Lisa Smedman - The Lucifer desk

For a second or two, Carla was reassured. The hell hound had paused in its advance. It stood about a meter away from her now-still in a crouched position, ready for instant action-but for the moment seemingly content to stand and watch her. Even from this distance, Carla could feel the heat of its fiery breath. She didn’t want it to get any closer. She’d do what Aziz said-hold still until the animals handler came.

Then Carla groaned. “Its handler won’t be able to see me unless he has a telepathic link to the animal, Aziz,” she said in a whisper, moving her lips as little as possible. “The security cameras in this area have had their data re-rezzed. Unless someone is monitoring this cel phone frequency, nobody knows I’m here.”

“You’re in an office complex. Somebody will eventually come. Just wait where you are.”

Yeah, right. Wait until someone noticed that the hell hound was no longer on the monitors, and came looking for it. She might get out of here alive, but she’d lose her story. Mitsuhama’s security guards would discover the hardcopy in her pocket and realize immediately what she’d been up to. They’d probably be bright enough to scan for a cybereye, and when they found it, they’d take her chip with all of her eyecamera’s data on it. And that would be the end of her story.

There had to be another way out. Aziz hadn’t been any help at all. But perhaps if she…

Looking at the hell hound, Carla saw that it had stayed its advance. Slowly, a millimeter at a time, she raised her free hand toward the pocket of her jacket. If she could ease Farazad’s credstick from her pocket, maybe she could get the elevator doors to open again, with Corwin’ s help. She’d go back through the lab, take the emergency exit this time.

“I’m going to hang up now, Aziz. I have to call someone.”

“Be careful how you enter the numbers. Carla. The hell hound might think your cel phone is a weapon. It will be trained to attack anyone who…

Carla had stopped listening to him. Her fingers touched the fabric of her jacket. Now it was just a matter of sliding her hand into her pocket and-With a lunge, the hell hound launched itself at her.

Instinctively, Carla screamed and flung up her hands. The animal smashed into her, knocking her back against the elevator doors. Then she was down on the floor with the creature on top of her. Its baleful, glowing eyes stared into hers, and its claws dug painfully into her skin through the fabric of her clothes. The blue flames from its nostrils flared and ebbed, flared and ebbed, washing her face with waves of heat. It stood poised on top of her, mouth open, white teeth gleaming. Even as Carla’s natural eye filled with tears, she focused the trideo camera in her cybereye for a tight shot of the hell hound’s face. If she was going to die, she was going to die shooting trid. Her last shot would be a dramatic one. Even as her mind whirled with fear, a tiny part of it was writing the lead-in to the piece: “This astonishing footage was shot by KKRU reporter Carla Harris just seconds before her death.”

Aziz’s voice shrilled from the eel phone, which had fallen to the floor somewhere behind her. “Carla! What’s happened? Are you… alive?”

Carla choked out a sob. Aziz might have screwed up her story, might have already sold her out. But he was the only one she could turn to now. “Aziz,” she gasped. “Help!”

“You’re crazy!” Masaki shouted into the telecom unit. “The spirit is dangerous. It’s just as likely to kill Carla as to save her!”

A three-dimensional image of Aziz glared at the reporter from the projection unit of the telecom. “You’re wasting valuable time, Masaki. Bring the girl to the address I gave you. Now. Every minute counts.”

Pita rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up. She’d been sleeping on the couch in Masaki’s apartment and had only heard fragments of the conversation. Something about Carla, the spirit-and herself. She leaned forward, listening avidly.

Masaki shook his head at the telecom. “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll get in touch with the building’s security guards. They’ll call the guard dog off.”

“It’s a hell hound, not a guard dog,” Aziz spat back. “And what do you think its handlers will do when they find an intruder who’s compromised the security of a top-secret research facility? The security guards aren’t just going to politely ask who she is and then let her go. Any questioning they will do will be brutal. And if they don’t get the answers they want…”

“Carla’s a reporter covering a story,” Masaki countered. “The station will back her up.” His voice, however, held a hint of uncertainty. Aziz pounced upon it.

“She’s also someone who illegally broke into a restricted area of a powerful corporation, and that makes her no better than a shadowrunner,” he said. “Do you honestly think Mitsuhama cares about adverse publicity when it can downplay the incident as security guards who were ‘just doing their jobs’? And what’s to stop them from coming after anyone else connected with the story? You could be next, Masaki. Your byline was on the original report, too. You even did a stand-up for it, as I recall.”

The reporter wet his lips nervously. “I still don’t think that using the spirit is the right thing to-”

“What’s happening?” Pita asked.

Masaki turned, surprised to see her. He’d obviously forgotten she was there.

“Carla’s been trapped in the Mitsuhama complex by a hell hound. Aziz wants to use the spirit against it. He seems to think that if he can attract its attention again, you can control it. But that’s crazy. I don’t see how you could possibly help. Control a spirit that’s already killed one mage? Impossible! You’re just a kid with no formal magical training. I won’t allow it.”

Pita narrowed her eyes. Just a kid, huh? Yeah, just a dumb ork kid who could be shoved around by the police and shunted off to a group home when she became inconvenient. She pushed the blankets to the floor and stood up. Her eyes bored into Masaki’s. “I can so control it,” she told him in a level voice. She turned to the telecom unit. “What do you want me to do, Aziz?”

The mage spoke rapidly. “Remember the boarded-up Stuffer Shack you came to in astral form when the spirit was attacking me?”

Pita nodded.

“I want you to go there-in person-as quickly as you can. I’ll give you the address. I’ll meet you there and explain what we have to do. I’ve ordered a taxi for you. Tell the driver to hurry.”

Pita started to answer, but Masaki cut her off. “Never mind the taxi,” he told Aziz. “I’ll drive her.”

Pita stared at him. “I thought you forbade me to do this.”

Masaki said goodbye to Aziz, and tapped off the telecom. Then he sighed. “You’re obviously going to go through with this crazy idea, no matter what I say. You think I want to sit here, worrying about you and wondering if you’re all right? I intend to be there. In case anything goes wrong.”

Pita blinked, surprised. If the spirit refused her commands and attacked, there would be nothing Masaki could do. Except, maybe, get fried alongside her and Aziz. Perhaps the reporter really did care about her, after all. But there wasn’t any time for speculation. Aziz had told her to hurry. She scooped up her jacket from the floor and shoved her feet into her sneakers.

The drive to the shop was a quick one-traffic was relatively light for a Saturday night, and for once Masaki seemed more than willing to break the speed limit. He didn’t say a word to Pita, but instead sat in a tense silence, drumming the fingers of one hand nervously against the steering wheel. It wasn’t until they reached the boarded-up Stuffer Shack and parked in front of it that he at last spoke.