Who Hunts the Hunter (40 page)
Bandit lunges forward, flicking a thumb. The antique desk tumbles out of the way, banging onto its side and slamming into the wall. Phalen screams, “
NOOOOOO
!" but by then Bandit is chanting the last words of power and driving the shaft of his flute into Phalen’s body like a spear.
Phalen’s scream rises into a thunderous roaring of agony. The astral turns white—pure, brilliant dazzling white—with the life energy escaping Phalen’s body. A seething flood of orange-hued globes surges forth, once-doomed souls now free to seek their destiny, each according to its own nature.
Phalen drops to the floor, his body melting, caving in on itself, seared and congealed by the power of life.
Then comes the Roggoth’shoth, the heart of darkness, the evil. It is a black, malignant thing. Its astral form bears a vague resemblance to a twisted sort of bat-monkey with fangs and horns. It comes forth screaming, destined for the hellish metaplanes from which it once emerged, but then something goes wrong.
Something Bandit had not expected.
The entity manifests, assuming corporeal form. It flashes past Bandit’s nose, blurring with speed. He hears Amy shriek. He turns to see her staggering backwards, collapsing, the entity clinging to her face. As Bandit bends to tear the creature free, Amy’s eyes pop open, bulging, burning a fiery red.
The evil has infected her aura.
“Drek.” Bandit whispers.
The shaft is smooth and cool, lined in concrete. Metal rungs serve like a ladder. Monk reaches up to catch hold of Minx’s ankle, holds on till she shakes it loose, then does it again, then again, then ...
“Stop it, you booty!” Minx giggles. Then she stops climbing. Monk peers up past the delicious swells of her trim behind to see her shaking out her lavish curling hair, changing in color from red to reddish orange to reddish gold and back again. Maybe a hundred meters above the top of her gorgeous head is a faint glimmer of sunlight and the top of the shaft. Monk remembers this shaft. It’s on the Newark side of the Hudson. Another hour or so and they’ll be home.
Minx whispers, “Hoi ... did you just hear something?"
"What kind of something?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Yeah?” Monk says, gazing upward.
“You know what?” Minx says softly."I’m getting this weird feeling. Like something’s happened to the Master. Like maybe he’s dead.”
Monk puzzles."I thought you said that if the Master died, we’d die, too.”
“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”
“Well?”
“I could’ve sworn, I mean ... I thought ...” Minx hesitates, then turns enough to look down at him, past the pert, round, luscious swellings of her breasts; then, she giggles."You booty, maybe it was just something I ate.”
Something she
ate
. Hah-hah-hah!
Monk grins."Wiz.”
As he lifts his head, wiping drool from his lips, Ben Hill sees that, once again, he’s missed the small miracle of transformation.
Striper lies sprawled on her side. She has returned to her natural form, the massive body so suggestive of the Siberian tiger. The gore spilled from the savage wound in her head stains red and black-striped fur. Her wound appears too terrible for even her remarkable Werebiology to heal.
Her child has already taken its cue. It stands on four legs beside the unmoving body of its mother, looking back and forth, growling mournfully, pitifully, now sniffing at the savage wound, licking at it. Ben can’t stand to watch. He turns his head, only to see Germaine, sprawled on her back hardly an arm’s length away. Her chest is drenched in blood and gore, concentrated in dark patches around the half-dozen or so bullet holes punctuating her blouse.
It’s beyond comprehension, beyond belief, that things could have taken such a terrible turn, that the search for a metabiological serum could end in death, a double homicide.
Two lives irretrievably lost, wasted ...
Liron Phalen was the motivating force, and Germaine played her role, but Ben knows too well where the responsibility truly lies, where it always lies. He’s reminded of the words of Sir Thomas More. When asked for the sake of fellowship to join the nobles supporting an ancient king, More replied, “And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for heeding your conscience, and I to hell for disregarding mine, will you come with me for the sake of fellowship?”
It puts everything in perspective.
He allowed himself to be unduly influenced by Liron Phalen. He did not have the strength of will to insist, to demand, that the course of their research observe the moral and ethical principles he’s tried to honor throughout his whole adult life. When it mattered, when it might even have saved a pair of lives, he failed. He failed himself by disregarding his own principles. He failed himself, science, all metahumanity. And this is just one more failing on top of a career plagued by shortcomings and outright failures.
He’s never had a very strong sense of imagination. Maybe that’s the greatest failing of all. Maybe that’s what always limited him to positions assisting the person put in charge.
It’s irrelevant now. Just one more task to perform. He must accept responsibility for what he’s done. The slate must be cleaned. The final responsibility accepted.
Slowly, he reaches out for the gun lying beside him and lifts it to his mouth. The gleaming metal barrel feels hard and unforgiving against his teeth, and tastes of harsh chemicals. So, too, life.
It takes only a gentle squeeze of the trigger.
The end of the tunnel blazes with light. She feels it drawing her forward. In a way she doesn’t really understand, she senses that somewhere beyond the blazing light lies a golden land of bounty and promise.
Abruptly, a figure rises before her, a dark four-legged shape, indisputably male, and massive enough to all but block out the light. The male’s roar is like the thunder heralding the end of the world. His smell speaks clearly of possession and the violence he’ll do to defend what he considers his own.
Go
back!
he tells her.
No .. . She wants to go ahead.
You
have
no
choice
...
A wave of dismay rises suddenly, cresting, overwhelming. She is to be denied the bounty and promise of the land beyond. The land belongs to the male. It is his territory. Fighting him for the right to enter would inevitably end in the complete eradication of her existence.
She must go back.
The blazing light fades into blackness, and suddenly Tikki hears a gunshot roaring. Involuntarily, she jerks, lifting her head. The lights of the laboratory glare, bringing water into her eyes. She wipes a paw at the itching afflicting the side of her head, then notices the cub, nosing into her neck, whining, growling with fear.
She surges up onto her feet, ears flicking, eyes darting all around. The floor is smeared with blood and gore. A pair of two-legs lie sprawled: a female ork in street clothes and a male human in a white coat. The ork is the one who tried to kill her and the male is the one who tried to stop her from leaving. Both look dead. They smell dead. They don’t move. Tikki shakes her head, trying to understand how this could be, but thrusts the thoughts from mind. Dead is dead. She shot the ork to protect herself and to protect her cub. What happened to the human male isn’t important now.
She wills the change: bones and muscles contract, fur fades into skin, paws form into hands and feet. The cub follows her lead and loops both arms around her right knee."Tik –
ki
!"
“Quiet,” she snaps.
Tikki grabs the guns lying on the floor and leads the cub to the hallway door. They need clothes and money and soon they’ll need food, but first they need to get out of this place. If any two-legs get in her way, she’ll do what she has to do, and she’ll do it for the only reason that seems beyond questioning.
The cub is what matters now.
Enoshi Ken watches the droplets of rain slipping down the outsides of the windows overlooking Central Park. They are all just currents in a stream, wavelets on the surface of a vast, incomprehensible ocean. He takes a drag of his cigarette and a sip of his coffee and wonders what his wife is doing. He feels very far away from their home in Philadelphia. With each new development, he feels more distant.
Earlier this afternoon, he received a call from his chief auditor, Kurushima Jussai, reporting that evidence amassed from Hurley-Cooper records now strongly indicates that several persons, including the firm’s CEO, Vernon Janasova, have appropriated corporate funds to enrich their personal accounts. Kurushima also mentioned that certain matters involving Amy Berman’s departments had been satisfactorily resolved, with the aid of the Metascience Group director, Dr. Liron Phalen.
Enoshi wonders how it is that his own auditor should give such a report. It is particularly remarkable in that it came barely an hour before the Hurley-Cooper Executive VP, Mercedes Feliz, personally delivered datachip evidence indicating that the heads of the Metascience Group have been conspiring to embezzle about thirteen million nuyen. One individual in particular, a Dr. Hill, has no less than three million nuyen in a hidden account at the UCAS Bank. The evidence suggests that this account was used to funnel embezzled funds into questionable channels that may actually lead to shadowrunners and other criminals.
“Amy Berman collected most of this data,” Mercedes Feliz reported, “acting under my direction.”
Enoshi rubs at his brow, anticipating the rise of a headache.
His aide comes to announce the arrival of Usami Gek, his senior security operative, and the mage recently dispatched by KFK North America to aid in the investigation: Kajitori Sara. The mage was in New York barely a day when all hell broke loose.
Usami reports, “It appears that the disturbance at the Metascience facility began with an explosion of undetermined origin. Group personnel report that a paranormal creature being used as a test subject has escaped. Numerous persons were injured. Three are dead: Dr. Liron Phalen, Dr. Benjamin Hill, and an aide. Dr. Phalen appears to have succumbed to violence of an arcane nature. Preliminary evidence suggests that Dr. Ben Hill may have killed the aide before taking his own life. The exact sequence of events is still being evaluated by my personnel.”
Enoshi struggles to maintain his composure. The loss of Phalen and Hill will no doubt have a detrimental effect on Hurley-Cooper research. The effect of such violent deaths on the firm’s reputation, and that of Kono-Furata-Ko International, could be incalculable. He is perhaps facing a crisis of nightmare proportions. He must soon make a report via telecom to the Vice-Chairman of KFK, Torakido Buntaro.
Usami adds, “We have ascertained through surveillance records that Mr. Scott Berman was present at the facility when the explosion occurred.”
“Was Amy Berman present?”
Usami nods."Yes, Enoshi
-sama
. She was present prior to the outbreak of violence, in conference with Dr. Liron Phalen. Surveillance records show that Kurushima Jussai joined this conference, as did Mr. Scott Berman. Neither Ms. Amy Berman nor Mr. Scott Berman remained on site after the explosion. It is not yet known how they left the facility nor where they have gone.”
It is mind-boggling. Enoshi struggles to sort it all out. One might suppose that Amy Berman has participated in a deliberate effort to destroy critical Hurley-Cooper assets, such as Doctors Phalen and Hill, and has somehow drawn KFK’s own auditor, Kurushima Jussai, into the conspiracy. However, Enoshi is wary of such obvious suppositions."How did Scott Berman gain access to the Metascience facility?”
“Through arcane means still to be determined,” Usami replies."It is unclear what role Ms. Amy Berman or Mr. Scott Berman may have played in Dr. Liron Phalen’s death.” Here, the mage, Kajitori Sara, coughs.
“Have you something to add?” Enoshi asks.
Kajitori says, “Yes.”
“Please continue.”
“It is my belief that Scott Berman and Liron Phalen engaged in magical conflict. The signs are clear, Enoshi
-sama
. It is also my belief that some third party or entity, perhaps of metaplanar origin, was involved in the conflict.”
Enoshi considers that, and says, “Are you suggesting that Scott Berman called on some metaphysical entity with the intention of assassinating Dr. Phalen?”
“I believe that the entity entered the conflict on Phalen’s side. I also believe that it was of a malignant nature."
"Malignant?”
“Malevolent.”
Enoshi wonders what to make of this."Was this entity of a type that a mage might ordinarily call on to aid in a magical conflict?”
“It was possibly a form of entity I have never encountered,” Kajitori replies."However, I do not believe that any mage would call on such a malignant entity unless forced to it in some way, or unless the mage was of a similarly malevolent nature.”
“Are you suggesting that Dr. Liron Phalen was of a malevolent nature?”
“It is of course possible that the entity had control of Phalen from the start. That he was influenced or possessed.” A most remarkable, wholly unsubstantiated theory. Enoshi will withhold judgment until more facts have been assembled. He directs Usami and Kajitori to continue their search for such facts, and for Amy Berman, who has many things to attempt to explain. Enoshi then goes down the hallway to his bedroom and to the small sitting room adjacent. One of his guards stands watch at the door.