shadowrun 40 The Burning Time (25 page)

As Ian worked, Gallow watched eagerly through Trouble’s eyes. The spirit felt a faint brush against its aura, which wrapped around that of the woman. Its astral senses could make out faint indications of a power reaching out across the ether toward it, like a feather-light touch, a tenuous thread of magic connecting it to someone far away. That thread tasted of a familiar power, and Gallow was unable to keep a broad smile from Trouble’s face. Let the others think it was satisfaction with their work. Gallow knew it was because Mama Iaga had been proven right. Talon had found it, and would come, as she said.

All Gallow had to do was prepare and wait.

From an apartment in the L-Zone, Talon reached out, forging the link between the piece of Gallow’s abandoned host body and Gallow’s spirit, hidden somewhere within the city. He spun out the thread of their connection, strengthening it with the power of his will and with energy drawn from Aracos. Then, he saw it stretching before him like a ghostly tether, stretching out, out toward Gallow. He kept the thread firmly in the grip of his will and began to work the spell. Its energies coursed down the thread like a vibration down a violin string, but Talon remained prepared for the danger of a backlash or a sudden attack from the astral plane.

The spell reached out and, in a flash of insight, Talon knew where Gallow was. It was in the depths of the Catacombs, where they’d confronted the spirit the first time, but in a different area of the tunnels. Staying focused on the spell, Talon strode to doorway and pulled open the plastic curtain. The others were waiting for him in the kitchen.

"I’ve found them," he said. "Let’s go."

Gallow felt the touch of Talon’s spell and did not resist as the mage who had created it sought to find it again. It was so easy, the spirit thought, feeling the spell play across its aura like a faint shimmer of heat and light. Now Talon knew. He would be on his way. Gallow glanced up into the open shaft above where Ian O’Donnel was working.

"How much longer?" Trouble asked, and Ian glanced down.

"Nearly finished," he said, using his sleeve to wipe away the sweat and grime from his face. Gallow forced down feelings of urgency and the desire to command Ian to work faster. Patience, patience, it thought. Savor the moment. But the moments ticked by too slowly before O’Donnel finished his work, climbed down the shaft, and dropped the last two meters to the floor.

"Done," he announced proudly. "It’s only too bad we can’t wait around for the show to begin."

Trouble slid smoothly into his arms. "Well, it depends on the sort of show you want to see," she said wickedly, drawing him to her lips for a kiss.

Watching them, Rory chuckled. "Get a room, you two. We’ve got to get going." When the two lovebirds ignored him, he laughed again before tapping Ian on the shoulder. "Hey, boss, we got plenty of time for—"

Rory and Colleen gasped as Trouble released her hold on Ian, and he slumped to the floor, eyes wide and staring, his mouth open in a silent scream, but unmoving.

"What the. . .?" Rory said, reaching for his gun.

"I’m sorry," Trouble purred, "but your usefulness to me is at an end."

No sooner had Trouble spoken, than an aura of flames surrounded her, throwing a hellish light across the room. She gestured toward Colleen, the fingers of her left hand opening like a blossom. A jet of flame shot from her aura, spraying the young woman like a fire hose, igniting her hair and clothing. Colleen shrieked and dropped to the ground, rolling to try and put out the flames.

Rory fired a shot at Trouble, but his surprise and fear sent it wide of the mark, and the shot ricocheted off one of the walls. Before he could begin to take aim for another, the fiery woman was upon him, her hands seizing him. He screamed as Trouble’s touch seared his wrist and his throat like hot irons. In a moment, the room was full of the stench of burning skin, hair, and clothing.

Trouble threw back her head and laughed as Rory struggled frantically to break her grip. She loosened it enough to let him slip free, and he stumbled back, falling to the ground, his charred wounds beginning to weep red. He fumbled for the gun he had dropped.

Gallow never gave him the chance to use it. Trouble took a deep breath and huffed out a blast of fire that engulfed Rory, who screamed in anguish. The flames charred his exposed skin and set his clothing on fire, the heat so intense that, to Gallow’s regret, he didn’t live long enough to feel much more pain. The spirit turned to where Colleen was just getting up from the ground, having managed to put out her burning clothing. She was covered in raw, bleeding burns and dirt from the ground, with most of her hair burned away by the blast.

"No, please. . .," she said, trying to scramble away on hands and knees as Gallow moved closer. ". . . Please don’t." She spied her gun on the ground nearby and made a grab for it. Gallow could have stopped her, but didn’t bother. As she picked up the gun and turned to point it at Trouble, Gallow gestured contemptuously with the flip of one hand. Suddenly, the gun in Colleen’s hands was red hot, and she dropped it as it scorched her hand.

Then Trouble was upon her. The flame aura died away as she grabbed the girl’s throat with one hand, forcing her to her knees with incredible strength. Colleen clutched at the hand locked around her throat, but her struggles were feeble, no match for the inhuman creature inhabiting Trouble’s body. Tears of terror rolled down Colleen’s face as she looked up into Trouble’s eyes.

"Please," she whispered one more time, helplessly, as Gallow gave a sigh of pleasure and tightened Trouble’s hand around Colleen’s throat. There was the hiss of burning flesh, then the flames flared around Trouble’s body once more. Colleen gave a gurgling scream that was cut off when Gallow snapped her neck like a dry twig, then dropped the smoldering body to the ground. Trouble turned to where Ian O’Donnel lay helpless, but still alive, paralyzed by the spirit’s power.

"Poor, darling Ian," Gallow crooned in Trouble’s voice, bending down to look into his eyes. "So caught up in your little cause that you never dreamed you were just a pawn in an even bigger game, did you? You never thought your precious little Ariel would betray you."

There was a gurgling sound as Ian tried to find his voice, but couldn’t. All he could do was look at Trouble with pleading, confused eyes. Gallow drank in the waves of fear and pain coming from O’Donnel as his heart ached at Trouble’s betrayal.

"You’re never going to see a free Ireland, I’m afraid," Gallow continued, "but then, neither is anyone else. You and your kind need to learn an important lesson, Ian. This is the Sixth World. The time of you and yours has passed. This is our time, our world now. It is a world of magic, and it won’t be long before nobody remembers when it was otherwise. I’d gladly tell you all about it, but I have a few other things to do, so I’ll just leave you with that."

Gallow reached down and gently caressed Ian’s cheek. He whimpered at the heat of Trouble’s touch.

"Goodbye, my dear," Gallow said as the leader of the Knights of the Red Branch burst into flames. He recovered enough of his voice to scream, then he thrashed weakly before collapsing back onto the floor. A cloud of greasy black smoke billowed up toward the ceiling, filling the room with haze and the stink of burned flesh. Gallow watched the spectacle for a few moments before turning back to other business.

It climbed up to where Ian had affixed the viral bomb and made a few adjustments. Then it reached into the bag Trouble always carried and drew out a small cylinder with the catalyst from Mama Iaga. In a matter of minutes, the catalyst was attached to the viral bomb, turning the otherwise harmless Pandora virus deadly. The visitors to the Dunkelzahn Institute would soon be dead, along with everyone in the immediate area.

Gallow looked again at the faintly glowing thread in astral space, stretching from its aura out to wherever Talon was. Now, all it had to do was wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hammer took the wheel of the van as they raced toward the Cambridge area, Talon’s spell guiding the way. Talon silently wished they had Val along. Hammer was right that some of her drones would have gone a long way toward evening the odds. He also wished they’d had a chance to engage some additional backup, but there wasn’t time. He could count on Hammer and Boom, but Kilaro had never fired a gun in his life. As always, Aracos would provide magical help, but Jase was an unknown quantity. Even Jase didn’t know what abilities he retained in his ghostly form.

Talon hadn’t wanted him to come along, but Jase insisted. "What am I going to do?" he asked. "Hang around here and haunt the place?"

Talon didn’t want Jase endangered, but when Jase pointed out that the feeling was mutual, Talon relented. Besides, it wasn’t like he could really keep Jase from following them. As a ghost, he could move faster than their van and keep up with them no matter where they went.

Talon thanked the gods that traffic was relatively light as they made their way along Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. Then he spotted the distinctive flashing lights of Knight Errant patrol cars parked along the road in various spots.

"They’ve got road blocks up," Hammer said, spotting it at the same time. "What the frag’s going on?"

"Take a left up here," Talon said. "We’re going to have to ditch the van and go through the Catacombs. Gallow is definitely underground."

Roy Kilaro was sitting in the back of the van, scanning a portable datapad. "The police are out in force," he said. "They’re even calling in help from local corp security. It looks like what’s been going down in DeeCee and all the commotion around the anniversary of the Awakening has got everyone edgy."

"Maybe it’s got something to do with the Pandora virus," Boom said.

Kilaro shook his head. "There’s no way Pandora could cause the symptoms they’re talking about. In its regular form, it’s like a nasty, fast-acting flu virus. Add the catalyst, and it becomes deadly. People would be dropping in the streets. They wouldn’t even make it to the hospitals."

Hammer took the van along a side street and found a parking spot. They all got out, and Talon led the way through alleys and side streets to avoid attracting police attention. The last thing they needed was to be stopped and questioned.

Talon led them down a dark cul-de-sac and stopped near the end of it. "There it is," he said, pointing at a small, blocky structure. The entrance was covered over with heavy sheets of construction plastic bonded into place, but the faded "T" logo of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority was still visible on the either side and over the door.

Boom and Hammer quickly set to work peeling back one of the plastic panels, which broke with a snap loud enough to be heard around the block, but no one came to investigate. The runners slipped through the narrow opening, though Boom barely managed to squeeze through.

Beyond the entrance, the old subway station was dark and covered in a thick layer of dust. Talon produced a flashlight to light the way as they descended the cracked concrete steps. Hammer and Boom didn’t really need the light; their metahuman eyes adjusted easily to the dimness. Neither did Aracos or Jase, with their astral senses, but Talon and Kilaro still did. They hopped over the rusting turnstiles to the platform, then continued on down through the well of the tunnel itself.

"I thought these tunnels were sealed off after the earthquake," Kilaro said, noticing the many large cracks in the concrete walls.

"They were," Talon said. "In fact, this one collapsed a few hundred meters that way." He gestured down the tunnel with the flashlight. "The metroplex government abandoned most of the old T system and built newer tunnels further down using more modern materials. But after the Awakening and Goblinization Day, a lot of squatters and metahumans took refuge down here and in other parts of the old subway system. They cleared out the debris in some areas and in others took over abandoned tunnels and stations. The collapse that blocked this tunnel has been mostly cleared."

In fact, when they reached the area where the tunnel had fallen down, it was just as Talon said. Debris still choked most of it, but a path had been cleared through the pile of concrete, rock, and steel. The hole was just large enough for Boom to fit through, and he grunted a bit as he squeezed out the other side.

Kilaro ran his hand along the side of the tunnel as he crawled through.. "It’s smooth," he said. "Like they used some kind of cutting torch. What did they use to cut through here?"

"Magic," Talon said.

Hammer and Boom took the lead now. Talon and Kilaro were next, and the spirits stayed close by in astral space. They were invisible to mundane sight, but Talon knew they were there through his link with Aracos. He still felt the old connection to Jase, too, the same ties that had bound them together from the moment they’d met.

"Not far now," Talon said to his companions. "Watch out. There could be just about anything down here."

Following Talon’s directions, they took a branch off the main tunnel. It sloped downward at a slight angle, then took a turn ahead that made it difficult to see what lay beyond. Talon kept the light aimed low, trying to minimize the chance that anyone, or anything, would see it. There was just enough for to show him what was just ahead as they went. It was more than likely that Gallow would know they were coming. If it had sensed Talon’s spell, it was probably lying in wait for them.

Hammer gestured for them to stop as he took a single cautious step forward. He tilted his head, listening to something none of the others couldn’t hear.

"Get ready," he said, taking a step back. "We’ve got company."

Then Talon heard the sound Hammer’s enhanced hearing must have picked up. It was a faint squealing, skittering noise that steadily grew louder and louder.

"Devil rats!" Boom cried as a living carpet of mottled flesh and glowing red eyes rounded the corner, squealing as they charged at the invaders of their underground domain. Devil rats were an Awakened variety of the common Norway rats that plagued cities all over the world. Unlike their mundane cousins, devil rats were virtually hairless, covered in wrinkled folds of loose, pinkish-gray skin. At a meter in length, they were much larger than normal rats, with a vicious and evil disposition.