Gathering Storm (26 page)

They watched Storm, the
loan beast, and his goons enter a hotel that should have been
imploded decades earlier. As soon as they were out of sight, the
knights followed. They’d done enough research on Richard Shade to
anticipate that Storm might need some capable backup at some point
in the evening. When they asked around, they learned that Shade was
infamous for striking bargains and then changing the terms at a
whim on authority of the muscle that accompanied him everywhere he
went.

Yes. The hunters had
believed Storm’s story for three very good reasons. First, the
organization they worked for was all about the strange, bizarre,
and the hard to accept or reconcile with reality. Second, there was
eye witness evidence. All four saw him take out a vamp with a
practiced ease and efficiency that had veteran Black Swan knight
written all over it. And, third, he knew too much about The Order
to be anything other than what he claimed to be.

Storm hadn’t asked for
back up, but he wasn’t the sort who would. In the minds of the
knights, that served as further proof that he was one of them, even
if he was an alien.

So looking as
inconspicuous as possible, they eased down the street separately
toward the door where Storm and his escorts had entered the
dilapidated building.

It was just after nine
o’clock when the game began in a room behind the hotel lobby. It
had no door, but was still considered private because that hotel
didn’t get uninvited visitors.

One of the team of slayers
slipped in and confirmed that the game was underway, making a quick
visual assessment of the number of players and spectators. Shade
and friends were sitting out of the way, along the wall, but close
enough that Storm would be mindful of their presence.

Six hours later, when
Storm was up seventy-eight thousand dollars, he left the game.
Shade said nothing. He and the two lackeys followed Storm out of
the building.

Once on the sidewalk,
Storm handed over seventy-five thousand.

“There you go. Paid in full, a debt I never
owed, but taking your word that somebody did.”

Shade’s voice was low and
gravelly. “Get in the car, Storm. I don’t conduct business on
sidewalks.”

“There’s no business to
conduct. I just paid you off. We’re done. I’m no longer obligated
to ride in a vehicle with you, trying not to choke on whatever that
smell is. I’ll find my own way back. Then… don’t want to see you
again. Hope we’re clear.”

Shade’s smile turned
menacing. “We’re done when I say we’re done. The original debt was
seventy-five. Interest has accrued since then. I’m going to need
another fifty to clear.”

Storm smiled, looked at the ground for a
split second, and shook his head at the deserted surrounding
neighborhood.

“Gave you a chance to do
this the easy way. You’re money ahead. It’s all good. If I were
you, I’d count my blessings with my dollars and be on my way. I
don’t care how you sort it out in your own mind. But. We. Are.
Done. If you push for another outcome, you won’t like the results
and you have my word on that.”

Storm turned to leave.
Shade nodded at the goons who started to reach inside coats for
handheld firearms. The guns never cleared lapels before they were
in the possession of Black Swan hunters whose presence had not been
detected by any of them other than Storm.

“We’ll just take these.”

When Sir Randeskin got
close to Shade, he turned to Storm. “What exactly is
that?”

Storm shrugged. “Dogged if I know,
brother.”

Randeskin never took his
eyes from Shade, while Sir Blitheness patted him down. Blitheness
removed a dagger in a jeweled scabbard. It was beautiful. Looked
like a ceremonial weapon that belonged in a museum. He passed it
over to Randeskin who whistled as he admired it and withdrew the
blade. He took his time examining the artistic intricacy of the
etchings on both sides before laying the razor-sharp edge against
Shade’s throat.

“What is that smell? Ugh.
All the gods.” Randeskin coughed in Shade’s face. “Look. We may not
know what you are, but we know who you are, where you live, where
you do business, and with whom. This man…” his head moved in
Storm’s direction, “…is connected in ways you can’t begin to
fathom.”

“What do you want?” Shade gritted between
his teeth.

A little more pressure was
applied to the knife, driving the point home, so to
speak.

“What we want is for this
to be as easy as getting your acknowledgement that the thing is
settled and your promise that Storm won’t be hearing from you
again. But, since we know we can’t count on you to stand by your
agreements, we’re forced to put our faith in your sense of
self-preservation.

“So it’s like this. If you
ever see this man again, run the other way. Because if he ever
sees
you
again,
you and this very fine knife are going to get much closer than ever
before. And it’s so pretty, I’d hate to see it get rusty because of
being buried in something wet. Likewise, if anything happens to him
–
anything
– get
your affairs in order fast because you can count your remaining
hours on your fingers.”

When Randeskin released
Shade, he shoved him toward the waiting car at the same time. He
stumbled back, but was caught by one of the thugs before he went
down to the pavement.

“We’ll hold onto the weapons for now.”

Shade’s eyes went to the
dagger still in Randeskin’s hand and his face darkened. “That
dagger is…”

He didn’t get a chance to
finish the protest before he was interrupted. Looking at the knife
appreciatively, Randeskin said, “The dagger will be taken care of.
Mark my words or the same will be said about you.”

Shade’s eyes flashed with
hatred. He stopped long enough to give Storm a good hard look
before getting in the car. Storm gave him a slight smile and a
little wave goodbye that was so out of place it came off looking
like an affront.

The five knights stood in
the dim light of a few partially lit neon signs and watched the
car’s tail lights until they turned off two blocks away. Storm
turned his attention to the knights.

“Thank you kindly,
gentlemen. You know where you can always come for a free Jack and a
strange tale.” They laughed. “Any chance I can push my luck for a
ride home?”

“We just gave the biters a
six hour holiday, which means our quota is suffering. Still got
three hours of night. Come on patrol with us.”

The offer made Storm’s
gums itch. He never would have imagined that he’d miss hunting, but
on occasion, when he didn’t run from the truth of the darkness in
himself, there it was. His shadow side missed everything about it,
maybe even the ugly parts. If he ever got back to his own world, he
would have to give that the thought it deserved.

“Would be an honor,” he said. “Lead on.”

They clapped him on the
back and regarded him with a wholehearted camaraderie that was as
welcome as it was unexpected.

CHAPTER 19

Archer had made some very fine and very
handy improvements to the inter-dimensional transport. One of the
niftiest was the fact that the device could be reprogrammed to
calculate a new destination intra-dimension.

The Ralengclan team
arrived in Loti Dimension and used a handheld biolocation device to
find the Laiwynn. When they discovered that they needed to be on
the inside of a secure military base, they set new coordinates for
the transport to deliver them next to the building where she was
located.

They slipped into Fort
Dixon under cover of night and emerged next to the Jefferson Unit
building. Archer had sent a twenty-first man whose only job was to
stay with the transport. He would close the portal, making the
transport and himself virtually invisible, and reopen every forty
minutes starting one hour from count.

Each of the twenty wore
black and carried a pack with an assortment of tools and
weaponry.

After a quick on-the-spot
analysis, the team leader, a guy named Farouche, turned to his
second.

“Easiest way to breach a
building
and
maintain an element of surprise?”

“Not sure, sir.”

“The roof. We need to get
in through the roof. There’s only one other exterior entrance.
Secure, but flawed. Electronic mechanism. I need it disabled so
that it can’t be opened from the inside without a blow torch or a
genius.”

Browers, second in
command, assigned that duty, then turned and said something to the
guy carrying the grappling gear. He dropped his pack and retrieved
the four prong titanium hook with one hundred feet of cable – way
more than was needed to scale a four story building – and the
boost, the launch weapon that would silently fire the hook and
pulley like a missile without raising either alert or
interest.

“If luck is with us, this
very boring building will have a good size lip just begging to be
hooked.”

Indeed, there was a nice
size lip to catch and hold the hook. The architects wouldn’t have
thought about that as a design flaw.

Two Whister pilots were on
call, playing cards in the pilots’ shed as was their
habit.

One held his free hand up
in a motion to silence the other. “You hear something?”

The second pilot listened intently for a few
seconds. “No. All’s quiet.”

So they turned the music
back up and resumed their game.

The first guy in line was
harnessed. When the remote triggered the pulley, he flew to the
roof so fast it almost looked like he’d been launched like a human
rocket. Within twelve minutes twenty Ralengclan were on the roof
awaiting orders from Farouche. His attention had been drawn to the
lights and music coming from the pilots’ shed and to the two who
were playing cards and laughing about singing along to some bizarre
tune.

Farouche pulled a knife
and motioned to Browers, who did the same.

The Whister pilots had
less than two seconds to register surprise before deep slices were
carved into their necks, instantly severing both carotid arteries
and jugular veins. When the pilots were released, they slumped
forward over the table where they’d spent so much time on
call.

The front door was secured. No one was
leaving the building unless they could get to the roof and that was
a trap. Nowhere to go from there with both pilots dead.

Browers pulled the scrambler out of his
pocket, but wanted to delay enabling until necessary. As soon as
all communications devices were disrupted the occupants of the
building would be made aware that something was up.

The entire fourth floor
was dedicated to knight’s quarters. There were three banks of
elevators. One was centrally located with three cars. The east and
west end stations had two cars. All three locations had adjacent
stairwells, but the only access to the Whister pad on the roof was
from the fourth floor, central elevators stairwell.

Elora had used one of the
two east elevators – the only one that was working - to return home
from dinner. It seemed lots of stuff was breaking down since the
maintenance staff had been pruned by the transfers.

Helm had fallen asleep in
his stroller. Blackie sat waiting patiently, nose almost touching
the seam in the middle where the doors opened and closed. The dog
had gone into a crouch and was growling before the doors opened
wide enough for Elora to see the problem. She moved to the center
of the car and saw men in night camo uniforms pouring out of the
central stairwell, coming from the Whister pad on the
roof.

At that point, they were
about two hundred feet away.

Her first thought was that
it was some sort of drill and that she hadn’t been advised. That
idea was quickly overruled when one of them seemed to identify her
on sight and pointed something that resembled a weapon in her
direction. That, and the fact that strange men, whom she didn’t
recognize, who were definitely not supposed to be on the Whister
pad, were racing up the hallway in her direction, brought her to a
quick, but accurate conclusion. Jefferson Unit was under attack by
Ralengclan. No matter how “silly” that might be.

She grabbed Blackie’s
collar to keep him from lunging forward, pushed the CLOSE DOORS
button, and set the destination for Sublevel 1. Some of the
intruders had stopped to kneel, shoulder automatic weapons and aim.
At her. And Helm! And Blackie.

The doors closed before
any of them were hit, but it felt like time was standing still
while she waited for the elevator car to descend. She heard five
pings from above. Bullets hitting the outer doors of the elevator
on the floor she’d just left.

She scooped Helm out of
his stroller setting him astraddle the shelf where her waist met
her hip, and got ready to move as soon as the doors opened. The
elevator wasn’t fast, but it was a lot faster than the time it
would take to descend five floors in the stairwell. Even assuming
commando-level fitness.

As soon as the doors
opened, she pulled the emergency stop button to decommission that
elevator. One down.