Tom Dowd - Burning Bright

They're gearing up to be a force in the Chicago market," Hanna told him. "They were very clear and direct about that."

Kyle shook his head. "Wrong kinds of assets. You don't move military-grade combat teams into a city if you only intend to beef up your image."

Hanna's eyes widened. "Military? You think that Captain Ravenheart and her people are military?"

"Knight Errant's equivalent, certainly."

A dull whine began to echo overhead, quickly building to a powerful roar of jet turbine engines. Seeks-the-Moon was a blur as he moved out of sight, passing through the patio doors and into the sanctuary of the condoplex. Over their heads, visible through the armored glass skylight, a Knight Errant tilt-wing cleared the building and began accelerating away quickly, its engines rotating into position for forward flight. It was going west.

"Heading to O'Hare," said Kyle.

Hanna nodded. "Ares has a small enclave out there. We understand that's where Knight Errant has its base."

Kyle turned as the patio doors slid open. Seeks-the-Moon stepped through, an odd smile on his face. Close behind came a sour-faced Daniel Truman, who stood watching the receding tilt-wing craft. At that moment, Charlotte also reappeared next to Kyle.

"Master," she said. "They all departed on the aircraft."

"Thank you, Charlotte. Resume your patrols." The spirit vanished.

"What kind of game do you think they're playing?" Truman asked him.

Kyle shrugged. "Truthfully, I'm not sure."

"But you agree something's going on?"

"Most definitely," Kyle said. “They obviously have their own agenda here. I'm just not sure what it is."

"Pardon me for saying so," said Hanna to them both, "but I still don't quite see why you're so sure Knight Errant is up to something."

"I've met Damien Knight twice, Hanna," Daniel Truman told her. "I could repeat to you verbatim all twelve words we've exchanged. Yes, my firm has some dealings with his. But the two of us? We aren't friends. Especially not the kind of friends who give the other a billion nuyen worth of help without being asked."

Kyle gasped. "A billion? What did they offer you?"

Truman smiled lightly. "They said if things got particularly unpleasant-and they subtly warned me they might-I might want to think about taking a vacation with my family off-planet."

"Off-planet?"

Truman nodded. "They offered me a free orbit-lift and luxury quarters on their Daedalus space station."

Kyle was nearly speechless. "That seems more than a little…"

"Yes, doesn't it?" Truman said. "Of course, they said that would be a worst-case option, but they wouldn't elaborate on what that worst case might be."

Kyle shook his head. "Knight Errant is up to something. Do you feel comfortable releasing them from your service?"

Truman frowned. "No… for better or for worse, they're the best at protecting me and my family. I think they have ulterior motives for doing so, but I don't think they wish my ill."

"I suspect you're right. Though I don't think we can assume they wouldn't be against sacrificing one of you to get whatever it is they want."

Truman's eyes were hard. "Like they might have done with Mitch."

Hanna's eyes widened. "I don't understand…"

"If they were watching him and my family for months," Truman said, "why didn't they step in and do something when Mitch got grabbed? Hell, they may even have known where he was."

"I don't think so," Kyle said. "Otherwise they'd have had no reason to be watching Melissa the night Mitch was found."

"They were watching Melissa?" Truman was obviously surprised. "Who the hell told you that?"

"It came up during the talk I had with Captain Ravenheart. The night Mitch was found, Melissa sneaked away to meet with him. She'd received a telecom call or some other contact that Knight Errant monitored from Mitch. I think they deliberately let her think she'd ducked them and then shadowed her. Mitch, however, never showed."

"You have proof of this?" Truman asked.

"Just circumstantial. Knight Errant was supposedly using ritual sorcery to trace her. They even had a ritual sample, which should have made it incredibly easy to track a nonmagically protected target like Melissa. It would have taken no more man the minimum time for the ritual-say an hour or two."

"But they said they didn't find her until she was back at the condoplex," Hanna said. "Nearly five hours later."

"Exactly," said Kyle.

"Goddamn them," said Daniel Truman, staring off in the direction of the long-gone tilt-rotor.

Seeks-the-Moon quietly stepped forward. "It would also seem that they have some information regarding the women-spirits."

Hanna started. "I nearly forgot. My search didn't really turn up anything useful"-she turned to Kyle-"but yours did."

"Oh?" he said.

She shrugged. "I looked when I grabbed your datapad…"

"What did it find?"

"You got a couple of search requests indicating that Knight Errant and Ares were both willing to pay for information regarding something called 'aberrant spirits'."

"What does that mean?" asked Truman.

"Spirits they don't understand," said Seeks-the-Moon. "Or perhaps a type that contradicts what they believe they know about spirits."

"Aberrant spirits," echoed Kyle. 'That could be almost anything." He looked at Hanna. "Do you remember when it said Ares first started looking for that kind of data?"

Hanna closed her eyes and tilted her head, trying to recall. "Early February twenty fifty-one," she said after a moment. "About four years ago."

"It could be a coincidence," Truman pointed out.

"Yes, but too many coincidences aren't likely either," Kyle said. "Did the searches turn up anything on their findings?"

Hanna shook her head. "No, not directly, but you and I combined did get about two and a half gigapulses of data on the various subjects."

"Great. The answers could be somewhere among all that data, but we might never find it."

"I can set up a search program with a finer filter to run through the data we have. Index and cross-reference it. Then we can just scan the topic list," Hanna offered.

"Do that," Kyle said, then turned to Truman. "In the meantime, I'd like to-"

Somewhere, deep inside of him, the echo of a part of his being that had been sent elsewhere twisted. He felt it burn, and then an instant later, dissolve as potential unexpectedly freed returned to him.

He gasped.

Seeks-the-Moon was suddenly alongside him. "What is it?"

Concern also showed on the faces of both Hanna Uljaken and Dan Truman.

"One of the elementals I left guarding Mitch has been destroyed," Kyle said. He turned to look out across the city in the direction of the Handlemann Institute. "And that means the hospital is under attack."

Dan Truman turned white. "Oh my god…"

"I've got to get over there," Kyle told Seeks-the-Moon, who nodded but seemed surprised. "Charlotte!" Kyle called, and the air elemental appeared alongside him.

"Help her," he told the spirit, pointing at Hanna. "Gather the rest of the Truman family inside. Then do anything and everything Seeks-the-Moon tells you."

If air spirits could scowl, Charlotte did so, but all she said was, "I will do as you say."

"You'll need my help at the hospital," said Seeks-the-Moon.

"No, it could be a trick," Kyle said, quickly sitting down in one of the pool chairs. "Excuse me. I need to get over there."

Working as fast as he could, Kyle turned his perception inward and allowed his spirit freedom from its physical body. He separated, then looked over the quiet area of astral space around the pool, the mundanes Dan Truman and Hanna Uljaken, though she still wore her scintillating earring, and the spirits Seeks-the-Moon and Charlotte. The mundanes stared at his body while the two spirits watched where Kyle floated a meter or so above the ground. Only Hanna seemed to catch on that Seeks-the-Moon was looking somewhere else than she was.