He lashed out with a hand, sending a jet of flames rushing toward Trouble. She screamed, a terrible sound in the tunnel, and fell back, her clothes burning. She dropped to the rough and rocky ground, rolling around madly, trying to put out the flames. I got to my feet and rushed toward her as Gallow gave a hideous grin and started off down the tunnel.
“If you want me destroyed, you can come after me now.” he called over his shoulder. “Or you can try to save her useless life.”
I cursed Gallow as his laughter echoed down the tunnel, but I stopped short at Trouble’s side. The flames were mostly out, and I threw my long coat over her to snuff out the rest. Her clothes and skin were terribly burnt, most of the hair on one side of her hair shorn away by the flames. Raw, red burns stretched across her skin, already beginning to ooze a clear, shiny liquid. She moaned and writhed in pain, barely conscious. I was momentarily grateful for the banishing contest. If our battle hadn’t depleted Callow’s strength, his attack probably would have killed her outright.
I knelt down beside her and placed my hands over her heart, calling the mana to me. I channeled energy into her weakening life force, pouring mana through my body and spirit like cooling water to soothe the angry burns. A bright glow surrounded her body in my astral sight, growing stronger as the power flowed. The mana burned like fire along my veins and my nerves. The struggle with Gallow had weakened me as well. I was drawing too much power, more than my weakened system could handle at the moment, but I had no choice. No one else was going to die because of my mistakes. Not so long as there was anything I could do about it. I ignored the pain and kept the energy flowing.
Before my eyes, Trouble’s burns began to heal, angry red giving way to pink and then to pale new skin that grew in the damaged places. Blood and plasma stopped flowing and her skin firmed and strengthened beneath my touch. Her breathing became more regular and calm as the pain was washed away by the flow of life-giving mana.
My own pain was intense, but I gritted my teeth as I concentrated on maintaining the spell until Trouble’s own life force was strong enough to maintain the healing itself. I could feel blood dripping down over my mouth and chin and felt the beginnings of a massive headache starting behind my eyes. My hands trembled as I lifted them gently from Trouble’s chest, watching the spell start to stabilize. I was in no shape to go after Gallow, and in even worse shape to try and continue our battle.
“Talon!” a deep voice echoed in the tunnel as Boom and the others rushed toward us. I looked up weakly from where I knelt as the troll hurried over, combat shotgun at the ready.
“How ...” I started weakly, “I told you . . ”
“Yeah, yeah.” Boom said. “I know, but I never was very good at taking orders. Val tracked you down using your headphone link. You left the circuit open. How is . . .?”
“She’ll be okay.” I said. “She just needs to rest a bit.”
“You too, from the look of it.” Boom said. He glanced around the tunnel. “Gallow?”
“Escaped.” I replied. “I can’t rest for long, chummer. I have to find him, have to stop him . .
I started to rise and Boom caught me under one arm as I wobbled. “Easy, easy.” he said. “You’re not going to be any good against anyone right now. Take a few minutes. We’ll find him, Talon.”
“Yes.” Isogi said, stepping forward. He seemed in charge of himself again, his face an emotionless mask. "We will stop this spirit.” he said.
This is far from over,
I thought, repeating Gallow’s earlier words to me. I had to find it and stop it, but now, all I could do was sink down beside Trouble and try to rest. I slumped on the rusting tracks. There was no way I could handle Gallow by myself right now, but fortunately, I had some help.
“Thanks.” I said quietly. “Here’s what we’re going to have to do.”
Trouble’s eyes fluttered open. I stopped what I was doing and moved to help her sit up against the tunnel wall. She looked up at me and smiled weakly. “Hi.” she said. I returned the smile. “Hi yourself. How are you feeling?”
“Tired, but okay. Did you get him?”
“No.”
Trouble’s face fell, the smile vanished. “Talon .
.
she began.
“It’s okay.” I said. “There was no way I was going to just leave you there. You were hurt pretty bad.”
Trouble winced slightly. “The fire, I remember . . .” She hugged herself tightly. “My god, what was that thing? Where did it come from?”
“It calls itself Gallow.” I said, “and I created it.”
“What?” she said.
I held up a hand to forestall the question for a moment as I motioned to everyone else to gather around. I went back over to the partial diagram drawn in colored chalk on the cracked concrete of the old platform and began to explain what I’d pieced together so far as I continued to sketch symbols and runes around the edges of the circle.
“The creature from the Catacombs that is possessing Garnoff’s body is a free spirit.” I began. “It calls itself
Gallow, and it’s a great deal smarter than I gave it credit for. It turns out that it played me for a sucker and that’s not a feeling I’m fond of, especially since I discovered my own connection to this whole mess.”
I took a deep breath, and continued. “I told some of you about how Mitsuhama tried to recruit me as a company mage years ago, how Garnoff was responsible for arranging Jason Vale’s death, and how that convinced me to take MCT’s offer and go to MIT&T on a corporate scholarship.
“The part I didn’t tell you came between Jase’s death and my taking MCT’s offer. I loved Jase, he saved my life and gave it some meaning for the first time I could remember. When he died, it was like I died with him. I didn't really care what happened to me. All I could think about was getting the fraggers who’d done it.
“It wasn’t hard to track them down. The gang was called the Asphalt Rats and they operated on the outskirts of the Rox. They were a small-time go-gang, running protection and playing errand-runner for some of the bigger fish in the pond. Mostly they just hit the streets doing as much random violence as they could. Having them hit Jase was smart. Nobody would connect another incident of ‘random street violence’ to a corporate hit, and it probably didn’t cost Garnoff anything more than some new BTL chips for the gangers to fry their gray matter on.
“I knew a few spells back then, but nothing that would let me take on a whole gang by myself. I needed help, but I had nowhere to turn. I didn’t have any real money, or any contacts. So I took the magical gear that was left in Jase’s apartment and used it to perform a ritual, a rite of summoning. I conjured up the biggest, meanest, toughest fire elemental I could. Looking back on it. I’m amazed I pulled it off without giving myself a stroke in the process, but I don’t think I would’ve cared at that point. All I wanted was to see the Rats dead. So I called up the spirit and bound it to obey me.
“I went down to the turf where the gang usually hung out. It didn’t take long to find them. They’d taken over an alley and turned it into their party zone for the night. The music was blasting, and most of the Rats were hitting the booze and BTLs pretty heavy. They never even knew what hit ’em.
“I called up the spirit and gave it one command: ‘Kill them all.’ And it did.” I paused in my work and looked at the silent faces staring back at me. There was no judgment, no recrimination. All of them lived life in the shadows. Trouble had told me Hammer came from one of the toughest neighborhoods in New York City, and I knew Boom’s early life hadn’t been easy. Even Isogi remained impassive, inscrutable. They knew that the shadows forced people to do some hard things sometimes.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing.” I continued, drawing a set of symbols in the southern quarter of the circle with bold strokes. “When the elemental lit into them, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I was horrified, fascinated. I must have lost control over the spirit. The alley was a blackened ruin. I just turned and walked away, put that whole part of my life behind me and went to tell MCT I’d take their offer. I didn’t give a second thought to what became of that elemental. . . until now.”
“So, the elemental you summoned to
kill
those gangers was the same spirit down in the underground?” Trouble asked.
I nodded. “Mama said the answer was somewhere on the metaplanes. Dr. Gordon’s map guided me to a place on the metaplane of fire where I saw visions of Gallow’s past and learned how it was connected to me. I suspect Mama knew something about it all along, but I don’t think Garnoff really knew what he was dealing with.”
“But Garnoff was working with that. . . thing.” Isogi said with a note of distaste.
“Yes, but I think Gallow was playing him as much as it was playing me. When Gallow escaped my binding and became a free spirit, something happened to it. I’m not sure what, but I think it had to do with the fact that it was summoned by my anger and need for revenge. The first and only command it received was to kill, so that was all it knew how to do. Its hold on this world is tenuous. It needs the energy of living beings to sustain itself and a physical body to channel its power. It possessed one of the dying gangers and used his body to commit murders to provide it with enough life force to keep going and start to increase its power.”
“That was the hanged man?” Trouble asked, and I thought about my Tarot layout,
the Hanged Man,
reversed.
“Yes.” I said. “The poor fragger Gallow possessed worked up enough willpower to try and kill himself. The spirit couldn’t stop him, but it managed to sustain his body by using all its remaining power. That left it none to escape on its own or find a new body. It needed help for that.
“That’s where Garnoff comes in. His metaplanar exploration must have touched on something that allowed Gallow to communicate with him. It offered Garnoff magical knowledge and power. All he had to do was kill a few victims to help Gallow build up his power again. Garnoff was a sick fragger. Deep down he probably enjoyed the whole thing. Gallow could never have done it if Garnoff hadn’t gone along willingly. He probably hoped to find out enough about Gallow to eventually figure out a way to bind it and control it himself.”
“That’s why Garnoff wanted to sacrifice you?” Trouble said. “To give Gallow more power?”
“That’s what he was told.” I said. “Like I said, Gallow played us both for suckers. It probably told Garnoff that I was its summoner, and that my life force, my blood, was the most potent of all for increasing its power. It may have even told him that it wanted to use my body for a new vessel to channel its power. The magical symbolism works, the ‘child’ kills the ‘father’ and takes on his power. Garnoff probably never even questioned it. He probably figured he could use me as some kind of bargaining chip, or that he’d be able to bind Gallow once it was free of that body.
“I knew Garnoff wanted me, but I didn’t know why. Mama’s information as much as told me that. I also knew from the Manadyne run that we didn’t have much of a chance of getting close to the real reasons without having to go through a lot of security. That’s why I figured it was easiest to give Garnoff what he wanted, make him think he had me so I could find out why.”
I finished up the southern quarter of the circle and moved on to the western quarter, sketching new signs and symbols there.
“You’re so fragging lucky that worked.” Boom said. “I mean, Garnoff could have killed you and Trouble both
before we ever got there.”
“It was a risk.” I admitted, “but no bigger than a shadowrun against some of MCT’s best security. Garnoff thought Trouble was under his control, thanks to his little suggestion spell.”
“Are you saying she wasn’t
ever
under Garnoff’s control?” Isogi asked, glancing over at Trouble.
“She was for a while. What Garnoff said about her informing him about our run on Manadyne was true.”
Trouble colored a bit at the reminder. She was so angry when I told her about Gamoff’s spell that I wasn’t sure she’d be able to pull off that act without trying the kill Garnoff herself.
“Garnoff didn’t know that I’d performed a mind probe on Trouble when she was hurt after the Manadyne run. I noticed something strange while I was in her mind, and I found the spell and disabled it.” I smiled. “And he thought I was drugged with something other than some harmless antibiotics. I was able to mask my aura well enough to make it
look
like I was helpless. Garnoff didn’t look too deeply. He was overconfident and he figured he had me for sure. He was too busy gloating to notice anything wrong.
“The truth was, Gallow wanted me for a totally different reason. I summoned Gallow out of anger and commanded it because of a need for revenge. More than life force, Gallow feeds on those emotions, especially from me. It’s almost like a part of my own psyche, impressed on the substance of astral space, a dark reflection of my personality.
“That's part of the reason it hates me. In a lot of ways, Gallow
is
me, or a part of me. It knew Garnoff couldn't resist telling me he was the one who had Jase killed, and it knew how that would make me feel—just like I felt when I first summoned it. I suspect that if Garnoff hadn’t told me the truth, Gallow would have. Gallow penetrated my masking. It knew I was faking, but it didn't warn Garnoff. It didn’t need my life force to give it the power it needed. It needed my anger, my hate, the same murderous rage that created it. When I killed Garnoff, I gave Gallow just what it needed.