Preying for keeps s-29 Read online

  "No matter what I say," Skater said, "you're not going to believe me. You're going to have to make sure."

  A thin, mirthless smile scarred the man's mouth, looking out of place. "Of course."

  "Then let's get to it," Skater said. "We're wasting time here."

  "You've an admirable spirit, Mr. Skater," the elf said. "I would enjoy crossing swords with you at some other time, both verbal and steel, and I'm assured that you're no stranger to either. But I, too, am pressed by time. 'Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.' Parkinson's Law. You've probably never heard that before."

  "Not to know who it came from," Skater agreed. He shifted slightly, like he was trying to work the circulation back into his legs. At the same time he was pulling on the hand cuffs, testing the flex in the right one. "Did you kill Larisa Hartsinger?"

  "No." The elf's face was stone, giving nothing away. Except that he hadn’t asked who Larisa Hansinger was, Skater realized. "Who tipped you to me?"

  "We had your picture from the ship. A few offers of financial reward here in Seattle, we had your name."

  'The yakuza were out there, too. They hit the ship's system, not us"

  "They're hunting you."

  "Maybe they'd like you to think so."

  The elf took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew on it till the coal was bright orange. "However it turns out, we're going to start with you and see where that takes us." He waved another man forward.

  The new arrival was taller by a head than the first elf, and built like a rail. His dark red mohawk stood at least twenty centimeters high, and glittered from jeweled dust. He was young, maybe as little as nineteen or twenty, though Skater knew it was hard to tell with elves. In a synch leather vest over an open black shirt and dark denims and wearing go-gang stomper boots, he looked like he knew his way around the sprawl. A series of hoops of increasing size ringed both pointy ears, alternating gold and silver. His black gloves had the fingers chopped out of them.

  "Find out what he knows," the first elf said.

  The elven mage smiled slightly, then touched the jeweled amulet at his throat as he gestured and spoke a string of words in Sperethiel.

  Skater felt the spell take him, warned only a heartbeat before by the slight shimmering net of activity that jetted from the mage's fingers and jumped for him. It fell like a red-hot icicle had been jammed into his brain.

  Memories of growing up on Council lands crashed through his synapses. He smelted his grandmother's cooking, felt the tug of the first fish he ever caught, and listened to the timbre of his grandfather voicing displeasure. There was a momentary flash of the wind in his face from the assault on the Sapphire Seahawk, the vibration of his sword clanging against one of the elven sailor's. He pulled the pain in deep until it consumed him and pushed everything else away.

  In response, Skater felt the psychic knife filleting his mind shift angles. The number of memories became fewer, but their duration lasted longer.

  Slick blood coated Skater's hand. Somewhere out there he could feel it. He hoped none of his captors noticed it was slowly coming free. Or maybe he was only imagining it. He forced his spasms to work with him, pulling on the arm till it felt like his shoulder was about to pop out of the socket.

  "I've got the troll who was with him," the mage said confidently. "A few more minutes, I'll have the others, too."

  "Lone Star confiscated his clothes and possessions," someone said.

  "What about his doss?" the stocky elf asked.

  "We didn't find anything," one of the other elves answered.

  Skater focused on the lead elf, trying to fill his mind with how he looked. Shiva was in his mind again, and he knew the mage had her image as well.

  "I've got two of them," the mage said. Perspiration gleamed in sliding diamonds on his pale face. 'There were seven of them all together, but one may be dead."

  The odor reached Skater first, rising up and separating itself out of all the rest. It was dense and suffocating, freshly turned, wet earth that had sat and mildewed for a long time.

  Pain cut across the back of his right hand as he gained another centimeter or two on the cuff. He felt it resting across the first knuckle of his little finger. Blood pulsed against the steel. He knew he couldn't wait much longer. The damage was bruising his flesh and it was starting to swell. In another few seconds he wouldn't be able to get close to pulling his hand through.

  Skater opened his eyes and focused on the mage. He was still shaking, like he had palsy. Fever spots burned on his cheeks and perspiration ran down his neck, soaking his clothes. Shadows lurked behind the elves. At first he thought it was just his imagination firing off the invasive mind filling his own. The shapes shambled toward the elves with a strange, almost drunken gait.

  Then the shambling shadows closed on the elves. Skater recognized them for what they were, ghouls, and couldn't stop the insane laughter that cackled out of him. It was incredible. The smell was all around, but the elves weren't aware of it. Somehow the mage fragging around in his mind had magnified his olfactory nerves, maybe his vision and hearing too, because now he could spot the odd bit of gray-white scabrous hide and hear the scrape of near-dead flesh over the paved warehouse floor.

  The psychic knife turned in Skater's mind again as he watched the things creep closer. The lamplight shone against their yellow fangs and long, gray nails. "They were able to download the files from the ship's system before the yuakuza got to them," the mage said.

  "Where are the files?"

  The mage hesitated, and Skater fell the mind probe penetrate further, questing with direction. "More than one copy exists."

  Skater felt his trapped hand slide free. The handcuffs dangled from his other wrist, tapping against the back of the chair. He blinked perspiration out of his eyes, setting himself because he knew it was going down quick.

  "I've got the deckers face," the mage said. "An elven female. She may be known to us."

  "Only a little longer," the stocky elf said. "Then we'll dispose of him and get on about our business."

  The ghouls closed the distance separating them from their prey. Skater couldn't believe they would attack seven armed men, even though they outnumbered the elves two to one. But who really knew what ghouls were like or how they behaved? One thing was obvious: the lure of human and metahuman flesh was irresistible to them. As ghouls, they existed on the edges of the sprawl, bringing down the weak, sick, or young, or dining on the freshly dead. Probably some sort of accident, no doubt involving dead bodies, had drawn them to this warehouse.

  The leader of the pack wore a Mortimer of London longcoat over jeans and a lavender tanktop that emphasized the gray-white death pallor of the exposed flesh. He gestured, and two of the others peeled off and attacked the nearest elf, who was watching Skater with interest.

  One of the scabrous creatures grabbed the elf by the shoulder and pulled him around. The elf started to say something, but a swipe of the long, hardened nails opened his throat, killing any noise he might have made. Still, the dying man's finger tightened on his Sandier. A line of bullets stuttered across the concrete floor and took out the second ghoul.

  The stocky elf turned at once. Deadly quick, he dropped his hand, then had it up again pointing the Seco pistol as if by magic.

  Skater felt the psychic knife leave his mind as soon as the mage's attention wavered. The ghouls moved forward, overwhelming the elves by sheer numbers.

  The stocky elf killed one of them before it reached him. Another one was at pointblank range when he lifted the pistol and put a round through one of its eyes. The forward momentum didn't stop, and the dead ghoul came crashing across the stocky elf, knocking him to the floor.

  The elven mage worked his hands, gathering the power needed to wield a spell. Before he could finish, a wall of force slammed into him. His broken body fell away, and from the slack way it landed. Skater was pretty sure the elf was history.

  Skater stood, intending to get free of
the chair. Guns blasted all around him, filling the warehouse with a blitzkrieg of flash and thunder. Screams and curses in Sperethiel punctuated the gunshots.

  Before Skater could free one leg, a ghoul shoved its way through two elves who were trying to bring their weapons up and defend themselves at the same lime. Skater straightened in time to catch the charging thing with a hand over its forehead. Skater's other hand knotted in the cloth remaining of the ghoul's stained, ripped shirt. Unable to get out of the way, the ghoul bowled him over with its sheer ferocity.

  The wooden chair smashed when Skater and the ghoul landed on top of it. Skater's legs came free, carrying tatters of the tape and fragments of the chair. He was engulfed by the foul stench of the huge thing on top of him, and struggled not to throw up. It breathed on him, foul and heavy, wet against the bare skin of his neck.

  He kept his hands locked in place, holding the thing at bay while its fangs gnashed for him. The ghoul swung a handful of claws in his face. Skater twisted, and the claws shattered against the pavement. It howled in frustrated anger.

  An elf fell beside Skater, two of the ghouls on top of him. The elf shot one in the chest as it tried to smash his head between its hands. But even as the dead one fell away, the remaining one sank its fangs into his abdomen and slapped the gun away. The elf was screaming and trying to fight as the thing raised its head with crimson staining its mouth. With no wasted motion, the ghoul rammed a hand deep into the wound it had created in the elf's stomach, going all the way up to the elbow before it stopped. The elf shivered, went stiff, and died between heartbeats.

  Releasing his hold on the ghoul's shirt, Skater bent its arm and with surprising ease, thrust its forearm and hand with the long, hardened nails into the side of its head. Blood spurted inside the creature's eye, threading a scarlet mosaic instantly through the ash-gray jelly.

  Without mercy. Skater opened his hand and swung a short heel blow into the broken area of the ghoul's skull. The shattered plates of bone grated against each other, but sank inward to crush the brain. The sentient light in the creature's eyes went out and the muscles relaxed.

  Skater rolled the dead body off him and forced himself to his feet. The teddy bear he'd picked up at Larisa's lay a few steps away, one of the ears nearly torn off. Reaching down, he plucked it from the floor and shoved it inside the loose jail jumper. Then he picked up a nearby chair leg.

  A ghoul sprang at him, lips ricked back to expose the broken fangs. Strings of muscle tissue clotted with blood hung from them.

  Side-stepping, Skater swung the short length of the chair leg. It wasn't heavy, so he knew he had to depend on speed and timing. The makeshift club landed with a satisfying thunk against the back of the ghoul's skull as it went stumbling by. The corpse sprawled and tumbled, fading back into the shadows.

  "Freeze, rat-frag," an elf commanded. He moved out of the pile of bodies battling all around him. His pistol was centered on Skater's chest. Stray bullets impacted against the pavement from at least two other guns, spitting sparks.

  Skater tensed, ready to throw himself behind a low wall of tarp-covered crates and machinery. The stink of the ghouls was overwhelming. Elves cursed and screamed as they fought and died.

  A basso gunshot sounded from behind Skater, and for a moment he figured his luck had run out. Then his peripheral vision registered a long muzzle flash and the elf in front of him crumpled.

  "C'mon, kid," a gruff voice said above the sound of a pump shotgun getting racked for another shot.

  Skater whirled. Six meters away, Quint Duran stood in the cover afforded by the tarped crates. There was only a moment of indecision, then bullets cut wind around Skater and he was moving.

  12

  Duran stepped from cover and fired two double-ought blasts in the direction of the elves and ghouls, easily dropping some of both.

  Skater stayed low, making his way toward the ork behind a row of crates. Rounds tore the canvas fabric and sent oblong pieces of material flying. Heavy return fire drove Duran back into hiding.

  A flitting shadow warned Skater that he was about to he attacked. He turned to face the threat and caught an elf who was leaping over the covered crates. The elf's weight and momentum shoved Skater backward, but he locked a hand onto his attacker's gun-wrist.

  He fell hard against the crates behind him and sent some of them spinning. Even in the darkness, he caught the gleam of edged metal in the elf's other hand. The knife came streaking for his face. Lifting his free arm. Skater parried the knife strike, then rammed his forehead into the elf's face. The crunch of breaking teeth echoed inside his skull, stepping up the pounding headache that was left over from the mind probe spell.

  Before the elf could recover, Skater twisted the gun toward his attacker and jerked the trigger three times. All the rounds tore through the elf's chest. As the man lay dying, Skater stripped him of the Predator, then added two full clips to it from die belt at his attacker's waist.

  Gray-white hands grabbed the tarp only centimeters from his face. The sharp talons sliced through the heavy material easily.

  Skater lifted the Predator and squeezed off a round, wanting to make his ammunition last. The bullet shattered the ghoul's skull and sent it staggering back, bloody froth running down its misshapen muzzle.

  He glanced up, searching for Duran. The ork was taking cover behind a crate.

  "You need an invite at this point?" Duran asked as he thumbed more shells into the Remington Roomsweeper.

  "Which way?" Skater asked. A glance showed him that the elves were starting to make headway against the ghouls. Several of the bodies lay strewn across the floor within reach of the ring of illumination coming from the overhead light. The elf mage's head had been removed by a blade, and the rest of the corpse lay stretched out near the broken chair.

  Duran nodded across the empty space. "Door. Leads out into an alley. I got wheels waiting."

  Skater pushed himself up, bringing the Predator around in both hands. "Go!" He was aware of Duran breaking cover as the elves who'd been firing at the ork's position came around to face him instead. The heavy pistol jumped in his hands as he squeezed the trigger rapidly. His first round extinguished the light, plunging the room into darkness.

  He turned and dove as a fresh 'onslaught of bullets and fletchettes tore into the wall and door frame. Duran grabbed a fistful of the Lone Star jumper and yanked Skater to his feet in the short corridor, then gave him a shove toward the steel door with the panic bar still in place.

  Skater dumped the empty clip and rammed the last full one in. He used his hip to slam against the panic bar. The door opened immediately, but the alarm whoop-whoop-whooped to life, the raucous noise echoing down the alley.

  Afternoon had finally come to the sprawl, and so had the rain. Clouds obscured the sun, leaving the light washed out and fuzzy yellow. The drizzle coming down created a haze over the metroplex and left spattered pools of collected water across the uneven surface of the alley.

  A yellow and black Harley Scorpion leaned on its kick-stand next to the warehouse wall, partially hidden by the overgrowth springing out of the cracked asphalt. On the other side of the alley was the incline of a loading dock reaching to the warehouse bays.

  "Run, kid," Duran said. He slid a long knife from his boot and rammed it through the door handle and the locking mechanism on the door frame. "This won't hold them long."

  Skater sprinted for the motorcycle. The light hurt his eyes and he blinked rapidly to get rid of the pain. It didn't help. "Anyone else here?"

  Duran slid into the Scorpion's saddle shoving the heavy pistol into a belt holster. "I'm solo." Pressing the electronic ignition, he brought the motorcycle roaring to life.

  Skater dropped into place behind the ork.

  “Drek, kid, you look like a fragging Halloween pumpkin sitting up there in all that orange." Duran shrugged out of his jacket and passed it back.

  Skater took the jacket and pulled it on. Someone inside the warehouse was banging the he
ll out of the door.

  "Hang on," Duran advised. The motorcycle engine revved up, then leveled out when the clutch was released. The rear tire spun for just a moment before finding traction.

  Wrapping his free arm around the ork's midsection. Skater hung on. The Scorpion felt like it was moving along at the outside edge of control.

  Tires shrieked at the mouth of the alley. A black Ford Americar backed into position, blocking access to the street. Skater pointed the Predator at the car and was about to start unloading, wondering where the drek they were going to find cover.

  "Hold on." Duran tapped the rear brake and swooped the Scorpion up the slight incline leading to the loading dock fronting the boarded-over warehouse bays. "Tight." He accelerated and leaned forward.

  Skater had both arms wrapped around the ork's waist when he saw the end of the loading dock suddenly come into view. Some years in the past, when it had still been active, steel safety bars had encircled the loading area. All that was left were a few centimeters above the concrete showing torch scarring where they'd been cut off. He didn't even have time to curse before they were suddenly airborne.

  Duran pulled back on the handlebars, bringing the Scorpion's front wheel up. The motorcycle shot over the Americar's nose, landing meters away from the car on a broken and overgrown sidewalk with a harsh bounce. The ork handled the big motorcycle with muscle and weight, bending it to his will. Still moving, he geared down, then twisted the accelerator again. The motorcycle leaped the short curb and charged out onto the street just after a delivery van passed by.

  The Americar wheeled around and came at them, tearing through a flower vendor's pushcart. A rainbow of blossoms and roses scattered as the wide red and white umbrella went spinning away. Barely escaping injury herself, the vendor came up on her knees firing, moving much younger and more adroitly than her baggy clothing suggested. One of the bullets hit the elf in the passenger seat in the back of the head, coating the windshield on the inside with blood.