Striper Assassin (29 page)

For just a moment, she considers climbing up a tree to silence these exasperating creatures, but there is no point. She has tried that before. Her mother tried it once and nearly fell out of the tree while trying to get back to solid ground. Trees do not easily accommodate a creature of Tikki’s size and weight.

She continues on, following the smells in the air.

Before long, the sambar resume their mating calls. They are off to her left and farther away than before. She adjusts her course. Fresher scents greet her nose from the tree trunks and the ground as well as the air. She has reached the spot where the sambar were when she first moved to the forest floor.

Soon she has them in sight, a small group, several males and females ranging around a small clearing. Tikki moves very carefully now, hunching low to the ground, using every snatch of cover. Abruptly, the sambar pause, heads held erect. She freezes, half-concealed by a jumble of rocks only a stride away from the clearing’s edge. Have they seen her? Have they smelled her? She advances another stealthy step, then another, then suddenly some bird high up in the trees begins to scream. As one the sambar break, turning in flight.

By then, Tikki has launched herself from the brush and is hurtling across the clearing, paws tearing at the earth.

Now a million birds begin to scream as the sambar scatter in every direction. The first shriek of warning made them panic, rushing straight at her. Before they realize their mistake, she is among them, snaring one’s rear with her claws, dragging it down, seizing its throat between her jaws.

That is her death grip. The kill is a certainty now. Her weight alone is enough to pin the animal to the ground, no matter how desperately it struggles. Tikki would not be surprised if the creature died of fear alone. It’s happened before. Some prey seem to realize that once she has them in her grip there can be no escape. She has only to squeeze with her powerful jaws and perhaps twist her head to the side for the creature to strangle or for the bones of its neck to split and break.

That is what should be happening now, but something strange occurs instead. The sambar continues to struggle. The desperate gleam in its left eye becomes a spectral glow that spreads across its body. Tikki snaps its neck and still it struggles. She claws at its flesh and still it struggles. She rips at its body till its blood gushes over the ground and its organs split and burst around her claws and still it struggles to escape.

She tears its body into ruins, and then…

Abruptly, Tikki wakes. She is lying on the floor of her doss in northeast Philly, hearing her mother’s words about what to do when things go wrong: cut your losses, get out. Get clear and never look back. Never mind about money or what it might cost your rep. Survival is paramount. There’s always another sprawling metroplex with any number of hungry predators willing to pay for her kind of talent, and most of them care only about what she can deliver.

She lifts her head and looks around. Late afternoon sunlight fills the room. The mattress beneath her is in tatters. Bits of foam and white bedding cling to her claws.

The building around her is quiet.

She seems to be alone.

Time then to change. She forces herself back into human guise. It’s easier in the light of the sun, but this soon after the full moon it’s never easy. Tikki feels like she’s changing from a creature of near-indomitable strength into a little pip-squeak of a two-legged weakling. It’s like surrendering a kill to a more powerful predator. She knows that she must, but it so fills her with anger and frustration that a very human-sounding growl comes from her throat. The change leaves her lying on the mattress and staring up at the ceiling, wondering what she’s going to do now. What should she do? So much seems wrong. The feeling that her situation has somehow gotten out of hand gnaws at her relentlessly.

She feels… confused.

For some reason beyond her ken, Tikki recalls the last man she killed for Adama—Tomita Haruso—how he continued to move even after he should have been dead. Had she not known better, she might have supposed that the man was not really a man, but some paranatural creature, perhaps even a Were such as herself. She might have suspected that magic was somehow involved. The only reason she did not suspect any of that was because everything smelled so right at the time. The humans smelled human. The air smelled of blood and terror and death. Only the evidence of her eyes indicated that something peculiar was occurring, and Tikki still does not know what to make of it.

One thing is certain: she won’t resolve any of her uncertainties lying around naked in this doss. She applies her red and black paint and dons her red and black synthleather, assuming her Striper guise. She spends a moment checking the Kang—one shell in the chamber, a full clip securely installed—then slips it into the holster at the small of her back.

Late afternoon is slipping into evening as she steps onto the street. A blue and white Minuteman Security bus grinds up the block, heading toward the House of Correction. The blare of air horns and a low rumbling signal the passage of a train along the tracks off to the west. She walks that way, west. A few blocks and she’s at the Hunan Mayfair, a little storefront restaurant mashed between a German deli and a pizzeria. The display in the window flashes the words “Kung Po Beef! Hot! Stir fried with water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and peanuts in hot & spicy pepper sauce!” She steps inside, takes a seat at one of the plastic booths, and orders a plate of the Kung Po.

“Make it hot,” Tikki tells the old man who takes her order.

“Ehh?” he says, frowning.

She removes her shades and meets his eyes. An Anglo would probably see only the red and black-striped mask painted onto her face and hair. Perhaps the old man sees more. A quick flash of surprise shows clearly in his eyes. Tikki guesses that he has noticed the subtle Asian cast to her eyes. For a man who is obviously Chinese, it would make a difference.

“I want it hot,” she says in Mandarin.

“Very hot,” the old man replies in the same tongue, flashing a smile. “Hot as you like. You’ll see.”

She nods, and the old man bows and withdraws.

A combat biker match between the Texas Rattlers and the L.A. Sabers is playing on the tiny pyramidal trid set into the center of her table. She switches to News Now 38, and listens to a replay of the story about that Neiman suit who got hosed in a parking garage. They still aren’t saying anything about the yakuza getting smoked. Why does that bother her so much? Perhaps because the story about Neiman includes many details that recall her assassination of Ryokai Naoshi in a parking garage, and she has known the media to spill stories despite court-ordered blackouts and the efforts of the cops or the corps to keep certain incidents quiet.

She wonders if Adama could have been lying to her about the identities of those she has taken as prey. Could she have been tricked into murdering ordinary citizens? It seems unlikely. Tikki always verifies the information given her. To deceive her, Adama would have had to use magic on her, and Adama is no mage.

The meat arrives, Kung Po beef, hot enough to burn. The food helps settle her mood, making it easier to think. She considers ordering a second plate, but this is no time for gorging herself. She needs to think. Think clearly. Think smart.

Someone has marked her, put a price on her head. Never mind how they figured out that she’s the principal weapon in Adama’s ambitious rush toward dominance over the Philly underworld. What should she do about it? That’s the point.

Be prepared for the worst.

Pick up her money.

Tikki doesn’t like the idea of running, but if necessary, she will. And if and when the crunch comes, she may not have time for a trip to the bank.

The “bank” in this case is located beneath the ruins of the Northeast Mall, a quick taxi ride from the restaurant to a district called Holmesburg. The parking fields are littered with trash, junk, and burnt-out autos. Fires burn in metal drums. Five Minuteman patrol cars with flaring turret lights sit before the main entrance. A dozen gangers with cycles are holding a party on the west side. Around the north side of the mall, Tikki finds an open fire door that gives her access to a stairway down to the sublevel concourse.

It’s dark down here, dark as night. The air smells of kerosene and petrochem. Laser light flares, flashlights gleam. Music roars, half a dozen discordant melodies, conflicting rhythms, throbbing, pounding. A racing bike whines, hurtling up the center of the concourse. Humans and metahumans, a few elves, orks, even some trolls, gather in groups or wander around, talking, laughing, shouting, crying out. Some drink, others doze. A pair in black synthleather writhe and rut on one of the marbleized benches along one side. Garbage and other debris make the footing treacherous in places. Vomit and other droppings mingle with the garbage and add to the rank smells fouling the air.

The shops lining both sides of the place have been converted to various purposes. One offers pirate simsense chips and tapes—all
Better Than Life.
Guaranteed. Another specializes in mind-altering chemicals. Several have a great variety of merchandise on display, all undoubtedly stolen. Most places are guarded by artists with guns, mostly automatic weapons, including machine guns.

Toward the middle of the concourse is the store now used as the headquarters of the Death Angels, one of the city’s most powerful biker gangs. Many members are cheap muscle, low-rent kick-artists, and killers. Minor talent as far as Tikki is concerned, but worth treating with a measure of respect, worth watching if only out of the corners of her eyes.

One of the gangers hanging around the headquarters entrance lifts a bottle of liquor toward her and calls, “Hoi, Striper!”

“Yo,
suit
!” she growls.

The ganger cackles with laughter, then makes a fist and pumps it back and forth from the hip, growling, “El numero uno!”

Respect goes both ways.

Necessarily so.

When it doesn’t, life gets dangerous. The Death Angels know that. They wouldn’t survive in northeast Philly if they got heavy with everyone they met. They also seem to know that Tikki is a predator worth treating right. She isn’t exactly sure how they figured that out, but she hasn’t had any problems with them since the day she arrived.

The bank is next door to the Angels’ headquarters. The front is guarded by a wall of metal, broken only by a single narrow door. Tikki pounds on the door. The narrow slit in the door flips open. One large eye looks out. A moment later, the door swings open and Tikki steps into the bank’s outer room. Facing her is a wall of metal that shows the outlines of another door. To her left is a plastic table. To her right is a troll, and a big one. Known as Duke, he has such heavy bone deposits under his skin that it looks more like lumpy leather hide with rocks sewn into the fabric. The lumpy bits rise into short, stubby spikes that climb over the top of his head.

Duke isn’t quite tall enough to be twice Tikki’s height, but he’s close. At least so it seems, standing there in front of him. Looking up into his face is like looking at the ceiling. He’s easily tall enough to have to bend down low to pass through a standard doorway. And if he could wedge himself into the average automobile, there wouldn’t be room for much else. Duke may not weigh as much as an automobile, but he looks it. Well over a hundred kilos. Also contributing to the impression of massive size and imposing power are his Ares body armor, studded and spiked arm bands, and the Stoner-Ares M107 heavy machine gun slung from his shoulder.

“You want trouble,” he says in a voice deep and guttural. “I’ll give you all you want.”

Tikki believes him, and merely shakes her head. She’s impressed. Not impressed enough to be scared, but enough to realize that if she did decide to make trouble she’d have to be very careful about this slag Duke. She only wonders why the troll feels a need to talk big. She isn’t in the habit of making trouble for no reason.

“No guns allowed inside.”

This is standard. Tikki lays the Kang on the table, then submits to a quick frisk. Duke grunts, then jabs with a horny, lumpy knuckle at a button on the inside wall. A buzzer sounds. The slit in the inside door flips open, but several moments pass before the door swings open. Some people never get through that door. You have to know the right name. You have to be considered safe.

“Remember what I said,” Duke growls.

Tikki nods, though a bit irked by the reminder.

It’s unnecessary.

The room beyond is very plain. Flanking the inner doorway are a pair of razorguys, one male, one female, both holding assault rifles. Tikki can almost smell the metal in them. A rectangular table stands in the center of the room, the only light coming from the glowing screen of the terminal sitting on it. Seated behind the table is André, Fat André. He is human, black, and immensely obese. His jowls have jowls, his chins descend to his chest. A slender, fashion-conscious woman might envy him his breasts. His gigantic belly seems to begin somewhere just under his arms and disappear beneath his side of the table. Oddly, he smells like fish.

Tikki has a hard time imagining a fish-eater ever becoming so obese. She has seen the occasional fat Japanese, but only rarely. Fat André’s smell, his stink, is probably an unusual combination of sweat and other naturally produced aromas.

“Hoi,” Fat André says.

Tikki nods, pausing before the table. “I’ll take fifty kay of my money. In five certified sticks. No SINs.”