"Any problem with that, my proud beauty?” Raul asked, sliding closer on the couch beside her.
Smiling sweetly, Mindy batted her eyelashes, made a kissy mouth, snuggled nearer and gave the mage an eloquent elbow to the ribs. Breath came out of him in a whoof.
"Heavens no,” she purred. “Why ever do you ask?"
Gasping for air, Raul's answer consisted mostly of a pained expression of how very sorry he was for asking.
* * * *
Having spent six weeks of training here a million years ago, I knew the location of the Base Command. Situated on a non-descript sidestreet, BC was a three story brick square with mirrored windows, sans any sort of ornamentation or signs. More security precautions. Unless you knew it was HQ, nobody could have deduced the fact. The place more resembled an insurance office than a high tech computerized command center. But then, don't they always?
Driving into the parking lot, I took a spot alongside the walkway between a horribly beweaponed motorcycle, and a red shag flying carpet. Eagerly, the team piled out and I locked the doors as they ambled inside the building. We were each curious to see this aspect of the Academy previously denied to us as cadets.
The foyer was made of cool blue marble and Mrs. Cunningham, the woman at the reception desk, was equally friendly. But she gave good directions, and three turns, two staircases later, my team found that holiest of holies, the Hell House Command Complex. Or as we called it as students, ‘the Principless Office'.
After a moment of shuffling feet and clearing throats, I knocked on the door and a voice bid us enter. Stepping into its air-conditioned magnificence, a shiver ran through my gut. External, or internal causes? Geez, I felt nervous as a new field agent opening their first grave. An enclosed, elevated walkway extended over an incredible array of computer mainframes that none of us could identify. At the far end of the colonnade was a small dais protected by a dome of clear Armorlite glass. An elaborate control curved around the entire edge of the dais going from doorjamb left to doorjamb right. Six folding chairs were set behind an impressive swivel chair that would have appeared more at home on the bridge of a starship.
Walking along the colonnade, ringing footsteps heralded our approach, and the swivel chair did what it does best.
"About time,” Professor Joyce Burton smiled, rising to meet us and offering a hand. We shook. She had a firm grip. “The senior class is ready and rearing to go."
As always, the prof was in tight black slacks and a shapeless green turtleneck sweater, her long brown hair almost tied off in a scraggly ponytail. Fashion was not a subject Our Dean of Destruction taught at the Academy.
"Students think they're pretty hot stuff, eh?” George asked, resting his ungainly machine gun against a nearby wall.
Burton smiled. “Of course!"
"Life is a learning experience,” I laughed.
Favoring his sore ribs, Raul took a metal folding chair and it became a plush barko lounger as his fanny met the seat. “Where is Hell House anyway?” the mage asked, placing ankle atop knee.
"On the other side of Bangor,” Joyce replied. “This way, when we train a telepath, they have a hard time reading our thoughts."
"Pretty smart,” I acknowledged, sitting next to Jess. My chair didn't do anything but start to get warm. “But then, the gang at Tech Serv were always a fiendishly clever bunch. Those vampire doorknobs will go into Bureau history."
"And I thought the welcome-mat trapdoor was a particularly nice touch,” Jessica added, bowing in respect.
"As their designer, I thank you,” Prof. Burton added, doing a bow and sweep. Then she stood and clapped her hands. “Okay, people! Let's make like an audience."
As we gathered close to her chair, the overhead lights dimmed and a huge liquid crystal theatre screen descended into view. Some eight feet by four, its silvery white surface flickered into life.
"All that's missing is popcorn,” George whispered.
Mindy shushed him.
As the screen cleared of hash, it cleared to invisibility and focused on the foyer of the place we knew well, and did not care for a bit. The detail and clarity was amazing. Seemingly, we were looking past empty air at the inside of Hell House. There was not even the diffraction of glass. I found myself wanting to reach out and try to touch the artificially dusty furnishings, but resisted temptation. Optic fiber, liquid crystal, laser holograph, high tech science, or what not, I wasn't goofy enough to risk a finger on the assumption that the House couldn't still get me through the theatre screen. That building was tricky.
Adorning the ceiling of the front hall was a huge crystal chandelier that gave off weak yellowish light. To the left was a great marble staircase that curled upwards to the next floor. My butt itched for a moment as I saw the banister again. A sliding door closet was to the right and a curtained alcove to the left. The stage was set, the house activated, enter the players.
Had I remembered to tell the Facility guards to put Lumpy in quarantine since he had eaten human flesh? Yes, I had. Okay.
With the fully expected creak of ancient hinges, the door swung open and in walked the senior class. Mentally, I wished them luck. They would need it.
The twins were the ones to first catch my attention. Wearing jeans and T-shirts, they were near identical in form and face, except that the man had coal black hair, while his sister was a fiery redhead. Rather pretty, actually. Nice legs.
Watch it, my wife warned.
Oops.
Next came a tall powerful man in military grab, a faint thin scar marring his right cheek. Mindy gave a short whistle of appreciation. I agreed, but maybe not for the same reasons. The guy was a Goliath, a Hercules! Roughly seven feet tall and some 300 pounds, not an ounce of it anything on his frame but rockhard muscle. This man didn't need any magic. He could punch the house to death. Grenades were hung on a military web harness across his mighty chest, an ammo pouch was slung over a shoulder, a huge revolver was holstered at his hip and he held a squat Thompson .45 machine gun with an underslung cheesewheel style superclip of ammo. George murmured approval.
Following Rambo Junior was a tall stately blonde woman with a stunningly beauti ... ah, plain face, and far too much bust. I prefer women who are small and slim and married to me.
Better, Jessica noted in my head.
Whew. Another daring escape from the jaws of death by Edwardo Alvarez, boy husband.
The stunningly plain woman was carrying a wooden dowel, only about a foot long. Hmm, just a beginner mage. Raul had a staff four feet in length and made of solid silver.
Tagging close behind came a wild haired beauty in a low cut gypsy gown of a thousand colors. Barefoot, she padded into the house.
"Barefoot?” I asked.
Twirling a dial, Prof. Burton shrugged. “Something to do with having to be in contact with the Mother Earth. How do I know? Mages are crazy."
"Darn tootin,” Raul said, pinning a hypnotic vortex button to his T-shirt which now read VOTE FOR ANARCHY! Sigh.
Bring up the end of this conga line, was a thin, pale man dressed in the height of fashion, Gucci shoes, Sergio Valenta three-piece suit, expertly tailored, and if that wasn't a Rolex Presidential watch on his wrist, I'd eat the banister. He even had a gold watch chain looped across his vest, with some sort of foreign coin dangling as a fob. Two watches? Dapper Dan struck me as the kind of person who would wash his hands before going to the lavatory. The only thing lacking was a silver spoon sticking out of his mouth.
As soon as the six entered the foyer of the house, Prof. Burton flipped a switch on the console and the door behind them slammed shut! They turned just in time to see the four great bolts ram into position, and an iron grate slide down from the ceiling. Then in orderly fashion, every window in the building nosily closed, the shutters crashed together and locked tight.
"Whew,” Steven remarked, the twin with black hair. “Lock and load, gang. It's showtime."
The prof pressed a button. A hollow mocking laugh echoed thro
ughout the old mansion and the chandelier tinkled in a ghostly manner.
Working the bolt on his Thompson, the tall slab of muscle with a scar glanced about. “Okay, standard defensive position. Katrina and I will take the front. Steven and Connie cover the rear. Patricia in the center. Sir Reginald on point. Remember, we're here to find an iron jewel, size unknown."
Slowly, the dapper man turned and cocked an eyebrow. “And you were placed in charge by whom, Mr. Sanders?” Even his voice sounded like inherited money.
"Somebody has got to be,” Sanders rumbled.
"Should have decided outside,” Katrina Sommers said in her heavily accented English. She sounded Russian. “Clock is ticking, comrades."
Comrades?
She was recruited in Soviet Russia. Now hush.
Taking a clipboard, Burton put a plus mark next to Sander's name, and a minus next to Katrina. Rules said they were never to mention this was only a practice run with a time limit.
Ken Sanders frowned. “Conference!” he called and they gathered together. After a moment, the team broke apart and Katrina's face was as red as her heritage.
"Positions!” Ken snapped, and everybody moved.
In a shimmer, Sir Reginald Foxworthington-Smythe dissipated into smoke and wafted along the central hallway of Hell House. Neat! Now I sincerely hoped that he passed this final exam. Having an elf in the Bureau would be a definite plus factor. Why, at the yearly picnic, he could bring the cookies!
While the twins, Steven and Connie, handcuffed themselves together, Katrina polished her wooden staff on a sleeve and Ken clicked off the safety on his machine gun. Positioned in the middle of the assault force, the gypsy fingered the tiny gold cross about her neck and muttered something in Latin. She must be Patricia, the Healer. That's who I would want safe and ready to patch my guts back together if necessary.
Working a toggle, Prof. Burton had a door down the corridor creak open and the students dropped into attack formation. But nobody fired. Excellent.
"Who has got a pair of Bureau sunglasses?” Steven asked in his rumbling baritone.
Ken reached into his shirt pocket, paused and then started patting his pockets. “I could have sworn they were here."
Next to me in the control room, Prof. Burton chuckled and twirled the sunglasses about on a finger. “I was tempted to substitute a pair of normal sunglasses that wouldn't show any auras just as a confusion factor,” she said. “But then decided that it was no fun kicking a cripple."
Sheesh, and the prof was on our side.
On the huge screen, the students were busy checking the front hallway closet. It was completely filled with pre-aged clothes that disintegrated at a touch. No information there. Ken spotted the rigged rat trap bolted on the inside of the door, and Patricia detected the razor blade welded onto the killing bar. That put them in a somber mood. As well it should. Anything but critical wounds could be healed within minutes. So nothing would kill them outright, but death was the only limitation. Agents learned their job here, or died in combat out in the real world taking countless civilians with them. It was a final exam in more ways than one.
After a quick peek in the lavatory, they moved on. Good thing too. If anybody had taken a seat, steel needles would have extended from the walls-ceiling-floor to stop but a scant foot away from the target. Prof. Burton started to de-activate the lavatory, then stopped. Fair enough. Maybe later they'll get stupid, or sloppy.
Parting the curtain, they found an unlocked door whose faded lettering read ‘BrOOM CLOSET'. They discussed it, chuckled and moved on. The professor didn't mark a plus, or minus. Interesting.
Coalescing into a vertical tornado, Sir Reginald became solid to report that the hallway seemed vacant of hostile forces. This gave the group courage, and they proceed to search for the iron gem with a vigor. They looked behind portraits, inside the pages of books, under seat cushions, unscrewed lightbulbs, emptied flower vases, lifted rugs, thumped the floors, and pounded the walls. Nothing was discovered, so they moved on.
During the lull, I made a note that once we had our new recruit, to check with the Facility and see if they had discovered what Lumpy was yet and where it came from. If there was a trans-temporal breach to a dimension full of his kind, we could be in for serious trouble.
Entering the Living Room, directly in front of them was a small glass aquarium on a wrought iron stand. Inside the aquarium was a school of winged, clockwork, wind-up goldfish wearing cowboy hats. The wire screen lid was ajar. Patricia reached to straighten it, but Sir Reginald stayed her hand. Another plus! Funny does not equal harmless, and nothing kills faster than stupidity.
Switching positions, Steven and Connie entered the Dining Room on point. The table was set for a sumptuous feast, with the most amazing china dishware and silver goblets. Steven smiled, and Connie frowned. Glancing above the table, she became furious, and Steven flicked his free hand at the wood rafters above them. Darkening into view, a now-dead spider hidden in the shadows lost its grip and slammed onto the suddenly vacant table with a meaty thump.
Not satisfied, Ken screwed a silencer onto his pistol and pumped two rounds into its head. That's my boy!
The Trophy Room proved to be empty of anything interesting, save an eight foot tall animated stuffed grizzly bear, which the students tripped to the floor, shoved into the fireplace and ignited. Child's play.
It was starting to seem as if the professor had set this whole level of Hell House on neutral. Burton must be trying to lull them into a false sense of security before getting tough.
In the Library, Steven and Connie found a loaded Ruger .44 revolver in a desk drawer. But it only took Sanders a second to discover that the barrel was blocked solid with lead. Pull the trigger and the backblast would blow a hand off. He got another plus mark.
The Kitchen yielded only a suspiciously half empty bag of PURINA DEMON CHOW. The oven was set to explode if turned on, but Sir Reginald found that trap. Plus. Patricia opened the refrigerator, but not the freezer. A minus.
Of course, the pantry was filled with pants which produced the expected mass groan of pain. I had no idea who the punster was at the Academy, but someday I would find the nitwit and personally shoot him/her in the spleen.
Apparently satisfied, Ken used handsignals to say the first floor was clean and they should move on. Tsk-tsk. Sloppy work that. There were twelve places they had failed to search for clues, two operational procedures forgotten entirely, and they hadn't found the special message for them on the telephone answering machine. It was obscene, but useful. Still, not bad on the whole.
"Cellar, or second floor?” Connie asked, in her sweet contralto. The operatic twins were still holding hands. Bio-harmonics? I wondered.
"Cellar,” Katrina suggested, nervously fingering her staff.
"Second floor,” Sir Reginald said, taking a pinch of snuff from an ornate Nathan Mills gold box. “Nobody hides things in the cellar anymore. It's gauche."
In a juicy Bronx cheer worthy of any New Yorker, Patricia expressed her sentiments on the matter.
Drying sweaty hands on his pants, Ken agreed. “We'll hit the upper stories, but let's protect our rear."
With her wooden wand, Katrina put a low-grade Sealed spell on the cellar door so that it could not be opened from the other side. Using a pocketknife on a chair leg, Ken whittled a doorstop which he then shoved tightly under the doorjamb. Meanwhile, Sir Reginald removed a lock pick kit from his tailored jacket and operated the ancient key latch, lubricating it first so there would be no noise. The twins kept guard.
Endlessly adjusting the controls, Prof. Burton nodded in approval.
"They're not bad,” Raul said around a mouthful of popcorn.
I stole a buttery handful from the huge carton that had materialized in his lap. “Shaddup and watch."
"Will there be a cartoon later?” Mindy asked. George hushed her.
In standard formation, the students stepped upon the first stair and a ghostly figure appeared floa
ting in the air before them. Moaning and groaning, the hideous vision warned them of unseen dangers and then faded away as only a ghost can. Because it wasn't a laser holograph, but an actual ghost, Abduhl Benny Hassan, an ex-member of our team. Not willing to lose trained personnel under any circumstances, Horace Gordon had conjured poor Hassan back from his icy grave. Not even death could stop an agent of Bureau 13! Only major holidays.
Averting her gaze from the screen, Mindy gave a heartfelt sigh. She and Abduhl had been close friends, getting a lot closer, when he had died. But as a spirit, he no longer had any interest in the pleasures of the flesh and that sort of put a damper on their relationship.
Dutifully, Katrina recorded the speech on a tiny tape recorder, Patricia took several flashless pictures with a pocket digital camera and Reginald made a rough sketch of Abduhl's face.
Proceeding carefully up the stairs, I noted with pride that they walked along the extreme edge of each step, exactly where the board met the wall. That was where stairs were their strongest, the least likely spot to creak and announce your presence to an enemy.
Just for fun, I asked Prof. Burton to make the eyes of the portraits on the wall track their passage, even had one old lady get out of her rocking chair and leave while the students were alongside. That caught their attention, but Steven and Connie urged the team on by emphatically saying that it was nothing. Another plus mark by their names. I glanced at the clipboard. One telepathic and one a mage. The siblings were a powerful occult team, but only as long as they were in direct physical contact with each other. I wondered if the Dean of Doom had an answer to that?
"Yes,” Jessica said, adding salt to the popcorn. “Itching powder."
Hmm, efficient, if somewhat slapstick.
As the students stepped on the landing, the staircase disappeared, leaving a solid seamless floor and no easy exit.
"Mark the spot,” Ken Sanders whispered on the monitor.
Using a diminutive spray can, Sir Reginald painted a brilliant orange line across the floorboards where the stairs had once been. Good idea that, and I made a note of the ploy.
Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two] Page 5