Night's Pawn (10 page)

"French fries," said Farraday. "Cat just loves Nuke-It Burger fries."

"You've got to be—"

Chase tightened his grip on her, considerably, and she choked back the rest. Farraday's eyes seemed bright, but they weren't focused on anything Chase or Cara could see. His head tilted and began to move in small, jerking motions.

"Ooooooohhhh," he said quietly, beginning to roll the circus ball between his hands. "Little crafty one, eh?"

Cara lifted up onto her toe tips to whisper in Chase's ear. "Is he… I mean."

"I assume so," Chase whispered back.

The shaman grinned wider. "Found you, see you, have you, little one. Come here, come here, come to play, come to stay."

The ball stopped rolling suddenly, and the light debris in the alley shifted as if a weak breeze had blown through, but none had. At least none Cara or Chase could feel. Cara gasped.

The ball began to dance about on its own, as if batted by unseen paws. It bounced into the air, fell back down again, only to be tossed back up once more. Farraday laughed. The rubber mouse squeaked. The fries were gone.

A cloud passed across the sun high over head, and its shadow filled the alley. It moved on, but a piece of the shadow remained, caught on something at Farraday's feet. It tried to stream around them and get free, but gradually form overtook it.

Two points of piercing white light turned toward Chase and watched him. Farraday reached out and carefully stroked it, his hand passing slightly into it. It moved against him, blended with his own shadow, and then re-emerged near Cara. She stepped back.

Farraday frowned. "She doesn't really like you."

"Oh?" said Chase.

"Too much poison, she says."

"Poison?"

"Uh-huh," said the shaman. He looked up and Chase could see two thin lines of sweat running down the side of his head. "Both of you."

Cara started and Chase looked at her. Her eyes were riveted on the cat woven of shadow.

"I see," said Chase. "Will that prevent it from…"

The shaman shook his head. "No. She'll do it as a favor to me. It just means that on her own terms she wouldn't have anything to do with you."

"Then, please make sure you thank her for that. I mean it."

Chase wasn't sure, but just for a moment it was almost as though he saw a smile deep in the shadow. Then, the shadow streamed away, caught and dissipated by an invisible wind.

The shaman stood up. "You are now under her protection."

Chase didn't feel anything, but nodded anyway. "What does that mean?"

"Spirits like her can do a lot. Most of it isn't direct, but let's just say that within the area of her power she can, um, make things… happen."

That didn't really answer Chase's question, but then Farraday rarely did. Chase nodded anyway. "All right. For how long?"

"Until sunset, or until you leave the borders of the city."

"Fair enough." He looked at Cara. "Ready?"

She was still close to him, but watching the ground near where the cat of shadows had vanished. She looked up and nodded.

Chase stuck out his hand toward Farraday. The shaman took it immediately. "I owe you again, my friend."

Farraday shrugged. "Two-way street, chummer. Just make sure you travel back it sometime."

Chase smiled. "I will. I promise."

The two started to walk away, but the magician's call stopped them. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Chase and Cara looked at him and then at each other. The shaman pointed down.

There at Cara's feet, sitting quietly and matching their gaze sat a small black and white cat. Her eyes reflected brilliant green in the glow of the overcast sun.

"Oh," said Chase.

Chase and Cara set off across the city on foot, the cat apparently sound asleep in Cara's arms. Farraday had recommended they stay on foot, claiming that the spirit could maintain its protection better that way. He also cautioned them against entering any buildings or traveling the subway. Apparently the city spirit's powers were limited to its domain: the streets. Cara wanted to know if the cat needed to stay near them. With a shrug Farraday had told her it was a surprise that the spirit had even bothered to take a form.

Chase was leading them toward the Terminal zone again, but he didn't plan to take any regular train out. Most of the normal exit routes were ruled out by the firepower he'd stashed in his bag before leaving his apartment. It was possible to bribe minor items through the checkpoints, but automatic weapons were a little too illegal for the police to let pass with a wink and a nod.

As they walked he kept his eyes peeled for any sign of pursuit, but saw none.

"I hope you have a plan," said Cara. She shifted the cat in her arms again to lessen the stiffness of carrying it.

"Of a sort," he said, leading her through the stalled traffic at Thirty-fourth and Broadway. The hustle and lights of the city were all around them, but no one paid them any heed. "First we get out of the city. Then we find your mother."

"Oh, good plan."

Chase grinned. "A tried and true one."

"How do we get out of the city?"

"I know someone with a registered car who lives along the Terminal wall at Thirty-fourth and Tenth. We get him to drive us."

Cara laughed. "Just like that?"

"Just like that. Manhattan security's got the train accesses pretty tight, but they tend to be a little lighter at the road checkpoints, especially considering what we'll be riding in."

Cara opened her mouth to speak, then apparently decided to wait and see.

The pearl-white Toyota Elite limousine slid gracefully out of the parking garage and up to the curb alongside Chase. Cara laughed.

"Old hat to you, I suppose," he said.

"What?"

"You must be used to riding in cars like this."

She shrugged. "Not lately."

The door on the driver's side opened and a snazzily dressed ork pried himself out. He placed his cap atop his mop of red hair and walked regally around to the other side of the car.

"Oh, please, Milo, give me a break," said Chase. This was too much.

"Nonsense, sir. For what you are paying you get the full treatment." He executed a station-perfect Japacorp bow and opened up one of the rear doors for Cara. "Ma'am," he said, motioning her inside with one hand, "I believe you will find everything is as you requested. The environmental filters were changed this morning so the air should be perfect for your ride. The bar is fully stocked, and there is a full selection of aperitifs in the cool box for your enjoyment, including some freshly prepared elaishdn with natural vanilla glaze."

Cara was halfway into the limousine, the cat hanging languidly from one hand, then stopped. She'd played along until now, her face shifting into an appropriately blasé expression, but the ork's last statement changed her look to utter bafflement. "Elaishón?" she asked.

Milo the ork shrugged. "Some kinda elven pastry. It's got strawberry filling and something else. I'm not sure. I pick them up special from a dealer uptown when a client asks. They fly them in every day from some bakery near Eureka in the elflands."

Cara smiled. "Sounds good."

The ork shook his head as she slipped into the darkened rear of the limo. "Little too tame for me," he told her.

As Chase climbed in behind Cara, the ork closed the door and went around the front of the limo. After a moment, his face appeared on one of the monitors near Cara. He himself was separated from the passenger compartment by an opaque partition. "Where to, sir?" he said.

"We've got to leave town, but by something other than the usual routes. Let's see… How about out to MacArthur?" Milo nodded and the monitor darkened.

"MacArthur?" asked Cara. The cat had curled up in her lap and apparently gone to sleep. Cara was absently petting it.

"Small airport out on Long Island," Chase told her. "Handles mostly local très chic traffic."

"Hence the limo," she said.

Chase nodded. The limo pulled out, and the ork turned uptown at the corner. He skillfully injected the oversized vehicle into traffic to the blare of only one or two horns. After just a few blocks, but a great deal of time, Milo turned west. His face reappeared on the monitor. "I'm gonna grab the Westside Highway, then head back east through one of the corp zones. Less traffic." Then he frowned as a thought struck him. "Unless that'll be a problem."

"It shouldn't be," said Chase. "Anybody who's after us may think twice about trying something in corporate territory."

The ork smiled broadly. "My thoughts exactly."

The limo moved slowly cross-town, waiting for lights at each intersection, then waiting even longer for the stream of pedestrians to clear. Finally, the car reached the western edge of Manhattan and turned northward. The drive tunneled them quickly uptown, and Milo exited just shy of Fifty-seventh Street in the shadow of the architecturally impossible, DNA-like spiral of the one-hundred-story headquarters of Prometheus Engineering. They moved past the watchful gaze of a pair of lightly armed NYPD Inc. officers and began moving east on Fifty-seventh itself. Cara strained to get a better view of the towering glass and plasticrete skyrakers surrounding them.

The monitor blinked to life again. "Church," said Milo.

Cara looked up at the screen, then over at Chase who had not responded. He was counting the number of buttons on the armrest telecom remote. "Church," she prodded.

Chase looked up, realizing they were referring to him, not the scenery. "Sorry, what?"

"Any idea what the jokers following you are driving?" asked the ork. He guided the limo around a computer-piloted tour bus, with dozens of out-of-town noses pressed against the glass.

Chase sat up and looked out the rear window. "Are driving?"

The ork nodded. "I 'spect so. As we crossed Eighth a Saab that'd been sitting in a parking garage entrance shot out and then slowed in behind us. They're about a block back."

Chase easily saw and recognized the almost nonexistent hood and bubble canopy of a black Saab Dynamit some distance behind them. Cara's pursuers? Perhaps, but already waiting uptown? His mind began to race as he tried to remember which of the megacorporations might have offices in the building over the parking garage. Fuchi Industrial Electronics' primary Manhattan office and one of their major worldwide centers was quite a distance downtown, near the island's tip. Maybe a subsidiary?

Without warning, the tour bus they'd just passed lurched violently to the left and smashed into the front fender of the Saab. The sports car tried to free its twisted nose from the bus' bumper, but the larger vehicle dragged it with single-minded determination across Fifty-seventh. The two collided with a parked Westwind 2000 and together pushed that car onto the curb. The few pedestrians jumped for cover as the tour bus continued on, dragging the Saab, then pinning it up against the Neiman Marcus and Whitton storefront to the accompaniment of a loud shower of glass and metal framework.

Cara's head had whipped around at the sound of the impact. "Jesus fraggin' Christ," she said.

"Milo, slow down a second." The limo braked and Chase strained to make out any signs of movement at the quickly receding accident. The emergency doors on the bus opened and shaken tourists began to stagger out onto the street. Other than that he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"Go on," he said. The limo increased speed and Chase began to turn away as a lone figure appeared atop the tour bus. Chase could see little of the figure, but had the decided impression that the person was watching the limo drive away.

"What happened back there?" asked Milo as he accelerated the big car to put distance between them and the wreck.

"The tour bus veered into the Saab you noticed," Chase told him.

The ork shook his head. "Hasn't been one of those in awhile."

Cara leaned toward him. "What do you mean?"

"The autopilots on those things are pretty fraggin' good. I can't remember an accident like that in a long time."

"Accident," repeated Chase quietly, looking back. The crash was blocks behind.