"Good." I started to smile and feel proud of myself, but Green Lucifer went and spoiled it. His face scrunched up as if he were about to throw a temper tantrum, but then the expression eased everywhere except around his eyes. "And now the minority report?"
"I just want one thing from you, Kies." He hissed the last letter of my name like a snake. "Who was behind the plot to kill us?" I shook my head. "Not part of the deal. You hired us to stop them, not mount them on a trophy wall."
"You needn't worry, we'll do our own killing," he sneered at me.
"Hey, Greenie, this is the real world." I let the Old One growl through my throat as I rubbed my right hand over my silver wolf's-head pendant. "Any of us with Raven are willing to do wetwork, but not to salve your ego. So, chummer, you've got what you've got."
"What I've got is an anti-elf racist protecting more of the same." He balled his fists and hammered them down on the table, nearly upsetting my beer. "We've had people dying out there. We've had elven blood running in the streets. Someone has to pay."
My eyes started a slow shift from green to silver, with the black Killer Rings circling the iris. "Someone is paying. TAB is paying a wergeld that will make things better for your people."
"Tell that to the dead."
My right hand contracted into a fist. "I've seen the streets run with blood, chummer, and I've leaked my fair share into them, too. It's damned easy to call for blood when you aren't going to be the one shedding it. And you can't tell me, Greenie, that a single death at TAB will make life better for those who live in Denny Park."
He started to reply hotly, but Sting stopped him. "Your deal is acceptable and, if TAB upholds its part of the bargain, we will let the matter drop." She glared at Greenie, and he nodded his head as much as his stony rage made possible. "We are indebted to you and Raven and even your friend, Dempsey."
"Raven will send you a bill," I said, smiling, "and you probably already have a message from Dempsey waiting for you at your crib." I used the bottle cap in my left hand to scratch a tenth line beneath my name, then snapped Green Lucifer's head back with a right jab. He bounced off the rear of the booth, then his forehead dented the table just before his unconscious form slid beneath it. "I, on the other hand, consider us even."
Designated Hitter
The pitch came screaming in at 153 kph, but the black man's bat whipped around yet faster. With a bone-breaking crack the baseball shot away like a satellite planted on top of an Ares booster rocket. I watched the white pellet sail off on its ballistic arc through the Seattle Kingdome's still atmosphere. It dwindled and disappeared over the top of the Dominion Pizza sign out at the 131-meter mark. The center-fielder just waved at the ball as it flew by.
I clapped appreciatively as the hitter left the batting cage. "Damn, Spike, that was a shot. One thirty-one and it cleared the fence clean."
Jimmy "Spike" Mackelroy smiled broadly. "Yeah, I got good wood on that one." He flipped the bat around and thrust the knobby end toward me. "You should take some cuts, Wolf."
I choked out a gasp-laugh. "I don't think that would be such a good idea, Spike. The last time I hit a ball I was using a broomstick as a bat and we were playing on asphalt, not this fancy astroturf." I toed the plastic grass with my right foot. "Besides, your pitcher's throwing them faster than I like to drive, and his curve practically pulls a U-turn out there."
Spike draped a massive arm across my shoulders and steered me toward the batting cage. "Practice is almost over and there's no one in the Dome here who will laugh at you." He slapped me on the back. "You're in a uniform. You might as well do some hitting."
As much as I wanted to protest that if I was hitting I couldn't be keeping my eye out for trouble, the little kid inside me desperately hungered for the chance to step up to the plate. "All right, you've got a victim. You aren't recording this, are you?"
"Wolf, I wouldn't do that to you?"
As I shucked the navy-blue Seattle Seadogs training jacket1, Jimmy got me a batting helmet. "Strap this on. You're not chromed, are you?"
"Nope. The only chips in me are the nachos we had for lunch."
Handing me the helmet, he flipped a switch on the back that started a little green LED blinking. I pulled the helmet on and noticed the faint green glow tinting the full faceplate. The helmet had been fashioned of high-impact plastics and didn't feel particularly heavy, even though I knew it contained batteries to power the faceplate.
"Wolf, take a look at this." Jimmy picked up one of the baseballs that had squirted under the batting cage's canopy. He held it under a small lamp built into the batting cage. As he rotated it slowly, I saw a purplish grid play like faerie light over its white horsehide. On the helmet's faceplate I saw a nearly life-size simulacrum of the ball, complete with grid, track along with the ball's movement.
"The helmet tracks the ball?"
Jimmy nodded and slowly stood. "Up there, in the roof, there's an ultraviolet light projector that provides the illumination for the grid to show up to our eyes-or, in your case, on the helmet's faceplate. In the case of most jacked hitters, the helmet would interface with the hitter's biosoft and send an impulse that would direct his swing to connect with the ball. In your case you'll get a projection of where the ball will be, but you have to use your own judgment as to when to swing."
1I had actually planned to refer to the Seadogs as the Mariners in this portion of my memoirs, but the word-processing software Valerie set me up with seems to be determined to avoid use of the word Mariner.
I heard some laughter and looked over toward the bullpen. The pitchers had gathered to watch me, no doubt certain they'd see someone yet worse than themselves at the plate. In the two days I'd been around the team, they'd given me something of a wide berth, which I didn't mind. The last thing I needed was a bunch of practical jokers trying to give me a hotfoot while I was trying to figure out how the team was being sabotaged on their pennant run.
Just before I stepped into the batting cage, I looked up at the mound. The practice pitcher had been shooed away by a tall, stocky player with a pug nose and broad grin. I turned back to Jimmy. "You guys have been planning this, haven't you?" I pointed toward the mound in an imitation of a gesture my pitcher had once made famous. "I may not be the world's greatest baseball aficionado, but even I know Babe Ruth had a hot hand on the mound."
Jimmy shook his head. "Don't worry. Ken's not wired from those years."
Babe plucked a ball out of the basket behind the mound. "C'mon, Wolf, they never let me pitch. You aren't afraid of me, are you?"
I let a low growl rumble from my throat as I dug in on the left side of the plate. "I just hate southpaws, that's all, Babe."
He reared back and threw.
The helmet picked up the ball as it left his hand. In an instant the computer dropped a box around it, then drew a line straight from that original box to a point low and tight across my knees. A series of green boxes then plotted the course of the ball as it actually came in. The direct line readjusted itself as the ball began to break, but by the time I'd seen and tried to digest all the information, the pitch thudded into the batting cage.