"Get out! I can't stop it! Save yourself!"
Could she?
She summoned energy, twisting it into the shape of her most powerful spell of banishment. She felt the thing become aware of her. If she failed, it would come for her and she, exhausted from the attempted dismissal, would be easy prey. She unleashed the first tendril of magic to bind the spirit into submission. The spirit howled astrally as the ribbon of azure energy touched it. It struggled.
She sensed a vague familiarity-a feeling of previous acquaintance\a151as contact was made, and shuddered. She had never summoned such a thing. This was a toxic spirit such as could only be summoned by a demented magician. She would have no truck with such warped evil.
Her revulsion fed her will. The second tendril wrapped the spirit, adhering more tightly than the first. The spirit struggled against the bonds. Its efforts tore the first, but Hart replaced the sundered binding with a third and fourth. The thing's attempts at escape weakened. It began to plead wordlessly, but she had no pity for such a monstrosity. She tightened her spell, squeezing the toxic spirit out of existence. What should never have been, was no more. The world spun and her vision greyed as she slumped against the wall. The sludge spirit was banished, its animating presence terminated. Sam ran to her, carefully avoiding the puddles of caustic slime that were all that remained of the thing.
Practical. Even when running on emotion. If she had been so practical… She blacked out.
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\a151 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 oif 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, Delicti?"
"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. Dellett began to strip the body. Saying nothing, the inspector watched Sam watch the process. When the two detectives had Carstairs's effects bundled together, they lifted the naked body and walked it awkwardly down the stairs to the river. Sam listened to the count that preceded a heave that forced a grunt from each of them. Dellett cursed when the splash threw some sludge onto his trenchcoat.
Given the disposal of Carstairs's body in such a way that his death would look like a simple downsprawl killing, Sam knew that the policemen would not be leaving until they had eliminated all evidence of the highly-placed people who had gathered here. He expected them to perform a similar duty for HydeWhite's body, but the detectives stood talking quietly at the top of the landing. Sam was confused. Why one druid and not the other? He sought out the spot where he had seen the fat old man go down, looking for the corpse. He didn't see it. The only body approaching the druid's bulk was that of a large furry thing. The metahuman's head had been raggedly severed from its body and was nowhere to be seen. Sam had met a similar creature once before, and it had concealed its true form behind an illusion. In that encounter, Sam had learned that his astral senses could pierce the illusion, but Sam had never had a chance to assense Hyde-White. The fat old druid's appearance must have been a lie. His reversion to true form at his death was saving the corrupt cops a bit of work. There was no need to conceal the manner and location of death, since no one would know the furred metahuman had been the fat industrialist.
But cops were supposed to stop crimes, not help commit them. The whole thing had smelled when he first learned of the apparent cover-up. It stank worse now that he had encountered it personally.
"I'd heard you were incorruptable, Burnside. Guess
I heard wrong."
The inspector gave him a sharp look, and Sam knew he had made a mistake by using the inspector's name.
"Shut up, cypher," Burnside commanded.
"Don't you understand what's going on here? Do you have no idea what you're helping hide? Have you any idea how widespread the influence of this evil is?" "I said shut up. I don't need a sermon from a cypher. Just because I'm part of the system doesn't mean I'm stupid. I understand what's going on here better than you do." Burnside let his gaze slip away from Sam and survey the carnage. "You're not just a cypher; you're a Yank cypher. That means that you couldn't have the faintest idea of what's important here and why.''
Sam didn't think the English had a monopoly on knowing what was important. ' 'I understand evil when I meet it. I know it has to be stopped."
"Maybe you should understand this, cypher. What happened here tonight is unhealthy. For you. For your friends. You're going to come along with us and be our guests until I'm satisfied that you're not trouble. For your sakes, I hope you don't know too much."
' 'I think you're trying to cover this up. I think you're as dirty as they come." "Think what you want."
Sam could see that the inspector was nettled about something. Burnside was no happier about what he and his detectives were doing than Sam was. Sam suddenly thought he knew why the inspector was involved. "It's Gordon's involvement, isn't it?" "I told you to shut up, cypher." That touched a nerve. "You can't muzzle us." "Can't I?" Burnside asked. "Remember, you're cyphers. Nobody'11 miss you, or even know you're gone. You should know enough to choose your enemies carefully. If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, don't expect to see tomorrow. Keep your mouth shut, and maybe you walk away from this."