Stackpole, Michael A - Shadowrun (11 page)

"Can you, Mr. Kies? Can you expect me to back off when what you suggest is making them fit fish for that small pond, whereas I will take them away from the Barrens and make them productive members of society?"

I didn't like the reproving tone of his question. "The people of the Barrens are capable of taking care of
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themselves. Betty Beggings and others work to form meta-family groups and to give people a solid base from which to operate."

Roberts smiled like a shark. "But they do not have the resources at my command." He stood and indicated the opulence of his office. "They can command tribute from others in the Barrens, dividing and subdividing a very small pie into yet tinier morsels. I, on the other hand, solicit money from the rich and well-to-do in this society. I get in single contributions more nuyen than Betty Beggings and all her ilk see in a lifetime. I can do for these children what no one else can."

"But you do it at the cost of their freedom. They don't want your help."

Roberts batted my objection aside contemptuously. "They are without proper documentation. They don't know what they want. The law says they must have custodianship, and I have decided to be their benefactor. In following my example, other members of my flock will adopt other children from the Barrens and we will rebuild this society."

My eyes slowly shifted from green to silver as my anger rose. "You will remake these children in your image?"

The good Reverend ignored my question as he walked toward the wall of windows in his office. He stood with his back to me, the dying sun making him a silhouette outlined by a red corona. The shadow narrowed, then expanded again as he turned to face me. "Do you believe in God, Mr. Kies?"

"I fail to see what that has to do with the matter at hand."

"I'm sure you do, and I will accept that as a 'No,' for the sake of what I am about to say. You see, I
do
believe in God. I believe in a merciful and forgiving God, but a God who demands his people work for their salvation. Once upon a time I was like those children—wild, abandoned, and angry at society. Then God gave me a choice: Eternal Damnation or life with him forever. For the first time I looked beyond my next meal and chose a course for my life."

The silhouette hung its head wearily. "My choice is not without its price. My God demands I do all I can to help lead others to him. The Kingdom of Satan started its millennial domination of the Earth in 2011—the first dragon was seen in Japan to herald this change. All this magic is merely Satan's will made manifest. It is my duty and my calling to do all I can to bring Satan's reign to an end, and I
will
do it."

The strength in his voice spoke to me of a fanatical devotion to what he saw as his divine calling, but somewhere, deep down, I sensed I was being conned. "I don't think we have anything more to discuss, Reverend Roberts." I started to rise from my chair, but two heavy hands jammed me back down into it.

"You don't go until Reverend Roberts says you can go."

Deep inside, in the lightless cavern where the Wolf spirit dwells within me, the Old One howled bloody murder. Insistently he demanded I let him have control. He promised to reshape me into an engine of primal fury. /
will show them a justice and righteousness that predates their tree-hung godling by
eons!

I forced myself to be calm, but I let some of the Old One's anger enter my voice. "Larry, do you practice faith healing?" Roberts stiffened at the tone of my words, then nodded. "I do."

"Good. Brother Boniface has three seconds to stop this laying-on of hands, or he'll need all the healing
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you can give him."

The Brother's hands tightened.

"Two."

Roberts waved Boniface back and the pressure eased. The Reverend returned to his desk and seated himself. "Brother Boniface can be overzealous, but that might be said of all my Warriors for Christ."

Though he smiled benignly, the implied threat was not lost on me.

I stood slowly and straightened my jacket as Boniface retreated and opened the door. "You may not believe this, Larry, but I actually do respect those who listen to the message from the Prince of Peace. I think, however, that the words you're hearing are a bit garbled. Let me make this very clear: leave those children alone."

Roberts smiled and laid his right hand on the Bible I'd seen him thump in the tape. "I understand your words, Mr. Kies, but I cannot be deflected from my course. On this very Bible I swore I would help them. I cannot go back on my word."

I snatched the Bible from beneath his hand and saw him blanch as I started to flick the pages open. I saw that the liner sheet backing the cover had popped free. Amid the glue stains I glimpsed a curious collection of strange symbols, but they were as much gibberish as the Greek passages on the facing pages of the book. The flyleaf had been inscribed, "To my darling Tina, I will love you for eternity.

Andrew Cole," but that made even less sense than the other cryptic stuff.

He made a grab for it, but I held it back, frustrating his effort. My stare met his and he flinched.

"Consider this a reading from the Second Book of Revelations: And the Wolf saith unto the Preacherman, if you want Apocalypse, stay your course."

I tossed the Bible onto the blotter and plucked a car- nation from the vase on his desk. Stuffing it into the buttonhole on my jacket, I turned on my heel and left him scrambling to clutch the Bible to his chest. I headed straight for the door, but Boniface grabbed me and spun me around to face him before I could leave the office.

"This is not over between us." Though his back was to the window, the solar effect did nothing but make him a big-eared shadow. The threat in his voice made him into big-eared shadow clown.

I nodded slowly and carefully, letting the Old One fill me with the strength and speed I'd need. "You have a point there, Boniface. What do say we take it outside?"

His smile widened his cheeks enough to nearly eclipse his ears. "Yeah, outside."

My hands shot up into his armpits and boosted him back toward the window before he could so much as yelp with surprise. The glass shattered in halo fashion starting with the area around his head, then fragmented into a million pieces. The glittering glass shower rained down as Boniface disappeared from view. A second later a vase of carnations I'd pulled from a table near the door followed him to the street.

I wiped my hands off on the drapes. "Sorry about ruining the view. Good day."

Outside, after I'd shut the door behind me, I noticed Miss Crandall was having a hard time keeping a smile from her lips. She slid my gun across the desk to me.

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"Much obliged."

Her blue eyes sparkled. "My pleasure, Mr. Kies. God be with you."

"Thank you, Miss Crandall. I'm sure one of them is."

IV

I got back into my Fenris and punched in the ignition code. The scream of an ambulance siren started the Old One howling triumphantly in my head. I pulled away from the curb and got off the road before the Doc Wagon careened around the corner, lights blazing. It headed for the alley into which Boniface had plunged while I started down Fifth Avenue.

The meeting with Roberts left me angry and not a little puzzled. I had hoped that explaining to him that the kids didn't want his help and assuring him they would be taken care of would be enough to deflect him. Raven had dealt with other "do-gooders" in that manner, and they were usually content to let shadowfolk take care of their own.

I had believed I could accomplish my mission until Roberts asked the stopper question: "Do you believe in God?" I'd known other preachers and found them all quite capable of rational thought and logical analysis of a problem. Like Roberts, however, when a discussion took them into a realm where they had no expertise or facts to bolster their argument, they resorted to the divine shield. For them, and for him, the ultimate refuge boils down to this: "We might not understand it, but it is part of God's plan and we must do what we can to empower it or Satan will win."

I was willing to grant Roberts his supposition that Satan had taken over the Earth in 2011, when magic made its return to the world. At the risk of being seen as a heretic, I also acknowledged that the reemergence of magic in the world had done virtually nothing to change the lot in life for most folks. Yes, the few lucky ones who could wield magic were able to turn that talent into a career, but it did nothing for those who were magic-blind. Giant corps still controlled the economy, and most of them controlled cadres of spellgrubs as well.

I recognized that my mental discussion was doing several undesirable things. First, I had half a mind to turn around and defoliate Roberts' boutonniere with 9mm weed-killer. I realized that particular half of my mind had been taken over by the Old One, so I tucked the Homicide Hound back into his little box. I also saw that I was heading south toward the Barrens and I knew I'd not feel good unless I was sure the kids were safe. While Roberts seemed very earnest and directed in his Christianity, the theatrical bits layered on top of it still made me uneasy.

More than any of that, though, it dawned on me that I was hungry. I scanned the street and slid the Fenris into a parking place just up the block from a Dominion pizza joint. Even with an armed escort, the place would never consider delivering to the Barrens, so I went in and ordered five pizzas, including two vegetarian specials just in case Kyrie was not a carnivore.

While waiting for my order I decided to call the office. Valerie Valkyrie answered and got Raven for me immediately.

"How did it go, Wolf?"

"I discovered that Roberts' bodyguard can't fly." I grimaced and chewed on my lower lip for a second.

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"Roberts appreciates our concern, but he says he's made the kids into a centerpiece for a drive to encourage his flock in helping the disadvantaged. He sounds sincere, but something deep down inside me doesn't like him, and I agree."

Raven asked some pointed questions and I reported the meeting back to him as completely as I could.

He sounded most interested in the Bible, its inscription, and the sigils, but my momentary glance at them made the information I gave him fairly useless. I promised I'd try to duplicate the symbols for him when I returned to headquarters and told him I was taking some food to the kids.

"Good idea, Wolf. Valerie has turned up some interesting information on Roberts, but we've yet to find anything truly sinister. I'll have her working on this Tina and Andrew Cole. Maybe we'll have something when you get back here."

"Good. I'll be back early, I think."

I hung up and discovered, to my surprise, that my order was ready. I took the pizzas out to the Fenris and belted the stack of boxes into the passenger seat. As I got the car on the road, my stomach growled more fiercely than the Old One had ever managed.

Kid Stealth would have questioned the wisdom of bringing my Fenris within a nautical mile of the Barrens, but then he thinks he's traveling in a kiddie-kar unless the vehicle is armored and has a .50

caliber machine-gun mounted in a turret on top. I parked right in front of the crib that had been my temporary home and set the anti-theft system on "maim." With a stack of pizzas precariously balanced on my left hand, I used the other to knock on the door of the ramshackle townhouse.

Kyrie answered the door and didn't recognize me by what little of my face showed over the top box.

"You've got the wrong place. We didn't order any pizza."

I lowered the boxes and smiled at her. "Not to worry. This is Dominion's new service. We drop pizza off and you pay for what you eat. You're a test market."

She laughed lightly and I saw true happiness in her face for the first time. "Smile like that more often, Kyrie, and I think you could convince Dominion this service is more than worth it."

Her dark eyes glowed with a more mischievous light. "I'm sure Dominion would just love to give me an endorsement contract. We eat pizza fairly often, and it's usually theirs." She stepped back away from the door. "C'mon in before the neighborhood catches a whiff of that stuff."

Albion met us halfway to the kitchen and I dealt him a box off the top. Sine splashed a bucket of water over a soapy collection of plates and glasses in the sink, then wiped her hands off and took a box from me. With one broad swipe of the box, she cleared some old paper plates and styrofoam soyburger cartons from the table and onto the floor. When that earned her a reproving glare from Kyrie, her next pass was less swift and more silent.

Cooper came clumping up the steps from the basement and shut the door behind him. He looked at me and smiled. I presented him a box with all the ceremony of Seattle's governor bestowing a citizenship medal on someone, and his smile broadened to show me all of his teeth. He scrambled up on a stool beside Sine and pried his box open.

I handed Kyrie the next to last box, leaving one for me. "Help yourself. Raven doesn't often cater his jobs, but when he does, the food is good."

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She smiled and looked down timidly. She started to say something, but Cooper's surprised shout cut her off. "This isn't pizza!"

"Sure it is, Cooper. I just got it myself from Dominion. Eat it and you'll grow up to be big and strong like Jimmy Mackelroy."

The little guy shook his head adamantly and jammed tiny fists against his hips. "Nope, it's not pizza. It doesn't have pizza stuff on it." He glared at me, his lower lip thrust out defiantly.

I frowned and looked to Kyrie. "Pizza stuff?"

She blushed. "You don't want to know. We do most of our food shopping in dumpsters." She set her pizza down on the kitchen shelf and squatted beside Cooper. "Listen, Coop, this is
special
pizza, that's why it doesn't have pizza stuff on it. You don't have to scrape it off, see?"