by Nick Pollota
“Sentient werewolves?"
Donaher frowned. “Feh."
I agreed. Feh on toast. With ketchup.
“Raul, how long can you hold this barrier?” George asked, laying an assortment of grenades on the ground. Father Donaher was doing the same, and Mindy was hastily assembling a compound bow from her pocket arsenal of secret ninja death-dealers. Patent pending.
Spreading powders on the dirt in a rune pattern, the mage loftily sniffed his disdain. “Against purely physical weapons? No problem. Domes take a lot of power. Globes even more so. But this? Piffle."
Father Donaher blinked, and shook his head. “Piffle? Now where did he learn language like that?"
Raul jerked a thumb. “From Ed, of course."
I was shocked. “Now just a dog-gone minute there, buckaroo—"
Shouting something incomprehensible, Kathi stood and from her cupped hands there lanced a swirling cone of lightning and boiling flame. But the lambent outpouring of concentrated death-spells thinned into nothingness before it reached the hotel. The distance was just too great, and neither wizard could stand long enough to draw the size of pentagram necessary to cast a long-distance conjure.
Cra-ack! Zing!
George blinked, and shook his head. “Up yours,” he growled.
Jessica stared at him intently.
Activating my wristwatch, I got only a carrier-wave buzz. Interference from the hotel must be blocking the radio signals. And every telepath was off-line. Damn. So much for summoning air support. A renovation via saturation bombing was just what this place needed.
Mindy blinked, and shook her head.
More incoming rounds. Cra-rack! Zing! Whoosh! Boom!
Wisely, I decided it was time to get tough. “Kathi, take Donaher and Jessica and teleport back to the RV for our combat armor and heavy-weapons trunk."
Kathi blinked. “Da, Edwardo."
I blinked and shook my head. What had I been about to say? Oh, yes. “Donaher, assist her with the big—"
Diving forward, Jessica grabbed at George and jerked backwards. As she came clear, I could see my darling wife held the pull-rings from a brace of grenades. Frantically, George clawed at his chest. There was a smoky explosion and everything went black.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rocking gently, I came awake with both of my .357 Magnums out and searching for danger. Who? What? Where? Ah.
“Hello, dear,” Jess said from behind the wheel of the van. Through the windows I could see that we were speeding along a highway somewhere. Sprawled on the rear couches was the rest of the team. Nobody seemed hurt, and our weapons were readily evident.
“Hi, hon,” I mouthed around a flannel tongue. Then as my head cleared, memories flooded in and I coldly aimed a Smith & Wesson at the love of my life. If the human sitting near me was Jessica. Her aura read human norm. But that wasn't good enough.
“Holmes,” I demanded. If she gave the wrong answer, I would have to move fast after blowing her head off to grab the wheel and keep us from crashing. Luckily, the road was fairly even and straight. I didn't think we were in West Virginia anymore. Ohio, maybe. Oz?
Jessica gave me a rueful smile. “Watson. My, my, aren't you a Mr. Paranoid."
Ain't that the truth. But that was only because I had so many enemies and they were everywhere. I sneaked a quick peek under my car seat. Okay, safe for the moment. Maybe.
“Mother's maiden name?” I asked grimly.
“Yang-Wu,” she sighed. “And I was born in Evanston."
“What happened in Honolulu?"
“We ran out of massage oil.” Jess cocked an eyebrow. “Satisfied?"
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, holstering my weapons and feeling slightly foolish. How was I supposed to know the stuff was flammable?
She shrugged. “That's okay, Ed. Business is business."
True enough. While it was not an everyday occurrence for my wife to kidnap the team in the middle of a mission, clones and doppelgangers were a common danger in our line of work, and someday, it wouldn't be my wife I would wake up alongside. Which would put me in big trouble on two counts.
Just then, a sign flashed by my window stating the miles to the Indiana border. Wow. Had long had we been asleep?
“So what happened?” I asked reclining in the front seat.
“I set off some gas grenades,” she explained.
“That explains the lovely cat-litter flavor in my mouth."
“Hey, I don't make ‘em. I just use ‘em."
Abruptly, Mindy sat up. “Oh, it was a gas grenade,” she said, chewing her tongue. “Ick. What a taste. I'll start some tea.” The martial artist moved towards the tiny kitchenette in the rear of the van.
Sounding like a foghorn on steroids, Father Donaher gave a yawn that threatened to implode the windows and blinked consciousness into his face. “What the ... ah, of course. Anesthesia gas."
“Tea?” Mindy offered, busy with the kettle.
“Please, lass. Thank you."
Stretching his arms to the ceiling, George really put the stress test on his Army shirt, and for a moment you could see the hard muscle underneath his fat. His jacket was laying on the floor, and our pet lizard Amigo was half inside one of the pockets munching loudly on what sounded like cookies or bones.
“Geez, Jess,” George said, rubbing his temples. “You could have asked me for the K47L cans. No need to steal ‘em."
“Sorry,” my wife sang out from behind the wheel. “There was no time."
Damnation! Had everybody figured this out but me?
Groaning softly, Kathi wobbled erect and ran fingers through her long hair in a crude abolition. “Sleep gas,” she rumbled. “Bleh."
On cue, Raul groaned into life. “Oh god, I hate knockout gas,” he moaned. “What's the chance of getting a beer?"
“Ed?” Mindy asked, glancing my way.
Hesitantly, I nodded yes. Mages had a tendency to drink heavily, and we had to monitor them. On the other hand, absolutely nothing cleared the biochemical crude from your mouth like a frothy cold brew. Except, perhaps, another cold frothy beer.
All by itself, the door to our small refrigerator opened and a six pack of Bud started to float out.
“One each,” I clarified.
Two beers broke free from the levitating pack and wafted over to Raul and Kathi. Now that's what I call a light beer. The wizards formally clinked containers and drank from the closed cans. I was unimpressed, having seen the Invisible Straw trick before.
After serving George and Donaher, Mindy passed a couple of steaming ceramic mugs to us, and I held the wheel for a moment while Jess added mint and lemon. I took mine straight.
“Okay,” I said after a preliminary sip. “Report. How did we get into the van?"
Jessica lifted a plain copper bracelet into view. “I used this magic bracelet taken from Raul to teleport us here, and I drove away as fast as possible."
Wiping the moisture off his hand, Raul accepted the bracelet, and slid it back on his wrist. The copper band was drained at present, but the Recharge spell was a minor matter. Raul could do such things in his sleep ... and often did. Which explained why nobody ever bothered the wizard during nap time.
“Why the improvisational retreat?” Father Donaher asked, placing aside his empty mug.
Neatly, my wife maneuvered around an 18-wheeler full of livestock. Thank God for air conditioning.
“Had to,” she explained, as we accelerated past the portable barn. “We were being systematically hit with a mind-probe by an enemy psychic. God knows what information they got already."
“Was it a pro, an expert telepath?” George asked, frowning. None of us trusted mentalists, after seeing what Jess used to be able to do with the bad guys. Chilling stuff.
Jess gave a grim nod. “Somebody so good, you guys didn't even know that it was happening."
“Then how did you?” Mindy asked bluntly.
Here Jessica faltered. “I ... used to do it often enough that I can
recognize the signs."
There was a respectful moment of silence from the team. Until only a few months ago, my lovely bride had been the top telepath in the Bureau, i.e., the world. But after battling a fledgling god, she had been blasted into a normal human. She still possessed an eidetic memory, but her vaunted telepathic powers were gone forever, and nothing in Heaven or Hell could make them return. This I knew for a fact. I had asked the management of both places. Personally.
Would it be the same as one of us going blind or deaf? I didn't know. Nobody but another telepath could know. I could only ponder on the fact that all of her fellow mentalists were now dead, and it was only her debilitating handicap that allowed her to survive. What did my lady feel deep down inside? Maybe remorse, shame? Or was it envy?
Impulsively, I reached out to touch her, but Jess shied away, her features an iron mask of neutrality. It was at that precise instant that I finally realized exactly how much my wife missed her telepathic abilities.
“Well, if the situation ever occurs again, let's code name your tactic quote, Friendly Fire, end quote,” I suggested, returning my hand to my own lap. “That way, if you're a bit slower and one of us is a bit faster, we can avoid those expensive dry-cleaning bills.” Brains were a really difficult stain to get out of a white line shirt, plus a tad disgusting.
Frowning, George turned from looking out the window. “Jessica, exactly where are we going?"
“Nowhere in particular,” she replied.
“Faith, lass, and why are we going nowhere so fast?” Donaher asked puzzled, glancing about outside through the windows.
My wife jerked a thumb backwards. “Them,” she said.
Reaching down, I jerked the lever underneath my seat and swivelled about. Amid the rest of the meager traffic, there were a number of perfectly normal 18-wheel Mack trucks behind us.
In a standard #2 surveillance formation. Oh, fudge.
Grabbing his rosary, Father Donaher started reciting a prayer of protection.
Turning around, Kathi splayed a golden light from her wand about the van, checking our defensive seals, and George activated the HumBug unit, a nifty little techno-device we got from the CIA. It made our car windows vibrate in an irregular ultra-sonic pattern so that anybody using a maser beam couldn't hear our voices through the glass. Also, did a damn fine personal massage.
“They've been following us since we departed West Virginia,” Jess announced, confirming my suspicions. “I decided not to tell you about them until everybody got a chance to recover from the sleep gas. Let you acclimatize."
I growled in annoyance, even though it was good sense. I had almost shot my wife upon awakening. If she had been frantically yelling that we were being trailed by enemy forces...
“Any hostile moves?” Mindy asked, her rainbow sword out and ready.
Jess shook her head. “Nope. But where I go, they go."
Sliding back a panel in the ceiling, Mindy liberated a pair of binoculars from the overhead weapons rack.
“The five trucks appear to be perfectly ordinary tractor-trailer assemblies,” she announced, staring out the window. “A high riding 6-wheel cab, with 12-wheel trailers being pulled along behind. Different colors and different ages. Sides made of unpainted corrugated steel. No perceptible openings, presumably a double-door in the back. One has a compressed gas cylinder on the bottom. Must be refrigerated. There are a variety of company names on the trucks, and ICC numbers. Looks like a simple buddy convoy. Possibly a couple of independent truckers out on a TSD, or piecemeal run."
“Faith, lass, I agree,” Father Donaher said. “Now could you try that again, in English, please?"
“They look clean,” the former resident of New Jersey explained for everyone's benefit. “No obvious armaments."
“Doesn't mean a damn thing,” I noted, clicking back the hammers on both of my handguns.
“Any CB activity?” Raul asked, polishing his wand with a vengeance. Sparks flew from the tip and arced down into the bottom as the staff charged itself for action.
“Go ahead and try,” Jess offered, with a gesture.
Rising from the middle couch, George stepped past the wizards and took the swivel chair at the Communications Panel. He flipped some switches and a strident howl whined from the floorboard speakers. Scrunching his face in concentration, George twisted the dial to different positions and pressed some pre-set buttons to the same result.
“Full spectrum jamming,” he cursed, savagely twisting the Off dial. “That's the Scion. Subtle as a brick through a window."
“And just as smart,” Raul added.
“Did not know our radios could be jammed,” Kathi said suspiciously.
I answered, “Anybody's radio can be jammed with enough raw power."
“And if they're knocking us off the air,” George said. “There must not be a working TV or radio station in this whole section of the state!"
“Which means help is on its way,” Kathi said optimistically. “Bureau will detect and send recon unit.” Then her face clouded. “No, nyet. We are the recon unit."
Rotating around, George held out a hand. Donaher tossed him the banjo-from-Hell. Catching the 30 pounds in one hand, our plump soldier worked the bolt on his huge M-60, starting a new belt of ammunition.
“Gas situation?” he asked, already starting to talk in short battlefield sentences.
Keeping one hand on the wheel, Jess pointed at the dashboard. “Already on emergency tanks."
Oh swell. Damn this Detroit monster and its low mileage! Didn't Toyota make any armored luxury cars?
Crouched over the weapon locker, Father Donaher's black cloth-clad bottom wiggled about as he rummaged in an ammunition drawer. “Hey George! Aren't there any Deer Slugs for my shotgun?"
“Sure. Over by the Armbrust stealth missile."
“Ah, there they are. Thanks."
Double-ought buckshot cartridges from the good father's Remington could cut most monsters in half. However, the effectiveness of a shotgun is decreased geometrically with distance. That was why he wanted the Deer Slugs. Simply put, they were bullets for a shotgun. Only the mighty Donaher could handle the mind-numbing recoil of the projectiles, but they changed his shotgun from a short-range to a long-range weapon and increased its destructive power astronomically.
As this was plainly no time for trick cameras, I passed Jess an Uzi machine pistol from the small arsenal in the glove compartment. Maintaining speed, she accepted the weapon, along with four additional clips of mixed ammo. I put the open carton of grenades on the couch for easy access by both of us.
“Mindy, what does radar say?” Kathi asked, sliding tiers of copper bracelets from her wizard's kit onto her slim tan arms.
Glancing over my shoulder at the dashboard, the short woman consulted the beeping screen. “That there are two of them,” Mindy announced.
Ah, modern technology. Ain't it grand?
That was when I noticed that both mages were now dressed for warfare in combat sneakers, denim pants, T-shirts and short vests with zillion tiny pockets bulging with magical items. Of course, Raul's T-shirt was adorned with a giant bull's-eye target surrounded by the international ‘NO’ symbol, and Kathi's had a picture of her wearing a T-shirt with a picture of her wearing a T-shirt with a picture of her wearing a T-shirt, ad infinitum, but that was only to be expected.
In grim satisfaction, Father Donaher stroked his Remington shotgun into readiness. “And what's the magical report,” the big priest asked.
“Magical probes show clear,” the mage reported, fondling the empty air. “No cargo, one driver per truck."
That caught everybody's attention. The Scion sent empty trucks after us when we escaped from their secret headquarters? Bullshit.
With renewed interest, Mindy located her binoculars on the wheels. “Riding too damn low for empties,” she observed. “Could be bad suspension on one or two, but all five?"
Adjusting my sunglasses, I dialed for computer enhancement. The view f
ragmented, the middle section magnifying the lead white cab. Everything seemed normal. They appeared to be just a bunch of tired looking asphalt jockeys. Typical long-distance truckers. Following Bureau procedure, I switched to ultraviolet on my sunglasses. Nothing of interest showed. However, on infrared there were strong indications of heat sources in the trucks. Including the refrigeration rig.
“They're phonies,” I calmly announced.
That was precisely when the trucks behind us exploded.
CHAPTER SIX
Even as the blast ripped along the highway, the five big Mack trucks detonated again. The tiny metal squares that had formed the trucks’ sides fluttered to the ground, exposing an inner framework of metal struts. Fluted ramps extended from the sides of flatbeds, hovering inches above the rushing concrete, and giants on motorcycles poured onto the turnpike, skillfully scattering to give their brethren room to descend.
The hairy riders had leather bandoleers of ammunition crisscrossing their Herculean chests, full-body military flak jackets, and oversized crash helmets. Each monster biker was armed with a MAC-10 spray-and-pray and a LAW rocket launcher. Those were big trouble. Enough of the anti-tank weapons just might prove effective against the armor of our Bureau 13 issue van. What was even worse, the lunatics weren't riding standard motorcycles, but ultrafast Harley Davidson racing bikes with V-nosed prows, stabilizer fins and studded tires. On or off the road, they could easily outrun our lumbering RV. But what really caught our attention were the innocent-appearing saddlebags draped over the rear fenders of each bike. Bags protected by a defensive rune that visibly glowed with power. Made my eyes water just to stare at the things. My Kirlian sunglasses gave an aura reading so black with evil it was if the riders drove in a coal-dust cloud.
On my request, Raul and Kathi concentrated their magical probes on those lumpy leather pouches. Each was jammed full of C3, the unstable and temperamental grandfather of modern day C4, high explosive military plastique. Uh-oh. Fast, I hit the controls for external microphones and video cameras. The back window frosted over to a magnified view of our surprise guests.