He didn't know where the Man had come from. It seemed to Sam that He hadn't always been there, blocking the way to the shamanic planes. But Sam wasn't sure. Sam had never been comfortable with the idea of being a shaman. Perhaps the Man of Light was only a manifestation of his own fears. The Man might -fl 166Robert N. Charrette simply be a symbolic representation of his own reluc- tance to practice the shamanic powers.

The water from the sink didn't flow very quickly.

His fingers were numb from its frigid touch before he had gathered enough to splash into his face. The shock was bracing and cleared his head a bit. He ran his damp hands through his hair and beard, smoothing them into place. Trying to put his night fears behind him, he dressed.

"Hoi, Twist," Willie greeted him as he entered the room where the dwarf woman was engaged with her hardware. "Kaf on the plate."

"Thanks," he mumbled. He got some juice out of the refrigerator. "Working?"

"Just testing my eyes and ears."

"Hart say where she was going?"

"Neg."

"How about when she'd be back?"

"Neg."

Great.

"Null the glum, chummer Twist. Let me give you alittle something for your other set of brains. Stayed around after you meatfeet left the squat with the bods and watched the badges. They didn't spend a lot of time, but they did mess up the scene and didn't take any evidence. In fact, it looked to me like they were deliberately destroying some. So I got suspicious and followed them. They met with Inspector Burnside.

He didn't seem very surprised by their report, and that got me really suspicious." She waited for Sam's re- action and shrugged when he had none. "That didn't add, Twist. Burnside's a copper's cop, straight as they come. The whole shadow world knows that he's a hard- nosed, real believer in justice that don't bend the law.

But those jokers reporting to him had done just that.

And he just listened. I tell ya, Twist, it don't add."

"Maybe he's changed."

167.

"Burnside's immutable."

"Maybe somebody's blackmailing him.""Possible, but unlikely. Even if he'd done some- thing wrong that your somebody could hold over his head, Burnside would more than likely bring them up on charges, even if he took a fall himself."

"I wish we knew more. Dodger could deck into his files, but he's not here. I don't suppose you could do it, Willie."

"Why don't you do it yourself? You've got a jack."

"I don't deck anymore."

Willie gave him a look that told him she thought that his mind was short-circuited. In her world, nobody ever gave it up until they died or brain-fried.

"I suppose I could, since your elf buddy is still busy.

If you've got access to a good enough deck. No guar- antees, though. It's not my line. A rig may look like a deck but it's completely different where it counts."

"I understand. I'll see what I can do."

It took Sam less than an hour to make a deal with a fixer he had met through Hart. The negotiation wasn't easy, and Sam came away owing more than he cared.He also came away with the cyberdeck he needed.

A few hours later, Willie jacked out and said, "Don't that beat it."

"What?"

"Burnside is the officer in charge of the Bone Boy Murders investigation. Has been since the third batch of skeletons turned up. Direct transfer from on high."

"Who?"

"Been taking a course in interrogatives, Twist?"

Willie's laugh would have been a giggle if it had been higher pitched. "Well, there are the usual official or- ders, but they're not quite right. Wrong incept codes.

It took a little doing but I found a trail that leads right on up to the Ministry of the Interior.''

"The government's involved." Rogue druids, mega- -----------------168.

Robert N. Charrette lomaniac corporates, and fanatical aristocrats weren't enough.

"Part of it, anyway." Willie positioned the soles of her boots against the edge of the table and rocked her chair back. "What now, Twist?"

"Let's start with the police. Check Burnside's duty roster and compare it with that of the two officers you followed last night. See where they coincide. We'll want to know how wide the conspiracy is. And see if there are any shifts from a regular schedule. Back check it, too."

Willie grumbled, but she went back to work.

When she jacked out again, Sam said, "I'll bet you came up with a correlation between sudden duty for Burnside and his friends and the dates and times of Bone Boy hits. Or at least a correspondence with the discovery of the bodies."

"So why did I have to do all this work?""I was just guessing. We can't afford to guess."

"Yeah, well. Did you guess that there's a pattern to the Bone Boy killings?''

"What kind of pattern?"

"A nasty one. There's a few breaks in the first set, but it's pretty clear, anyway. The second set confirms it."

"Confirms what, Willie?"

"The pattern. The number of bodies goes one on the first night, two the next time, three after that, and so on until there are seven victims. Then it starts again."

"Seven? Not nine?"

"Affirm."

"There were nine druids in the Circle."

"And two of them croaked on the Solstice."

"They might have restored their number. That would be the smart thing for a magical circle to do.

Maybe the Bone Boy killers aren't the Circle." 169 "Whoever is doing the killing, they're methodical.

Seven days between the first and second killings. Six between the second and third, and on down to two between body count six and seven, Just one day, then a single Bone Boy kill. Seven days later, a double.

And so on. Three days ago, we got five bodies. Get the picture?"

"Very methodical. Tonight should be a six-victim killing. Whether it's the Hidden Circle or not, this is a ritual spree."

Willie and Sam progressed from arguing the possi- ble connection to the druids to using Willie's spy drone to monitor the progress of the police. If they followed the pattern, the Bone Boys would be active tonight, and if the police were involved, the runners might lead the watchers to the site in time to determine the nature of the perpetrators. At the very least, they might be able to rule out police collusion. Willie's drone headed for the Burnside's stationhouse, and they only had to wait a half-hour before he left. He was joined by thetwo detectives the runners had previously almost en- countered. Willie and Sam watched the trio set up a tail on an individual who emerged from a fancy town- house in Regent's Park. They were hunched over the receptor screen when Hart returned.

"What's going down?" she asked.

"We're waiting for something to happen," Sam re- plied abstractedly.

Hart squinted at the display screen. "That's Burn- side!"

"Uh-huh."

"What's going on?"

Sam explained what he and Willie had found out and the theories the data had spawned. Hart joined them at the screen.

Willie's drone was focused on Burnside and the two officers who accompanied him. All were dressed for -----------------170.

Robert N. Charrette undercover work and blended in with the street crowd.

The only thing which set them apart was their apparent nervousness. After some minutes, Burnside sent his two officers away. Willie sent the drone flitting after them and discovered that they were taking up indepen- dent surveillance positions around the building the man had entered. The policemen had set up an old- fashioned stakeout. They could have used a drone similar to Willie's, but they didn'ta151a sure indication the operation was not official, since police use of re- mote pilot machines needed to be recorded.

Willie sent the drone higher to cover the whole block. It was another hour before anything happened.

Then Hart spotted someone leaving the building and directed Willie to send the drone in for a closer look.

Careful to keep her machine out of sight, Willie po-sitioned it for a zoom-in shot of the persons exiting the building. A woman led a pack of three men, who struggled with plastic sacks. None were familiar, but Willie recorded their images.

The drone returned to station in time to catch a sec- ond group almost vanishing from its camera range.

The sacks on the backs of that group's laggards prompted a quick pursuit. This time, the runners were rewarded.

"Glover," Sam said quietly.

There was no doubt about his identity; Sam knew the face too well. Willie recorded the images of the strangers accompanying the druid.

"Back to station, Willie," Hart ordered. "They're leaving in small groups and we don't want to miss any.

If the pattern holds, my guess is that all but one were present tonight."

"Roger."

The drone flitted back. It swooped four more times to record the passage of furtive groups leaving the scene. When the last group had left, the policemen iff began to move in. Taking a risk that the badges would spot the drone, Willie sent it in ahead of them for a fast pass to confirm the contents of the building.

Deep in its heart lay six skeletons, already being attacked by scavengers.

"Do we tell Estios?" Willie asked.

"Not just yet. Let's run down the images first,"

Hart suggested.

"It's your caH, Twist," Willie said.

Sam sighed. "We'd better identify them first."

"Roger," Willie responded. She dumped the re- cordings to the cyberdeck and began the process of image enhancement and correlation.

Sam hoped it wouldn't take long. If the pattern held, and he had no reason to believe it wouldn't, seven more innocents would die in less than forty-eight hours.

22.

"Your report was most enlightening, Katherine."

Bambatu smiled, his teeth a dazzling white againstthe darkness of his skin. "But I fear that you must change your plans. The Lady has considered the information and is determined on a new course of action. The fool- ish druids of the Hidden Circle have embarked on a course that the Lady believes will be their downfall and that of the Lord Protector. She is convinced of it.

In fact, she is sure that they will collapse in such a decisive and spectacular manner that they shall need no help from us. Such self-destruction suits the Lady's plans better than the original plan to disrupt them from outside. Therefore, she wishes that you no longer par- 172 Robert N. Charrette ticipate in any operations that will curtail the Circle's activities.""What about Verner and the Estios's crew?"

"They must not be allowed to disturb the Circle, either.''

That was a troublesome order. Sam was not going to be easy to dissuade. She had encountered his dogged persistence during the doppelganger affair. And since they had become lovers, she had learned how deeply his passion for justice ran. He would not give up on this chase until it was concluded. He would be impos- sible to live with if she forced him away from his quest to make the Circle pay for their evil. To her surprise, she found herself worried about that possibility.

Why?

He was just another bedmate. Wasn't he? She hadn't even begun to consider the implications of her concern when Bombatu resumed speaking.

"The Lady has decided that eliminating Verner from the situation would disrupt the runner operations most effectively with the least repercussions. She expects you to handle the details with your usual efficiency.

"I'll get him out of the country immediately."

"Oh no, Katherine. That will not do. He must bekilled."