For all its immense size. Leviathan moved surprisingly fast. The beast ignored minor obstacles in its path like Border Redcaps, stomping over any of von Bern's henchmen too slow or too stupid to get out of its way. Though it kept its gaze fixed on Jack and Cassandra, the monster allowed itself a few quick snacks as it approached, swallowing several gang members foolish enough to dart in front of its huge mouth. Chewing and swallow its prey didn't slow it down a step.
Jack estimated the Great Beast would reach them in only a few minutes. While he had a general concept of how he planned to stop the monster, he was still short on specifics. He would have to improvise on the run.
"What should we do?" yelled Cassandra. Even though she was screaming at the top of her lungs, it was hard to hear what she was saying, between Leviathan's bellowing and the horrified cries of the imprisoned women. The Border Redcaps, for all their faults, perished quietly.
"Split up," shouted Jack. "Leviathan's after me. Keep out of its way and knock over the rest of the bonfires. Von Bern's troops are pretty well scattered and they shouldn't prove much opposition. In the meantime, I'll handle the Great Beast."
"On your own?" cried Cassandra, looking concerned. "That thing's awfully big. Jack. And it looks pretty hungry. Floppy discs and pocket calculators won't stop a Great Beast. I hope you brought something special to handle it."
Jack pulled off his backpack and emptied the contents onto the concrete floor. "You take all the discs and calculators," he shouted to the Amazon. His hands latched onto a thin box the size of a small attaché case. "This baby is going to give Leviathan indigestion."
Then there was no more time for talk. Grabbing the hard plastic case, Jack sprinted for the tunnel from which they had first emerged into the underground railway yard. As he predicted, Leviathan ignored Cassandra and pounded after him. The Great Beast evidenced no signs of great intelligence, but obviously it possessed more brains than the dinosaurs it resembled. Jack was its quarry, and wherever he went, the monster followed.
Running full speed from the creature, Jack vowed to take up jogging if he survived this latest round of supernatural battles. Being a hero, at least in his case, seemed to involve a tremendous amount of running from various menaces. That thought annoyed him, though he had no plans to stop moving in this instance in protest. In most of the novels he read, the hero rarely ran. Usually, the protagonist walked towards his enemies, not ran in terror from them. That was the dividing line, he decided, between fact and fiction.
As he ran, Jack fumbled with the lock holding his briefcase closed. Unfortunately, the clasps required more attention than he could spare. Risking a quick glance over his shoulder, he noted that Leviathan was less than fifty feet away and closing fast. The tunnel entrance was about half that distance ahead. Performing some quick estimates and algebraic calculations in his head, Jack concluded he would reach the passage mouth two seconds ahead of the Great Beast. Considering a margin of error of plus or minus three seconds, Jack redoubled his efforts, forcing his aching muscles to try harder.
He hurtled into the opening with two-tenths of a second to spare. The Great Beast's head crashed into the concrete passage with rock-shattering force. The entire corridor shook from the impact, and thin spiderwebs of cracks darted hundreds of feet into the darkness. But, try as it might, the creature's head was too large to fit into the tunnel. Jack collapsed in a heap ten yards into the passage, praising an orderly universe that dictated underground tunnels in Chicago were no more than six feet wide by nine feet high.
The corridor's measurements provided the Great Beast with no pleasure, as it tried again and again to widen the passage by pounding the cement opening with its head. Fortunately, the founders of the underground railway system had built it to last. Except for the hairline cracks in the walls, the tunnel was otherwise unaffected by Leviathan's attention. Jack wondered, however, if high above on the streets of Chicago, residents were experiencing a mild earthquake.
Steadying himself on the concrete, he managed to pop open the lock on his case. Opening the top, he examined the insides of the portable laptop computer with extreme pleasure.
If floppy discs and miniature calculators served as minor modem icons in the eternal battle between order and chaos, then a 486DX, 33 megahertz computer, albeit a portable one with backlit screen, had to be the equivalent of St. George's lance or St. Patrick's staff. And, knowing the type of monster he was going to face. Jack had loaded the computer memory with something special.
Ignoring the beast huffing and puffing only a few steps distant, Jack powered up the laptop. Getting a C prompt in DOS, he pulled up the Bible search program he had installed on the hard drive earlier in the day. After entering "Exodus" for the book name, he specified Chapter 20, Verse 3.
"Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me," Jack read aloud. According to Simon's explanation, that was the commandment that had doomed the ancient gods to the outer darkness. What worked once, Jack reasoned, applying the most basic tenet of logical thought, should work a second time.
Rising to his feet, he waited patiently for Leviathan to open its mouth and bellow in rage. The monster obliged less than a minute later.
"For I am a jealous God," declared Jack, and he flung the portable computer as far as he could into the Great Beast's throat. When the machine finally made contact, Leviathan screamed. It continued to scream for an eternity.
Picking himself off the tunnel floor some minutes later, Jack decided that there were certain sounds so painful that mere words could not adequately describe them. He had always felt that human fingernails drawn slowly across a blackboard led that list. Not any more. Leviathan's shriek of fury/agony/pain/distress dropped that noise to twentieth position. The beast's cry of dissolution filled all the other spots.
Both Great Beast and laptop computer were gone. Jack regretted losing the machine. It was a lot nicer model than any he had ever owned. In retrospect, he decided, it was a small price for vanquishing one of mankind's oldest foes.
Emerging from the tunnel, Jack spotted Cassandra a hundred feet away, ripping to pieces another of von Bern's bonfire devices. There were no Border Redcaps in sight. Jack suspected the death cry of the Great Beast had taken the fight out of the remaining gang members. For all of their nastiness, the villains remained true to their basic character and were, at heart, cowards.
Not so Dietrich von Bern. The Wild Huntsman's proud voice rang through the underground rail station.
"You've defeated my underlings, Collins. And triumphed over the Great Beast as well. But not me! I still hold your woman and her father captive. They are my prisoners. Come, release them if you dare. Fight me for them. I, Dietrich von Bern, Lord of the Wild Hunt, am waiting for you!"
Sighing heavily, Jack shook his head in despair. A hero's job was never done. He was tired and sore and weary of combating the forces of darkness. But Megan and Merlin needed rescuing. And he was the only one capable of defeating the Huntsman.
Lifting his secret weapon. Jack checked the wiring for the fiftieth time. Everything was in order. Feet throbbing, back aching, he set out on his final quest. Softly, he began humming "You Light Up My Life."
Chapter 41
HE FOUND THEM at the middle of the underground railway yard. Years ago, it must have been the center of operations for the entire complex, but now it was merely a raised cement platform, fifteen feet on a side, six feet off the floor. Von Bern stood there, gripping the Sword of Chaos with both hands. Off to one side, trussed up with ropes like a prime roast, was Merlin the Magician. A few paces behind the Huntsman stood Charon. Trapped between his unmoving arms, struggling without the least sign of success, was Megan.
"I salute you, Collins," said von Bern, raising his sword as Jack approached. "You accomplished the impossible. Neither I nor my dread master treated you with the respect you deserved. We vastly underestimated your talents. I assure you, we will not make the same mistake twice."
"You won't have the chance, von Bern," said Jack,
continuing to walk towards the German. "Release Megan and her father, and maybe I'll consider letting you escape. Maybe. Otherwise, you're due to follow Leviathan to limbo."
The Huntsman chuckled. "Not very likely, young man. Charon has his orders. If anything happens to me, he will crush the pretty Miss Ambrose to a pulp. After disposing of her, he will do the same to her illustrious father. Recall, please, that the ferryman is neither good nor evil, but neutral. Your unusual armament cannot harm him."
Von Bern's voice hardened. "I am the one who is in charge, Mr. Collins. Put down that strange weapon you carry and perhaps I'll consider letting you escape. You have my word on it."
Jack snorted, remembering from their encounter at the math complex how much the Huntsman's promise was worth. Casually, he flipped the button turning on the power to his secret weapon. He was less than twenty yards from the German and closing quickly.
"Stop," cried von Bern, his voice rising a note. "Take another step forward and the girl is dead."
"Then what?" asked Jack. "With her gone, you have no one to hide behind."
"Still," said the German, raising his Chaos Sword high in the air and turning to Megan, "I'll vanish knowing that I made your life miserable. Make your decision now, Collins. Does the girl live or die?"
"Leave her out of it," said Jack. "Fight me. I'm your enemy, not Megan. There's no honor killing defenseless women."
"Honor?" laughed the Huntsman. "Only fools believe in such concepts. I led the Wild Hunt for centuries because it kept me alive, eternally young. Justice and fairness mean nothing to me. I refuse to fight you because I know I cannot win against your magical devices. And I only engage in battles that I am assured of winning."
"Just as I suspected," said Jack, raising the black rectangular box chest-high. Perched on its top was a sighting device much like that of a high-powered rifle. "You're so afraid of dying that you'll stoop to any level to stay alive."
"Perhaps," said the Huntsman, pausing dramatically. "But better..."
Not waiting for the German to finish his sentence, Jack fired. The one fact he had learned from his dealings the past few days with the supernaturals was that given the slightest chance, the fantastical entities loved to talk. They had a flair for the dramatic, and none of them could resist having the last word. One and all, they were hams. Which gave Jack the necessary few seconds he needed to aim and fire his weapon.
A slender beam of red-orange light like that of a neon tube leapt from the end of the box. Slender as a pencil, the ray caught von Bern in the chest. The look of absolute shock that crossed the Huntsman's face lasted less than a heartbeat. Then, he was gone, the Sword of Chaos dropping like a stone to the concrete.
"Helium-neon laser beam," said Jack unnecessarily, but quite satisfied with the correctness of his deductions. He swung the beam so that it touched the cement at Charon's feet. "Coherent, ordered light. The ultimate icon of order versus chaos. It's definitely the final word in the battle between light and darkness."
"It doesn't scare me," said Charon. Megan, her eyes wide with fear, pushed hopelessly at his encompassing arms. His voice cold and deep, rumbled like thunder. "I am a creature of neither."
"But you are a stupid old fool, honoring bargains with darklings," declared Cassandra, directly behind the ferryman. She had silently mounted the concrete platform from the rear during Jack's confrontation with von Bern. Feet spread wide for optimum effect, the Amazon swung her walking stick in a short, brutal arc at Charon's head.
With a crack audible throughout the entire underground complex, the staff connected with the ferryman's skull directly above his left ear. Charon staggered a few inches, then righted himself, as the pole exploded into shards the size of toothpicks. The Amazon's jaw dropped in amazement.
Looking puzzled, Charon turned and stared unhappily at Cassandra. "Why did you do that? I wasn't planning to hurt the girl. After thousands of years of comradeship, you should know, Cassandra, that I would never obey an order like the one given to me by von Bern. The Huntsman believed only in himself. I served him because he paid me well, but I retained my own ideals. And killing the helpless was never among them."
As if confirming his words, the ferryman opened his arms and let Megan free. By the time Jack reached Megan, she had nearly finished untying her father.
"Good to see you again, Jack," said Merlin, stretching and turning his long fingers. "Sorry I never provided you with the information you needed in your quest. Though you seem to have managed quite well on your own."
The magician surveyed the underground train yard, with the thirteen wicker cages filled with women dangling from the ceiling. "Cleaning up this mess and explaining it to the media is not going to be easy. But it shall be done."
Merlin's gaze touched the gas laser hooked onto Jack's belt. "Coherent light to battle the forces of darkness. Nice touch. We'll have to discuss the notion when there's more time."
Basking in the magician's praise, Jack swiveled to Megan—only to have her catch him square in the face with a slap that nearly jarred his eyeballs loose.
"That's for acting silly with those outrageous mall nymphs," said Megan. Then, before he could recover, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him with all the intensity of their dream embraces. This time, however, it was real, and left them both, several minutes later, breathless.
"And that," she stated once she regained her voice, "was for rescuing me."
Arms around his neck, she looked deep into his eyes, waiting for another kiss. After a few seconds, she grew impatient for his response. "Kiss me, you fool," she declared. "I won't bite."
"Uh, Megan," said Jack, feeling very ill at ease, "it's not that I don't enjoy kissing you. I do. Very much so. Too much so, I think, for a casual romance. That's the trouble. What with the difference in our ages..."
"Casual romance?" repeated Megan, frowning. "Difference in our ages? What are you mumbling about, Jack? You're not that much older than me. I turned twenty-three last month."
"Twenty-three?" Now it was Jack's turn to be confused. "But, you're Merlin's daughter. He's hundreds of years old."
"So what?" asked Megan. "I'm a halfling—half-supernatural, half-human. My mother is a perfectly normal middle-aged woman. She married Merlin knowing full well that someday age would part them. So far, she's been remarkably happy. Mom's been visiting relatives in Florida the past few weeks. She probably never knew we were gone."
Megan glanced at her father proudly. "The old boy is pretty lively, considering his age. From what I gather, he's fathered more than a few children over the centuries. Being supernatural doesn't mean you're sterile, Jack. I thought you knew all about this."
"How?" said Jack. "How was I supposed to know?"
"Your friend Simon, the changeling," said Megan. "Didn't he tell you when we had our first dream talk? He must have realized then that I wasn't a supernatural. The fey folk don't dream. Only humans or halflings can. That's why Father never made contact while you slept. He couldn't."
Storm clouds gathered in Jack's face, as he remembered an abbreviated conversation, "Simon was about to tell me once. Then he changed his mind. Instead, he remained true to his nature and never said a word."
Megan grinned, an impish smile that lit up her entire face. "If that's the case, I bet he never mentioned anything about your ancestry, either?"
Jack's eyes bulged. "My ancestry? What are you talking about?"
"Dream communication, my darling," said Megan, her fingers twirling through his hair, making concentration difficult. "It's a rare talent. Only halfings can do it. On both ends."
Jack shook his head, trying to make sense of what Merlin's daughter was implying. "But, what you're saying is that one of my parents..."
"...is a supernatural," said Megan. "That's why I was so surprised when you first walked into our office. Father cast a spell on the newspaper ad insuring that it would only attract halflings with the talents we felt necessary to defeat the forces of darkness. Never once duri
ng the semester I audited your class last year did I suspect you might be the one."
"You audited my class last year," said Jack, feeling he was fast losing track of the conversation. "Real Variables?"
"Right. Remember, I sat in the fifth row, in the back?"
Jack's eyes narrowed. "No wonder you looked familiar. But your hair was a lot darker and not so long."
Megan laughed. "Some magic comes from bottles. Jack."
"A halfling," he said. "Which means one of my parents isn't human but a supernatural entity. It can't be my father. He has a family tree longer than your arm. That leaves Mom."
He closed his eyes as if recalling old memories. "Very interesting. How very, very interesting. I can't wait to phone home. This puts a whole new twist on the old family business."
Together, they rose to their feet. Merlin, who had studiously ignored them for the past few minutes, was busily talking with Cassandra. There was no sign of Charon.
"I let him go," the Amazon replied to Jack's question about the ferryman. "What else was there to do? He harmed no one. And, despite his immense age, he could probably whip the bunch of us with one hand tied behind his back. I thought it best to allow him to depart in peace. We won't see him again."
"One less loose end to tie up," said Jack. "Fine with me. Leaving us with ninety-one women and one battered reputation to save."
"Reputation?" asked Merlin. He squinted at the wicker cages, rubbing his beard in concentration. "Whose?"
"Mine," said Jack. "Let's rescue these prisoners first. They're the real problem. I can tell you the whole story over dinner. After sleeping for days, I bet you're rather hungry."
"Starved, actually," said Megan. She patted Jack on the arm. "Don't worry, Jack. Father's terrific at repairing reputations."
"So I've heard," said Jack. "The nymphs—uh, I mean, Witch Hazel mentioned the King Arthur mess. Hopefully, my problems won't prove to be so much trouble."
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