“Well, I think we’ve certainly done enough damage to bugger any cover story that we were after their Old Masters,” Geraint complained. “Did we get our man?” he howled above the noise of the accelerating engine.
“Bastard got away,” the elf said impassively.
“Where’s Gungrath?” Geraint went on, trying not to fall out of his seat.
“Took a couple of hostages away in one of the cars,” the elf replied, explaining the absence of the second troll, who had recovered with astonishing speed. “Look, we’ve got to get to our repairman.”
“You got it,” the rigger yelled.
“There’s something wrong with the van?” Geraint said anxiously.
“Nah, ‘im,” the elf said, jerking a thumb at the troll samurai with blood coating his chest and back. “Stopped some very heavy-duty AP. I’ve patched him, but we’re going to need serious surgery here. And that’ll cost you, term.”
“Whatever it takes,” Geraint agreed.
“Drek it, I’ve got four last-response police APVs in the radar locks and we’re going to be lucky to get out of this,” the rigger said desperately as he cajoled more speed out of the vehicle. “Get out of my way. you dumb hag!” The car in his path narrowly managed to swerve out of the way of the racing van.
The elf grinned at Geraint. “Don’t sweat it, he’s never crashed yet.”
Serrin started from his stupor and looked dumbly around him. “Didn’t quite work out, did it?’ he said stupidly.”
“Not to worry,” Geraint said soothingly “We got some people we can talk to. Unfortunately, our Monsignor Seratini appears to have escaped.”
“Managed to stick a bug tracer on him,” one of the elves said happily. “Roger here can track him down within a hundred klicks. Where’s he now. Rog?”
“Somewhere off the Old Kent Road,” the driver said after a momentary glance at his array of monitoring panels. “Jeez, we’re being hauled in here. They’ve got locks on us and there’s a chopper on the way. Mister. I mean Your Lordship, you’re going to have to do some fast talking pretty soon. I can’t evade this lot. There’s another one every second.”
“Don’t forget, if we end up in jail it’s a hundred thou a year for our families,” the dwarf growled.
“You haven’t got family, you stunty bastard,” one of the elves said. “Born from a test-tube, you were. Face like that couldn’t have a mother.”
The dwarf hit him playfully in the groin with the barrel of his gun. The elf groaned with much feeling and rolled over in a ball, cursing. The van began to slow and came to a halt. The sirens behind them sounded like the Hounds of Hell.
Well, this is it, Lord Llanfrechfa,” Jim said casually. “Bulldrek or bust. You’d better have the connections they say you do or it’s twenty years in Parkhurst for everyone-and that’s going to cost you every last penny you’ve got.”
Geraint groaned. This was going to be a very expensive evening.
And it was. Exhausted and bleary-eyed, they reeled out of the elevator and waited for Geraint to go through the array of scanners and decide it was safe to go in. They’d spent hours locked in the holding cells until Geraint managed to pull strings at the highest level to get them free. Geraint would have to foot a sizable bill, in terms of political favors owed as well as money, to pay for the nights exploits. He was also uncomfortably aware that he’d have to do a hell of a lot of careful explaining to senior figures in the British government, and he didn’t have the best of cover stories to present to them just at the moment.
“Coffee, anyone?” he asked as they dumped their armor and gear in the cloakroom. Serrin shook his head and opened the far door of the room to make for the bathroom, sticking his head under the faucet and splashing cold water over himself. Kristen, pale and wild-haired, followed him anxiously with her eyes. Michael, having woken a lot later in the day than the elf, strolled into the huge central room and looked for the message he expected. The telecom and the faxbuffer store were both winking their warning lights at him. He began the data and message dumps, rubbing his sore back after the indignity of having been thumped senseless into the wall by the guardian they’d encountered inside the house at Cheney Walk.
“What have you got?” Geraint said as Michael began tearing paper from the printers.
“They work fast. They’ve downloaded the image data from the head cameras and it’s being processed right now. However, the gentleman in the suit upstairs was one Monsieur Jean-Francois Serrault. You’ll be interested to hear that the data pertaining to him cannot be found in Surete or French social security records, because he doesn’t officially exist.”
“How intriguing. Where did you get it?”
“That’s my business,” Michael admonished. “He’s a mage, as it happens. Freelancer. Get some more data on him later. Has some interesting friends in occult circles, according to this. Enough to keep us interested, I should think.”
“So what’s he doing in the residence of the Tuscan attache?” Geraint asked.
“Good question,” Michael replied. “Hopefully, I should have the answer to that shortly. We really should have done more homework on our friend Seratini before we went trick or treating, I think. Oh look,” he added, as an updated message came pouring onto the screen, “Good news. Our troll friend will be fine, which will save you a bundle. And our chappies have subcontracted the work of finding Seratini to some of their mates, who are on their way to collect him from somewhere in Brent.”
“Brent?”
“Yes, it’s rather down-market, isn’t it?” Michael agreed. “Well, anyway, we’ve got him and if we want to go and talk to him, we can.” They exchanged glances.
“Are you tired?”
“Absolutely exhausted, old boy, but I think we’d really like to know as soon as possible how our Italian friend comes to know a French mage who can blow half a house up even as he’s popping his clogs.”
“Won’t the police be keeping a watch on us now?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Geraint said. “It cost a lot of favors, but, no, they won’t. Not unless we do something terribly similar all over again.”
“Well, hardly,” Michael protested. “I mean, all we’re going to do is go and talk to someone. We can hardly end up in a pitched battle doing that, can we?”
Geraint had already gone to get his coat for another evening excursion. Had he known how totally, horribly wrong Michael was, he would have thought twice about tempting fate so blatantly.
7
They parked the car a safe distance from the Brent address they’d been given and, pistols in pockets, walked quietly across the concrete parking lot. It was still night, with the promise of a morning chorus just beginning to insinuate itself, though it was yet to grow light. The street lights were erratic here, as much because of vandals as because the power company wasn’t always supplying juice. The local council was notoriously adept at misplacing public money, and not even street lighting could be taken for granted.
“Are you sure about this?” Michael said for the fifth time.
“I checked with Jim twice. He’s not a man you slot off by asking three times,” Geraint replied tartly.
“It’s a housing project,” Michael said dubiously.
“What did you expect? A mansion? Have you ever been here before?”
“This is a part of London I was never in the habit of frequenting,” Michael said. “Seems incredibly down-at-heel for a cultural attache.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? A safe bolthole where no one would go looking for it?” Geraint said.
“I suppose so.” Michael still seemed dubious. They walked across the concourse toward the looming concrete monstrosity, which betrayed rather less concrete-rot and acid corrosion than might have been expected. Unlike many of the surrounding edifices, it didn’t look in danger of imminent sudden collapse, but then appearances were definitely deceptive in this instance. The only human decor in sight were a couple of junkies splayed around in the entrance doorway of one of the smaller satellite blocks, a small pool of already half-clotted blood testifying to their nocturnal habits of despair.