Nick nodded.
“Then he’s already got your son,” she said.
“Can’t you just beam me to the Wharton Clinic?” he pleaded.
“I’m so sorry, dear, but I can’t. I don’t have as much power as a pureblood.”
Nick’s eyes fell to the floor. “Why did I have to be so damned ordinary! Why didn’t I inherit some of Thomas’s powers?” He wiped his eyes.
“Now, dear, that isn’t entirely true. You are a powerful and resourceful man in your own right.”
“What does that mean? For chrissakes, I can’t even teleport myself! I’m nothing but a failed experiment.”
“You have to trust in yourself and Gabriella. After all, she had a plan,” Glenna said.
“Well where is she?” he demanded.
Glenna sadly shook her head.
“She died and Jimmy’s doomed.” He paced the floor. “If she’d only told me her plan, then I might still be able to execute it.”
“Mark!” she shouted.
Nick stopped cold in his tracks.
“You stop your ranting this minute. I’ll tell what you’re going to do. You’re going to dress in your combat outfit, load your big guns, and get the hell over to that island tonight and rescue your boy.”
“But . . .”
“No but’s. Now get a move on,” she ordered sternly. “Your son’s waiting for you.”
Nick rushed upstairs to change. The rescue operation was nothing more than a wing and a prayer. Wing it and pray for success.
After assembling his weapons, he ran out the front door into the rain. He’d trade all his big guns for that Duneden Dirk. Without it, he realized that his rescue attempt was nothing more than a suicide mission.
Chapter 60
The johnboat sliced through the light chop on Lake Griffin. Hugo and Fritz Guttentag sat with Nick and Neo provided the silent propulsion. Glenna volunteered her sons as island guides and to assist with any muscle work that might be required.
The storm receded to distant flashes and rumbles as the flat bow scraped the island’s gravelly shore. The three quietly hid it behind overgrown bushes.
“Sure I can’t help?” Neo whispered.
“Well . . .”
“I know. I’d be like a fish out of water,” he groaned.
Nick managed a small grin and shook his partner’s hand. “You can do one thing, Neo. Make sure nobody escapes by boat.”
“Done.”
With that, the three men faded into the darkness.
“Let’s find that entrance where Joe Ellis entered the underground facility.”
“Danforth closed it years ago,” Fritz replied.
“Damn.”
“But we know another way in,” Hugo added. “Follow us.”
The landmarks to the other hidden entrance were difficult to make-out in the dark, and they constantly had to move around fallen limbs and other storm debris. Nick monitored the drone of the crickets and the croaking tree frogs, because any disturbance ahead would quiet them and alert Nick to danger.
Hugo conversed quietly with Fritz, and after a few moments, they proceeded right to the entrance disguised as an old abandoned well. Their flashlight beams spilled down crude steps that were chiseled down one side of the steep shaft. Green and rust moss carpeted the rough risers.
“Watch your step,” Hugo warned. “That stuff is death slick, if you catch my drift.”
“Clear as a bell,” Nick replied and led the procession into the island’s depths.
Twenty feet down, the shaft ended at a tunnel that branched off to the left. The trickle and splash of storm drainage and their footfalls were the only sounds. Nick’s black cotton shirt was dappled with sweat in the oppressive dampness as they slowly, cautiously trudged through the narrow tunnel. After fifteen minutes, Nick raised a hand.
“You here that?” he asked the Guttentags.
They listened to distant drumbeats and shrill cries that sounded eerily like chattering monkeys in the darkness.
“Another hundred feet or so and we’re there,” Hugo announced.
Nick pointed to his backpack. “Sure you guys don’t want a gun?”
The men shook their heads. “Magic and muscle’s our game,” Fritz replied.
Hugo’s predicted distance was accurate. They waited in the shadows and stared awestruck at the immense castle. Nick now knew why he had suppressed his childhood memories. The castle was pure evil.
The drumbeats reverberated throughout the colossal cavern as the men emerged from the tunnel and found themselves in the moat beneath the drawbridge. Hugo gestured for the others to follow him along the dry channel to a series of handholds in the stone moat wall.
He cupped his hands to Nick’s ear. “We go up here.”
Nick mouthed, “Lead the way”.
The vertical climb led them to a pool of darkness behind the goat-headed statue. Nick set his backpack on the cavern floor and peered around the statue’s legs. The sight was just as Joe Ellis had described it twenty years ago. Dozens of uninhibited young male and female bodies gyrated seductively to the ever-increasing beat. The skimpily clad witches wildly flung their arms and whipped their hair in all directions while their feet leaped to the beat. Three white hooded men wrapped in animal skins furiously pounded the tribal drums with thickly calloused palms.
A lone, black hooded figure stood on the altar and watched his followers, hopped up on spiritual bliss and immoral desires. Drug use wasn’t permitted. Violators were thrown to the lake guardians.
The hooded figure was known as the grand wizard, and he was waiting for the malevolent energy to rise to the feverish level required to enslave the victim’s soul during the sacrificial ritual.
Nick’s eyes spied Jimmy on the sacrificial table where his unconscious form was covered with a Wharton Clinic blanket and secured with leather straps. His amazement quickly yielded to fury, but his FBI training forced him to breathe and relax. His rigid hand slid along the submachine gun and released the safety.
The three men moved from the shadow, and Nick fired a few machinegun bursts into the air. The dancers ceased and looked around for the source of the shots. Mass screaming pierced the cavern as the panicked witches either ran for the exit or flattened themselves on the stone floor. Several men gathered their courage and charged Nick, but the Guttentags transformed them to squealing swine before they could do any harm.
“Danforth, release my son!” Nick shouted, as he ran up the altar steps.
Danforth threw off his hood as his left hand glided through the air between them. A wavy, transparent energy shield appeared. Nick fired a short burst toward Danforth, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly away.
Danforth sneered at Nick. “You’re just in time to witness your son’s death.”
“Let him go and take me in his place,” Nick offered.
Danforth laughed. “I’ll exterminate you and your two friends afterward,” he added, backing toward the table and chanting, his long dagger poised for the kill.
“Please, don’t do it!” Nicked pleaded, but Danforth ignored him. Nick struck the energy field with his gun stock, but he might as well have hit a brick wall. The field remained intact.
“Don’t do it!” he shouted again. “Take me instead!”
Danforth remained unmoved. His eyes closed, and he stepped closer to Jimmy. Nick saw one of his son’s fingers twitch, followed by the entire hand. After such a prolonged spell of unconsciousness, Jimmy’s comatose body surprisingly stirred and sat stiffly upright.
Tears pooled in Nick’s eyes. His son was back among the living, but Danforth was about to cut that renewed life short. Nick struck the force field harder with his machinegun. He had to break through to save his son! He never wanted anything as badly in his life.
As if in a trance, Jimmy tossed the blanket aside and revealed the Duneden Dirk in his curled hand. He drew his arm back and drove the dagger deep into Danforth’s chest.
Danforth’s eyes popped ope
n in shock as he clutched the table corner to keep from toppling off the altar. The energy shield dissolved, and Nick rushed to his son. Danforth’s flesh turned a sickly green. He glowered at Jimmy.
“Gabriella?” he asked weakly.
The boy shook his head. “I am her son.”
Danforth frowned. “Son?”
“And he’s my father,” he added, pointing to Nick.
“You’re not . . . Jimmy?” Nick demanded.
“I’m sorry, but Jimmy died a long time ago. Only the life support equipment kept him from entering a better life.” Tears appeared at the corners of the boy’s eyes. “His soul was freed when I entered his body. He’s happy now.”
“He’s dead,” Nick repeated absently. “But free.”
“Free.”
“I love . . . loved him. I’ll really miss him.”
“He’ll always be a part of you, Father,” the boy said.
Nick looked up at him. “How can I be your father. It’s impossible.”
“Last night, down by the lake.”
“But that was only twenty-four hours ago!”
“Mom conceived me in the other dimension where that’s not impossible. I was her plan. I was sent to take Danforth’s life. After all, it takes a pureblood relative to kill a destroyer, and that’s what I am.”
Nick stepped closer. “How can you speak so well? You’ve just been born.”
“I’m using Jimmy’s mind. His learning.”
Danforth swore again and collapsed to his knees, coughing. “I should have . . . finished him while I . . . had the chance,” he growled.
Nick was instantly alert. “Who?”
He grimaced from pain, and followed it with a gloating smile. “Jimmy. After I killed your wife.”
“You?” Nick leaned over the shriveling monster.
“I made it look like . . . Thomas killed her, so you would concentrate on finding him and ignore your Presidential investigation of me.” His voice grew fainter.
“You set Thomas up.” Nick could’ve broken Danforth’s neck then and there, but the violent act wouldn’t bring back his family.
A choking laugh gurgled in Danforth’s throat. “Thomas would never have hurt your boy. He thought the world of him. Admired him from a distance.”
The confession took Danforth’s last breath. His flesh withered and wrinkled like a raisin, clinging tightly to his skull and skeleton like pale green shrink-wrap. Gradually, Nick’s father melted to a puddle of green ooze, then vanished. The sacrificial dagger and the Duneden Dirk both clanged to the stone floor.
Nick bent and retrieved the magical dirk, and turned away, disgusted. “What’ll happen to you?” Nick asked his second son, astounded by this surreal situation.
“I’m dying. My body and soul were conceived from two different worlds, and I can’t exist in either,” he replied. His flesh grew pale. “My life force is dimming.”
“For whatever it’s worth, thanks. I wish I could’ve been a father to you.”
“Me tooooo.” The voice echoed into the distance.
Nick fought back tears as he thought about Gabriella. “Where’s your mother?” he shouted, but the boy was gone. Jimmy’s form expired with one soft exhale. He swept his son’s lifeless form into his arms and wept for his deceased sons and Gabriella.
Later, Hugo retrieved the dirk. “Let’s go,” he said sympathetically and led the grieving father and his son to the surface, where powerful spotlights and a small army of FBI agents greeted them. Rance rushed to Nick and Jimmy.
“Is Jimmy . . .?” Rance’s question floated away on the breeze when he realized that the boy was dead.
“Are you all right?” Rance asked.
Nick nodded. “I’ve been better.”
Rance brushed Jimmy’s hair from his face. “I’m very sorry,” he said sadly. “My men tried to protect him at the Wharton Clinic, but they were no match for Danforth. Speaking of the murderer, where is he?”
“Dead and gone,” Nick replied.
Two medics pushing a gurney approached the group. Nick surrendered Jimmy’s body to them.
“Nick!” a distant voice called.
Nick turned toward the lake and spied Neo running toward him. Running! Danforth’s death had released the fishtail spell.
Another helicopter landed, and Nick hoped to see Gabriella appear, but Crow rushed out instead. Except for Withers, Orion Sector was intact. Danforth and Thomas were dead. The threat was over, but they had paid a high price. Laura, Jimmy, Ethyl, his landlord, Director Anderson, Gabriella, and countless others had been sacrificed during the investigation.
Neo and Crow patted Jimmy’s corpse, and then hugged their despondent partner.
“Case closed,” Rance said with finality.
But Nick knew that it would never be closed for him. The memories would haunt him forever. After all, he would always be just another freak in Danforth’s carnival of horrors.
Epilogue
It was nearing five o’clock in the afternoon when the new supervisor charged into the Orion Sector Director’s office.
“We found them!” Supervisor Neo Doss exclaimed. “Willoughby and Frazier called in for back-up.”
The chief stood and indicated a chair. Neo sat, his breathing coming in gasps.
“I assume we’re talking about the terrorist cell in North Dakota?” the chief asked.
“Right, right! We’ve got to move fast on this.”
The chief nodded. “Go ahead and requisition whatever you need. I’ll back you.”
“Thanks.” Neo rushed for the door, then paused and turned. “You okay, Nick? You sleeping?”
Orion Sector Director Nick Bellamy grinned wanly. The shady stains beneath his eyes had become permanent fixtures since the closing of the Creeper-Danforth file seven months earlier. “Some.”
“Good, good. I’ll catch you later.” He rushed out.
Nick yawned. He’d lied to Neo. He wasn’t sleeping any better. Each night was a sleepless struggle, and when he managed to doze, each dream was identical. He wondered aimlessly in a murky abyss of loneliness. No more White World. No more Gabriella.
He glanced down at the thick Creeper-Danforth file on his desk. Scientists were still working to uncover Thomas’s genetic code, and secretly, Nick hoped they never would. Some power-crazed Frankenstein might decide to put the monster back together again.
The caged experimental aberrants found in Danforth’s underground research facility had been moved to a secret Montana location for study and care. Geronimo had translated Danforth’s journal, and from what Nick could tell, exposing fertilized eggs to the meteorite’s red radiation might, under ideal experimental conditions, create a shape-shifting life form that could bridge the dimensional barrier between this world and the one the Wolfes’ ancestors had lived in thousands of years ago.
Two months ago, Nick and Crow had toasted the burning of the scientific sections in Danforth’s journal in the barbeque pit behind Nick’s new house in Georgetown. The toasting refreshment had been alcohol free. All references to the notated experiments were deleted from Geronimo’s memory as well.
As a footnote, Nick reported that Thomas’s and Danforth’s spells had expired upon their deaths, and their victims had returned to normal. It was regrettable that Gabriella hadn’t lived long enough to regain the use of her legs.
Gabriella’s body had never been recovered. Glenna was mysteriously hazy about his hectic days in Duneden and the specific details of Gabriella’s death after delivering their son. After weeks of questioning everyone in Duneden, he finally gave up. He was left with nothing. No grave to visit. No memory of her tragic death. No final words together.
The sections of the journal relating to the disappearance and death of Joanna Rockingham Danforth, the bravery of Joe Ellis “Sandlin”, and the death of Daniel Merrick were released as individual documents to the press as matters of public record. Nick slowly shut the file folder and called in his secretary, Elizabeth, who carried it aw
ay to be labeled and filed as Closed.
Nick surveyed his office. Even though he was grateful to FBI Director Rance Osborne for appointing him as his Orion Sector replacement, it didn’t fill the void left in him after the Creeper-Danforth case. There was more paper-work and less fieldwork, but Nick gradually came to grips with it. After eliminating Thomas, his life and career paths drifted aimlessly. The case of a lifetime was officially closed, and the love of a lifetime was lost. There was no all-encompassing motivation to do anything greater than paperwork.
The wall clock read five-fifteen. It was Wednesday, and time to call it a day. He stuffed homework files into his briefcase, loosened his tie, and turned out the light.
The February sunset bathed the two graves like a warm winter blessing. Nick knelt in the snow and gently touched each headstone. One read James Robert Bellamy, and the other James Wolfe Bellamy. Nick had decided to honor both his sons, and although he and Gabriella hadn’t had the opportunity to name their son together, he honored her by including her family name as their son’s middle name.
Footfalls crunched on the freeze-dried snow pack behind him. A long shadow crept over him.
“The headstones are lovely,” a feminine voice said softly.
Unexpected warmth surged through him, and as his head jerked around, he was momentarily speechless.
“Still available?” she asked coyly, as she knelt beside Nick and studied his face.
He was stunned. “How? What?” His emotions were jumbled into happiness and confusion. It was Gabriella!
She placed a finger to his lips. “Later. Answer the question.”
“After loving you, there couldn’t possibly be anyone else, Gabriella.”
“Good answer,” she said and kissed him.
His eyes popped open, and he pushed her away. “You’re not Gabriella!” he shouted. “What kind of cruel scam are you trying to pull?”
Gabriella’s image changed into that of her sister, Ariel. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice the difference.”
“Why?”
Mortal Eclipse Page 36