Sliver of a Reason
---------------------

     I remembered looking out of my window onto the street below, but that was the last thing
I remembered before the small row of glasses in front of me, all empty now. My rooms are set
into a small arched stone passage between two high old buildings, above the street between, and
they look onto the market below: fruit, felonies, fresh meat, all for sale. From the glass of that
window to the glass in my hand, dark gold brandy curling in it. This was  - well, not an entirely
safe place to drink, but safer than some. And people knew me.
     The tender came over with another glass. Yes, good, this one was just about finished: now
it was finished. Three Outmodes were talking up their hats in the corner, one tipsier than the
others and about to lose whatever he was betting. Two pimps, and five of their stable, sorting
money in one corner, money and little white bags. I didn't interfere. If other idiots were stupid
enough to Stim themselves into whiteheads, that was their business and not mine.
     Asha had been my business, and she was dead.
     Some of her Hermeticum friends had taken the body. They showed a sign which made me
take their word for their intentions: apparently if they didn't destroy it thoroughly, other powers
might be able to call her back. The dark-eyed man who told me that was clearly picking kinder
words than he might have chosen - well, that was good of him, I'm sure I appreciated it - and I
decided not to push it further. They'd looked at the knife, and frowned. "Power," said the older
woman who seemed to be in charge. "It'll resonate if you ever get to the owner. Useless
otherwise."
     I carry the knife in my boot now. A knife is always useful. Sometimes more than others.   Newsfiles were blank. I ran the usual scans and searches, but there was nothing to show
any evidence of movements by the Michaelines, or anything from the fanatics and loyalists that
Sammael controlled - it was all quiet, flatlined all over. Minor squabbles, a knifing here or there,
a demon loosed, snared again, but no definite signs of movement. Terethel had taken the
opportunity to expand the Dome borders a bit towards the South, but then he did at least have
good strategic instincts.
     Don't get me wrong. I don't blame every single Fallen for being the way they are. I find
many good things in having the acclaimed "Warrior-Poet" for an Ethnarch round here. He doesn't
mess with the Matrix, for a start. And he values his "Art" enough to adopt a generally liberal pose.
Which keeps the bigger buggers out. But, dear God, his tendency to pose is jawdropping.
     Still, it could be worse.
     This brandy was strong. Good. I didn't want to think.
     Dark gold rising round me.

---

     Slipping, as the sky breaks into screaming planes of light. "Raguel!" I cry out. "Raguel,
what is this? What has come upon us?" He turns, face and body rippling in shades of blue and
green like light reflected from the sea, as Heaven shakes and crumbles. I scream.

---

     The first sensation was gravel and mud under my cheek, and rubbed into my hair. The
second was the burn of my shoulders from where my wrists had been strapped together with duct
tape, and the sticky pull of it on my skin. The third was the pounding of my head. 
     I let my breathing subside, run back down again: there were enough other moans and
whimpers in the dark to cover the sound that I made on waking. Quite enough.
     Through a half-closed eye, I could see somebody on a chair at the end of the room. He
was shrouded in a vague, huge coat, the light too bad to make out details, and wearing a fancy
belt of chain that caught the dim flickers of light. 
     My head hurt. This wasn't just a hangover: the last time I'd felt this bad was when I'd
been playing on the edges of the hard stuff and nearly fried my eyeballs out. The air in the room
had the sour tang of sweat and vomit to it, several hours dry. A constant murmur of groans and
gasping for breath ran around me, and - wait. I turned enough to see the eyes of the figure on the
chair, and the bastard was _enjoying_ it. He was luxuriating in it like summer breezes, just sitting
there and letting it wash round him. Who the hell was he, and how could anybody but a sick
bastard -
     His eyes caught mine, glints in the darkness.
     As he rose from his chair, the coat rustled and broke into grey wings, scaled and greasy-looking, that arched behind him in the dim light. His voice was a whisper, the edge of nightmares.
"What are you doing here? I do not know you, yet you have the smell of power upon you."
     Something in me huddled tighter against his eyes, as if it was trying to hide itself. The
fragment of dream curled deep and close inside my memories, leaving me mortal and afraid and
hung over and scared out of my damn wits. 
     The wall blew open, and he disappeared in a shower of bricks and fire.
     I would have sat up and marvelled at my supernatural powers, if I hadn't been blown head
over tails by the blast and knew that I couldn't do any such thing. 
     Half a dozen people staggered through the drifting smoke, waving guns in what looked
a dangerous and impressive way. No, I don't know anything technical about guns. Yes, they scare
me. They kill people, you know. Things that kill people tend to scare me.
     The first one - female, by the helpfully leather-strapped silhouette - skidded to a stop,
yelling, "We got the bastard! Peace through Extreme Firepower!"
     The second grunted, "Shaddap." He prodded the nearest body on the floor with one toe.
"Call the others. We need to get this lot out before we blow the place."
     I said, weakly, "I can walk," which got me my bonds untied (that sounds utterly perverse,
but there is absolutely nothing sexual about having duct tape ripped off your bare skin) and a
shove towards the helpful, friendly, beckoning hole in the wall. To one side, a blond man in
gasmask and fatigues was linking up a cyberdeck to a hole in the wall and muttering about the bad
conditions.
     He was quite right.  They were bad. They were worse in five seconds when the ceiling
started shaking and coming apart. They were worse yet in fifteen when the Tartaruchi rose.
     The room ran into a haze of screaming and flames and gunshots. Our rescuers were trying
to guard the gap in the wall, and shove everyone else through it. Everyone else was screaming and
shoving through it. It's astonishing how you can ignore headaches and pain and weariness and
even having your hands tied behind you when you know that otherwise you're going to _die_. I
ducked for cover by the decker, who was just running the tuneups. Professional curiosity took
over as I saw his deck closer - nice customisations, if a bit the standard quick-and-easies - and I
yelled over the crackle of flaming whips, "What are you going for?"
     He didn't look up from the settings, which got him a point for professionalism, and
snapped, "Infograb, before they can stash this back wherever they're heading. We need their links
to know where to hit them next. Now get the hell out. Civilian."
     I looked up. The way out was past two Tartaruchi who were hammering at a mageshield.
The woman behind it was smirking in an understated way and tossing a reloader to her friend with
the Australian accent and the hard toe. "I think I'm.." I ducked on reflex as a Tartaruchi screamed
hidously, "..safer here."
     He grunted. "Don't say I didn't warn.." And a whip hissed between the two of us, curling
round his neck and leaving a searing necklace of red. His back arched, and he dropped the half-set
deck, and I grabbed at it on pure reflex. The man was choking, dragged off his feet by the whip.
A crackle of blue light rasped above me, sending the Tartaruchi into the opposite wall, but it was
still holding onto the bone handle.
     Some people are called. Some people are chosen. Some people just find themselves in the 
middle of firefights.
     All systems were linked in, basic ware: I slammed the jacks into the sockets at the backs
of my wrists, and I was out of there.
     One should, technically, go by program names and code checks and IC and all the tech
that one's using. One should, but one never sees it that way. The level I play the Matrix at, and
the level you have to be to actually survive it for more than a month or two, it goes from science
or skill to art. Sure, you can list your IC as if you could skid along it, but when you're in there it
just _is_. Language isn't made for this sort of thing.
     I slipped sideways, and floated among a whirling mass of files, reaching out the claws of
search programs to snatch and cache them: below me, a whirling pool of mud stretched up
tentacles that stank of drying blood and charred the drifting sheets of paper. A twist of my fingers
spun black ice to cover the morass: it hissed like acid and began to eat its way through.
Bookworms crept around my feet to nibble at the caches I was building, and I had to divert a
fragment of my attention to tearing them away and burning them to shreds of ash.
     Beneath me, the ice shielding on the pool dissolved away. Japanese hieroglyphs twisted
on it, reforming into English words. "SAYONARA, LITTLE MAGDALENE. LAST
WARNING."
     Halfway through the phrase, it erupted into a vast gout of fire, which I met with a
spunshield round myself and a frantic mole to grab the last bits of X-file data. The bastards had
pulled a Pillar of Fire! The fact that they were probably frying their own synapses wasn't the least
bit of consolation, as I was probably going to fry right along with them. I clicked every bit of IC
that the decker had built on this thing into place, and some more that I made up on the spur of the
moment because I'm a devious bitch, and turned sideways, past the flashing SAYONARA,
SAYONARA that was floating in the burning light..
     ..and blinked in the flames that were all round me and the deck. First thought, amid the
pain, was oh shit, I didn't get out, second was oh shit, yes I did but that's a Tartaruchi standing
over me.
     The Tartaruchi are, especially from the floor, brutally impressive. Tattooed bulging
muscles, fluctuating blue skin and black spiky hair, leather harnesses, big guns, big whips, big
spiky hooks. The one standing over me took a moment to leer down and enjoy my big blinking
eyes, which was stupid of him, because that female mage called out a name in some language I
don't want to know and froze him where he stood. She and the half-throttled decker dragged me
to my feet, pulling me towards the door.
     The floor went from under my feet as the entire room trembled. The other two stumbled,
only just catching themselves, and I saw the woman go pale, looking over my shoulder. I couldn't
help it. I looked.
     The grey-winged demon was rising from out of the floor, and it shivered beneath him,
cracks running outward to the walls of the room like some obscene spider-image. The Tartaruchi
were cowering, shrinking towards the shelter of his wings. His attention was on us, and I could
feel the heat of his eyes on my skin like an echo of the Pillar earlier.
     The man pressed against me. "Camille." He spoke softly, as though that would stop the
demon hearing or understanding him. "Do something. You're the fucking mage."
     She looked at him, then began to roll one sleeve back, saying, "Please observe very
carefully, great .."
     "Too late, little ones." His voice pressed on the air, drawing the moisture out of it till I
could feel the sweat running on my skin.
     "Belial!" she screamed. I felt the world split - Invocation of Naming, Asha had once called
it, a way to focus power on a being through their true name, tremendously gaudy if used in this
way  - but perhaps enough time for us to get out.
     Five steps, four, three, two, one to the cave entrance, and I was dragging the woman
Camille along. She was still staggering, red hair loose over her shoulders, eyes glazed, several
guns bouncing at her belt. The decker had already made it through.
     We hit the air, and it bounced us back.
     Belial was too close to us when we turned, too close. He was looking at me again with
that air of recognition. Then he smiled. "I will take it from you. One way or the other."
     Camille struggled for balance.
     The world split asunder. I watched the ceiling dance in spirals of dust, thinking with the
peculiar idiocy of concussion, this makes three times in a day, I need to complain to somebody.
There was something warm and wet splashed across my face. Above, a great shadow of light bore
a spear against a shape of dark air that hissed and spread wings of fetid acid.
     I watched the spinning and the roaring thunder of the air until my eyes closed and I simply
watched the darkness.

---

     Long before the first Fall, I remember him then. His wings were hammered from the wind,
and he was swift, so swift. There was a time when there was nothing but the Will for us, and
existence was joy.
     How could we change?

---

     "The name is Camille."
     "I heard." I wasn't in the best of moods, and my head still hurt. "So you didn't find what
you wanted in the datafiles."
     She tossed her head, and her hair swung. Probably the sort of thing that she rehearsed in
front of a mirror. "We need your help, and you've got a score to settle."
     I dumped the pizza boxes on the table. "Point one, I don't like risking my life with you
New Templars. It's dangerous, and it's not my business. Point two, I can live without settling
every single score. Just watch me. They weren't looking for me in particular, they were just
grabbing some new bodies for the Cartels."
     "Terethel intervened personally to save you," she interrupted.
     I snorted at that. "He came along because you'd just blown a skyhigh beacon by yelling
Belial's name like that. Don't give me that crap."
     "I saved you."
     "I got you the datafiles you have," I pointed out. "Want to give them back?"
     Her eyes were on me, very serious. "Belial knew you. He recognised you, didn't he?"
     I didn't want to answer that one. Eventually, I shrugged. "So?" It wasn't much of an
answer, but it was less than she wanted.
     She slammed her hand on the table. The pizzas bounced. "I suppose it's asking too much
to expect a bleached blonde money-grubbing drunken.."
     "Platinum blonde," I put in.
     "..idiot to actually help us for the sake of what we're trying to do? The Cartels are trying
to move in here. Can't you see that?" Her voice had dropped to a serious level now, more
impressive than the shouting. "You want to stay free of Michael, of the Cartels, of the Poison
Angel, you help us now. There isn't a later."
     I turned away.
     "Asha would have helped us."
     Something in me twisted. "Asha wouldn't have been so stupid."
     "I knew what Asha was doing."
     I turned back, raising one eyebrow. 
     Her voice had acquired an edge of bitterness. "Oh, yes. You weren't her only business.
And I don't think you were the reason for her dying, either."
     "You're lying."
     "No."
     My hand twitched, so near the knife hilt. "Then explain."
     She shrugged, another practised movement. "You help us, I tell you what I know. It might
give you what you're looking for, too."
     My movement gave something away, for she smiled. "Even if you don't believe in settling
scores."
     "That'll do for a price, then." I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing my face. I
turned away, and let the sunset light stain the room as I opened the windows.
     Her voice was soft behind me. "Or a reason."

---