How the mighty have fallen from their lofty ideals. Alcoholwas another sin of the flesh that dragged the mind from the clearer realms. Still, it would taste better than what they called water around here.

A sudden clatter from the doorway showed him just how strung out he was. He dropped the bottle. It shattered at his feet, spraying shards of plastic and sticky ale over his bare feet. A glance over his shoulder wiped such petty concerns out of his foggy brain.

Two men had entered the squat. The noise had come from the one clothed in dark garments. He had slipped on the remains of Dodger's last meal and grabbed the table where the cyberdeck and Willie's radio lay. The rattle of equipment had betrayed their entrance.

The second intruder was already halfway across the room. At first, Dodger thought he was a Shidhe because of the cut and material of his clothes, but the wild beardthat spilled from the shadows of the hood dispelled that thought. Emanating menace, the intruder closed the dis- tance between them in four quick, long strides.

Dodger tried to move out of the way, but his flesh, the poor abused meat, betrayed him. The norm caught Dodger easily as he tried to slip past to reach his gun.

Pain shot through Dodger's spine as he was slammed into the edge of the kitchen counter. The norm forced him into the counter, grinding the edge into Dodger's arched back. The cold muzzle of a gun forced his chin up.

"So confident that you didn't even bother changing your base of operations? Should I shoot you now or let you try to lie your way out of it again?''

Dodger was shocked to recognize the voice.

"Sam?"

Sam grinned with surprising savagery. "Surprised, aren't you? She couldn't hold me."Sam wrenched Dodger upright and shoved him 278.

Robert N. Charrette against the refrigerator. Dodger's right elbow caught the edge of the door painfully. He cried out and grabbed for it with his other hand as he struggled to stay on his feet. Sam took two steps back and leveled his weapon at Dodger's chest. The gun's muzzle seemed far too large for the pistol's size.

"Sam, that's not a tranq gun."

"No, Dodger. It's not. Give me a good reason not to use it on you."

"Use it? What are you talking about? What hap- pened? We've been trying to find out what happened to you and Hart for a week. We were really worried.

Who's the other guy? Where's Hart? Is she okay?"

Dodger knew he was babbling, but the words just kept pouring out. Sam's face was stony. His lack of reaction and warmth rattled Dodger almost as badly as the gun his friend was pointing at him."Hart's in deep drek with her friends. Excuse me, your friends."

' 'My friends? What are you talking about?''

"Dump it, Dodger! I've had enough of your lies,"

Sam shouted. His hand was shaking with the violence of his emotions. "Look at you! You're pathetic.

What's the matter, chummer? Drinking away your sorrows?

Or are you trying to get up enough courage to sell Willie into captivity, too? Why don't you just have her killed? It'd be kinder than putting her into some elf zoo. See the halfer rigger and the crazy wildman from Seattle! Amusing! Entertaining! All courtesy of Dodger and Hart Enterprises. You've conned me for the last time."

Dodger let go of his bruised elbow and drew himself to his full height. If this was going to be the end of the flesh, he wouldn't cringe. He didn't know what had set off his friend, but there really wasn't anything he could do about it. Sam was obviously confused, maybe 279mind-controlled, and he wasn't listening. But talk was the only weapon Dodger had.

"You're wrong, my friend. Whatever happened to you, I had no part in it."

"You're a liar!"

Sam raised his pistol.

The muzzle pointed directly between Dodger's eyes.

Death was a finger twitch away. Sam's hand began to shake.

"Drek! I can't do this!"

Sam threw the gun across the room. His companion stretched out an arm to catch the weapon, but its tra- jectory took it just out of his reach. The pistol hit the wall, gouging the wallboard, and rebounded onto the mattress Dodger had been using for a bed. For the first time, Sam's companion spoke.

"It's just as well, Sam. I don't think the elf is lying.

His aura indicates that his confusion is real."

Sam turned away from both of them. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Sam'scompan- ion stood silently watching him, an expression of con- cern on his face. The companion turned to look at Dodger, his eyes full of curiosity.

Dodger didn't know what to do. He was shaking himself. While he dithered, Willie's voice burst from the radio receiver.

"Twist! Is that you, Twist? What's going on?" There was a pause. "Frag it! Somebody answer me!"

Sam walked to the radio, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

"I'm here, Willie," he said shakily.

"Frag, but I'm glad you're back. Where ya been?"

"Took an involuntary vacation."

"Hell of a time to go sightseeing, but you could've come back sooner."

"Would have if I could have, Willie." Sam took a -----------------280.

Robert N. Charrette deep breath and released it. When he spoke again, his voice was steady. "My tour guide had other ideas."

"What counts is you're back. You ready to run again, chummer?"

"All cylinders."

Dodger thought it sounded likle false bravado, but Willie obviously took it at face value.

"Good 'cause the ante's going up and you're the last magicker on-line."

"The last . . . what's happened?"

"Just had a drone in for a meet with Herzog. He's dead. Somebody raided his sanctum, but he put up the good fight. Made 'em pay. Took out four or five, my count on the body parts was a little iffy."

"The Circle?"

"Neg. Not unless they've got a lot broader of mind while you were gone. The hitters were all elves."Sam turned to stare at Dodger. "Say again."

"I said the guys who took out Herzog were all elves."

"Elves," Sam repeated softly. "Talk to me, Dodger."

36.

Jenny's check on the power draw for the squat con- firmed that either Dodger or Willie was still operating out of the apartment. There wasn't enough usage to supply both the elf's cyberdeck and the rigger's board.

One of them had moved out. The broad-band receiver Hart carried didn't show any unusual broadcast activ- ity, so she assumed it was the elf. As far as she knew, Willie didn't use booster stations to hide her location.

281.

Hart's surveillance hadn't picked up any activity for over an hour. Jenny confirmed power draw, so that meant Dodger was decking and the others asleep. Itwas time to move.

She left her perch and made her way down through the building, exiting around the corner and out of sight from the runners' lair. Timing her crossing to coincide with traffic, she crossed the street screened from the apartment's window. Once on the same block, it was easy to move unseen through an adjoining tenement and up onto its roof. She leaped across the gap be- tween the tenements and landed with satisfactory si- lence. Crossing the rooftops, she hesitated only a moment near the brick shack that Sam had tried to use for cover against her shots. She shook off the thoughts that threatened to upset her centering and proceeded to the cornice at a position above the flat's biggest window, where she set her bag down. In a few min- utes, her gear was rigged, and she sat down to do an astral scout of the squat three floors below her; she didn't want any surprises.

She got one.

The flat was astrally warded! Unable to penetrate the protection to view the interior, she returned to her body. She would have to go in blind, relying on themundane reconnaissance she had already performed.

There was no reason to delay. She shed her long coat and clipped the drop line to her harness.

Satisfied that it was secure, she went over the side, walking the wall past darkened windows.

The winter air was chill, but she barely felt it. Her doubts kept her warm. Was she doing the right thing?

With a swiftness born of familiarity, she squirted lubricant into each side of the window frame. She let it penetrate for two minutes, then tried to lift the sash.

It moved smoothly and silently; as she had remem- bered, there was no lock.

282.

Robert N. Charrette With the kitchen window open, the blackout curtain was the only impediment to entrance. She folded herlegs, then straightened them, pushing off from the wall. The extra force from her right leg angled her return so that she would pass through the aperture.

Her feet brushed aside the curtains and as her hips went through the frame, she hit the friction clamp and re- leased its tension. She hit the floor and tucked herself into a forward roll. The soft clack of harness buckles against the floorboards was the only sound she made.

She came up into a crouch and froze, listening.

The apartment was silent save for the soft back- ground hum of an active computer system. The soft glow from a terminal screen was the main room's only illumination. No one moved in what she could see of the room.

Hart remained in place for five minutes or more, and heard nothing else. Satisfied that she had alerted no one, she stood up and stepped forward. Her curse broke the peacefulness.

There was no one there. The computer hummed only to itself, but there was a message on the screen:It read: "Not what you expected, is it?

"Too bad.

"There's a new twist in the game.

"Press ENTER for more."

She knew better than that. She left the way she had come in.

"A return to old haunts when the other side is on to you can be fraught with danger," Glover said pe- dantically. "But then, I suppose you have already learned that. The restraints are not too uncomfortable, I hope?"

The captive had only one eye, since the other had 283.

been closed by the purplish black bruise covering most of one side of his face. Still, he glared. Glover found it amusing.

"It would have been better for you had you simply kept running. You could hardly expect to succeed where your associates had failed. You are only one person and nowhere near as skilled as they were.But don't feel too impotent. Your friends did some dam- age, and they might have done more against us had we not already been alert for those who would sabotage our great work."

"God will see you punished," said the prisoner.

"God? Whose god, my pathetic friend? Yours? In the olden days, they believed that the stronger god would overcome the weaker and set his people above all others. You can see the motif in so many stories that one must think in the days when myths were made, before the old magic lessened, that there was a factual basis for such replacement. Today, you sit defeated, and I stand victorious. Your god has forsaken you, but the Sun shines on me."

"Your pride will be your fall."

"Stubborn." Glover chuckled. "One might almost think you still held hope for a rescue. Do not. The rest of your little band have gone the way of all flesh and, in doing so, have strengthened our cause. You shall join them when the appointed hour comes. Perhaps Imyself shall wield the sacrificial knife that drinks your blood."

"You are deluded. Your murders bring you no power. Your path is corrupted."

"How could you know? Our rituals are steeped in a tradition that antedates your pitiful church. We have reached back to touch the old ways, the true ways of power. I have felt it."

"You have felt lies, murderer."

Glover backhanded the prisoner, rocking him back 284.

Robert N. Charrette and almost toppling the chair to which he was bound.

Blood spurted from the prisoner's nose to spatter the white cuff of Glover's shirt with incarnadine stars.

"I had thought you an educated and intelligent man, Father Rinaldi. Your fellow Sylvestrines spoke sohighly of you in interrogation that I thought you might be able to see beyond your prejudices, once con- fronted with the truth. I see I was mistaken. Still, your soul will fuel our paean to the Sun."

"Your blasphemy will be stopped."

"Your faith is touching, father. Would it be shaken if you knew one of your fellow priests told us every- thing we needed to know about your communications with Rome? As far as your superiors know, your team has found nothing as yet. You are, however, pursuing a most diligent investigation. By the time any of the fossils in Rome suspect that they are being fed false information, the cycle of rituals will be complete and our Circle shall no longer need to be Hidden. We shall set the king on his throne, and the restored land shall be as it was."

"You're mad. Corrupted by evil."

"And you're powerless. Consumed with envy."

Glover laughed loud and long. "The weak will never understand the strong. Never having tasted power, they are incapable of it. You and your weakling breathrenwill never know the true power the Circle has touched.

Even when we reveal it, you will see only a shadow of the truth. Well, your fellows will see. You, my dear father, will be long gone."

"It shall not be. Even on earth, you are opposed."