by Timothy Zahn
“Them whom,” Moebius murmured.
Basil flashed him a glare. “Them who?” he repeated.
“The ghosts,” Crenshaw said, his voice barely a whisper now. “The past. The bloody, bloody past.”
Moebius shook his head. “Sorry. You’ve lost us.”
“Just take my word for it,” Crenshaw urged. “Please. Just turn around, go back up the hill, and go home.”
“Can’t do that,” Basil said. “Suppose you tell us the whole thing.”
For another moment Crenshaw just stood there. Then, he sagged like a marionette with stretched strings and headed toward a long couch facing one of the cabin’s wide front windows. “You believe in ghosts?” he asked as he sank down onto the couch.
“No,” Basil said flatly before Moebius could say anything.
“You will,” Crenshaw said, his eyes focused on the air in front of him. “You should probably sit down.”
Basil ignored the invitation, planting himself instead at the side of the couch. Moebius, deciding that at least one of them should be civil, circled around behind his partner and sat down in a chair across from the couch where he could watch Crenshaw’s face. “Go ahead.”
“You a soldier?” Crenshaw asked, looking Moebius squarely in the face. “You ever kill anyone?”
“No to the first,” Moebius said. “A qualified yes to the second.”
“Qualified?”
“It was usually self-defense,” Moebius said. “At least in the sense that they were shooting at me first.”
Crenshaw shook his head. “The hows and whys don’t matter. All that matters is that you’ve killed.
“Because the Hammer remembers. Somehow, it remembers it all.
“And it brings them back to you.”
Moebius looked up at Basil. The other was staring down at Crenshaw, a tightness in his cheek muscles. “How about the ones you just let die?” he demanded.
Crenshaw closed his eyes, his face pinched. “Yes,” he whispered. “And the mates who’ve died at your side. All the blood comes back. All of it.”
“The dead don’t come back,” Moebius pointed out, wincing to himself as he thought about the Ghoul Brothers. There were, of course, exceptions to every rule.
Crenshaw’s eyes snapped open, some of his earlier fire flaring again as he glared hard at Moebius. “You believe what you want,” he bit out. “Fine—maybe they’re not real. Maybe it’s just a vision. Does it matter? The ghosts are there, as real as you’d see them on the street.”
He looked up at Basil. “I couldn’t even tell if Fox was alive until he spoke. They never speak. They just…stand there.”
“Okay,” Moebius said. “Bizarre enough, but no worse than other things Basil and I have tangled with. So why do you want to dump it back in its cave?”
Crenshaw barked a bitter-edged laugh. “I’m a soldier. I can stand it. Uncle Robert isn’t, and couldn’t. Once I put the Hammer back, the curse will be lifted. End of story.”
Moebius winced. Only it wasn’t exactly the end of the story. He wondered if Crenshaw knew that, decided this wasn’t the right time or place to tell him.
Unfortunately, the other fifty percent of the team thought differently. “Maybe not,” Basil said. “You talked to him since you left?”
“I called once, last night, but he didn’t answer,” Crenshaw said. “I’m hoping that means the visions fade with distance, and now that the Hammer’s close to its resting spot he’s finally been able to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, he’s sleeping, all right,” Basil said. “But—”
“Baz,” Moebius warned.
Basil flicked him a glance. “But it’s a long sleep. The long sleep.”
Crenshaw looked up at him, his mouth dropping open. “No,” he breathed. “You mean—?”
Abruptly, his gaze seemed to lock onto something that wasn’t there, and his body spasmed like he’d hit an electric wire. “No,” he repeated, staring wide-eyed toward the center of the room. “Uncle Robert…”
He trailed off, his eyes visibly watering as he stared at the nothing in front of him. Or maybe it was just the smoke. Moebius waited a moment, then eased himself out of his chair and crossed back to Basil. “What do you think?” he murmured.
“Sounds like a load of shite to me,” Basil said bluntly. “What say we find the bloody Hammer and get out of here?”
“I’m for that,” Moebius agreed, looking around. The cabin was only a single room, with a kitchen nook and a bath-and-WC suite filling one side of the rear beside the back door. A standing pantry, a wooden wardrobe, and a pair of squat chests filled the wall on the other side of the door. “Got to be in one of those,” he said, nodding toward the wardrobe and chests.
“Or else he’s hidden it outside in the snow,” Basil pointed out. “Might as well start in the warm. Check ‘em out—I’ll watch him.”
“No need,” Crenshaw said. “If you won’t listen to reason, then take the Hammer and be damned.” With a visible effort, he shifted his attention from whatever he’d been looking at to his visitors. “Just tell me first what happened.” He waved toward the window he’d been facing. “And tell me who your friends are.”
Frowning, Moebius crossed to the front of the cabin. At the bottom of their hill, a car had stopped, almost exactly where Basil had pulled over earlier. The doors opened—
And the Ghoul Brothers climbed out.
“What the bloody hell?” Basil bit out from beside him. “How did they find us without the missing pages?”
“That’s a good question,” Moebius admitted.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Basil growled. “Plus you said they were a good fourteen hours behind us.”
“Obviously, they found a faster route,” Moebius said grimly. “Maybe—oh, hell. I’ll bet they just stowed away in the cargo section of our own plane. Two birds with one stone.”
“Two dodo birds.”
“No argument there,” Moebius agreed. “We have got to stop leading them straight to the goodies.” He gestured. “Speaking of which, we need to do something.”
“Why? They don’t have a clue we’re up here.”
“Exactly,” Moebius said grimly. “A far as they know, the Hammer’s still in the dig.”
“Hell’s bells,” Basil muttered. “The dig team.”
“At least fifteen people,” Moebius said. “And they’ll be dead long before the Ghoul Brothers figure out the Hammer isn’t there.”
“Who are they?” Crenshaw asked, coming up beside them. “Good God,” he added, shading his eyes as he leaned closer to the window. “What in God’s name are they?”
“You asked what happened to your uncle,” Moebius said. “They’re what happened to him.”
“And they want the Hammer, too?”
“Even more than we do,” Moebius assured him.
Crenshaw squared his shoulders. “We have to stop them.”
“Or at least deflect them,” Moebius said, looking him up and down. “You up for a climb?”
“I’m up for whatever has to be done,” Crenshaw said. He sent a furtive look at Basil. “I don’t know what Fox has told you about me. But—”
“We can run the oral history seminar later,” Moebius cut him off, moving toward the door. “Basil, get the Hammer, then get him ready to travel.”
The front door, like the back one, was locked. Moebius popped it open and took a few steps down the hill, wincing as the snow again found its way over his boots and onto his skin. The Ghoul Brothers were on the move, slogging down the road in the direction of the dig. “Hey!” he called.
There was no response. Rolling his eyes, Moebius drew his Sig and fired a shot into the air.
The Ghoul Brothers stopped in their tracks and turned toward the sound. Moebius waited until the echoes had faded away, then cupped his hands around his lips. “We’ve got the Hammer,” he shouted. “Come and get it.”
The bandage-wrapped faces turned toward each other. For a moment they stood that way, communicatin
g via whatever method they’d come up with in the decades since their tongues rotted away. Then, without even bothering to look back at Moebius, they turned and continued their way down the road.
For a moment Moebius just stared. “I’ll be damned,” he breathed, the words making little puffs of cold fog in front of him. “They don’t believe me.”
Which left only one option. He would have to fetch the Hammer and show it to them.
And then hope he could outrun a few rounds from their Tommy guns while climbing up a steep, snow-buried hill.
He turned and stumbled back toward the cabin. Basil was not going to like this. Not one bit.
*
Getting Crenshaw ready for the road was easy. The man had a long overcoat, more suited for London than inland Norway, some boots that weren’t suited for much of anything, and a scarf that Basil guessed from the university colors had probably been given to him by his uncle.
Getting hold of the Hammer wasn’t nearly so simple.
“I’m begging you, Fox,” Crenshaw pleaded as Basil roughly wrapped the scarf around the man’s neck, resisting the urge to wrap it just a bit too tightly. “Don’t touch the Hammer. Don’t go near anyone who’s touching it. Once you do, there’s no going back.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll see all the ghosts I killed,” Basil growled. “You said you see your mates, too. So are Jakes and Pinstripe there?”
He had the slightly guilty satisfaction of seeing Crenshaw flinch as if someone had slapped him across the face. “Yes, they’re there,” he said softly, a dark pain in his voice. “But they’ve always been there. I was seeing them in my dreams long before the Hammer ever came along.” He drew himself up, and for a second it was like the old Crenshaw was back. “You want to hate me, Fox, fine. I can’t stop you. But at least be honest with yourself. I didn’t do anything any of the rest of you weren’t thinking about. Nothing that the rest of you didn’t want to do.”
“Sure we wanted to jump in,” Basil bit out. “You think the rest of us wanted to watch her get raped? But we had orders, damn it, and we had timing. And we had a job.”
“Our job was to risk our lives for other people,” Crenshaw shot back.
“Is that how you see it?” Basil demanded. “Well, let me tell you something, matey—”
He broke off as the front door slammed open and Moebius strode in. “Well?”
“No good,” Moebius said tightly. “They’re still heading for the dig. If we’re going to draw them this way I need to show them the Hammer. Where is it?”
“Ask the bloody hero,” Basil said, jerking a thumb at Crenshaw.
“Please,” Crenshaw said. “The Hammer is—”
“The only thing that’ll keep the people in the dig alive,” Basil cut him off. “You ever seen someone cut in half by a Tommy gun? I have. It’s not pretty.”
Crenshaw blinked, and for a brief moment he seemed to rise out of his own black memories. “A Tommy gun? I haven’t seen anyone use one of those things for twenty years.”
“They’re not exactly in a position to update their skills,” Moebius said. “Even the undead need weapons training. Where’s the Hammer?”
Crenshaw closed his eyes. “Top wardrobe shelf,” he said softly. “Wooden box.”
Moebius was there in six quick steps, flinging open the wardrobe door and craning his neck to look at the top shelf. “What, this?” he demanded, retrieving a box no bigger than a small loaf of bread. He popped open the lid and pulled out something the size and shape of a judge’s gavel. “You’re saying this is the famous Mjölnir—?”
And abruptly, the room was filled with people.
Basil caught his breath, reflexively grabbing for his kukhri and dropping into a combat crouch. Old enemies were there: groups of sectarian soldiers he’d traded machinegun fire with, terrorist sentries he’d shot from rooftops, snipers he’d patiently worked his way around and taken out in total silence with his knife. Old friends were there: mates who’d been caught by roadside bombs, or killed by some sniper who hadn’t yet been dealt with, or who had dropped with a final cough at his side as they took a round that could just as easily have been for him.
And almost hidden in the middle of the crowd were Jakes and Pinstripe, looking as vital and alive as they had that terrible morning in Baghdad.
The morning when Crenshaw had killed them.
He hadn’t pulled the trigger himself. But he might just as well have. Their squad had been dug in outside a terrorist nest’s entrance, waiting for the other two squads to get into position and for the air support to arrive and kick off the whole thing. The SAS team had surprise on their side, plus massive firepower on the way. It should have been just one more bad-guy sweep.
Only before the clock could tick down all the way, a pack of wandering street toughs had decided a woman who’d stepped outside a nearby house to pick a flower from her tiny garden needed to be raped.
Crenshaw was right about one thing. Everyone in the squad had wanted to go to her rescue. But wishes weren’t horses, and beggars didn’t ride, and only Crenshaw himself had yielded to the urge to get out there and play hero.
Which had turned the sweep completely around. With the terrorists in the nest prematurely alerted, Basil’s squad was now on the short end of the firepower equation. The op had been blown, and most of the squad had barely escaped with their lives.
Crenshaw had made it out. Jakes and Pinstripe hadn’t.
Basil shook his head violently; and as quickly as the memory had flooded in on him it was gone. The ghosts of his past were still there—Crenshaw had been right about that one, too. But they were ghosts of the past, not the present.
The present, the here and now, was that the Ghoul Brothers were out there. And if someone didn’t do something there were people who were going to die.
With an effort, Basil focused on Moebius, still standing with the gavel gripped in his hand. He was staring across the room, at whatever ghosts of his own were filling his part of the cabin. Stepping past Crenshaw, noticing in passing that the thin-faced man’s eyes were pinched like there was dusty wind blowing into them, Basil reached Moebius and plucked the Hammer from his hand. “I got this,” he said gruffly. “Get him to the car, okay?”
Moebius blinked, and with that brief distraction seemed to come more or less back on balance again. “Right,” he said. “The car—right. Uh—” His hand fumbled for the Sig in his waistband. “Do you need—?”
“I’m okay,” Basil said, dropping the Hammer into his coat pocket and retrieving Crenshaw’s two Brownings from the table by the back door. “Just move it.”
Without waiting for an answer he crossed the cabin again, trying to ignore the images melting away in front of him, and strode out into the snow.
The Ghoul Brothers had made good progress, and were nearly to the bend in the road that Moebius had pointed out from the car earlier. If they got around it and out of sight of the cabin, the universe might as well kiss all those people in the caves good-bye.
At the same time, Moebius needed as much of a head start as Basil could give him if he and Crenshaw were going to get up the slope and to the car.
As always, it came down to a matter of timing. And if there was one thing the SAS beat into its men it was how to play the timing. Basil waited, feeling his ears and the insides of his nostrils crinkling with the cold, judging time and distance and ignoring the icy moisture seeping in around his feet.
And when the timing was right, he swapped out one of the Brownings for the Hammer resting in his pocket.
The ghosts seemed to grow a little more solid as he touched the cold metal. Ignoring them, he thumbed off the safety of the other Browning and fired a shot into the air.
The Ghoul Brothers turned at the sound. “Hey! Uglies!” Basil called, holding up the Hammer. “See? See what I got?”
Basil had no idea what undead used for eyes. But whatever it was, their sight was as good as anyone else’s. Both ghouls seemed to stiffen; and then, in per
fect Buckingham Palace parade unison, they swerved off the road and started up the hill toward him.
“Great,” Basil muttered under his breath, dropping the Hammer back in his pocket as he watched their approach. They were making pretty good time through the shin-high snow, he noted uneasily, with no signs of fatigue from the heavy going.
Keeping a cautious eye on their progress, he waded around to the side of the cabin and gave the back slope a quick look. Moebius and Crenshaw were climbing the hill, but they were making far slower headway than the Ghoul Brothers. Crenshaw was struggling with both the slope and the line, and even with Moebius doing what he could to push him from behind it was clearly rough going. At this rate, Basil calculated, the ghouls would make it within firing range of the climbers while they were still a good fifteen feet from the top and any cover.
They would, of course, make it within firing range of Basil a damn sight sooner than that.
He turned his attention back to the Ghoul Brothers. On paper, his Brownings and their Tommy guns had similar effective ranges. In reality, Basil’s better marksmanship and more modern weapons probably meant he could hit the ghouls before they could target him. But as Moebius had again demonstrated back in Professor Crenshaw’s study, shooting one of them didn’t buy anyone a whole lot. At best, blowing their brains out did little except slow them down. Their brains regenerated, their torsos regenerated, and whether their hands regenerated or just somehow got reattached, the meat hook Basil had cut off in London was back and perfectly capable of lugging around fifteen pounds’ worth of steel and lead.
He frowned, focusing on the rhythmic sprays of snow coming off the ghouls’ legs as they headed upward. On the other hand, those regenerations did seem to take some time. If he could cripple them, maybe he and the others would have enough time to get clear while they were flailing around making snow devils or something.
Lining up the Browning on the right-hand ghoul’s right trouser leg, he fired.
The shot was spot on, twisting the creature around in place and nearly toppling him to the ground. Basil fired again, with the same results. Clearly, it was going to take more than a couple of shots to shred the undead bone and muscle enough for the desired result.