Black Madonna

A haze of blue static began to shimmer into form in the center of the room. What Geraint had taken for simply a design in the weave of the carpet he now sensed was some kind of magical design, a ritual inscribing, though he knew little of such things. The knife-carrying elf, however, knew a lot more.

“Get the frag out of here! Move!” he screamed, grabbing the inert form of the group’s leader as he retreated. Mercifully, the man seemed only stu

The room exploded. Its contents spewed out over the length and breadth of one of the wealthiest, most exclusive, and generally quietest streets in all of London, and the detonation was enough to send them all flying across the landing. Geraint hit the door frame of the bathroom and just missed getting his hands sliced up on the porcelain fragments from the broken toilet bowl. Serrin managed to roll with the punches and came to rest a meter away from him, but not before hitting him hard and winding him. Up the stairs, the dwarf and the second elf were rushing to their aid, and after them the rigger- responding with amazing speed-was there too. Conscious, unconscious, and walking wounded managed to stagger into the street. Lights were begi

“Anyone dead?” Geraint said desperately.

“No, but that’s a minor sodding miracle,” the elf he had assisted said grimly. “We hadn’t expected so much magic in the place. Serrin and I had our work cut out just to bloody contain it all. Let’s get the frag out of this drekhole and worry about the details later.”

The group’s leader was just about conscious, and the ork from the security patrol was advancing on him with worry etched into his face.

“Frag it all, Jim, I said keep it quiet!” he complained bitterly. “How the frag am I going to explain this?”

“You know the drill,” Jim said, grunting with pain, and handed the ork a grenade.

“Fifty thousand,” the ork said. Geraint handed him a credstick, but the ork refused.

“Not now. The police will be round any minute,” he said. “Tomorrow. Jim’ll bring it round.”

“Fine,” Geraint shrugged, struggling to help everyone into the van. The first curious onlookers were just opening their doors. The ork marched off, summoned his group, and dumped the grenade. He and the other guards reeled away from the anaesthetizing gas and were all slumped on the ground within moments. Sirens were begi

“Well, I think we’ve certainly done enough damage to bugger any cover story that we were after their Old Masters,” Geraint complained. “Did we get our man?” he howled above the noise of the accelerating engine.

“Bastard got away,” the elf said impassively.

“Where’s Gungrath?” Geraint went on, trying not to fall out of his seat.

“Took a couple of hostages away in one of the cars,” the elf replied, explaining the absence of the second troll, who had recovered with astonishing speed. “Look, we’ve got to get to our repairman.”

“You got it,” the rigger yelled.

“There’s something wrong with the van?” Geraint said anxiously.

“Nah, ‘im,” the elf said, jerking a thumb at the troll samurai with blood coating his chest and back. “Stopped some very heavy-duty AP. I’ve patched him, but we’re going to need serious surgery here. And that’ll cost you, term.”

“Whatever it takes,” Geraint agreed.

“Drek it, I’ve got four last-response police APVs in the radar locks and we’re going to be lucky to get out of this,” the rigger said desperately as he cajoled more speed out of the vehicle. “Get out of my way. you dumb hag!” The car in his path narrowly managed to swerve out of the way of the racing van.

The elf gri

Serrin started from his stupor and looked dumbly around him. “Didn’t quite work out, did it?’ he said stupidly.”

“Not to worry,” Geraint said soothingly “We got some people we can talk to. Unfortunately, our Monsignor Seratini appears to have escaped.”

“Managed to stick a bug tracer on him,” one of the elves said happily. “Roger here can track him down within a hundred klicks. Where’s he now. Rog?”

“Somewhere off the Old Kent Road,” the driver said after a momentary glance at his array of monitoring panels. “Jeez, we’re being hauled in here. They’ve got locks on us and there’s a chopper on the way. Mister. I mean Your Lordship, you’re going to have to do some fast talking pretty soon. I can’t evade this lot. There’s another one every second.”

“Don’t forget, if we end up in jail it’s a hundred thou a year for our families,” the dwarf growled.

“You haven’t got family, you stunty bastard,” one of the elves said. “Born from a test-tube, you were. Face like that couldn’t have a mother.”

The dwarf hit him playfully in the groin with the barrel of his gun. The elf groaned with much feeling and rolled over in a ball, cursing. The van began to slow and came to a halt. The sirens behind them sounded like the Hounds of Hell.

Well, this is it, Lord Llanfrechfa,” Jim said casually. “Bulldrek or bust. You’d better have the co

Geraint groaned. This was going to be a very expensive evening.

And it was. Exhausted and bleary-eyed, they reeled out of the elevator and waited for Geraint to go through the array of sca

“Coffee, anyone?” he asked as they dumped their armor and gear in the cloakroom. Serrin shook his head and opened the far door of the room to make for the bathroom, sticking his head under the faucet and splashing cold water over himself. Kristen, pale and wild-haired, followed him anxiously with her eyes. Michael, having woken a lot later in the day than the elf, strolled into the huge central room and looked for the message he expected. The telecom and the faxbuffer store were both winking their warning lights at him. He began the data and message dumps, rubbing his sore back after the indignity of having been thumped senseless into the wall by the guardian they’d encountered inside the house at Cheney Walk.

“What have you got?” Geraint said as Michael began tearing paper from the printers.

“They work fast. They’ve downloaded the image data from the head cameras and it’s being processed right now. However, the gentleman in the suit upstairs was one Monsieur Jean-Francois Serrault. You’ll be interested to hear that the data pertaining to him ca