Sam hoped the electronic feedback had only knocked Willie off line. There was no one there to jack her out if the destruction of her combat drone had caused a lethal interface loop. She might be dying alone.

He, on the other hand, was facing a messier death.

He watched the slime flow and reshape itself into its hulking, humanoid shape.

24.

Hart knew that she should have done somethingsooner, but she had been paralyzed by an uncharac- teristic indecision. While she had dithered, the run- ners had set out after the Circle. Her arguments against precipitous action had been overriden by an equally uncharacteristic agreement between Dodger and Es- tios that they could not wait. Having those two elves backing him was all that Sam had needed.

His obsession with seeing the Circle stopped was every bit as strong as his fixation had been with bring- ing Haesslich to justice. But this time it was purer, more noble. It was more than just a revenge scheme.

He was working against the Circle because he had been tricked into helping them with their plots. Deep down, though, he was out to stop them because they needed to be stopped. And he was right.

Maybe that was why her arguments had lacked force, why she had not found other ways to handle the prob- lem.

When she had not been able to deflect the runners from charging in on the Circle's ritual, she had gonealong. Opportunities could not always be predicted.

Besides, if they had all been out of her sight, she would have had no way of keeping track of their actions, no hope of guiding them. She had still been looking for a way to short-circuit the raid when the precipitous rush into the old warehouse had begun.

The Lady would not be happy.

Hart had seen most of the druids escape the run- ners' attack. Given their capabilities, she had no fear 185.

that they would not escape Estios and the others, es- pecially now that Willie's surveillance drones were neutralized. The Hidden Circle would re-form to per- form their dirty magic. They were still a functional ritual group; even though they had lost members, their leaders and strongest magicians survived. Perhaps that would be enough for them to do whatever it was that the Lady expected them to do. If so, Hart's lack of action would be excusable. Except for one matter.

Sam.From beneath the cloak of her invisibility spell, she watched him scramble about the warehouse looking for a weapon. He snatched a pistol from the hand of a dead acolyte and began firing at the slime thing stalking him. His calm was commendable; he grouped his shots neatly between the dark pits that would have been eyes if the monstrosity had had a face. His shots inflicted no significant damage.

The stubbornness that made him so persistent had betrayed him. Had he faced his true nature, he would have known how to deal with this summoning. This was a thing of magic; evil and twisted magic to be sure, but magic nonetheless. Short moments ago he had seen how ineffective the combat drone's machine gun fire had been. Had he studied spirits as he should have, he would have known that the minimal firepower of a pistol could not affect it. Magic must needs be fought with magic.

It would be so easy. All she had to do was turn her back and it would be over. She wouldn't even have todo it herself. Sam would be dead and the Lady would be satisfied. Or reasonably so. Distracting or elimi- nating Estios's crew wouldn't be so hard. By the letter, her contract would be fulfilled.

So why didn't she? Why was her heart racing and her palms sweating? She felt her concentration slip, and the invisibility spell die.

186.

Robert N. Charrette Sam's attention flickered from his opponent to her as she appeared. She saw fear in his eyes, and when he shouted, she knew what he feared.

"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 comefor her and she, exhausted from the attempted dis- missal, 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 familiaritya151a feeling of previ- ous acquaintancea151as contact was made, and shud- dered. 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 sheslumped against the wall. The sludge spirit was ban- ished, 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.

25.

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'ta151 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 pow- erful 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 forthe 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 hard- ware fanatic, Sam knew enough to tell that this was -----------------188.

Robert N. Charrette no tranquilizer weapon. It was a mankiller. Sam had read that British police had once gone about their or- dinary 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 detec- tive 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 sur- prised at how quickly the cop's system had flagged the System Identification Numbers on their credsticks as belonging to deceased persons. The knowbots the de- tective 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 to- gether, they lifted the naked body and walked it awk- .

wardly 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 ex- pected them to perform a similar duty for Hyde- White'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 itsbody 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 il- lusion, 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.

190.

Robert N. Charrette "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 cy- pher. 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 sud- denly thought he knew why the inspector was in- volved. "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 ene- mies 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."

Sam decided that keeping his mouth shut was a good idea; aggravating the inspector would only makethings 191.

harder. His silence seemed to mollify Burnside. The detective called Dellett over to watch the runners and went to have a conference with Rogers. Dellett leaned against the west doorway and ignored Sam and Hart.

He knew they weren't going anywhere as long as he was in their way.

As soon as he felt sure that Dellett wasn't paying attention, Sam whispered to Hart, "We've got to get out of here."

"Do tell. I'm too bushed to do much."

"Can you run?"

"If I have to. But no magic."

"Leave it to me. I've been wanting to show you something Herzog taught me when you weren't around."

"You sure you can do it?"

"No."

"No second chances, Sam, but you can't fly with your feet on the ground."Sam concentrated, trying to remember the words Herzog had used for the spell. The memory was slip- pery, and he struggled to get it straight.

' 'Forget the words, remember the song.''

Sam stiffened. Drek, not now. Why does stress al- ways trigger this schizoid stuff? Go away, Dog.

"It ain't the stress, it's the pattern. Sing the song, or sing for the coppers.''

I know.

"Then do it. "

Get out of my head.

"Do it," Dog's voice said in a faded musical echo.

Sam caught the tune and sang silently to himself.