Michael Stackpole: Wolf and Raven

The arc-light glare of the Fenris' headlights burned the hopeless expressions on the faces of the street people into black masks of despair. Some shrank back from the harsh light as if it were a laser vaporizing them, while others shuffled forward zombie-like and raised grubby hands in mute pleas for some kindness. Their hands fell slowly when the afterimage of the vehicle faded from their sight.

A tiny knot of razorboys from the local ork gang called the Bloody Screamers scattered as if I'd launched a grenade into their midst. I fought the Old One's attempt to drive the Fenris straight through them. As soon as we sped past, the gillettes slithered from the shadows and taunted us with the insane yelps and howls that were the gang's trademark. Stealth glanced at the steering wheel and then the closed sunroof, but I shook my head. "Not worth the time it would take to mop up the blood."

Speeding through the streets, I interpreted Stealth's occasional grunts or nods and steered accordingly on a course he had chosen. I knew where The Rock was, but Stealth had picked out a roste that would both be safe and would let us determine whether anyone was following us. Finally he told me to stop the car and I found myself parking in the shadow of the old Kitchner Fish Cannery-a property that abutted The Rock's fenced-in territory on the north side.

I turned the car's dome light off before either one of us opened the doors. As we alighted, we left the car doors open. Just as we didn't need the light to announce our arrival, we decided we could do without the sound of the doors slamming shut. Stealth's feet made less noise on the gravel outside the car than mine did, but I slid the MP-9 from the door holster more quietly than he pulled his Kalashnikov from behind the Fenris' seats.

Off to the south I could see the pink glow of The Rock's night lights. I figured the distance we'd have to cover at something just under a kilometer, and that began to worry me. Stealth can hit targets at twice that range with ease, and I half began to imagine him up in the cannery giving me all the covering fire I could handle while I went in alone. I turned to confront him with this startling new conclusion, but he held up his left hand to forestall anything I might say.

He seemed to be listening to something in the distance, then he spoke. "Copy that, Outrider One-our backtrail was clear. Bring it in. Let's do it, my friends."

I instantly knew he was using his headware to stay in contact with confederates who'd been watching our approach, but before I could draw any conclusion about who they might be, a door in the cannery slid open and a weak, yellow light silhouetted a dozen figures of various sizes and shapes. Almost instantly, above the fish smell, I caught the scent of one or two orks, and the hackles rose on the back of my neck.Who… what?

Then it hit me and I turned to Kid Stealth without trying to hide my anger. "You didn't tell me you'd brought the Redwings in on this…"

Stealth's head came up and he unconsciously let himself rise to his full 2.3 meters of height7. "I need you, Wolf, to bring this off. I also need them. Bury the hatchet. The enemy of my enemy…"

"… is still not anyone I'd want marrying my sister," I finished for him. Stealth had developed a habit of doing anything he could to annoy La Plante after they'd parted company. One of those things was to rescue other La Plante loyalists who had somehow run afoul of the chrome-fisted Capone. Bloody-handed butchers and petty criminals alike, Stealth pulled them out of whatever terminal situation they found themselves in and had formed them into a band who called themselves the Redwings-a not-too-distant allusion to Raven's crew.

I'd not liked them from the start because we'd tangled.

Sure, the legs may look goofy, but when he needs to stand tall, they certainly do the job. over their excessive use of violence in certain situations. While Raven left it up to Stealth to keep them in line, and Stealth freely offered their assistance whenever we needed some added talent, I preferred selecting my own gillettes from the over-abundant supply lurking in the Seattle sprawl.

I spat the sour taste out of my mouth. "Well, I'll have no trouble with target acquisition."

Stealth smiled in a most grimly amused manner. "I also got you some back-up. I hired Morrissey and Jackson-they're on the inside and will take this section of the warning grid down for us."

I frowned. "Morrissey and Jackson?"

Stealth settled back down on his spurred haunches. "The two street samurai you used to rescue Moira Alianha. You know, the two who called us in on the Nat Vat thing?"

I laughed aloud, letting some of my tension go. "You mean Zig and Zag." I nodded with satisfaction. "Good. They shoot straight and fast."

"Glad you approve. When your two boys take the fence out, we go in hot." Stealth pointed off toward the seashore. "La Plante tends to concentrate his guards on the wet side because he expects me to bob up out of the water and come at him from that direction. We'll go in at the other end and just start ripping things up."

I tossed Stealth a quick nod and he signaled the Redwings to move forward. The light from inside the cannery went out, and the men deployed themselves with quiet efficiency. I followed behind Stealth and hunkered down when he did as we approached the twelve-meter-tall cyclone fence topped with thick coils of razor-wire.

Two figures silhouetted themselves against The Rock's glow as they sauntered toward our position. Stealth moved his head back and forth a couple of times, then allowed himself a grim smile. "A bit late, but it's them." He moved forward and I joined him at the fence. Zig, a solidly built razorboy sporting a longcoat and an AK-97, gave me a nod of recognition. "Sorry we took so long, chummers. The VIP yacht arrived late at the docks-only about an hour ago. Assignments got scrambled. It looks like something is going down very shortly-the yacht's owner and La Plante wandered off for a heated chat."

Zag-bigger than his Caucasian partner and wearing an orange and black gang jacket with the Halloweener insignia torn off-fished a remote control device from his pocket. He pointed it at the section of fence and hit a button. "There, it's down. I hope this thing is reporting back normally the way you said it would. If not, we'll have more trouble than we need in about two minutes."

Stealth answered eloquently by reaching out with his right foot and clawing away some of the fence. In a half-dozen passes-unaccompanied by warning sirens or the shouts of guards-he opened a hole large enough for us to drive the whole cannery through. I crossed over first and took up a forward position with Zig and Zag as the Redwings followed. "Zig, tell me more about this yacht."

He shrugged. "Don't know that much about ships. I make it thirty meters long at least and capable of transoceanic travel. The crew are wee little brown guys who find things like razor claws and the like to be amusing. I suspect they're like you-they rely on magic instead of chrome. All of them carry nasty-looking daggers, but they're not strangers to guns."

I turned to his partner and gave the black man a gentle elbow in the ribs. "Yacht have a name?"

Zag shrugged. The red light in his right eye flickered as he tried to remember if he'd seen any name on the ship's hull. "Nothing I saw, but it did have some funny writing where I would have expected the name to be. And in one of the cabins, there were no pictures, only geometric designs."

I frowned. Funny writing and geometric designs meant only one thing to me: Moslems. Growing up, I'd known a family that ran a restaurant down on the strip. They claimed their people had come to Seattle before the Awakening from a place called Syria and they used geometric designs and Arabic for decorations on the menus. I knew that country was some place on the other side of the planet, and I knew Islam was widespread enough to make the ship's point of origin any place from Spain to Indonesia. Even with that wealth of information, however, I couldn't puzzle out what someone from so far away would want with Etienne La Plante.