by Mercedes Lackey; Cody Martin; Dennis Lee; Veronica Giguere
“No!” Red shouted. But the shield came down; Bella looked up fearlessly—or maybe at this point she was just so far beyond fear it didn’t matter.
“Hi, Herb, I’d come shake whatever you call a hand, but I have badly hurt people here. Thanks for saving us,” she said, and went back to tending Scope, Harmony, and Bulwark, dividing her attentions among all three of them.
Herb knelt clumsily down beside them, and made an interrogative rumble. And then, one that sounded hurt and sad.
Vickie heaved a sigh of relief. She knew Herb, he was sad. He was a lot like Chug; he hated it when anything living was hurt.
* * *
“Give me the sitch,” Djinni said, landing next to Bella.
“Harm’s out cold,” Bella replied as she checked Bulwark’s broken arm. “She’s got some bad bruises. She was probably taking some of the beating while amping Bull. Scope’s got severe eye trauma and Bull’s trying to pretend he’s invulnerable, but he’s not quite pulp.” She gave Red a quick glance. Rolling her eyes, she pulled off her jacket and threw it at him. “Put that away. You’re scaring the children.”
Red grunted his thanks and tied the jacket around his waist. “And how you doin’, Bruno?”
Acrobat stood in shock, no longer bouncing in agitation. Red’s question took a moment to register, but when it did he looked down at his decimated team, then up at the grinning stone elemental. He shot Red a crazed look.
“I’m freaking out, man! What do you think I’m doing?”
Herb rumbled. Somehow it sounded . . . comforting? Or at least like an attempt to comfort.
Acrobat stared up at Herb, numb, and shook his head.
“Not helping, dude, but thanks.”
“Herb is trying to tell you he understands.” Vickie’s voice came distorted out of the earpiece lying on the floor next to Bella. “Someday I’ll tell you some stories.”
Herb made another noise.
“He wants to know how you think you’re getting out?”
“Good question,” Djinni said. “Back the way we came? We could pick up Harm, Scope and . . .” He paused to speculate the weight of Bulwark’s massive frame. “Yeah, good question.”
“Path behind you should be clear,” Vickie suggested. “I could lead an Echo rescue team to you.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Bella interrupted. “Harm might be okay, she might be, but Bull and Scope need more than I can do for them. I’m talking full-on ICUs and med staff, and they need them now!”
“Damn it,” Red muttered. “There’s no way out of this place fast enough. No safe way, in any case . . .”
The relative silence was shattered by the bellow of five or six old-fashioned klaxons. A glaring light at the top of the room was replaced with flashes of red.
“Oh, come on!” Red screamed, coming to his feet, his hands clenched in fury.
The earpiece spluttered with curses.
“What?” Acrobat yelled. “What is that?”
“Goldman was a sore loser!” Vickie screeched, sounding as angry as she was fearful. “I’m reading a huge spike in the power grid right under you! The place is set to blow!”
Bella screamed something unintelligible and infuriated. “No, NO, NO! Damn it, NO!”
Acrobat began to bounce again.
Red simply let himself sink to the ground.
“Safe” in her chair, Vickie hugged herself, tears of exhaustion and frustration burning her eyes. She had . . . nothing. Exactly nothing. She’d have to have time to study the place to stop the explosion, she’d have to know the schematics, have to . . .
She shook as her sensors felt a surge in the energy core. They had seconds . . . seconds . . .
She had nothing. They were all going to die, and she’d hear it happen and wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
Over the pickup mic still on Red, she heard Herb rumble; he was puzzled. The noise caused Red to turn his head.
Herb was confused. He knew something was wrong, but he wasn’t equipped to tell what it was.
Herb . . . Oh gods . . . I can’t . . . I’ve got to.
“Herb? Honey? I . . . Would you . . .” She choked. “Honey, this is going to be hard for you, dangerous. You might . . . you might not . . . you might go to sleep forever. But the cave you’re in is going to blow up in about a minute—”
Herb interrupted her with an angry rumble. The others were utterly frozen, listening to them both, and only understanding her side of the conversation.
“That’s right, hon. Like the bomb tests here. My friends—”
Herb rumbled again, cutting her off. Her heart practically stopped as Herb opened up his own “chest” with both hands, creating a hollow big enough for them all.
With a floor-shaking thud, Herb dropped one of his shovellike hands down beside Bella and Bull, and rumbled authoritatively.
“He’s going to take you out of there! Get Bull and Scope into his hand!” she shouted. “Hurry! You’ve got a minute at the most!”
“You heard the woman, move!” Red shouted. Together they lifted their fallen into Herb’s outstretched palm, and climbed aboard. Red paused only to retrieve his earpiece, and hopped in last.
The rock closed in around them. It was hot in there, and dark. And Acrobat started making choking sounds. “How are we going to breathe?” he gasped in a panic. “How are we—”
“Herb will make air for you,” Vickie sobbed out of the speaker of the earpiece, as their tiny “cave” lurched from side to side. “If it was just him, he could swim through the rock, but he has to keep you guys in a bubble of air, he has to make the air, and he has to keep you from getting hurt at the same time, and . . .” She became incoherent for a moment. “It’s hurting him. It’s killing him. He said he had to do it. He had to . . . because he’s my friend. And you’re my friends. And . . . that’s what a friend would do.”
And for the rest of the journey to the surface, there was only the sharp muffled sound of a sudden detonation, and then silence.
* * *
They only knew they had arrived when their “cave” stopped moving. And a moment later, it cracked open.
Red was out first; they were in the desert, miles from anywhere, which only made sense. He turned back to the creature that had carried him—in a sense, in its heart—
It had crawled out onto the flat hardpan. And it—he—looked curiously lifeless.
A moment later, pieces began to fall off, crumbling into sand. As Red watched, numb, while the rest of the team pushed their way out, carrying the unconscious, the entire elemental turned into another dune.
“Overwatch?” he said tentatively. There was no answer. Although he thought he could hear what sounded like muffled, heartbroken weeping. Red closed his eyes, and shut off his comm unit.
“Thanks, Herb,” he whispered. “Helluva job.”
He exhaled, and heard the sirens in the distance. When he opened his eyes, he saw Bella jumping up and down, waving frantically. A dust storm was approaching. No, not a storm. The dust was lit by swirling lights of emergency vehicles. And above, Echo Swifts, speeding towards them on silent wings.
They were safe.
* * *
The fact that the Catacombs had been breached was all over the command station in moments. Doppelgaenger was not sure why everyone was so excited about it. It was amazing—and a testament to Goldman’s twisted genius—that they had been rediscovered so few times, and penetrated only twice, both times by criminals.
It had only been a matter of time before Echo—
Criminals. Echo. Could it be?
He was the ranking officer at this abandoned missile silo for the moment; that gave him access to virtually anything here that he wanted, and he used it ruthlessly. And the initial feeds from the Wolf Pack told him that his hunch was right. The last time the Catacombs had been robbed, it had been a team that might have included the Red Djinni. And now—here was the Red Djinni again.
As he collected all o
f the raw downloads from the Pack, the Cast, and the Sphere, he was smiling tightly. One of the Pack had fought the Djinni directly. Soon, he would know more, much more, about his counterpart.
The tech in the computer room gave him copies of all of it; it was a pity the Sphere had been destroyed before it was able to upload. He would very much like to know how such a small group had been able to defeat a Sphere. He carried off all the data on a standard thumb-drive, and reflected how ironic it was that Ultima Thule, for all its superior technology, could find no better way of giving its people copies of vital information than to use a bit of degenerate human tech that one could buy off a shelf in a store.
When he got to his quarters, he locked the door so as not to be disturbed. Ah yes, he thought, as the first images of the Djinni appeared on his screen. There you are. Now, let’s see what you are made of. . . .
* * *
Vickie stared dully at the cold cup of coffee. Beside it were flat cans of soda. She hadn’t managed to choke down more than a sip of any of them.
At least the team was all right, even Scope. Especially Scope . . . she was going to get her eyes back. Bulwark was on the mend. Djinni no longer looked like he’d been parboiled and disjointed.
No thanks to her. No, it was all thanks to Herb. . . .
She scrubbed the back of her glove across her eyes, and finally forced herself to pick up the cups, the cans, that had accumulated around her while she sat and cried and beat herself up. She hauled them all to the sink and began dumping them out, one by one.
There was a tap on the window above the sink.
“Grey,” she said, hoarsely, “I am not in the mood. Let yourself in.”
The tapping persisted. Vickie felt the tears come, she fought the trembling in her lips, and brought a hand up to wipe at her eyes.
“Stupid cat . . .” She gulped, as she reached up to open the window.
The tiny rockman, barely three inches high, beamed at her, and began jumping up and down, clapping his hands in glee. He had found his friend! He began to dance.
With a shock of recognition Vickie opened her window, folded her arms on the sill and rested her head on them. The rockman paused to lean up and embrace the tip of her nose, then returned to his dance of joy. He began to chirp in shrill whistles and clicks.
Vickie smiled.
“Of course, Herb,” she said, gathering him up in her hand and bringing him inside. “Of course you can come live with me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
__________
Bad Moon Rising
MERCEDES LACKEY AND CODY MARTIN
It would take Herb thousands of years to grow to the size he had been, but he didn’t seem to care. Maybe he didn’t; living with me, he certainly had a more interesting life. He and Grey had a kind of “Odd Couple” relationship. Eventually I “told” Red about Herb’s survival—by sending Herb out to him when he was on a stakeout—but that’s another story.
We still hadn’t heard from Mercurye—and if Tesla had, he hadn’t left a record of it anywhere that I could get to. Meanwhile . . . and we had no idea how they were doing this . . . the Thulians were continuing to make their presence felt. Small groups, fast strikes, equally rapid disappearance, and no idea how they were doing it. The Seraphym thwarted some of these appearances, but the bulk of them—well—
That was us.
“Chonny!”
Upyr’s pale face seemed to hover in the shadows of the doorway. Most of the lights were off in the CCCP HQ, not just to satisfy Saviour’s penurious nature, but to cut the generation of heat. The only rooms in HQ that were air conditioned at this point were the computer room and Sovie’s sickbay.
“Commissar is being want to see you. Matter of Ural.”
John lifted his sweaty head off of the couch arm in the break room. “She read the report, didn’t she?”
He had to assume Upyr shrugged; he couldn’t see her shoulders. “Nechevo. Is still being want to see you on matter. Davay.” John had become used to jogging everywhere when he was still in the Army; now wasn’t any different for him. Tying the sleeves of his coverall around his waist, he started off at an easy lope to the Commissar’s cramped office.
Red Saviour was clearly waiting for him. She had a stack of papers in front of her that she wasn’t looking at, and an evil little smile on her face. “Privyet, Comrade Murdock,” she purred. “I am having assignment for you . . . to make up for destruction of CCCP transportation.”
“Uh, roger, Commissar. Y’read the report, didn’tcha?”
She said nothing for a moment, just fixed him with a glare that was altogether too much like being fixed with twin laser beams. “About assignment. Daughter of Rasputin is finding difficult to find replacement parts for CCCP equipment. Also van comes with, solving transportation deficit. Is sturdy invention, ‘Crags List.’ Very useful. You will be obtaining both. In . . .” She consulted a piece of paper that was two sheets into the pile. “Adair, outside of Atlanta. Is Borzhoi Bus going there in one hour. Here is ticket.” She handed him a bus ticket with a running dog on it. “Better to hurry, or will be missing transportation.”
Right. In stinking hot Georgia. He hoped the bus would have AC. “Any further instructions, Commissar? If’n not, I’d like to grab a quick shower.”
“You are knowing where depot is?” That smile was back. “Is long walk, comrade.”
She really wanted him to suffer. “I can move fast when I need to, Commissar. Y’don’t need to worry ’bout me.”
“Am not worried about you, Comrade Murdock.” The smile was even broader. “It will be even longer walk if you are to miss bus.” She paused, a long, significant, and very pregnant pause. She took the time to rake him with that wolf look of hers. “You are dismissed.” John offered a quick salute and immediately dashed out of the office.
* * *
His seatmate had no front teeth, and constantly sucked air through the gap. “So, that’s when I stabbed ’im and took his mints!” The man slapped his knee and started cackling loudly, drawing a few stares from the other passengers. Not that the other passengers were a sterling set either. They all looked like they could be his neighbors in Meth Heaven. “So, what’s a slick feller like you doing around these parts?”
These guys were psychic. They always knew when you didn’t want to talk to them. “Just through on business, ol’ timer.”
“You some kinda travelin’ salesman?” The old man was not going to leave him alone. John decided that desperate measures were in order.
“You could say that.” John flashed a fake smile. “I primarily deal in metals. Lead, for instance.” The bulge of a pistol under John’s jacket drew the attention of his seatmate, who immediately snapped his eyes straight ahead.
“All right, mister. I, uh, I’s need to use the bathroom.”
“Good plan, Stan.” The old man got up and hurriedly found another seat as far away from John as possible. The rest of his trip was completely uneventful, for which John was very thankful. Also thankful that the bus had working air conditioning.
Adair, Georgia, was out in the swampland between Atlanta and Savannah. If it had been hot in Atlanta, it was worse out here. John got off at an open-air drop-off on Main Street, which appeared to be the only street, and consulted his directions. Adair was an island in the swamp, bisected by the causeway. It appeared from where he stood that half of the local population traveled by airboat, and the other by cars, trucks and vans no younger than twenty years old.
Finally he spotted what he was looking for: a swinging store sign that said T. TAYLOR: TV RADIO & TOOL REPAIR that was so faded as to be almost illegible. The humidity was so heavy he felt like he was swimming up the street towards it. The sun was setting, but there was no relief in sight from the heat that he could detect.
The sign on the door said CLOSED but there was someone moving around inside and the door was open when he pushed on it.
“Hello? Y’all open?” John scanned the store; dusty shelves pil
ed high with disassembled parts and components for all sorts of electronics, some of which he could identify but most of which were alien to him.
“If’n yer”—the ancient, withered old man behind the counter tilted his bifocals and consulted a scrap of paper—“Chonny Murdock, then yep. If’n ya got money fer some-a this here stuff, then yep. If’n ya want somethin’ fixed, then nope.”
John nodded. “I’m Murdock. It’s John, by the way, an’ I got the cash. Mind if I check out the stuff first?”
The old man cackled. “It’s all in the van, the van’s in the back. He’p yerself.” John circled around to the back of the shop, and was stopped short by the sight of the van. White, with lettering so faded it looked like ghost-writing, dented and rusty, it probably was old enough to vote and drink. Is this heap of crap even gonna run? Or drop its guts out from under me? It looked just as old as the shopkeeper, and even more banged up. The contents weren’t any better; boxes of ancient electronics, dusty, probably functional, but certainly not pretty. If the Commissar thought it was worth wasting money on, it wasn’t his place to argue.
Then again, considering the age and state of repair of most of the CCCP equipment . . . maybe this was the only way to get spare parts.
* * *
After a few abortive attempts at starting the van, the tired machine decided that it could be goaded into performing its job. No doubt that John and Georgi could get it fixed up once it was back at the CCCP garage . . . but the trip back was another problem entirely. By now it was dark, the little dried-up town was barely lit up with a few lights in windows, most of which were rivaled by the lightning bugs out in the swamp. And it was still hot. And humid. And, of course, the AC on the van was “two-forty”—two windows down and forty miles an hour. Which was all the van would do, flat out.
Ironically, the radio was the most functional part of the beast. At least as a radio repairman the old fart knew his job.
Of course, it was an AM radio, which meant—
Religious. Sports. Politics. Religious. Politics. Religious. Some kind of weird rant that was political, sports, alien abductions and religious . . .