shadowrun 40 The Burning Time (16 page)

Afterward, as they lay twined together in bed, Ian sat up slightly and looked at Trouble, his eyes sparkling in the candlelight.

"I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I walked into that bar and saw you there. It made me realize just how much I missed you, how much of a fool I was to ever let you go. We’re so good together, Ariel," he said. "We belong together."

"Ian, I. . ."

"Shhhh," he said, pressing his fingers against her lips. "Please, let me finish. I know I was a fool, and I know that the life I’ve chosen is not an easy one. But I want you back in my life, Ariel. Come back to me and the Knights. We need you. I need you. Please say you will."

He reached over to the small table beside the bed and picked up a tiny box, which he held out to her.

Trouble took it with trembling hands and opened it. It held a ring of white gold, cut with a Celtic knotwork design and set with diamonds.

"It was my grandmother’s," Ian said softly. "I want you to have it. I want you to marry me, Ariel."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The next day, Talon set up a circle of eight candles in the part of his apartment he called his "work room." He sat in the center of the ring on a rug embroidered with mystical symbols, focusing on the flame of a ninth candle that he’d set in front of him. He tried to clear his mind of all other thoughts and concerns except the task ahead, though it wasn’t so easy to center himself for some reason. Slowly, he prepared himself by letting his breath become deeper and deeper until he felt that he was ready.

"Aracos," he called out in his thoughts, and the call traveled out across the manifold planes of existence. The air on the other side of the candle shimmered as if from the heat of the flame, and the ghostly image of a silver-furred wolf appeared to Talon’s mystic senses. The regal head dipped in acknowledgement, and Talon returned the gesture of respect.

"Watch over and guard me while I journey," he told Aracos, and the spirit nodded again. Talon lay back on the meditation rug, relaxing deeply as he began to sink into a trance. Waves of peace and calm washed over him as he let his grip on the physical world slip away, opening himself to the larger world beyond, the world of the astral and the infinite mystery of the metaplanes.

His awareness of the physical world faded and narrowed to become a dark tunnel through a realm of infinite shadow—the borders of the metaplanes. He flew through the tunnel toward a glowing light visible ahead. As the light grew, he could see a figure silhouetted against it, the Dweller on the Threshold.

No one knew who, or what, the Dweller was, exactly. Many traditions believed the Dweller was the guardian of the gateway between the physical world and the deeper realms of the astral plane. More modern magicians said the Dweller was a construct, a creation of the traveler’s unconscious, the essence of the id or the shadow, the deep, repressed side of the personality. Powerful spirit or figment of the imagination, the one thing that could not be denied was that every traveler to the metaplanes encountered the Dweller, and was tested before he or she could move on.

In Talon’s experience, the Dweller often took the form of people from his past, masks it used to unnerve him or confront him with some mistake. The Dweller knew everything about the travelers who came here, every secret, every hidden shame, every deepest fear, and wielded its knowledge like a weapon to carry out its tests.

As Talon approached, the Dweller was nothing more than a living shadow, a dark shape against the white light beyond it. Talon steeled his nerve and moved closer as the Dweller seemed to drift into his path, blocking his way into the metaplanes.

Talon felt a flare of anger. "I don’t have time for this drek," he growled at the Dweller, reaching out to push it away.

As he did, the shadows seemed to fall away from the Dweller’s figure, and Talon found himself staring at his own face staring back at him, the features twisted into a look of smug satisfaction.

"Don’t ask the question unless you are certain you want the answer," the Dweller said in his own voice.

Then suddenly the figure burst into flames, becoming a living torch. Talon screamed and pulled his hand away from the burning figure. Pain seared through him. His flesh burned, and his nostrils filled with the stench of charred skin as he squinted against the blazing light of the burning man. He clutched his burned hand to his chest as he fell back into the darkness, the light of the fiery figure drifting further and further away. As the darkness began to claim him, he thought he heard a familiar voice.

"Tal, help me!" it said. "Please, help me!"

"Jase?" he called out. "Jase!"

Talon was jolted from his trance and sat bolt upright with a gasp. He looked down at his right hand. It was unharmed, although he still felt a twinge, recalling the touch of the fire that had engulfed the Dweller. Aracos stood nearby in wolf-form, startled by Talon’s sudden return to consciousness and looking at him with concern.

"Are you all right, boss?" he asked.

Talon nodded slowly. "Yeah, but I didn’t get very far. The Dweller kicked me out of the place before I even got started. But it did give me a clue as to what might be going on. If I’m right, I’m definitely going to need some help."

He stood up and waved his hand. The candles immediately went out, plunging the room into darkness. Talon flicked on the electric lights and started pulling on his boots.

"C’mon," he said to Aracos, "we’re going to Trouble’s place. I’ll meet you outside." The spirit instantly vanished. Talon reflexively checked to make sure he had his gun and his mageblade before locking the apartment door behind him.

He let himself into Trouble’s apartment, but it was quite some time before she showed up. She was surprised to see him sitting there when she came in through the front door.

"Talon! What are you doing here? How’d you get in?"

"It’s not hard when you’re a mage," he said by way of explanation. "Sorry to barge in this way, but you weren’t around. I tried to get you on your phone, but . . ."

"I turned it off," she said abruptly. "Sorry, but I needed some personal time."

"I understand, but something’s come up, something important."

"Actually, I’ve got some news, too," she said, but Talon held up a hand.

"I think Gallow’s back," he said.

Trouble took in a breath slowly. "Are. . .are you sure?"

"Not a hundred percent, but yeah, pretty sure. I had a vision while I was on an astral journey earlier tonight. I saw someone who looked like me, but burst into flames when I tried to get past him. That says Gallow to me."

"Oh, god," Trouble said, coming over to sit next to Talon on the couch. The two of them had met because of Gallow, the rogue fire elemental the seventeen-year-old Talon had conjured to avenge Jase’s death at the hands of a Rox gang. Talon had completely forgotten about the elemental after he’d commanded it to kill the members of the Asphalt Rats. The spirit, created out of Talon’s anger and grief, had somehow continued to exist after fulfilling its only purpose for being. It had possessed one of the dying gang members and, hungry for more lives, had a short-lived career as "The T-Slasher," a mysterious serial killer the Boston authorities never caught.

That was because the spirit’s host had managed to gather the strength to end his own life, trying to take the elemental with him. He hung himself in the abandoned area of the Catacombs where the spirit was hiding out. That didn’t destroy the elemental; it merely trapped it in a dead and slowly decaying body. The mad spirit, calling itself Gallow, eventually contacted a human mage named Garnoff, and the two formed a pact. Their plan was to draw Talon back to Boston so that Gallow could take possession of his summoner’s body. Gallow ultimately betrayed Garnoff and took over his body, but Talon and his friends managed to overcome him. The last time Talon had seen Gallow was when Garnoff’s body hit the third rail in a subway station near the Rox. The body burned to a crisp. Gallow, however, was a spirit, and the death of its host body was only a temporary hindrance.

"It might not be him," Trouble said. "Maybe it was just a vision or a warning of something else."

"Maybe," Talon said, "but I don’t think so. Anyway when. . .when I was falling away from the burning figure, I heard a voice." He bit his lip and blinked back the tears forming in his eyes. "I heard his voice, T. I heard Jase calling out to me, begging me to help him. . .to help save him."

Tears began to run down his cheeks. "And the Dweller, it said to me ‘don’t ask the question unless you’re certain you want the answer.’ And I understood why I couldn’t get past. It’s because I’m not sure I want to know what’s going on and whether it’s Jase who’s trying to contact me, or just Gallow or someone else trying to frag with me." He turned his tear-streaked face toward her. "Gods, I thought this was all over and done with, that I’d finally laid Jase to rest, and now. . ."

Trouble took Talon in her arms as he began to cry, and she held him close.

"I don’t know if I could face seeing him again," he whispered as sobs wracked his body.

"No," Trouble said gently. "It wasn’t your fault, Tal. There was nothing you could have done to save him." She stroked his hair, and gradually his tears subsided. He pulled away slightly, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Gallow
is
my fault, though. If it weren’t for me, that thing wouldn’t exist. I’m going to make sure it’s destroyed this time, once and for all."

Trouble laid a hand on his arm. "You didn’t know what you were doing when you summoned Gallow," she said. "You were crazy with grief, you were. . ."

"I should have known better than to let something like that loose with nothing to control it. I taught it to kill and then expected it to stop without bothering to make sure it did. How many people have died because of me? How many more are going to die now?"

He stood up and said, "I’ve got to stop it somehow."

"Where the hell do you think you’re going?" Trouble said, jumping up to grab Talon’s arm and spin him around to face her.

"I’m going to find a way to track down Gallow and finish this once and for all. I’ll make it tell me what’s happened to Jase, and then I’ll make sure it never threatens anyone again."

"Alone?"

"It’s my responsibility," he said.

"Are you crazy? You can’t go up against Gallow alone!"

"I’ll have Aracos. . ." he began.

"What about the team?" Trouble said. "What about your friends? Don’t you think we might have something to say about all this?"

"It’s not your problem. I can’t ask you or the others to risk—"

"Jesus Christ, Talon!" Trouble burst out, her face flushed with anger. "What do you think we do every time we work together? What about the risks we take every fraggin’ day for some corporate suit with a fat credstick who we don’t even know? Don’t you think we’d be willing to take the same risks for a chummer, somebody we care about?"

The set of Talon’s jaw became even grimmer. "I can’t ask that of you. . ."

Trouble stood up too. "You don’t have to ask. We’re you’re friends. We care about you. I care about you." She drew him to her. "I love you," she said, pulling his face to hers and kissing him firmly.

Talon’s eyes widened, and he grabbed Trouble by the arms and pushed her away.

"Trouble, hey, what are you doing?" he said.

She shook off his hands and turned away from him. "I’m sorry, I. . .I don’t know. I don’t know why I did that."

"I didn’t know you felt that way," Talon said. "I mean, I thought you understood. . ."

"You’re not an easy man to get over," she said. "Look, can we just forget about this? There are more important things to worry about." She wouldn’t meet his eyes. "I don’t really want to talk about it. I think I’ve made enough of a fool of myself for one night."

"Don’t say that," Talon said. "I’m really flattered, but. . ."

"Yeah, but," Trouble interjected. She took a deep breath, fighting back tears. "How about I start doing some checking. You know, Knight Errant reports, drek like that, see if I notice any of Gallow’s old patterns. You can get everyone else together and fill them in, okay? And don’t even think about arguing with me that it’s too dangerous, all right?"

Talon wanted to object again, but he knew it was useless. "All right. I’ll give you a call after I’ve talked with the rest of the team, and you can tell us what you found, okay?"

Trouble nodded and tried to give him a smile.

"Thanks," he said. "For everything."

"Shush," she said and waved him to the door.

"I’ll call soon," he said, closing the door behind him.

Talon was disturbed by what had just happened with Trouble. It was awkward, embarrassing. It was sad, too, to think that he was causing pain to a good friend without meaning to.

Right now, though, he thought work would be the best medicine for both of them.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Roy Kilaro was not a happy man. He’d come to Boston looking for intrigue and a chance to prove himself to the big bosses, and he’d done it in spades. First, he tagged Dan Otabi as a potential security leak. Then he managed to survive getting kidnapped by shadowrunners after even Cross Special Security failed to protect whatever it was the runners were after. Now that it was all over, however, CATco was giving him less than a hero’s welcome.

Both he and Otabi were being housed at a company condoplex in Methuen, an anonymous sector inhabited mostly by lower-paid CATco employees and not far from the decay of the Lowell-Lawrence Zone. Though Roy and Otabi were supposed to be free to move about, it was abundantly clear that they weren’t to go anywhere without informing a company representative. Security personnel were on-site "for their protection." The guards kept a closer eye on Otabi, though it hardly seemed necessary. The guy was so despondent he could barely get out of bed in the morning, and when he did, he spent all his time watching the trid. Roy knew they were watching him, too, like they suspected him of something.

Then there were the "debriefings," though Roy thought interrogation was more accurate. Endless rounds of questions, starting from the moment he had discovered signs of unusual activity in the Boston logs right up until he walked through the doors of the Merrick Valley facility under the watchful eye of Gabriel. The Seraphim agent personally conducted many of the interrogations. He even questioned Roy about events where he’d been present. Roy got the distinct impression that Gabriel was trying to catch him in a lie or to trip him up about some of the facts. He stuck to what he knew and told his interrogators everything he could remember, but they were never satisfied. They wanted to go over the same things again and again and again. And this had been going on for two full days now.