Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (45 page)

Ahead, a flicker of orange light. The auto pulled over near where a man stood lighting a cigarette. Behind the man a runabout was visible, a trailer linked to its tail with two boats lashed to it. The man nodded as Auden got out of the car, then turned back to the trailer and began unlashing the boats.

We had agreed that a frontal assault, driving to the island in a guard launch, would accomplish little. Hannah Caine would have an escape hatch arranged, and if she knew she was being raided she might kill the girl. Our only alternative was to approach with stealth. Auden had called a man he knew, a fellow who owed him a favor, and arranged to have two flat-bottomed punts brought to the edge of the salt marsh. We’d be approaching the hotel and the island from behind.

The boats were set afloat in the shallows of the salt marsh creek. Auden walked to the trunk of the auto, then returned with a sword, which he held out to me.

“
You might be wanting this,” he said. “A little better quality than the standard guard issue.” He was right. I’d been feeling half naked without Windsteel, and had requisitioned one from the city guard armory, but they were mass-produced blades, nowhere near the quality I was used to.

I took the blade, drew it partway from the sheath. It was a Sierra blade, more than a century old, unless I missed my guess. It might not have been Windsteel, bonded to me in ceremony, but it was a superb blade, beautifully balanced.

“
It’s called Mist Razor,” Auden said. “Been in the family a long time. It’ll do more good in your hands than on my mantelpiece. Just take good care of it, will you?”

I groped for words, but there didn’t seem to be any appropriate to the moment. I nodded.

He turned toward the boats, and I removed the guard sword. I placed it in the auto and slid the Sierra blade into my back rig. We climbed into the boats. Auden’s guy returned to his runabout and settled down with another cigarette, a flashlight, and a magazine.

We slipped into the fog, floating down the channels between ranks of tall cordgrass and reeds, and within seconds we could no longer see the shore or the glow of the man’s cigarette.

The channels of the salt marsh were like twisting corridors, walls of tall cordgrass looming up out of the fog on either side. The scent of low tide stung our noses. The water was shallow, and once or twice there was a shudder and a low shushing sound as we glided over a barely submerged sandbar. A couple of times we had to use our oars like barge poles to move forward. Then we were out into the deeper channels, and began to make better speed.

I heard a faint splash and turned, just in time to see a large, dark form explode from the water beside the boat following ours. It sailed over the boat, snatching Rowlands up on the way, and disappeared into the water on the other side with a louder splash.

“
Fuck!” Auden gasped. “Bay gator!”

Gator? The thing had jaws like an alligator, but its body had been more dolphin-like.

“
Get down!” hissed Rogers from the front of our boat. As I turned back to him, another dark form surged from the water. This one didn’t have the force or momentum of the first, but it grabbed Rogers in its maw and fell back, trying to drag him with it into the dark water. Rogers braced himself, and the two of them hung half in, half out of the boat.

I’d never seen or heard of a creature like this. The thing was like a cross between a dolphin and a crocodile, with slick, dark-gray skin, a torpedo-shaped body, and a long snout full of nasty teeth. I couldn’t see its back end, which was underwater, but its front had vestigial limbs with sturdy claws, with which it grabbed at Rogers as well. In one movement I drew the blade Auden had loaned me and lurched forward, slashing down at the thing. My cut mostly severed the head from the body, and its jaws opened in a silent scream, letting Rogers fall back into the boat. It hung for a moment, body in the water, head in the boat, a raw strip of flesh and muscle connecting them across the gunwale. Rogers kicked at the head and the whole creature vanished into the black waters.

I turned back to look at Auden as the first creature surged up again. Auden took aim with his oversized gun. I heard a sound like that of an arrow, and the bay gator’s head exploded. The remains fell back into the water and silence descended again.

Auden raised the pistol. “Old Silent but Deadly... Air powered, loaded with hollow points.” He shrugged. “I thought we wanted to be quiet.” He scanned the water as if seeking other targets.

“
Pairs,” Rogers muttered. “Bay gators hunt in pairs.”

His arm was shredded, pumping blood into the bottom of the boat. He had taken his uniform belt off and was fumbling at making a tourniquet of it. I stepped to his side, knelt, and finished the job, using an oarlock to leverage it tight.

Auden had pulled his boat alongside. “He needs help,” he said. He was right. Rogers wouldn’t survive without medical attention, and soon. “We’ll have to take him back. Backup will be here in a few minutes.”

“
You take him back,” I said. “I’m going in.”

“
Alone? All due respect, Railwalker, I’ve seen what you can do, and it’s impressive, but...”

“
Rochelle Roth is in there alone,” I said. “She’s only twelve.”

“
You said Caine wouldn’t kill her yet.”

“
I was guessing. What if I was wrong? We can’t take that chance.”

It was true I’d just been guessing about Hannah Caine’s motives. For all I knew the girl was already dead. But I was like a man riding a bull; the gate had been opened, the bull released, and there was no letting go at this point. I had to go on. Had to meet whatever was waiting for me on that island.

Finally Auden nodded. We both glanced at Rogers, and then Auden stepped over into my boat, and I took his. It was easier than trying to move Rogers.

“
Take this,” said Auden, holding out the air gun. I took it, and he held out a hand.

“
Good hunting, Railwalker.”

We shook.

“
Take good care of Rogers,” I said. As Auden maneuvered my boat around, I took the oars of his and struck out.

50. WOLF

Soon the air freshened a bit and I realized I was nearing the estuary. I backed the oars and brought the boat to a halt. Before me the reeds fell away. The fog hung above an expanse of open water between me and the island, a dark shape rising out of the fog. Beyond the island I could hear surf.

I would have to be even more careful now. The fog would help, but I would no longer have the cordgrass for cover. I examined the air gun. I hadn’t used one like this before. A compressed air canister jutted from the handle like an extended magazine, while the actual magazine was mounted in front of the trigger. Two rounds were already missing from the magazine. I wondered how much air it had. I was guessing one canister powered one magazine’s worth, and probably it was full before Auden used it tonight. But that was two guesses, and I wouldn’t want to bet my life on them if I had a choice. The thing looked cheaply manufactured. No telling how reliable it was.

The island was an elongated teardrop shape, nearly a peninsula, as the southern point of the teardrop nearly reached the mainland. Crichton had built a causeway off the southern point to connect to the mainland, which still stood, though it was seldom used. The estuary and the marshes spread out to the east, and to the north the estuary deepened, then joined the ocean in the west. On the horizon clouds were gathered, and I didn’t like their bruised purple color. There was scaledust incoming, and quickly—even as I watched, the clouds grew larger and closer. I crossed the open water as quickly as I could.

Auden had mentioned two possible landing points on the landward side, but if the investigator knew of them, Caine would too, and she’d have them watched. The northern extent of the landward side was cliff and rocks. I headed for that. Normally I wouldn’t take a boat in among the rocks like that, but the estuary chop was minimal, and I was in no danger of being smashed on them. Coasting through the fogbound rocks was like sailing through one of those Chinese paintings, where the mountains rear up out of fog banks.

I found a spot where there was a foot or so of shingle between the rocks and beached the boat. I was about to tie off to a rock when a scuttling noise made me turn, drawing the blade.

Facing me was one of the strangest mutants I’d ever seen. It had a body like an enormous centipede, fully eight feet long, armored with shell-like segments. Half of its length reared up like a cobra about to strike. At the top, its head looked like a crab, its last pair of legs, closest to the head, like huge crab claws. It hissed at me like a leaky steam fitting and lunged.

I sidestepped and brought the sword down, catching the crab claw leg at the shoulder joint and severing it. The thing whipped around, scary fast, and slashed my leg with the tip of its other claw, though it didn’t catch a grip. It hissed again and reared back, and I lunged after. I drove the sword into its throat and levered hard, nearly severing the head. Black blood gushed from the wound, and the thing collapsed. I collapsed as well.

I sat up, examined my wounded right leg. It was a shallow slash across the outside of my right thigh, painful, but not dangerous or debilitating. I tore a strip off my headscarf and bound it up. Then I stood again, favoring my wounded leg, and looked around. I realized I was hearing a slightly hollow sound, almost an echo of the lapping waves. I looked to my right, and there it was. Across the water some yards away, where it would have been concealed from the view from the open water, I saw a cave. I returned to the boat and rowed my way over to it. As I did I could hear the peculiar wheezing sound the wind takes on in a scaledust storm. What light there was was tinted purple now. I could see no dust in the air yet, but I knew it wouldn’t be long. I rowed faster.

I risked shining my battery torch into the cave for a moment. It was deep, and at the back I saw a gleam of metal. I guided the boat inside.

51. WOLF

Not far into the cave the ceiling dipped, and I could see by the high-water mark that come high tide the boat wouldn’t fit. Auden had assured me high tide was a couple of hours off yet.

Beyond that point the cave opened up again. Then it rose and turned. There was a dock, but no boat. Gage’s men had found a small boat on the beach below Hartshall, and it looked as if the Beast had arrived in it. I wondered if it was normally kept docked here. I tied up at the dock and got out.

I was in a vast chamber. At the far end a faint light flickered, a small flame. I drew Auden’s air gun and stood still for a moment, letting my eyes adjust.

At first I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Strange sculptures hung on the rock walls. On a closer look the sculptures resolved into collections of body parts—heads, hands, internal organs. Some were mounted with steel spikes, some bound with ropes, some simply hanging there as if in defiance of gravity, although some sort of adhesive had to have been used. All the parts had been dried and preserved, leaving them with no charnel odor. Further along, where the floor of the cave was flattest, there was a large clear area, around the edges of which were scattered the familiar accouterments of a dojo: wakimara; heavy bag; barrels of rice and pea gravel; and a rack holding swords, spears, staves, canes, billies, and a variety of knives.

At the back of the cave, to the right, was a large wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a single bed. To the left, a wide double circle had been inscribed on the floor. Some sort of runes I didn’t recognize were written in the space between the inner and outer rings. Beyond that a solidly built wooden staircase rose up to a landing, where a door was set into the wall of the cave.

At the very back was the shrine. An altar with a cauldron on it; above it, suspended by chains, was an oil lamp, the source of the light. This hadn’t been left lit by accident. It was an eternal light. It represented the Beast’s idea of god or goddess or something, as well as his devotion to it.

To Her, I corrected myself. I was being too careful, thinking like a lawyer or a scientist. I knew perfectly well what the Beast believed in. This was a shrine to his goddess, his mother, a woman who took a child and twisted it into a killer, compelling the kid to worship her, do her bidding. She had denied that kid the basic things the poorest humans take for granted: community, family, human contact. She’d turned the poor kid into the killing machine we called the Beast, and turned him loose on Bay City, just to get back at Roth.

And maybe she was also my mother. Which meant that there, but for the grace of Soul-Are, went I. Instead of a Railwalker facing one of his hardest challenges, I might have been a Beast, dead under a Railwalker’s sword. Did I have it in me to become something like that? Yeah, I thought reluctantly, given the same brainwashing and conditioning at an early enough age, I might have. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.

And if Helena Crichton was my mother, that meant that the Beast I had killed was my brother, or half-brother at least.

I climbed the stairs, staying close to the edge to avoid creaks. There were none. The place was well maintained.