Edge of Dawn (36 page)

“Want to bet that rock really isn't from around here? As in, not even from this world? Or even this universe?” Cross said.

“I don't take sucker bets,” Richard replied. “Let's check it out.”

“Any idea where it is?” Weber, ever practical, asked.

Richard shrugged. “In the lower city.”

They stepped back outside. It was now midmorning and it looked to be a warm September day. Which meant the smell of corruption was rising along with the temperature. Back in Albuquerque, Richard had always kept a small jar of Vicks on hand to try to overpower the smell of a rotting body. Other cops used cigarettes, and as if on cue, a number of the soldiers lit up. The Turkish tobacco was pungent and rough, and Richard was grateful for it. He was trying to hold the horror at bay.
Go back to a cop's clinical analysis.
This was a crime scene. An enormous crime scene, but still a crime scene.

*   *   *

The actual ruins were some distance away.
Ç
elik jerked his chin toward a truck parked nearby whose driver had half fallen from the cab in the act of fleeing death. “It will be faster,” he said almost apologetically. Richard nodded in agreement.

The soldiers and Cross climbed into the bed of the truck. Weber pulled the body free and slid behind the wheel. Richard found himself wedged in the middle between Weber and the general. A blue eye swung from the rearview mirror as they jounced down a long dirt road, past the mock Hittite building, and stopped at a pole gate.
Ç
elik ordered his troops to take defensive positions, then he, Richard, Weber, and Cross moved into the ruins. Richard froze at the sound of low moans and realized it was wind through the rocks. He shook off the fear and started walking.

Remembering lessons from Chaco Canyon, Richard at first tried to stay off the gray stone foundations, but the footing was treacherous. The tall grass hid loose stones and holes. The foundations offered a stable walkway. They moved past one deep trench in which enormous pottery jars, buried in the earth almost up to their rims, yawned like screaming mouths. There was one weathered gray rock on a pedestal that resembled a drunken abstract artist's vision of an animal. Richard looked more closely and had the vague sense of eyes and fangs. He remembered the lion statues that lined the entrance to Atat
ü
rk's tomb. This weathered stone, like the embryo of a lion, had been the model.

“Let's split up,” Richard said. “We'll cover more ground that way.” Weber looked like he wanted to object but finally nodded and moved off.

Cross stood tensely erect, his neck stretched, nostrils fluttering. “There are voices on the wind,” he said, and walked away.

Richard shuddered, feeling isolated and very vulnerable. Behind him, a man cried out in fear. Richard whirled, drawing his gun. But the soldier was simply kneeling on the ground, arms wrapped around his head, rifle in the dirt in front of him. Keening, he rocked back and forth, and Richard realized they were not inoculated. Richard was a genetic freak immune to magic, and even he felt a soul-crushing dread in this place. How much worse for a young soldier, a normal human sensing an unnatural evil and unable to flee? An older officer ran to the boy and placed a comforting arm over his shoulders.

And I can do nothing to help them.

Setting his jaw, Richard forced himself to walk on. He spotted a body in the midst of the ruins, and just beyond it was the stone. The vivid green was easy to spot. Richard moved first to the body. It was a heavyset man of middle years, and he had been shot in the temple and at close range. The brass shell casing glittered among the rocks. Richard yanked out his handkerchief and picked up the casing, tucked it into his pocket. He then turned to the stone.

It stood near the back of what had once been a rectangular room, and it had clearly been hewn and shaped. On at least two sides the corners were still fairly sharp. Cautiously, Richard approached. The green stone reached to roughly knee height, and the top was stained with dried blood. He circled it, and from one angle the sunlight struck in a way that allowed him to see the shadowed handprints that had been worn into the sides. Some of the blood that had been poured over the stone had caught in the indentations.

“Damon! General! I found it!” Richard yelled. The others made their way quickly to join him. Cross literally came loping up with the air of a hunting cat. He studied the rock, and his eyes went completely black. Even after all this time, it was still disturbing to Richard when he watched it happen. Weber and
Ç
elik arrived.

Weber looked at the stone, then slowly pivoted, studying the gray stone ruins that stretched out in all directions. “Yeah, this baby is clearly not from around here.” The drawling tone broke the bubble of tension that had settled in Richard's chest. He gave a short laugh.

He turned to Cross. “Well?”

The creature didn't answer, and then from the corner of his eye Richard caught movement.
Ç
elik was approaching the stone, his hand outstretched. His face had gone slack, and his eyes were unfocused. With a yell of alarm, Richard threw himself at the older man, catching him around the waist and knocking him off his feet. They came down on one of the low walls, and the general gave a grunt of pain as his hip hit hard against a notched stone that looked like it had once carried water.
Ç
elik suddenly seemed aware of Richard, arms locked around
Ç
elik's waist, knee planted on the older man's thigh.

Ç
elik looked around, then tore his eyes away from the stone. “Thank you,” he said simply.

Richard climbed to his feet and offered a hand to assist the general. “Don't look back. Walk away. Let us handle this.”

The old man nodded and started limping slowly and painfully back toward his troops. He paused but didn't turn, just called out, “I wanted to touch it. The desire consumed me.” He shook his head and resumed his painful progress.

“Yeah, and he would have found himself in a less than fun place,” Cross said from behind Richard.

Richard turned. “You back now?”

“Yeah.”

“So?” Richard nudged.

“One of your kind did some magic shit, and one of my kind came slithering out.”

“So it's a tear?” Weber said. “It's not like any one we've ever seen before.”

“That's 'cause it's not a tear. It's more like a portal. I haven't ever seen anything quite like this before either. Pretty cool,” Cross answered.

“That wouldn't be my first reaction,” Richard said dryly.

“So what can we do about it?” Weber asked.

“Nada since the paladin here lost the sword.”

“
He
didn't lose it. It was those scientists' fault.”

“Yeah, that's right, defend your sweetie.”

“He's not.… And how did you…”

Richard stood staring thoughtfully at the ground, almost unaware of the bickering behind him. He whirled on Weber and Cross. “I feel like this was a message, or maybe a gauntlet being thrown … to me.”

“You know, not everything is about you,” Cross said.

“I think this one is.”

Weber accepted his statement. “So, who?”

“Let's find out. We need to keep looking around.”

“What if this was an attempt to draw you out?” Weber asked. “Staying here could be dangerous.” He nervously scanned the hills.

“They couldn't be sure”—he ticked off the points on his fingers—“that I was still in Turkey. If I was, that somebody would inform me. That I'd respond. This is chess, Damon, and this is just the opening gambit.”

“These people weren't pawns!”

Richard flinched at the tone but realized it wasn't directed at him. It was inchoate fury seeking a target. He understood, he felt it too, but he had to stay detached, analytical, clinical. His enemy wasn't panicked, that was clear. Richard had to match that calm. “I never said they were. But they were used that way. Come on.”

He started up a path that led onto the hills. Three young goats with multicolored coats stared at them from devil-slitted eyes, bleated, and leaped away with a ringing of bells. They found the Lion's Gate. Two towering stones formed the stiles on either side of the gate, and the figures of lions seemed to be emerging from the stone. Their forepaws rested on stone platforms set at the base of the uprights. The face of the figure on the left was sheared away, but the lion on the right still snarled, the eye sockets glaring out at the world, and the body sprawled at its feet. An old man lay in the dirt. A carved stone figure of a lion had rolled from his hand. More carvings were arrayed on the stone pedestal at the lion's feet. More lions, bulls, a flat stone carved with bas-relief figures of Hittite warriors. Clearly the old man waited here to sell souvenirs to the tourists. Richard bent and picked up the little lion. The work was exquisite. The tail was a serpent, on the back of the neck was a two-headed eagle, and the mane was suggested by leaf-shaped figures. The creator had even managed to have the mouth open but left the fangs in place.

Richard's fist closed on the figure and he forced back his rage. “I promise you. I'll find them,” he whispered, and he closed the old man's staring eyes. He took the little lion as a reminder of that promise.

They moved on, and then, carried on the wind, they heard faint cries. All three men broke into a run along the side of a stone wall built into a hillside. There was another body in front of a stone doorway that led into the hill, but this one was weakly moving. Terrified and suffering dark eyes were raised to Richard's. The young man looked to be in his late teens, with skin like old ivory and his black hair matted with sweat and dirt. His legs were bent at unnatural angles. Just looking at those broken limbs was sickening. His wrist had been cut and was still slowly seeping blood.

Richard knelt at his side and slid an arm beneath the young man's shoulders, levering him up slightly, and cringed when the boy wailed in pain. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he muttered. The boy's lips were cracked and bleeding; he had been out here a long time. “Damon, there's water in my coat pocket. Open the bottle for me.”

The older man handed him the now open bottle, and Richard held it gently to the boy's mouth. He gulped at the water, but Richard was careful to pull it away periodically. “Easy, easy.” The boy coughed and cried out again. Richard looked up at Cross and Weber. “It will be agony for him if we try to carry him. Is there some way to get the helicopter up here?”

Weber backed off, then scrambled up the rock wall set in the hillside. He dropped back down. “It's fairly flat on top. We can do this. Who do you want to go back for the chopper?”

“You.”

Weber headed off at a steady ground-covering run.

Richard laid the boy back down on the ground, then shrugged out of his coat, folded it to form a pillow, and slipped it under the young man's head. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes. Some.”

“What's your name?” Richard asked as he wrapped his handkerchief around the boy's cut wrist.

“Acabey.”

“I'm Richard. Can you tell us what happened?”

The boy shivered and closed his eyes, then slowly began to speak. “Three cars arrived. Big cars. Expensive. Grandfather told us to hurry up to the gates and the stone with our carvings. These people had money. I was at the stone.”

“The green stone. In the lower city?” Richard clarified. The boy nodded. Richard frowned. “I didn't see any of your beautiful carvings.”

“They bought them all. No one had ever bought everything before. They gave me so much money.” Acabey glanced down at a pants pocket bulging with lira. “Then the man with all the money nodded to other men who were with him. One of them drew a gun and shot Riza.”

“Who's Riza and why was he there?” Richard asked. It probably didn't matter, but he was falling back into cop mode. Get every detail. You never knew what might be important.

“We make the tourists hire a guide. Better for everybody. Riza has worked digs for years and years. He knows … knew so much.” A few tears leaked from the corners of the boy's eyes and ran down into his sideburns. “Then other men grabbed me. The rich man opened a briefcase and took out a bowl and a knife, and a long crystal like amethyst. He told the fat man with the glass hand to collect blood and gave him the knife and the bowl.”

Cross and Richard exchanged looks. “Well, guess we know where Grenier washed up like a fuckin' beached whale,” the Old One grunted.

Acabey continued. “One of the men held my arm and the fat man cut my wrist. He almost filled the bowl. It hurt so bad. Then he took it back to the rich man, who began to speak strange words and poured the blood over the stone. He struck it with the amethyst. It shattered, and there was this terrible stink. Then this thing like shadow and blood slithered out of the stone.” Richard, his hand on Acabey's shoulder, felt the boy start to shake.

“I know this is hard and terrifying, but can you tell us anything else about this creature?” Richard asked gently.

“Eyes, so many eyes.” He flung his head from side to side. “No, no.”

“It's okay. It's okay,” Richard soothed. He glanced up at Cross. “Ring any bells?”

“Not right offhand. It's not like we're all related or are in a bowling league together or something. Actually, we mostly hate each other.”

Richard thought about that. If these creatures posing as gods all hated each other, was it any wonder that religious hatred was such an integral part of human history? In the distance, the
thwap
of helicopter rotors started up.

Looking back at the boy, Richard asked, “How did you get up here?”

“Some men dragged me. Then they…” He gulped. “They broke my legs.”

The beat of the rotors grew to a roar, and the belly of the Mi-17 swept overhead.