Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] (23 page)

Cold and clear, the dark sky was full of twinkling stars. Flying in close battle formation, we could see the other three squat choppers moving swift and silent. Maybe not properly invisible, but damn close. Rapidly, we hurtled past the sparkling lights of O'Hare Airport and over the flat Illinois farmland. This was the point of no return.

"How we doing?” I said to the microphone built into the control panel. The switches and dials were marked with abbreviated phrases such as: SygNob, RetVap and TacZer, so we weren't touching nothing!

The pilot was aft, in a raised secondary cabin, completely sealed off from us. Both pilot and gunner could fly and shoot the craft. If one got wounded, the other took over. Plus, in an emergency situation, they could place the ship on autopilot and both cut loose with the weapon systems. It was an effective combination, just ask Iraq.

"Doing fine,” the speaker said in smooth undistorted tones. “Fuel good, all systems green and according to the navigational coordinates I'm receiving from ChiTacOp, we'll be within strike range in ten minutes. Very close. How are you two sardines surviving?"

"It's hard,” Jessica said with a wiggle. “But we'll manage."

I pinched her.
Stop that! This is business
.

Tee-hee. Oh Mr. Alvarez, what a big gun you have! How many times can it shoot?

Sexual tension often ran high prior to a battle. It was one of the nicer perks of this job.

"We have contact,” the speaker announced. “I'm putting it on the doppler radar."

Removing Jessica's shoulder from my nose, I brushed aside her long hair and saw that the middle monitor was showing a vector graphic of the landscape moving below us. The luminescent green radar arm swept steadily about on a perfectly clear screen.

"See it? Sector four, mark 10 degrees."

"I'll have to take your word on it,” I admitted. Guess this takes a trained eye to operate this high-tech gunship.

And a lot of quarters.

"Sheridan, this is Patton,” crackled the speaker. “We have a confirm with Craig and Schwartzkoff on our boogey."

It's the other helicopters.

"Thank you dear,” I sneered. “Now, who's Craig?"

She gave a mental shrug.
Some general guy.

"Roger the confirm, Patton,” the pilot spoke into his throat mike. “We are approaching go zone. Interlock guide beacons, assume formation Q and begin primary countdown."

Not understanding half of what he was talking about, we still got the gist. Jessica and I scrambled to finish lashing weapons to our body harnesses. Geez, things sure move fast in the Air Cavalry.

"Ready,” the pilot said in calm tones. “Set.... and go-go-go!"

Hitting the ejector button, the door slammed aside, there was a bang under our seat and we were thrown clear of the deadly flashing rotors.

Without parachutes, my team fell through the black sky.

[Back to Table of Contents]

The wind whistled past our ears, but before we even had a chance to activate our Fly bracelets, the team hit velvet steel with stunning force.
Urmph
!

Dizzily, I shook my head to reboot my brain. Above in the starry sky, the black outlines of the Apache choppers were dwindling into the distance. Below was the landscape moving at a steady progression and around me was the moaning team lying on air. Okay, we knew the hotel was invisible, but even after we landed on it? Good spell.

We haven't hit it yet.

"We're not on the roof?” Father Donaher asked, arms and legs splayed as if in freefall.

Sitting upright, Raul stared at him agog. “Does it frigging feel like we're on the roof? This is a prismatic sphere! A kind of force shield, a magical bubble around the hotel."

"So how do we get through?” Mindy asked. The daredevil martial artist was standing on the empty sky.

Why did I arrest her, your honor? No visible means of support
.

Shaddup.

"Depends. Better ask Katrina,” Raul said, shifting his stance. “This is more her specialty."

Expectantly, I stared at our Russian mage. Ms. Somers was waving fingers, weaving trails of light and studying the results.

"Runes of defense!” she barked at last.

We waited for explanations as the clock ticked on.

"Runes of defense, or defensive runes?” Raul demanded.

"What's the difference?” I asked.

He snorted in annoyance at my obvious ignorance. “One cancels the effect of offensive weapons, but the other only repels the very physical presence of enemies to the caster."

"So one rune keeps out the weapon,” Mindy rationalized, “but the other holds off the people?"

"Yep."

"Defensive runes!” Katrina cried in triumphant.

"Cool,” George said popping a stick of gum into his mouth. “So which one is it?"

"Weapons!"

"Then people can get in?"

"Long as we don't have any weapons,” she declared. “And don't try to hurt the building!"

"Good enough. Dump ‘em!” I shouted, tossing my Magnums away. Hell, we didn't even have a coded battle phrase for this contingency to cushion the emotional shock. When had it ever been necessary for a Bureau team to get rid of all of its weapons?

Very reluctantly, the team slowly began to disarm. The Barret slid over an invisible hump and tumbled into the night. Then my C4 satchel charge, H2 satchel charge, HE grenades, signet ring, cigarette lighter, trick pens. Damn, I still wasn't going through. Ah, in my ankle holster was a Bureau derringer, and my pocketknife. Plus the Swiss Army knife.

Shrugging out of the harness and straps, Father Donaher dropped the flamethrower and it vanished like a lead safe. Followed by his shotgun, bane vest, wristwatch, pocketknife, pens, rosary garrote and Holy Water pistol. Smoothly, the priest sank out of sight. But then, priests travel light.

Biting a lip in concentration, Jess dumped her taser, Uzi, ammo clips, grenades, pocket camera, watch, a couple of loaded hypodermic needles from her medical kit, two earrings, an inflatable pentagram, some pens, Swiss Army knife and two bracelets.

Bracelets! That's why I hadn't gone through yet.

Silently stoic, George slapped and twisted the release buckle on his chest harness. Straps whipping wildly, the Masterson flew away and vanished into the night.

Hoo boy was that ever going to cause damage when it hit ground. Sure hope we weren't over a playground or anything.

After a moment, George added the ammo belt, the Colt .45, a derringer, two knives, a switchblade, his wristwatch, some pens, brass knuckles and his hat. Hat?

Don't ask
, Jessica sent.

"Ed, I can't do it,” Mindy cried, tears running down her cheeks. The woman was trembling, hugging the scabbard of her sword with both arms.

Internally, I groaned. Oh crap! This was an unforeseen development. Mindy would never release that sword. She had spent ten years of her life on a physical and spiritual quest to obtain the blade. I once saw her dive into a lake of boiling water just to retrieve the scabbard. Whatever the bond was between the sword and woman, it went beyond the boundaries of such mundane considerations as sanity, or common sense.

In a consolatory manner, I waved at her in dismissal. “It's okay, Min. Everybody has limitations. Fly off and rendezvous with the choppers. Act as a relay and direct their actions if necessary."

She started to speak, then merely nodded and drifted away on the winds.

Great, here we were stripped naked and we just lost our best bare-knuckled fighter. Some invasion force.

"Hey, how about you guys?” I shouted over the wind.

Over a shoulder, Raul snapped, “We're discussing it!"

Discussing what?

Who stays and who guards the other person's staff.

Oh no, a mage also?

With a stone face, Katrina Somers gave her staff to Raul. She tossed off her vest, a Swiss Army knife, some vials of potions, a bundle of envelopes containing powders, the bandoleer of wands, a pair of velvet gloves and more bracelets than I could easily count. Katrina still wasn't passing, until she pulled down her jacket exposing a shoulder and her butterfly took to the winds.

The tattoo? Well, I guess it was offensive to purists. Okay. Better strip ship myself. I threw behind my wristwatch, another speedloader for the Magnums, the Lightning Blast bracelet, the Disintegrate and the Flame Lance. This left me with Fly, Jump Start and Teleport. Still here. I added my burglary kit and suddenly began to descend into an inky abyss which blotted my vision....

....then bright lights erupted as I dropped six feet to the roof of the hotel. Ouch. Painfully standing, I saw a silvery egg surrounding the building, the inside of the defensive field. Nearby, the rest of the gang was gathered around Katrina who was using a pen to scratch the tar rooftop in front of a stout metal door. Hey! A weapon got through?

It's just a ballpoint pen.

Close enough for government work.

Actually, she's making a pentagram
.

Natch. Oddly, there didn't seem to be anything blocking the door, but I had a sick feeling in my bowels and the back of my teeth ached. That could only mean a single thing.

"A death barrier?” I guessed, kneeling beside my friends.

Busy sketching, Katrina grunted yes. “Bad one. I can get cancel, but will take while.” Without further preamble she began mumbling and gesturing at the doorway.

As we waited, I gave a shiver remembering what a Death Barrier could do. Several years ago, while in Haiti dealing with some voodoo spies, a witch doctor had imprisoned us inside the foul thing. While our old mage Richard Anderson and Raul frantically composed a counterspell, I had witnessed a squirrel run by. The moment the animal crossed the barrier it had ceased to live, but the momentum of its dash kept the body moving. First the fur vanished, then skin, muscle, internal organs, bones and finally a tiny squirrel ghost screamed in unnamable agony as it faded away. When the wizards finally broke the magical trap, none dared question why I shot the witch doctor using 57 bullets, set fire to the corpse, dynamited his juju hut and relieved myself upon his car. Why did I use 57 bullets? That was all the ammo I had at the time.

Stopping the protective litany, the busty Russian gripped the empty blackness and pulled her hands apart, straining with the effort. At first, nothing seemed to happen, then the air miraculously cleared and the wizard started crawling forward.

"Move quickly,” she ordered. “This last only a few seconds."

In a close order drill, the team scurried across that all-destroying boundary. Safe on the other side, I turned to spit at the foul barrier. The globule of saliva vanished in a crackling display of sparks. God, I hate those things

Now past the Death Barrier, I could see that this was not a regulation hotel door securing the roof. Composed of a hundred different pieces of metal, interlocking like a jigsaw puzzle, the bits were held together with steel bands, closed by a ceramic disk bearing the impression of the moon with silver daggers stabbed through it. The mark of the Scion. Just looking at the disk made my eyes hurt.

"Can't get in this way,” Katrina stated flatly, her hands flexing. “There is a Soul seal. It would take more magic than a dozen mages to nullify."

"Damnation,” Father Donaher snarled in frustration and he slammed his fist against the seal. Under the Herculean blow, the porcelain disk crumbled into dust and sprinkled to the floor. The steel bands disengaged and swung away with a creak.

The team shared a grin. Hey, can't argue with success.

Borrowing a hairpin from one of the ladies, I picked the lock on the real door and we entered. What we should have seen was a dingy stairwell leading to a service elevator.

What we did see was a small swatch of floor that ended in ragged tiles over an endless vista of swirling clouds that stretched into forever. Dotting the mist were a million pieces of aerial debris and huge floating chunks of masonry. The individual floors of the hotel. Some were dripping with jungle growth, others were trapped in a swirling hurricane. Some danced with fire, two were upside down, another was cocooned and one was inverted, but it was hard to tell with hotel rooms.

I swallowed hard. Well, now we know why the Scion had brought along the whole hotel. It wasn't an armored attack fortress. They most likely just couldn't find the person with the rock! This was going to be much more difficult than originally expected.

Worse
, Jess sent.

"Incoming!” George cried and we crouched low.

Scuttling forward came a werewolf astride a winged tarantula. The hairy rider held a red wizard's staff in one hand, and the other was extended as if in greeting.

"
Die
!” he screamed, unleashing a Lightning Bolt from his palm.

Wow, even Dale Carnegie would have shot this guy.

Holding out both palms, Katrina deflected the bolt with a quick mystical shield, then she raced off the ledge mouthing words of power. Trapped on the ledge with no distance weapons, we were unable to do anything but watch.

Plowing straight in, Katrina made a fast series of finger movements and a dazzling beam lanced out at the enemy mage. But at the last moment, a swirling pattern of energy appeared about the man to deflect the ray. It struck a floating marble pillar, vaporizing a chunk of stone.

"Goodbye, child,” the fellow sneered and the fight began in earnest.

Fireballs and laser beams were tried at first, but such simple tricks were soon discarded. Transformations were stopped by reality checks. A Shrinking spell was countered by a Growth incantation. A Death Barrier hummed into existence and was nullified by a Jump Start. The air itself about the gesturing mages crackled with the discharge of mystical energy.

It was a battle royale between the mages. Sans her staff and spell book, Katrina was at a serious disadvantage. Only her massive reserves of magic gave her any hope. Supremely confident, the werewolf was in his home, with friends on the way.

Above the mages, translucent figures of their astral forms wrestled for supremacy. Scintillating daggers of light constantly thrust and jabbed, searching for any opening large enough to reach the all-too-mortal bodies of the antagonists. Fire and water elementals danced about the wizards, roaring into gouts of steam when they touched. Flesh eating plants erupted through the stonework of the ledge. We backed onto the roof. Spectral lawn mowers cut them down in a spray of green. We advanced to the ledge. The clouds rained thousands of scorpions, which instantly curled up and died as poisonous yellow gas fogged the sky.