Stackpole, Michael A - Shadowrun by Raven, Wolf Read Free Book Online

get through the dermal plating that protected his body.
    That, or he didn't care if it could.
    "What the hell's going on? Is Raven back from Tir Tairngire?"
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    Stealth shook his head. "Still there. No word on his return."
    I fed the loose bullet back into the clip, then reloaded the pistol. "That answered the second question.
    What about the first?"
    "La Plante."
    That one name, spoken in a sepulchral whisper like the rustle of a sidewinder slithering across dry gravel, answered lots of questions. Etienne La Plante was the local crime boss who'd played a cameo role in the dream I'd been enjoying. I'd recently helped liberate an elven princess2from him. Unbeknownst to me until the middle of that little adventure, it turned out that Moira Alianha was betrothed to Dr. Raven.
    Raven had returned her to Tir Tairngire two weeks ago, and then had been summoned back there again after the Night of Fire and the battle for Natural Vat. That meant he left Kid Stealth, Tom Electric, Tark Graogrim, Valerie Valkyrie, and I to watch the store while he was away.
    La Plante held a special place in Kid Stealth's heart. Stealth had first come to Seattle to work as La Plante's
    2I don't know that Moira was really a princess per se—the elf I know best is Raven and he's not much on hereditary titles. Anyway, she was pretty important and after her rescue Doc had been bouncing back and forth 'tween the Tir and the sprawl. I gather there was a lot of palavering going on, but about what I had no idea at the time.
    enforcer. Inevitably, La Plante had assigned Stealth the job of killing Raven. Stealth was good enough to get two of Doc's chummers—my head missed being mounted on his trophy wall by a stroke of luck or two— before La Plante decided to put a pinch-hitter in for Stealth. That individual, known on the streets as The Chauffeur, had fitted Stealth's feet with a large pair of cement blocks, then dumped him into the Sound.
    Setting the pistol on my nightstand, I threw the covers back, then turned on a light. "What did our friend do this time?" Naked—'cept for the silver wolf's-head amulet worn at my throat—I padded over to the closet as Stealth puzzled over how to answer that question in his customarily taciturn manner. I looked at the clothes hanging there and almost chose a normal t-shirt and pair of jeans.
    You 're going somewhere with Kid Stealth.
    I opted for black pants woven of kevlar and a heavy kevlar sweater with trauma pads over my chest and back.
    "I don't know. An ear says a VIP is sprawling and La Plante is calling in some heavy favors to make him happy." Even as he spoke, Stealth moved his head back and forth, his cybernetically augmented senses scanning for the sound of anything out of the ordinary. I silently hoped the Blavatskys down in 2D didn't decide to play "I've-Been-Bad, Teacher" while Stealth was monitoring the area.
    "Your street source didn't know who the VIP was or why he was here?"
    Stealth answered me with an exasperated expression that said, "If I knew that, I would have told you."
    I refrained from answering with my you-never-know-unless-you-ask shrug and zipped up my pants. "La Plante had been holding Moira for some Mr. Johnson from out of town. I bet there's a connection—I bet Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    this VIP was the one who wanted her."
    Kid Stealth's eyes narrowed for a half-second and I knew he'd filed away both my conclusion and the fact that I'd made the connection. As tough as he was, and as much of a perfectionist as I'd seen him be, Stealth seldom advanced theories on his own. He'd study a situation and offer his observations, but he left the guesswork up to others. He'd made his living dealing in dead certainties before joining Raven, and since becoming one of the team, he'd found plenty of people to jump to conclusions for him.
    Most of Stealth's body part