Robert N. Charrette - Shadowrun 6 - Never Trust an Elf

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ATTACK OF THE WYVERN

Kham heard the hissing bellow of the wyvern, saw its snakelike body and bat wings. It was headed

straight toward him and the elves.

The beast swooped up and its serpentine body writhed as it twisted in a tortured spiral, higher and

higher. Then it snapped its wings up and darted its head down. The wyvern came screaming like a

speeding bullet train, jaws gaping wide, wings beating, as it dove on the elves.

Kham's suddenly sweaty fingers fumbled with the magazine. He couldn't get it loaded in time. Turning, he

readied himself to barrel through the elf's position. Maybe he could carry them both out of the beast's line

of fire if he was fast enough. Seeing that the elf was standing still, staring up at the beast, his hands

glowing with arcane energy, Kham rethought his plan; he didn't want to get caught between fire and

magic. He turned again and raced away. If the elf wasn't bright enough to take cover, Kham knew one

ork who was. . . .

SHADOWRUN 6:

NEVER TRUST AN ELF

ROBERT N. CHARRETTE

PROLOGUE

"Pain is a useful tool, Mr. Kern." The muscles of Kern's neck complained as he turned his head to look at

the speaker, who was tall and thin, suspiciously thin. Kern could distinguish little else because of the way

the other man stood silhouetted against the light. Squinting against the glare, he made out the elongated

shape of the man's ears and the slant of his eyes, and knew that this was no man but an elf. Kern spat at

him, but the sputum sizzled and vanished without ever touching either the impeccable suit or the dark skin

of the elf. Protective magic, no doubt.

"An unnecessary display, Mr. Kern." Those dark, slanted eyes twinkled for a moment. "I am aware of

your antipathy."

Kern was restrained in some fashion he could not see, but nothing seemed to restrain his voice. "Slot

yourself, elf."

"My name is Urdli, Mr. Kern." That didn't mean anything to Kern. The name might not even be real. The

face certainly wasn't familiar. The sure thing was that this Urdli had Kern at a severe disadvantage. But

that could change.

"We are going to get to know each other quite well, Mr. Kern. Or rather, 7 am going to get to know

you. Through pain, I will come to know you." "Know thyself, weedeater." "A clever play on Aristotle's

maxim, Mr. Kern. Perhaps you will be comforted to know that this course will not be without pain for me

as well." Somehow Kern doubted that. "My heart bleeds."

"Not yet, Mr. Kern. Not yet." The elf's matter-of-fact tone seemed a promise that Kern's offhanded

remark might become a literal truth. Kern's body tried to shudder, but was balked. Neither could he act

on his desire to leap up and run. Though he could sense his limbs well enough, he had not the slightest

command over them. He was helpless, held immobile by the elf's magic.

Well, at least the elf had left him his mind and his voice. Too bad he wasn't a magician himself. But then,

Kern supposed, the elf would not have left him his voice.

"You're looking for trouble messing with me, weed-eater. Don't you know who I am?"

"Of course I do, Mr. Kern. That is why you are here."

Kern felt a strange sensation on his feet. A light touch, then another, and another. The sensation spread,

flowing up his legs like worms crawling over his flesh. There seemed to be dozens of them squirming

invisibly over him. The phantom slithering advanced past his knees, up his thighs, and then the first of the

ghostly worms reached his crotch. Then they all bit him, and he screamed. The ghost worms vanished at

his shout. The pain they had caused was minor; Kern had been as much surprised as hurt. He was in

darkness, and he realized that time had passed. Opening his eyes, he stared venomously at the elf. Urdli

regarded him blandly as if he were some sort of experiment.

"You have a strong will for a mundane human, Mr. Kern. Your master chose well."

"If you know who I work for, then you know you're in deep drek."

The hint of a smile touched Urdli's wide-lipped mouth. "Do not comfort yourself with the false hope that

you will be rescued, Mr. Kern. No one knows

that we have you. Your associates at Saeder-Krupp believe you dead."

Kern told himself that the elf s assertion was unlikely. His people would know, wouldn't they? Suddenly

he wasn't sure. How could he be? He didn't remember much of his capture. A flash and some thunder, or

maybe the loud noises echoing in his head had come from gunfire. He remembered Eunice screaming, her

face all bloody. Was she still alive, too, another of the elf's prisoners? They'd been on a trip. Obviously,

they had not reached their destination. His people had to know he had been taken. "They'll come for

me."

"As I said, Mr. Kern, a false hope. To them you are no more. Your only hope of life lies in cooperation."

Not bloody likely. If Saeder-Krupp thought him dead, he might as well be dead. Without the support of

his corporation, he had no protection and no one to avenge him. This elf would have no fear of killing

Kern once he got what he wanted. No matter what hints Urdli threw out of letting Kern live if he

cooperated, Kern could tell that the elf was lying. If he had intended to permit his captive to live, he

would never have started with torture.

As if the thought had given them birth, new ghost worms began to crawl up Kern's legs. This time they

touched his hands as well, curling around his fingers and slithering up his arms. He tried to steel himself

for their bite, but they only continued crawling. Another moment, and he readied himself again, certain the

time had come, but still they just crawled. It was a cruel game, but he played it anyway. When they finally

bit, he had no time to feel surprise that he had misjudged the timing. He only had time for the pain. The

darkness and dissociation came again. He knew time had passed. He had been thinking of his job with

Saeder-Krupp. His own thoughts, or the results of Ur-dli's probings? Had he talked? If so, about what?

When he opened his eyes again, another elf was present. Kern didn't remember his arrival.

This new elf was neither as tall nor as thin as Urdli, but he would never be mistaken for an ordinary

human. His face was handsome, almost beautiful. His hair was spun of fine silver, his eyes a molten gold,

and his fair skin almost alabaster in its sheeri and tone. He had that ageless look of the classic elven

meta-type. He might have stepped from a fairy tale save that, like Urdli, he wore a business suit of the

most fashionable cut.

Kern didn't want to believe that he recognized this elf. The implications were too much.

The worms came again, squirming up his limbs. "Strip him." It was the new elf who spoke. "You are

impatient," Urdli said, his tone that of a teacher's commenting on a student's performance. "Maybe I just

don't like playing with him." "Playing?" Urdli turned to his companion and the worms vanished. "I am not

playing. There is an order to all things, even to what we do here."

"Just hurry up," the silver-haired elf snapped, his expression stony.

"If I were to 'hurry up,' the knowledge this man carries might be damaged. He is only a human, after all."

"We must know." "And we shall," Urdli assured him. "Soon," the newcomer insisted. Annoyance crept

into Urdli's voice. "Would you care to do this yourself?"

The silver hair was barely ruffled when its owner shook his head. "You have far more experience in these

matters."

"Then perhaps you will trust me to know the best course."

The fair-skinned elf said nothing. Instead he turned and stalked from the room.

Kern watched the retreating back of Glasgian Oak-forest, Prince of Tir Tairngire. Glasgian was son and

heir to Prince Aithne, a prominent member of the Tir Tairngire Council of Princes. If Glasgian's presence

meant the council was involved, there would be only one release for Kern. Death. His last hope for

salvation departed with Prince Glasgian.

The worms returned.

* * *

Glasgian did not like waiting, but he liked being present even less. Three days passed before he

reen-tered the darkened chamber. A long time of enforced patience, considering the nature of the

information the man could provide. And, given the possibility that an investigation could uncover their

deception, time might be in short supply. If the master of Saeder-Krupp became suspicious, he would act

and they would lose the prize. The sooner they had what they wanted from this Saeder-Krupp tool, the

sooner they could act and, thereby, avoid any interference from the tool's owner.

He found Urdli stripped naked and sitting in the center of a chalked circle. The Australian elf no longer

looked like a dapper businessman; rather he looked like an aborigine from some old vid documentary of

the last century. On thongs around his neck and waist he wore bones and other scavengings of the natural

world. More danced on bracelets when he waved his arms. Stripes and whorls of ocher and drab gray

stood out against the darkness of Urdli's skin, the paint streaked where sweat had carved channels

through the symbols.

In the center of a chamber stinking of incense, hu-

man sweat, excrement, and other odors that hinted at even less savory things, Kern hung suspended.

Mundanely, Glasgian could see no supports. It was only by concentrating on his arcane senses that he

could perceive the tall, gangly-limbed beings that held the man. The human in their grasp was covered in

segmented things that glowed in an eerie blue color as they slithered over his body, occasionally gnawing

their way beneath the skin and disappearing even from Glasgian's astral sight. Seemingly aware of his

observation, the beings holding the human turned their narrow, solemn faces toward him. Discomfited by

their stare, Glasgian shifted back to mundane perceptions. He took a moment to compose himself, then

addressed Urdli.

"Has he talked?" "Quite a bit."

Not a useful response. "What we want to know?" "Much that touches on the matter." Exasperated,

Glasgian prompted, "And?" "It is as we thought." "Then let's get on with it."

"In time," Urdli said. "In time. There is an order to all things."

Urdli gestured and Kern screamed. The human's screeching clawed at Glasgian's spine. If he had talked

and told Urdli what they needed to know, what was the point? There was no time for self-indulgence.

Glasgian looked down at Urdli. The dark-skinned elf was concentrating on the human, whose screams

changed tone each time the dark elf gestured. But Urdli was asking Kern no questions.

Stepping up to Kern, Glasgian lifted one hand toward the man's head as a blade hissed out from its

sheath in the cuff of his jacket. The next instant he drove the tapered steel into the man's eye, through the

socket, and into the brain. The screaming stopped as the man spasmed and went limp.

"Ill-done," Urdli said softly. "I was not finished." Glasgian stared at the old elf. "This is not the time for fun

and games." "Indeed. It is not."

Urdli's midnight eyes bore into Glasgian's with an intensity Glasgian had only ever seen among the elders.

There was challenge in those dark pools, challenge and reproval. Glasgian bridled, his anger stiffening

him. He had no need to bow to this elf; he was a prince of Tir Tairngire, the scion of the Oakfor-est line,

with a heritage as old as Urdli's own. One day he would sit on the council. Who was this Urdli to

question that? True, Urdli was an elder, but age was not everything. They were working toward the same

goal, and Glasgian's methods were as valid as Urdli's. Perhaps more so. The old elf only seemed

interested in plodding along, but the Sixth World was not one to reward dawdlers. Whatever Urdli might

have been once, he lived in the Sixth World now. Being born of that world, Glasgian knew it better than

did the Australian.

"When you're cleaned up, join me upstairs," Glasgian said, breaking off his stare.

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and left the chamber, wanting only to be out of there. For one

thing, he had to change his own clothes; the stench of the chamber permeated them. Not only that, but

the damned human had bled all over his sleeve.

PART 1

Easy Money

The haze over Puyallup Barrens was thick, as usual. The sun, sinking toward the Olympic Mountains on

the other side of the Sound, was already starting its evening display. Kham squinted at it. The sun was

playing hide-and-seek among the clouds, but dark would not come for an hour or so. Not that he was

worried—he was ork and orks were made for the night—but if he kept on now, he'd be home before

dark. He wasn't sure he wanted to get there so soon.

Slowing his pace, he looked around for a patch of quiet, a doorway or an alley mouth with a good view

of the street. Halfway down the block he found one, an old theater complete with a marquee that would

shelter him in case of a shower. He scanned the graffiti on the wall. Hotbloods turf, by the signs. Zero

sweat. He was neutral to them right now. They wouldn't mind him taking up their space, as long as he

was ready to vacate the moment they showed up. He moved into the shadow under the marquee, feeling

the coolness of the coming night already hanging in the darkened air. Settling in, he leaned back against

the chill stone.

Things hadn't gone well today. Not that they'd been bad, but not good was bad today. No nuyen to

dump onto Lissa's credstick. Everything was dry. Dry, dry, dry. Nobody talking and nobody doing.

Worse, nobody running. Leastways, as far as his contacts could tell him. To go looking day wise had

been an act of pure desperation, but he still had not turned up a speck

of work, and no work meant no cred. The prospect of going home to Lissa without fresh cred was not

very appealing.

She would be all over him about it. Probably start ragging him again to sign up with a corp or the fed

army. Didn't she know that either of those options would mean he wouldn't be around much? Yeah, he

supposed she did. Maybe that's what she wanted. She hadn't eased off since he came back from old

Doc Smith's place with the replacements.

He looked down at the chromed cybernetic hand protruding from his right sleeve. It wasn't

state-of-the-art, but it worked. He had almost died the day he lost that hand. What would have

happened then? Where would that have left Lissa? Worse, what about the kids? At least he was still

around, still able to protect and provide for them. Right, he thought, like today. Well, most of the time

anyway.

He stared sullenly down the street, watching the locals and the day trippers. Cullen Avenue was one of

the nicer parts of Carbonado, lots of well-fortified shops. The business day was coming to a close, and

this stretch of Cullen was a real nightwise place. A few of the daywise folks were starting their scurry

toward their nice, safe homes. He could see in their hasty pace and frequent glances at the sinking sun

that they didn't find the prospect of gathering twilight nearly as comforting as he did.

The streets were crowded still. Most of the folks were still just folks, going about their business, but a

few among them were heralds of the nightwise types that would soon haunt these same streets. A beefy

ork girl was hooking on the next corner, while across the way a trio of bedraggled chipheads were

begging. There would be more of both soon. Then a knot of leatherclad dwarfs came strutting past.

Dressed in

Ironmonger colors, they scoped Kham out as they approached. He gave them a smile, showing just a

little of his upper tusks, and rubbed his broken lower tusk with a chromed thumb. The short, burly one

behind the leader whispered something into his warlord's ear and they kept on moving.

By far the bulk of the crowd were breeders, stupid, puny, thin-skinned norms. They and the occasional

elf scurried along the sidewalk, heading for whatever they called security for the night. The norms were

being bright, since they weren't nightwise. Elves could see in the dark as well as any ork, but Kham

supposed they were being bright, too. None of the Barrens that hedged in any of the megacity sprawls

were kind or gentle places after dark.

And Puyallup Barrens, one of the two spawned by the Seattle sprawl, was no different. An urban

backwater like Puyallup was nobody's first choice for a home, maybe everybody's last. That's why so

many orks like Kham ended up here. Forced into the places nobody else wanted. Forced to scratch and

scrape to get by. Forced out of the nice places because they weren't powerful enough to object. Or

didn't have enough political clout. Or firepower. Or whatever it took to hold onto the good places.

Kham had grown up here and survived. So far. He had survived the gangs, the hate, the riots, and

everything else the Barrens had thrown at him. And he'd thrived, clawing his way to the top of the gangs

and eventually putting together an alliance of gangs that had ruled Carbonado. Past history, he mused.

Gangs were kid stuff, and he wasn't a kid anymore. He had reached his full growth and would be twenty

in a few years. Twenty!

He didn't really want to think about that. It was much better to dream of the day he'd be living in style.

But style meant nuyen, which again brought him back

to the reality that he'd not done very well at collecting any today.

There weren't many ways for an ork to pile up the nuyen. Sure, he could have gone into the fed army or

one of the private corp ones, something he'd considered when younger, much younger; but hearing Black

Jim's stories when Jim came home to the neighborhood on leave from the feds, Kham knew that the

regimented life was not for him. He'd thought about it long and hard, and the only conclusion he could

reach was that if you can't make your nuyen legally, you gotta do it illegally.

Once he'd reached that conclusion, he hadn't wasted time. He'd started to put the gang to decent use and

done a few small jobs, smart stuff that was practically built into the system, like looting the corp trucks

running along 412, and only taking what couldn't be traced. After they'd made a couple of hits, his fixer

had realized that Kham wasn't just another stupid ork kid out to break some heads, and so he'd turned

him on to Sally Tsung's ring. Lady Tsung introduced Kham to the lucrative life of shadowrunning, and one

payoff was all it took for him to see the light; corp snitching just couldn't compare. He'd dropped the

gangs and signed on with Lady Tsung.

His hard-built alliance had crumbled while he attended to other matters, but he hadn't cried. He'd worked

to build the gang, using it to his advantage while still the boss, but he didn't need it anymore. Nothing

wrong with that. That was the way the world worked. You grabbed what you could, held on as long as

you needed it, and when something better came along, you grabbed that instead. Had to keep the nuyen

flowing in. Had to look out for yourself.

Shadowrunning offered almost everything the gangs had. There was action, excitement, and firepower—

lots of firepower on the right run. The only thing miss-

ing was the pbwer and the respect, the chance to make a difference on your turf, and all the chummers

looking up to you. Then again, maybe running the shadows did offer those things, but in a different way.

A runner could make a difference, but it was subtler, excepting of course the differences to your cred

balance. Those differences were truly truly sig—at least when the nu-yen was rolling in. And the respect

was there too. The scuzboys and streetrats like those Ironmongers gave wide berth to Kham now that

word was about that he played in the big leagues. It was the personal stuff that wasn't there. Sure, he had

his guys, and they were some of the best rocking orks ever to pack big guns, but they were runners like

him and mostly loyal to the biggest buck. They weren't his the way the gang had been.

Drek! He was supposed to be thinking about the future, not the past. Only old guys found the past

brighter than the future and Kham was not an old guy yet!

Kham heaved himself up, ready to be on his way, when some old fool plowed into him. Kham swung a

hard backhand, then realized halfway through the swipe that the idiot wouldn't have gotten close enough

to collide if Kham hadn't already dismissed him as a threat. Kham pulled his punch, but he stiil bounced

the guy into the wall. Catching him on the rebound off the brick, Kham recognized the slag, and his

condition.

"You're blasted, Kittle George." "Huh?" The gray-haired ork frowned as he tried to bring his vision into

focus. "Kha—"

Kham heaved him upright in time to avoid getting

splashed when Kittle George started to vomit. Kham

watched in disgust. This was how old orks ended up.

Kittle George swayed erect and staggered on down

the street. Too drunk to walk a straight line, he car-

omed off the street folk he passed as he stumbled along the sidewalk. Kham caught up with him in a few

strides, grabbed an arm, and hauled him erect.

"Ya oughta go home, Georgie."

"Am goin' home," Kittle George slurred.

"Yer home's da odder way."

Kittle George looked around confusedly, then squinted at Kham. "I knew tha'."

Kham shook his head sadly. "Ya want me ta walk ya dere?" He didn't really want to, but he thought he

should offer. Kittle George was ork, too, and orks had to stick together. Besides, walking Georgie home

would mean putting off going home himself for a bit longer, i

They strolled along the streets, Kham keeping his pace to something Kittle George could manage. Taking

the offered bottle, Kham took the swig required of friendship, then managed to drop the bottle.

Accidentally, of course. Then he had to drop it again before the brittle plastic would shatter. Georgie

cried over the loss, embarrassing Kham, but fortunately he didn't recognize anyone in the crowds that

flooded around them. He got Kittle George underway again.

The old ork started mumbling a long list of complaints. Life hadn't been treating him very well. But that

was no surprise. He was ork. What did life have for orks besides trouble anyway?

They had reached Kittle George's place, a condemned tenement just like the others lining the streets. The

Seattle metroplex government had condemned it, then left it; lacking the money to trash it, they certainly

did not have enough to replace it. People still lived there because it offered a roof and walls. The rent

was cheap, too. Kittle George had prime space in the basement, the warmest spot in an unheated

building during the winter. Kittle George had company

then; but it was still autumn and the neighbors hadn't moved in yet. -

"Ya gonna be okay, Georgie?"

"Yeah. Gonna get some sleep. Wish I had a bottle, though."

"Sleep's good, Georgie." Hoping the old guy would forget about the bottle, Kham pointed him toward

the stairs and made sure the drunk had a grip on the rail before urging him down into the darkness. "Just

get some sleep,"

The old man mumbled something as he went down the stairs, but Kharn didn't understand a word of it.

Booze and age, the bane of an ork's life—if despair and drugs didn't get him first.

As Kittle George disappeared, a shadow fell over Kham. He turned slowly, careful to avoid sudden

moves. The big troll he found grinning at him was familiar. Grabber worked as a bouncer at Shaver's Bar;

he also was a small-time fixer. The troll's operational area ran about five blocks north and south of Kittle

George's, along Cullen, and out west all the way to the wall that marked the Salish-Shidhe boundary with

the plex. The troll was rumbling with a deep chuckling.

"Hoi, Grabber. Whuzzappenin' down at Shaver's?"

"Hoi, Kham," the troll boomed. "Bodyguarding these days, chummer?"

Kham shrugged.

For a troll, Grabber was moderately bright; the troll picked up on the fact that Kham didn't find any

humor in his poor joke, and so tried some more innocuous small talk. "Been quiet at the club. Just the

usual. No sweat 'cepting Saturday night."

Kham had heard about the riot. "Local scuzboys giving ya trouble?"

"Nan." Grabber cracked his knuckles, and smiled. "Just a workout. Ain't seen you lately."

Kham shrugged again. He hadn't worked Grabber's turf in a while—and after what had happened the

last time, he hoped he wouldn't be anytime soon, either. Who could say, though? Things had been pretty

slow lately. "Been busy."

"Not what Lissa says. Says you been hanging home a lot. Things slow?"

Did everybody know? He stifled a sharp retort. Gotta stay chill, he told himself. If you say you ain't doing

biz, you don't do no biz. Nobody wanted a washed-out runner. For the third time, Kham shrugged, but

this time he added a raised eyebrow to let Grabber know he'd listen.

The troll made an elaborate affair of checking the now sparse street crowd to see if anyone was close

enough to hear. "Jack Darke's running. Looking for muscle, I hear."

"Solo, or he need a whole gang?"

"Solo."

"Personal interest on Darke's part, or will any ork do?"

"Must be personal, chummer. Otherwise I'd be running it instead of shopping it to you."

Kham hesitated. Once he would have jumped at the chance. Drek, maybe he should jump at it. He could

convince himself that he needed the work, couldn't he? That the other guys didn't matter. But he didn't

spend a lot of time thinking about the offer. "Ain't interested," he said sourly. "Ain't no room in da run for

my guys, ain't no room for me. When ya got a crew ta worry about, ya got responsibilities."

"Responsibilities tie a man down, chummer."

"What would ya know about dat, Grabber?"

It was Grabber's turn to shrug. "I hear things."

Kham was annoyed by the turn of the conversation. "Well, ya ain't hearin' yes from me. Darke'll have ta

find his muscle somewhere else."

Grabber squinted his larger eye almost shut, and leaned down. His voice was modulated to a

conspiratorial tone, which meant it could probably be heard only half a block away. "Last chance. Good

money, all certified cred."

"Some odder time."

Straightening up, Grabber said, "You called it, chummer. Maybe some other time. Maybe not. Stay chill,

chummer. Careful you don't get so cold you freeze."

"My worry, Grabber."

"Like I said, chummer, you called it," the troll replied. He eased his way down the street, amusement

rumbling deep inside him.

Angered by the troll's reaction, Kham watched him go. Did it really matter what the troll thought?

Grabber was small fish. But then, so was Kham. Darke, now. Darke was a bigger fish. Not as big as

Sally Tsung, but bigger than Grabber and Kham. But Darke was running and Sally wasn't, which meant

Darke was paying and Sally wasn't.

Drek! If he didn't take it himself, he might have hired out one of the guys. Rabo had kids, too, and was as

hard up for cash. They all needed to score. So why was he worrying about the guys when he had

troubles of his own? Why didn't he just take the job and put the nuyen in his own pocket like any corp

putz would do? Responsibilities? Drek! He hated being grown up.

Grabber was almost out of shouting range. It wasn't too late to call him back, and Kham almost did.

Then he thought about how that would look to the fixer.

Besides losing face, Kham was sure that the pay offered for the run would now be less than it was. With

Darke's personal interest, that price would have been Kham's going rate. Calling Grabber back, making

himself look hungry, would drive the fee down. If he took the run at the lower price, word of it would

get

around and that would also be bad for business. Once a shadowrunner's price starting going down, it

wasn't likely to go up again. The jobs would get cheaper and cheaper and eventually you'd face a dirty

run for dirt and then you'd end up under the dirt. Kham wasn't ready for that, so he let the troll go on

walking.

But maybe he was ready to go home. It was almost dark, but still early enough that Kham didn't feel

un-derarmed with his Smith and Wesson .45 in his «ide holster and the Walther in the underarm sling. His

thirty-six-centimeter survival knife slapped against his thigh, reminding him that he had blades as well: two

cutters in boot sheaths and a half-do/en shivs in various other concealed sheaths. He had a pair of knucks

in his jacket pocket, too. Not much, but then he'd be home before the real predators came out.

The people on the street were mostly orks now. Kham tried to tell himself that there were no more

chipheads on the street than before, that it was just a change in the proportions of straight to chipped. But

he knew better. There really were more of the sim-sense addicts and most of those new addicts were

orks. Chipheads were lost in their simsense fantasies and rarely showed the caution a straight—norm or

ork— would show. Day or night, they lived somebody else's life inside their heads. Who knew what time

it was in there?

Kham buzzed. He kept aware of his surroundings, as was prudent, but he tried to tune out the chipheads.

He wasn't very successful. Too many of them had his brother's face.

By the time he hit his neighborhood, he was really sour. He checked his stride as he turned onto Greely

and saw three orks of his crew gathered in front of Wu's grocery. The guys were obviously keeping

watch on somebody down the street. Kham cheered up; maybe there would be a little action to make

him feel

better. He started forward again, his step livelier. John Parker was the first to notice him coming.

"Hey, hoi, Kham. Where ya been, bossman?"

'"Round." They went through the ritual punching and tussles. "Whuzzappenin'? Got hostiles on the turf?"

"Nah," Rabo whined. "Nothing so much fun. Then again, maybe there will be fun. Got a suitboy looking

for you by name."

"He's hanging over there," Ratstomper said, pointing with her head. A man stood in the shadows at the

mouth of the alley, next to a fire-gutted tenement in the next block down. "Told him to wait. We knew

you'd be along."

Kham looked and noted that the man was unfamiliar. He was also a stranger to Orktown. Though he

was wearing a long coat, lined with armor no doubt, thrown open and back to reveal street-smart

leathers, he was clearly not at home on the streets. He looked too nervous. Kham thought that he'd

probably smell that way close up. This slag was a suit, no doubt about it.

The man was tall and on the thin side. Though too bulky for an elf, he might be mistaken for one by a less

astute observer. He didn't fool Kham, though. He wondered if the suit knew how dangerous such a

resemblance could be. If he did, he had plenty of reason to be nervous. The Ancients, an elf biker gang

with no permanent territory but claiming all of Seattle for their own, had rumbled through two nights ago.

Those elves had no friends in Orktown and had used their visit to make a few more enemies. Tempers

were still up, and any elf, or even a human who looked like one, could end up the target of well-deserved

hate. If the suitboy knew what had gone down, he was brave to come around without backup. It was

surprising he'd gotten this far unmolested. Maybe the fact that Kham's

guys were watching him had kept the other locals off the suitboy's back.

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ATTACKOFTHEWYVERNKhamheardthehissingbellowofthewyvern,sawitssnakelikebodyandbatwings.Itwasheadedstraighttowardhimandtheelves.Thebeastswoopedupanditsserpentinebodywrithedasittwistedinatorturedspiral,higherandhigher.Thenitsnappeditswingsupanddarteditsheaddown.Thewyverncamescreaminglikeaspeedingbullett...

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Robert N. Charrette - Shadowrun 6 - Never Trust an Elf.pdf

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Robert N. Charrette - Shadowrun 6 - Never Trust an Elf

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