“We’ll see,” Neo said defiantly. “Switch me over to him.”
“He’s not available,” Withers replied. “You’d better be concerned about saving your own skin, Doss. I’ve a mind to suspend you without pay pending an investigation into your aiding a wanted felon. And such an investigation could last months.”
“That’s bull!”
“You’re in hot water and you know it,” Withers snapped. “Now if you want to avoid such circumstances, I advise you to start taking your orders from Orion Sector supervisor - me.”
Neo knew that Withers could stir up a lot of trouble for him, and he and Liz might lose their home if his income stopped for more than six months. As much as he wanted to help Nick, Neo had to look after his own family’s welfare first. There was a chance that Osborne would intercede on his behalf and Withers’s orders would be rescinded, but could Neo take that chance? He wasn’t much of a gambler.
“Well?” Withers asked impatiently.
On the other hand, if he pretended to go along, he could appear to be following that snake’s orders and help Nick stay a step ahead of Withers at the same time. It was chancy but not as great a risk as telling Withers to go jump in the lake.
“Okay,” Neo said at last, “I’m with you.”
“A wise decision.”
Neo cringed. Conspiring with Withers against Nick soured his stomach.
“Now listen, Doss. I want you to contact Bellamy and ask him to meet you in Duneden. Tell him that you need back up right away. I don’t care what reason you give him, just make it believable,” he said brusquely. “We don’t want Bellamy suspecting a trap. Got it?”
“I got it.”
“And if you try any funny stuff, I guarantee that you and your family will pay,” he warned.
“I said I’d cooperate, didn’t I?”
“Good boy. After you talk to Bellamy, let me know when he’s going to meet you. And Neo . . .”
“Yeah.”
“Stick around town until I advise you otherwise.” He hung up.
Neo stared out the front window at the tourists roaming the park across the street. A wood and brick sign proclaimed it to be Wicca Gardens. Sidewalks criss-crossed the rolling, grassy landscape that included several multihued flower gardens, numerous park benches, and two tennis courts. An ancient sundial stood inside a redbrick pentagram at its center.
Neo called Crow at the Blue Lick Orion Sector Remote Facility and asked for Nick, but Crow informed him that Nick wasn’t there. Neo drummed his fingers on the nightstand. Crow promised to have Nick return the call when he reappeared and suggested that Neo hold the fort until then.
Neo thought about letting Withers know that he hadn’t been able to connect with Nick, but he decided to take a walk in the Wicca Gardens to clear his head and settle his nerves first. This had been a bad day so far, and he didn’t think it could get any worse.
He was wrong.
When Withers ended his conversation with Neo, he smiled like the cat that had swallowed the canary. Not only was he going to capture that damned nuisance, Bellamy, and see to it that he was convicted of that meddling landlord’s murder, but he would also kill two birds with one stone by erasing Neo. He would somehow see to it that Doss’s murder would be blamed on Nick, too. Withers’s outside contact would be pleased at the news.
He glanced out of his office window, and his jaw dropped. Neo Doss was strolling down the aisle on the opposite side of the office area! Now. Here. How was that possible? He had just spoken with him in Ohio.
Withers leaped out of his chair and ran to his secretary’s desk. Neo smiled at him and waved.
“Wait,” Withers shouted, but the big man entered Bellamy’s office and closed the door and window blinds.
“I thought Agent Doss was in Ohio,” his secretary commented.
“Get security up here right away!” Withers shouted.
Within two minutes, a security team of eight men and two women assembled outside Bellamy’s door. Withers joined them, his gun drawn.
“Remember, he may be armed and dangerous, so shoot first and ask questions later,” he ordered.
A firm jerk of their heads indicated their understanding and compliance. Withers gestured for them to enter. They smashed in the door, guns raised, but there was no one to shoot. The office appeared empty.
“That’s impossible,” Withers murmured. “I watched the door the whole time, and Doss never came out. Since there’s no other exit, he must be here. Search everything.”
The swift inspection yielded nothing.
“Problem?” a threatening voice asked from the doorway.
Withers turned his head and retreated a step. The voice belonged to a dour Rance Osborne.
“I can explain,” Withers sputtered.
“I certainly hope so, because it appears that you and your security team have forgotten how to open doors without adding to my already tight department budget,” he said sternly.
“Please, let me explain.”
Rance listened to Withers’s story, and his severe expression gradually changed to one of alarm.
“Get me the surveillance tape for the time period in question and send in a team of our agents to completely search every office,” he commanded.
“Right away, sir.”
“And I want the results in my office ASAP!” Rance growled, and limped away.
The Creeper watched the security team burst into Bellamy’s office and Withers’s wonderment at finding the phantom Neo gone. A grin cracked his reptilian lips in the shadow of the cowl. Withers was the weakest link in his father’s intelligence circle, and although the Creeper wanted to erase this buffoon, the honorable senator disagreed. He wanted to make sure that Bellamy and Doss were either eliminated or under control before purging Withers, his only Orion Sector connection.
The Creeper got a kick out of toying with his father’s arrogant allies whenever he could spare the time. Today, for instance, he could’ve stolen Bellamy’s file on the Blue Lick Orion Sector Remote Facility without anyone seeing him, but the opportunity to humiliate Ronnie boy in front of his peers and Osborne was too terrific to pass up.
The agitated Withers rushed back to his office. The Creeper grabbed the file contents that included the secret facility’s location, security data, and armaments and dropped the empty folder on the desk. Let the flustered Withers have fun figuring out what the hell the Blue Lick Orion Sector Remote Facility was. The little man would eventually be furious about being left out of Rance’s information loop.
The Creeper silently mouthed a chant and vanished into thin air just as Withers shoved his office door open. The Creeper floated undetected above Withers as the FBI supervisor snatched the empty folder and stared at its emptiness in deep thought. The Creeper was certain that Withers would storm into Osborne’s office and demand to know what had been in the folder, and he was just as certain that Rance would instantly know who stole the folder and why. But even with that knowledge, there was little Rance could do to protect the secret facility from the Creeper’s vast powers.
He smiled.
By tipping his hand early, the Creeper was assured that Nick would have enough time to evacuate the place. He didn’t want anything to happen to good ole Nick. He just wanted to destroy the Orion Sector computer system that was advanced enough to unearth all the details of the Mortal Eclipse project before the election. If he allowed that to happen, Hollis Danforth would be residing in a penitentiary, not the White House.
Withers’s face reddened with each passing second. Finally, he stuffed the empty folder under his arm and nearly ran from his office. Satisfied with himself, the Creeper drifted through the open office doorway and toward the elevator. His next stop would be the Blue Lick Orion Sector Remote Facility, and when he was through with it, it would be as useless as its empty folder.
Neo sat on a park bench beside the old sundial and tried to calculate the exact time from the shadows spilling on it unusual face. Flawlessly carved, horned demons wi
th outlandishly large sexual parts frolicked seductively on its circular edge.
“Fascinating?” a female voice asked from behind.
Neo turned his head and found himself staring at one of the most beautiful women he had even seen. He guessed her to be in her late twenties. Wisps of long black hair outlined her oval face and thick waves spilled across her shoulders and high-perched breasts. Her delicate, sun-bronzed skin radiated sensuality, and the way her fiery raven eyes bore into his was more of a sexual than physical act. Her full lips, pursed below finely chiseled cheekbones, moved sinfully with each word she spoke. Her exquisite body was draped in a gauzy, short black dress that silhouetted her breasts and legs.
Speechless, Neo nodded his answer.
The woman sat beside him, and her dress hiked up past mid-thigh. Neo glanced away uneasily. He repeated to himself that he was a married man.
“Old men like to sit here and look at the horny demons until they get aroused. They swear it works better than Viagra,” she said unabashedly.
Neo shifted. He wasn’t used to talking about sex with strange women. “Is that so,” he replied.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, that’s what I hear.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes, studying the people walking past. Being a married man who hung around with other married couples, Neo was pretty rusty at talking up gorgeous young women. Finally, the woman extended her hand.
“Ariel,” she announced.
He cleared the quivering frog in his throat. “Neo,” he returned, as they clasped hands.
She held it tightly for a moment, and then released it slowly. Sensuously. “I know.”
His eyebrows raised. “How?”
“I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it was my sister who treated you so rudely this morning.”
He gasped. “You mean your sister’s the one who made my car vanish and gave me fire ants for dancing partners?”
She blushed. “I came to apologize for her. She’s not very sociable and gets carried away sometimes.”
“That’s putting it mildly!”
“I’d like to make it up to you.”
Neo regarded her suspiciously. “Okay, I’m game. How?”
“You came to see Jill Sandlin, and I can arrange a meeting with her.”
“Really?” A warning sounded in his head, but he was too smitten by Ariel’s beauty to pay attention.
“But we’ll have to meet out by the lake where my sister can’t see us. I’ll tell her that Jill and I are going for a swim, and you can meet us at our dock. Say about eight thirty?”
“You’re sure about this?” he asked uneasily. “After what happened the last time, I’m a little gun shy.”
Ariel laughed. “I understand, but I’ll protect you. I know a few tricks myself.” Before he could change his mind, she gave him the directions to her dock and waved goodbye.
Neo followed her body’s swaying retreat, and then chastised himself for a lack of professionalism. Ariel was business. Strictly business. He had to keep it that way or confront a far worse demon than those on the sundial face. A jealous wife.
He returned to his room and tried to focus on the questions that he would ask Jill Sandlin that evening, but preventing Ariel from slipping into his thoughts proved to be a daunting task.
Neo located the dock easily. Since Ariel and Jill hadn’t arrived yet, he walked out on the worn wooden structure and studied the considerable Lake Griffin. The tourist guide that he purchased at the motel described its history.
The original settlers in 1843 required water to irrigate their crops and feed their livestock, and sharing the Hopewell River and Cherry Fork creek with the local Indians, the Hopewells, proved a dangerous proposition. Ambushes and stolen cattle along the river and creek became common, so they dammed the river and creek and flooded the Griffin Valley lowlands, forming Lake Griffin, which was four miles by three miles in area. This kept the Hopewells at a considerable distance from the settlement.
In the center, a half-mile wide island sprouted from the water where it was rumored that pagan sacrifices had been conducted during hideously barbaric ceremonies. The editors of the tourist book dismissed these claims by simply labeling them malicious gossip. The article further reported that the island became the site of secret government activities in the late 1960’s and had been off-limits to civilians ever since. However, there was no name given for this mysterious project.
Neo surveyed the rolling corn and hay fields that formed a sea of green abutting the north, east, and south shorelines, and then watched the flights of various birds into the baleful forest to the west. Ariel’s dock was in need of maintenance. Splintering planks coated with peeled red paint protruded from the lake’s southwest shoreline for about forty feet, uncomfortably close to the forest. He turned away from the tree-choked dusk and checked his watch again.
Fifteen minutes passed before Ariel appeared on the path between the hedges wearing the same black dress. Neo glanced at the emptiness behind her and frowned.
“Where’s Jill Sandlin?” he asked suspiciously.
“She’ll be right along.”
“And where’s your swim-suit? You said you were going to tell your sister that you and Jill were going for a swim.”
“Swimsuit?” Ariel laughed. “You city people are a trip!” She kicked off her sandals, unbuttoned her dress, and let it fall to the ground, revealing her seductive nakedness. “Join me?”
Not yet, he thought.
She jogged past him onto the dock, her footfalls barely audible on the planks, and dived off the end into the water. Her body sliced through the sunset’s reflection with barely a ripple.
Neo couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. Her beauty, grace, and boldness intoxicated him. Ariel was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. He knew he shouldn’t be feeling this way about any woman other than his wife, but a burgeoning passion subdued his guilt. It was as though this goddess had bewitched him. Against all his ethics and principles, he stripped and dived into the water beside her.
Ariel’s laughter was musically alluring, like the Sirens’ song, and when she backstroked away from the dock into deeper water, he dumbly followed, dog paddling through the cool water. He needed her. Had to have her. If he didn’t, he reasoned that he would die here and now. Life would be worthless without her.
Her laughter continued to draw him further from shore. Occasionally, she paused to let him stroke her glistening flesh, but she would playfully break away and swim closer toward the island. They were halfway between the shore and the island when Neo noticed that she suddenly wasn’t there. The surface rippled and eddied where she had been, and then eventually smoothed to nothingness.
He looked back through the growing gloom to the dock and could barely make out her naked form seated cross-legged at the end. Confusion clouded his already muddled thoughts. This didn’t make sense. Why did Ariel lure him out there and then abandon him? Was this some kind of joke?
He continued treading water and searched the shore for Jill Sandlin. There was no sight of her. Anger shattered his sexual trance. What kind of game was Ariel playing with him? Whatever it was, he’d swim back and set her straight. She’d made a fool of him, and now there would be hell to pay. He stroked back toward the dock with strong, yet awkward, splashy strokes.
Her laughter reached his ears just as something powerful seized his legs and yanked him beneath the surface. Neo struggled against its vise grip, punching at the slimy things crushing his calves and dragging him further into the murky depths. The sinking sun was soon out of sight as he struggled with an unknown, monstrous shape. His lungs caught fire as he fought; the lack of oxygen was fatiguing him fast. His horrifying descent continued. The icy depth grimly reminded him of the fabled Davey Jones’s Locker. Was this how his life was to end? Alone in a watery grave?
His descent ceased abruptly, and a repugnant face appeared inches from his. In the darkness, its features seemed to be part human, fish, lizard, and e
ven demon-like those frolicking on the town’s sundial. It opened its mouth and rows of long, razor teeth sprang into view, but Neo wasn’t shocked. He was too numb to panic. He was close to death. Whatever this thing did to him wouldn’t matter - his death was a done deal. This thing, human or monster, could go screw himself.
Just when he figured it was lights out, there was just enough adrenalin left in Neo’s system for one last defiant act. He balled his right hand into a sizable fist and put all his weight behind a jarring punch to the creature’s bony forehead. Stunned, it released its grip on Neo’s legs, and the FBI agent wasted no time in struggling for the surface. Uncertain about the depth, he kicked and stroked like a madman toward the evening air; coming up short wasn’t an option. Every fiber of his body strained to achieve its life-saving goal. Nothing registered in his brain but survival. Pure, primal survival.
Stars suddenly appeared at the surface. He was close. So close. He reached higher with each stroke, hoping to break through and drink in the life-giving air. The burning in his lungs escalated into a raging fire as he increased his efforts, but his muscles were exhausted and refused to continue the journey. Instead of swimming, he felt like a black bubble ascending slowly. His thoughts were fading, and he prayed that he would reach the surface before his lungs exploded and hungrily sucked in the cool lake water.
Finally, his head broke the lake’s surface. He’d made it! Air! God, it tasted better than champagne. Air! He couldn’t gasp it fast enough. Euphoria raced through him. He was alive! He would be around to share that life with his wonderful wife. His kids. There would be birthdays to celebrate. Graduations. Grandbabies.
Suddenly, the creature’s slimy things encircled Neo’s legs and tugged him away from his precious dreams into the bleakness of death. He was too exhausted to fight. He let it happen. Darkness. Stillness.
Not even Ariel’s seductive laughter could penetrate the absolute silence down in Davey Jones’s Locker.
Chapter 33
Crow burst into Nick’s room and was swallowed by an impenetrable white mist. He shielded his eyes in an attempt to penetrate the blinding light, but it was futile. Fear electrified his flesh. What kind of magic was this?
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