Shadows Down Under: Shadowrun, #8 Read online

  SHADOWS DOWN UNDER

  DEDICATION

  For Uncle Wes

  And Most Marvelous Mitzi

  PROLOGUE

  The storm came before sunset on a Christmas Eve long ago.

  Birthed over the Outback from a single, nacreous cloud at the top of the sky, all milky blue and opalescent gray, shimmering, beautiful, shiny, a hint of rosy pink, it invited the original people—the Aborigines—to stand beneath its pulsing strands in wonder and appreciation.

  And later in terror.

  And then in understanding.

  And finally in appreciation again.

  First the cloud darkened, roiling as if it seethed with a righteous anger. A mean wind grew with it, escalating to such a gale force that even the original people had to seek refuge. Fingers of lightning arced down to spear those who had harmed the once-fair Earth. Thunder made the ground leap and dance.

  The devastation was awesome, wiping away small towns, slaughtering dozens and injuring hundreds. It wreaked havoc on the astral plane, too.

  When the tempest eased, all but the original people relaxed and considered it a freak of nature and magic; a mana storm. They went back to their lives, started rebuilding their small towns, and then gaped in disbelief when the terrible cloud returned weeks later and expanded, and the rain came at them sideways, driven by winds the land had not seen in a long, long memory.

  Then came another storm.

  And another.

  And the time between downpours became shorter, and the winds that came after each one were fiercer.

  Thousands died.

  It was as if the Awakening had declared war on Australia. Clouds churned across the island continent, and the magic that hammered down drove all but the original people into the sprawls, which were mostly unaffected. The Aborigines had found safe places and a more appropriate name for the weather: madjitil boroong, or magic rain. It had chased the white men back to the cities, where they belonged.

  The continent-wide deluge eventually, mercifully, subsided—though scattered mana storms appeared from time to time, they stayed only briefly, perhaps to remind everyone to leave the Outback to its original occupants.

  Only one big cloud persisted.

  A mother-of-pearl beauty, all milky blue and opalescent gray, shimmering, shiny, with just a hint of rosy pink at the edges. Frightening on some days when it darkened like a great charcoal smudge. Wholly terrifying when it turned the world blackest-black and wicked magic coursed down from it.

  That cloud had settled over Sydney and stretched out into the bay.

  That isolated storm had remained there.

  For more than sixty years.

  One

  Ella’s Lament

  The room was long and narrow, the walls shot through with sections of corrugated metal, giving it the feel of a big, antique boxcar that had been canted so one end was higher than the other, descending to the stage down front. Fog clung to the ceiling—or rather what looked like fog, the dense sort that rolls into the harbor and up the pilings of the ruined bridge. The fog was tobacco smoke; the nightclub, unlike many establishments in the city, had no restrictions on that particular vice.

  “Welcome one and all on this rare, stormless night!” the announcer boomed through hidden speakers. “Our extravaganza opens with a damsel fair who creates her own thunder, the one—the only—Miss Ella Gance!”

  The crowd erupted with applause and catcalls as the house lights dimmed. An alto saxophone wailed; the first of many notes lost amid the cheers. Then the crowd quieted, and the sax’s seductive melody rose, joined by a muted trombone. The curtains parted, and a single, bright spotlight bathed her.

  Ella’s coral lips edged up into a suggestive smile, and her perfectly manicured hands smoothed the red silk dress hugging her hips. The slender torch singer swayed gently on her rhinestone-studded heels and crooned.

  “Love is where you find it, find it.

  And if you find it, keep it, keep it.

  Keep it close to your heart, where it’s yours alone.

  ’Cause if someone else finds it, they’ll steal it, steal it.”

  Ella’s voice, tempered by expensive vocal range enhancers, trilled as she stepped to the edge of the stage and reached a finger up to brush a single strand of shiny, raven hair off her face. Her liquid brown eyes scanned the crowd as she finished the chorus and waited for the English horn’s nasal notes to slice through the strains of the rest of the woodwinds. It was real music, played by actual musicians; finely dressed elves and humans on fourteen instruments comprised the small orchestra. The dwarf who played the cello was absent tonight. Some people came just to hear the ensemble, a rarity in the neighborhood . . . real music getting to be a rarity in the entire city.

  She blew a kiss to an elderly ork sitting to the left of the stage, staring at her in rapt fascination, and rolled her shoulders.

  Cadigal’s Corner was packed tonight, and Ella knew it was because of her. She was perhaps the most popular singer in Kings Cross, and she drew them in every night—all kinds.

  Purists captivated by the neighborhood’s outmoded atmosphere that was still mostly stylish, yet slightly going to seed.

  Businessmen passing through Sydney who came out of curiosity, or because they could still appreciate a good act.

  Craggy-faced laborers from the surrounding blocks who drooled when she gave them a sexy pout.

  A few women were wedged here and there between the men; Ella believed they secretly envied her. A pair of choobs she recognized; sometimes they caused trouble, but the pair looked subdued tonight; an obvious Azzie in the middle of the second row; a stage manager from a joint downtown. Several tourists were here too, mostly Americans and Japanese, and mostly young—they stood out like that proverbial sore thumb. She could effortlessly tell the locals from the foreigners, the regulars from those who were here for the first time. The latter were always marked by the expressions on their faces. They hadn’t known what to expect from the old-fashioned Australian tawdry house.

  Ella vowed to give them a show they wouldn’t soon forget.

  “Lover, won’t you find me, find me?

  I’m lonely, won’t you keep me, keep me?

  Keep me close to your heart, I’ll be yours alone.

  ’Til another catches my eye and steals me, steals me.”

  In the front row, a pudgy elf with obvious cybereyes lit up a cig. She ran her index finger down her throat to her chest and stared at him. Ella grinned as his hand shook, and she drew her finger lower. The cig fell from his doughy fingers and struck his pantsleg. He awkwardly patted it out and looked up, but the singer had already moved on to a new target.

  She leaned forward, batting her thick lashes and teasing the top of a young dwarf’s carefully-trimmed mohawk. He stood next to the footlights, mutely gaping at her. A newcomer, she thought, one who dresses well and smells faintly of White Cristal cologne. His breath carried a hint of graypuppy, and made her yearn for a slip. He’ll have something to tell the boys in the office tomorrow—if he doesn’t think this is all a hallucination. She coyly winked at him, then pivoted smoothly and returned to the center of the stage.

  “Hot passion, let it find you, find you.

  Let it burn inside you, ’side you.

  Your heart sings a melody, sings you’ll be mine alone.

  ’Til another comes along and steals you, steals you.

  ’Til another comes and steals you away...”

  Ella shut her eyes and hummed the last few notes, the alto sax wailing a sad, haunting riff as her voice faded. The spotlight shrank, allowing the shadows of the stage to reach up and envelope her. The crowd responded wildly, clapping, hooting, whistling,
and shouting as the curtain closed. Ella hiked her dress up to her knees and strode off.

  “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Ella dear!” gushed Cadi Hamfyst, the hulking, one-tusked troll who owned Cadigal’s Corner. He gently patted her shoulder as she glided past. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Ella my sweet. I love that song.”

  Ella pressed against the wall as a trio of song-and-dance girls tap-tap-tapped past, dressed in silver and blue tights, feathered skirts low around their hips. They were a new act, come up from Canberra, and Ella thought Cadi should have watched their vids closer before signing them. All elven, the tall one in the middle had overdone it with her breast implants, and looked so top heavy that she might fall forward at the slightest shuffle-ball-change. The shortest had fiberoptic hair that was never the same color twice. The third was simply unremarkable, too plain for the live stage. Amateurs.

  After they’d passed. Ella headed down a twisting corridor filled with clothes racks and lined with dressing rooms. She was the only entertainer at Cadigal’s that commanded her own room—Miss Ella Gance painted above the door. She’d told Cadi to put a star above it, but that hadn’t happened yet. Maybe she’d get a star elsewhere someday—if she ever made it into one of Brisbane’s top nightclubs. She was always “away with the pixies,” thinking about getting out from under this near-constant mana storm, to a place where fate and a random bolt of magic couldn’t turn someone walking down the sidewalk into a wombat.

  But that would never happen, would it? She’d pay her dues in the Cross—amid its antiquated strip shows, sex parlors, tawdry houses, and pubs—until she died. The few-square-block area was Sydney’s armpit, civilized folk claimed, the neighborhood still clinging to the past and its outdated constructions, right down to the original bricks that made up the streets and sidewalks and the metal keys that opened many of the doors.

  Despite the area’s backwater vibe, Ella and her friends considered Kings Cross the heart of the city. It pulsed with a rhythm found nowhere else, and everyone of every background and sexual persuasion was welcomed with open arms. The purist Aborigines. The fanatically moral RighteousRight. The wide-eyed tourists. The jaded locals. The zealots of every stripe—from those who embraced the time of Sydney’s founding as halcyon days to the ones who held dear more recent years. Even the cyber-addicts, ever searching for new enhancements and attachments, ever drunk on the technology spewing from Sydney’s research centers...even they came here. The Cross attracted them all like a magnet, enfolded them in its shadowy arms, and hugged them to its big, stormy bosom.

  The Cross had welcomed her more than thirty years ago, in an earlier incarnation of herself. And though she wanted to be a star in Brisbane, where the nuyen flowed faster, the weather was kinder, and the audience more sophisticated—thought about picking up stakes and going to Brisbane every day—she knew she’d miss this place terribly if she did. Going somewhere else would just kill her. So she could fragging well dream about leaving, but she knew she was staying.

  Ella reached her room and nudged the door open. Twenty-five minutes before her next number. Plenty of time. She grabbed her sequined purse and darted to the back door, looking over her shoulder to make sure Cadi wasn’t around. The troll discouraged the girls from leaving the building between acts—fearful, she imagined, that they’d get it in their pretty heads to keep going. Satisfied no one was watching, she slipped out the security door and felt the alley’s sweltering night air wash over her.

  She squatted and groped for the brick, her insurance against getting locked out. There was no handle on the alley side. It was dark behind Cadigal’s Corner; the streetlight a half-block away was broken—again. Had the neighborhood accepted the hydroposts the rest of the city used, there wouldn’t be such problems. But just enough light spilled out from the opened security door and twinkled down from the stars in the rare gap in the cloud so Ella could see a little. At last her hand closed on an empty Toohey’s bottle. It would work. She stuffed the neck into the jamb and the door caught against it.

  Padding across the alley, she sat on a crate and fumbled in her purse, retrieving a small compact that held her slips. The lighted mirror showed her face, tiny wrinkles at the edges of her eyes. She shuddered. Need to get them gone, another treatment…and before the week’s out. Her fingers had also been feeling a little stiff in the morning. Another treatment would fix that, too, and shouldn’t be that all expensive. And right now a slip would make her forget the tiny wrinkles.

  Just one slip, she admonished, as she placed it under her tongue and felt a rush akin to swallowing a few shots of expensive whiskey. She edged her fingers beneath the gold choker and rubbed her Adam’s apple. The balmy night, coupled with the slip of graypuppy, made her sweat. No, glow, she corrected.

  The heat felt good; she never complained about hot weather.

  She let the delicious sensation roll through her, imagining herself by a waterfall eternally cascading over some tropical sun-baked cliff. Then the experience ended all too soon, and she nearly reached for another slip.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Too easy.” Way the hell too easy to pop one after another and be swept away by the rapture, to lose all track of herself, and miss her next number. She’d done it before.

  Ella wasn’t sure how much time had passed. She’d put the chrono in her purse, but without the streetlight she wouldn’t be able to read it. Better get back inside to be safe.

  She stood, brushed off her bottom, and started for the door, but stopped when she heard a trash bin fall over behind the Chinese restaurant two doors down. Cats, she thought with a smile. Cadi often kidded that the restaurant served Siamese cats with ribs attached. But then another bin tipped over, and Ella heard something shuffling in the debris. Something much bigger than a cat.

  From the shadows, the stranger watched the singer. He sniffed the air, sorting out the smells of beef and lamb and soyjerky, of rotten vegetables and redfish. He was hungry, and his stomach rumbled with the thought of the discarded food. But he also smelled the singer, and the singer was what he’d come here for.

  He was pleased; this one was walking slowly in the sparkly high heels, unable to move too quickly over the brick alleyway. The one he’d killed nearly four weeks ago had been a more challenging target, faster in flats, athletic, an elf, almost got away. He was glad this singer wasn’t an elf; in another life he’d loved her. That voice. Good thing she was human, wasn’t an elf. Hated elves. Most elves were nimble and quick.

  He preferred easier targets, and humans fit that bill; took less time to deal with.

  The stranger stuck out his tongue, licked his bulbous lips, and started toward his prey.

  This one should be easy enough.

  This one wasn’t an elf.

  The regulars knew the girls came out back between acts to grab a smoke or some fresh air. They often waited here to buy some of the girls’ services—the ones who were joygirls on the side—or sell them slips, though they didn’t usually do either amid the refuse. But it was a good spot to set up arrangements.

  Ella peered into the shadows and saw a man, very dark and well over six feet tall.

  “Sorry, mate,” she said. “Break’s over. No time for fun.”

  The man walked closer, and Ella guessed he was likely a bum or a pug—Lord knew the Cross had enough of them. Scrounging in the alley for food, no doubt.

  “Try the trash behind Wesley’s Diner. The tucker’s much better there—Australian-style.” When she said ‘Australian,’ it came out ‘Strine’ like the Loyalists desperately hanging onto the land’s original accent pronounced it. “Grilled redfish. Smell it? Yum.”

  Ella stepped toward the back of Cadigal’s, but the man slid around her even faster. One more large step, and he blocked her from the door. Maybe he was a troll; he was certainly wide enough, and taller than Cadi, maybe taller than seven feet. Ella watched the figure stoop, remove the Toohey’s bottle. The door closed, and the light disappeared.

  Ella
bolted, but she couldn’t match the large man’s speed. Several long strides and the stranger came even with her, and then shot past, stepping to the center of the alley as he flicked open a long-bladed knife that thrummed softly. He slashed the air with it, the thrum growing louder and the knife’s edge glowing pale red-orange.

  A heater. Like some of the bangers carried. Ella felt faint, and nearly toppled off her high heels.

  “Please, m-m-mate. Let’s not have any trouble here.” She started backing up, and the stranger followed. “I’m not even a woman. So if women’re what you’re interested in, you can look elsewhere.” Ella reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a piece of sweat-soaked foam. “See? I’m a false sheila. I’m an impersonator. N-not a joygirl, either.”

  He took another step forward, and Ella took another one back. The singer was sweating profusely now—from the heat that she’d never minded, from fear, from thinking about how she might get out of this without a scratch on her perfect and oh-so-expensive body with its high-end vocal range enhancers.

  “No!” Ella sputtered as her heel caught in a crack between the bricks. She tugged her foot free of the shoe, and then kicked off the other one. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the stranger lean in, the superheated blade edge glowing in the darkness.

  She whirled and ran down the long alley, leaving Cadigal’s Corner and the Chinese restaurant behind. She felt her beautiful sequined purse slip from her sweat-slick fingers, heard her bare feet slapping against the bricks, and then heard a louder sound catching up to her from behind—the stranger’s pounding feet.

  Her heart hammered madly as she took in great gulps of the humid air. Her lungs burned, and her temples throbbed like her head was going to explode. But she willed herself to run even faster. If she could just break out of the alley on the other side, she’d be near the park. There’d be people around the restored El Alamein Fountain, there always were. They’d help her.