by Ryk E. Spoor
“Damn.” It was starting to look like the creature might be hiding somewhere in its actual guise, not living among regular citizens. While in theory that might make it easier to find because of the limitation of how many isolated, hidden areas there might be, in practice, the thing could just pop out in its unknown “default” guise whenever it needed something, and since that default still wasn’t known, no one would think twice about its appearance. Baker and I agreed that we might get somewhere by seeing if a stranger had been seen in the general area—that is, if our monster was at all interested in living the civilized life, it had to be picking up its cokes and chips somewhere, and even if it varied the routine, after a few weeks it had to be repeating locations. If we were lucky, someone would remember that. If it wasn’t into the comforts of the twentieth century, we might be in for a long, hard search.
“How about your end?”
I shrugged. “Depends on how the thing got here. So far, we haven’t found any probable entry times or points, but hell, we don’t know if it slithered here under its own power, walked in as a human being, or got shipped here as a Ronco Peel-O-Matic in a little cardboard box.”
“Maybe not, Wood, but you’re missing the point.”
I was always open to suggestions. “And the point being…?”
“Well, if’n we’re right about this thing not bein’ active until now, that means someone woke it up—either it hatched, or someone found it trapped somewhere and let it out.”
Maybe it was all the paper-pushing, but I didn’t quite see what he meant. “So?”
He gave me a “stupid human” look. “So, big shot, there’s damn few places there’d be a Mirrorkiller—egg or suspended—hangin’ ’round to be found. It’d have to be someplace where the coverup job on the Old Civilization wasn’t complete—real heavily defended vaults, places like that. Now, I ain’t up on the geography of that time, but you got friends who are. I’d ask them.”
I smacked my forehead. “Okay, thanks, I deserved that. Of course. I suppose the Greek legends came from one that was released in a similar fashion?”
Baker shrugged. “Probably. I don’t know firsthand, but makes sense; seem to remember something of an alert on one of the things being on the loose ’bout two, three millennia back or so, but I was in Asia most o’ that time. Ask your friends, they oughtta know.”
I gave a tiny shiver. Just when I was half-forgetting what he was, something would happen to bring it home. Verne always had that otherworldly air about him, courtesy of the movie-vampire image, which he happened to fit, and his own immense dignity. Baker, on the other hand, was as down-to-business a southern cop as you could imagine, and hearing that drawling voice casually mentioning a memory from before the time of Christ was unnerving. “Okay, I’ll get on it. Add in those disappearances and see if it gets anything new on the timing end.”
“Will do.”
Chapter 66: Research Expedition
“That few?”
Morgan nodded. “Ten is the largest number of reasonable sites that Master Verne can think of. You have been told the power involved, Master Jason. You must understand, the demonic forces did their very best—at the direction of their ruler—to eradicate every trace of the original civilization, and Atla’a Alandar apparently suffered a similar fate.” He unrolled a set of maps and began to lay them out on the floor of our hotel room. “Seven of them are, of course, at the locations of the Seven Towers; these were the bulwarks of Atlantaea’s defenses, and even in destruction may have continued to defend at least something in their immediate area from complete eradication.”
“Odd,” I said. “I’d have thought that such areas would’ve been the focus of specific clean-up efforts.”
“They most likely were, sir. However, according to Master Verne, the Towers’ very nature made them difficult to destroy completely; even in destruction, it seems, they may have cloaked some material from detection.”
I studied the maps and started marking off the locations on the globe. It was a jolt to notice that instead of exotic, faraway places, one of them appeared to be somewhere in the vicinity of Cape Cod. The rest of the ten locales were scattered around the globe, ranging from somewhere out in the middle of the south Atlantic Ocean to Germany.
“Now that you have this information, sir, do you have any idea what you will do with it?”
“Yep. That much I knew as soon as I asked. Obviously, this Maelkodan thing wasn’t mobile on its own before now, and I’ll bet money that, even immobile, it wasn’t anywhere with easy access.” I was using my laptop to access my home machine and set up the search criteria, tapping in the commands and specs. “So someone just dug it up, or in the case of the ones in the ocean, maybe dredged it up.”
I waited for that set of commands to be acknowledged, entered the next. “So what I’m doing is setting up a bunch of search parameters to, first, locate any expeditions or events that might have uncovered something unusual in the ten areas you’ve given me. In the case of deep-ocean sites, that’d have to be major scientific expeditions—no one goes down fifteen thousand feet in a casual dive. In land or shallow-water situations, there’s more potential for casual digs and dives that might happen to turn up something that Man Was Not Meant to Know.”
“I see,” said Morgan. “And after that?”
“Then I tie this in with law enforcement files.”
“Why law enforcement, Jason?” Sylvie asked, looking over my shoulder.
“Think about the scenario. By far, the most likely is this: Jane Doe finds something unusual—maybe it looks like an artifact, a fossil egg, whatever—on a dive or a dig. So the Maelkodan either wakes up right then, or it wakes up after she’s brought the thing home, or to the university, or on board the ship. In any case, when it wakes up, what does it do? Barring some ridiculous coincidence involving its default human form looking just like one of the people present, it can’t just slip out unnoticed, even assuming no one was looking when it woke up, hatched, whatever. Even if it does slip out, the finders are now missing part or all of their interesting find.”
“Very clever, sir.”
“Yes, I see, Jason. Either you’ll have someone who disappeared, someone who got killed, or some item or artifact stolen or disappeared.”
“Right. Now, if it was incredibly lucky, there might have been a werewolf available when it woke up, and then it could have assumed a form known to the people around. But even so, that person would have had to leave the area and end up here—or rather, it would likely have said it was going to some particular locale but came here to throw off any possible pursuit. Either way, it’s likely that someone would be looking for them by now unless the person in question was in the habit of just dropping out of sight for weeks at a time.”
“How long do you think it will take to do this?”
“Now that I’ve put in the parameters? A few hours, maybe, depending on how much stuff there is that makes a close fit.”
Morgan shook his head in amazement. “I still find myself shocked at the speed of such things, Master Jason. However, are you not making a bit of an assumption that what you are looking for is indeed online?”
“To an extent, certainly, but news services generally carry most of the kind of thing I’m looking for. If we come up completely dry, we’ll have to try something else, but let me give my machines a chance.” I pulled out a deck of cards. “Anyone for a game?”
A couple of hours later, I was glad we were playing for pennies. I’m not a complete putz at cards, but I’d forgotten that Morgan was probably older than the sheriff. He was clearly trouncing both of us. “I should’ve suggested a game of Magic,” I muttered as I shuffled and began to deal. “One-eyed jacks and the suicide king are wild.”
“My geeky husband, you forget that you’d be the only one with a deck,” Syl said, checking the cards as I dealt them.
“Couldn’t lose then, could I?”
“Actually, Lady Sylvia, I happen to have a very nice red-black
deck,” Morgan said, causing Sylvia to boggle and me to chortle. “Although I confess to not going by tournament rules and hardly being up-to-date on my cards.”
“No problem, Morgan, it’s not like I’m a fanatic who has time to keep up—” my laptop played a small fanfare. “Oh, goody—I mean, oh, darn, I guess I’ll have to sit this one out,” I said, dropping my cards on the table.
The others dropped theirs, too, and Morgan collected his winnings. I keyed in my go-ahead and data began to scroll across the screen.
“Anything?” Syl asked.
“Excavation in Chile…nope, nothing there…dredging…possible, but…digging for old Indian relics in New York, nothing promising there…well, well, what have we here?”
I highlighted the article and brought it up. “Doctor J. I. O’Connell of the University of Oxford Archaeology Department led a team of researchers in the past few months on a survey of supposed underwater ruins off the coast of Cuba and other Caribbean islands. Their purpose was to find an accessible site to see if they could uncover anything in these ruins which would verify their age and origin.”
“Looks quite promising, Master Jason.”
I grinned. “Yep. And the physical nearness is encouraging. I mean, if you’re in Mongolia and looking for some wolves for lunch, it’d probably be a lot easier to head for China. But if you’re in the Caribbean, you head for the good old USA.” I keyed in a request for a search on more information on O’Connell, this recent expedition, where he might be presenting the results, and so on.
A few seconds later, the results popped up. One carried the red flag signifying it was a law-enforcement file. “I’ll be damned,” I said. “Look at this.”
Syl read aloud. “Missing Persons Report: James I. O’Connell.”
“I believe we have a winner,” I said grimly.
“Even more so, sir,” Morgan said, pointing to the bottom of the list.
From the screen, I read: “Underwater archaeology team hopes to present results at conference in Florida.”
A double-click brought up the entire article, which was an interview with Dr. O’Connell and a few of his students. In it, O’Connell indicated that he hoped to present at least a preliminary review of the results at the UAR (Underwater Archaeological Researchers) local conference in Florida. I read from the article. “‘This is all very tentative,’ O’Connell said with a grin, ‘since we don’t know our exact timetable yet, let alone if we’re going to have any decent results to present. Still, I’ve given them tentative notification so they’ll be ready.’” I looked up at the others. “Bingo. A few calls, and we’ll know exactly how and when our little friend entered the country.”
A Web search found the UAR page (after encountering the acronym in use for things as diverse as a Mac networking program, a UK asset recovery agency, and Russian architects, I had tp specify what UAR was) and a listing of their event schedule. A chill went down my spine as I read:
“Local Archaeology Conference: February 22–25, Venice, Florida.”
Chapter 67: Showing Up Without Being There
I listened to the ring tone. Again. Again.
“Hello?”
The London-accented voice was that of a young woman.
“Could I speak to Mandy Gennaro, please?” I said, making sure I was reading the right name.
“Speaking. Who is this?”
“Ms. Gennaro, my name is Jason Wood.”
“Not the—”
“Yes, the,” I said. I revised my estimate of how many people knew my name; given how much the Morgantown event had forced the revision of people’s security systems, it might be that I was currently a household name throughout the entire civilized world. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you have a few minutes.”
“Hold on!” I heard footsteps hurry away, a clatter, then footsteps returning. “Sorry, had something on to cook. Is this about the professor?”
“In part, certainly. I know the police have already gone over everything with you, so I’ll try to make it quick.”
“How are you involved, Mr. Wood?”
“It’s rather complicated to explain. In a nutshell, I’ve gotten involved in an investigation here in the States which may be connected with Dr. O’Connell’s disappearance in some way.”
“Right, then. Go ahead.”
I ran through a short list of questions, establishing that she knew O’Connell quite well, having had him as her advisor for the past three years, and that she had been his right-hand person on the expedition.
“So you were very familiar with the sites, then?”
She had a nice laugh. “No, no. I was in charge because I’d done underwater investigations before—on an old Greek merchantman in the Mediterranean. So I understood the limitations and requirements more than most of the other students. You don’t really grasp the dangers unless you’ve been down in the muck yourself, you see.”
“Was all the equipment yours? The University’s, I mean?”
“Oh, lordy no. ’Twas a joint project, you understand—your own National Geographic Society helped sponsor it, and we had a few others to help. Submersibles and so on, they aren’t cheap, not even for a big university.”
“I understand that Dr. O’Connell vanished at the airport.”
She hesitated. “It did seem that way…”
It was an obvious opening. “…but?”
“Is this confidential?” she asked suddenly.
“Well, I’m not a lawyer or priest—I can’t be protected under law against talking—but I won’t say anything about this conversation that I don’t have to legally to anyone not directly involved in the investigation I’m doing,” I answered. “If you want to verify that I am who I say I am, I can give you some numbers to call to verify my bona fides.”
“Oh, no, no. It’s just that the issue’s a bit touchy now, and the police are still being a bit hush-hush about it all,” she answered. “Here it is. The night he disappeared, he left in a bit of a hurry. There were some last-minute notes about how he wanted the materials handled and so on, but he said he’d had a sudden personal emergency and had to leave immediately. He got himself plane tickets out, right there at the airport, but he never actually left.”
I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “I get you. No one who knew him actually saw him from any point after…when?”
“Dinnertime. He went off to the lab to finish some notework on our finds, and since we were already getting ready to pull out, the rest of us were more into relaxing a bit.”
“So if someone got to him on board your ship, they could’ve just left the notes and then used his card to buy the tickets.”
“Right.”
“Were the notes in his handwriting?”
I could almost hear a shrug in her tone. “Could’ve been. I wasn’t studying them hard then. Since, well, they don’t look quite right, but then if he was in a hurry and upset…anyway, the police will probably be able to say for sure.”
“Anything else odd?”
Again, she hesitated. “Not at the time. But…well, we brought our finds to RLAHA when we arrived—”
“RLAHA?”
“Sorry, the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art,” Mandy clarified. “And just the other day they found something very odd. We’d uncovered this thing—some of us thought it was a sarcophagus, others thought it was a vault box, and others thought it was some kind of storage chest for holy relics—but whatever it was, it was big, had a lid, and seemed hollow. Anyway, RLAHA and our team started going over it so we can date it, open it properly and all, and what do we find? It’s apparently already been opened—in the air.”
“Dr. O’Connell wouldn’t have done that on his own, maybe out of curiosity?”
The tone of her voice indicated she was somewhat offended, somewhat tolerant of my ignorance (partial ignorance, actually—I thought I knew the answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask). “Mr. Wood
, no archaeologist worth his or her degree would even think of it. We’re not playing Indiana Jones up here. Such an object is like a time capsule, but a very, very delicate one. Open it under the wrong conditions, and you can destroy what it can tell you.”
“I understand. Was this sarcophagus, or whatever, one of the things you discussed at the UAR conference in Florida?”
There was a long pause. “I’m a bit confused, Mr. Wood. I wasn’t at the UAR conference—Dr. O’Connell intended to go himself. He was going to confirm his travel plans with them either the night he disappeared or the next night, in fact. That never happened…” Her voice trailed off, then came back, “…but it is a bit odd…I did get a letter a few days ago from Dr. Rodriguez of the UAR, discussing some of our finds. I thought it a bit odd, but I haven’t really read it carefully yet.”
“You didn’t attend the UAR conference in Venice, Florida?” I repeated.
“No, I did not, Mr. Wood. Why?”
I looked down at the flyer in my hand, printed from the UAR site. “Because, according to the UAR, not only were you there, but you presented a quick but fascinating overview of what you found,” I answered. “Ms. Gennaro, would you do me a favor? Fax me a picture of yourself, so I can show it to some of the attendees?”
She was silent for a moment, probably still trying to absorb what I’d just said. Then, “What…? Yes, yes, of course. If someone’s running around pretending to be me…well, I don’t know what to think. Your number?”
I gave her my fax number—actually an e-fax number, one that would send the fax as an e-mail so I could retrieve it anywhere.
“Will there be anything else?”
“No, not at the moment. You’ve been immensely helpful, Ms. Gennaro.”
“You’re welcome. Could I trouble you to at least let me know what you find out?”
I hesitated. I could probably come up with a bowdlerized version that would be close enough for her to hear. “I certainly will.”