WebMage (3 page)

I felt a rushing sensation in my head. I had known, in the abstract at least, that something like this could happen, but I hadn't really believed it.

"I'm screwed," I whispered. And I was, in more ways than one. My credibility had just been irrevocably shattered. I
had
to get that spell crystal. Without it, any accusation I laid against Atropos would never be believed. My grandmother would just assume I was seeking revenge.

"Yes." Cerice nodded. "But not quite totally screwed. Atropos couldn't cut your thread without unanimous agreement."

I let out a tiny sigh of relief.

"But with the net crashed and Clotho backing her, Atropos was able to get Lachesis to allow a proxy assassination attempt."

"Who?"

"Moric, Dairn, and Hwyl."

"All three?" My relief vanished. "Just for little old me?"

"Lachesis only agreed to one attempt. Atropos didn't want it to fail."

"When was the conference?"

"About an hour ago."

"Powers and Incarnations, I've got to get moving." I started to tell Melchior to close the connection, then paused. "Cerice, thank you. If I survive, I'll owe you my life. If not… Well, if not, I'll still owe you a great deal, but you'll likely have a hard time collecting. I have to know. Why did you warn me?"

She smiled fondly. "Despite your pigheadedness, arrogance, and willful idiocy, you do have an impish sort of charm. The world and I would be the poorer for your passing. Now get out of there." Her hand waved briefly, then the picture faded away.

"Melchior, log us off and shut down all incoming network traffic."

"Yes sir, right away, sir. Will we be running away now, sir?"

"Damn straight we'll be' running away." So much for the promise I'd given Lachesis to improve my grades.

"Very good, sir. Brightest thing you've done all day, sir."

"Don't push your luck, blue boy. I might leave you as a distraction for the assassins. Now, Mel, I want you to—Chaos and Discord!" It hit me like a ton of bricks.

"Ah… I'm not sure I'm familiar with that one, Boss."

"Mel, the net's down. The hit team will be coming the same way Cerice did. We have no way of knowing when they'll arrive. For that matter they could be here already."

The impulse to run out the door was almost overwhelming. I choked it down. I had to run, but I had to run smart. Moving as quickly as possible, I grabbed my rapier and a left-handed shoulder holster out of the trunk. When those were strapped on, I leaned down and tapped the combination into the speed-draw gunsafe bolted to the underside of my bed.

The drawer popped open, and I pulled out my beat-on but much loved Colt .45. Before holstering the old Model 1911, I worked the slide to chamber a round, flipped the safety on, and popped the clip. Then I loaded another bullet and returned the clip to the pistol.

As no one had yet broken my door in, I took the time to kick off my boots and jeans and swap them for TechSec racing leathers. Finally, I grabbed the shoulder bag I keep packed for emergencies.

"Come on, Melchior." I opened the flap on my bag. "Let's go."

"It's about time," replied the goblin as he climbed into the bag. "You were moving so slowly I thought you were going to put down roots."

"Listen," I began, then thought better of it. "Later, if I'm still alive, I'm going to rework your OS." I snatched my motorcycle helmet and gauntlets and opened the door.

On the other side of my dorm door was a huge figure dressed in lamalar armor. From the demon-faced helm a voice said, "Say good night, Gracie." Then a massive fist holding an Afghani punch-dagger slammed into my chest, right over the heart. The blow knocked me halfway across the room. It felt like it cracked a rib as well, but thanks to the multilayer Kevlar lining TechSec built into all its racing gear, it failed to kill me.

I didn't think I'd get that lucky twice. Hand to hand in a small room with my cousin Moric was a recipe for quick death. His abilities as a sorcerer are not fantastic, but for the past couple of hundred years he's been focusing them on physical enhancement. On that score, there aren't many in the family who can match him.

In this case discretion was the
only
part of valor. Unfortunately, he was between me and the door. That left exactly one possible exit. Holding my helmet in front of me, I dived through the windowpane. That solved the immediate problem, but left me outside of the window of my twentieth-floor room.

"Melchior, Fear of Falling. Execute now, now, now!"

The goblin stuck his head out of the bag. "I-aiee! Executing."

We'd dropped nine floors. A prerecorded version of a spell spewed from his tiny blue lips. At a million or so kilobaud it sounded like a whippoorwill on speed, but it did the trick. Three floors above the ground, our headlong plunge became a leisurely drift. I pulled on my helmet and gloves. It looked like I was going to need them before I ever got to my motorcycle.

My feet had barely touched ground when something struck me above the collarbone and burned across my neck. More by reflex than conscious thought I tucked my chin into my chest, so the second arrow struck the chin piece of my helmet instead of my throat. The arrow shattered, my helmet cracked, and my head just about came off. I could taste blood from a mashed lip. Groggily I turned and dashed for River Road and the cover of the cars parked there. Two more arrows hit me in the back as I went but didn't pierce the Kevlar. I was going to need a new jacket and a pile of painkillers, but at least I wasn't leaking any precious bodily fluids.

Once I reached the road, I ducked behind an old Dodge Ram and opened my jacket far enough to grab my pistol. Then I carefully zipped it up again. I needed all the protection I could get. I also needed a plan.

If this conflict stayed purely physical, I was going to die. I am significantly stronger, tougher, and faster than a normal human. But so is everyone in my extended family. When you put me on a scale filled only with my relatives, the picture changes completely. I weigh in firmly in the featherweight division. Moric and his brothers are all ultraheavyweights with attitude.

Unfortunately, I don't do my best thinking under pressure. The arrows smashing into the truck didn't help. A plan would have to wait until I put a little more distance between me and my homicidal cousins. The only problem was how to do that. The archer, probably Dairn, who pulled a 225-pound bow, was shooting at me from the ramp where my cycle was parked.

I couldn't stay where I was. I couldn't get to my bike. Moric would be out of the dorm and back in the game shortly, and Hwyl was out there somewhere as well. To my left, River Road wound past the parking ramp. To the right, it curved sharply north and went under the Washington Avenue bridge. Directly across from me a thin strip of trees masked a steep plunge to the Mississippi. I considered the choices, then, keeping the cars between me and the ramp as much as possible, I headed for the bridge. I was almost there when I heard a low, gurgling growl. Intellectually I'd known Hwyl must be around someplace. Emotionally I'd been pretending he didn't exist. So much for that. I tapped my shoulder bag.

"Mel?" I whispered. "You still alive in there?"

A muffled voice replied, "Battered, but serviceable, Boss. What do you want?"

"Melchior, Redeye. Execute."

"Executing."

My visual range expanded to the infrared, and I peered at the gap under the bridge. A broad, hulking, inhuman shape lurked there. Eyes, lamp bright in the IR, glared at me. Hwyl. Yippee. Careful not to make any sudden movements, I thumbed the .45's safety off.

Hwyl took a step toward me. My intestines did a back-flip with a half twist. The things Hwyl has used his magic to do to himself give me the screaming creepies. Forcing myself to move with precision, I snapped the pistol up into line and fired four quick rounds at his knees. I could see bone and tissue shatter and pulp under the impact of the heavy copper-jacketed slugs. Turning to my right, I ran up the slope to the bridge, cursing all the way.

It might take several minutes for Hwyl's injuries to mend, but mend they would, especially with a full moon. Lacking silver weapons, nothing I could do would keep him down. That's why I aimed for the knees. Almost any other wound he could have taken and kept coming, but even a were can't walk with broken knees.

My options were rapidly narrowing. Hwyl had pushed me into a narrow killing ground. On my left was the long, barren expanse of concrete that made up the car deck of the Washington Avenue bridge. On my right the alien stainless-steel angles of the Weisman Art Museum gleamed in the moonlight. The twisted mirrors of its construction threw my distorted reflection back at me. Something about it spoke to me, and I paused to look at it and, finally, to think. I touched the cold metal. The warped picture in its depths seemed to offer me refuge. It was the message I needed.

Turning around, I grabbed hold of one of the I beams that supported the upper deck of the bridge and hand-over-handed my way up it. I crawled over the rail at the top a few yards from the doors to the Weisman. They were locked. They were also glass. A small concrete-and-steel ashtray stood nearby. I picked it up and heaved it through the glass.

A brutal clanging alarm went off. As a sort of counterpoint, I could hear the approaching wail of police sirens, probably in response to the gunshots. In a few minutes the whole area was going to be flooded with cops. Unless the officers were very lucky, they were going to end up going toe to toe with my cousins. I winced. But the only thing I could do about it was to remove myself from the equation as quickly as possible.

With that as an additional spur I raced down the main stairs and into the Red Gallery, where the exhibit
A Distorted Mirror: Our World Through the Eyes of the New Surrealists
was housed. I turned left, past the sculpture of a giant melting Chihuahua, and started looking for the right sort of painting.

Before an electronic web tied the worlds together, there had been an artistic one. Almost from humanity's beginning, there have been artists interested in representing and interpreting the world around them. A small but significant number of them can see past their own world to paint the others beyond. In the early years my grandmother and her sisters had used such gateways as their primary means to travel between the spheres.

Of course, as the centuries went by and technology advanced, they developed better and better methods for travel and control, eventually establishing the mweb. It was quick, powerful, and easy to integrate with the growing electronic nets of the inner worlds. But the old ways still existed; they'd just fallen into disuse.

There are drawbacks. Each of the artistic gateways goes to only one other world, and there's no way to reset them. They are also slow to make and difficult to use, to say nothing of the interface. On the other hand, anything that stood a chance of getting me out of this DecLocus alive was worth trying.

"Boss," hissed Melchior, pointing, "how about that one?"

It was clear across the gallery and half-hidden by a pillar, but when I finally spotted it I instantly found myself drawn by its magic-touched jewel tones. And, not only was it a gate, but it even looked like it might go someplace nice, a big plus in my book. I didn't want to cross through into
some
raving, psychotic artist's personal vision of hell.

"Nice work, Mel." I lifted him out of the bag. "How'd you spot it?"

"Actually," he said, after a long pause, "I remembered it. We came here for class last month."

"Good thing you thought of it," I said, though I was a bit puzzled.

I remembered the trip quite well. I'd needed to write a paper on a piece of sculpture for my art appreciation class. But I'd done all of the work in a different gallery. I didn't think I'd even come into the surrealist exhibit. A sharp yell from outside followed by a couple of shots forced my mind back to the present.

"Mel, I need you to set up a DecLocus transfer to wherever this picture goes. But if we don't want to just continue this on the other side, we're going to need to make sure no one follows us."

He looked at me suspiciously. "How do you propose to do that?"

"You're not going to like this, but it's the only way. Melchior, Burnt Offerings. Exe—"

The little bastard cut me off. "I really don't think that's such a good idea, Boss. Not only is it excruciatingly painful, but if anything goes wrong we could be…"

I held up a hand, and he slowed to a stop. This latest example of an unusual amount of initiative made me wonder again about what was up with his programming. I shook my head. Later.

"I don't want to hear it. Melchior, Burnt Offerings. Execute."

"Executing," came the resigned response. Then he waited for me to do my part.

It was my turn to try to think of an excuse to avoid what came next. It was going to hurt, but I couldn't think of any alternative. Sticking the tip of my left pinkie into my mouth, I bit down hard on the first joint. The pain was incredible, and I thought I was going to black out, but it was this or die. I bit down harder. I gagged as the thick salty taste of blood tilled my mouth, but kept biting. With a sickening pop, the cartilage gave and the tip of my finger came loose. I spat it onto the floor, then turned and threw up.

When I turned back, Melchior had paired my fingertip with one of his own and, using the blood from his maimed hand, was inscribing a diagram around them. From his bloodied lips came a steady stream of spell data. Now we'd see if it worked. It was a good theory, and I'd run it through my spell-checker looking for bugs a dozen times, but for obvious reasons this wasn't an enchantment I'd been willing to beta-test.

I pulled a sterile wound dressing from my bag and quickly wrapped my finger while Melchior finished the diagram. A moment later the paired fingertips began to swell and metamorphose. Within a minute they had become miniature versions of the goblin and me. Within two they were approaching our size. Within three they had grown to exact duplicates. My consciousness expanded to fill the body of my doppelganger. I opened my second set of eyes and instantly developed a skull-splitting headache. The effort of managing two bodies was bad, but the quadroscopic vision provided by four eyes was the real killer.