Wings In Darkness

by Gregory Kay

  Damn it, if I could just get to my pistol!

  It was pure accident her kidnappers hadn’t discovered the weapon during their quick search; after she had ripped the lining of her jacket pocket jerking it out the day before, the revolver’s weight had finished the job, worrying its way through and allowing it and the handful of cartridges Luke had given her to unknowingly slip in between the lining and the shell with it, and, during the process of being shocked and unceremoniously hauled out of the car, it had all moved toward the garment’s back. When the fake state trooper ran his hand into the pocket in the process of frisking her, he had found nothing and had been satisfied with that.

  She jerked and twisted her hands savagely, accomplishing nothing except increasing the painful steel bite of the cuffs.

  Fiona, Alison.

  The pair stiffened at the voice in their heads, each one wondering if they had imagined it.

  Do not speak aloud and draw attention to yourselves. I can hear you think just as easily, and I will act as a conduit between you two so you can hear one another. Do you understand?

  “No, not really,” Fiona thought, and there was the faintest touch of humor in the voice when it returned.

  I am not surprised. As I assume you both wish to live, I have no more time for pleasantries. Fiona, I know you still have a revolver, but your hands are cuffed. Both of you, feel carefully; is one wrist more loose than the other?

  Alison could tell no difference, but Fiona didn’t have to check to be sure; she had already noticed her left hand going numb, diminishing the pain of the metal clamped onto that wrist, while the one on her right hand was a bit looser.

  You need to slip the cuff if you can, and you must do it without them seeing you; it will be painful, but you have small hands, and it is your best chance. If you damage yourself, we will repair it, provided you survive, of course.

  More brief, hurried directions followed, and Alison scooted closer still, apparently cuddling for comfort, while concealing Fiona’s restrained limbs in the process. One of their captors glanced up at them, made some half-hearted ribald comment about a live sex show to his comrades that no one laughed at, and went back to what he was doing.

  Gritting her teeth, Fiona began to twist and pull. She knew he was right, that her hands were small, so maybe...

  The cuff on her right wrist moved a fraction of an inch until it met the base of her thumb. She caught the sheet metal with her left thumb and pulled down, while the rest of the clumsy, numb digits on her left hand squeezed her right tightly. She continued the pulling, squeezing and twisting routine, despite the involuntary tears of pain gathering in the corners of her eyes rolling down her face from the scraping skin, bruising flesh, and tiny metacarpal joints straining far beyond their design limits. Still, she refused to stop, because to stop meant to death, and she wasn’t ready to die just yet.

  Not until I make them pay! I need to kill them or expose them...or preferably, both!

  Abruptly something popped and it was all she could do to keep from screaming from the pain, and then she was past the widest point. Lubricated by her own blood from her torn skin, her right hand slipped free. Her thumb hurt like hell and she could feel it swelling already, but she could still move it.

  Good. Turn so they cannot see, and carefully place your hand into your pocket until you can get your pistol from inside your coat lining, but do not bring it out yet. Be ready, however.

  “So, what happens next?” she asked as she moved to comply, careful not to draw attention to herself.

  “They intend to open the gate first, then they will take you both through and kill you there, and dump your bodies on the other side. I am going to create a diversion which should allow you the opportunity to escape.”

  “Gate? What gate?”

  “You see that frame, yes? When they supply power to it, a portal will appear; the current distortion will turn completely black and opaque.”

  “What is it?”

  “Think of it as a door to another place.”

  “Another dimension?” She shook her head inwardly; this was getting crazier and crazier...or maybe she was the one getting crazy. Some small part of her was faintly disturbed that she could so easily accept this new reality.

  “A space in between dimensions. You have no more time. When the diversion occurs, the soldiers will be distracted and you must go through it as quickly as possible while they are otherwise occupied. You must do as I ask if you wish to live.”

  They noticed the soldier at the controls glancing repeatedly at the ‘portal’ while the others picked up their assault rifles and focused on the object of his attention as well. Both women could tell by their postures and expressions that they were on a much higher state of alert than before.

  “What choice do I have? Allie, can you hear me? Are you ready?”

  “I can’t get my hands loose!”

  “Your feet are loose; I’ll help you get up and then we’ll run like hell. Alright, whoever you are, we’ll do it.”

  “Very well. Their portal has made weak places in the entire surrounding area, one of which, unknown to them, is in the opposite wall from you, directly behind them; it will be at its most vulnerable once they open the portal. I will force a brief opening there, and drive the creature through it. When it enters, it will definitely have the soldiers’ undivided attention; you must immediately jump up and run through the portal, or either it or they will certainly kill you.”

  Neither of the women liked the direction this was going at all.

  “What is it?”

  “Get ready,” one of the soldiers said to the men around him, “I’m activating the portal. On three; one...”

  “A karvok; in your England, they sometimes call it a ‘moor beast.’ It is not a pleasant creature. Prepare yourself, because here it comes.

  “Two.” The soldiers raised their rifles, aiming over their captives at the portal, obviously ready for anything that might come through.

  “Creature?”

  “Three.”

  The ever-present hum grew to a crackling buzz, and the distinct smell of ozone and hot circuits filled the air, along with another, unidentifiable and strangely disturbing odor. The dark shimmer in the portal’s frame turned to deepest black.

  “Now! Run!”

  The large spot on the cement wall directly opposite the portal and behind the soldiers and their computer, shimmered and blackened abruptly, and the karvok came through fast. The women’s captors never had a chance to turn their heads before it was among them. Fiona caught a glimpse of a flying black mane, hairless dark gray flesh, and impossibly huge gleaming white teeth, and heard a loud hissing snarl that was half-roar, half-squeal, just before the first human scream echoed over it. A desk and monitor went flying one way and the man who had been sitting at it went the other with his stomach ripped open, trailing blood and spilling intestines behind him. The other others quickly recovered from the shock and reacted as they had been trained, spun to engage the threat. Above the roar of the automatic rifle fire, she could clearly hear someone yelling, “Killitkillitkillit!” over and over, and someone else shouting for them not to hit the gate.

  “Go!” Fiona hissed, jumping to her feet even while she grabbed Alison’s arm to pull her along, but the larger, more athletic girl was already scrambling up and moving, despite her cuffed hands. The deafening echoes of the shots in the enclosed space and the scream of the too-hastily-aimed bullets whining and ricocheting off concrete like angry hornets lent them even more speed. They heard a shouted order of “Somebody stop them!” followed by a sound like an impacting punch, andAlison grunted as her head jerked to one side. She stumbled into Fiona, knocked her off-balance, and they fell through the gate together.

  Harry was fighting back the tears as he steered his cruiser down 62 toward Point Pleasant at a high rate of speed; he had been in Hartford, in the Bend Area up at the north end of the county, when he got the call.

  Damn it, Luke! What the hell d
id you do that for? Damn it to Hell!

  The only thing he could think of was that woman, the reporter; she must have said something or done something to finally send him over the edge.

  Maybe he just couldn’t handle her leaving and going back home; I don’t know!

  The trooper had always worried this day would come, but when it did he’d expected it would be from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, not from his friend drowning himself in that damned, dirty river.

  Vaguely noticing the Suburban in the other lane speeding in his direction, he paid little attention; he had more important things on him mind at the moment than writing some asshole a ticket. Then he noticed who it was behind the wheel.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yelled aloud, locking up the brakes and nearly standing the cruiser on its nose as he screeched to a halt, leaving two rubber-marked trails on the road behind him. Throwing the shift into reverse, he gunned the engine to get his speed up in the other direction before executing a text-book bootlegger turn. By the time his grill pointed back the way he had come, the Suburban was already pulling to the side, waiting for him.

  Harry swung in beside it, putting on his flashers so nobody would plow into him, and pressed the button to roll down his passenger window.

  “Luke! What the hell? They told me...” His voice trailed off when he saw his friend’s grim face, along with Whitey’s and Johnny’s, and – damn, that’s Joe and Kathy Parks! – and noticed the small forest of gun muzzles pointing upwards. He recognized the pieces he could see as part of Luke’s gun collection: the silvery satin of an eight-shot Remington Model 37 Marine 12 gauge, a parkerized AR15, a semi-auto civilian AK47, and the issue Mossberg riot gun from his cruiser. The trooper’s concern came back full-force then, despite the obvious fact his friend was very much alive. “What is it?”

  Harry grew paler and paler as Luke quickly explained, then he nodded decisively. Luke was right the other day; laws are laws, but right is more important!

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” the deptuy shook his head, then raised his hand to shut off the argument before it started. “I hope I’m wrong, but the odds are none of us are coming back from this one, buddy, and even if we do, they’ll be after us, so somebody needs to know what’s happening, either to protect us if we make it or avenge us if we don’t. Here.” He tossed a set of keys into Harry’s car. “Fiona’s computer is at my house; all of her notes, interviews, everything, is on there. Get it and take it to Pete; he told me the two of you were looking into this, so you all can figure out what to do with it.”

  “I’m not letting you go in there alone to die!”

  Waving a hand at the people in the vehicle with him, Luke told him, “I’m not alone, and I’m not going in there to die; I’m going in there to get those girls back. Either way, though, your job is to keep these sons of bitches from getting away with it, and, if we win, to keep us out of prison. You’re not just a State Trooper, someone people will listen to, but you’re the only one I can trust to do that, so don’t let me down.” Stretching to grab his hand through their open windows and pumping it, he said, “No more time; we’ve got to go meet some reinforcements. See you later, buddy, one way or another.”

  Harry knew his friend was right, but that didn’t make it any easier while he watched him speed away in the hijacked vehicle.

  Sam and Rhonda Gordon met them at their impromptu staging area: a pull-off under a tree just north of the junction of Potter’s Creek Road and Route 62; they were waiting for them on their Harley when the Suburban arrived, soaked through their leathers and dripping with the rain that was coming down in a level close to a downpour by now. Quickly looking over their arsenal, Sam was brief and to the point.

  “You got the extras? We were at the shop when you called, and all we’ve got are our personal handguns.”

  “Here,” Luke told them, surprised at Rhonda’s presence but not showing it as he handed her a Remington 11-87 12 gauge turkey gun and a box of ammo, and passed her husband a World War II-vintage .45 caliber Reising M-50 submachine gun, along with 3 extra clips, already loaded.

  “It was Granddaddy’s,” he explained when Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise, “Somebody gave it to him in payment of a debt. It’s the only automatic weapon we have, and I figured you had the most experience with them.”

  “Thanks,” he said, completely no-nonsense as he briefly examined the deadly piece, “Alright, we don’t have much time; what’s the plan?”

  Luke gestured toward the Suburban.

  “Whitey got the layout and entry procedures out of the one we caught; there’s a six-man black-ops military squad – well, five now, since we have one of them – plus one or two civilian operatives who aren’t usually there. They don’t expect an attack, so Whitey and I figured we’d get inside, open the inner door, throw the prisoner in ahead of us, and get the drop on everybody, shooting anything that moves as necessary.”

  Sam shook his head, then put an arm around Luke’s shoulders and led him a few yards away where the others couldn’t hear.

  “Do that and they’ll kill us all; they’re too good. Stop thinking like a cop, and do it right now! This isn’t about taking prisoners; this is about rescuing hostages, or avenging them if they’ve been killed. That means we go in shooting, and we don’t stop until every last one of the enemy is down. From this point forward, it’s total mission closure; you know what that means?”

  Luke shook his head, noticing there was none of the normal warmth in Sam’s brown eyes, only a strangely excited coldness.

  “It means no survivors. We can’t leave even one of them alive, unless it’s just temporary in order to get information in case they’ve moved the girls, and then we kill him too. Yeah, you might – might – take a couple of them prisoner, and, once they make their phone call, every last one of us has just bought a one-way ticket to Gitmo, including Fiona and that Parks girl...and including my wife, who Whitey was dumb enough to tell what was going on when she took the call, and she insisted on coming too. That’s a price I ain’t gonna pay. Now, you either agree or my ass is going back to the shop.”

  Luke thought about Fiona and Allie, and his eyes hardened.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to get them back. These sons of bitches are kidnappers and almost certainly murderers; they tried to kill me once already. You’re the man with the experience, so you’re in charge of the raid; you call the shots and we’ll do it your way. I just want them back, and everything else is optional, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Sam looked at him carefully, searching his eyes, then nodded in satisfaction once he saw what he was looking for.

  “Alright. Let’s go kick some ass; we’ll brief on the way.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The individual known as Mr. Smith, in his undertaker black suit and tie, approached Luke’s house from the alley, crossing the backyard while keeping his eyes, ears and nose open for any sign he might be under observation, but he detected nothing.

  He knew the woman and one of the witnesses had been captured and would soon be dealt with once and for all, and had been informed by the soldiers that the deputy had killed himself. That information was good news, and yet disappointing, because he had wanted to do it himself. Still, there was the boy left, so perhaps he would get the opportunity to deal with him personally. For the moment, though, the priority was to take advantage of the confusion and clear up any of what the people of this world euphemistically called “loose ends:” information that might be in the deputy’s house.

  Smith paused before mounting the single concrete step, taking time to look around carefully, one last time before committing himself. He hadn’t forgotten the disappearance of his colleague Mr. Jones the night before, who had been assigned to watch the woman, and that worried his masters no small amount. In the highly unlikely event he had been killed by the local authorities, they would surely have heard, but for him to just vanish smacked of certain others who might be interfering with their ag
enda, and who certainly had the motivation to do so if they discovered this mission’s existence.

  After a moment of scanning the area, he satisfied himself that no one was outside. He’d missed nothing...except for a slight movement behind a lace window curtain in the neighboring house: lace that allowed those inside to see out of a darkened room without being seen from outside.

  The back porch creaked slightly under his weight as he stepped up on it, and carefully scanned the door for any sign of an alarm system. Seeing nothing, he rattled the knob only to find it locked, which he had expected, and it was a simple matter to break one of the glass panes with an elbow before reaching through it to unlock the door.

  The unmistakably sharp smell of feline wafted out and brought a smile to his face. He would eat soon...after he had fun.

  “Hold it right there, asshole, or I’ll blow your damned head off!”

  Mr. Smith hadn’t heard the click of the door over the sound of breaking glass, but he definitely heard Benny Pickens’ warning. Jerking his head up, he found himself looking down the barrel of a rifle.

  Midge’s voice echoed from inside. “Benny! What is it?”

  “Call the police,” he told her, never taking his eyes off the sights of his Ruger 10/22. The semi-automatic rimfire wouldn’t have been Benny’s first choice for confronting a burglar, but, as he had just come back from another squirrel hunt, it had been the nearest thing to hand. “I just caught some guy trying to break in Luke’s house!”

  Mr. Smith’s response was to smile.

  “Go back inside now, or I will kill you and the woman as well.”

  “Nobody threatens my wife, you weird-looking son of a bitch!” an outraged Benny declared, and shot him in the center of the chest.

  Smith jerked, then charged, and Benny continued firing as fast as he could squeeze the trigger.