ECKO RISING
DANIE WARE
TITAN BOOKS
FOR BONES
F.T.W.
PROLOGUE LONDON
“We’re bein’ stalked.”
It was evening. The press of people was close, huddled and submissive to the public monotone that accompanied them home.
Overhead, the streetlights were halogen brilliant, obscuring the heavy, belly-down sky. The drizzle sparkled like shrapnel.
Fuller, tarnished aplomb in suit and overcoat, gave Lugan a nervous look. “You’re sure – ?”
“Shut up an’ keep moving.” One of the cell commander’s massive, oil-stained hands grabbed Fuller’s elbow and propelled him swiftly through the crowd. A gang of kids, laughing at their own defiance, barged into them and were gone.
Reflexively, Lugan checked his pockets.
Fuller gave a brief nod.
Tense now, Lugan checked the street. The light pools were bright but the shadows were hard edged and darker than oil. Everywhere he looked, unseen eyes looked back, teeth were bared in unseen grins. He shivered, bristled.
Half a head taller than the blindly ambling workers, Lugan picked out the police-blue glow of the hoverdrone, watched it swing about and head back towards them.
Fuller was rebroadcasting Collator’s info-stream.
Lugan reached for a dog-end. “This stinks.” Watching the drone, he headed for the shelter of the buildingside. As he moved, the crowd stirred and parted.
A shred of silent darkness flickered in his wake.
“What?” Without thinking, Lugan spun, back to the wall and crouching, hand going for the ten-mil that wasn’t there. Breathing tightly, he kicked in his ocular heatseeker, but the ambivalent temperature of the blankly trudging people defeated him.
There was nothing there.
Telling himself he’d imagined it, pillock, he watched a moment longer.
There was nothing there.
A burst of distant shouting made him start; the hoverdrone swung about to investigate.
Then a voice in his ear said softly...
“Boom.”
“Shit...!” Lugan spun sideways and back, fists balling. “Fuller!” Two paces ahead, Fuller dropped into cover behind a heap of dustbin bags shining with rainwater.
A moment later, he heard Fuller’s voice reply,
Spitting out the dog-end, Lugan sought the drone. Above his head, the light show had started: bright lasers played on the clouds as if to cut them open. In the wealth of the City and the West End, London still pulsed with life. Here, the shadows were –
Eyes. Some two metres above his head – the shadows were eyes.
A frisson shivered up his spine – whatever this character was, it was playing with them.
Fuller’s rebroadcast was telling him about the building.
Lugan watched the eyes. They were red. Just as he figured they were LEDs, they winked at him and were gone.
The frisson became a shudder; he found he was holding his breath.
Under the public monotone, a breath of laughter reached him – dark, malicious, cynical. It stroked his ear like a cold hand.
They were being
The sound had come from the heart of the homeward-walking workers, as if the drugged-up drudges themselves mocked his efforts.
Swallowing hard, Lugan forced himself to move normally. What the hell was this character? Security level eight – and it just... hung on the wall like a gargoyle? Laughed as they tried to track it? Picked their pockets without getting –
Oh wait a fucking minute...
Snarling through his beard, Lugan went back through the pockets of his old leather. He chucked a handful of washers onto the pavement and held up the piece of paper that remained.
“All right, smart-arse,” he said, “you got my attention. Now what the
