“Not a bad idea,” Streak said. From his amply padded black jacket, he took the component parts of two folding-stock automatic weapons and began assembling them.
“I don’t know if were going to need this kind of heat,” Streak told Serrin, who was studying him doubtfully “but I’m not taking any chances.”
“I’ve got to go investigate a package and I’m not leaving you here alone in the place,” Serrin said.
Streak looked at up him with an intense stare and then nodded. “Fair enough, term. Fortunately for you, I’ve done some bomb disposal in my time.”
“Damn, I hadn’t thought of that,” Serrin said. “Thanks.”
“Only some, mind you. Don’t get too grateful too soon. Anyway, the scanners should have picked up anything suspicious entering this building. They’ve got good security here.”
“Let’s be grateful for that,” Serrin said with feeling, but Streak caught him out again.
“Not good enough to stop me getting in, of course, and if it’s one of those experimental percussion-sensitive gel explosives that scans as biomatter, then we’d be buggered sideways whatever we did,” he said with a laconic chuckle. “But then, live life to the full, that’s what I say. Can’t worry about being blown into bloody fragments every day of your waking life.”
Streak put down the assembled LMG and got to his feet, taking in the look on Serrin’s face. His own broke into a gleeful smile.
“Serrin mate, you’re a worrier, I can see that,” he said, putting an arm around the other’s shoulder. “I like that in a bloke, but don’t let the bastards get you down.
“Now, let’s go say hello to Mister Bomb.”
The wooden crates were bound only with rope. They were not, apparently, even nailed shut, with sliding tops restrained by the thick ropes around them. Streak’s diagnostics took a few minutes, and he looked reasonably content.
“There’s a little metal content but very little indeed. Actually, I think it’s probably a watch, and a ring. Oh, and a portable computer and one or two other little extras.”
“What extras?” Serrin asked.
“There are two bodies in there.”
“Spirits!” Serrin cried out. “How many dead people are we going to-”
“They may or may not be dead,” Streak said. “Anyway I think we can risk this,” and drawing out an evil-looking survival knife, he slashed clean through the ropes on one crate and slid back the panel top.
Kristen, apparently sound asleep, lay within. Serrin made a scrabbling attempt to lift her out, but it was impossible given the height of the crate. With Streak’s help, he gently tipped the crate onto its side and lifted her into his arms.
“Know her?” Streak asked as he slashed at the ropes on the other crate.
“She’s my wife,” Serrin said, hugging the inert body close to his chest.
“Right, then I s’pose you do,” Streak replied. “So who’d Father Christmas put in this one, I wonder?”
Serrin told him. Like Kristen, Michael was fast asleep and absolutely impossible to wake.
“Oh, look, one of the reindeers dropped a message,” Streak said, extracting a waxed scroll of paper and handing it to Serrin. “Nicely done, eh? Dead authentic.”
“Just stick it in my jacket pocket,” Serrin snapped. His arms full of warm, sleeping body, so mercifully alive, he could hardly take the paper and read it there and then. Streak looked at him, stepped backward a few paces, and broke the seal. Serrin was furious, not wanting the other elf to know who had been responsible for this.
“No. I’ll do the town crier act here, I think,” Streak said imposingly. “Your terms are asleep, sep. Mine are dead.”
Given the emphasis on the last word, Serrin couldn’t really argue. He could only wait and listen.
“ ‘This is a reasoned warning’,” the elf read out. “ ‘We kill those who shed our blood, but we do not kill without honor. Desist from your enquiries. This reasoned warning is also a final one. Our honor will not be impugned.’ Phew.”
“That’s it?”
That’s it.”
“No signature?”
“What did you expect, the Spanish Inquisition?” the elf said with contempt. For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Serrin had him absolutely trumped.
“Well, actually, more or less, yes, that’s exactly what I expected.”
Streaks jaw dropped and he just stood and gawked. “You’re fragging serious, aren’t you?”
“You wanted an explanation and now you’re going to get it,” Serrin said with the triumph of an absolute advantage. “Just get Michael into the elevator and into the flat and we’ll talk.”
Geraint was entirely unprepared for the scene he encountered upon returning home sometime around midnight. Using his magkey to let himself in, he entered to find two elves sitting on his sofa so deep in discussion they barely even acknowledged his presence.
“Well, excuse me, but I just live here,” he said tartly while hanging up his coat. “Where are Michael and Kristen?”
“Sleeping,” Sethn told him.
“They retired early,” Geraint observed casually. “They didn’t have much choice,” Serrin shot back, then explained for Geraint’s benefit. Whatever it was hasn’t worn off. Face slaps, cold water, we tried it, it didn’t work.”
“But they’re fine,” Streak put in quickly. “I scanned ‘em. Not the same as a doc, but I didn’t know if you’d want one summoned here and Serrin didn’t either.”
“What are you doing here?” Geraint asked. He hadn’t expected to see the elf again; he’d just been someone useful commissioned for a job, to be paid and then forgotten.
Serrin told him that Streak had a right to know something, what with half his team either dead or incapacitated.
“Since whoever we’re up against has it in for them as well as us, I thought we owed him something,” he finished.
“Thanks for consulting me about it.” Geraint was obviously not pleased.
“You weren’t here to ask. And, be fair, he checked those crates. They could have been rigged. He opened them and took his chances.”
“So he knows everything?” Geraint asked. Serrin paused for the merest instant to let him know that no, the other elf didn’t know everything, but he could hardly tell the Welshman what he hadn’t divulged here and now. It would have to await Streak’s departure.
“So, another warning,” Geraint concluded, after sitting down and reading the missive Serrin handed him. “This is getting ridiculous. They got to my boss as well; he warned me off. That makes three so far-this, him, and old Joan of Arc last night. These bloody Jesuits don’t do things by halves.”
Streak asked him what he meant by referring to Joan of Arc, so Geraint told him about the commotion of the previous evening. Clearly, Serrin hadn’t gone into all the details on that score.
“Well, whoever sent the spirit-if that’s what it was-it wasn’t the NOJ,” Streak said. “I’ve come up against these blokes before. Little job down in, oh well, never mind. But I had to learn some stuff about them, and I know enough to tell you that’s hardly on the menu. That wasn’t them.”
“How can you be sure?” Geraint asked.
“My sources say the same thing,” Serrin added. “Joan of Arc was, after all, a woman.”
“Well, frag me,” Geraint said, “I never knew that.”
Serrin ignored the sarcasm. “it’s just that, well, the NOJ thinks of her as a heretic. A bit too florid. Catholic politics, misogyny, rumors about Pope Joan, that sort of thing. Anyway, they certainly don’t care for her. They wouldn’t summon a spirit to take that form.”
“Then you’re saying that at least two groups, or a group and an individual maybe, have been telling us to sod off and stop doing what we’re doing sharpish,” Geraint said incredulously.
“It would appear so,” Serrin said.
“How the bloody hell did they get on to us so fast?”
“Good question,” Serrin said. “It’s not one we can easily answer, since we don’t know the second interested party. As for the NOJ, well, they have people all over the place.”
“Yes, but why would they be interested? We’re investigating a-” Geraint stopped for a moment, realizing that he couldn’t speak freely with Streak in the room. “Well, a computer dysfunction. Hardly red-hot Catholic politics, is it?”