Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two]

by Nick Pollotta

  Muttering wildly, Raul gestured and a thick brick wall appeared in front of the hole, but a black iron fist smashed through that without a moment's hesitation. In short order, another hole was formed and clawing hands started to combine the openings.

  Weapons at the ready, we waited. Let the boojums exhaust themselves getting inside, then we would attack. Good or bad, that was the plan.

  Pushing through the enlarged hole, a female centaur without skin shot lances of flame from her eyes. Raul met the attack with a golden ray from his staff and the fire changed to confetti. A ropy thing wiggled into view and George hurled a concussion grenade into its mouth. There was a muffled bang and the string monster unraveled, showering the other boojums with a wealth of disgusting stuff. Don't think I'll ever eat spaghetti again. Feh.

  But now the door fell apart and creatures charged all together. Her face a mask of concentration, Katrina waved her wand and an iron portcullis materialized in front of them. Unable to stop in time, a waspwoman clanged both of heads into the grill and dropped unconsciousness.

  Holding our positions behind the sandbags, we started firing in volleys, carefully aiming for the holes in the grillwork. Mostly we succeeded, but a few ricochets zinged backwards and we got some hits. Thankfully, our bodyarmor saved us from any serious injury.

  Screeching in protest, the metal barrier was ripped, torn and beaten out of the way by hands, claws, and tentacles. The first thing stepping through was a nasty customer resembling a human being whose entire body was covered with slavering mouths full of tiny sharp teeth.

  "Banzai!” Mindy cried, and both of her hands jerked forward.

  Silver throwing stars hit the forehead of Many Mouth Man, and he fell backwards in a chorus of screams. Then a wave of dizziness swept over the team, but Connie clenched a fist to her forehead and the feeling passed. I hate it when something tries to eat my soul, that just ruins my whole day.

  Steady as a statue, Ken controlled the bucking Thompson, the stream of mixed rounds blowing away chunks and lumps of monsters. My Uzi peppered a constant fusillade of 9mm Parabellum rounds into the amassed hellspawn, Connie and the M16 added controlled bursts of perfectly imbalanced 5.56mm tumblers and hardball AP rounds to the barrage, and the chanting mages were barely audible above the yammering fury of George's big M60 machine rifle. But our ammo was shrinking with astonishing speed.

  Lighting crackled, explosions thunders, snow chilled, flame cooked, deafening noise, utter silence, flying knives, bullets, bombs, grenades, steel and wood, shells, and spells. An Invisible Fist broke my nose and I spat blood out of my mouth. The Thompson mysteriously jammed, but Katrina smacked it with her wand and the weapon started working normally once more. Raul began to constantly chant the word ‘tunafish', but it seemed to have less effect each time.

  "Avon Calling!” I bellowed.

  Unexpectedly for the monsters, a Dutch door appeared between them and us. There was a momentary pause as we stopped firing, then the female centaur worked the latch and swung aside the upper half of the split door. My team was ready. We tossed through every spare grenade and the mages slammed a double granite wall over the Dutch door. The barrage of HE charges cut loose in a muffled staccato blast and lights fixtures of the command center dimmed. Then a section of the granite barrier cracked apart and Many Mouth Man poked his misshapen head through the hole howling and drooling. Mindy stabbed him through the jaw pinning one mouth closed, but the rest merely took up the cry of anguish and fury.

  "Jess, how is it going?” I called, triggering a spray of 9mm cold iron rounds into the wiggling boojums. Incredibly, they actually appeared uglier afterwards. Had not thought it was possible.

  "Anybody got a twenty-five amp transistor and some number fourteen wire?” she retorted, both hands busy.

  "Don't think so!” Connie shouted over the burping M16. Brass shells covered the floor outside the sandbags like golden leaves. Hopefully they were slippery golden leaves.

  "Mindy, give me a shuriken!” Jess ordered, raising a hand.

  Without breaking stride, Ms. Jennings flipped a hand backwards and an oriental throwing star slammed into the console a scant inch away from my wife's waiting fingers. Jess pulled the blade free and started whittling on something very small.

  Taking a stance, Katrina thumped the floor with her wand and all of the skeletons wearing uniforms rose to attention, their loose bones rattling like castanets.

  "Obey me!” she intoned in a Voice Of Command. “Into the sandbag nest and stand by the guns!"

  We hastily got out of the way as the skeletons climbed into the sandbag nest and crouched behind the weapons, sleeves on the triggers.

  "Fire!” Sommers roared. “Shoot!"

  But the bone boys remained motionless.

  Nice try on her part, but zombies can't do anything their masters can not. Plus, it was a good thing she hadn't tried that trick with Father Donaher present. Catholic priests take a dim view of zombies in general, and it would have caused the most interesting of confrontations. The equivalent of checking your full gas tank with a lit match, kind of interesting.

  "Charge!” Katrina yelled in the Voice, and the dead guards rallied at the massed monsters, only to be vaingloriously annihilated once more.

  The hellspawn retreated for a moment to lick their wounds, so I dropped spent shells from my smoking hot revolver and used a speedloader of Glaser Sure-Kill slugs. My last. The situation was grim, the mages appeared exhausted, and Connie was pale, her hair a wild corona from the secondary static created by so much concentrated psionic outpouring. We were low on ammo and out of grenades. Mindy and Ken were both bleeding from minor wounds, and suddenly I noticed that I was too. When had that happened?

  Screaming insanely, the prisoners rushed us in a mob. A tripwire sent the front line into a pigpile, and Raul cast a sticky spider web to keep them that way. Then Katrina added a poison gas cloud and they started coughing out small organs, only to stuff them back in again. As the web began dissolving, Katrina said something short and biting in Russian. Using my pocket lighter, I ignited the softening web, then twisted the top of the lighter and tossed it into the wiggling pile. The lighter detonated into a fireball and WaspWoman keened as her stinger was blown completely blown off.

  "Timex!” I commanded, and the team set their wristwatches to explode, then stuffed them into any orifice we could safely reach. The combined blasts were pleasing, but brief. Already the dismembered bodies were reforming, the dead rising once more.

  Using her sword, Mindy started hacking the boojums into pieces, but they arched around the martial artist and charged the ramparts of the sandbag wall. In a heartbeat they were among us and our firing line broke apart into solo combat. Moving incredibly fast, Ken dodged a stream of fire, and leapt upon the female centaur to rip out her throat with his teeth. Yellow blood gushed from the hideous wound and the monster staggered away to heal. Wow, this guy made J.P. Withers seem like a Mormon!

  Steel blades snapped into position from the ends of Raul's silver staff and he started wildly swinging. Bits of flesh and hide went flying, then a blade snapped off as the mage hit something very hard and totally invisible. Snarling savagely, Connie was firing her carbine one bullet at a time, slowly retreating with her brother into the control room.

  Biting a lip, Steve formed an ethereal blade in his free hand and began thrusting and jabbing as best he could. The dais was right behind us, Jessica only feet away.

  "Hold the line!” I shouted, throwing my empty gun and kicking an incubus right where it would hurt the most. He dropped moaning, and I kicked him again for good measure.

  Going side by side, George dropped the empty M60 and starting firing a .45 Colt automatic, while Katrina Sommers went into a boxer's crouch and began punching monsters with astonishing results. Then I noticed she was wearing velvet gloves that pulsed with magic through my visor. Velvet gloves, iron first? Cool.

  Finally out of ammo, I threw the second Magnum to clang off the iron golem, drained
the last of my Strength potion and pulled out a French police baton from my belt. With a snap the six-inch handle of telescoping steel extended to its full meter in length and I started busting heads with the rest of the best. We were literally going down swinging.

  "Done!” Jessica called out in triumph.

  Clambering over a jade statue of Kali brandishing a garrote, the string demon charged me and went stock still to topple over limp as used yarn. Must have been Brain Blasted by my sweetie. What a wife! She could cook, too.

  Bet your ass I can.

  "Get the switch!” I yelled going hand-to-hand-to-hand-to-hand with the WaspWoman. The blasted hellgrammite was metamorphosing even as I smashed her mandibles. For the first time ever, I took true delight in hitting a lady.

  "Move fast, Jess!” Raul added. He was corned by a trio of blind, cackling witches who had just joined the party. Each wore a necklace of fresh human eyes that blinked and wept cool tears.

  More monsters were arriving as the sounds of our battle spread throughout the Facility. Not good. Extremely not good.

  Dodging the hands of Kali, Jess hitched her skirt and started for the office with Patricia running blockage. A pale snaggletooth morlock tried to snatch my wife and the gypsy Healer slammed it aside in a par four tackle worthy of any baseball center! Or some such sports analogy.

  Dashing past the control dais, Jessica jerked to a halt and began to grapple with something invisible. With a horrible ripping noise, the clothes were torn off her bodyarmor, red blood welling from deep slashes on her exposed arms.

  My love! Stabbing a robotic vole in the eye with WaspWoman's stinger, I dove towards my wife and leapt upon the spectral alligator. Ripping off my helmet, I stuffed it into the snarling mouth of the Jurassic ghost which activated the KillJoy charge and blew off its head.

  Throating that wild jungle yell, Ken grabbed the skinless centaur and threw her straight through the Armorlite window of the office. The crash was deafening. Reduced to a pulpy mess of bones and flesh, the twitching blob smacked into the wall and slid down to land on the switch, its weight shifting the lever to the next position with a loud, satisfying click. Yes!

  Instantly, the lights brightened in the room and every thing in sight was incased in a shimmering bubble of bright blue. Floating helplessly away, the prisoners pounded, moaned and raged in silent fury inside their private prismatic forceballs. Every creature, boojum, and monster in Bangor Maine, from the towering giants to the tinniest were-microbe, visible or invisible, physical, ethereal or pure energy, was now being forcibly hauled back to its waiting cell.

  Leaning on his staff, Raul bent over panting for breath. Mindy and Ken shared a high five slap, I clutched my aching leg, George and Katrina hugged, as did the twins. Success!

  "No,” Jessica wheezed, slumping to the filthy floor. “W-we're operating on battery power. Got no more than a few minutes at best."

  Limping badly, Patricia moved to my wife and laid on healing hands. The wounds slowed their bleeding and started to close. Retracting his force blade, Steve opened a medical kit and Connie started repairs on the rest of us.

  "Can we fix the link to the main reactor?” she asked, busy with Ken.

  Shrugging out of the ruined shirt, Jessica shook her head. “I'm a telepath, not a nuclear physicist. I have no idea."

  Going to the steel lattice, Raul inspected the tokomac. “Maybe I can trickle a lighting bolt into the reserve batteries,” he suggested. “That might extend their service life."

  "Give it a try,” I ordered, mopping the blood off my face.

  The mage got busy and lights flashed.

  "Well?” Ken asked.

  "No good,” Raul replied, slumping against the wall. “If General MacAdams and Phoenix Team don't get here soon we're spam in a can."

  Without warning, a dazzling rainbow exploded in the middle of the command center, and there stood a dozen hulking figures, cold gray metal giants twice the size of a human. Grimacing against our pain, my team stood and faced this new menace, raising our meager weapons for the last hurrah.

  "Shakespeare,” a suit of powerarmor said, four silver stars shining brightly on its louvered shoulders.

  "Bacon,” I managed to reply, happily watching the Phoenix Team lug a portable generator over to the damaged relay and start hardwiring it into place. “And general, you just saved ours."

  Yet one hour later, I learned the awful truth. We had failed in every way possible, because this had not been a mass escape of supernatural prisoners.

  It was a robbery.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Less than an hour later, we gathered in a small dark room.

  This time there were no jokes about popcorn, no silly buttons, no clever quips. This was business. My team was here to watch the tapes and films from the hidden security cameras showing what had happened to allow the worst escape and second worst massacre, in the history of the Bureau. And hopefully find out who the hell was responsible.

  As usual, victory came at a price, a hundred guards and scientists were dead. Plus five of the students. Even worse, Steve and Connie requested permanent assignment to office work. Apparently, Steve could not accept the grim reality of our work, and where baby brother went, sis had to follow. Such a shame, Constance Gilbert would have made a damn fine field agent.

  Settling ourselves into the cushioned seats, I sat back and waited for the films to start. There was a folding movie screen at the front of the room, a brace of video projectors and an old 16mm film projectors on a folding table behind, along with stacks of film cans, and video cassettes.

  As the senior agents here, Horace Gordon had assigned us the task of tracking down the who and why of the matter. Smart move. If he hadn't, we probably would have done it anyway.

  "Ready when you are, Rosy,” I said, steadying the clipboard in my lap. Jessica may have an eidetic memory, but I liked to have my own notes to review.

  What light there was in the room faded away completely. “Here we go,” Reverend Rosenberg said flipping switches with his good arm, the other swaddled in a heavy cast.

  The movie screen filled with an aerial view of our arrival and meeting with Gil. Then our subsequent journey through Bangor, and then our Chicago boojum being hauled into the Holding Facility. From that point on, we paid close attention.

  As the last struggling chunk of Lumpy was dragged into the prison, the monster reformed and leapt at the waiting guards. In midair it was encased in a brilliant blue bubble of anti-magic very similar to the fail-safe spheres.

  A guard with a hand held control box floated the hairless lionoid along the corridor past the flip-top wall, through the iron gate and to the scanner. The arch gave no aura reading. Clearly puzzled, the guards tried again, and then once more. After conferring with TechServ over the wristwatches, the guards boosted the scanner to maximum, and even by-passed the safeties.

  As Lumpy entered the field the arch registered a solid black aura, laced with purple and green. The guards gasped at the sheer amount of the evil shown and suddenly there was a tremendous explosion. Now in place of the boojum was a tall, slim man with a lantern jaw slicked back hair with dapper touches of gray at the temples, and dressed in a formal tuxedo. What the hell?

  However, what really caught our attention was the six-foot long diamond wizard's staff in his hands. Aye carumba! Not even Merlin owned a diamond staff! This guy could eat Raul for a snack and never work up a sweat. No wonder he had been able to reform after exploding into pieces and fool my sunglasses. What couldn't this grand master of the occult do?

  Our people bravely jumped the wizard. The staff pulsed once and only greasy smoke hung in the air where once six humans stood. At this point the unauthorized magic was causing alarms to sound in the Facility. Doors clanged shut and the tunnel stiffened to full status. Then the boojum human waved his wand. It disappeared and the video camera went blank.

  Turning pale, Katrina and Raul made gagging noises.

/>   "H-his staff?” Sommers gasped, holding her face.

  "He destroyed his own staff?” Raul stated, each word spoken louder than the one before.

  Hmm, I had to admit that I'd never heard of anybody doing that before. Not even when the mage's own life was at stake.

  With a ratcheting noise, the Bell & Howell 16mm camera took over. It must have been minutes later because monsters were everywhere, a rampaging horde of hellspawn. The guards fought and died in droves. Trembling in revulsion, Jessica had to turn away, but the rest of us forced ourselves to watch everything. Information was more important than personal feelings. We would cry and mourn at the loss of friends and co-workers at a more appropriate moment.

  Striding through the boiling crowd came our mystery man. A few of the escaping prisoners tried to consume him, but Tuxedo Ted tossed tiny vials at them and blew the creatures apart. After that, he walked unscathed through the boisterous mob, nobody even coming closer than ten feet. Thus proving once more that supernatural did not mean stupid.

  The steps were still extended on the spiral walkway, and Mystery Man skipped over the mutilated human bodies humming a happy tune. I was really starting to hate this guy. At level 84, which was as far down as the Bureau had ever reached, Mr. Happy met with three other prisoners who seemed to have been waiting for his arrival.

  "You are early,” an oriental gentleman said, both hands hidden deep in the flowing sleeves of his colorful kimono.

  I knew him, Rasamor, the vampire.

  "Up yours,” George growled, rubbing a scar on his neck from where Rasamor had come within too-damn-close to having Sgt. Renault join the ranks of the undead.

  In sympathy, Katrina added something appropriately vulgar in Russian.

  Scribbling steadily, I frowned at their casual greeting. Rasamor Hoto was better known to the Bureau as Vampire X. Originally just a regular vampire, he had unfortunately been living in a small industrial Japanese village named Nagasaki towards the end of World War II.

  Somehow he survived the atomic blast, but was forever radically changed. Now anybody who died within ten blocks, the precise blast zone of the Fat Man bomb, would become a vampire. A regular vampire, thank goodness. But that included anybody at all who died with that range; car accident victims, heart attacks, cancer patients, suicides, or even old age. Rasamor didn't have to have anything to do with their demise, merely being there was enough to make the transformation occur. Plus, all of the new vampires were his slaves, mind, body and soul. He saw what they saw and heard they heard. Before we finally destroyed his army and captured Hoto, you could always find Hoto near the scene of any major disaster. The bigger, the better.