Free Shadowrun: Spells & Chrome by John Helfers Page B

street, leaving Moses to stare at the twin blue snakes undulating in the spreading troll blood.
    A lone goose in a barely-there skirt screamed and drew Moses’ attention away from the snakes.
    “Nuyen,” Moses said. “Nuyen. Nuyen. Nuyen. Came down here to get me some.” He kicked the submachinegun away. Moses didn’t care for guns. Sure, he could use them, and he had a smartlink for a heavy pistol he lost on a corp-run. But he preferred knives because they didn’t make as much noise. He turned the troll over and retrieved his knives. He shoved them back in the boot sheathes, more worried about speed than the blood, and rifled through the troll’s pockets as gawkers came to stand over him. “A credstick. Good. Got me some nuyen I wasn’t expecting. Not a whole lot on it, though.”
    “It’s the puddle guy.” The goose in the crinkly dress was back.
    Couldn’t she find someone to dock with? Moses wondered. She was pretty enough. Maybe she ought to lower her price.
    He slapped the side of his head with his palm, rattling the GPS just enough to get him back on track. “Around the corner. Down the alley,” he said. “Later,” he told the elf-geese. Then he was gone, his wired reflexes giving him a boost of speed that took him around the edge of the all-night pharmacy, down half a block and into the alley. He didn’t hear any sirens, but he figured sooner or later someone would call about the troll bleeding out on the sidewalk. It had been self-defense, hadn’t it? The troll had been carrying a gun, after all.
    There weren’t any snakes at the mouth of the alley. There was plenty of water for them, as Moses sloshed through one puddle after the next as he made his way around trash receptacles sitting outside the backdoors of bars, sex shops, and diners. But there weren’t any neon signs, and it was the signs that gave birth to the best snakes. Moses felt better when there were snakes around. Moses was supposed to have snakes.
    “Exodus four-three and four,” Moses said. Why was it he could remember the Bible verses so easy but not the color of the whatever-it-was he had on layaway with Doc? “And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand.” He sucked in a deep breath and went farther down the alley. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
    A cat hissed and shot in front of him, disappearing behind crates stacked at a barber’s back door.
    “Hurry with this,” Moses told himself. He wanted to get the nuyen and get back out on the street. Find that cherry-grape snake again and ogle it a little longer before he visited Doc and had … what was that he was going to the clinic for? “Hair.” He was pleased that he remembered that. “Hair and—” Hair and something else. He’d put his mind to it after this was over. Put his head to it. “Head. Head. Head.”
    Moses scratched the bumps above his eyes and brightened. “And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as the lord commanded Moses. Leviticus eight-nine.”
    What was his sister’s address? Eight Nine something. Ruth, right? Yeah, Ruth. Wither-though-goest-Ruth.
    Halfway down the alley, that’s where the GPS tugged him.
    “Didja bring the nuyen?”
    Moses stopped, peering into the shadows, insect-like compound cybereyes separating the grays and blacks and finding the man … dwarf … thickset, grubby-looking. They all were dirty-looking, the ones who dealt in these sorts of things.
    “Did you bring the beetles?” Moses returned.
    The dwarf stepped away from the wall.
    And the good ones were rich.
    “Nuyen. Nuyen. Nuyen,” Moses whispered. His ears whirred and clicked, picking up the dwarf’s heartbeat and the slow slap of his