Koontz, Dean - Soft come the Dragons Read online

  He moved to the corn-screen and punched the number One. A moment later, the screen brightened, and a desk sergeant's face popped into view. "Police," he said, a pencil in his hands, ready to record any pertinent information, even though the call—like all calls to the police—was being recorded.

  "I would like to report a murder," he said, then abruptly wished he had been more circumspect.

  The desk officer's face slipped away and was replaced by another hung above shoulders that were covered in plain brown business suit. "Homicide, here," the new face said. "Go on."

  "I—have a murder to report."

  "Go on."

  "I—"

  "Well?

  "I want to report it in person. I have evidence."

  "The com-screen is fine. We handle all our homicides over the com—"

  "In person," Ti persisted. He knew the sort of run-around he could get by phone. His own editor, Creol, gave the run-around to almost everyone who called Enterstat to speak to Ti.

  "Look, Mr.— You haven't reported your name. The informer's name .should always be the first statement. What's your name?"

  "Timothy of Enterstat."

  The detectives eyebrows went up. "And you won't report over the com-screen?"

  "No."

  "We'll send a man around. Your address is in central files?"

  "Yes."

  "Be there in fifteen minutes."

  When the police dealt with the wealthy, the treatment was somewhat different than when they dealt with the comfortable or the poor. Ti knew it, did not like it, but was nevertheless glad of it now. If he wanted to be sure this case got solved, he was convinced that he must launch it himself. And since it was easier for them to come to him,-he had had to make them do just that.

  Fifteen minutes later, almost to the second, the doorbell rang. He sent a servo to turn the latch knob and pull the portal wide. A thin man with a pencil mustache stepped through into the living room. The servo closed the door behind him. He looked at Ti a moment, tried to conceal his shock—shock though he was certain to know the mutant's nature—and took off his fur hat. "Detective Modigliani," he said in tight, compressed words, each syllable like the quick crack of a rifle shot.

  "Glad to meet you, Detective. Come in. Sit down."

  The thin man crossed the room and took a seat while Ti drifted into one of his own special cup-chairs and shut down his grav plates. "This is most unusual," Modigliani said.

  "It's an unusual case."

  "Perhaps you could explain it?"

  Ti hesitated only a moment, then launched into his story. When he had finished, the detective sat with his hands folded in his lap and twisted his mouth as if trying to get at his mustache and nibble on it. "Quite extraordinary. And you say you have film?"

  "Yes."

  The detective scowled. "You have invaded privacy, you know"

  "What?"

  Modigliani stood and paced to the wall, turned dramatically. "Privacy, sir. It's an invasion of privacy to photograph someone through the Mindlink impressions."

  "But I was corralling evidence!"

  "That's the job of the police, don't you think?"

  "I happen to know," Ti said, flipping on his systems and rising from his chair, "that Klaus Margle was arrested nine times and yet never served a prison sentence."

  "What are you suggesting?"

  He almost spat out the accusations that were most assuredly true, but he held his tongue just long enough to calm himself. "Nothing. Nothing. But—well, have a look at the films, why don't you?"

  "Yes. I would like to see those,"

  Ti led the way into the library where he set up the projector and pulled down the wall screen. "Hit the lights, will you?"

  Modigliani hit the lights. There was darkness.

  The projector hummed, and suddenly the screen was filled with images. Roiling smoke clouds, to begin with. Then, coming through these were three men with breathers' clamped in their teeth, with plugs in their nostrils. The picture zoomed in on the lead man, and there was Klaus Margle, larger than life!

  But just his face. As the picture progressed, Ti discovered his error: he had been so anxious to get good shots of Margie's face that he had missed most of the other action. He had trained the cameras on the heads of the invaders, missing nearly everything else that they did. There was no sound, either. The threatening face of Klaus Margle leaning into the camera at the end lacked force when his words were nonexistent.

  The film stuttered, slipped, and was gone.

  "It's not much," Modigliani said.

  Ti started to protest.

  The detective interrupted. "It's not really much. Faces. You could have filmed Klaus Margie almost anywhere."

  "But the tear gas—"

  "And I didn't see him killing anyone. It still looks to me like we should chiefly be concerned with an invasion-of-privacy charge against you, sir, not with some charge against Mr. Margle."

  Ti must have seen the futility of argument, but he wouldn't allow himself to give in that easily. He argued, pleaded, lost his temper and called names. All names, of course, being sucked up by the detective's personal recorder for future use. In the end, he could only suggest calling Taguster's home. Either the receivers would all be broken, or they would meet Klaus Margle and his henchmen.

  "Or," Modigliani pointed out, "there may be no answer, which isn't enough to warrant an investigation either."

  But there was an answer. Taguster's face popped onto the corn-screen, smiling. "Yes?"

  Modigliani turned and gave Ti an I-told-you-so look.

  "The android," Ti hissed.

  Modigliani identified himself to Taguster's simulacrum. "We've had a report," he said, "that you've been murdered."

  Taguster laughed. It was very hard to believe he was an android. "As you can see—" he didn't bother to finish.

  "Would you mind," Modigliani asked, "if I moved into Mindlink and inspected your rooms at close range?"

  "Go ahead," Taguster's android said confidently.

  "Thank you," Modigliani flipped off the corn-screen and returned to the living room and the Mindlink set there. He popped into Mindlink beam and entered the living room receiver at Taguster's. He flipped to the bedrooms, game-rooms, library, theater, and finally the kitchen. He thanked Taguster for the permission to investigate and expressed his apologies at the intrusion. He returned to Ti's set and removed the helmet that didn't quite properly fit his head. "Nothing," he said.

  "The kitchen receiver—"

  "Was in fine working order. I don't know what you were trying to prove, sir, but—"

  "They could have used a mob expert to restore the receiver."

  "And Taguster?"

  "That was his android!"

  "Androids, you must know, don't generally do anything that is detrimental to their owners. If the real Leonard Taguster were murdered, his android would not willingly assist the murderers."

  "They could have tinkered with him."

  "That takes a real expert."

  "You know as well as I that Klaus Margle can afford such experts and keeps them on hand!"

  Modigliani's seeming stupidity was beginning to annoy Timothy to the point where he wasn't able to suppress his rage. His twisted face flushed, and he could not make his servos stay still. 'They flitted back and forth like frightened animals looking for a place to hide. But then Modigliani gave away the name of his game: "Sir," he said, "I must caution you to refrain from slander. Mr. Klaus Margle, the Klaus Margle to which you refer, is nothing more than the owner of a large number of restaurants and garages. He is a respectable businessman, and he should not be open to such slanderous comment—"

  "Detective Modigliani," Ti said, his voice level, but threatening to escalate into hilarity, "you know damned well—"

  "This is being recorded. I must inform you of that." He parted the halves of his round-necked coat to reveal the chest-strapped mini-recorder.

  Ti stopped. It was obvious now why he had
had such a hard time with Modigliani. The man was bought. When he had learned the accused was Klaus Margle, he had seen where his duty lay—and it wasn't with the Truth. He wasn't interested in investigating the crime. He was only concerned with making a case against Ti as an unreliable witness. He was doing a good job. And Ti realized his own rage would be interpreted as inane prattling if he didn't manage to control himself. "Perhaps you had better go," he said, clamping imaginary hands on his boiling fury.

  "The film," Modigliani said, returning to the library.

  Ti floated quickly after him, but was too late. When he came through the library doors, the detective had removed the film from the projector and was returning. "You can't have that!" Ti snapped.

  "On the contrary. We'll have to study it to see if it was faked. I don't know what you have against Mr. Margle that would lead you to the construction of such a plan to discredit him, but if falsification of film intended as evidence has taken place, we will be in contact with you."

  And he was gone. Ti stood at the window watching him go, knowing full well that the film would be destroyed between here and the police headquarters and that Detective Modigliani would get a bonus from the Dark Brethren this month.

  He returned to Mindlink and called Taguster's house. The android was there, reading a book, apparently. It spoke to him as if he didn't know it was the android, asked him how he had been getting along. He didn't bother to answer. He went from room to room, but he could find nothing. He slipped out of the Taguster house and into his own set, removing the helmet.

  It was two o'clock in the morning. And Margle was on his way . . .

  There were preparations to be made. The police were not going to be any good. There was no hope that they would help. He knew without need of further corroboration, that any further calls he made to the police would be automatically routed to Modigliani, who would see that he was given the brush-off. So he had to defend himself. He had a collection of pin and dart weapons with which he amused himself in the basement shooting range. He collected three of these and brought them upstairs. He carried books into the kitchen and braced one of the weapons between them so that it covered the door at waist height. That he could trigger with his psionic talents if necessary. He took the other two and grasped one firmly in each servo. There was nothing more but waiting . . .

  He heard them in the courtyard behind the house. They were not attempting to be quiet. Their aide Modigliani had probably assured them that the police would stay out of it and that Ti was helpless. He stood at the doorway between kitchen and dining area, both gun-laden servos aimed at the door, his psi ready to trigger the book-propped weapon too. The door rattled. Then something struck it hard. It crashed inward, the lock ripped lose, and a Hound floated into the room.

  But the Hound was smashed, broken back at Taguster's!

  Which meant they had more than one Hound. With contacts like Modigliani, that was not surprising.

  But his guns were no good! The pins would bounce harmlessly off the Hound's "hide," and the beast would sweep in for a swift and sure kill. Ti turned into the dining area, dropping the guns and calling his servos after him. He had expected men, not machines. Now what? He heard the Hound in the kitchen, but it didn't remain there for long. When he reached the living room, it was humming into the dining area, following him.

  He felt panic welling in him as he remembered the pin-punctured throat of the musician, the bloody body of his lover as she had tried to crawl out of the window to avoid the alloy demon. The same alloy demon that now stalked him. But he fought the panic, knowing only death lay with it.

  The Hound entered the living room and sensed his presence, swept him with its tiny cameras and radar grids, ascertaining if he were the quarry . . .

  His mind raced to find an escape. The house, the great house that was almost a womb for him was highly equipped to contain him in complete luxury, but it wasn't equipped to afford him escape from death. The house would be surrounded by Margle and his men; therefore, the doors were useless. Then he remembered the cellars upon which the house had been built, the dozen rooms that had served as a Revolutionary War Tory supplies depot. If he could get into those, there were any number of outlets onto other places on the mountain.

  The Hound fired a series of three pins.

  Ti slammed down on his speed controls imbedded in the floating ball and streaked into the hallway, found the cellar door, and swept down the stairs without even touching them, stairs there for the convenience of guests. He crossed the Tri-D room with its three wall-sized white screens and moved into the shooting range, slamming the door behind. It was a heavy door, an antique resurrected from the Tory cellars before the house had been constructed over them. It would take the Hound a few moments to break it down.

  He floated along the left wall where he knew the cellars lay. They stretched back into the mountain, a rough series of fortified caves, after you passed through the first four or five of them. From those caves, there were a number of exits on the mountainside. He reached the end of the room and used his servos to rip loose the half-round that filled in the corner of the plasti-wood paneling. Then, gripping metal fingers around the paneling, he carefully pried the last section away from the wall beams and was looking through into cool darkness: the Tory cellars.

  Behind, the Hound struck the door, hard.

  Ti could not crouch to squeeze through the cross-beams, but he shifted the grav plates so that he was turned onto his side, then moved ball first through the gap and into the cellar. Once inside, he shifted the grav plates back to normal position and righted himself. He sent his servos back to pull the wood paneling back into place from the inside. It might confuse the demon machine for a few minutes, but it could not be a completely successful ruse. It would be after him, no question there.

  Through the partition, he heard the door to the shooting range give, crash inward to admit the Hound.

  He drifted off slowly through the old cellar, letting his eye adjust to the intense dark. After a few minutes, he could distinguish the vague outlines of fallen beams and broken tables, rotted, shattered chairs, and a few stretches of shelving that had once held ammunition but were now bowed and warped away from the walls, covered with ugly lumps of fungus. He moved from the first cellar into the second.

  The panel he had removed was wrenched away from the wall in the first cellar, and light from the shooting range flooded in to dispel the gloom. The Hound came quickly after.

  He turned toward the third cellar and moved as fast as he could. He slammed his stump shoulder into a half fallen beam but kept on moving.

  The Hound came faster.

  When he got to the entranceway of the fifth cellar, he found that there had been a cave-in, and the beams and rock of the ceiling had collapsed to effectively bar his escape. If he had a half an half, maybe an hour, he could move enough of the rubble to get through. But the Hound was literally breathing down his neck—though the breath was the warmth of laboring machinery.

  He turned on his pursuer. It was coming in from the third cellar, moving around a pile of ruin there. It fired three pins. Fita-fita-fita . . .

  He moved aside when he saw its intent. The darts studded the rubble wall behind him. He sent his servo-hands to a beam lying in the Hound's pathway, had them worry its tenuous connections with the ceiling. Just as the Hound passed beneath, the beam snapped loose and crashed onto the ball of the hunter. But it only deflected the demon machine's advance. The Hound swerved, bobbled, but recovered and swept closer, firing three pins.

  All three missed.

  Ti was surprised, for he had not had time to take evasive action, and Hounds were not known to be sloppy marksmen.

  The Hound fired three more.

  All three missed.

  And Ti realized why. He was turning them aside with his psi power! The second time, he had been more conscious of it. He stood, back to the closed door to chamber five, and waited for the Hound to fire again. It did. And, again, the darts
shot to either side, deflected suddenly from their target. Over the next several minutes, he deflected another two dozen of the slender spines, until the Hound was convinced that its nasty little weapons system was of no use in the situation. It stopped, bobbling gently a dozen feet away, and regarded him with all its measuring devices. A moment later, it sent its two servos toward his neck . . .

  He reacted quickly, or he might have been strangled. He called his own servos to him. Four feet from his face, the enemy hands and his own met and locked, metal fingers laced metal fingers. He flushed full power into the hands and set them the task of breaking the Hound's fingers.

  But the Hound seemed to have similar ideas. Its own servos wrenched at Ti's so that the four members swayed back and forth in the air, now gaining an inch or two for their master, now losing the same amount of distance. Finally, with both sets at full power and firmly clenched, they did not move at all but merely strained in frozen tableau against one another. When the grav plates and their connections erupted in sparks and smoke, they did so on all four hands. The servos dropped to the floor as if they were a single creature, a metal bird with shot pellets in its wings. Now both hunter and hunted were handless.

  Hunter and hunted. Ti suddenly realized the nomenclature was no longer adequate. Both deprived of hands and Ti able to stop the Hound's pins, neither was the hunter. He moved by the Hound toward the shooting range. He had discovered another application of his power this night. He mused that necessity always brought out his abilities. It had been necessary to feed himself that day long ago, and he had lifted the spoon. And now it had been a necessity to control the pins. Now he knew he could influence small objects even in high-velocity transit, just as he could lift the spoon.

  He moved into the shooting range. The Hound had ceased to follow but bumped purposelessly against the cross-beams as if its mind had been in its hands and as if a loss of ability had led to a loss of purpose. Ti floated up the stairs and into the hallway of the house again. He could hear footsteps in the kitchen: Margle and his men coming to see what had taken the robot so long. Well, he was ready for them. Or he thought he was. He concentrated on his psi until his mind was alive with the power of it. He drifted into the living room just as the Dark Brethren moved in with guns drawn.