They were all fumbling at the medkit but it was too late.

“Mohinder, get back outside and cover the others.” Geraint ordered. “We can’t do anything else here,” He was searching furiously for any ID on the bodies. The Ripper was beyond any medkit now.

But Mohinder waved Rani outside instead. Scanning the scene, he saw something bizarre happening to the Ripper’s body. It was beginning to decompose before their very eyes, at an impossibly rapid rate. The flesh lost definition and form, deliquescing into a heap of shapeless tissue. Geraint was astounded, staggering back from the horribly degrading corpse. For an instant he almost didn’t notice that the scanner he’d brought in was indicating that this monster had no headware chips.

“Oh God,” he moaned softly. “How are we ever going to prove what happened here?” His mind was racing. “The police-”

Mohinder jerked back from him. “No way, term. No police. They’ll be here in a tick, but none of my people are gonna wait around to greet them.”

Geraint nodded numbly, thinking there was wisdom in the samurai’s words. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain his presence at this gory scene tonight. It was time to grab up the evidence and run for it.

When they got outside, they found three of their own dead. The troll from Mohinder’s group had never arrived and Scirea they knew about, but the dwarf had bought it while unleashing one final burst of shots at the samurai who’d come running out of the smoke. Rani had arrived at the door of the house just in time to cut the last one down as she fired at his flank. Of the reinforcements, the axeman had breathed his last and the grenade expert had made off into the night as soon as the shooting stopped.

Can’t blame him, Francesca thought. He’s done his job. Saved my life, too. Go on home, man. You’ve earned it.

Serrin was unconscious, having succumbed to the drain of dispelling the elemental. Francesca had taken a ricochet in her calf, but she smiled wanly at Geraint’s concern. “My turn to visit your doctor, I guess.” She was also aware that the ballistic armor over most of her lower body was shot to ribbons. She was lucky that all she got was a leg wound, and she knew it-but that didn’t stop it from hurting plenty.

Mohinder and Geraint ran back upstairs to frantically search the samurai while an exhausted Rani helped Serrin and Francesca into the back seat of the Saab. They didn’t have to worry about the opposition, but the all-too-predictable sirens were beginning to wail in the distance.

Coming back down again, Geraint thought the flop-house looked like something out of a war flick: six dead bodies littered the blood-soaked Street. a couple more sprawled in the distance, and the house was equally full of corpses.

No, Geraint thought, I don’t think we want to be here when the police arrive.

“He’ll live,” Francesca reassured them. Serrin’s breathing was shallow but regular, and it was obvious that he would come around eventually. Her own wound was still bleeding even after the application of a trauma patch, but the additional hemostatics seemed to be doing the job slowly. It would leave a nasty stain in Gemini’s car, though.

Oh, well, time to get another one anyway. Geraini thought, scowling through his fatigue. In the meantime this one would need a spray of paint. He was sure the Saab had taken damage from the automatics, damage that would be somewhat hard to explain.

“We got a little bit of ID from those goons,” he told the others as they rode along. “It might be enough. The pistols will be licensed and that should do it. The tissue samples I took from the samurai and the mage upstairs may help, too, but it’s a damn nuisance my portacam got shot up. I never even noticed it. If I could have gotten pictures of the Ripper and his victim, we’d have been home free.”

Mohinder turned to him and smiled his reptile’s grin. “Null perspiration,” he said, his eyes squinting slyly.

“What do you mean?” Geraint asked.

The samurai stared at Geraint with his unblinking cybereyes. “I got a video link, man, It’s all in here,” he said, tapping his skull. “Got a minute’s worth. All it takes is a downloader link and then it’s on your screen, term.”

Geraint relaxed back into the plush driver’s seat and smiled broadly. “Mohinder, you just earned yourself one hell of a bonus. It’s enough. More than enough.”

“We’ve got them.”

33

By four that morning most of the follow-up was complete. They were all still pumped up from the rage of battle, and Francesca’s calf wound had responded well to the slap patch Geraint had taken from his safe.

Serrin was still groggy when he finally came to, but so ravenously hungry that he devoured two huge bacon and egg sandwiches. He felt a lot better, but the whole business surprised him. Drain didn’t usually affect him that way. Most times, he felt like the walking dead for at least a day or two after serious draining.

“We should have the tissue sample results by about six,” Geraint was saying. “The mage will be licensed, surely, and we’ll get a match with the official sample archive. That I can pull. Yes, Francesca, another Cambridge pal. The old college tie’s a wonderful thing. He smiled broadly, the knots of tension within him easing as they completed each step on the way to finally resolving the whole sad affair.

“Added to that, we’ll be able to check the gun licenses through a contact in the Home Office. That should pin something down, too. They wiped the internal chip IDs. but overlooked the ID on one of the pistol barrels. That really was most careless. Between the mage and the gun, I think we have Transys on the rack now. Add in all the other stuff, and they’re going to take a beating. We’ve done it.”

“Enough to give to the police?” Francesca asked.

“Rakk the police” he muttered, almost to himself. “No, I’ve been thinking about it. There’s a young lady from OzNet… We’ll give the story to her. Maybe OzNet’s only a plazzy little trid channel, but when they splash this story, the rest of the media will sit up and take notice.” He was tapping out her telecom code already.

“Then we’ll supply duplicate data to the police. They’ll be able to DNA-type the elf-that is, if they suspect he’s a mage. We did take his spell focuses away with us so it might not be quite so obvious. But they’ll be so slow with their inquiries that-oh, hello? Christine? Hi, it’s Geraint. Yes, the Welsh-yes, Cambridge, yes. I know its an ungodly hour of the morning, but I’ve a huge story for you. Exclusive, yes. We’ll have the last of the evidence ready for you around six this morning. If you want to make a name for yourself, girl, be here just after then. You’re guaranteed a promotion for this one.”

He gave her his address, then rang off. “Time to get it all assembled in a nice, clean order,” he said. “That chip must have been something really strange. I couldn’t scan it at all. It’s a pity, but I don’t think we really had the time to cut off the head and bring it with us.”

“Geraint, please!” Francesca was appalled.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to… Oh, what the hell, we left a whole streetful of bloody bodies and now we’re worrying about niceties of language? Pah.”

Mohinder had downloaded his video recording well before the results from the lab came through. He took the fat cash payment and stuffed the twenty thousand into his pocket, grinning broadly. Then he told Geraint where he might find him should he ever need help again. He even bowed to Rani on the way out.

“Got to hand it to you, girl,” Mohinder said. “You’ve come up in the world. Guess we might not see each other again for a while?” He wondered where she might be when all this was done.