Digital Knight

by Ryk E. Spoor

  I chuckled, then sobered somewhat. "On that note, what do you think of this guy Carruthers' offer? Is he going to play fair on the deal, since I delivered the goods?"

  "I would say without any shadow of a doubt, my friend—and I thank both your good fortune and good business sense for that bargain. Yes, he will abide by those terms; while some of the young Wolves may sneer at such commitments, a true Elder knows better than to even contemplate breaking a bargain sworn to in the King's name. And if Carruthers' name is truly Virigan . . . well, then he is more than merely Elder; he is one of the only surviving Firstborn." He frowned, swirling his usual drink in its crystal glass. "I must admit, Jason, that I am as mystified—and concerned—with his outré interest in human genetic engineering as you. Such a thing would not, as far as I can tell, enhance the spiritual power or aspect of humanity—which is what they consume, as you know. Thus it cannot, at least directly, be concerned with improving their food supply. Indeed, tampering which interferes too much with certain aspects of humanity could actually damage humanity's usefulness to them, so Virigan must be interested in . . . something else."

  I shrugged. "No hurry, I think. We'll keep looking—or rather, Jeri's outfit will, right?"

  Jeri, still looking somewhat uptight at being in a meeting that so casually discussed burn-before-reading Secret material, nodded. "You can bet on it. Since we're not excluded from their hit list, unlike the rest of you, we also have no reason to hold back. I might note that when I gave my interim report on this incident, my boss did something I've never seen him do in all the years I've known him; give vent to an utterly spontaneous curse."

  "Why?"

  "It seems," Jeri answered, "that Mr. Carruthers was, in a way, sending us a message just by appearing to you in that guise. Obviously as a Wolf he could have chosen any shape he wanted. You see, Alexi Carruthers was, as far as we knew, killed off a number of years ago in a manner that remains classified. By showing us what he really is, he is basically telling Pantheon, and through Pantheon all of ISIS, that we're dealing with something much nastier than we'd yet suspected . . . and you can rest assured, we already suspected some seriously nasty things."

  "Well, Miss Winthrope," Morgan said courteously, "I am sure I speak for us all when I say that you can count on our assistance if it could ever be of service."

  I glanced at Syl with a raised eyebrow. She gave a secretive smile. Morgan did seem to like Jeri—how very strange, since I would never have thought she was his type. Whether Jeri had any interests outside of her job, of course, was something none of us would ever know unless she decided to tell us. "I have to give Ms. Gennaro a callback—it's been several days already. I'm just trying to decide what to tell her."

  Kafan growled something, then sighed. "Twisty problem. Can't just tell her to stop poking around in those things—it's her job."

  "Besides that, trying to shove her out might cause talk by itself, and certainly wouldn't keep someone else from going to the sites," I pointed out.

  Verne nodded. "I am afraid, Jason, that you will simply have to use your own judgement. You and I are in essence safe—at least until that day when the King decides to try us again—but if she or her people learn too much, there will be more disappearances, regardless of whether they discover another monster or not. I would, in fact, judge it unlikely they will find anything of that magnitude again, but even a few more artifacts whose age they can accurately measure would be greatly troubling to certain people. The Demons cannot rework the face of a planet now, not with the changes wrought on Earth since those days, but the few of their agents who remain are more than strong enough to obliterate prying scientists."

  "If it will help, I can always throw an international security umbrella over the work," Jeri offered.

  "No!" Kafan snapped, jumping to his feet.

  Jeri looked uncertainly at him, aware of his capabilities. "Why the panic?"

  "Control yourself, Raiakafan," Verne said.

  He closed his eyes, opened them again. "Because any such move would make it look like the governments are getting interested directly. The very last thing any of them want is for humanity, or its governments, really taking a deep look into these things. That's why you and your agency are all going to be dead sometime soon." He said the last line in the same way I might have said "I'll be ordering pizza for dinner tomorrow"—a casual statement of fact, impersonal but inarguable. "Your people ride the edge, and Carruthers' signal just means that he's marked you down as needing his attention, or that of some of the other surviving forces. If you start doing things officially, you could end up with them deciding that maybe the whole world's getting too close to the truth, and then they'd have to start a war or something."

  "A nuclear war would definitely be interfering with my life," I pointed out, half-joking. I really didn't like considering this entire shadow war thing right now.

  To my surprise, Kafan and Verne seemed to take the idea at least somewhat seriously. "You may have something of a point, jesting aside," Verne said. "Carruthers' own projects would be unlikely to survive an extreme sanction against the world order, and so he would have a vested interest in promoting maximum tolerance. Still, I agree with Kafan that unless there is no other choice, overt involvement of any intelligence agencies in such matters would be playing with fire."

  "Hey, just offering," said Jeri. "And unless these Demon thingies do still have the power to reshape the world, don't be counting us out, Mr. Raiakafan Tai Lee Ularion Xiang. If someone does come gunning for us, you can bet they'll know they've been in a fight."

  Kafan nodded to her, a mark of respect if not agreement.

  I got up, leaving Syl on the recliner, and picked up the phone.

  This time I had to contact her at the University, but she was available—preparing a paper on some of the finds.

  "Mr. Wood!"

  "Yes. Nice to speak to you again, Ms. Gennaro. Your information was invaluable."

  Her voice was just slightly tense—she was trying to be relaxed, but not quite succeeding. "Please call me Mandy. So what exactly happened?"

  "You can call me Jason, then. There was a series of murders happening in Florida . . ." I gave an expurgated version of events, leaving out things like werewolves, my bargain, and so on. " . . . And so I was finally able to kill it off. Some of this you might see on the news soon, even though there was a heavy lid clamped on it at first."

  She was silent for a few moments. "So . . . you're saying that this 'Maelkodan' was inside that casket we brought aboard?"

  "Yes," I answered. "And you were right, of course; Dr. O'Connell never left your ship. The Maelkodan killed him when it emerged. It, like the Wolves, gains a great deal of the knowledge of its victims, at least temporarily, so it was able to figure out a way to at least temporarily leave a false trail."

  "How horrid." I could almost hear a little shiver in her voice. "If it weren't for the Morgantown material, I'd think this was insanity. But . . . when we opened the casket there were some odd traces that we didn't quite know what to make of. Any dating we do on the casket is of course questionable at this point, it having been out of controlled conditions when it was opened. We have a few other items from the same dig, however, so we are hopeful that we may be able to date it, at any rate—the results on the casket aren't reasonable."

  I took a deep breath. "Mandy, I also have to give you a warning."

  "A . . . warning, Mr. . . . Jason?"

  "I can't—nor would I—try to tell you not to continue your line of research. However, I do have to caution you; you've heard the old expression 'Things Man Was Not Meant To Know,' of course?"

  She gave an uncertain chuckle. "Um, yes . . . ?"

  "I never gave much credence to that idea myself, but as it turns out, there are some things that . . . well, not to go into detail, but Things That Put Man Or Woman In Real Danger If They Know. Your research has just uncorked one nasty genie from a bottle; there are worse genies—some of them forces that just don't
want certain things known. Think paranoid. Then think worse. I'm already in the soup, so to speak—there's no way for me to reduce my danger."

  "And is there for me—aside from abandoning these sites, which I really cannot imagine doing?"

  "I'm not sure. Legitimate archaeological work can't be stopped, after all, and even if you did stop on my vague say-so, someone else would surely try their hand."

  She was quiet for a moment. "Is the danger in question other things like this Maelkodan, or are you more referring to just the fact of our knowing and publishing certain things?"

  "The latter more than the former, although as we have both discovered, the former isn't to be discounted."

  She thought for another few moments. "Mr. Wood, could you, personally, recognize these dangerous elements if you saw them?"

  "I think so," I answered cautiously. In point of fact, I could probably recognize most dangerous subjects, and with Verne and Raiakafan to back me up . . . "Yes, I could."

  "Then perhaps this would at least minimize the risk; in view of this bizarre discovery, I could recommend to the Board that you be hired—if willing—as a consultant, who will examine finds for potential risks that lie outside of our normal expertise. In this way we would be able to pass material found at the sites in question to you for advice on how best to handle it, and you would be able to determine what time bombs—informational or actual—we may have unearthed."

  I felt my interior tension ease some. Mandy Gennaro was clearly a smart cookie, and willing to listen. "That sounds excellent, Mandy. You can count on me. Obviously I'd try to reject as little as possible—and the final call would still be yours. I'll work on getting together a risk assessment methodology, so that you can make informed risk decisions."

  "Right, then. I'll contact the Board immediately, in view of what happened to Dr. O'Connell. You have told the police about this?"

  "I will be informing them shortly after I hang up with you. I felt you deserved to get the news first and directly."

  "I truly appreciate that, Jason. Now let me get the ball rolling here; I'd like to be able to run all the discoveries past you pronto so that we can get publishing soon."

  "By all means. Thank you, Mandy. Take care."

  "Ta." She hung up.

  "Smarter than many," Kafan said. "I guess she decided if she was going to trust you at all, she had to figure you knew what you were talking about."

  "It is rude to eavesdrop, Kafan," Verne said mildly.

  "You heard it too," Kafan retorted.

  "Well, yes, but a gentleman doesn't admit to overhearing things not meant for his own ears. I agree with your assessment; a woman of uncommon good sense. She recognized Jason as trustworthy, and thus no matter how outrageous the subject area, he was worth paying heed to."

  "So you people think this will work?" I asked.

  Verne gave a seesawing motion of his hand. "It is far better than nothing. She will still be running grave risks, but this approach may keep her and her people alive, or at least give them sufficient warning to know when they are, in fact, at risk of death or worse. And it is a far, far better thing that we have direct contact with those who may be uncovering traces of the past than that someone we know nothing of be doing the digging."

  "Well then," Jeri said, getting up, "since that's pretty much taken care of, I'll be off to file a report and recommend that it be marked closed on our files."

  "I shall show you out, Lady Jeri," Morgan said, and the two left.

  "So, will you continue your honeymoon?" Verne asked.

  We laughed. "Eventually, sure," I said. "Not that being home means it has to stop." I grinned lecherously at Syl, who poked me in one of my still very sore ribs. "Ow! In any case, there's lots for me to do here."

  "And we can do it with less to fear, now," Syl said.

  "Indeed. Again, Jason, I thank you. By good fortune and wise choices, you have lifted what was in truth a burden of worry and fear from us all."

  I grinned and blushed. "Aw shucks, weren't nothin'."

  "Do not sell yourself short, my friend."

  I nodded, still smiling. "Okay, okay. You're welcome. I guess we're safe now. Well, except for the Demons."

  "Perhaps even from them, at least for now," Verne said, lifting his glass. "As you deduced in that adventure which nearly killed me in my own home, the Project certainly must have connections of some sort to the remnants of those who caused the fall of Atlantaea originally. Given that, they will know that we are endeavoring to keep the number who know certain facts low, and, more importantly, that you, Lady Sylvia, and myself are explicitly reserved for Virigar's attention."

  "Oh?" I said, skeptically. "Even if they do, so what? I mean, Virigar's the Big Bad Wolf, no doubt about it, but these guys obliterated cities, rewrote the surface of a planet to fit their own schemes—and didn't destroy it only because of some mystical connection that they wouldn't want to risk. What's to stop them from laughing in Virigar's face?"

  Verne stared at me, then gave a faint, hollow laugh. "My friend, there is nothing I have seen in all my hundreds of thousands of years that I fear more than the Werewolf King. And I tell you, in all earnestness, that there is no being I have ever known—man or dragon, vampire or demon, ghost or living god—which would dare to laugh at him, if they knew what they faced. No, my friend, while the Great Demons might, under the right circumstances, disregard the Werewolf King's claims on someone, even they shall never do so lightly. I believe that if we continue to keep this knowledge limited, if we make any struggles against them a secret war, then they shall be willing to leave us alone when we move not against them; they do not want to borrow trouble they could easily avoid."

  I stared at him for a while, realizing that he meant every word. I shrugged. "I don't know if I should consider this comforting or not. Okay, the big Demons will leave me alone, but any day now I could be a Wolf appetizer."

  "Unlikely in the extreme, sir," Morgan said, returning. "Uncertainty and fear are part of his stock in trade. It will suit him far better to wait several years—and with the disruption to his people you have caused, he will have many better things to do with his time for many years. Both Master Verne and I are of the opinion that the Werewolf King will trouble us no more for quite some time to come."

  I did relax at that. Something about Morgan's calm, English voice was infinitely reassuring. "In that case, I say we should celebrate."

  "An excellent suggestion, sir!"

  The party went on for a long time.

  THE END

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  Digital Knight

  Table of Contents

  Gone in a Flash

  Lawyers, Ghouls, and Mummies

  Photo Finish

  Viewed in a Harsh Light

  Live and Let Spy

  Mirror Image