The Darkness of God: Book Three of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy (6 page)

“You’re not stopping.”

“Ummm-umm.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh GOD!”

• • •

“It’s time for work, people,” Wolfe said. “Here’s the order. Kristin, Max, I want you with me. Pick the best two of the gun-guards as backup. Get them into formais. Ten, no, fifteen more in the heavy lifter we’ve rented. If Kristin or I call for backup, bring the gunnies in ready for shooting. Lucian, I want you standing by our flit, pretending you’re the chauffeur. We may need to leave in a hurry and we want our back guarded.”

“Negative, Wolfe,” the bearded man said. “My orders are to stay with you.”

“For the love of — does it do any good for me to swear on — on
Critique of Pure Reason
that I don’t have any intention of double-crossing you? And there’s already two of the team on me like white on rice?”

“Negative,” Lucian said firmly. “You may have subverted one of us,” and he gave a pointed look at Kristin, “but some of us know where our duty lies.”

“That’s enough,” the woman snapped. “I still command, and I still speak for this gathering. You, Lucian. In the other room. Now!”

The Chitet looked sullen, but he obeyed. Kristin followed, slamming the door hard behind her, and Wolfe heard loud voices.

Passing from grandeur to grandeur to final illusion,
Wolfe thought hopefully. He and Max avoided looking at each other.

Kristin and Lucian came back out and sat down.

“As long as we’re all getting along so well,” Wolfe said. “What’s the possibility of my being permitted one lousy little gun? There’s no — ” He broke off. Both Kristin and Lucian were shaking their heads.

“Oh well,” he said. “I’m glad to get you two to agree on something. So I’m going in naked, then. But if anybody even twitches, I want somebody to put a bolt through him. We still aren’t even in sight of the target.”

• • •

“You’ve done quite well for yourself this evening,” Igraine said. His voice was as smooth and oily as his hair.

“Compared to last night,” Wolfe agreed. “You would think I’d have learned to stay away from dice by now.”

“So roulette is your game,” Igraine said. “Mine, too.”

Wolfe had carefully noted the attention the casino’s owner paid the wheel in his inspection tour the night before.

“I like it,” Wolfe said. “Especially when it’s straight, with only a single zero.”

“I have no need to be greedy,” Igraine said.

“Faites vos jeux, m’sieurs,”
the
tourneur
intoned. There were eight others around the wheel.

Wolfe put on the cloth a stack of chips from the considerable pile he’d already won.

“Manque,”
he said.

Igraine reached out, tapped the enameled letters of
passe.
The
tourneur
nodded, and other bets were made.

“Rien ne va plus,”
he announced, spun the cross-handles with his fingers, and flipped the ivory ball against the wheel’s rotation.

The wheel slowed, and the ball bounced, bounced again, stopped in a compartment.

“Quatre,”
the
tourneur
said.

“Congratulations,” Igraine said. “Again?”

Wolfe nodded.

• • •

It was either very late or very early.

But no one appeared sleepy.

There were about forty people around the table now, and the only sound was the
tourneur
’s
v
oice, the whisper of the spinning wheel, the clatter of the ivory ball, and the low murmur after the clatter stopped.

The wheel had only two bettors, Igraine and Wolfe. Chips were stacked high beside Wolfe, and credits piled next to his untouched drink. Igraine had nothing in front of him.

Lucian stood across from Wolfe, Max was next to him, and Kristin on Joshua’s other side.

Igraine’s shirt was sweat-soaked, and his hair hung in disarray over his forehead.

The
tourneur
had closed the table twice, and guards had brought first chips, later credits.

“Rouge,”
he announced.

“Non,”
Wolfe said, stepping back, and the
tourneur
spun once again.

The ball dropped into the zero compartment.

“You have a sixth sense about things,” Igraine complained.

“It felt like about time for zero to hit,” Joshua said. He pushed chips forward.

“Rouge.”

“Noir,”
Igraine said.

He glanced at the
tourneur,
nodded imperceptibly.

Wolfe
felt
out,
felt
the man’s foot shift to the right,
reached
out. The
tourneur
’s body twitched a little, again. The man looked worried.

“M’sieur?”
Wolfe inquired.

The
tourneur
licked his lips, spun the wheel.

“Deux. Rouge.”

Wolfe collected his winnings.

“All right,” Igraine said. “That’s enough.”

“For you,” Wolfe said. “But I’m still playing.”

“By yourself, then.”

“You can’t afford the game?”

Igraine started to say something then clamped his mouth shut.

“You still have something to bet,” Wolfe said. He looked around at the club. “One roll. All of this,” he indicated the money in front of him, “against the club. You play black, I’ll stay with red.”

Someone behind Wolfe said something, and a woman gasped. He didn’t turn.

Kristin’s hand slid closer to the gun in her tiny breakaway purse.

Igraine gnawed at his lip, suddenly smiled.

“Very well. Spin the wheel!”

The
tourneur
’s foot moved, tapped the hidden switch under the carpet. The wheel spun, the ball bounced wildly about.

Red/black/red/black flicker, slowing, the ball rattling from compartment to compartment, rolling, dropping into a red compartment …

Wolfe
reached
out,
felt
white smoothness,
pushed …

The ivory ball clicked to rest.

“Vingt-quatre,”
the
tourneur
said.
“Rouge.”

• • •

“Did you do that?” Kristin demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Wolfe lied. “I sure wanted that ball to jump a little bit.”

“Without a Lumina.”

“I was probably just lucky.”

“Joshua,” Kristin said. “I’m not a fool. I know probabilities, and there’s no way you could have won that many times with so few losses.”

“Sure there is,” Wolfe said. “Igraine had to win that many times to get the club, didn’t he?”

“Not proven and an example of illogical thinking,” Kristin said. “So now we own a gambling club. That’ll be the trap for Aubyn?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “It’s just the beginning.”

Kristin yawned. “Tell me about it in the — oh my. It
is
morning.”

“Gamblers, raiders, and lovers keep late hours, remember?”

“Not this raider. I’m beat.”

“Are you sure?” Joshua asked, running a tongue in and out of her navel.

“I am. Go to sleep. You’ve got too much nervous energy.”

• • •

Wolfe woke suddenly. His sheets were sweat-soaked. He blinked around, then remembered where he was.

It was past midday, and the suite was silent. Kristin lay next to him, breathing steadily, regularly.

Red … creeping from star to star, fingers, tentacles reaching toward him …

Wolfe shuddered.

Can it sense me?

Impossible.

He lay back, tried to blank his mind, but
felt
the invader, pulsing like a bloody tumor, out there in the blackness.

Quite suddenly something else came.

It was almost as foreign, almost as alien.

But it comforted.

Light-years away, beyond the Federation, he
felt
them.

The Guardians, truly the last of the Al’ar, hidden in the depths of the nameless world they’d tunneled deep into. Waiting. Waiting for Wolfe, waiting for him to return with the Lumina.

Waiting for the “virus.”

Waiting for death. Hoping it would be welcome.

• • •

He was awakened a second time by soft warmth around him, moving, caressing.

Joshua looked down, and Kristin lifted her head.

“I didn’t want you to think I don’t like doing it with you,” she said.

“Never crossed my mind,” Joshua said.

“Good,” she said, sitting up, bestriding him, her hands guiding, then she gasped as she sank down, enveloped him. “Oh good.”

• • •

“Preposterous,” the well-dressed man said.

“Not at all,” Wolfe said calmly. He walked to the end of the conference table, looking at each of the ten men in the room, trying to feel their response. “I’ve owned the Oasis for two weeks now and have managed to almost double my receipts. I think it would be logical for you gentlemen to allow me to take a minority position in Nakamura’s. Both clubs attract much the same clientele, and it’s senseless to compete.

“You’d not only see improved profits, but you wouldn’t have any of the problems of running a casino — which none of you, I’ve observed, had any experience doing prior to Mister Nakamura’s death.”

“Why should we let you muscle in?” a fat, mean-faced man said. “We’ve done very damned well for ourselves in the past year.”

“We have indeed,” the first man said. “We’ve learned the peculiarities of the trade, and are familiar with who to — deal with, and who to ignore.”

“Matter of fact,” the fat man said, “whyn’t you let us buy
you
out? Seems more logical.”

He laughed.

“That’s very amusing,” Wolfe said. “And I do admire a logical man.”

His smile was thin.

• • •

Wolfe’s fingers crept up the doorframe, found the sensor. Violet light flashed. His hand continued feeling the doorway. He found another alarm, neutralized it.

He was one of two dark spots against the dark stone of the alley. Both he and Kristin wore close-fitting black jumpsuits and balaclavas.

Wolfe’s hand dipped into a pouch, then moved swiftly around the door’s lock. There was a sharp click.

He picked up a long, thin prybar, slid it into the crack, and lifted, straining. There was a loud clatter from inside; Kristin flinched involuntarily.

“Now, if they don’t have a sound pickup …”

Wolfe cautiously opened the door, staying well away from the opening. No auto-blaster ravened, no alarm tore the night. Wolfe lifted away the wooden balk he’d jimmied out of its slots.

“Now, milady, if you’ll hand me the first of those interesting packets we prepared earlier …”

“What comes afterward?” Kristin asked. She was curled in Wolfe’s arms.

“You mean tomorrow? They’ll try to make sure I’m a good example of what not to grow up to be.”

“I know that,” Kristin said. “I’ve already instructed the guards like you told me to. And I think you’re insane. I mean after we get the — after we get what we came for.”

“If we get it,” Wolfe corrected.

What?

You Chitet try to kill me?

I try to get out from under, with the ur-Lumina?

Kristin lay in silence, waiting.

“There is no after,” Wolfe said, his voice unintentionally harsh.

• • •

They took Wolfe just as he was going toward his lifter, just outside the hotel. Three men came out of the shrubbery, guns leveled, and Naismith slid from a parked lifter holding a big-barreled riotgun steady.

“Anyone moves, everyone dies,” Henders said calmly as he came up the driveway.

The doorman saw the artillery and became a red-clad statue.

One of Henders’ men moved behind Max and the other two security men with Wolfe, expertly searched them, and took their guns.

“You ought to get yourself some new punks from the repple-depple,” Naismith cracked. “If you come back.”

“Shut up, Naismith,” Henders said. “Mister Taylor, if you’d come with us, please? Someone wants to talk to you quite badly.”

They have him,
the signal went up to the orbiting
Planov.

“Very well,” Master Speaker Athelstan said. “Continue monitoring.” He turned to a man sitting at a control board. “I am not completely assured the subject hasn’t made an ally of these gang members. Be prepared for instant activation of the device.”

“Yes, Master Speaker,” the man said, and rechecked the trigger for the bomb on Wolfe’s back.

• • •

They rough-frisked Wolfe before pushing him into the sleek gray lifter that appeared as the thugs hustled him away from the hotel.

Confusion … confidence … certainty …

“He’s clean,” the searcher reported.

“A man with the overconfidence of his congeries,” Henders said.

Wolfe looked mildly impressed. “Not bad,” he said. “But how about ‘A gun limits the possibilities’?”

“I’d agree,” Henders said, “but only for the sap on the far end of the barrel.”

Wolfe shrugged.

They put him in the middle of the backseat, with Naismith and another thug on either side of him, guns almost touching his sides. Henders got in beside the pilot, turned in his seat, and kept his pistol pointed at Joshua’s head.

“The head of my organization isn’t pleased with you,” he said. “You’d better have some explanations.”

Wolfe yawned. “I generally do,” he said.

He closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep.

Henders looked worried, then held the gun ready.

• • •