Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two]

by Nick Pollotta

  "The command phrase is Armageddon,” I spoke fast and low, using my aching jaw as little as possible. “The activation word is Apocalypse."

  Sitting upright, Katrina fired her Bureau special derringer into LaRue's stomach. The composite mage staggered and then Raul stood. Swinging his drained staff in the manner of a baseball bat, he bent the steel shaft over the alchemist's head. Blood and hair spraying from the impact, Wilson fell trembling to his knees, but then a thorny thicket sprang into existence around Raul. Instantly trapped, I heard Raul trying to start a motorized hedge trimmer. Then a garish light encased Katrina and she slumped to the deck.

  This was going to be close. “Jessica, the go code is—” But I stopped as my mind went blank and searing agony hit me in hands and feet. I lost any sense of time as incredible pain filled the universe for an untold period. Pain!

  Slowly through the red fog of hellish sensations, I eventually began to become dimly aware that I was stark naked and flat against the cold metal wall of the hangar with steel spikes driven through my wrists and ankles. More were positioned under my armpits, groin and knees to support my helpless body. There was no way I was going to fall free. The rest of my team was pinned spread-eagled along the wall, hanging hapless as animal skins on display.

  "Surprise,” LaRue wheezed, a trickle of red blood oozing down his pale cheek. “I win."

  Panting for breath, his staff pulsed and Wilson stood whole and healed. His battlesuit spotless, the kimono pressed and crisp.

  "And none of you will be allowed to die!” he screamed, spittle spraying from his mouth. “Ever! Ever-ever-ever!"

  Then he took a few deep breaths to try and control his fury. “Until I know more, all, about this Aztec Book and the Bureau 13 which once captured it."

  Struggling against the wracking throbs in my limbs, I tried to tell him to stick it where the sun don't shine, but fainted instead.

  * * * *

  Ice cold water splashed onto me and I came abruptly awake shivering, trembling and still nailed to the wall. No, it had not been a terrible nightmare. We were his prisoners.

  Human size once more, Wilson LaRue eyed us dispassionately. “You have given me a great deal of trouble,” he said with deceptive calm. “But a god has no need for revenge. Tell me what I want to know about this possible danger and I will kill you painlessly. This I solemnly promise. Where is the Bureau located? Who is in charge? What resources do they possess?"

  Somehow drawing upon untapped reserves of strength, this time I did manage to give him the proper directions for insertion and George added a fillip about his mother and a diseased camel.

  Shaking his head in disdain, Wilson only laughed in amusement. “Ah, I see the loss of blood has made you irritable. Well, let's cauterize those nasty wounds."

  As with those words the spikes glowed white hot. I writhed from the unbearable agony, then choked and vomited from the stink of my own roasting flesh. Somewhere in the distance, I heard other members of my team screaming and crying, but I was lost in my private world of pain and could think of nothing else.

  A hundred million years later, the spikes cooled and I weakly returned to panting, sweaty consciousness. LaRue had us trapped and was trying to wring out information we couldn't give him even if we wanted. Only our Bureau implanted mind-blocks prevented him from reading our thoughts, and not even the dreaded Mind Rape could get the data he wanted. We did not know where our headquarters was located. All he could do was kill us. Eventually.

  "Perhaps you do not fully realize the situation,” LaRue stated dramatically, thumping his staff on the deck. “With but a gesture, I have countered every bit of the damage done in our little altercation and repaired my loyal fleet of war planes. Also, they are now armed with forceshields and lasers, an oversight I will not repeat. Any rescue attempt will be met with massive resistance. If necessary, I will take part in the battle. I learn from my mistakes."

  Talkative bastard, but then amateurs always were.

  Summoning her resolve, Katrina growled something in Russian then spit at LaRue, and Donaher hit him with one of those damn-your-soul-to-perdition curses that only a fighting mad Catholic Irish priest ever seems to be able to do correctly. Whew, this one was a doozy. Could have boiled water at twenty paces.

  Frowning in annoyance, Wilson glared and the priest became bumpy from head to toes, then the freckled skin burst as thousands of barbed quills slowly grew out of his skin. The priest screamed for an eternity. Then LaRue blinked and Donaher was as before. Only much paler.

  "I was hoping you would become my first priest convert. Perhaps even my pope!” the sly mage offered. “Your false lord will not save you. Worship me, and you may have Ireland for your very own! Mayhap England as well! I am generous to those who are loyal."

  Drooling blood, Father Donaher got so furious he couldn't speak for a moment, so Mindy pinch-hit for her friend and rattled off a long phrase in Japanese. Whatever she said, it must have been good, because LaRue gasped and bathed her naked form with a flickering cone of purple light from his staff. In silent torment, Mindy began to split apart like rotten fruit, her smoking bones rising to the surface.

  Shutting my ears to the noise, I turned my head to avoid watching. The finest fighting team the Bureau had and we were only toys for him to play with. There was no rescue coming, no hope of escape. Death would not be quick, not matter what he said. We had failed. Totally and utterly.

  Often I had done it jokingly, but now I silently offered my soul to anybody, anybody at all; good, evil, or indifferent, if they would only give us one last fighting chance. As always, silence was the only response.

  The howls stopped and Mindy hung limp from her spikes, great festering wounds lining her twisted body. Corpse? No, body, the remains of her chest still rose and fell with breath.

  "Answer me!” LaRue yelled in childish impatience. “Haven't you had enough? You have no more magic! You are only normal humans now!” His brows furrowed. “Or are you?"

  Gliding closer, his wand played a spectrum of lights over our tortured forms. “Ah, this man is a human, but his wife is a telepath! The muscular bitch with the big mouth is a martial artist of some kind. Fatso is a professional soldier and the big redhead is a cleric!"

  Inhaling sharply, LaRue placed a hand akimbo. “What a strange band you are! This man is a royal prince of the blood and a medium level wizard. The blonde with the nice tits is a beginner mage, previously with the power of three full wizards! Yet the giant,” his voice trailed away, then came back strong. “And what are you doing with these people?” For some reason the mage stressed the last word.

  Recoiling in terror, Ken's face went dead white and he trembled, but not from the pain of the spikes.

  Coming even closer, Wilson leered in delight. “So,” he hissed. “They don't know, do they? How amusing! How pitiful."

  Lowering his head as if in battle, Ken growled a response too soft for me to hear.

  "So you say,” LaRue acknowledged, with a chuckle. “But that does not make it true. Tell me what I want to know and I shall continue the process! You shall be a demi-god!” Then he beamed an evil smirk. “Or perhaps I should reverse the process and let them see the real you!"

  Absolutely everybody gasped in shock as Ken Sanders tore himself free from the spikes in a hideous ripping noise and dropped to the deck, his four limbs gushing blood. Even Wilson was caught totally by surprise. Screaming that jungle roar of his, Ken bared his teeth and sprang for the alchemist's throat.

  By god, the student agent almost succeeded. But just in time, LaRue recovered and frantically gestured. A lightning bolt, laser beam, disrupter ray, Death Spell, Flesh-to-Stone crackled from his gloved fingertips and blasted Sanders into a charred husk while still in mid-flight.

  But the remaining two hundred pounds of dead cooked flesh continued on by sheer inertia and slammed into Wilson's chest, cracking his ribs. Off balance, the bastard mage stumbled backwards and tripped over one of the dead guards in the pentagram.
Falling to the deck, the would-be world conqueror smacked his head on the metal with a resounding crack and went still.

  For a long moment, we could only stare. Then hesitantly, LaRue drew a ragged breath. Hell's bells, not dead yet, only stunned.

  "Jessica,” I croaked from parched throat. “Mine is the only voice you can hear. Mine the only will to obey."

  Back in a trance, she dumbly nodded assent.

  "The activation code is Apocalypse,” I said quickly. “The command phrase is Armageddon. The go word is Ragnarok."

  Jessica grit her teeth, there was a cracking noise and she swallowed. Her whole body became flushed and she started gulping air.

  "What have you done to her?” Mindy demanded, tears of pain running down her cheeks.

  "Jess has a hollow tooth filled with a massive overdose of MCD, the brain-booster drug,” I rasped, fighting off the agony that every motion brought from the spikes. “She blocked its existence from her own mind. Only I can make her remember."

  My wife was hyperventilating, her eyes rolled into her head until only solid white showed. Her nude body spasming, jerking and twisting against the wall almost succeeding in tearing free. Fresh blood gushed from her wrists and ankles.

  "Ed, it's killing her!” George raged, bunching his muscles. “Or worse!"

  Not for at least five minutes, Jessica sent into our minds like a cool silver river. No more pain, my friends.

  Instantly, the searing agony in my hands and feet was gone. I wanted to thank her, but there was no time to waste on niceties.

  "Brain Blast him into ash!” I ordered, the words raspy from all the screaming.

  Can't, my love. I am too weak. He might survive.

  "Link us together,” Katrina suggested, her face a feral mask of hatred. “Many minds better than one."

  Still dangerous. Maybe a Death Dream?

  "Do it!” I commanded furiously.

  In a swirl of thoughts, our conscious minds joined and as a fighting unit Team Tunafish began to mesh with the living, insane mind of the multiple personalities of the fledging god.

  Kill or be killed, we were going in.

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  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The ‘I’ of me became a ‘we', as the team gestated into a single identity and guided by the adroit control of the Jessica part, smoothly and without a trace, meshed with the dreaming brain of our woozy enemy. We had only seconds in which to act. A Death Dream, eh? Okay, let's make it a doozy.

  In his disorientated thoughts, LaRue was reliving the events that had just happened a moment ago. As Sander leaped, he stepped aside. No. As Sanders leaped, he hit the man with a Disintegration spell. No. As Sanders leaped, LaRue used a Death Spell and—

  We took over his subconscious.

  ...and the two of them crashed through the paper hull of the aircraft carrier and tumbled into the dirty water of the Hudson River. Floundering and splashing, the surprised LaRue turned Ken into lead and the big man sank into the murky depths. Wilson started for shore via a dog paddle, when a violent tug on his leg jerked him down. In the jumbled blurred view of underwater, smoky tendrils of blood muddied the river, and the horrified alchemist saw a blue-gray shark swimming off with his leg. LaRue screamed and polluted water filled his lungs. Gagging, the new wizard formed a platform beneath himself, and more sharks shot out of the stygian river depths. The ultra-mage tried to cast spells, but his arms moved with nightmarish slowness through the water.

  At this point, he almost understood this only an illusion in his mind so we had more sharks attack as a diversion to keep him busy! Jerk, and another leg was gone. An arm went, taking the diamond staff along. Then his head! The sharp teeth—

  "No!” the mage screamed inside his head.

  Alive and whole, a dripping wet LaRue was standing on the pier trembling from exertion, when a car horn blared. He turned and a taxi rammed into him. His body wrapped around the hood, bones crunching audibly. With a squeal of brakes, the car stopped and LaRue was airborne, tumbling head-over-heels. Brutally, he crashed through a window, the glass shards slicing him to ribbons. He landed on an electrical outlet with a thump and hard current zapped into him. Rolling away, the alchemist pulled himself together when a piercing whine rapidly built to a deafening volume, and suddenly a jumbo jetliner smashed into the office building! Ah subtlety, I love it.

  In an explosion of pain, the Navy librarian was crushed and violently slammed-slammed-slammed through numerous walls to reach the outside. Pulped to jelly, he fell to the street, stopping himself an inch above the sidewalk. From the core of his being, LaRue extended a Heal spell, and twisting about, landed on shaky feet. Damnation, this guy was hard to kill.

  Just then the city disappeared in a blinding atomic flash. Horribly burned by the thermal wave, his charred remains were blown into the sky as a second nuclear bomb detonated. In a desperate time jump, LaRue moved backwards to avoid the bomb blasts.

  Okay, no more Mr. Nice Guys. Time for the nightmare from hell. Instantly, a hundred thousand thermonuclear detonations dotted the entire North American continent only seconds before the moon crashed into the Earth.

  Whole oceans left their beds from the meteoric impact, continents split, mountains erupted, gouts of primordial magma vomited into space and the planet cracked in half. A heart beat later, the cleaved world closed its two halves like snapping jaws to crush the rogue moon with a vengeful force.

  Spinning out of orbit, Earth plunged into the sun, tongues of nuclear flame annihilating chunks of the world until only molten residue remained. Caught in the hellish crushing gravitational field of the staggering astronomical body, the boiling elements splashed into an atomic sea to be further rendered into random nuclei. Then the violated solar orb went nova creating a blinding cosmic firestorm whose starkly incalculable fury extended to fill the planetary system, and went beyond, expanding to reach another star. All the stars! In a wild chain reaction, the whole galaxy flared into a supernova of raw cosmic energy whose unbridled chaos threatened to destroy the very fabric of the Time/Space continuum!

  Then the Creator of the Universe closed a mighty hand about the tiny flame and made a fist, squeezed with all of His prodigious strength until even the immortal souls of the trillions dead screamed in limitless anguish and died, winking out of existence.

  Nothingness.

  Absolute and infinite.

  Mentally, we heard a pitiful whimpering cry, then sensed Wilson LaRue and all of his multiple personas die in an endless parade of surrender.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In echoing silence, the ‘we’ separated and I became myself once more.

  Utterly fatigued, I felt no physical pain, only a type of soulful weariness, a mental exhaustion I had not felt since my infamous date with those Swedish triplets during college finals. Ah, youth. Wish I had some left.

  Still attached to the wall, I forced apart my gummy eyelids, but could see only a blurry whiteness. Then I realized that it was the colorless smear that was pressing on me. A gentle warm pressure, but one which held me motionless in its encompassing grip.

  It was the magic! With LaRue dead and the magic was returning to the world! Caught here at the epicenter, the reverse vortex was a tangible force to even non-magical beings. At least, that's what I sincerely hoped was happening.

  In gradual stages, the velveteen hurricane diminished in magnitude, until I was allowed to slide down the wall and slump onto the cold metal deck. Hey, I was free!

  Glancing about, I found the rest of my team and some handsome stranger sitting on the metal floor. I felt odd, but there was no pain and I was wearing clothes. Only the bare essentials, but at least I wasn't naked. Katrina and Raul must have recharged from the outpouring and done a few quick conjures. Mages, aren't they wonderful? I hoped they both increased a level or two from the experience.

  The overturned jeep wreck was still whole and undamaged once more and beyond the bloody pentagr
am of guards was Wilson LaRue in street clothes, Rasamor Hoto in his kimono and the TNR battlesuit. All individuals again and each looking very deceased. There was no sign of the Aztec book.

  Scrambling closer, I found Tanner limp but I yanked out his powerpack just to be safe. Hoto proved to be a desiccated corpse weighing about as much as a dry leaf. He crumbled to the touch, so I touched him with my closed fist. A lot. Lying sprawled on the cold deck, Wilson LaRue had his ugly head split asunder. Inside the cranial cavity was only a gnarled lump of flesh, vaguely the size and shape of a fried raisin.

  Deciding that a dose of lead poisoning couldn't hurt, I reached for my Magnums. Or rather, I thought of reaching for my weapons, but my hand went over my shoulder and produced a sword whose razor length shimmered with rainbows. Eh?

  That was when I noticed my hands were slim, muscular, covered with tiny scars and a dark rich brown. Glancing down, I was in the loose black cloth of a ninja, combat sneakers and had small pert breasts. Jumping Jesus, I was Mindy! No, I was in Mindy's body.

  Hey, Mindy! You in here also?

  Only silence.

  Now I understood why I was so clumsy. My mind was giving directions to muscles that responded differently from my own. Geez, it was a wonder that I could even walk upright!

  Moving carefully, I diced and sliced the alchemist into convenient chunks and then kicked the pieces away from each other. I was far from finished with him, but this would do for starters.

  In a half glide, half lurch, I shambled back to my team. Had to find out who was who and how long this bizarre phenomenon was going to last. Hell! This could get embarrassing!

  Across the deck, George, Donaher, Katrina and Raul were moving and attempting to stand. The handsome stranger I noticed earlier was, of course, me. I started to ask whomever was in me to turn about so I could get to see the back of my head, when I noticed Jessica laying deathly still on the cold deck.

  Clumsy as a newborn, I threw myself to her side, only Mindy's instinctive reactions kept me from falling flat. Quickly, I checked my wife's pulse and respiration. Neither was detectable. Wasting no time, I titled her head, straightened the tongue and started giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.