"Good, I'm going to call Brackhaus and arrange to deliver our cargo. Then we can wrap this up and go home."
Boom leaned back in his seat and rested his hands on his knees. "Not totally smooth sailing," he said, "but not half bad."
"Are you kidding?" Hammer said from beside him. "That was probably the easiest hundred grand we ever made."
"Yeah," Talon said, as he activated the head's up display for his headware and told it to dial the number Brackhaus had given them, "but don't forget it's not over yet."
Speren watched the end of the battle with the storm spirit with great interest. These shadowrunners were bold, and there was nothing he could really do to stop them in his astral form. Not that he wanted to at the moment. Clearly, the runners were hired to do exactly what Prince Jenna had dispatched Speren to Germany to accomplish: to recover the artifact. He wondered how much the shadowrunners knew about their intended targets. Not much, he suspected. Fixers rarely told runners more than they had to.
Although the involvement of the shadowrunners was an unexpected complication, it wasn't necessarily an unwelcome one. For one thing, it had solved Speren's problem of locating and recovering his quarry. The runners might have escaped for the time being, but the hunt was far from over.
With a gesture of respect to their magician for the skill with which he and his familiar dispatched Zoller's storm spirit, Speren sped back to his physical body, which still sat quietly in a chair in the auction room. The guests continued to mill around, although more of them had taken seats, waiting for things to begin. Speren knew there would be no auction tonight. Though part of him wanted to stay and watch the fixer Rashid and Zoller squirm their way out of this, opportunity called. He stood, stretched, and then quietly withdrew from the room, heading toward the bank of elevators off the lobby of the hotel.
He stepped into the elevator and touched the button for the twelfth floor. As the elevator ascended, Speren caught his reflection in the polished brass plate around the controls. He closed his eyes, whispering under his breath in Sperethiel, the language of his people, as he drew on the magical energies all around him and wove a minor spell.
When he opened his eyes and regarded his reflection again, he looked, not like a proud and fierce elven paladin, but like one of the uniformed security guards who'd accompanied Zoller to the roof. He stepped out of the elevator and made his way briskly down the hall to Zoller's suite. The door still stood open, and three other security guards were on hand, one of them standing outside the door, keeping watch. Speren gave the man a cursory nod and walked into the room like he belonged there. The two other guards were looking around the place, no doubt searching for any clues the runners might have left behind. Perfect.
Speren went over to where Zoller's hearth spirit had struck the ork shadowrunner with his saber
.
Sure enough, there was a small dark blood stain on the carpet. Speren had noted it even as he'd watched the fight. He knelt down beside the bloodstain and took a dagger from his boot-top. His illusion made the finely jeweled blade look like a utilitarian jack-knife in his hands.
"Hans?" one of the other guards asked in German, "what have you got there?"
"Blood." Silverblade replied in the same language, keeping his voice low. Since he hadn't heard the guard's voice, his spell couldn't replicate it perfectly. Hopefully, they wouldn't notice. "Herr Zoller will want to see it." He quickly and efficiently cut out a square of carpet with the blood stain on it, then stood, pocketing it.
"But we were ordered . . ." The guard's eyes narrowed for a moment, looking at Speren intently. "You, you're not . . ."
Speren realized the man had seen through the spell. Unfortunate. Before the startled security guard could even begin to voice his concerns, Speren moved with blinding speed. He leapt between the two guards in the room and over the bed on the far side. He had to time things exactly right. He called forth a spell in his mind, gathering in the power.
The guard who noticed his disguise shouted a warning, which brought the guard in the hall running into the room. Perfect, Speren thought again, loosing his spell.
The invisible wave of magical energy surged out
and blossomed into a sphere of power around the three guards. Speren tightly controlled the energies unleashed, because he did not want to be caught inadvertently in his own spell. The sleep spell instantly sent the three men into unconsciousness, their bodies sagging to the floor without a sound even as they reached for their weapons. Speren stepped over their limp forms, wasting no time leaving the room and heading back to the elevators.
Just as he was entering the elevator car, his sharp hearing picked up the sounds of the others coming down from the stairwell. By the time they figured out what had happened, he would be out of the hotel and lost in the teeming populace of the Megaplex. With good luck on his side, Zoller would take the intruder as a compatriot of the shadowrunners who'd escaped him, not another competitor for the artifact.
He reached into his pocket to finger the piece of carpeting. Zoller would eventually guess what took place in the hotel suite, and would realize that his one opportunity for finding the artifact and Dr. Goronay was gone. Although he was unaware of it, Zoller had given Speren the key to finding the shadowrunners and their purloined treasures. It would take very little for a magician of Speren's skill to track them down. Then he would deal with them and complete his mission.
The Hughes Stallion angled away from the wealthy riverside district of Essen, heading north and west, toward some of the burned-out industrial areas that still awaited the rebuilding and revitalization promised by corporations like Saeder-Krupp. They flew fairly low, near enough to the tallest buildings to make following them on radar difficult. Talon opened up a comm channel to Trouble.
"How's the air traffic control?" he asked.
"Null sheen." she said. "They haven't picked you up, and my smart frame should see that they don't. I doubt Zoller will notify the police that his illegal artifact has been stolen from him. Even if the hotel reports it, we should be long gone by the time they start checking."
"Let's hope so." Talon said. "Good work. Keep an
eye on the authorities for any signs of trouble. We're almost to the rendezvous point now."
"I'll meet you there." Trouble replied. "Out."
The chopper flew smoothly for a while longer, until they reached a virtually abandoned area of Essen that Val had scouted out earlier. There were no signs of any pursuit, either aerial or astral. Val killed the running lights on the Stallion and brought it down onto the cracked and weed-choked parking lot of an old industrial complex, now rusting quietly away from years of neglect. The surrounding area was soaked with toxic levels of chemicals, leaking from old dumping and storage sites that dated back to the twentieth century. Until the area got cleaned up—an expensive and time-consuming process—nobody but the most desperate bothered to come here. That probably included shadowrunners, Talon thought as the chopper landed.
Val powered down the engine, and the rotors slowed to a stop. In a matter of minutes, there was no sound in the cabin except the faint, chill breeze outside.
"Look sharp, everyone." Talon said. "Our Johnson should be along any time now." He turned back to where Boom sat with Dr. Goronay. "How's he doing?" he asked.
"Still out cold." Boom said. "That spell you hit him with really put his lights out. You sure he's going to be okay?"
Talon shifted his perceptions to the astral plane to see the archeologist's aura. The glow was not as strong as he would have expected, but it was stable and showed no signs of any immediate danger. There was a kind of erosion of Goronay's life force, however. That was odd, even for a man his age.
"He'll be all right," Talon said, letting his vision
slip back to the normal world, "but he's definitely given his body a beating. There are signs of longterm systemic abuse of some kind in his aura. I'd almost guess drugs, or maybe beetles."
"Why would an old guy like him be jacking beetles?" Boom asked.
Talon shrugged. BTLs, or "Better Than Life" chips, were simsense programs that provided an artificial high, experiences heightened to the point of causing damage to both body and mind if they were abused. BTLs were tremendously addictive. Talon remembered Val's story about how she got hooked on them, as so many street kids, and even adults, did. Still, it seemed out of character for a man like Goronay, whose whole life was about archeology and a quest for knowledge. Still, a BTL addiction could explain how the Runenthing and Zoller had gotten their hooks into him.
A bright light filled the vacant lot, coming from the halogen lamps of a high-class Eurocar. The team was immediately alert, hands hovering close to their weapons, as the car pulled into the lot and cruised slowly up to the Stallion. It stopped some ten meters away, but did not extinguish its headlights. The rear door opened and a dark figure stepped out, silhouetted by the lights as it moved.
Talon turned to Boom. "That's our cue." he said, motioning for the troll to bring the unconscious doctor. He hefted the bag containing the crystal and slid open the door of the Stallion. A glance at Hammer was sufficient to tell him to keep watch for anything suspicious. Talon knew he could count on the big ork to watch their backs. He also sent a mental head's up to Aracos, telling the spirit to watch for any signs of trouble in astral space.
Together, he and Boom climbed out of the chopper, Boom carrying Dr. Goronay over his shoulder like a sack of grain. They began walking toward the dark figure as it also came toward them. As they approached, Talon could make out more of the man's features: the immaculate suit, so out of place in the crumbling ruins; the perfectly coifed hair and the stony features, betraying no emotion or trace of the man's thoughts.
"Herr Brackhaus." Talon said, greeting their Mr. Johnson.
"Talon." He acknowledged them with a nod. "I see you have brought the doctor as well. Well done. You have the artifact?"
Talon held the carrying bag open so Brackhaus could see inside. The Johnson glanced at the rosy crystal, gleaming in the halogen lights, and nodded. Talon pulled the bag closed.
"We'll just turn them over to you and collect the rest of our fee." Talon said.
"I'm afraid there's been a change of plans." Brackhaus said. Talon instantly tensed, fearing a trap, but Brackhaus raised a hand in a gesture of holding.
"Nothing to be concerned about." he said smoothly. "Quite the contrary. My employer is most pleased with your work, and would like for the materials to be delivered directly to him as soon as possible. He has requested that you accompany me to the meeting, Herr Talon, and has said that you may bring one other along, if you wish. He will give you the remainder of your fee, with a generous bonus for your good work and the cost of your time."
Was Brackhaus serious? He couldn't possibly . . .
"By your 'employer' do you mean . . ."
"Yes," Brackhaus replied, "I do. Will you honor his request?"
Put that way, it sounded less like a request and more like a formal command, which, Talon supposed, it was, in a way. There was a saying among shadowrunners: "Never deal with a dragon." On the other hand, there was an equally valid saying that applied here: "What do you give a dragon? Anything he wants." Especially when the dragon was Lofwyr, master of the world's largest megacorp. If Lofwyr wanted to meet Talon, then who was Talon to refuse? Besides, it sounded like his team wasn't going to see the rest of their fee unless he went along with the dragon's request.
"I would be honored." Talon said.
"Excellent." Brackhaus replied. "Since my employer has asked that we return with all possible speed, we shall use the helicopter, while your associates can be delivered anywhere they'd like."
"Thank you," Talon said, "but we've made our own arrangements." Trouble should be waiting nearby with the van to pick up the team. Even if he did have to go along with Lofwyr's whims, Talon didn't like the idea of putting his entire team in the hands of the dragon's servants.
"As
you wish." Brackhaus said. He raised his right hand and waved. The passenger-side door of the Eurocar opened, and a man dressed in a jacket with the Saeder-Krupp logo on the breast and shoulder stepped out. He wore a reversed baseball cap and a pair of mirrored sunglasses, despite the fact that it was nighttime. Talon could see the telltale gleam of a datajack port behind his ear as the man came toward them.
"My pilot will take the controls." Brackhaus said. It was not a request.
Talon turned back to Boom. "Put Dr. Goronay back in the chopper and tell Hammer to wait here." Then he walked over to the Stallion and pulled himself up to the cockpit.
"What's going on?" Val asked.
"Brackhaus' boss wants us to deliver the goods in person and we need to use the chopper. You and Hammer will stay here and wait for Trouble to come pick you up."
"His boss, you mean . . ." Her eyes widened a bit.
"Yeah," Talon said, "Lofwyr only wants me and one other. Brackhaus has his own pilot, so you and Hammer have to stay here."
"I don't like this." Val said.