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—she had collapsed almost as soon as she had finished the spell. He hoped she was all right. He knew 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 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. He slotted Sam’s stick into a reader he fished from his coat pocket. The reader gave off 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, Dellett?”
“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 trench coat.
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 wouldn’t 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 Hyde-White’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’d encountered it personally.
“I’d heard you were incorruptible, 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 whatever 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 he 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’ll 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 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 away.”
“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 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. Appearances were deceiving; its motor and running gear were superbly maintained and its cargo area contained a multi-slot rigger board, multi-frequency 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 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.
“What happened? Where’s everybody?” Willie’s words were slurred.
“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—what did you call it?”
“Wendigo,” Hart replied. “The flesh angle. A wendigo is a paranormal 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 closed and she began to snore.