Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1)

by A. D. Folmer

  “Thanks for the timely advice,” Legion said. “Here they are. And there Dr. Finch goes, and there they go.” I could hear more shouting. “He runs quickly for an alien.”

  “Did they come from the road?” If they had, I would have expected to hear about it from Agent Starr.

  “No, they came from behind the house.” Now that they were out of sight Legion’s interest waned. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “As long as I’m not dead or in jail.”

  “You can tell me what’s going on then,” he said. He hung up.

  The radio crackled to life again.

  “Dr. Finch just passed us,” Agent Steiner said. “He wrecked our car.”

  “Are ya’ll all right?” Earl asked.

  “Yes. He didn’t have time to do more than flip our car. He was being chased by those demons again.”

  “The mayor was right!” Agent Starr shouted. “And our car is totaled.”

  “Then get to Mr. Trenton’s place and hitch a ride with them,” Earl said. “I’m going to get off the road and wait for the doctor. If he goes to the construction site, we’ll wait for you before confronting him.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Agent Steiner said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “They might have injuries they’re not feeling yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We need the extra firepower. There we go!”

  Dr. Finch was sprinting past us. In the twilight, his extra appendages appeared as a mist surrounding him. The army of dead monsters charged after him. The portal penguin whistled at the crowd as it galloped and hopped by. Earl pulled out and followed as quickly as he dared.

  The road out of town was as bumpy as I remembered it and longer than the underground route.

  “Do you think we can catch up with him if he stays on the road?” I asked as we hit the freeway.

  “I don’t know,” Earl said. “Whatever he is, that thing can really move.”

  “What about the shades?”

  “We’ll see when we get there.”

  Or we wouldn’t. It was dark outside now. The mountain blocked the lights from town, and I could see more stars than I had in years. It wasn’t much light to go on.

  When Earl reached the parking lot and cut the engine, I couldn’t see anything inside the car, much less outside.

  “Can’t you turn the lights back on?”

  “What? You can’t see in the dark?” he asked.

  “No. Why would you even think that?”

  “I thought all supernatural types could.”

  “Well, I can’t.” He turned the headlights on.

  “What were you planning on doing in the dark?”

  “It’s not that dark.” It was pitch black. Maybe Earl could see in the dark. Based on his stories he was much older than he looked. It wasn’t that big of a stretch to think he might not be human either.

  “Whatever you say.” We sat in the car for a bit.

  “Do you have any idea what to do next?” Earl asked.

  “Hope those antler beasts have gored Dr. Finch to death, and all we have to do is lure them back to town.”

  “I meant if they hadn’t.”

  “Nope.”

  By this time, Steve and the FBI agents had arrived and parked. In the headlights, Cassandra looked ghastly. Late nights and wizardly possession had taken a toll on her.

  “I have a plan for dealing with him,” she said. Steve opened up the trunk of his car to reveal her machine. She’d removed some of Noah’s enhancements and added a few of her own.

  “It turns out that this is what’s been causing the earthquakes,” Steve said. He sounded impressed.

  “After that last little talk Dr. Finch and I had,” Cassandra began, fiddling with the machine while she talked, “I got a bit angry, so I repurposed the machine. As you gentlemen pointed out, its original function wasn’t that useful anyway. This version not only detects, it also disrupts extra planar energy.” I assumed that was a cover story for the FBI agents. Perhaps Noah was planning to use it on Legion. If the familiar’s attitude towards his master had been obvious before his death, I couldn’t blame Noah’s ghost for taking precautions. Lucky for us he hadn’t finished in time.

  “How is that going to work, exactly?” Agent Steiner asked. Cassandra looked at him.

  “Do you realize that Dr. Finch is a monster?” She asked.

  “Not much point pretending otherwise,” Agent Starr said.

  “He’s not human,” Agent Steiner agreed.

  “Well, this machine can take advantage of some special properties of local geography to hopefully send him back where he came from, or at least give him something to think about.”

  “That works for me,” Earl said.

  I wasn’t sure it worked for me. I might be an extra planar traveler after all. And I had a suspicion that ‘back to whence he came’ was another way of saying that Dr. Finch was about to be taken to a farm in the country where he would be very happy playing with all the other monsters.

  Still, I hadn’t felt anything but the ground shaking when she’d been testing her machine earlier. Surely I would have if it was going to hurt me?

  “How close do you have to get to him to use this?” Earl asked.

  “If he’s standing close enough to a lodestone I could do it from here,” Cassandra said. “I’ve been trying to get him for days now, but stabilizing the output has been difficult.”

  “Then we’ll go check,” Steve said. “If he’s still around the . . . hole in the ground, he’s only a few hundred yards away. You get the machine set up, and we’ll call you when we see him.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “You and me,” Steve said. He sounded surprised that I asked. “You’re the one in tune with the spirits, and we’ve also got to find those things.”

  “I’ll come too,” Earl said. “You’re going to need someone with a gun.”

  We headed into the trees. I left the portal penguin with Dr. Cassidy. It sat up and warbled, and stayed put. Perhaps it didn’t like the giant tentacles.

  “What’s this about a lodestone?” Earl asked.

  “It’s our cover story for the feds,” Steve explained. “Lodestones and leylines. Just borrowing some New Age terms and using them for the latest thing in geology. It’s all very technical, you know.”

  “I do know,” I said. “Why am I really coming along?”

  “Dr. Cassidy talks a good game, but I’m not entirely sure that machine of hers won’t zap you too, and the parking lot is right over the tunnel she’s going to use to focus the energy. If we follow the path, at least you won’t be standing directly on top of it when the power goes on.”

  “Great,” I said. “If I don’t get zapped by this it’s going to be a long time before I accept another job offer from you.”

  “I’m sorry about all this,” Steve said. “I really had no idea so much weird shit was going to happen. I mean, even when I was hunting down the board of executives I had no idea my direct supervisor was a tentacle beast until I saw him in the parking lot getting torn apart by fluffy velociraptors.”

  “Speaking of tentacle beasts,” Earl said, “That’s one big damn tentacle.” I looked up. And up. He wasn’t kidding.

  “It seems bigger than before,” I said.

  “I think it’s a different one,” Steve said. I couldn’t make the tentacle out clearly, but I could see its outline against the stars as it curled and uncurled. “They’ll occasionally disappear .” I flinched as we heard the sounds of shattering wood.

  “I guess you can’t build a mall here, after all,” I said.

  “Doesn’t look like it.” Steve moved forward. “We’re at the edge of the safe zone now. How do the spirits feel about that?” Sparks had left my coat and was floating above the caution tape.

  “I don’t think they’ve changed their opinion,” I told him.

  “It can’t be helped,” Earl said.

  We went forward. Beyond the motion of the tentacle,
I could hear rocks scraping together, and a low gurgling.

  “Well hello again Dr. Finch,” Earl said. “I do believe you’re trespassing. This is private property.” A gurgle was the only response. “Or is there some other name you’d prefer to be called?” I opened my phone and called Dr. Cassidy.

  “He’s here,” I told her.

  “Great, keep him there. The machine isn’t quite ready, but it should only be a few minutes.”

  “Where’d the monsters go?” I asked Dr. Finch.

  “Those were your doing, weren’t they?” came the reply. It sounded a lot like Dr. Finch, but with an underlying unpleasantness, like the words were being dragged through wet gravel. I was surprised by the difference. Perhaps the thing was losing control of its vocal chords.

  “Yes,” I said. “You didn’t give me a lot of options.”

  “You could have shot the humans,” the Finch thing said.

  “And you would have what? Surrendered?” I didn’t even bother mentioning that I didn’t have a gun.

  “To humans? Of course not!”

  “And you wouldn’t have let your prisoners go, either,” I said. “See what I mean? No options.”

  “You could have listened when I tried to talk to you,” it said. As it spoke, Earl and Steve were moving closer. I followed them. I was a little curious about what this thing looked like, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t get a chance to look at its corpse. If shades could hurt it, it was not entirely substantial.

  “Just because it’s their home doesn’t mean the humans have some claim to this planet. They can be cleared off easily enough, and it’s high time someone did!” Oh good, he was insane. Now I didn’t have to feel bad about whatever Cassandra’s machine was going to do to him.

  “You thought the portal to evil radish land was a good way to accomplish that? Why?” I asked.

  “Don’t play stupid,” the Finch thing said. Its voice was degrading further. Was Cassandra’s machine going to be necessary? “You’ve been held back too. If you’d helped me instead of them, or just minded your own business, we’d have been successful.”

  “Now you’re being bitter,” I said. “I didn’t do anything Nancy Drew couldn’t have done eventually, and that’s setting a very low bar.” Earl snorted.

  There was a light coming from the ground. At first I was worried, but as my eyes adjusted I realized that unlike the chupacabras who’d had to work with the natural topography, the squid had torn right through the ground. The light was coming from the cave below us. In the excitement earlier we had forgotten to turn off them off. Since the cave was inaccessible, it didn’t seem likely we’d get a chance to do it now. I wondered how long they would last.

  The Finch thing was next to the crack in the ground. It looked like, despite our efforts, he’d got his wish and had access to the portal if he could get past the giant squid alien. I had more important things on my mind. The beasts I’d raised were still there. It seemed that the giant squid was holding them at bay. I couldn’t avoid getting a clear look at them. The one that had run me down earlier stamped the ground, its serpentine tail lashing. Literally serpentine. Its body was a mishmash worthy of Greek legend, with hooves and talons and feathers and scales all adding up to something that shouldn’t have been able to stand, let alone walk. Its head was another matter. Its neck stretched and compressed as it paced and ended in a hole filled with teeth.

  Another shade made a soft sucking sound as it circled the light. It had a head with many antlers, and dozens of thin red tongues flickered out of its mouth. It had the colorful body of a caterpillar. Perhaps worst of all was the triclops I’d noticed earlier. It was held up on spider legs, but instead of fangs it had grasping little hands. It didn’t help that when the tentacle twitched our way, the triclops tried to hide behind me. I’d got used to some weird things in the previous month, but some creatures just can’t be endearing no matter what they do.

  “What were you hoping to accomplish anyway?” Steve asked. “Other than creating the most deadly mall in America.”

  “A wizard like you should know,” Finch said. “There are worlds of pure energy, and I know how to harness them. All that’s needed is a portal that can be tuned, and the one who controls it can become God.”

  “How can you say you’d be able to use it when you can’t even get a tunnel-locating spell to work?” I asked. “After over thirty tries, I might add.”

  “You knew?” it said to me. It dawned on me that the Finch thing knew even less about me than I knew about it.

  “I might be a little better than Nancy Drew,” I conceded. I saw the Finch thing lurch to its feet. The triclops scuttled out from behind me.

  “You could have joined us,” it said. “You could have helped us rule. Your master helped us although he didn’t realize it. Surely your revenge against him would be completed more easily if you took our side!” Wait, did he think I was Legion? If that was true, why hadn’t he said so earlier? And how could he still think that after Legion answered the door at Noah Whateley’s house? It didn’t seem to matter now. He continued his rant. “It’s too late now; you have to pay for what you’ve done.” He raced towards me. The triclops scuttled in front of me. Okay, it was probably after the only meal it could get, but I warmed up to it a little. Earl drew his revolver.

  “You might want to rethink that Mr. Finch,” he said. “Ever since you reached the top of the suspect list there’s been a bullet in this gun with your name on it. If you agree to quit trying to take over the world and return to your home dimension, I won’t shoot.” The Finch thing laughed.

  “Bullets will never work on me,” it said. “In the shadow of this beast, neither will the creatures you’ve summoned. I may yet succeed.”

  No sooner had he spoken than there was a deep groan like steel grinding against ice, and the tentacles shot down into the ground.

  “You were saying?” Steve said. I put two and two together and started to back up.

  The groaning stopped as soon as the tentacles disappeared; the earth began to shake. I hit the ground while Earl kept his gun aimed at Finch. The Finch thing screamed and turned towards the crack in the ground. At first I thought it was wobbling in haste, but soon I realized it was shaking due to the quake. The ground shook harder; Dr. Finch wobbled more, and at last it lost concrete form entirely and dissolved into a puddle. The antler beast and the tooth creature immediately went to the puddle and began tearing at it. The earth continued shaking for another minute or so.

  “Was that it?” Earl asked once the shaking stopped.

  “I think so,” I said. Steve ignored the shades and walked to the pit.

  “Fantastic!” He said. “It looks like the quake took out the portal!”

  “Really?” I stood up and went over to the pit. Somehow the lights were still on, and I could see to the floor of the cave. There was a roiling darkness flowing into the cave, but the portal was nowhere to be seen.

  “We could have saved ourselves some trouble if we’d known what Cassandra’s machine could do earlier,” I commented.

  “Yup.” Earl scratched his head. “Deliberately starting earthquakes has got to be against the law. Under the circumstances, I don’t know if I should arrest her or not.”

  “You’re going to have to fill this in anyway,” I warned Steve. “That thing from the forest is in there.”

  “A minor problem compared to everything else,” Steve said. I didn’t know about that. I was getting the same queasy feeling as I’d had in my dream. In my opinion, we’d solved one problem and created another. “Shall we round up your pets now?”

  “Yeah.” I turned to find that we were surrounded. “Honestly, I was expecting that quake, and whatever caused it, to take care of them for me.” I was glad for the support, however hideous. Being jostled by shades kept me from being mesmerized by the black mist again.

  “They must not be extra planar,” he said.

  “They look plenty alien to me,” Earl said. “I can’t say I fe
el very good about knowing these things are native to this area.”

  “Maybe they were from the forest,” I said. As I spoke, the triclops scuttled towards the hole in the earth and dropped into it.

  “Hey!” I leaned over and looked down. It hit the floor, righted itself, then headed towards the darkness. As I watched, it melted into it.

  “That’ll save some time.” The caterpillar thing followed suit, and one by one so did the other creatures.

  “What do you think that means?” Earl asked.

  “Beats me,” Steve said. “Maybe the spook that keeps you all out of that forest is some kind of ghost itself.”

  “Or it’s made of the same stuff as them,” I said. We waited a bit, but none of the creatures reemerged.

  “Maybe they came from the forest, and they’ll stay there, like the goldfish you tricked into that aquarium,” Steve said.

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” I said. “Anything that means I don’t have to go down there.” I turned to go back to the parking lot, to find Sparks fluttering in the air. He zipped around me a few times and dove into my pocket.

  “And the good news is, the spirits think these lands have been cleansed,” I said. I could still hear the screams of animals, but as long as Sparks was otherwise calm the noise didn’t bother me.

  “Good for them,” Earl said.

  At the car, we just told them that the machine had taken out the demon army as well. Cassandra was glowing with triumph. I couldn’t tell if it was because her machine had worked or because the Finch monster had been destroyed. She was full of plans to redesign it and do more field testing. Earl suggested she do it somewhere else. Agent Starr was disappointed; in the excitement the portal penguin had vanished. He couldn’t say if it had run away or if the machine had zapped it too.

  Chapter 24: Most crypto-zoologists aren’t totally insane, you know

  Mr. and Mrs. Whateley were very grateful to me for rescuing their daughter. They offered to let me stay at their hotel for free any time that I liked. Zebulon offered to buy me a gun, which I declined. I’d had enough shootouts to last me a century at least. I did go target shooting with him again. I stayed in town a few more days, in part to sort the rest of Obadiah’s possessions, but mostly to make sure those shades I’d raised didn’t return to the hotel. On the second day afterwards, Fiona invited Steve and me to her house for lunch.