Veiled Extraction: Shadowrun, #56, page 25
“Mom told me…you…” Her voice was fading now. She winced as Melinda carefully helped lower her into the back and covered her with a blanket from the cargo area.
Winterhawk waved Flea into the front and took the back seat next to her. “Yes, well, we’ll be needing to have a conversation about your mother and what she’s told you. But not now. Let’s get you sorted out and get Virago back first, shall we?”
“Yeah…” She drifted, her head in Melinda’s lap. The witch’s eyes were closed, her lips moving. She was already beginning a healing spell. “Yeah…Thanks.”
Winterhawk sent a spirit ahead to let Althea know what was happening, so by the time they reached her house and helped Vyx inside, she’d prepared a spot on her sofa.
“I’m okay,” Vyx said, waving them off. She still looked pale and tired, but Melinda’s healing spell had taken care of the worst of the gunshot wound. “We’re wasting time. We need to find Virago before they kill her! I tried to call her…I think they messed up her comm…no signal. They probably already have killed her!”
“I don’t think so,” Winterhawk said. “Sit down and tell us what happened. Quickly, but don’t leave anything out.”
As Althea fussed around her, setting her up with a cup of hot tea and a bowl of soup, she told them what had happened after she ran away from the community center. “They were in a black van,” she told Winterhawk and Ocelot, who were both listening intently to her story. “They hit her with something and dragged her into the van. I couldn’t catch them. I wasn’t fast enough…” she stared disconsolately into her soup, poking at it with her spoon.
“None of us are at our best right now,” Winterhawk said. “And they’d probably have killed you if you got closer. The good news is, I don’t think she’s dead. Not yet.”
“Why not?” Her gaze came up. “They’ve already tried to kill us twice before. Why wouldn’t they now?”
“If they wanted her dead, they’d just have killed her,” Ocelot said. “Dumped her in the street to find, and probably wouldn’t have left until they were sure you were dead, too.”
Winterhawk nodded. “They want her for something. Possibly to lure us to come after her. Possibly something else. I don’t know. But it means we’ve got some time.” He looked around the room at Althea first and then at Melinda and Flea, who sat off to the side, clearly unsure of what to do. “Melinda. Althea. We can’t do this alone. This affects everyone around here. Trust me—if the toxics are able to finish their plans, it won’t end well for anyone who isn’t on their side. You’ve got contacts among the other covens—do you think you can call them? Convince them to meet with us?”
Melinda looked skeptical. “I know some people, sure—I mean, most of the witches know each other at least in passing. But getting them to work together? That’ll be harder.”
“I’m afraid she’s right,” Althea said, nodding ruefully. “Most of them have never been involved in anything like this in their lives. I doubt you’ll be able to convince them to—”
Winterhawk stood and began pacing the room. He knew both of them were right; this wasn’t going to be easy. “Can you try? This affects them—they have a right to know, at least, even if all they want to do is leave town. Just contact them, the leaders of the largest pro-dragon covens. Don’t tell them why, though—don’t mention the toxics. And don’t go in person.”
“Why pro-dragon only?” Melinda asked.
“Just a hunch—I think the pro-dragon covens would be less inclined to want to re-aspect the ley line away from dragon magic.”
Althea nodded. “That makes sense. Though they could have spies among them as well. Remember Beatrix.”
“I don’t think that thing was really Beatrix. And I know, we’ve already established that there are spies everywhere. But we’ve got to do something, and soon.”
“You’re gonna have to tell them where the meeting is,” Ocelot pointed out. “If some of them are spies—”
“We’ll meet somewhere first,” he said. “Once we move, we’ll have to do it fast—not just to find Virago, but to move on them before they know we’re coming and have time to prepare.”
“Move where, though?” Ocelot asked. “You don’t know where they are. You can’t do a ritual to find Virago—you don’t even know she’s wherever they are.”
“Somebody will know,” Winterhawk said. “Hell, if we do discover a spy in the group, that might work in our favor.”
“How so?” Althea asked.
“Because they’ll know where the base is,” he said grimly. “And at this point, there’s no way they’ll be able to keep that knowledge from me.”
Forty-Five
Melinda, Althea, and Flea got the word out to trusted leaders of the largest pro-dragon covens, and were able to set up a meeting at the community center an hour later. By they time they headed over in Ocelot’s Jeep, the sun was going down and the day’s drizzly rain had turned into a brisk downpour.
Vyx sat in the back seat next to Winterhawk, who’d given up his usual shotgun spot to ride with her. “I don’t like any of this,” she muttered.
Winterhawk nodded. “It’s a lot to take in. You’ve had your worldview well and truly buggered up over the last few days.”
Her eyes came up to meet his, and her face was troubled. “I don’t even know what to think anymore. About you, about me—about anything.”
“We’ll talk later—I promise. I want to know what your mother’s told you about me. But I can tell you almost certainly that most of it isn’t true.”
She glared at him. “Why should I believe that? Mom and I might not get along—well, at all, really—but she always treated me well enough. She tried to do what she thought was best for me, even though she never even tried to understand what I was about. But you—where were you?”
“We don’t have time to go into that properly now,” he said, glancing out the window. He had Maya and another spirit on patrol around the Jeep to make sure nothing approached them without warning, and had sent another ahead to talk to the guard spirits at the community center. As much as he wanted to put everything else on hold and take the time to give the conversation with Vyx the attention it deserved, that wasn’t a luxury they could afford right now. His theory about Virago—that the toxics had taken her for some reason—was only that: a theory. For all he knew, they could have killed her already and dumped her body somewhere it would never be found. But if he was right, the longer they waited to act, the higher the chance that something would go wrong.
He put his hand on Vyx’s shoulder and turned toward her. “I promise you, Vyx: we will talk. And I will tell you my side of the story. Every bit of it. After that, you can make your own decision about what you want to do going forward. All right?”
She nodded miserably. “I just keep feeling like if I hadn’t been such an idiot and stormed off like that, none of this would have happened. That’s why I’m up here in Salem in the first place—because I do stuff without thinking and get other people killed. If Virago’s dead because of me—”
“Enough of that,” he said. “Learning the truth the way you did was a shock—that wasn’t the way I planned to tell you. I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“Were you planning to tell me?” Again, she glared at him. “Would you have, or just got me out of there and let me go on thinking you were just some guy my mom hired? Or did she even hire you at all?”
“She did,” he said. “Though ‘hire’ isn’t the proper word, since I refused to take her money once she told me who you were.” He rubbed the back of his head and smiled ruefully. “If I had any doubt before that she was telling me the truth, I don’t now. It appears you’ve inherited something from me, at least.”
“Uh…sorry about that,” she mumbled. “When I get mad, I kinda—go off.”
“Oh? I hadn’t noticed.”
She didn’t exactly grin—it was more a faint exasperated smile—but that was all right for now.
Winterhawk refused to reveal the reason for calling the coven leaders together until all of them had arrived. They sat now—seven of them, five women and two men—looking uniformly suspicious and confused.
“All right, we’re here,” an imperious-looking elf man in a black collarless jacket said from the front row. “What’s the meaning of all this? “
“I apologize for the short notice and the lack of information.” Winterhawk paced back and forth across the front of the room while Maya, sitting on the lectern, followed him with her glowing green gaze. “I’m sure you’ll forgive me when you hear what I’ve got to say.”
“When did you even get into town?” another, a dwarf woman with flowing blond hair, asked. “I hadn’t heard anything about you being in the QZ.”
“And why have you got all these new spirits here?” asked a young, slender human woman in a T-shirt featuring a cartoon cat on a broom. She glanced around, clearly assensing the room.
“Time is short,” Winterhawk said, “so I’ll get right to it.” He resumed his pacing, exchanging glances with Althea and Melinda, who sat in the back row, and Ocelot, who slouched near the door keeping watch out one of the side windows. Flea sat all the way in the back, tapping away at his deck, cycling through nearby street cameras to ensure that nobody could sneak up on them. Vyx stalked back and forth along the back wall like a caged animal; her impatience and concern couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d been waving signs. “You’re all in danger, and I don’t think any of you know how much.”
The elf man snorted. “Danger? Of course we’re in danger. We have been since the walls went up. What’s new now?”
A few of the others murmured in agreement.
“I assume you’ve heard about what happened at the Black Cat Tavern recently?”
That sobered them up. “Rumors,” said the dwarf woman. “Something about toxic spirits. But I don’t know if I believe it.”
“Believe it,” Ocelot said from the back of the room.
“And you are?” the elf man asked, wrinkling his elegant nose in contempt. “Winterhawk, this is all very—”
“And you know about the Westhaven coven’s new leader, and her wolf companion, yes?” the mage interrupted, pitching his voice louder to get over the elf’s.
Again they nodded, muttering to each other. “We don’t know much about her,” said a chubby ork, the only other male in the group. “There’s a lot of suspicion that she’s bad news, and it’s just about been confirmed that the wolf is actually a spirit, but they keep to themselves.”
“The wolf is more than a spirit,” Winterhawk said. “We believe it’s actually a great form toxic spirit—possibly free—and Sabeetha is a toxic shaman. It’s possible that the wolf is actually running the show.”
They stared at him. “You can’t be serious,” said the dwarf woman. “Surely we’d have known—”
“Would you?” Melinda asked from the back row. “It’s good at hiding itself, and you said yourself that you never bothered to check. I didn’t either. None of us did, because even though we can be a bunch of busybody gossips about everyday things, we stay out of each other’s way for the serious stuff. Even the big stuff, most of the time, like the…dragon issues.”
“So what’s this all mean?” the ork asked. “Yes, okay, toxics are a danger. Sounds like we need to find out more about this coven, and take care of ’em if they cause trouble. But why is this a big deal all of a sudden? They’ve been here for a while now—at least a few weeks—and nothing’s happened. Why now?”
Winterhawk took a deep breath. This was going to be a lot for them to swallow, and he had no idea how they would take it. He also couldn’t be completely certain none of them were spies, though after being scanned by himself, Maya, two more of his spirits, Althea, Melinda, and their own summoned spirits, he figured they’d have to be doing some world-class deception to hide any toxic traces. “Because we’ve found out some other information about their plans. An associate of mine was killed by a toxic ritual sending after she tried to investigate, but we were able to obtain her commlink, containing her suspicions and findings.” He paused his pacing and faced them. “This is bad, people. They’re trying to re-aspect the ley line toward toxic magic.”
For a moment, all they could do was stare at him. He’d instructed his spirits and Maya to keep a close eye on them when he revealed the truth, to look for anyone who didn’t appear surprised, or who responded with anything other than shock and amazement.
None of them did.
The elegant elf was the first speak, after silence hung in the air for several long seconds. “You…can’t be serious.”
“I can show you the video file if it would help.”
“That’s impossible,” the dwarf woman said. “How could they hide something like that from us? They couldn’t! Someone would notice.”
“We think whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it out in the Wilds somewhere,” Winterhawk said. “There’s no way they could do it with a single ritual, or even a few—even if we’re right and that is a great form toxic spirit directing the activity. I’ve been told nobody goes out into the Wilds anymore, at least not very far. That it’s gotten too dangerous. Is that right?”
Another witch, an ork woman with multicolored hair and tattoos running up and down both arms, nodded. “The magic’s gone wilder than usual out there since the wall’s gone up—not to mention the corps are using it as a dumping ground for their failed experiments. Most of the covens I’ve talked to have taken to doing their rituals closer to town, to be safe.”
“So you think they’re out there someplace doing—what? Multiple rituals designed to change the ley line? How could they even do that so quickly?” The dwarf woman slapped her hands on the table. “That’s crazy.”
But a simply-dressed, older troll woman who’d so far been silent was looking contemplative. “Maybe not,” she said. “I can think of one way they could do it. And even how they could hide it.”
“A gateway,” Winterhawk said.
She nodded. “Yes. If they’ve got a spirit that big, it could just open up a gateway to whatever toxic metaplane it came from. As long as they have enough power to make sure nothing they don’t want comes through, they could bleed off the power from the metaplane into the ley line, and keep the whole thing warded until they were ready to release it. Theoretically, they could do it faster than they should be able to, if they had enough extra power.”
“They’d need someplace enclosed, then,” the ork woman said. “That’s not something they could just do out in a clearing in the forest. Even that far out, somebody would notice.”
“I agree,” Winterhawk said. “Do any of you know anyplace like that? Probably well into the Wilds, to discourage anyone from blundering into it. And obviously it would have to be near the ley line—probably on it, to get the best effect.” He waved toward Flea in the back. “Flea, can you give us a map, please, including the information Beatrix sent Vyx and Virago?”
The decker typed something, and a few seconds later a large AR map flashed up, showing the town, the Wilds, and the path the ley line cut through both. One section of it lit up with an overlay.
As they all focused their attention on it, Vyx stalked to the front of the room. “This is taking too long!” she whispered harshly. “Even if Virago isn’t dead, they’ve still got her! We need to go after her!”
“I know,” he whispered back. “Just trust me. This isn’t something we can just go running into with no planning. If she’s alive, we’ll get her back. But it won’t do her any good if we get ourselves killed trying.”
She let out a loud sigh. The witches were now talking among themselves, pointing at various parts of the map’s highlighted section, asking Flea to zoom in first on one area, then on another. “I want to move. I want to do something! All this sitting around is—”
“I think I know where they might be,” the elf man said suddenly.
Everyone focused on him. “Where?” Winterhawk demanded. “And how do you know?”
“Not the exact location,” the elf amended. “But—” He pointed to a spot on the map, and immediately it lit up with a red dot. It was nearly a kilometer out into the Wilds, situated dead center within the meandering path of the dragon ley line. “A few weeks ago, a woman I know, not a member of my coven but a friend, mentioned that she thought something was going on in that area. She said something about an abandoned corporate facility. We didn’t think anything of it—and then she disappeared.”
“Did you try to find her?” Ocelot asked.
The elf glared at him. “Of course we did. But perhaps you don’t know what things are like around here these days. Even if her comments about the Wilds were related to her disappearance, you don’t simply go out there anymore. The Wilds are full of rogue spirits, dangerous creatures—even more dangerous now that the corps are dumping their failed experiments out there to kill each other where no one will know—and warped magic. It would be suicide unless you had a large, well-armed and –equipped group.”
“Well, we’ve got that!” Vyx said loudly, waving to indicate the room’s occupants. “If that’s where this is going down, let’s go.”
The witches exchanged glances, and the troll woman’s expression, when she turned back to face Vyx, was kind but troubled. “I don’t think you understand, my dear,” she said. “While this is certainly terrible news Winterhawk has revealed to us, it’s out of the question for us to go out into the Wilds. At least not without significant preparation.”
“What?” Vyx nearly vibrated with stress and anger now. “What do you mean? Did you hear him? Even if they didn’t have my girlfriend out there, doing spirits know what to her, this is your home! Do you want those toxic fraggers fucking with your ley line? I know some of the people around here don’t like the dragon messing with it, but this is different!” She whirled on Winterhawk. “You gotta make ’em see!”
Winterhawk took a deep breath. In truth, this was what he’d feared would happen. He’d known many of the Salem witches for years—attended their festivals, shared drinks with them when he was in town, and had long, esoteric conversations with them about magic that lasted deep into the night. They were, for the most part, good people, and he was sure they had no desire to see their town corrupted by toxic magic.
