Preying for keeps

27

To his own surprise. Skater got through. Not to Lofwyr, of course, but to someone else fairly high up. She gave her name as Elschen. Despite the hair that apparently covered her from head to toe-judging from the view afforded by the telecom screen-Skater knew she was female. The blue-black body fur served as clothing and masked her breasts while hinting at the roundness only a touch would reveal. A silver amulet gleamed at her throat.

"Jack Skater," she said in a deep voice.

Skater had never talked to a sasquatch before. Especially one who worked for Lofwyr and knew his name before he gave it.

"Yes," he confirmed.

“My people have been looking for you in Seattle." The sasquatch glanced at something out of the telecom's view. "However, it appears that you are not in Seatle."

Skater tensed. Archangel was jacked into her deck, overseeing the exchange and masking their real location at The Chipped Pachyderm. But if Elschen was already certain they weren't in Seattle, her capabilities made every second count. "Why were you looking for me?"

"For the NuGene files you stole," Elschen said. She folded her hands under her jawline. Of course." Her eyes gleamed like a cat's.

"I was thinking more along the lines of making a deal," Skater replied.

"You would ask for more than your life-knowing whom you're dealing with?" She seemed amused. "You're looking for me," Skater replied.

"And you're looking for Lofwyr. Touche, Mr. Skater." Elschen leaned back in her chair. The office behind her was baroque, filled with antiquities and stained glass. "For a time, it appears that we may need each other."

"Lofwyr knows about the replacement tissue NuGene has in development?"

"He has for months. The profits from that bit of biz will be astronomical, of course. That, however, is not our main interest. NuGene and Tavis Silversiaff have become an important cog in a much larger wheel. You are merely one of the teeth." She bared her own fangs for his inspection.

Skater struggled to remain at ease on the outside. Inside, his stomach was tight and rebellious. "Maybe the cog won't turn so well without that tooth," he pointed out.

"Maybe," Elschen said. "What you must realize is that your well-being isn't something that particularly concerns us. But I was instructed that you might be useful should you turn up. Lofwyr has mentioned that controlling your presence in these matters may facilitate the success of his own designs. If that were not the case, you'd never have gotten this far." She gave a soft laugh. "How many people do you think can just call me up on the telecom?"

Skater didn't like the way the conversation was going. But he didn't have a choice. He'd hoped to be bargaining from a position of power, offering the dragon a suitable prize in exchange for their own survival. Now he was like a pauper begging for table crumbs. But when crumbs came from the dragon's table, those crumbs could represent lives and small fortunes.

"But I have."

"Yes." Elschen came closer to the screen. Her eyes were as focused as gunsights. "You're in a position to beg for a favor, and Lofwyr has his own reasons for granting it. If- you do not ask for too much. I'll send a car to bring you to Royal Hill."

As easy as that, the sasquatch had let Skater know she knew he was in Portland. A cold feeling trailed down his spine.

"Yes. You see, we already knew about your raid on NuGene. It couldn't have been anyone else." She glared at him. "If you try to run, we'll simply hunt you down."

"I'll be at the Ivanhoe," Skater said. It was a seedy motel not far from their Swan Island location. "In thirty minutes."

The sasquatch cut the connection without another word.

The rest of the team tried to talk Skater out of making the meet. But they were only half-hearted attempts. In the end, there was really no choice at all.

Lofwyr maintained a small estate on Royal Hill. Small, at least, by the standards set by its neighbors. The black Rolls Royce Phaeton limousine delivered Skater to the tall, arched front doors just slightly more than an hour and a half later. It was almost dawn.

He got out and stretched, taking time to scan his surroundings. There was no way he could escape. With all the electronic and magical security around the castle, he'd have had better luck trying to cross a moat of alligators.

Lofwyr hadn't limited himself to mere electronic security measures and the low walls encircling the estate. Things roamed the grounds, some on great leathery wings and some on taloned feet. Elschen met him at the door, dressed in nothing more than the amulet. Her body hair somehow masked her nakedness and made her all the more alluring.

"You have a weapon." She held out her hand.

Reluctantly, Skater passed the Predator across. She took it casually and held it in her hand as she ushered him in.

The first things Skater noticed about the house were the huge doorways and immense, sweeping corridors. He felt incredibly small. Elschen walking at his side, being head and shoulders taller, didn't help.

She didn't speak to him, and exuded an air that she didn't want him speaking to her.

Skater took in the house as they walked. The floor was rough and dark cement, and the lighting was dim. Though Saeder-Krupp invested heavily in cutting-edge technology, it didn't show in the surroundings. The doors were unmarked, and security cameras were nestled in clear bubbles that hung from the ceiling.

"Go ahead." Elschen said, opening one of a final pair of doors. "He's expecting you."

Skater moved into the antechamber beyond the doors. His heels clicked on the concrete surface, ringing hollowly in the vast space the room contained. He was alone, and not another sound was in the house.

The walls held paintings that were both priceless and emotionally powerful. Sculptures of equal potency sat on stands and in niches in the walls beneath the paintings.

"Skater."

The dry, raspy voice formed in his mind, feeling like sandpaper next to his brain. He turned and stared down the long room.

A man suddenly stood at the other end next to a banquet table that must have stretched at least twenty meters. Candlesticks and flowers decorated the length of the polished wood. The man was almost two and a half meters tall, but the dark pinstriped silk suit fit him perfectly. Though troll-sized, he was perfectly proportioned. His bronze-colored hair was gathered behind him in a ponytail that went down his back. His features looked chiseled, but smooth and robust. He wore black wraparound sunglasses.

"I am Lofwyr," he said in that awesome silent voice of his.

Skater noticed that his lips never moved.

"I do not have much time. There are other matters that require my attention. I've freed this hour for you. Do not waste it.”

The words were pure, naked threat. Skater had to steel his knees as he approached the dragon. He'd heard they could assume human as well as other forms; he'd just never expected to see it for himself. Quickly, aware of the tightness in his voice that he couldn't quite shake, he recounted the events of the last couple days.

"It appears that you've been someone's pawn in this game so far," Lofwyr said when he finished. "Now you wish to be mine."

Skater almost disagreed. He was there to become his own force in the scheme of things, leveraging himself in to get a shot at a profit and revenge. But looking at the dragon's cool, human facade, he knew that while he might have come to Lofwyr with that in mind, becoming a pawn in whatever game the dragon was playing was the best he could hope for. He answered in a small voice. "Yes."

"Elschen," Lofwyr said, "bring up the stock quotes."

Skater knew the dragon had intentionally allowed him to hear the conversation. A section of the inlaid wooden wall to his left separated and revealed a computer screen. In seconds, stock quotes were pulsing across it.

"Interesting. I hadn't thought Silverstaff would become vulnerable so quickly."

"I don't think he's aware of how exposed he's about to become," Skater said. He had to force himself to speak. The dragon's presence and the sheer power that surrounded him were almost overwhelming.

"Nor do I." Lofwyr eyed him speculatively from behind the dark glasses. "What is it you wish to accomplish here, human?"

"I want to get my team and myself out of Portland alive," Skater said, and as he said it, it sounded like more than the dragon would ever agree to. "And I want some payback against the people who set us up and killed Larisa Hartsinger."

The dragon's lips twitched in amusement. "Why," he asked in that impossibly dry voice, "should I care?"

"Maybe you shouldn't," Skater replied. "Bui I may be in a position to give you NuGene."

"How?"

The feeling he was covering ground the dragon had already crossed plagued Skater as he tried to talk. He was tense and frightened confronting Lofwyr. Dragons didn't look at life the same as men. "We can represent your interests in Seattle on this. If it's played right, you stand to make a lot of profit over the next few days."

"Money doesn't interest me," Lofwyr stated. "It's only a marker system designed to keep track of the games I play with others."

"If that's true," Skater said, "then I've wasted your time and mine by coming here."

The dragon eyed him in cold regard. "You border on insolence."

Skater couldn't deny it, partly because it was true, and partly because his mouth had gone dry.

"Stilt, you and your team add a layer of deniability to my efforts, as well as concealment while I launch my own strikes." Lofwyr smiled. "You have promise in these matters, I'll admit that. And in my own game, your presence here could eliminate some steps I would need to take."

Skater waited, his breath tight in his chest. If the dragon hadn't wanted to use him, he'd never have been brought here in the first place.

"Besides passage from Portland," the dragon asked, "what else would you want from me?"

"A letter of credit at one of your Seattle banks. We're going to set up some straw accounts to get as much of the issued stock from ReGEN as we can. With the activity that can generate, the price should go up in hours. At the same time, we're going to release news to the trid channels that ReGEN's research has been stolen. Once that news hits, the prices will plummet again, and people will dump the shares they've bought, trying not to get stuck with them. We'll be able to buy even more of them then."

"To what end? It sounds like you're only wasting money. MY money."

"Because ReGEN stands to make a fortune on this tech," Skater said. "Someone has set them up, made it look like their research was stolen by us. But the stuff we got our hands on was no good. NuGene and Silverstaff don't know that. Right now they're living in terror that they're about to lose everything they've worked for. In order to save as much as they can, they're going into production immediately. That's why they're selling the stocks: to get the money necessary to open the Seattle office now."

"How do you know the tech hasn't been stolen by someone else and another company isn't already working on it?"

"If that was the case, NuGene would know about it. Something this big wouldn't stay a secret. Instead, they're totally concentrated on us."

"Maybe the buyer has his own reasons for keeping silent about this."

"NuGene hasn't patented this procedure yet," Skater said. "Even if they did patent it now, anyone who has the original process can change it up enough to get the same results and claim they discovered it through independent research. Someone who could pay for the tech probably also has the means to go into production immediately. If NuGene did contest the ownership, the court battle would take years to settle and be a continual drain on dividends and profits. No one would want to invest in them, meaning even less nuyen to fight back with. Their only hope is to find the people who swiped the tech, or manage to buy it back from them if at all possible."

The dragon was silent for a moment. "I agree."

"There's another facet to this," Skater said. "It could turn out that whoever really stole the tech, or at least made it look like my team did, is intending to return it to NuGene soon. In the meantime, they're going to be buying up stock as well. I have a feeling that whoever set me up, set up my friend Larisa too, and I'm going to nail him."

"For a human," the dragon said, "you're capable of delightfully nefarious thought. Your exit from Portland and the letter of credit shall be accomplished and established. Is there anything that remains?"

Skater shook his head, not daring to speak.

"You're lucky, human," Lofwyr said. "You managed to put your foot into something that I'd already had designs on. I briefly considered having you killed and returning the tech to NuGene through a third party. I need Tavis Silverstaff to appear strong to the people I'm really after, then I'll humble them. For now, though, I find you quite useful. But have a care in your machinations."

The dragon approached slowly. Skater stood his ground with difficulty. His knees wanted to tremble.

"I won't stand for being betrayed." The dragon's human face was implacable. He reached out a hand, leaving the fingers open and splayed, and stopped it only centimeters from Skater's face. "You and your kind have a saying-Never deal with a dragon. There is a history between your race and mine that you could not possibly be aware of. I would amend that wisdom: never break a deal with a dragon. The consequences can be most dire."

The hand shifted suddenly, morphing almost within an eyeblink. It became a clawed talon three times its size and covered in scales the color of golden crystal, large enough to easily engulf Skater's head. The heavy nails clacked together as they sheared through air only a skin layer or two from Skater's face.

Skater thought he was going to throw up. There was no doubt that the talons could have neatly sliced the face from his skull too fast to let the blood run had the dragon wanted. "Welcome to my game. Jack Skater, and to your small, almost insignificant part within it. Play it welt and you'll find that I can be most generous. Do not, and hope that your enemies kill you. They'll be more merciful than I. That's a promise."

The taloned claw turned back into a hand. Skater didn't feel any safer for it.

Lofwyr turned his back and walked away, a giant man striding through his kingdom. "Go now. Your needs will have been attended. Deliver what you've promised." Then he walked through a heavy wooden door and was gone.

"Oh drek. Jack," Skater said, struggling to keep from falling. The meeting had been worse than anything he'd imagined. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, scrambling for self-control. Going back to face everything in Seattle seemed impossible enough. But he knew he'd just stared death in the eye.