Shadowrun: Choose Your Enemies Carefully (The Secrets of Power, Vol. 2) by Charrette Robert N

Author:Charrette, Robert N.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2016-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

25

Sam didn’t know what kind of magic Hart had worked to destroy the sludge monster. He hadn’t thought her capable of such a feat. Maybe she wasn’t—she had collapsed almost as soon as she had finished the spell. He hoped she was all right. He knew that it was possible for a magician to cast a spell more powerful than she normally handled, and that the price for such sudden power was almost always death.

He was relieved to find her still breathing when he arrived at her side. He crouched and felt for the pulse in her neck. It was strong; she would be all right. Thank you, he prayed. He kissed her, thankful for the grace that had allowed her to perform the rescue and more thankful that she had survived it. He felt her return his kiss and knew she had revived.

“Ain’t that a touching sight?”

Sam froze at the voice. Hart’s narrowed eyes told him that the newcomer was armed. Moving slowly and carefully so as to not alarm him, Sam straightened from his crouch and turned around.

The man who had spoken wore a trenchcoat and a battered tweed hat. Sam didn’t need to see a badge to recognize him as a London Metroplex detective; the outfit was almost a trademark. If they had been any doubt one look at the square, pock-marked face would have dissolved it, for Sam recognized the man as one of the detectives they had been investigating.

The policeman held a gleaming, big-bore pistol, pointing it unwaveringly at Sam. Though not a hardware fanatic, Sam knew enough to tell that this was no tranquilizer weapon. It was a mankiller. Sam had read that British police had once gone about their ordinary business without firearms, issuing weapons only in dire circumstances, but that practice had long since been abandoned. From his stance, it was clear that this man knew how to handle this weapon.

“Let’s see your sticks. On the floor and roll them.”

Sam cautiously accepted Hart’s credstick and rolled it and his own across the floor as ordered. The detective retrieved them without taking his eyes from his captives. With deft motions he slotted Sam’s stick into a reader he fished from his coat pocket. The reader gave off a two-tone beep after a minute. In another two minutes, it gave the same response to Hart’s stick.

A second detective arrived.

“What have you got there, Dellett?”

“Two of the downsiders that were hanging around outside.”

“ID?”

“Nothing real. SINs are d-code.”

Dellett didn’t sound surprised. Sam was only surprised at how quickly the cop’s system had flagged the System Identification Numbers on their credsticks as belonging to deceased persons. The knowbots the detective had accessed were very good.

“Hey, Inspector,” Dellett said. His face was lit as if he had gotten a bright idea. “Maybe we just caught ourselves the Bone Boy killers.”

The inspector stepped out of the darkness. “Go help Rogers.”

Dellett slid his pistol into a concealed holster and walked jauntily over to his fellow cop. Rogers was busy divesting Carstairs’s clothing of anything secreted in it.

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