Aftermath, Chapter 13: Shadow of the Dragon

"In death we see equality, for all that lives must surely die.  With the invention of the last will and testament, we have the means for the dead to strike out at the living one last time."

~ Attorney Lewis Dewey of the Dewey-Cheatum Law Firm (1989)

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I woke up to Violet pushing my eyelid open.  She giggled, drooled and reached for my other eye with her tiny fingers.  I took a slow breath and savored the moment.  Tiny giggling noises, the scent of the baby shampoo their mother favored as well as the lingering scent of vanilla and honeysuckle.  It was a profound comfort, that moment of peace when my whole world was just a little elf girl smiling back at me.

"Are you awake?" Aria whispered.

"Yeah.  Violet is just checking my eyes to make sure they work." I replied.

Violet giggled at the sound of her name, her twin Jasmine peeked over her shoulder to investigate the happenings.

"Hi girls." I said softly. "I missed you both so much. Aria, Honey, how are you?"

My wife put on the ghost of a smile. "I'm fine.  Shade magicked me up almost as well as you do baby.  I have to say though, I don't know why you haven't quit the life yet.  Getting shot sucks."

I felt anger start to bubble up inside me.  Jasmine climbed over her sister and kissed me on the nose, quenching my rage in joy and drool.  I reached out and took Aria's hand.  She squeezed tightly as the twins took turns pulling at my hair, giving me kisses, and poking at my eyes.  "I'm so sorry honey."

Aria lay down next to me and put her arm over me and the squirming twins.  "Let's not talk about that right now. I'm just glad you're with us."

We lay there, playing with the twins while Rose and Lily stood by in the astral plane watching for threats.  An hour ticked by faster than I would have thought possible, before Sheila opened the door and joined us.

"We need to talk, Tommy." Her voice was softly inflected and weighted with a severity I could feel in my bones.

*****

Aria protested that her mother wanted to speak with me alone.  Words were said that surprised me and I think I may have actually seen SheilaX flinch.  The scene deescalated as a foul odor wafted up from the twins. Aria and Lily took the suddenly stinky twins out for a change and a bath while I was left alone with my fixer.

"You can't get away from this by dying again, Tommy." Sheila didn't waste any time. "You're going to have to make this right or they're going to just keep at you."

She fixed me with a stare that would melt the nerve of any sane being. "If they hurt my little girl again, or my grandchildren, I'll cut off your head and deliver it to them myself."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"You've been a great asset and Aria loves you." Sheila paused a moment, her emotionless eyes focusing on nothing. "She loves you, but she needs to keep breathing.  Last night someone shot her, over you.  I won't accept that.  Fix this Tommy.  Now."

"Any idea how?" I asked.

"Do you know what they want?"

"I think so, yeah." I replied.

"Can you give it to them?"

"Maybe.  I'm not sure about that.  I do know they shouldn't have it." I said.

"I don't give a damn if they should have it or not Tommy!" The steel came back into Sheila's voice and I found myself fixed by her glare.  "Give it to them, work out a deal, or die trying.  You have forty-eight hours." My mother-in-law left the 'or else' out.  I was certain she would make good on her threat if I didn't find an impressive solution to an impossible problem.

How do you appease a dead dragon?

*****

February 14th, 2061

Happy fraggin' Valentines' Day.  I had less than twelve hours to fix my life before Sheila would end it.

The word on the street was that some heavy hitters were looking for a certain shadowy wizard.  My family was in hiding again, I was mostly broke after paying Angel and Crank what I owed them, and the more I learned about the mess I was in the less I liked it.

SheilaX made some discreet inquiries and found the Johnson behind the hit team.  Angel hacked his commlink and left him an email.

"This is Thomas Michael Gunne.  I want to talk to your boss."

The return email address routed through more dead drop accounts thank I could count. Two hours later I had a return email.  "Where and when?"

I kissed Aria, taking in the scent of vanilla and honeysuckle and silently prayed that it wouldn't be the last time I saw her.  Jasmine and Violet were asleep on the bed.  SheilaX watched as I said my goodbyes.

"I'll get things squared away." I promised my wife.

"You come home to me Tommy." Aria whispered to me. "Promise me?"

I took a slow breath, looked right into her beautiful eyes and lied. "I promise baby."  I kissed her again, turned and walked out of the safe house.

Crank was on the street in front of the safe house, sitting on his pink scooter.  There wasn't another soul around to be seen.

"You comin' back Tommy?" he asked.

"Yeah, Crank." I lied. "You know me, I'm like one of those bum drones with a bad GPS. Always landing in the yard."

Crank's face hardened slightly. "Yeah.  I thought you'd say something like that." The big man stood up and walked up to me, looking down at me with worried eyes.

"I don't have many good friends Tommy." he said.

"That's because I've got all the best ones in town, Crank." I grabbed his huge hand and squeezed.

"Damn, that kinda hurts Tommy." A ghost of a smile appeared on his face. "If you don't come back.  If you get lost or something.  Call me."

"I'm coming back, Crank." I told him. "I've got a plan."

"A good one?" he asked.

I looked at my chummer and shelved the bulldrek. Crank was my friend, he had earned a little chip-truth. "Not really."

"Yeah, that's what I figured." he said. "You need a good gun hand, I've got two."

At that moment I really wanted to say yes. I wanted to have my friend with me, but I didn't want his blood on my hands.  "Thank you, Crank.  I've got this. Do me a favor though and make sure Jazz gets up on his feet?  Maybe introduce him to some people.  He's a good gun hand and I think you'd like him."

"Will do, chummer."  Crank clasped his hand on my shoulder.  This time, it didn't hurt at all.  "Do your thing and duck back into the shadows omae.  I'd hate to have to train another magician to be a decent runner."

"Keep your head down, Crank. I'll see you." I paused for moment.  "Honorable and professional, two rare qualities that you've got in spades."  I stepped around my friend, wove an invisibility spell around myself and vanished from sight.

The air elemental carried me away and I soared south. "Lily, protect Aria and your sisters.  Rose, GATEKEEPER."

"Be careful, father." Their concern carried through the link we shared. I spared a moment and looked through Lily's eyes as she rocked Jasmine to sleep.  I changed my focus and watched as Rose surfaced from the waves and spread her wings beneath a brilliant, star-filled sky.

I triggered my reply email as my feet touched down on familiar ground.  I put down the address and added, "Come alone."  I stuck the commlink in my pocket and knelt down to clear some branches from Pepper's grave.

"I'm sorry to do this here." I said as I sat down in the thin layer of snow that covered Pepper's grave. I sat there and talked as if my old friend could hear me.  Maybe he could.  After fifteen minutes the wind picked up fiercely and tall woman dropped from the sky and landed with all the grace of a cat.  Her flaming red hair and bright orange eyes were luminous under the night sky.

"Thomas Michael Gunne," she said. "you actually came all by yourself.  Is it foolish pride, a martyr's conviction, naivete or a death wish?"

"Probably just hopeless optimism." I replied. "I want to resolve our differences before anyone else gets hurt."

"You betrayed and killed my servant." She took a single step toward me. "One who had served me far longer than you can imagine."

"He betrayed our contract, tried to extort something that is rightfully mine, beat me and threatened my family.  His behavior was disgraceful, dishonorable and wholly unprofessional." I took a breath and a step toward her. "So yes, I killed him."

"Proud of it are you?" There was the slightest hint of something dire in her tone. "Killed a dragon, didn't you boy?  Murdered a being of such magnificence that you can't even comprehend its true nature." She took another long stride toward me, closing the gap between us to two meters.

"I'm not proud of having killed anyone. That's a disorder for psychos like Creep." I took a single step toward the woman. With less than a meter between us I caught the scent of cinnamon and something like smoke and molten metal. "I am pretty sure dragons don't work for metahumans.  You're a dragon yourself or the agent of one. I'm no threat to you, unless you keep after my family and then I can be a real problem."

She bristled at that, her hair turning a brighter shade of red.

"I'm pretty sure you can kill me outright but that isn't what you want." I looked her right into her blazing orange reptilian eyes. "You want the Place of Gates, and you can't have it."

"Another will take your place." She hissed at me.

"No doubt." I replied. "But it will be an eternity before that happens. Even now my daughter waits your decision. If you kill me she will seal the gates and deny you access for ages. You can kill me and wait for another age to come along or you can work with me and I can allow you access, but not for free."

"You dare?!" She spat.

"Yes." I reigned in my fear and put on my best glare. "You'll find that I can dare to do anything."

Her telepathic roar echoed in my skull.  Blood trickled from the corners of my eyes as the capillaries in my tear ducts ruptured. I was knocked flat from the force of her will.

"This again?" I asked as I picked myself up and rose once again to face her. "Your servant tried the same thing.  Can we deal, or do we fight, you kill me and lose the Place of Gates?"

"I don't have to kill you little mage, I can deliver unto you such torment that you will beg for death." Smoke snaked from her nostrils as her hands clenched into fists.

"I've been tormented by an enemy of madness and night. I've faced the Hell of men and been tortured by my greatest fears made reality. I've seen horrors," she flinched at that. "that no metahuman can describe.  Do your worst and you will lose that which you seek. A second time I ask, can we deal?"

Her neck elongated as her form shifted. Golden orange scales took shape as the dragon revealed herself.  She was massive, dwarfing the one she had only named as her servant.

The ground shuddered beneath her.  I felt the tingle of static shocks as the very air came alive from contact with her naked power.  Her long, scaled tail crashed down, creating a furrow in the church yard's lawn and cracking the plascrete in the parking lot. The dragon flared out her wings and blocked out the moon and stars. The very sky itself was replaced by the shadow of the great dragon before me.

Someone pissed my pants.

*****

Thank you for reading my fan fiction.  I want to thank Russell Zimmerman, Stephen Kenson, Lisa Smedman, Robert N. Charrette, Tom Dowd, Mel Odom, the legendary Nigel Findley (RIP), Michael A. Stackpole and so many others who have brought the world of Shadowrun to life for all of us fans.  Each added more color, depth, and breathed life into the setting in their own way and I am grateful to each of them.

We are nearing the end of "Aftermath".  I hope you are enjoying this tale and that it in some way will breath a little more life into your own Shadowrun world and experience.

I hope you'll join me for Chapter 14.

Thank you.
W.S. "Sam" Quinton