Shadowrun, page 30
For a moment, everyone was silent; the only noise was the calls of the birds in the trees surrounding the shrine. There weren’t even the sounds of the city streets to ruin the shrine’s tranquility, probably thanks to some corp’s donation of sound dampening tech.
“Gentlemen, I’m Kojiro, the shrine’s kannushi, or priest. I hope that everything is going to remain peaceable.” Both Nakai and Addison were surprised the rotund priest had managed to slip up on them. Addison’s enhanced senses had not given him any warning.
“Everything should be, sir. Just needed to let Mr. Fujita know of some unpleasant things.” Nakai recovered first while Addison was still checking if anyone else had sneaked up on him.
“I hope that it has nothing to do with our Ho-o,” The shrine priest affected an air of unconcern, but he was more than a little interested.
Before either officer could respond, Fujita blurted, “There is nothing wrong with the gift.”
Kojiro nodded, but still looked intently at them.
“If Mr. Fujita says the Ho-o’s paperwork is good, I’m sure I will find nothing wrong with it,” was dragged out of Nakai.
The smile that arose on Kojiro’s face was one that he had practiced in a mirror for whenever he learned of bad news for others that was good news for him. “It was very kind of you to reassure me,” he said, even if he was unsure if he was really thanking the officers or Fujita, “and I feel I must hope that the news that you bring Fujita-san is not too upsetting.
“He has been very kind, as well as Shiawase itself. That tree—” The priest pointed to one with white bark by the torii gate marking the shrine’s entrance. It was surrounded by folded pieces of paper hanging on a rope. “—was a gift from another Shiawase vice-president, from their Heavy Lift division. A tree from a major shrine in Japan. After seeing that, Fujita-san felt it was his duty to ensure that our humble shrine had all of the paraphernalia of a major one.”
Rather than get distracted by the fact that it was the Heavy Lift division that had salvaged a record, probably to get back at Fujita for upstaging their gift, Nakai focused instead on the tree. “Really, I hadn’t realized the tree had come from Japan. Since we are concerned with paranimals, I didn’t even think to look for examples of parabotany.”
“I’m afraid that the tree does not fit into any mere parabotanical category.” At this point Kojiro seemed to be genuinely interested in educating the officers, since they no longer were talking about Fujita. The guards who had been waved off, first by Fujita and again by Kojiro, now looked bored while waiting to eject Nakai and Addison. “Instead, the tree is home to a powerful kami, what most people would consider nothing more than a nature spirit but is so much more.”
Before the shrine priest could continue, Nakai interrupted, “And the paper surrounding it.”
“Those are ofuda, paper talismans that carry magic and blessings.”
“That’s really interesting.” At last, the trap they’d spent all this time building was about to close. Nakai fished out of his pocket the card, still in a sealed evidence bag.
“Like I said, the investigation is still ongoing about the quarantine incident. But we know one person was on site because we found traces of a spell. There was a search, and we found this. Sure looks like one of those ofuda.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Nakai had been looking straight at Fujita, hoping to unnerve him with the reveal of their most damning bit of evidence. But even as he was surprised by the Shinto priest’s denial, he could tell what they had hoped would be the final nail was anything but simply from the progression of looks over Fujita’s face. First, there was a smidgen of surprise, then confusion, then condescension that told Nakai that whatever he had in his hands, it had nothing to do with whatever the corp man’s secrets were.
“It certainly looks like an ofuda,” Addison jumped in, attracting Kojiro’s attention so Nakai could stay focused on Fujita, though even they both could tell their big reveal wasn’t working as they had hoped.
“I’m sure Kojiro could explain far better than I how that isn’t an ofuda and has no connection to me or Shiawase.” Fujita who had been getting tenser as their confrontation had continued, now seemed almost casually to be willing to let others defend him.
“I can tell just by looking at it that it is made with cardstock rather than more traditional materials,” the shrine priest continued, as if he was not suddenly in position to help Fujita far more than expected.
“Maybe whomever created it did so in a hurry, and didn’t have those materials.” Still hoping to salvage something, Nakai tried to sound reasonable.
The shrine priest’s responding sniff showed how little he thought of that. “If someone considered themselves a Shinto practitioner and didn’t think to have basic supplies, he would have made enough other mistakes that you would have found them already.”
“What about the feeling of magic our forensic mages detected on it?”
“There is certainly a feeling of the spirit world about the card, but it is different from an ofuda. After an ofuda has been used, there would far less feeling of magic. This, however, feels almost...” Kojiro drifted off, staring at the bagged card.
Nakai tried to take back the initiative. “You understand that we can’t take your word for it.”
“You aren’t going to take the word of a knowledgeable kannushi?” Fujita smiled as Kojiro fished in his robes.
“It’s not a matter of knowledge, it’s a matter of—hey!” Kojiro neatly plucked the evidence bag out of Nakai’s grip and waved a short wooden rod at it.
“What are you doing?” Addison had been out of reach to stop Kojiro, and now he was almost entranced by the wisps of magic around every shake of the rod that his AR had helpfully labeled as a shaku.
“I’m not going to open the bag, and I’m sure that you did all the tests that you could before bringing this here. I’m just going to...” Kojiro finished with an especially emphatic gesture, and the wisps were sucked away.
“That is not the point.” Nakai jumped up, snagging the bag back, smoothing himself down after landing, to wipe away the indignity. “It is to...” The dwarf glanced at the bag. “What did you do?” His voice was now quiet.
“Revealed what had been hidden.” Kojiro remained nonplussed from Nakai’s change of tone. “May I see?”
“You may as well, since you will need to know.” Nakai handed over the bag with hardly a pause. “Hey, you!” The security guards that had been waiting to kick them out were momentarily taken aback to be directly addressed. “If your supervisor isn’t monitoring, page him. We have a potential threat.”
“You fool.”
“What?” Fujita, who had been quietly watching the back and forth, almost amused by everyone’s antics, was surprised to be verbally attacked by Kojiro.
“What kind of deal did you make? With what kind of creature?”
“I don’t understand, I just did…” Fujita looked at the PAC officers, “Nothing, nothing at all.”
“Well, your nothing is going to hurt someone. Addison, are there wards up?”
Addison had been taken aback by Nakai’s change, which was not in any strategy that they had discussed. “The wards are up. How strong they are, well…” He trailed off; that was a skill he’d been meaning to work on, but hadn’t yet developed.
“They’re as strong as I could make them for a public shrine, and I ensured that they would be even stronger for tonight,” Kojiro said. “There is always someone who has a disagreement with a guest at some point, and stronger wards discourage that.”
The trees around the shrine rustled.
With the anxiety Nakai was radiating, never mind how much he was feeling, it was little wonder that everyone in their group started, even the seemingly calm shrine priest.
“I can’t see into the trees. The wards are in the way.”
One of the security guards spoke, surprising everyone by actually contributing. “I can see a couple of medium-sized birds in the trees with my enhancements.”
“That’s it?” Fujita was angry. “We’re all worried about a couple of birds?”
“What kind are they?” Nakai had decided to write off Fujita for the time being.
The guard just stared at Nakai. “Do I look like I subscribe to a birdwatching service?”
“Subscribe to one now.”
Kojiro raised his hands in a placating manner. “Let’s calm down. There is danger, yes, but the wards are active—”
CRACK!
Everyone at the celebration jumped at the sound, especially the attendees who had been completely unaware there was anything unusual going on until now. But even for those expecting trouble, the crack was unexpected and unfamiliar.
“The cage broke!” The cry was heard, but it was the odd crowing that drew Addison’s eye toward the rooster-like phoenix that half-jumped, half-flew from the ruins of its cage.
“It can’t do that,” Fujita whispered. “The cage…the rigger….”
The whisper was not quiet enough. “You mutilated its nature with cyberware?” Kojiro abandoned his calm. “Oh, the spirits are going to be so angry.”
Addison wished he had his Ares Squirt. Sure, it was old, like all the equipment the PAC shared, but the phoenix was barely trying to dodge as it flew aimlessly, somehow missing clusters of people who were trying desperately to avoid it, even though it hadn’t ignited its flame aura—yet.
“My off-site rigger is saying he got kicked out of his network, and hasn’t been able to get back in.” Fujita turned toward the officers, trying to reestablish his confidence. “So there’s a loose paracritter, isn’t catching them what you’re paid for?”
“Sure, if our gear wasn’t still in our van where security made us leave it. All we have is our batons,” Nakai answered without taking his eyes off the phoenix.
The guard that had spoken before retorted to Fujita, “We were just hired to do security, we didn’t bring any fireproof bird nets with us.”
The phoenix finished flitting about and landed by the entrance torii. Addison could tell it calmed down as it reached the ward line.
Kojiro regained his calm. “It won’t be able to cross the ward line, and it is not going to cause any issues as long as it is by itself. It can wait...” He looked at Nakai, who still had not taken his eyes off it. “Or can it?”
“Maybe, but even if it can’t, creatures that can melt steel when they get annoyed are always things I like to keep an eye on.”
As if to make his words more meaningful, the phoenix let loose a cry unlike any it had before, one that had meaning and intent behind it. The attendees, who had started to relax now that the phoenix had stopped flying, began backing off again.
“Remind me again why we are not more worried about the bird that burns things.” One of the guards rested his hand on his holstered pistol.
“Because it isn’t doing that. If it didn’t attack once it broke out, it’s not going to do so now. It’s just an animal, it can’t plan…” Nakai froze in mid-thought. “Drek! Geek it, shoot it now, or I’ll beat you down and do it myself!”
“No! Are you mad? Do you have any idea how expensive one of those are!?” Fujita tried to get in front of the guards, but it was too late.
Flames erupted out of the phoenix, shaped like something no one could identify, but the fire seemed to be pushed back by wards. The heat could be felt as far back as they were, and the attendees who had been merely worried before were now running away from the bird heading toward them.
Through the flame, Addison saw the phoenix look toward them, then very deliberately turn its head and with an almost casual air, peck at the ward.
For a moment, all of the flame surrounding the phoenix suddenly hammered down at that point, the heat almost disappearing as if it were being sucked away.
If there was a sound to go with the wards fracturing, Addison would call it a tinkle, like the sound of thin glass shattering and falling to the ground. He saw Kojiro react to the noise, along with a scattering of people in the crowd, but in the confusion it was hard to tell who was reacting to a sound only the Awakened could hear, and who was merely panicking. Either way, it was impossible for Addison to determine who else could be of use in this situation.
Before the echo of the collapsing wards finished, all of the trees trembled as if they were shedding all of their leaves as dark masses exploded from them. Rather than leaves, the mass was made of birds of all breeds, types, colors and shapes, though other than the phoenix, none of them were paranimals. Not that it mattered when the first wave of diving raptors screamed in, mostly hawks but a single large eagle leading the charge.
The security guards throughout the reception had pulled out their pistols and were shooting at the birds, but none of them had automatic weapons, so each time one of the weapons spoke, just one bird exploded in midair with hundreds of birds remaining.
Addison waited until the last possible moment, then lunged right, avoiding the diving eagle but still getting clipped at the side. The blow was glancing, with the impact taken by his protective gear, but it twisted him around. The eagle recovered from its dive and went to come back around again.
The two guards who had been by them went back to back, shooting calmly into the air, until one was clipped on the side of his face by a diving hawk that managed to get under his helmet. The attack drove him to his knees, losing his gun. Instantly the smaller birds swarmed him, going for his face and hands. His screams distracted his partner, who holstered his pistol to beat off the birds attacking his colleague.
Fujita stood stock-still; he couldn’t adjust from the verbal fencing to physical danger quick enough, until Nakai hit him in the back of the knees, bringing him down to the dwarf’s level.
“Stay under the fragging table!” he bellowed into Fujita’s ear before cramming him under the table, one long leg still sticking out from under it.
Nakai turned to the priest. “Can you put up a ward to protect the idiot?”
Kojiro had been barely moving, just twisting his shaku back and forth, the glancing blows it doled out somehow hammering any birds that attacked him away, but still nodded at the request.
Addison took this all in while the eagle came back for another try, but now he was ready. With his baton out, he cocked it back like a baseball bat, swinging at the large bird. The shock of the impact shuddering up his arm, but the eagle was now deadweight, tumbling away.
Kojiro reached the table, and was attempting to do some sort of intricate movement around it, but despite Nakai helping, there wasn’t enough free space for him to finish. The remaining security guard stood up and pulled his gun back out. His partner was down on the ground, unmoving, with with tailfeathers sticking out from underneath his visor, and piles of dead birds around him.
They seemed to be making a dent in the surrounding mass of birds, having most of the their attention, allowing the rest of the celebrants to flee without attracting too much notice from the avian army. The responding security was still forcing their way past the attendees to reach them.
The shaku exploded rather than burning when the phoenix flew over Kojiro, its splinters scattering. Only after it was destroyed did Addison feel the phoenix’s heat as it circled back toward their group. For a moment, it seemed like the security guard’s gun would drive it off, but the rounds failed to reach to the phoenix even though it seemed to flinch from the little puffs of molten metal where the bullets hit the flame aura.
Kojiro reached for a sake cup and bottle on the table, untouched by the madness. Muttering under his breath, he began pouring sake into a cup.
Despite not having succeeded, the security guard tried advancing on the phoenix, Nakai joining after a moment’s fiddling with his commlink, to buy more time for Kojiro.
The phoenix retreated for a moment, long enough for smaller birds to fly at Nakai, forcing him to stop and battle them. The heat bloomed again, hot enough that everyone was forced to glance away from the phoenix. What brought back their attention back was a half dozen loud cracks as the ammunition cooked off in the security guard’s pistol, destroying both his gun and his hand, dropping him to the ground in agony.
Addison grabbed the table Fujita was hiding underneath, for the lack of anything better, and strained himself using it as a giant flyswatter to bat away the phoenix, the table catching fire as he did so. Fujita, startled by being back in the open, scrambled behind Kojiro, despite Nakai yelling for him to stay still. Kojiro finished muttering and spilled the full cup of sake in a circle around him. The swirling mass of birds trying to get at both Kojiro and Fujita were suddenly pushed out of the new ward marked by the sake on the ground. The remaining birds fluttered confusedly for a moment, then split into two groups, one heading toward Nakai and the other heading toward Addison.
There was a moment where Addison wasn’t sure how to respond, because there were so many birds, but the first one, some sort of starling, headed toward his eyes and he moved instinctively, headbutting it. Its beak scratched his forehead, but it lost its flight and fell to the ground where Addison stomped on it, ignoring the slight squish.
Nakai crushed birds with every sweep of his baton as he worked over to one of the fallen security guards. The terrible heat returned with the phoenix as it ignored the two PAC officers and swooped down at Kojiro.
As the phoenix dove, Addison tried to fight his way closer to Fujita, but a particularly vicious hit made him drop his baton without seeing where it fell. Nakai reached one of the security guards and ripped off his commlink, yelling into it, “Drop the traffic barriers, do it now!”
The phoenix got close to Kojiro, with Fujita deciding to run off into the crowd, but before the paranimal could follow him, the priest refilled his sake cup and threw it at the bird. Rather than boil away the sake as it had the metal of the bullets, the bird’s flame aura was extinguished instead, its terrible heat replaced by a crisp coolness. Addison took the moment to throw a punch at the bird, but it flew backward awkwardly even as its flame aura sputtered back into life.
