Nosferatu

15

"It was so obvious," Michael lamented. "I was just daydreaming and it came to me. I was thinking about the one woman on the list. I just thought, hey, if all the non-mages were women, that would even up the numbers between the sexes well, almost which would be neat. Tidy."

"I don't entirely follow," Serrin admitted.

"I like things tidy. I believe the world is basically tidy, if only you can see it properly. But of course this isn't the time to discuss metaphysics." Michael was speaking so quickly that Serrin was glad the thread of his argument got lost now and again. It made it easier to pick up what mattered. But he was still waiting for the conclusion.

'Then it came to me. They're almost all men, right?"

"So?" Serrin waited.

"Then I realized these others haven't been kidnapped, but their spouses have been. They're all married. Oh, that applied to the woman too; her husband was taken eleven months ago. That's the coding digit; it's present for every case where the spouse has been kidnapped. So! Ridiculously simple. Just a decoy. One would hardly think it worth the bother, except for the fact that such a simple thing is so easy to overlook. It worked with me, after all."

"Fine. That links them together in one way. But why these people?" Serrin asked.

"Oh, that's something else. The kidnapped people aren't mages, so that doesn't do it. Indeed, we've even got a mage whose wife has been kidnapped and he hasn't been," Michael continued.

"Great. That sounds mystifying," Serrin said.

"Right. Now, let's look at this as a time series. It goes,

almost linearly, from non-elven non-mages to non-elven mages to elven mages. That tells me that these people have something else in common which must relate to this progression. Something which is more common in elf mages than in human ones, and least common of all in ordinary folks. Maybe."

"So why not go right to the best source of it? Why not go straight to the elf mages?"

"Yes, that's the interesting part. There are two possible explanations for that," Michael said smugly.

"One is that mages are too visible," he went on. "Pick off a dental technician and no one's going to go ape. Pick off a mage and people get interested. Too interested, maybe. I mean, look at us for a start." "Makes sense so far," Serrin agreed. "But that wouldn't explain why human mages go before the elves. No, we need something else for that. The answer's a negative, of course." "Don't speak in riddles," Serrin pleaded. "He means that there aren't any ordinary elves on the list," Tom said suddenly. "I seen it too."

Serrin stared at the troll. He still wasn't moving, and Serrin had taken him to be in some world of his own.

"No, don't worry. He hasn't had a vision or anything," Michael said excitedly, eager to continue with his remorseless dissection. "He means that when I showed him and explained it, it felt right to him. Now you've got my head and his heart saying we've got the answer. Can't argue with that."

"Would you mind explaining it to me, then?" Serrin asked grumpily.

"Sure. There are no ordinary elves. Whoever is conducting the kidnappings avoids taking elves. And there are no other metahumans involved. So we're dealing with something rare, something unknown outside of humanity and elves. And it's rare as hell. Otherwise, we wouldn't be going halfway round the world with this list."

"What is it? Do you know?" Serrin asked him, certain: hat Michael was about to regale him with the answer.

"It's an extremely rare allele of a blood grouping. Very " are classification. Forget OAB and Rhesus and all that

stuff. This is a one in a billion job. Well, not quite, but almost. Now, it so happens that this allele is tucked away on a chromosome segment very close to one of the major gene foci implicated in metatyping. The medical evidence suggests that the allele is incompatible with non-elven metatypes. Trolls, dwarfs, orks can't be born with it. There's a lethality effect. The fetus won't go to term.

"Every single person on this list has the RA-17 allelic form. Including you. The one unknown is Shakala. There is no medical data for him. Oh, and the Squeeze case. No data there, of course."

"So how could his kidnappers know?" The elf was beginning to take it all in, but very slowly.

"That, dear boy, is what could take us right to them. They couldn't have got the data from any available database. They must have had some direct contact. Once we know what that was, we've got a straight line to them."

"But what if they had a decker as good as you? Couldn't they have gotten the information then?" Serrin asked, his head still trying to keep up with Michael's brainstorms.

"Wouldn't do them any good. Look; Shakala has got to have the RA-17 allele. That's an obvious inference, right? All the others on the list do. But that information isn't on any available database. Hence no decker could have found it originally, when our kidnappers were building up their list of targets. It must have come from some direct source, some archive, hard copy maybe." The Englishman almost seemed to turn up his nose at the idea, as if it was a direct insult to the community of deckers generally and himself in particular.

"There is something else. Given that our kidnapper avoids elves, I'd guess that he is an elf. I don't doubt that the people abducted have been killed. He's squeamish about killing those of his own race. They're the option of last choice. The fact, by the way, that there are no ordinary elves is explained quite simply. There are no known cases of any elf with the RA-17 allele not having magical ability, not according to the medical sources I've been able to get at so far. It's postulated that RA-17 greatly increases the probability of being magically active. It fits

beautifully. Oh, and before you ask, although the RA-17 is a single allele, it only arises as a result of complex polygene forms elsewhere. Hence the rarity."

"But why are they taken alive if they're then killed?" Serrin tried to reason, ignoring the genetics.

"Because they must have value to whoever it is that's taking them," Michael said slowly. "It isn't money. It's not their genius-level intelligence either. It must be something directly to do with the allele. With the blood group."

Serrin felt slightly sick for an instant. "What are you telling me?" he managed to say. "We're dealing with a slotting vampire or something?"

"Something rather nastier than that," Michael confirmed. "I don't think garlic, Hail Mary's and hows-your-fathers can stand up to this one. In fact, if I'm right, he cannot exist. Which is why I'm waiting for Professor Richard Bruckner to call me. This should be interesting. I'll record the call and get Geraint to pass it along to one of his Oxbridge men in white coats. I don't know enough about this to verify it myself.

"In the meantime, I'll investigate the ongoing paperwork for visas to the Zulu Nation. There shouldn't be any problem. It's the lack of shots I'm worried about. You can catch any one of a tremendous range of exciting and colorful diseases in Umfolozi and we won't have much in the way of protection against them. Tom says he can deal with most things, even things he doesn't know about yet. I still want to do my homework on emergency medical care, though. It could get interesting."

He was still flying, buzzing with it all, "Kristen, you're going to have a problem in the Zulu Nation, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she said miserably. "But I'd be useful to you."

"How?" Michael asked bluntly.

"I know how to avoid button spiders the really dangerous ones. And the giant scorpions. I know which plants are safe and which aren't. I know what to buy to protect your skin against insects and to keep the bees off you if they swarm. I know what's smart to wear and what

isn't." She would have gone on, but he stopped her, smiling.

Half of it just wasn't true, and to come through she'd have to call in some favors and get a lot of help and advice really fast. But she didn't want to see these people disappear from her life as quickly as they'd entered it. And, while she hadn't been able to understand anything of what Michael had said, she had caught the word vampire and, crazily, that had excited rather than frightened her. She knew too much from the trideo and nothing about the reality of them.

"But you don't have a passport, do you?" She shook her head. "And only the basics in the way of an ID?" She nodded.

"Know any fixers who can fit you up with a good passport fast? Like, in a day?"

"Why don't we just get her a real one?" Serrin asked. "She's entitled, surely."

"Fine. And wait three weeks. Even with palm-greasing, a few days at the very least. That allows plenty of time for any interested parties to find us here and maybe even figure out what I've been doing if they have a good enough decker. We don't know what's shadowing us," Michael retorted.

"I haven't been able to find anyone yet," Serrin said, thinking of his watchers and astral surveillance.

"Which could mean that there isn't anyone only because they just haven't gotten to us yet, or else there's someone who's so good you can't see him. Either way, why sit here like a duck with a carton of orange sauce in its beak waiting for the guy with the gun?"

"Very colorfully put," Serrin said sarcastically.

"Quack," Michael grinned. "So, do you know someone, Kristen?"

"I think so," she said, "but it won't be cheap."

"Not if it's any good, it won't be," Michael replied. The telecom beeped; he went and took the call in the bedroom.

"We need to go to Umfolozi to find the other mage they tried to kidnap," Serrin told Kristen. "He may be able to help. If he knows, or saw, something, if we can

find out why they tried to take him, then we may get to the truth of who tried to kidnap me."

"I know that," she said slightly impatiently.

"How difficult will it be for you there? I just don't know about these things," Serrin mumbled.

She hissed. "Zulu people don't like Xhosa," she said angrily.

"But we're white. Won't it be worse for us?" he said, genuinely puzzled.

"Are you kidding? The OV's are the best friends the Zulus have," she said. She was really only parroting what she'd heard about the proud eastern nation and the Oranje-Vrystaat. Never having been anywhere near either of those neighboring states, never having learned any history at any school, it was only what she'd heard on the streets. But she knew about the Zulus she'd seen in Cape Town, and they liked mixed-race faces about as much as she liked having her faced rubbed in drek.

Michael half-emerged from the bedroom, the portacom clutched tightly to his ear. "Many thanks, Professor. This really does help with my dissertation. Yes, sir, I'll make sure to give Professor Malan your regards. Thank you again, sir. It's been most helpful." He flicked the off switch and threw the phone back on the bed. He smiled at having so successfully passed himself off as a Witwatersrand postgraduate.

"That's the guy who isolated the Bruckner-Langer HMHVV strain," he gloated. "Says it isn't totally impossible for a metahuman to have the strain and somehow survive. It's never been known, but theoretically it's just possible. It would depend on, um, compensatory RNA-stabilizing polygenes and something to do with the CS-cascade system in immunology." Michael, for once, looked as if he wasn't entirely sure that he'd learned something properly. To Serrin, it was almost a relief.

"So our man or our elf, to be more accurate could, just possibly, exist after all. When you have eliminated the possible, the impossible that remains is obviously the answer. It's simply a question of showing that it can happen, as Holmes would have said."

"I don't think he did say it quite like that," Serrin complained, searching out the brandy in the fake mahogany cupboard.

"Oh, box it. Just because you've got my deerstalker hat doesn't mean you can spoil all my fun," Michael mocked him. "Now all we have to do is to find our target. An elf nosferatu. Since I doubt that he lights it up in neon, we may have some way to go. Hopefully our Mr. Shakala can tell us something that will put our feet on the path.

"We should go. Back to Indra's. I can't risk my deck there, but I don't want to stay here any longer than necessary. This place is just too obvious," the Englishman concluded, beginning to lock up his case. "Take the brandy with you. I might even take a little snifter myself. I've had a good day."

He paused and gave Serrin and Tom a sly grin as he picked up the deck with a grunt. "By the way, Bruckner says that if such a creature existed, it's quite likely that he might have special requirements in the feeding department, though he couldn't be precise about the details. Now isn't that interesting?"

He was halfway out the door. Serrin took Tom by the arm as the troll made to follow him.

"You're very quiet, chummer," he said quietly. "What were you up to all day? Not a dereliction of duty, surely?"

The troll's soft brown eyes turned to him. "Just something I had to do," he said non-committally, then followed Serrin out the door.

Magellan realized far too late that they had gone. There had been no activity in the apartment during the morning and his watchers had told him nothing. Finally, he did the simple thing and changed into his uniform in the shoddy little hiding hole he'd rented for almost nothing.

Ten minutes later, a nondescript Knight Errant security man knocked at the door of Michael's Soho apartment. When a second loud knock brought no reply, the man took a wafer-thin metallic card from an inside pocket and clipped it to the side of the retinal-analyzing maglock. After a second or two, the lock registered a positive ID and the door clicked open.

He hadn't been able to disengage all the alarms; even

just the attempt to do so would have been impossible, and would have alerted security. The motion sensors detected him in the doorway and the wailing alarm howled in protest.

"Drek," he said in a voice that gave him away as an elf rather than a man. He made it to the service elevator in seconds and bypassed its deactivation with another gizmo, using it to speed down to ground level. When he got there, three large security guards had LMGs trained on the door.

"For chrissakes get up there," he yelled. "There's some fraggin' mad ork with a bomb. Says he's going to blow the top floor off. Tox, I'm outta here, man!" He ran for it. The security men were uncertain just long enough for him to get to the corner before a spray of gunfire told him they thought it would be more convenient if he halted in his tracks.

He made it to the autopark before they did and leapt onto his bike. He was away and down the ramp before they had time to shoot, which they couldn't risk doing anyway, not with the possibility of incoming traffic. He saw the barrier coming down, and the metal wedges coming up out of the road surface. He took a chance and hit the bump, crouched so low on the bike that he was able to shoot through with his head a few centimeters beneath the barrier.

As he made his way into the anonymity of downtown Manhattan traffic, Magellan was angry at himself. He'd botched it, and now the elf would know that someone was watching, after all. But he also knew the birds had flown the coop. He set his mind to figuring out how to discover where they'd gone. They might be able to change their names, but not their metatypes. Airlines had to list passengers by metatype; a plane designed for a capacity of four hundred humans couldn't get off the ground with four hundred trolls on it. One elf male, one human male, one troll male, and let's hope they didn't take some patsy along for a free trip just to make up the numbers. But it was going to take time, too much time. He didn't want Jenna to know, and he had a horrible feeling she was going to call for an on-the-spot report before too long. Time to make sure my telecom develops a problem, he thought.

Luther looked at them on the endless bank of screens. By now, the drug was in every one of them, coursing through their veins, through the blood-brain barrier. Its infiltrations would already have reached every part of their bodies.

"The orienting reflex data," Martin said appreciatively. "Entirely normal. But the voluntary element of the late OR completely flat. It looks perfect. Muller's initial data can't be faulted. This is a straight replication. It's incredible. It works for all of them. There are no racial differences."

"Show me the burn test again," Luther said simply. The video replayed before his eyes, the people withdrawing their hands from the hot iron, expressions devoid of any fear. That couldn't be faked.

"Purely reflexive. The distance of retreat is proportional only to the degree of burn damage. There isn't any emotional response at all. Look at the steroid and sympathetic outputs," Martin urged him. Flowing lines with rising and falling curves were superimposed on the film of blank faces.

"It looks right," Luther agreed. "This leaves only the scanning work. Set them up, Martin." He was fighting to control himself now. It would take at least two or three hours to conduct the sensitive NMR and PET scans of the brains of his subjects, precious time he begrudged before he could take this chemical and weave it into life. He couldn't waste effort preparing them for the scanners himself. He kept his pawns for just that kind of donkey work.