by E A Comiskey
Stanley’s steps remained as steady as ever, moving ever northward in a steady, determined march. “You did, Dick.”
For the life of him, Richard couldn’t think of a response to that, so he just kept on walking.
“Look.” Stanley pointed at a tree with a warbly sort of zig-zag spiral carved around the circumference of the trunk.
“Warding?” Richard asked.
“Doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before,” Stanley said.
Richard scanned the area and picked out four more trees with marks on them, none of them familiar. “I been wondering how you can ward against everything. I mean, if The Children of Cain can’t go in at all, they must of set up a system to keep everything from witches to angels out of their little camp.”
“And yet, they get their own monsters in and out, somehow,” Stanley said.
Richard hadn’t really thought of that, but it was a valid point. “Smells fishy.”
“Indeed.” Stanley started walking again.
“You think that guy, Michael, was straight with us?”
“No,” Stanley said.
Richard harrumphed. “You ‘bout wearing out my ears with all your chattering.”
Stanley’s head turned in his direction for just a moment. No matter that the mask over Stanley’s face covered his mouth, Richard was one hundred percent certain he was grinning. He could feel the grin.
“I think Michael sees us as disposable—a couple of grunts being sent in to do a job. Thanks to The Devil’s orders, he can’t directly hurt us, but if we happen to die doing what we do...well...that’s no fault of his, right? He’s told us what he thinks we absolutely need to know to accomplish what he wants done and not one bit more.”
“If we know we can’t trust him, why in tarnation are we working with him?”
Stanley pushed a branch out of the way and held it while Richard ducked under it. “Because he’s working with The Devil we know.”
Richard tucked that in his craw to chew on while they hiked. The idea tasted bitter and unsettling, to say the least, but he couldn’t think of a single decent counter argument.
Chapter Thirty-One
Richard
Hi-tech, goblin-magic, orc-crafted gear notwithstanding, the first shot of adrenaline upon arrival had burned away and Richard was feeling about half dead when the trees started thinning and the smell of the world’s largest freshwater lake grew strong enough to overpower the scent of pine. The sight of the rocket pointing toward the starry sky and the long, low building off to the west provided a second shot so powerful it sent his heart into a painful racing thump.
Looking at the setup burned his eyes.
“Take the goggles off,” Stanley whispered as if reading his mind.
Richard pushed the contraption onto his forehead and understood. The goggles amplified every tiny bit of light to give them night vision. In this place, with its ferocious halogen lamps set up at close intervals, the amplification was overwhelming. “Now what?”
The rocket stood like the world’s largest phallus on the shore of the world’s largest freshwater lake. Waves, illuminated by the bright work lamps, rolled landward in choppy bursts driven by the winter storms rolling in from the west. A long brick building with a lot of garage doors and no windows hugged the frozen earth. A handful of people—or people-shaped creatures—in orange overalls trudged back and forth between the two structures or rode in little golf carts.
“She’s got to be somewhere in there,” Stanley said, pointing at the warehouse.
“Could you narrow it down a little? Place must be a quarter mile long, and who knows how far underground it goes.”
A popping noise sounded off to their left and the two of them dove behind a massive fallen pine. Nearby, a towering tree sporting the squiggly carvings they’d noticed throughout the forest glowed blue and a creature that looked like some sort of Neanderthal, wearing clothes from a comic strip set a thousand years in the future, materialized out of the solid wood. He glanced around and grunted something in a deep guttural language Richard couldn’t place as anything he’d ever heard before. The creature took two loping strides toward the warehouse and then stopped. Squinting into the darkness toward the log behind which he and Stanley crouched, the thing sniffed and took a slow step in their direction.
On the beach, an electric motor approached, and a comical little toy horn beeped three times. The Neanderthal jerked in that direction and ran off toward the golf cart, grunting in its strange language.
The two men waited until the creature was gone before rising to their full height. Richard’s joints popped in protest. He shoved aside concerns about his physical ability to complete the job at hand. In the immortal words of Tom Hanks, failure was not an option.
“That’s how they get their own people in and out.” Stanley approached the tree and studied the carving. “These aren’t wardings. They’re portals.”
“Portals?”
Stanley glanced back at him. “Doors that ought not be opened.”
“So, what was that thing?” Richard asked.
“Nothing you’re going to find in a hunter’s journal, I’d wager. Not in this space-time continuum, anyway.” He let his hand fall away from the etchings on the tree. “Let’s focus on getting to Burke.” He pointed at one end of the building. “See those garage bays?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re hauling equipment out of there and loading it on the shuttle. I’d wager she’s in the opposite end of the building. It’ll be quieter and more secure there.”
Some distance away in the forest came a popping and a faint blue light. They ducked again. A smallish man-shaped figure emerge from the woods a few hundred feet farther down the beach and went loping off on all fours toward the Coleum building.
“How we going to get in there?” Richard asked.
Stanley watched the creature approach the building and jog into the brightly lit bay. “We’re going to walk in.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Most likely.”
Richard tried to get a good look at Stanley’s face to gauge whether or not he was serious. “We’ll be dead before our feet hit the sand.”
Stanley rubbed his chin with the backs of his fingers. “I don’t think so, old boy. I think they’re so over-confident in their superior strength and magical warding that it never occurred to them to protect themselves from good old human trespassers.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Richard asked.
“Then we go with plan B,” Stanley said.
“Which is what?”
“I’ll let you know when the time comes.”
Richard harrumphed, but followed Stanley past the edge of the woods into the exposed area of the beach. Walking through the rocky sand required more concentration that he wanted to give it, and he longed for a paved sidewalk where he wouldn’t have to hitch along like a cripple. His breath came in harsh gasps that hurt his chest.
“Okay?” Stanley asked.
“Fine as frog’s hair,” Richard grunted.
Behind them, a faint popping noise sounded in the distance. To their right, a group of workers exited the rocket, communicating in a series of clicks and whistles that sounded distinctly insectile. To their left, a golf cart pulled out from one of the garages, headlights pointed toward them.
Richard wondered why he’d never considered buying adult diapers. One of these days, he was bound to mess himself and it seemed like the inevitable moment would be slightly less humiliating if he wore something that would keep it from seeping through his pants. “What do we do?” he whispered.
“Head down, old boy. Keep walking.”
One of the bugs clicked more loudly than the others.
Richard’s heart hammered against his ribcage. “They’re honing in like a tornado in a trailer park.”
“Just keep walking. It’ll be fine,” Stanley said.
Bugman switched to English, “Hey! You! Who you?” he clicked and whistl
ed.
Stanley waved. “Good to see you chaps again. We’re headed in for the morning shift.”
“Who you?” he asked again. The whole group of them loomed close enough now for Richard to see their heads, like giant termites, complete with serrated mandibles. He fought the whimper rising in his throat.
“They’re on us like flies on the meat wagon,” Richard wheezed.
“Plan B, my friend. You go get Burke.”
Panic rose up, hot and burning in Richard’s throat. “What?”
“Go, Dick! I’ll distract them.”
“But I—”
“Go, dammit!” Stanley hissed. Dropping to a crouch, he pulled two guns from beneath his coat and fired into the group of giant bugs. Green stuff sprayed into the still night air.
Richard stumbled and hitched as fast as he could across the uneven ground. The golf cart headlights rose up in front of him and he reached into his pocket for one of the little round balls that bounced against his sides. With a trembling hand, he tossed it in the direction of the golf cart and missed by a good six feet. Sand blew into the air, thirty feet high, knocking the cart over. He didn’t wait to see how the driver and his passengers reacted. Just as he reached the building, another three cartloads of creatures he couldn’t identify rolled out into the night. He pressed himself against one of the closed bay doors, hiding as well as he could in the corner. With their focus on Stanley and the melee happening out on the beach, not one of them saw the old man clutching the wall and gasping for air.
When they’d exited, he peeked around the corner. No one was looking his way. He darted into the building and through a door that led into a corridor as long and bright as a hallway in Heaven. His footsteps echoed against the tile floor, but no one approached him as he passed door after door, wondering how on Earth he would ever figure out where his granddaughter was being held.
“Barbara, if you’re up there and watching over me, I need you to send me a sign, ‘cause I’m just about as lost as a virgin in a whorehouse right now, and darn near in as much trouble, too.” His whisper rasped from his dry throat and echoed back to him from the cold walls.
At the end of the hall, a door banged open. Acting on pure instinct, Richard opened the nearest door and ducked into darkness.
“I won’t let them kill you without me being there to help,” a low, resonant growl echoed down the hall. “After the past twelve hours, I deserve my shot at you.”
Nails clicked against the tiles, drawing close to the door of Richard’s room and passing it. Another door opened and clicked shut toward the end of the hall from which he’d come.
Richard released his breath and pressed his head against the wall for just a moment, trying to settle the stars bursting behind his eyes. His blood pressure had to be through the roof. If Maddie could see him now, she’d have him committed, for sure. Turning slightly to one side, he saw blank white eyes staring back at him and jumped away from them, yelping.
In the dim light of the room, a hundred pairs of eyes watched him without expression.
The stars popped in his vision again. His legs trembled and threatened to give out.
His back slammed against the door and somehow the impact shook sense into his brain. These were not the eyes of monsters looking to devour him. They stared out of the sockets of heads that floated in clear liquid in large glass jars.
Shivers wracked his body with such force his false teeth clacked together and threatened to fall out. He stumbled out of the wretched storage room back into the hall. Thank God from Whom all blessings flow, his luck held once more and no one saw him.
His hip was shot. Too much lurching, jerking, falling, crouching, and pathetic running. The joint continued to support his weight but refused to move in any direction. He hitched like a wooden puppet toward the door the growling guard had come out of. So far as he could see, it was one of two doors in the whole place with a tiny rectangular window at eye level. The other, across the hall, was dark and quiet. He peeked into the lighted space.
Burke stood in a cage just big enough to accommodate her height and give her enough space to sit down if she chose to do so. At the moment, she stood with her feet planted shoulder-width apart and her hands wrapped around the bars. Her pretty features were twisted in a defiant snarl.
He fiddled with his hearing aid but failed to make out any sound. He ventured a wave in front of the window. Her eyes darted toward the motion and widened. She frantically motioned for him to enter.
He yanked open the door and nearly fainted with relief. “You’re alive!”
Tears brimmed in her dark eyes. “You, too!”
He took stock of her cell—an iron cage with a heavy industrial padlock. “We gotta bust you out.”
She shook her head. “He’ll be back, or another one will. They never leave me alone for more than a minute or two.” Her gaze darted around the room. “Hide under that desk,” she said, pointing.
Richard eyed the little leg space under the desk. “Not a chance, kid. The hip is shot. Can’t do anything that means folding up like a yogi.”
Burke cursed under her breath. “There, then. In that cabinet.”
A tall metal cabinet stood in one corner, the door slightly ajar. Richard dragged himself to it, yanked a mop and broom out and leaned them against the wall.
“Don’t jump the gun, Grandpa. Wait for my signal. You won’t get a second shot. I don’t even know what half these creatures are, let alone how to kill them.”
“That’s because they’re—”
The door handle turned and Richard dived for cover.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Burke
“Come on in, Ugly. Why you hiding over there on the other side of the room? You scared?” Burke clung to the bars with both hands, taunting the creature through a wide, easy grin. “Scared of a girl? A big bad thing like you? What’s the matter? Never been around a female? What’d you hatch from? Even something like you must have a mama, right? Or was your mama so ugly you couldn’t even tell she was a girl?”
The lizard-looking monster standing just inside the doorway hissed at her and flexed its clawed hands.
“Come at me, then. Come on. Do your worst,” Burke demanded.
“You can’t even imagine what my worst is, pathetic human.”
Burke rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I’m the pathetic one. What are you going to do? Talk me to death? I haven’t seen a bit of action out of a single one of you yet. Learn that from your hideous beast of a mother? She teach you to prattle on and on while other, stronger, meaner monsters do all the fun stuff?”
The beast leaped toward the cage. Soaring through the air, it stretched out its arms, revealing pink membranous wings criss-crossed with thick, pulsing veins. About a foot from the cage, it slammed into some sort of forcefield that threw it backward across the room. Burke glanced up at the light fixture glowing above her. The runic writing on the glass seemed to serve as some sort of reverse devil’s trap.
“I’ll kill you!” the monster hissed.
Burke rolled her eyes. “Blah, blah, blah,” she taunted.
The door opened with a metallic swish and a tiny man in a navy-blue suit and red tie entered the room. “Take a hike,” he told the growling monster.
“I’m on guard duty,” it told him.
“Not anymore. You’re wanted on sub level two.”
“Ooh, called to the principal’s office?” Burke asked.
The creature sent a final hiss in her direction and slumped out of the room.
“What are you supposed to be?” she asked the newcomer. “King of the South Pole Elves?”
“You talk too much, pretty one,” he replied. “Maybe we should cut out your tongue. Can’t imagine you need to be able to talk in order to program a computer.” He stepped forward and the door slid shut behind him. Keeping his eyes on Burke, he reached inside his jacket and produced a long dagger.
She shook her head. “You’re not going to be able to do anything to me ei
ther, and you talk a weaker game than that last thing. You’re some kind of fairy, right? Nothing more than a silver medalist in the monster Make Big Threats contest.” She practically shouted the word, ‘silver.’
Dear God, let my grandfather take the hint.
When the little man got close enough to Burke that he wouldn’t see the closet, Richard burst out of the door, and let momentum carry him forward until the point of his silver knife sank into the little fairy’s back. The tiny man threw back his head in a silent scream and fell in a sputtering flash of light. His clothes fluttered to the ground at Richard’s feet.
“You did it!”
Richard bent at the waist to use the fabric of the dead thing’s suit to clean the glittery residue from his knife. “Don’t have to sound so surprised about it.” Finally, he managed to straighten, but Burke wasn’t at all sure how much more her grandfather could take. He pointed at the light. “Reckon I can shoot that out?”
“You can try, but do it from behind that desk so you have cover if the bullet ricochets,” she said.
“What about you?”
“Well, I’m behind it so it can’t ricochet in my direction, unless you miss by half a mile.”
He scowled.
She grinned.
“You look way too happy,” he said.
“I recently remembered why I started hunting,” she replied.
Understanding passed between them like an electric current. He took cover behind the open door of the closet he’d hidden in and squeezed the trigger. The bullet did ricochet, and slammed into the wall behind him, the butt end of it sticking out like something you’d hang a photograph from.
“Now what?” Burke asked.
“Hold on,” he told her. “I’m gonna try again.” He slipped the gun he’d been using back into the holster, reached toward his waistband, and pulled out the old trusty revolver he carried almost all the time. Taking careful aim at the light, he squeezed the trigger and ducked.
The fixture shattered into a trillion brilliant bits of glitter, causing Burke to drop to her knees, arms over her head. By the time the dust settled and she was back on her feet, he stood next to the cage. “One more. Back up and hold on to your butt.”