Tom Dowd - Burning Bright

"Very," Kyle agreed. "Could you do me a favor and have your datapad re-read the profile we got on her."

Hanna nodded and keyed in some commands to the pad. A moment later, it spoke in a clear masculine voice: "Results of a public records search-check on Linda Hayward. Information gathered: one correlation. Linda Kathleen Hayward. Date of birth, 8 March 2029, Rush-Presbyterian Hospital, Chicago. Parents, Nancy Arnold Hayward and John Michael Hayward, deceased 2039. Economic records show employment with Davidion Financial until four years.ago. No registered employment since. Residence records show rented housing at 3121 West George, Chicago, until four years ago. No residence record since. Education records show a degree in management and finance from the University of Illinois, Chicago, 2043. No other records found."

"Again," said Hanna, "not promising."

"It's like information on someone who's slipped off the edge of the world," Kyle mused. "Everything on her is four years old. She's completely dropped out of public record."

"What do you make of it?"

"Well, if we'd found nothing, I'd have said for sure she'd gone over to the shadows," Kyle said.

"Become a shadowrunner?" asked Hanna, almost incredulously. "Is it that easy?"

Kyle laughed. "No. If she were good or smart, there'd be no records by now. They're four years old, which is starting to leave a cold trail. But she's still using her own name." He shrugged. "I just don't know."

He sighed. "But if I run into her at the Kaleidoscope tonight I'll be sure to ask her."

"That wasn't necessary," Kyle told Seeks-the-Moon through the telepathic link they shared as master and ally spirit. Kyle disliked this method of communication with the spirit because, in his own mind, Seeks-the-Moon's voice sounded too much like his own voice. Standing at the rail overlooking the Kaleidoscope's main dance floor, besieged by untold thousands of watts of grinding, pounding, abrasive jet core rock and roll, it was the only way to talk.

The spirit shrugged even though he too spoke telepathically. "The doorman was a joker. We were obviously far more genuine than the fakers he let in ahead of us. I simply proved it."

"You didn't have to burst into flames."

"We're in, aren't we?"

"Yes, but odds are we've been noticed. Being inconspicuous is out of the question."

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted subtlety? It's not the approach you usually favor."

Kyle held up his hand to silence Seeks-the-Moon's bantering. "Okay, okay," he said. "We have a decent idea of who we're looking for, so let's split up and see what we can see."

The spirit shrugged again. "As you wish. If I locate Linda Hayward, should I call you?"

"It would be appreciated."

Seeks-the-Moon stuck his hands in his pockets and moved out through the crowd. Kyle knew the spirit was uncomfortable amid the chaos of music and dancers, but he also knew that Moon's ability to see in both the physical world and the astral one simultaneously would be invaluable in case of danger.

Kyle himself wasn't that comfortable, his musical tastes tending toward subtler techno-phasic harmonies. Jet core was too loud, too dissonant, and, combined with the billions of swirling and spraying multi-colored lights in the club, too fragging frantic.

The crowd was young-older than either Melissa or Mitchell Truman, of course, but by only a few years. There was a younger element, but they tended to orbit each other in small cliques near the edge of the main floor. Kyle wasn't sure if he should simply observe first or start working the crowd for clues to either Linda Hayward or Mitchell Truman.

Below him, the thrashing mass changed its pattern of motion as the music changed beat and pace. He thought he recognized the piece as a version of a more lyrical song from maybe a decade before, but the music wouldn't hold still long enough for him to place it. He moved forward, against the flow of the crowd, toward the bar.

The Kaleidoscope attracted a clientele that apparently considered the "magical" look to be in. He passed a pair of female elves guarded by a troll, but of the three, only the troll seemed real. In their finery, twist-dyed hair, and metallic-flake makeup, the two elves seemed artificial and posed. They ignored him, as bade their pose, while the troll gave him a polite nod. Kyle wondered for a brief moment what the truth behind the three really was.

An ork, garbed as one of the sorcerers from a recent simsense version of the Arabian Knights, threw what seemed a rainbow of color into the air. Kyle didn't need his astral senses to know it was a trick, light refracted through a handful of microcrystals. Fakery, apparently, was all the rage in the Kaleidoscope Cl-

“It would seem I am not alone," said Seeks-the-Moon in Kyle's mind. Turning quickly, Kyle surveyed the club, trying to pick the spirit out from among the throng. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, the young woman near the red neon tube, across from you, is a spirit as well."

Kyle leaned against the rail and strained to see that far across the club. He could make out a cluster of figures near a red neon pillar, but not much else about them. He braced himself against the rail and shifted into astral perception. The room snapped into vivid, energetic focus, a blare of living color and energy. Despite the brilliance, the accumulated energy of the packed dancers and their emotions, there were very few mystical auras to be seen, except by the pillar.

There, Kyle picked out two powerful auras, neither masked. Both were females and they strobed with real, primal power. Spirits manifest in human form.

"Can you get a good look at them." Kyle asked through the mental link.

"No, and I don't think I should get any closer. They, like me, will have dual sight. I don't think you wish me to alert them to our presence."

"You're right. Let me try and get closer." Kyle let his physical senses return and moved quickly around the outer rim of the dance floor, keeping his eye on the red pillar. He was nearly there when Seeks-the-Moon spoke again.

"One of the two has moved away," the spirit said. "She is heading toward the rear of the club."

"Can you follow her?" asked Kyle, trying to push his way, through the crowd without causing an incident.

"I believe so, but how daring do you wish me to be?"

"Could she be Linda Hayward?"

"Not unless she's disguised. This one is black."

"Follow her if you can."

"I will."

The red-tinted faces of the revelers signaled Kyle's proximity to the tube. He paused a moment and centered himself, boosting his own shielding, and perhaps most important, the masking that dampened his mystical aura. But if this woman, whoever she was, was as powerful as her own masked aura implied, he doubted his attempts to suppress his own would be very successful. He circled left, to come up behind her.

Her hair was the same color as the unnatural light, her flesh pale and waxen. The clothing she wore seemed to be real leather, dark and glossy, tight up along her long legs and then loose in the form of a vest across her back and shoulders. Her arms were bare, except for coppery bracelets on each wrist.

What slowed him, just for a moment, was the image on the back of her vest. It was the figure of an angel, definitely feminine and vengeful. One of the arms was extended upward, toward the sky, and wielded a bright sword. The other gestured downward across one hip, modestly hiding what the tattered rags of her clothing did not. The angel's face, rimmed by a halo of shining hair, was downturned, but her gaze looked outward-direct, provocative, and challenging.' The words "Desolation Angels" arched over the angel and across the woman's shoulder blades.

"Desolation Angels," Kyle told Seeks-the-Moon. "Emblazoned across her back."