Nosferatu

4

Minutes passed, with almost no passersby braving the rain to change the scene, and she began to wonder what the frag she was doing. Her head spun with the effects of the soft drug and she had to make a special effort from time to time to keep her vision focused.

"How much, honey?" a well-oiled voice leered from over her shoulder. "You do special services?"

She turned to the man, his acne-ridden whi'e face garish in the shop lights to his left, the edges of his repulsive grimace hidden in the shadow that also hid the hand seeking to curl itself around her rump.

"Frag off or I'll suck you in and blow you out in bubbles, you brainwipe," she spat out, sending him scuttling off in the direction of one of Carrag's pornotoriums. On her way down to Indra's, Kristen must have wandered closer than she'd intended to the edge of Cape Town's red light district. But now Indra's could wait. Something was about to go down right here. Every one of her instincts was screaming at her. The air was almost unbearably still, ear-splittingly quiet. And even on such a rainy night there should have been more people on the streets. It was almost as if some trid director had given orders to clear the streets.

Then it happened. As two men came striding down Chepstow, one slightly ahead of the other, the rear man suddenly fell soundlessly, only a muted airy hiss from somewhere above and behind him giving away the location of the assassin. The other two men, the one's she'd been watching, moved in perfect synchrony, one slamming a fist hard into the leading man's guts as the second brought a balled fist up under his jaw. Doubled up and then sent flying backward, the man didn't stand a chance. With precision timing a limo purred up Ocean View, the door opening as the two men dumped the body into the back and then piled in after it. They knew what they were doing; the limo fired up again immediately, then moved smoothly up the street and turned onto High, headed no doubt for the Strand.

It was perfect, like a scene from one of her favorite vids. Feeling like a player in a drama, Kristen walked across the almost deserted road and looked down at the body they'd left behind. She had his wallet in seconds, then saw the small metal box lying on the sidewalk glistening with rain. A couple of other pedestrians had just appeared, but with no gangers in sight, Kristen had all the time she needed. With the night's spoils safely in her bag, she continued on toward Merriman.

Serrin had had to cool his heels for hours after his arrival in Redmond. Word was that Tom was down in the Jungles, but somehow the elf didn't want to meet him there. It seemed almost like an invasion of privacy. The elf passed the time browsing through the bazaars of the Bargain Basement, avoiding the more obvious manifestations of Mafia and yakuza business enterprises, buying a pair of clamshell brooches as much out of boredom as anything else. Come five in the afternoon, he made his way to the old haunt.

"Well, well, whatddya know?" Janus said when Serrin came through the door of Crusher 495. "You some kinda bad penny, turning up again?"

The elf smiled ruefully. "Been a long time, chummer."

"Sure has. But we been hearin' all about you on the trid," the barman said, his smile making his face curl up like a cat's after cream.

Serrin shrugged, looking around at the old familiar places. He recognized some of the faces and the place still smelled the same too, a pungent, not unpleasant scent of beer and sweat.

"Hear you're some kinda hero these days," came an ork voice from the shadows. It was only partly a challenge.

"I'll make you guys a deal," Serrin said. "I get the beer, you forget the drek, okay?" The hubbub of enthusiasm aroused by his offer told Serrin he was even more at home than he'd expected.

He was halfway through his beer when the sudden hush told him that Tom had arrived instants before he felt the ham-sized hand on his shoulder.

"Hear you been looking for me," the troll said in the same tone he might have used with a friend he'd last seen yesterday instead of five years ago. Serrin swiveled round on the creaky bar stool and looked up at his old friend. It was a moment of great wonderment as the elf sensed almost viscerally that Tom was changed, utterly and irrevocably. A kind of transformation Serrin had never experienced and reckoned he never would, though he had the power to recognize it. He picked up his glass and ordered a beer for the troll.

"Nan. The usual, Janus," Tom said cheerily. Wrapping his huge fist around the glass of mineral water the barman served up, he guided Serrin to the seclusion of a quiet corner.

"I guess we got a lot to catch up on," he said for starters.