to spot. Standing stiff-legged, the street mutt yapped insistently at a short figure in a patched and tattered long coat. Pedestrians gave the interaction a wide berth. Finally responding, the derelict swatted a bagged bottle ineffectually at the animal, which lunged at the threatening hand and missed. The dog barked a few more times, then fled when he gray-haired heap of rags took a few scuttling steps in its direction.

“A castoff from society, broken and homeless. You have identified a true trouble of our world, Sir False Alarm.”

“The homeless don’t pack state-of-the-art weaponry.”

Sam and Dodger looked again, watching as the raggedy man returned to the sheltered hollow of a tenement’s front shop. Sam didn’t see anything, but Dodger must have.

“Mother of us all! You are right.”

“Paired Ares Predators?” Ghost asked.

“Could be. You’re the expert on ironmongery, Sir Razorguy, not I. Whatever breed they were, they were matched brace.”

“How did you spot him?” Sam asked.

“I had one of mine staked on that stoop.”

Sam beard the anger in Ghost’s voice. “And you think that…”

“The Dwarf got him. My boy wouldn’t have left voluntarily.”

Sam snatched another look. The derelict didn’t look dangerous except to one’s sense of propriety. “What do you thing he’s doing there?”

“Waiting for you, Sir Twist,” Dodger replied.

“He and his mates probably already hit the squat,” Ghost added.

“Hit the-” Sam’s stomach lurched. “Sally was supposed to be there.”

Ghost turned his bead to stare at Sam. His eyes narrowed, as razor-sharp chromed blades flicked in and out of his fingertips. It was the lack of expression on the face of the man with whom he had shared the night’s adventure that frightened Sam. The man he had trusted with his life seemed now on the verge of taking it.

Blades vanished as Ghost spun the stool and slid off, directly into the chest of Dodger. The Elf stood with his arms wide to block Ghost’s movement. Dodger folded them in around the Indian before the street samurai could slip past. The Elf had been anticipating Ghost’s maneuver.

“Discretion, Ghost. Charging in blindly won’t help her.” For a moment, the Indian seemed ready to fight Dodger, too. Then the tension went out of Ghost’s muscles and Dodger loosened his hold. “We don’t even know what happened.”

Dodger turned Ghost around, urged him back onto the stool, and sat by his side. Leaning over the counter, the Elf spoke across Ghost. “Sam, your magic can help.”

“What magic? I don’t know any spells.”

“Astral projection. You can scout the building and squat. If someone hostile is out there looking for you, they won’t expect that. Anyone who knows that you’re a magician is friendly and would just come up and talk.”

“Greerson,” Ghost whispered.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Who?” Dodger echoed.

“Greerson. Bounty-hunting Dwarf. Heard he works the ambush game.”

Dodger and Sam exchanged glances. “You know him?” Dodger asked.

Ghost shook his head. “Heard of him. Meanest halfer on the coast.”

“Well, Sir Twist, ’twould seem your demise is no longer counted a certainty in some circles. ’Twould also seem that your reconnaissance is not a convenience but a necessity. We cannot be sure that Greerson has not learned of your associates as well. Since none of us can walk invisibly past him, we must have the next best thing. Only your astral presence can slip in and let us know if our suspicions are correct. And more important, you can ascertain whether Lady Tsung is held captive in your dwelling.”

Dodger’s last argument was the clincher. If Sally were a prisoner, they would need to know everything they could to rescue her. “All right. I’ll give it a try.”

“That’s the brave knight errant.”

Sam didn’t feel like a knight. He felt more like an untrained page about to be suited up in armor and tossed into a battle without a sword. “I said I’d try, but I’m not very good at this stuff. Half of it seems to be hallucination and I’m not sure I can always tell which half is which.”

“But you will try.” To Sam’s slow nod of agreement, Dodger added, “Your best is all that you can do.”

Sam closed his eyes, trying to shut out the street sounds and concentrate. The noise wouldn’t go away, but the passage of vehicles in the roadway began to take on a rhythm. The harder he tried, the heavier his head felt. It sank down slowly only to jerk up again, jolting him from his effort. He tried again. This time, when the jerk came, he realized that he was standing. Now both his head and his whole body felt light, open, and clear, nearly floating. He opened his eyes and looked himself over. Everything seemed normal, except that all his equipment and belongings, save for his good-luck fossil tooth, looked slightly insubstantial. The tooth was as real and solid as his flesh.

He turned to say something to Dodger and Ghost and found them paying attention to the person slumped face-down over the counter-himself. Seeing that, Sam knew that he had succeeded, more fully than ever before. This time he was aware of his presence in astral space as well as knowing that his own body lay quietly awaiting his return. It was a liberating, exhilarating, profoundly disturbing realization.

For the first time, he was viewing astrally a scene that was familiar. At least he thought it was. The world around him had gone strange; colors shifted buildings appeared washed out, and people glowed starkly against the urban background.

Near at hand, the fires that lit Dodger and Ghost burned brightly but were scored with dark areas, the street samurai’s more than Elf’s. The counterman’s aura was dull with a sickly green overlay that-smelled wasn’t the right word but it was appropriate-bad.

Sam walked over to the Dwarf who had taken their attention. Approaching him, he could see the glow that overlay the tatterdemalion image and knew, he didn’t know how, that the Dwarf was healthy. His aura didn’t have the “smell” of the noodle vendor and there was no taint to the color that would have been present if the Dwarf was the substance-abuser he pretended. Even more than Ghost, this person’s glow was blotched and crisscrossed with dark, dead places- the marks, Sam realized, of extensive cybernetic enhancements.

Sam’s approach was a test of sorts to see if he really was invisible to this watcher. He stepped directly into the false derelict’s line-of-sight, but there was no reaction. Satisfied, Sam turned and crossed the street.

It was a flickering whirl of glowing people and shadow machines, flittering flashes of light from unknown sources and the sudden, fleeting presence of motion at the corners of his perception. The rapidly mounting load of sensory input drove him faster across the roadway. He fled into the building, away from the bustle of life, feeling relieved to reach the untenanted vestibule. He took a moment to steady himself before proceeding.

Not knowing how to call an astral elevator, he took the stairs, stepping though the door that his hand could not touch. After a couple of flights, he realized he could not read the signs showing each floor’s number. He could see them and feel a sense of identity, but the words were gibberish. He should have counted landings. He began to stick his head through the doors at each landing, seeking the pattern of scars and debris that marked his own floor. It only took a couple of tries.

He walked slowly to his door. Not needing the key, he stepped through the panel. The apartment had been trashed. Anything breakable was broken, anything tearable torn, and anything openable opened. What little of value he had was gone or destroyed but of Sally there was no sign.

“She never arrived,” said a voice that he recognized.

Sam turned to face the speaker. “Dog, what are you doing here?”

“Talking to you.” Dog cocked his head and gave Sam a wide canine grin.

Sam didn’t find the flip answer amusing. “I know that. I mean, why are you here?”

“You have a lot to learn.”

Not again. Sam thought. Maybe he was crazy. Tired people could hallucinate, and bad food could make for bad dreams. Maybe he had come home from the run and collapsed to sleep away his exhaustion.

He crouched in front of Dog. “I’ll wake up soon. You’ll be gone and Sally will be here. This is just a paranoid nightmare.”

“Close to the mark, Man. It’s a dream, all right, but that doesn’t make it any less real. And paranoia is good, too. Downright healthy, sometimes. Maybe you’d like to learn a Song.”

“I’ve got to be dreaming.” Sam stood up. “There’s a killer on my doorstep and two more hunting me wherever I go, I’m a stalking horse for a Dragon, and my faithful astral companion wants to teach me a lullaby.”

“Well, a lullaby’s good, but not what you need right now. I was thinking of a more powerful song.”

With that, Dog began to sing, and the next thing Sam knew, Dodger was trying to force him to drink some bitter green tea. The stuff tasted awful but he drank it, thankful for anything that was real and substantial.

“What took you so long?” the Elf asked. “Sally doesn’t take that long to do an astral recon. We thought they might have gotten your spirit.”

“I had a conversation with…” Realizing how ridiculous it would sound. Sam stopped himself. “Never mind.”

Ghost leaned into his face. “What did you learn?”

Suppressing a hysterical giggle, Sam formulated the words the Indian wanted to hear. “Someone trashed the place, but Sally wasn’t there. And you’re probably right about the Dwarf. He’s hotwired and chromed to the max.”

“Time to relocate,” Ghost announced.

As far as they could tell, the Dwarf, intent on his surveillance, never noticed the noodle vendor’s three recent customers.

Relocation meant Ghost’s turf. It also meant a little food and several hours’ sleep for the exhausted runners. When Sam came to, he was ravenous. There was more food product and he wolfed down some of it to quiet his stomach. Both Dodger and Ghost had been busy while he had slept. They had contacted Sally, who assured them she was fine and that no one had bothered her. Ghost’s tribesman who had been watching the squat had vanished and was presumed dead. That was definitely Greerson’s style, according to the word on the street confirming the Dwarf’s presence in Seattle. The mix of reassuring and unsettling news was topped off by Dodger’s report about a benefit dinner at Club Voyeur.

“So you think that Drake might be at this dinner tonight?” Sam said thoughtfully.

“Verily. ’Tis the sort of affair that attracts his paramour Nadia Mirin, and she has responded positively to the invitation. Therefore, I conclude that he will attend as well. If so, we might be able to get close and plant some electronics on him. A tracer or a snitch, perhaps.”

“I don’t care about the electronics. I want to go there. I want to see him again for myself.”

“Charging in blindly wouldn’t be very bright,” Ghost said. “It’s a fool’s errand.”

“Especially at the Club,” Dodger said gravely. “The proprietor is notoriously unforgiving about violence in his restaurant. ’Tis no place to settle matters, save by negotiation. That is, unless one has sufficient wealth to pour soothing oil on troubled waters.”

“I don’t want to talk and we’re not ready to fight. All I want to do is look,” Sam assured them.

“I thought you wanted him to think you were dead?”

“He doesn’t need to see me.”

“Pray tell, Sir Twist, just what do you have in mind?”

“Look, we’re not going to be ready to take him on until we get more data. I think that I can get us some if I just get a look at him. When I use astral projection, I can see things about people.”

“What kind of things?” Ghost asked suspiciously.

Sam didn’t know how to explain it, not really understanding it himself. “Well, people have a kind of glow to them. It’s pretty distinctive, so I might be able to learn to recognize him astrally. That could help. You know, like if he’s in disguise or something. Then there’s cyberware; it mutes the glow, damps it down, sort of. I think I could tell how much he’s been modified. That would give us an idea of what we can expect from him.”

“Sounds good,” Dodger said.

“I thought you didn’t believe in this magic stuff,” Ghost said.

“Let’s just say I’m having second thoughts.” He gave them a weak smile, adding silently, or else going completely crazy.

Sam had picked a table where he would have a good view of the one reserved for Mirin and her guest. He didn’t worry about Drake spotting him because of the special virtue of Club Voyeur. Sam’s table was in the Lower Hall, separated from the Upper Hall by a wall of the finest one-way Transparex. At Club Voyeur, the wealthy and powerful dined undisturbed by the lower classes, while simultaneously being on display for the edification of those same folk. Sam thought that only vanity and arrogance would make someone voluntarily take part in an event in the Upper Hall. Club Voyeur was a bastion of class consciousness, from the magnificent platinum salt cellar in the shape of an ancient sailing ship that lay embedded in the Transparex to the waiters, whose haughtiness could only be softened by a sufficient bribe. The food, of course, was superb.

Sam’s plan had already taken a turn for the worse. The long-range microphone concealed in his tote bag failed to penetrate the barrier between the halls. He would hear nothing of the conversations on the other side. He was not terribly disappointed, however. They would not likely say much of significance. Besides, he was relying on his eyes tonight.

Sam was well into his entree when the objects of his attention arrived. Nadia Mirin looked even better in person than she had in the society-page pictures. Attractive as she was, her beauty couldn’t keep Sam from staring at her dark-suited escort. It was Jarlath Drake, groomed and dressed to perfection, just as when Sam last saw him in a garage in the Barrens.

The moment they sat down, the maitre d’ came to their table. Sam could not hear the headwaiter’s words, but the apologetic stance and hand motions were clear. Indicating an alcove near the entrance, the maitre d’ solicitously led Drake away while a bevy of waiters instantly descended on Mirin to keep her entertained.

Drake reappeared in one of the many nooks in the multilevel lobby. Those small spaces were intended to provide privacy, screening occupants from view. But Drake had chosen one within Sam’s line-of-sight. It was a fortuitous opportunity Sam did not want to pass up. Experimentally, he directed the microphone in that direction and was gratified to pick up the words of the maitre d’.

“… gentleman has been awaiting your arrival, sir. He said he had a message to deliver to you personally and refused to leave. We, of course…”

“Leave us alone,” Drake said, cutting the headwaiter off.

“Of course, sir,” he said with a bow.

Drake stepped deeper into the alcove and leaned against the brass rail. He looked out the window at the lights of the metroplex. He would be completely out of the sight of anyone in the lobby or the Upper Hall.

The messenger who followed him in was a big, heavily muscled man who moved with the swagger of a tough who knows that he is dangerous. His chromed eye shields, button-disk cyber-ears, and strip-cut hair were Street style, in contrast to the silk suit he wore. Though cut from expensive materials, the suit was not well-tailored enough to hide the ominous bulge under the man’s left armpit. Another of Drake’s outside contractors, Sam concluded.

“Trouble, Mr. Drake,” the man said, softly as though he feared the response.

Drake sighed and continued staring out over the city. “Speak.”

The messenger was obviously disconcerted by Drake’s detached attitude. He fidgeted, reluctant to begin. Must be really bad news, Sam concluded.

“It’s Wilson,” the man began. “Some kind of inspector showed up and spooked him. He’s rabbited.”

Drake turned slowly to face the messenger. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve lost track of the doctor?”

The man became even more nervous. His eyes shifted away from Drake’s face, then back again, sliding across the stony expression and coming to rest on Drake’s collar. “Well, sort of. He’s real tricky, you know. He-”

The man’s words broke off as Drake’s hand shot out and took him by the throat. He lifted the man, rapidly purpling, off his feet. The man’s hands beat against Drake’s arm and his feet kicked ineffectually. Calmly, showing no strain from the exertion of holding a struggling man aloft with a single hand, Drake spoke softly to him.

“You were charged with seeing that nothing happened to the doctor until I was ready to take care of him. If you have lost him, you have failed me most profoundly.”

Relaxing his grip minutely, Drake allowed the man to get a grip on the strangling arm, supporting himself enough to choke out, “It was an accident.”

It was obviously the wrong thing to say. Drake’s eyes narrowed and with a twist of his wrist, he snapped the man’s neck. The messenger coughed once, spraying blood, then went limp. Drake dropped the corpse and stood looking at it for a moment. He raised his arm and licked stray drops of blood from the sleeve of his pristine suit.

The maitre d’ returned to discover the cause of the slight commotion. He stood frozen by the sight, his aplomb shattered by the results of Drake’s sudden, lethal violence. Drake brushed past him on his way back to the dining room.

“Clean that up, please. He’s had an accident.”

Sam knew that Drake was not a man who balked at murder, but had never imagined he would dirty his own hands. Drake was more dangerous than he had thought and was obviously equipped for mayhem. Hadn’t Lofwyr said the man was more than he seemed? The murder of the messenger proved the man was obviously enhanced. Sam congratulated himself on the success of tonight’s recon. But the night wasn’t over; the time had come to see just how much cyberware Drake was packing. Sam might not be able to tell just what Drake’s enhancement did, but knowing their extent would let the runners gauge the opposition. The more of Drake’s hidden secrets they could learn, the more likely they would eventually bring him down.

Sam focused his concentration, finding the shift to astral space easier this time. He looked across the restaurant. As usual, the shifted perceptions confused him initially, and he found himself unsure of Mirin’s table. Then he found her. Her aura was strong and vibrant, making her even more beautiful. When Sam turned to her companion, he was shocked to see what sat coiled upon itself at the table by her side.

Its batlike wings were folded tightly on its back, the bathed upper joint level with the the arch of its long, sinuous neck. The wedge-shaped head had wide jaws filled with sharp teeth, and a tail with equally sharp barbs twisted around the chair where it sat. It was a miniature Dragon, its image pulsing with power and straining at a glistening constraint that restricted none of its motions but seemed to contain it in some unfamiliar way, Sam’s attention was drawn to one golden claw, resting on the table. One talon wore a ring carved in the shape of a man with too-familiar features, Jarlath Drake. So it was true that Drake was, indeed, far more than he seemed. He was not a man at all. Drake didn’t work for Haesslich; he was Haesslich!

Sam, still only a novice magician and uncomfortable with power, tumbled back into his body, retreating to the mundane senses that had served him so well. Across the restaurant, a suave, dark-haired man dined undisturbed with his lady friend.

Hadn’t there been enough dragons in his life already?

He didn’t know what to do next, but one thing was certain. He was in far over his head.