by King, R. L.
“What’s out there?” Verity asked, perplexed. “I don’t see any towns or anything. It just looks like desert. How can they hide a portal in the middle of the desert without someone seeing it?”
They all looked at Harrison. “Do you have any idea what’s out there?” Stone asked. “Something in the area that isn’t marked on the map, perhaps?”
Harrison studied the spot that Stone had indicated. “As far as I’m aware, there isn’t anything of note out there,” he said. “Certainly no towns. If I’m correct, that’s government land—possibly there used to be a military base in that area. If so, it’s been abandoned for quite some time.”
Jason was thinking. There was something that seemed relevant to that, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something about military bases... “Wait!”
“What?” Stone looked up.
“Military base! That’s it! Are any of those abandoned military bases you mentioned in that specific area?” he asked Harrison. “Something that would have been abandoned a long time ago? Definitely more than five years?”
Harrison stood. “Come to my office,” he said, motioning them out. “I have better maps there.”
“What about this?” Verity asked, looking at the remains of the circle. “If anybody sees it—”
“If anybody asks, just tell them some middle-aged ladies were holding a meeting of the Séance Society,” Stone said without looking back. “Jason, please bring the box with the rest of the gear—we might need it later.”
When they reached Harrison’s office, he disappeared into a room without a visible door off to the side, then came back carrying a large rolled map. He spread it out across the entire desktop, and the others saw that it was a detailed satellite map showing the entire southern half of Nevada.
“Here.” He pointed at a large spot with a pen. “This base is within the area you indicated. It’s been decommissioned for years, and I believe it was only declassified twenty-five years or so ago.”
“What did they use it for?” Jason asked, comparing Harrison’s map with his own and noticing that the base did not appear on his. It was clearly a small installation, tucked into the foothills of a remote mountain range.
Harrison shook his head. “I’m not certain, but I believe it was a small Air Force base, probably connected in some way to the nuclear testing done in the area back in the 1950s.”
“Perfect!” Jason practically yelled. “That’s it, Al! It’s gotta be!”
“Why do you say that?” Stone looked concerned. “We’ve only got one shot at this, Jason. Why would you think—”
“Because Arthur Baumgartner’s dad was an Air Force colonel, remember?” Jason said triumphantly. “We gotta think like him. I’m betting his dad took him out there to show it to him, once it wasn’t top secret anymore. The timing’s right: if it was about twenty-five years ago, that means Arthur would have been ten or eleven.”
Stone looked skeptical as he examined the map. “I don’t know, Jason—it doesn’t even look like there are any buildings here anymore.”
“Come on, Al, it makes sense! It all fits! And it’s a perfect place to hide a portal.” He poked at the map. “That road leading to it doesn’t even look paved. Nobody in their right mind would want to go snooping around that far out in the middle of nowhere.”
“But where would they hide it?” Stone asked, still not convinced. “If there are no buildings—”
“It’s quite possible the site still has an underground hangar,” Harrison said. With the tip of his pen, he indicated the mountain range. “If this was in use during the Cold War, it’s actually likely. The whole installation might be concealed underground to avoid detection.”
Jason nodded. “And that looks like it might have been an airstrip nearby,” he said.
“If we’re wrong—” Stone began.
“We don’t have any other leads, Al,” Jason said, spreading his hands. “And it is in the area you said the kid was in.”
Stone thought about it for a few moments, then his head snapped up. “Wait a minute. Jason, give me the box there.”
Perplexed, Jason handed over the box of magical materials. Stone rummaged around in it until he found a book. He flipped quickly through the pages, then opened it and slammed it down on the desk next to the map. “There,” he said, satisfied. “This makes me more confident about our guess.”
Jason stared at it, confused. The facing pages Stone had opened the book to showed a map of the United States overlaid with a series of colored lines radiating in all directions. “What—”
Verity, however, tilted her head. “Ley lines? What do ley lines have to do with this?”
Harrison leaned in for a better look as Stone stabbed a finger at the area near where they were. “I didn’t think they had anything to do with it, given that the portal in West Virginia wasn’t near any, and they’re not required to set one up. But look.”
“Wait a sec,” Jason protested. “What the hell’s a ley line? I remember you said something about it before, but—”
Stone looked energized now. “Verity’s been learning about them in her lessons. Think of them as magical power lines, running all over the Earth’s surface. Where you find them, magical energy is higher than where you don’t. In the places where they converge, the energy is even higher. But even a single ley line—” He bent over, peering at the map. “Look here! It’s hard to be precise without better maps, but it looks to me like one of them runs right over the area where this military base is.”
Harrison disappeared again and returned with another map, as large as the first. When he unrolled it, the others could see that it was a larger version of the same ley line map in Stone’s book. On the bigger map it was clear that one of the lines did indeed intersect the area occupied by the military base—and that no other lines were near the area Stone had identified in the ritual. “Well done, Dr. Stone,” he said.
Stone sighed. “Still not definitive, but this does make me feel more comfortable that we’re not wasting our one chance.” He turned to Harrison. “You said you’d worry about the transportation. Now’s the time to worry. It would take us at least an hour to get out there by car—probably longer, depending on the state of that unpaved road. Got anything better?”
Harrison’s chilly gaze glittered. “Come with me.”
Chapter Forty-One
Jason still wasn’t sure he completely trusted Harrison, but he had to admit that having a guy with his kind of resources on your side was definitely handy when you were trying to do something in a hurry.
They followed Harrison as he strode forward, talking softly into a small radio he pulled out of his pocket. They headed to a tiny, private elevator that leaped upward at stomach-crunching velocity and opened onto an unadorned hallway with a featureless metal door at the end.
“Where are we going?” Jason demanded. “Do you have a really fast car? Because it’s gonna take us over an hour to get out—oh.”
He stopped as Harrison pushed open the door and they heard the soft chup-chup-chup of helicopter blades. They stepped out onto the Obsidian’s roof, where a low-slung, shining black chopper with the hotel’s name on its side in electric blue crouched like a waiting animal, illuminated by floodlights and blowing their hair and clothes around with its downdraft. Nakamura, a black backpack over one shoulder, stood by the helicopter’s door.
Harrison waved them inside, then took the seat next to the pilot. He still had the map with him, and quickly described their destination. Nakamura got in last, slammed the door behind him, and the helicopter smoothly lifted off from the roof.
It wasn’t until they were in the air and cruising above the Strip that Jason remembered something. “Damn,” he said. “Forgot to grab my gun from the room.”
Nakamura tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a pistol, along with an extra magazine. “Will this do? I
brought along a couple just in case, since I can’t do the—” He wiggled his fingers in an imitation of magic casting.
Jason took it and gave it a quick examination. It was a black SIG Sauer P226, impeccably maintained. “Thanks,” he said. “This’ll do fine.” He popped the magazine, checked the safety, then tucked the pistol into his belt and the spare mag inside his jacket.
“Remember, Jason,” Stone reminded him, “We’re not here to kill anyone, or even shoot them at all, unless we have to. These aren’t soldiers—they’re children’s parents.”
“I know.” Leaning in close so only Stone could hear, he added: “But since I can’t throw lightning bolts at them, I’ll have to settle for lead if things go to hell.” He leaned closer to Harrison, who had donned a set of headphones and was scanning the ground in front of them as they flew. “How long will it take us to get there in this thing?”
The pilot answered. “About half an hour—maybe a little longer, since Mr. Harrison wants to do the last bit without lights.”
“Good point,” Stone said. “They’ll see us coming from miles away otherwise. But is it safe to fly with no lights? And won’t they hear us?”
“They won’t hear us,” Harrison said.
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he said, “It would be safer to use the lights, but Mr. Conroy here is a former military pilot. I have every confidence in his abilities—and in our abilities to deal with any problems that might arise.”
Jason leaned back in his seat and looked out the window. The neon canyons of the Strip had given way, first to the more spread-out lights of residential neighborhoods, non-casino business districts, and suburbs, and then to the darkness of the desert. He could see the headlights of cars as they moved up and down Highway 95—there wasn’t a lot of traffic this time of night, at least not compared to what he was used to back in the Bay Area.
He thought about what they were about to do, wondering if they would ever make it home. With everything that had been going on lately, focused as they were on finding the portal and dealing with the Evil, he hadn’t had a lot of chances to think about things like that. He remembered a few months ago, when he’d first met Stone and found out about magic and then about the Evil and the Forgotten—about how many times he’d thought he’d taken a left turn into the Twilight Zone. Now this all seemed almost—normal. We’re flying in a luxury helicopter across the Nevada desert to prevent a magical ritual from murdering a busload of kids in order to power up a portal to another dimension. Yeah, that sounds about right for a Friday night.
He felt a tap on his arm and looked up to see Verity watching him. She gave him a quick “what are you thinking about?” frown, but he shrugged. She patted his arm again. He thought she understood.
Stone, meanwhile, stared out the front window, clearly deep in thought. His expression was pensive, his mind far away. Jason wondered if he would be able to do the same thing he had in West Virginia, or if he’d have to.
Maybe Harrison had something up his sleeve. The guy was a complete enigma—so far he hadn’t done anything that indicated they couldn’t trust him, but he practically exuded the twin auras of “don’t mess with me or you’ll regret it” and “I’ll do what I need to by any means necessary.” Jason was glad he was on their side, but wondered if he’d even care about collateral damage if anybody got in the way of shutting down the portal.
“I wonder how many people they’ve got out there,” Verity said, breaking into Jason’s thoughts. “I mean, this is their last stand, right? What if they’ve sent dozens of people out there to guard the place?”
“Then we’ll deal with them,” Harrison said.
Stone looked more troubled. “Non-lethally, if we can manage it,” he said. Jason wondered if he too was thinking that by involving Harrison, they’d brought a dangerous but uncontrollable weapon along.
Harrison didn’t answer.
The helicopter flew through the night sky. Their own lights were still on at this point, but Jason could only see a few scattered pinpoints on the ground. They’d left the road a few minutes ago, and now headed across the open desert, flying only a couple of thousand feet up. “Don’t you have to file a flight plan or something for this?” he asked. “What if the Evil’s got somebody monitoring that kind of thing?”
“That might be a problem, if we had filed one,” Harrison said.
Why does that not surprise me? Jason thought, but didn’t say.
“Sir? We’re getting close,” the pilot told Harrison after a few more minutes. “I’m shutting the lights down.” He reached into a compartment and slipped an elaborate rig over his head, then switched off the ’copter’s lights.
“Night vision goggles?” Jason asked, eyes widening. “What are you guys, casino employees or some kind of military unit?”
Again, nobody answered him. Harrison appeared to be concentrating on something, and it took Jason a few moments to realize what it probably was. He leaned over and whispered to Stone, “We’re not making noise anymore. How the hell is he doing that?”
“You probably don’t want to know,” Stone whispered back. He had a pack in his lap, and was busy stuffing it with magical paraphernalia.
“Could you do it?”
“Not on my best day. And he’s not even breaking a sweat.”
Jason let air out through his teeth.
“I see lights up ahead,” Verity announced. She’d continued watching in front of them while Jason and Stone were talking. The two of them followed where she was pointing, and sure enough, they could see a haphazard ring of lights in the blackness a mile or two ahead. It was impossible to tell what they illuminated from this distance.
“Yeah,” the pilot agreed. “That looks like the spot. Mr. Harrison, what do you want me to do?”
“Set us down a quarter mile or so away,” Harrison said. “Well out of the range of their lights. They might still see us land if they’re watching, but we’ll have to take that chance.”
Jason, Verity, and Stone sat silent and tense as the pilot lowered the chopper toward the ground. None of them knew anything about flying helicopters, but it seemed to Jason that trying to land on the ground evenly and safely without any lights had to be a tricky operation.
It seemed to take forever, but at last the helicopter’s skids touched down with a jarring impact. “Nothing to it,” the pilot announced, grinning.
Harrison was already undoing his safety harness and tossing the headphones into the seat. “Don’t stay here,” he told the pilot. “We’ll radio you when we’re ready for pickup—an hour should be enough time for us to do this. Let us get away before you go.”
Everybody clambered out, ducking as they trotted out from under the spinning blades. They could still see the lights off in the distance, pointing the way to their destination. The air was still, but chilly. “Are we just gonna walk in there?” Jason asked. “The moon’s out—won’t they see us coming?”
“I can mask us,” Stone said, shouldering his pack. “But I’d wager Mr. Harrison can do it with less effort.” He glanced at the other mage for confirmation.
“I already am,” he said, and started off. Stone looked at Jason and shrugged.
The walk across the desert was eerie and unsettling. Aside from the lights and the dark bulk of a mountain range up ahead of them, the only thing out here was a vast expanse of desert. The ground, covered with scrubby brush and rocks, made forward progress slow and careful so they didn’t trip over anything.
“Nothing’s going to—eat us—out here, is it?” Verity asked, looking around nervously.
“I think anything that might be tempted to bother us wouldn’t get near a group this big,” Stone said. “And even if it did, I think we’ve got plenty of firepower to deal with it.”
“Good point,” she conceded with a sheepish grin.
They mov
ed as fast as they safely could, covering the quarter mile in a few minutes. The lights, which before had been only vague glows, revealed themselves to be portable floodlights. The group ducked behind some rocks, and Nakamura pulled a set of binoculars out of his backpack and handed them to Harrison.
“What do you see?” Jason asked after a minute had passed.
Harrison passed them to him. “I see quite a number of people there. I don’t recognize any of them.”
Jason put the binocs to his eyes and examined the scene. The area up ahead looked completely flat, except for a large amount of encroaching brush and plant life poking up through what had obviously been smooth concrete many years ago. Occasional posts with bits of fencing attached dotted the area, but the fence had long since ceased to be any deterrent to trespassers. Off to their left rose the foothills of the small mountain range they’d seen. And as Harrison had indicated, at least a dozen people patrolled the area. They wore what looked like ragtag uniforms and carried long guns. “That’s weird,” he said. “They look military. There aren’t any active bases out here, are there?”
“No,” Harrison said. “The closest is Creech, but I suspect they would notice if that many of their personnel were missing.”
Jason zoomed in closer. “Even weirder,” he said. “Their weapons don’t look military—at least not current military. They don’t even all have the same type of rifle. And—does that guy have a beard?”
Harrison took the binoculars back and looked again. “Hmm,” he said. “Colonies of survivalists live out here in the desert. Perhaps the Evil possessed some of them to use as their security force.”
“That actually makes sense,” Stone said. “I don’t imagine they’d need an enormous force to guard the place, since I doubt they expect anyone to find them before they finish what they’re doing. Too many people milling about would just raise suspicions for anyone who happened to be looking. But the question is, what are we going to do about this lot?”