Night's Pawn (3 page)

She snorted. "What would you know? I've spoken with Lofwyr; he is very direct, very aware and concerned…" A dark shape moved somewhere beyond the shield. She let her words trail off and watched it circle the room. The time had come.

"I don't run Der Nachtmachen, Shavan. A friend of mine does. A friend who's also very concerned about who has influence where. And he doesn't want his brother fragging around in Europe any more than he already is!"

They both moved. Alexander's hands slammed together and he pumped every drop of his will into a shatter-shield spell. Raw astral force ripped around them, and power streamed upward out of him, tearing into the lattice of the shield. He felt tendrils of ice whip into him as she struck with her own energy. He reeled, trying to control the power arcing around him. As his mystic bolt impacted, the shield was hit hard from the outside. Unable to withstand the dual concussion, it shattered, raining prismatic energy. A giant dark form poured through the opening and past the falling shards.

Alexander felt his power slipping from him as he saw her for the last time. The dragon's astral form slammed into her, its unearthly claws tearing great, jagged rips into her spirit body. Magical energies flowed from her to dissipate harmlessly around the dragon. Alexander shuddered as her screams merged with the dragon's roar.

"Shavan, meet Alamais!" he cried out, unheard.

The world spun into red-tinged darkness, the music stopped, and he became utterly calm. Floating in darkness, he smiled. He would survive, the dragon would see to it. A new road was opened before him.

Dosvidanya
, my past, he thought. You are behind me now.

PART 1

MANHATTAN, 2053

Shadowrun
n
. Any movement action, or series of such made to carry out illegal or quasi-legal operations.

—Worldwide WordWatch, 2053 edition

1

It took a careful, knowing eye to perceive the subtle changes in the shades of the black plasticrete rushing below the aircraft's landing gear. Except for Jason Chase, who forced himself to watch, the pilot was the only other person who noticed. Feeling her craft pass safely over the spot, she offered a silent prayer of thanks. Though the scars had long been covered over, Chase could see them as as he had in the days after the accident. There was one long, jagged fault, one hundred meters or so in length, and a second one running parallel. That one started a short distance after the first, but ended almost immediately at the point where the metal that carved it out had bent and shattered.

The orbital bounced twice, finally touching the black. Chase leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, as the braking jets fired and struggled to bring the sleek craft to a safe stop. Feeling the pressure ease, he unplugged his data cable from the seat's system jack and then from the datajack set behind and below his right ear. The cable, remembering its unpowered shape, wrapped itself into a neat coil that Chase dropped into his pocket.

Calling up the time display on his retina, he adjusted it for Manhattan time, and sighed. Twenty minutes late. Chase, personally, didn't mind being late, but Eric Sieboldt did. And he was still Eric Sieboldt, for at least another hour or so.

The jetway was already in place by the time he'd gotten his carryon bag together. He was one of the last off, winning a smile from a flight attendant as he passed. She was attractive in the old natural way. He spotted no sign of alteration, neither in her slim but shapely body, nor in the color of her shoulder-length, ash-blond hair, nor in the gentle shape of her face and the unforgettable blue of the eyes. And she was young, enough so that he was aware of it. Because she'd been so attentive during the flight, he decided not to inflict Eric Sieboldt on her. He smiled back.

Once in the terminal, he detoured from the surge of people moving toward the baggage claim, in search of the nearest information desk. It took but a moment to locate one of the token, manned desks most airlines had somewhere in the terminal. This woman also smiled as he approached, but he saw the battle-hardened steel behind the veneer and prepared for it. Eric Sieboldt complained loudly, and often. The records said so.

She nodded vacantly, all wide smile and rehearsed charm as he raved and she typed. The woman apologized, pointing out that the flight's delay was due to local conditions at their origin point, Damascus. That put the delay under the "Act of God" clause of his arrival insurance and precluded compensation, but the airline would happily provide him with a free drink upgrade on his next flight. Chase almost laughed, but Sieboldt didn't see the humor and managed to thank the woman curtly as he turned on his heel.

The maglev ride to the baggage concourse was short, but surrounded by the flicker of myriad holographic color advertisements and filled with the scents of a hundred different perfumes and colognes. No one spoke. Few looked at anything other than some reading screen, one of the ads, or some undefined spot on the car wall. All wore custom, corporate-cut suits of one style or another, except for one leather-clad joker-boy who stood with his back against the doors, arms folded, grinning at anyone who would meet his gaze. The joker was out of place, knew it, and wanted to have fun. Chase looked down and held back his grin: twenty-five years ago he might have behaved the same way.

Resealed and sporting a bright white clearance tag, Chase's bag was waiting at Carousel Twenty, as the announcement had predicted. The joker-boy watched the line of fashionable bags nervously, apparently not finding what he was looking for. Picking up his case, Chase turned toward the nearby ramp to customs. As he hit the moving walkway, two bulky customs agents emerged from an unmarked doorway. Gazing idly at an ad for this year's Toyota Elite hanging in the air above him, he let the walkway carry him on while thinking about the kid. Twenty-five years ago he just might have made the same mistake.

The wait at customs was short and, remembering to be Sieboldt, he engaged in almost-polite, idle conversation with an elderly ork woman traveling with her normal-enough looking grandson. For some reason she wanted to talk about how safe transorbital air travel was. He decided not to argue the point: she hadn't seen the runway scars.

She had the manner of the naturally aged, which marked her as one of those who'd changed with the first wave of returning magic. The newer of her kind, the second and more recent generation, were all cursed with rapid aging; they reached physical maturity far ahead of their emotions and then died only barely having experienced life. That was true for the goblin races anyway; the fae races, on the other hand, the dwarfs and the elves, seemed blessed with retarded aging, even unnatural youth. Chase hoped this boy would remain human and not change at puberty. Here in the secure confines of the airport, he and his grandmother were protected from any overt racism, but the rest of the world was very different.

The customs agent didn't smile as he took the transit pass from Chase and slipped the encoded end into the reader. While it scanned, the agent reopened Chase's carryon and checked the garment bag and removed the tags. There wasn't much more than a few changes of clothing and some data chips for the datadeck in the carryon. The agent scanned the list the airline had printed on the white tags. "Do you certify that these chips contain no contraband data, Mister Sieboldt?" The agent's voice was raspy from too much city life.

"I do."

The agent nodded. "You realize that transport of contraband data across state and national lines is in violation of—"

"I said I don't have any." Chase let an edge slip into his voice. The agent glanced up at him and then over at the display of the transit pass data. He noted the residency code.

"Of course, Mister Sieboldt," he said, smiling now. "Regulations require us to mention it."

"I understand."

The agent closed the cases and attached green tags showing the state seal. "Welcome back to New York, sir. If you need any special arrangements, a transport assistant in the main concourse can help you."

"Thank you, but that won't be necessary. I assume the city express is still running?"

"Yes, sir, it is. Now, if you'd just stare at the sign on the wall behind me a moment while we update your transit-pass image," the agent said, cueing the system. Chase complied. It was normal. The sign welcomed him again to the city. He thought about the woman and her grandson.

The machine beeped and the agent handed him the pass. "Thank you, sir. If you'll just pass though the sensor gates again, you'll be on your way."

Chase took the bags, the pass, and a deep breath, then moved through the nearest gate. No alarms sounded, no lights flashed. At every airport or border crossing he always wondered, just for a moment, if the sensor gates had been upgraded without his knowledge, just waiting to reveal his secrets. So far he'd been safe. Twenty years was a long time to be safe. The day of reckoning couldn't be far off.

He moved toward the main concourse, but once clear of the customs area, veered off into an adjoining corridor. An airport page mispronounced his mother's maiden name and he laughed. He wondered how much like her this other person was. Out in front of the terminal, he hailed a cab, which he took to one of the remote parking lots. An untraceable credstick paid for a drab car he'd left parked there months ago.

Chase drove the car east on the Belt to the Cross Island Parkway, then took the Throgs Neck Bridge up into the Bronx. From there he traveled north and then west to the second span of the George Washington Bridge. On the far side he paid the twelve-dollar toll with the credstick that showed the ID to which the car was registered. Hitting the Jersey Turnpike, he went south, stopping only briefly to change into some clothes from the black nylon bag in the car's trunk. Newark Airport was only a couple of exits down the road.

Arriving there, he again parked in one of the remote lots, but this time took a shuttle bus to the airport. He'd left his good bags in the trunk and had mixed some of those clothes with the ones in the black bag. The data-deck fit neatly into an outer pocket.

Once in the airport he took the tram to the transit terminal and paid cash for the PATH ticket into Manhattan. The subway car was cold and grimy and reeked of urine, sweat, and smoke. No one wore suits. The ads were two-dimensional. He stood with his back to the car doors and grinned. The only one who met his gaze was a punker—a rat shaman wannabe from the look—festooned with far too many talismans for them to be practical. Chase nodded, but the boy looked like he wanted to spit.

Eight minutes later the subway slid into Terminal. As the passengers filed through the check station, Chase handed over a different pass and the clerk almost smiled through her Plexiglas face shield. One armed guard in black and blue Port Authority security armor rifled Chase's nylon bag, while another ran a portable scanner over him. Those Chase wasn't worried about.

"Welcome to Manhattan, Mister Carpenter," the clerk said, the microphone system clipping her words. "Good to have you back," she joked amiably.

Chase nodded. It was good to be back.

2

Security won out over society, and Chase decided to set out across Terminal toward what passed for civilization, and eventually his apartment. As he left the Port Authority building for the hustle of the city, the street drek and the humidity rushed at him together. A pair of trickers wearing half-concealed Sister's Sinister colors bounced up as he stepped out into the harsh, late-summer sun. He kept moving, but eyed them skeptically over his sunglasses.

The first, a tousled blonde with an iridescent purple undertint and a red synthleather dress that would have stopped any traffic that could have run Terminal's blockades, took his arm. "Bigs," she said, rubbing her fingertips against the palm of his hand, "odds we got the feel you want."

The other, a tall brunette with hair cropped short and eyes hidden by sunglasses, took up a position on his other side. He caught a glimpse of almost-invisible cosmetic scars just beyond the black of her glasses. The datajack nearly hidden in the shadow of her left ear gleamed of fresh chrome. He was tempted: it had been awhile.

He smiled at her, then turned back to the blonde. I'm sure you do,
kirei
, but I'm still mostly meat. I don't think I'd live."

The blonde's face formed into a silicon-perfect pout, but before she could say anything, he leaned in quickly and kissed her lightly on the lips.

"Chip truth," he said as she jumped back, eyes widening slightly. Then he reached out to grab the dark-haired girl's hand and pulled her toward him, attempting to repeat history. To his surprise she deflected and countered him, the look on her face passing from something cold and violent to what could no longer be mistaken for mindless amusement. As her left arm snapped up, he extended his own arms to block, nearly as fast. She stopped with her arm half-extended, the palm flat toward him. It was then his thoughts turned suddenly to the blonde, who was now somewhere behind him. Careless.

Chase pivoted slightly, balancing himself between the two, but clearly favoring the brunette. On the blonde's face he caught the last hints of amusement dissolving back into that perfect pout. He was alert now, and noticed that her posture, though seemingly relaxed and careless, was perfect for a hard move against him if he made any further maneuvers toward her partner.

"Ladies." He finished his pivot and ended up between them, arms lowered. "It's been wiz, but I think today's not my day for magic." He took a step back as the brunette glanced at the blonde. Obviously the more polished of the two, the blonde continued her pout, made a small tsking sound, then turned to walk away, her heels snapping smartly against the plasticrete. The brunette looked back at him once, attempted a shrug, and hurried to follow her friend.