Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (37 page)

The Beast stalked me slowly, smiling, sure of his kill. I was stunned. Windsteel was a Sierra Mutant blade, forged by a sixth-generation Osoto. Sierra blades, and Osoto blades especially, did not break. It must have been against the floor, and the Beast had stamped on it, using the leverage provided by the tsuba, the hand guard, against the floor. I shook sweat and blood out of my eyes and dismissed the thought.

The Beast lunged at me. This time I moved under him, gripping the broken remains of my sword, edge turned up. I buried it in his armpit, then worked it like a lever, slicing muscle and tendon. Blood sheeted from his armpit. He twisted away and kicked. I followed him as he moved, but his kick connected. My legs went out from under me as if I’d been hit by a tram. We both went down. I landed on top of his arm, the remains of my sword skittering away.

The Beast roared and surged upward, gushing arterial blood. I grabbed onto that arm and was dragged up as he staggered to his feet. For a moment I thought he was going wherever he wanted, taking me along; but then that horny armor that was all that still connected the arm to his shoulder gave way. I fell to the floor again, clutching the arm. Through another flash of white light I saw him fall to his knees. He pitched forward onto his face and lay motionless as the blood pumped sluggishly from his shoulder. It slowed to a drip.

37. HARTSHALL

Darkness.

Hnahna.

She was Creator and Destroyer, the great snake that encircled the world, the vast ocean that could engulf, the cosmic cunt that gave birth and sucked all things into death at her pitiless bottom. She was Mother Goddess, but never Mother or Mama. From the very dawn of his awareness, she had been Hnahna. Arbiter of his pleasure and his pain. Center of his heart and of his universe. Giver of milk, and drawer forth of milk. Hnahna.

He had failed her.

He had always feared this very thing the most. He had failed her, and she had turned her face from him. The world grew dark and cold, the many realities he had inhabited in his life narrowing down to this single pinpoint of light, vanishing into darkness. No ecstasy, no Hnahna to embrace him, just the cold and the dark. The no-thing.

Nothing.

38. WOLF

I lay panting, covered in the monster’s blood, embracing his severed arm. Then Morgan was at my side, asking, “Are you okay?” I nodded and she vanished again, presumably returning to tend to Rok.

Gage appeared, crouching. His hand snaked warily to the Beast’s throat. He looked up, saying, “He’s done.”

Roth appeared too, at the edge on my vision, the big revolver still clasped in one hand, a towel in the other. He looked from the body of the Beast to me. I dragged myself into a sitting position. Roth offered the towel. I took it and wiped at my face.

Light flashed again. I thought I was seeing more lightning, then realized it was the spotlight from an ornithopter shining through the windows. Morgan had already signaled someone to come for Rok. The doors burst open and EMTs rushed in. They loaded Rok’s inert body onto a stretcher and hustled him out to the ’thopter. I nodded at Morgan, indicating she should go with them, and she hurried out in their wake. Auden stood looking after them, his hands red to the wrists from his attempts to slow Rok’s bleeding.

I listened to the ornithopter take off with my two partners, then levered myself to my feet, looking dazedly at my broken blade.

“
So,” said Roth, looking at the body of the Beast. “He was a mutant after all.”

I looked over at the body. “No,” I said. “He was a shapeshifter. Look at his shoulder. He was trying to close the wound over before he bled to death.” It was obvious when you looked at it. Smooth, pink skin had formed all around the edges of the wound. But it hadn’t worked.

“
You take any serious damage?” asked Roth.

“
I don’t think so.”

“
Look like you could use a drink, though.”

“
I’ll see about the power,” said Gage, and he headed out the back.

“
I need a wash,” said Auden, and he turned toward the men’s room.

Without speaking Roth and I shuffled wearily toward the other room. Neither of us really wanted to have our drink over the Beast’s body. Roth opened the door to the private dining room, glanced at the carnage inside, and shook his head.

“
Kitchen,” he said, letting the broken door swing shut. I followed him into the kitchen. He was handing me a glass when the regular lights came back on. We both blinked in the new light, and the emergency lights went off. Roth was pouring the third glass as Gage returned from the kitchen door. A moment later Auden joined us, and Roth poured another.

We all drank in silence. Then Roth sighed, and said, “So you were right on both counts. He was after me.”

“
No, I was wrong,” I said. “You may have been his mission, City Boss, but in his heart, he was after us all.”

I needed a shower and about twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. But first, the hospital.

Rok looked shrunken amongst all those tubes and wires, half his face covered by bandages. I’d have expected him to look like Frankenstein, a warrior of his size lying there in the hospital bed. Instead he looked like a shriveled old man, an ancient fairy caught in a web of technology. Morgan sat beside the bed, clutching his hand.

I looked down at the man who, for the past decade or so, I’d never seen seriously injured or wounded. Sure, we got in scrapes; he took his share of bruises, cuts, and an occasional bullet wound. Nothing like this, though. Nothing life threatening. I admit it was a little frightening. It comes to us all, of course. And it’s not just intellectual knowledge when you’ve seen humans shot, stabbed, beaten and crushed to death, torn apart by animals, and otherwise savaged by life and their fellow life forms.

I knew this. I even knew the odds were always in favor of Rok’s dying before I did. In a Railwalker team, though we’re all martially trained, the Brick’s primary job is to deal with the magickal, the visionary, the numinous. And that often means an altered state of consciousness. At those times, you can lose sight of what’s going on in this world, so your Bear is there to watch your back while you’re altered, and to take point on martial encounters. A Bear is twice as likely as a Brick or a Prof to get killed in the line of duty. I always knew, somewhere in me, that this moment was coming. But somehow, some part of my mind had conspired to ignore that fact.

When he spoke his voice was weak, reminding me of the shade’s voice on the telephone.

“
My Brick...”

“
My Bear.”

“
Morgan says the Beast is dead?”

“
His body’s in the morgue, several floors below.”

“
Good deal. No regrets, Wolf. We took care of business.”

“
We did that.” I nodded.

“
Twenty-three blessings, brother. I’d like a moment with Morgan.”

“
Sure thing.” I left the two of them alone, stepped out into the corridor.

The walls of the hospital corridor were painted the same puke color as the hall where once, waiting for my Pa, I first saw my mother’s spirit. Or at least it seemed that way to me.

After a moment, I heard Morgan sob, and then her shaky voice began the Chant for the Dead. I raised my voice to join hers, walked back into the room. As we sang, the crows gathered at the window.

39. WOLF

I was too restless to sleep. Morgan’s door was closed, the light out. I left the suite, went down to the street, and started walking. Aimlessly, wandering the streets, paying no particular attention to where I was going. I was somewhere in the area where City Center becomes the North End when I started thinking this was stupid and pointless. There was a bar and casino open on the corner ahead. I should have a couple of drinks, then go back and sack out. I stepped inside.

The place was divided into two fairly large rooms. The front room was the bar, in the back was the gaming room. I ordered a shot and took it with me to stand at the entrance to the game room. It had been a long time. I’d seen plenty of cards and other games of chance go on in bars out in the zones, but it had been years since I had been in an actual game room of this type. There were tables for jackflash, crops, and poker, a wheel of fortune table, and even a couple of slot machines pinging away in the back.

It was a shock when I looked at the men sitting around the poker table and saw my Pa. He’d aged badly. He was gaunt as a corpse, with great caverns carved out under his cheekbones. When I’d last seen him his hair was starting to recede and turn gray at the temples. Though he hadn’t lost any more hair, it had turned snow white. His eyes were still bright, though, peering out at me from beneath shaggy white brows.

He put down his cards.

“
Gentlemen, I’m out,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me for a bit.”

I stared in stunned silence as he got up from the table and walked over to where I stood. “Long time no see,” he said. He looked me up and down and added, “Railwalker.”

“
Yeah,” I managed.

“
Buy you a drink?” he asked, then he gestured and led the way to the bar.

We found stools and sat in silence until the drinks were delivered. He raised his glass to me and nodded, and I did the same, and we both drank. Then we looked at each other for a long time.

“
So,” he said at last, “Howyadoin’?”

That phrase, run together as one word, at once was foreign and familiar. He still hadn’t lost the accent of the northeastern cities he grew up in, so reminiscent of the dialogue from DVs of pre-Crash gangster movies. I’d heard him utter that phrase—or that word—“Howyadoin?” a million times when I was young. In exactly that tone. And this was part of my father’s magic. Each time he uttered it, the person he was asking knew deep down in their gut that he really did want to know, that there was nothing more important to him in that moment than how you were doing. Being his son, knowing what I knew about him, I also knew perfectly well that an hour from now, when he was looking across a card table at an opponent he thought was bluffing, the information he was now requesting would be irrelevant and forgotten. But right at this moment, it truly was as important to him as it seemed.

“
I’m okay,” I said.

“
Bullshit,” he grunted. “But you always were a good liar. You’re a Railwalker now. Roth called the Railwalkers in to hunt down the Beast. You gotta know the whole city’s talking about that. You found this Beast yet? Got him under lock and key?”

“
No,” I allowed. “But the job is done. He’s dead.”

“
So?” He sat back. “That’s good. Why do you look like you just lost your best friend?”

“
Because I did,” I said. “He was killed by the Beast.”

“
Oh,” he said. “Sorry to hear that. Then I was right. You’re not okay. In fact, you’re very fuckin’ far from okay.”

“
Alright,” I said. “In that respect, no, things aren’t okay. I thought you were asking about the bigger picture, y’know, how my life has been, how it is being a Railwalker, that sort of thing.”

He laughed. “I know how the fuck that is. It’s good, or you wouldn’t still be doing it. You’re like me in that respect, anyway. You’re not going to stick with something doesn’t suit you. Oh, I know, you’ll fulfill any obligations you made, but once the debts are paid, you’re done. Am I right?”

“
Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. But I’m not a liar.”

“
Not constitutionally, maybe,” he said. “But you’re good at it when you need to be, just the same. Remember how you used to become different characters from the DVs you saw?”

I only vaguely remembered having played at being some of my heroes as a kid.

“
You were totally convincing, completely in character. You’d be Batman or Captain Arclight, or Brick, for days on end sometimes. Quite the little method actor, ya were.”

I remembered using towels as capes, and recalled a particular hotel we’d stayed at in Fresh Springs that had dark-colored towels that worked better than the white or cream-colored towels we found in most places.

“
Thought sure you’d become an actor. That worried me some. That’s not a real secure job. Hard to make a living.”

“
Oh, yeah, and gambling is real secure. You got yourself a pension fund squirreled away somewhere, Pa?”

He snorted. “That’s just the point. Never wanted you to grow up to be a bum like me. I was real happy when you went into construction. Solid future in that business.”

“
It wasn’t for me.”

“
Yeah. I shoulda figured that. I saw Bobby a year or so after you left. He told me you’d joined the order.”