despair and frustration curdle into rage over the thought of the betrayed trust. Then, he remembered the filthy feel of the wendigo's previous presence in his mind and shouted. 'Liar! You twist the truth to suit yourself, and I won't fall for it. You 're the corruptor, the seducer, the defiler, and the despoiler. You're evil by nature, and I will destroy you.'
The wendigo let out a low growl through clenched teeth. Then his lips closed down over his fangs, and he smiled.
'If I am evil, what of your sister?'
'I won't let you hurt her.'
'Hurt her?' The wendigo laughed. 'I have no reason to hurt one of my own. You are her past and I am her future. She no longer belongs to your world, but to mine. Forget her.'
That was something Sam would never do. He felt guilty enough over how little he had accomplished in finding her. 'Where is she?'
'She is safe from your misguided attentions. When Glover told me of the disturbance at ATT-Multifax, I thought it best to take precautions.'
'What have you done with her?'
'Brought her into the fold.'
'No!'
'Oh, yes.'
'No!' Sam screamed again. He threw himself away from the wall and summoned his magic. Howling the words of Dog's song, he poured his will into the effort of summoning a spirit. As soon as he felt a presence, he demanded service of it.
A luminous mist rose from the floor. Streamers of mist floated from the walls to join the cloud beginning to swirl in the space between Sam and the wendigo. The mist thickened, becoming almost liquid in density, and poured upwards to form a shape as if filling a mold. The last of the vapor joined the hulking shape, and the whole thing became more solid, taking on the texture of poured concrete.
The floor groaned under the weight of the manifested building spirit. Between its wide, humped shoulders there was a knob that might have been a head. Two pits of darkness opened in the knob, and Sam felt the spirit's attention settle on him.
The spirit's stare unnerved him even more than the realization that he had succeeded in summoning it. The spirit's intensity, underlaid by hostility, scraped stainless steel fingernails on the chalkboard that was the inside of his skull. The spirit was insistent; it wanted his orders, for only by discharging its duties could it leave the physical plane.
'Destroy the wendigo,' he told it. 'End the blight on the city.''
The spirit turned away abruptly. Spreading its arms, it advanced on the wendigo. Each step sent tremors through the floor.
Sam had expected that his enemy might show some fear at this sudden manifestation of power. He was disappointed. The wendigo began to vocalize. The sound started as a deep rumble in the massive chest and occasionally burst forth in a feral growl. The stench of putrefaction increased as the wendigo also spread his arms wide.
The spirit lumbered forward and raised one blocky, fistless arm to smash its victim. The wendigo stood his ground. His only action was to convulse his outstretched fingers closed into fists.
The spirit froze as pain flared in Sam's head. The mystic bonds by which he directed the spirit tattered and tore. He tried to re-form them, but they slipped through his grasp.
Across the room, the spirit turned. The smooth, seamless lines of its form had become more jagged, and its facade was pitted and marred. Like lurid tattoos, graffiti and slogans of violence defaced its surface. It took a step toward Sam. Portions of its outer covering flaked away as it moved. It stalked toward him, leaving footprints of garbage and sludgy residue. The wendigo gloated. 'A poor choice, puppy shaman. Cities are one of the great blights that man spreads across the earth. Know now, if you had not already discerned it for yourself, that Blight is my totem. I have embraced the toxic defilement of the earth to turn it back on the source of the pollution. This cold, concrete tower has no true hearth. By its nature, the spirit you have summoned is more my servant than yours. All you have done is given me the tool for your destruction.'
Janice was worried as soon as she heard the explosion. Her failure to get through on the telecom only intensified her concern. Suddenly Dan's uncharacteristic request, that she carry a message to a business partner who lived on a lower floor of the tower, made sense. It had just been an excuse to get her out of the residence.
She detached her spirit and sent it upwards through the building. Dan was there and well, but he was being menaced by a hostile spirit. The shaman who had summoned it was there as well, fully capable of more mischief. Since she hadn't yet learned the secrets of casting magic through her astral body, she fled downwards and returned to her physical body.
Hoping to reach the residence in time to help her lover, she ran to the elevator lobby. In her excitement, she fumbled her first try to enter Dan's code. She got it right on the second try, but there was no response, not even a call acknowledgment.
The shaft was the only one with direct access to the residence floor. Frustrated, she slammed her fist into the door. The metal buckled. She hit the door again and a gap appeared between the two panels. She dug her fingers into the space and pulled until she forced the seal. As the pressure lock released, her strength proved too much for the structures. The left panel buckled and jammed, while the right folded and slipped out of its track. She flung the useless thing behind her.
The shaft smelled of magic, making her fur rise.
She stuck her head out over the abyss and looked down. The bottom of the shaft was obscured in a dust cloud. That puzzled her until she realized that there were no cables in the shaft. Someone had sabotaged the elevator, and there would be no car arriving to carry her to the residence.
She leaned into the opening she had forced, keeping her balance with one hand gripping the frame of the opening. With her free hand, she grabbed the rungs of the emergency service ladder and tugged. To her relief, it seemed solid enough to support her weight. Careless of the jagged metal edges protruding in her way, she swung into the shaft. The gashes she sustained began to heal as she started to climb.
The elevator doors on Hyde-White's residence level buckled and blew inward with explosive force. There was no roar of explosives, only the metallic scream of tortured metal and the shattering pop of plastics. Hart knew magic when she encountered its effect.
Toylike, a four-wheeled silver thing rolled out from under one of the lobby's low tables and took up station in front of the opening. As the machine pulled into place, its turret swiveled to point a gun barrel into the shaft.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the drone began firing its weapon in shrill hiccups of shortduration autonre bursts. Hart heard bullets spanging off metal and concrete, but there was another sound as well, a high pitched whang which a norm would be unable to hear. The source of the sound appeared, as Glover drifted out of the shaft. Flares of light accompanied the strange sounds as bullets struck an invisible shield that protected the archdruid.
The drone briefly ceased fire as Glover drifted over it and touched down on the thick carpet. The drone revved its motor and began to circle him, firing bursts at different portions of his anatomy in a random timing sequence. Glover watched contemptuously as the drone sought a weakness in his defense. On the third circle, Glover lashed out with his foot, deflecting the drone's course. Before its onboard expert system could compensate, the little machine hit a piece of debris from the doors and bounced into the air. It came down on its right front fender and toppled forward. Its momentum was so great that it rolled right through the open doorway of the elevator shaft.
'Pathetic gadfly,' Glover sneered as the machine vanished from sight.
Hart dropped her invisibility spell and pointed her pistol at Glover.
'Shouldn't have dropped the levitation spell, archdruid. You don't have an invitation to this party.'
Glover started at her words, but recovered quickly. 'I have no further need for it and I don't need any invitations, elf. You are no impediment to me. I presume you were watching and saw how ineffectual guns are against a magician of my skills and power.' 'I saw.'
