Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One]

by Nick Pollotta

  Father Donaher approached from the west, shotgun under one arm, the other holding a Bible, ready to administer a withering blast or a deadly blessing. I had always admired the man's raw courage. Moving to the sidewalk, the whirlwind ripped free a bench and hurled it at the priest. Donaher dodged and the bench hit George sideways with a sickening crunch. He dropped the M60 and hit the ground staying very still.

  A twirling baton of steel and wood, the double-headed axe came out of the north and plowed into the tornado, knocking the demon off its hooves. That made the wind slow and a Molotov cocktail arched in to smash on the demon, spreading into a pool of flame. Frantically, the creature rolled away from the fire and a crowbar twirled by, just missing its face by a scant half inch.

  On command, Jessica was by my side and she mentally relayed my orders. Now our attack coalesced. As the others circled about the creature to hold it in position, the fierce wind tore at our clothes, bits of dirt and leaves hitting us with stinging impact.

  I fired off my last two bullets, the brutal currents deflecting the heavy rounds, but I still managed to wound the demon in the shoulder, the silver slug withering the limb into a stick. Ha! Raul gestured and a duplicate of each of us stood next to the original. Richard fired an arrow from the ornate ring on his index finger. Donaher pulled out a silver-edged knife. I grabbed my pistol by the barrel and got ready to throw. Jess raised another Molotov. We advanced slowly as it braced for our attack.

  Then from out of the sky, Mindy came swinging by overhead at the end of an electric power cable. Halfway across the street, she dropped away and the cable sailed on, sucked in by the very protective force of the vortex. The demon tried to dodge, but with the same success as George. The end of the cable caught it in the chest and lightning erupted from the contact. Fat sparks crackled and danced over the galvanized hellspawn, its misshapen body jerking about madly.

  Trying to get free, it expanded the tornado to completely engulf the town. Windows shattered and cars flipped over as the screaming hurricane increased in force and volume, until the whole world seemed to be filled with the throbbing maelstrom.

  Latching onto a fireplug, I hugged it with all of my strength, desperately trying not to be blown away. Leaves plastered my face, loose items bounced off my arms and legs. The sidewalk cracked, the fireplug began to rise and then just as fast as it started, the buffeting winds abruptly ceased.

  I bellyflopped onto the concrete, and painfully struggled to my feet. With gun in hand, I started for the traffic circle, the rest of my team close behind. This could be a trick, but when we arrived there was only a greasy smudge on the ground where the demon had been standing. Aw right, electricity. It was the only way to stop demons or extra-terrestrial carrots. However, sprawled nearby was George, motionless underneath the bench.

  It took three of us to move the bench, but a cursory examination by Donaher showed that George was alive, just badly bruised and with several broken ribs. No prob. Once in the van we could fix minor wounds such as those easily.

  With Donaher and Richard supporting the man, we made our way through the debris-strewn streets and past the growing crowd of civilians. A local reporter tried to take our picture and Jessica tripped, accidentally breaking his camera. Such a clumsy gal is our Jess.

  Do my best, chief.

  Two corners later we reached the parking garage by City Hall. A sign by the kiosk said they were open twenty-four hours, but the attendant was nowhere in sight. As a precaution, the team fanned out while Mindy and I checked the wooden booth. There was nothing suspicious, except for a tipped cup of coffee on the table that was dripping liquid onto the tiled floor. I followed a drop down to a pair of battered shoes underneath. Then blinked in shock. The shoes were not empty, feet were inside neatly cut off at the ankles. Yuck. This was becoming mondo bizzarro.

  Our van was on level two, the middle level. We had specially chosen it for security reasons, not readily accessible from the ground, not directly exposed to the sky. But now it meant our unknown adversary had lots of shadows to hide in.

  Keeping to the center of the main ramp, we reached level two, and, big surprise, the lights were out. In a standard two on two defensive formation, we edged along to the middle line of cars. Sure enough, there was the attendant, checking license plate numbers on a clipboard. His feet, however, were strategically hidden behind a cement bumper.

  "Hi, guys,” he said showing a big smile and giving a wave. “Finished with ya fishing already?"

  "Black!” I shouted adjusting my sunglasses. “Get black!"

  He obviously thought I said “Get back!” which was the general idea. But the team heard me correctly and Donaher cut loose with his shotgun, blowing the man-thing to crimson bits. Even as the body fell, the tattered flesh parted with a horrid sucking sound and out stepped a transparent skeleton. Smeared with blood, the bones were bluish, appearing very similar to ice.

  "Tunafish!” Raul cried, gesturing. We blinked, it didn't.

  As the thing clawed blindly at its skull, Richard hit the skeleton with an arrow from his ring. No effect. I decided to play hardball.

  "Timex!” I commanded, undoing the strap of my wristwatch.

  Tearing off their timepieces, everybody twisted the dials and tossed the devices towards the shambling mockery. It walked right over them and the resulting explosion of the self-destruct mechanisms rocked the garage, setting off a hundred goddamn car alarms. We waited, and when the smoke cleared away there was nothing remaining but a charred patch on the cracked concrete.

  Mindy tried to speak, but the alarms drowned her out. Jessica nudged Raul, he gestured and silence returned.

  "Never seen the species before,” Richard commented, mopping some blue moisture off his T-shirt with a handkerchief. “Anybody snatch a picture?"

  Jessica silently displayed her pocket camera for an answer.

  "Atta, girl!"

  You're welcome, Edwardo, dear.

  "Come on,” Father Donaher snorted, impatiently. “Let's get to the van."

  The rest of us agreed wholeheartedly and we raced across the parking level in double-time. Nestled between a RV and a delivery truck, we found our vehicle safe and unharmed. Twenty-two feet long and eight feet high, the van was more a mobile home than anything else. Or rather, mobile fort. The windows were inch-thick Armorlite plastic, the hull armored to withstand .50 rounds. All ten of the tires were military-grade self-repairing radials. The RV was airtight, with a twelve hour supply of oxygen, carried more electrical surveillance equipment than Air Force One and had a missile pod disguised as an air-conditioner unit on the roof. We stole that idea from a Mack Bolan novel. At the present, we lacked missiles. Those weren't normally considered standard supplies for a vacation. Although they would be from now on.

  Reaching the van, we carefully turned off the antipersonnel devices, canceled the magical barrier and unlocked the doors. Following procedure for being away for this long, we ran a security check, but the vehicle was clean. The only bugs were the crickets in a cage to feed our pet watchdog. A fat little lizard we called Amigo. He didn't appear dangerous, but the carnivorous Gila had a tiny magical necklace about its throat and God help the poor thief who broke into our van. ‘Nuff said.

  Firmly locking the doors, we gently laid George on a bunk that folded out from the wall. He was white and sweaty, but did not complain of our rough handling. In short order, I had his shirt off and the mages were taping his chest with a soft golden cloth, muttering steadily. As we watched, the exposed bruises started to pale and the fat man heaved a mighty sigh.

  Convinced he was going to be fine, I made my way to the rear of the van. Already, Donaher was elbow-deep in the weapon locker reloading his shotgun and getting a belt of mixed ammo for George. Mindy had her rainbow sword strapped to her waist and was testing the balance on a handful of razor-sharp oriental throwing stars. They have a name, but I forget. Jessica was checking the action on a double-barrel taser stun pistol. I helped myself to a couple of reloads for
the Magnum and a satchel of grenades. Everybody took a new watch.

  We then exchanged positions with the mages, who cycled open the special cabinet containing their wands and books. Raul's wand was about a foot long and made of steel. Richard's was three feet long, and solid silver tipped with gold. Apparently the better the wizard, the fancier the staff. Guess they started off with wood and ended with diamond. Jimmy used to tease Raul about the length of his staff, until the mage turned him into a toad for an afternoon and that sort of took the fun out of it.

  Preliminaries over, the two wizards took seats at the back of the van well away from the radio, which had a habit of not working in their immediate presence; as did firearms, VCRs and computers, but not fax machines. Once they tried to explain why, but I got lost as they dove into quantum mechanics and the nature of flux reality.

  Jessica was in the swivel chair before the communications console, her nimble fingers tapping authorizations and such into the mainframe computer. The laser printer came to life with a whine, sliding out the finished paper into view when done.

  "Hmm, it's in code,” she said, offering me the sheet. That was odd. Sitting in the passenger seat, I stared at the paper, letting the garbled words enter my mind and re-arrange themselves into coherent sentences. “Identification code, yes, that's correct, from the office of Horace Gordon, the big boss himself, in reference to blah, blah, blah...” As I finished reading the message, the paper dropped to the floor. “Holy shit!"

  "What is it?” Jessica asked, snatching the paper but the ink was already gone

  "Holy shit!” I repeated, unable to express myself any more clearly or precisely.

  "I think we may need more information than that, chief,” Richard said, sounding amused.

  "And watch the language,” Donaher scolded, working the pump action of the shotgun.

  Moaning, George sat upright on the bunk appearing much better. “Talk, Ed,” he whispered hoarsely, herbal smoke billowing from his mouth.

  A swallow cleared my throat. “We,” I paused to cough. “We've been ordered to Bureau headquarters."

  Silence thick as lead filled the van. Then Father Donaher mumbled something in Latin, and the rest of the team nodded assent.

  Holy shit, indeed.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mindy opened and closed her mouth a few times as if to chew air into her lungs. “Bureau headquarters?” she asked, stressing the last word.

  "B-but nobody even knows where it is!” Raul stammered, spreading his arms wide. “We've been under maximum security since 1987!"

  The slaughter of ‘87, I called it. A bloodbath when over eighty percent of the total Bureau personnel were killed within a four hour period. To this day we still had no exact knowledge of who, or how, it was done. But we were still looking and would do so forever.

  Brushing back his wild crop of hair, Richard licked dry lips. “So where is it?” he asked excitedly.

  "Manhattan, New York,” I announced. “Thirty-third Street and Third Avenue. The Gunderson Building. We're to get there ASAP, pronto and fast."

  "Why?” Donaher asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

  Already behind the wheel, George was starting the engines and doing a systems check. This was a time I didn't mind having Mr. Speed-Limits-Are-Only-a-Suggestion-and-Not-The-Law doing the driving.

  "Don't know,” I said truthfully, buckling in tight. “They'll tell us when we get there."

  Without further discussion, the group started strapping on seat belts and George backed out of our parking space at 90 mph.

  * * * *

  We were an hour outside Pineville on Route 95 south when flashing lights and sirens sounded from behind us. George paid them no attention and maintained speed. As the police car pulled alongside, I gave the officers a fast scan with my Kirlian sunglasses.

  "Human,” I announced.

  From inside the other car, an angry police officer motioned us to pull over. Jessica started twisting dials on the radio until she found their frequency. Should have seen their faces when we broke into their conversation with the local police station. We identified ourselves as FBI agents on a priority mission, with absolutely no time to spare. Through the window, I showed them a fistful of federal ID badges. The station was loath to accept this, but the patrol bought the story, slowed and let us pass.

  A Bureau 13 deluxe model, the radio was equipped to work on nigh every frequency in the spectrum. Including a couple of military channels. But none of the top secret frequencies, of course. That would be illegal. Only the NSA was chartered for such activity. In fact, my team could chant in unison: “No, sir, we did not have access to any top secret military channels. Uh-uh."

  A few hours later, George spotted some hitchhikers standing on the berm, looking forlorn and waggling thumbs. Both of the women were amazingly beautiful, with ample young breasts almost bursting out of those skimpy halter tops, and cut-off jeans that only accented the sort of legs that made a man drop to his knees and thank God for his Y chromosome. Not that Mindy and Jessica were lacking anything in aesthetic quality. Ms. Jennings was nicely attractive, in a muscular sort of way, and Jess a total fox. Hubba hubba. But these two buxom babes were outstanding.

  As we came near, I checked them over with my sunglasses and got nominal readings. The human aura of the women meant nothing in this business. They could be brainwashed assassins, or artificial constructs, just about anything. Then again, maybe they were exactly what they seemed to be, two women lost in upstate New York needing a ride back to civilization.

  Only where was a broken car, camping gear, roller skates, or parachutes? Just how did a couple of dainty beach bunnies reach this glorious middle of nowhere? Walk? Yeah, right.

  Now suspicious as hell, I drew my trusty S&W .357 Magnum and clicked back the hammer while dialing for computer enhancement on my Bureau sunglasses. Ya never know, ya know? Suddenly the magical illusion of the sexy human females faded away to reveal a stack of crates bearing the military designation for C4, high explosive plastique.

  Oh crap. “It's a trap!” I shouted, over the roar of our racing engines.

  Savagely twisting the steering wheel, George tried to swerve away from the hellspawn centerfolds just as the crates violently detonated.

  Thunder filled the universe, the RV was thrown off the road and went flying into the sky over the median. Encased in boiling fire, my team could only hang on for dear life as we went ass over teakettle, every loose item in the vehicle went shotgunning from side to side, as we rolled over and over. It felt as if we were airborne forever before the van finally slammed into the pavement with a bone-jarring crash. The windows cracked, airbags punched us against our seats, the fire alarm went off, Amigo dropped from the ceiling, the lockers erupted supplies onto the floor, the radio switched to AM, and our spare tire went rolling by outside.

  Steadily cursing, George used a combat knife hidden in his boot to stab himself free from the airbag, noisily sneezing at the powdery discharge from inside the safety balloons, then shifted gears, gunned the engines, and the van roared away on smoking tires. Ha ha! Alive and still kicking! Although our little armored chariot was now shaking so badly it made the bullets in my gun rattle.

  "SSttoopp tthhee vvaann!!” I ordered as my glasses headed south for Miami.

  "NNoo wwaayy,” George replied, fighting the madly bucking steeringwheel. “MMaayybbee mmoorree!!"

  That was true enough. But this could not go on for long before we started breaking things not already damaged by the blast. Such as our internal organs, and other non-essentials. Tightening my seat belt, I killed the alarm and motioned for Raul to come up front. After an aborted attempt to walk, he resorted to crawling on hands and knees. Flying was seriously of the question, what with the floor and the ceiling attempting to touch each other at the present moment.

  "AAnnyy rruubbbbeerr ssttiillll oonn ttiirree??” I asked all nine of him.

  Raul touched the interior
wheelwell and furrowed his brow. After a minute, he nodded yes. A wizard's ‘inner sight’ lets him see through a lot of things. Quite handy on a mission, but reason number one why you never play poker with a mage.

  "FFiixx iitt,” I ordered, cheeks wabbling madly.

  Brandishing his wand, Raul touched the metal rod to the wheelwell, but it kept bouncing off. Gritting his teeth, the wizard held it in place with his other hand and starting harshly muttering. A thin stream of sparkles flowed from the tip of the wand and seeped into the floor. Immediately our ride began to smooth and soon we were running straight and even.

  Doing ninety plus on the wrong side of the highway.

  George corrected that by bouncing over the median again. The sharp jostles a mere waltz after our recent slam dance.

  "Whew,” Raul sighed, slumping in a chair, the auto-massage refusing to function for the mage as usual. “I've fixed flat tires before, but never on a moving vehicle."

  "Cup of tea?” Mindy asked, moving to the kitchenette.

  "Make it a brandy."

  She glanced at me and I gave a hesitant okay. Raul had a possible problem in that area and we kept a watch on his drinking. On the other hand...

  "Make that two,” I said, licking my lips.

  * * * *

  A short while later, we entered a ‘Falling Rock’ zone, a towering cliff of veined granite edging the highway on our side. I was driving at the time and on a hunch hit the nitrous oxide injector.

  In a roar, the engine revved to overload, the dashboard meters hit the red and we rocketed through the area at 150 mph with flame coming out of our twin tail pipes. Nothing else happened, but it was always smart to play it safe.

  * * * *

  Six hours later, I knew we were in New York City before reading the sign, because we were slammed to halt reaching bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  "Parade?” Richard asked, craning his neck for a better view.