Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One] (16 page)

"Whew,” Donaher exhaled, a wisp of smoke leaving his nostrils. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart."

We helped him to stand. “No problem, Mike."

"But please never do it again,” he continued, in controlled anger. “If this was my time, perhaps you should have let me die. The Church does not approve of such things."

Jessica rested a hand on his crumbling uniform. “Then let the onus of saving a human life rest upon me, old friend."

The good father had no reply for that.

As we started across the floor, the stiff clothes of the priest cracked with every move. Though not overly fastidious, Donaher stopped and viewed the fatigues with displeasure. “Anybody have a spare outfit?"

"That trifling I can easily fix,” Richard said happily. With a wave of his staff, the priest was properly clothed once more. The army fatigues looking freshly laundered, shirt pressed, boots polished.

Running a hand across his head, the priest was obviously shocked at the skin-to-skin contact and quickly ascertained his hairless condition. Guess we had forgotten to tell him. Anyway, it was a good swap. Your life for your hair. I'd take it any day.

"Dick, old pal, you forgot something,” Father Donaher said hopefully, running a hand over his bare pate.

Somehow, the wizard hid a smile. “Sorry, nothing I can do about that. Besides, think how fast you will move minus that excess weight. Why, you're aerodynamically streamlined."

"Of course, the sun glinting off his head could give away our position to the enemy,” I observed clinically.

Thoughtfully, Jess pursed her lips. “I might have some cosmetics that would tone down the mirror effect, or we could drape him with camouflage netting."

Muttering something in Latin, the priest turned his back on us. Didn't sound like a prayer to me.

Chuckling, George returned the Father's shotgun and the weapon proved undamaged from the cooking, just dirty. We gathered the scattered shotgun shells, then moved past the booby-trapped floor and through the dripping hole in the wall, bits of dangling flesh brushing against our arms as we passed. Reaching the other side, I found an anxious Mindy guarding the pile of supplies. As the rest of the group apprised her of the situation, I took stock of our surroundings.

The nearby cliff stretched off to either side, rising impossibly upward to join the swirling gray cloud cover. Wow. It made me dizzy just to contemplate the sheer size of the thing.

Kneeling, I gave the road a cursory inspection. It was made of tiny hexagons of a ceramic material neatly joined together in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle. Dirt littered the surface and the road was badly cracked in several spots. But on the whole, the transit was in good shape. Good enough for us to wheel our carts along, that was what mattered.

The forest edging the road was thickly grown, but few leaves were on the branches and the bushes had seen better days. The grass was made of oddly shaped blades and was withered and brown.

Standing, I worked a few kinks out of my joints. In the far distance, was a single mountain rising majestically above the others, its snow capped peak almost reaching to the surface of the dome. A bird, or something, was flying around the rocky peak. Waitafreakingminute, just how big would a bird have to be for me to see it with unaided vision from this range. Answer: too goddamn big. I slipped on my sunglasses and immediately removed them. It was just like being in the cloud. The place was so permeated with ethereal power the glasses were overloaded and registered nothing. However, my binoculars showed the bird was coming this way fast.

"Red alert,” I said softly. “Incoming. High noon."

Following the direction of my arm, the group saw the winged express train and they moved with practiced haste. Ramming the end of his staff into each of the equipment piles, Richard lifted them both from the ground and ran for the forest.

Not a blade of grass crackled beneath his boots, nor was a leaf disturbed by his passage into the woods. The rest of us followed as best we could. Gathered under a spreading tree, whose bare branches offered little shelter, we took each other's hands and breathlessly waited. The sky darkened as something blotted out the sunlight overhead.

"Emergency Invisibility now,” I whispered and we vanished.

Totally vanished. Even the depressions of our boots heels in the soil were gone. Invisible was a rather simple spell, but it had many levels of operation. Total Invisibility meant that nobody could see, hear or smell you. Nor would radar, sonar, infra-red or even mass detectors indicate your location. The limitation was, to be that undetectable, the subject also became invisible to itself and walking across a flat empty field proved to be an adventure in moving.

Glancing upward, the gigantic form was only a black blob to me, but the sheer size of the thing made me wonder if this was our buddy from the lake, full grown and open for business.

"Gosh, I hope not,” Jessica whispered warmly in my ear.

The tingling that sentence caused was a pleasant sensation, so I attempted to compound it by sliding an arm about the woman. But my questing hand encountered only a hard square object I could identify as George's ammo pack. In disgust, I put the hand in my pocket where it belonged. Phooey.

Darkness came and went as the flying monster performed a search pattern, plainly seeking what made the loud noise earlier. The hole where the Gate used to be was covered by a lintel overhang, and unless Big Bird landed it would remain hidden. But if the creature did come to earth and discovered the damage, a fight would be imminent and I guess-timated our chances of winning at about fifty/fifty. Father Donaher was the only person not bone weary by this point. One of the minor benefits from a Jump Start.

Suddenly, the sun returned. Scanning the sky, only the ever-present cloud was discernible, but we stayed where we were for a while longer. When satisfied that the creature wasn't trying to trick us out of hiding and had truly gone, the mage lifted the spell and we held a fast console.

"Opinions?” I asked, resting a foot on a cart wheel.

"It was a narrow escape,” Richard said, munching on a high energy, organic, snack bar. “I couldn't have maintained that spell for much longer. Just about down to my socks in magic."

Smugly, George waved the matter aside. “No problem. I got a HAFLA here that should take the monster out easy."

"And that is?” Donaher prompted.

"A napalm bazooka,” George said, patting a canvas wrapped lump.

Mindy arched an eyebrow. “Good lord, we have such a weapon?"

"Two, actually."

"Great! Let's kick some butt!"

Clapping my hands, I got their attention. I had been afraid of this attitude. “No,” I said firmly. “No more explosives, or rifles. Put those silencers on your pistols and keep them there. From here on, we go quiet. Our task is to discover exactly what is happening here and stop it. Not waste time and endanger civilian lives indulging in an unnecessary monster hunt."

Resting his weapon on a shoulder, George grimaced. “And if it attacks?"

"We hide and run away. Halting that cloud before it reaches the mainland has got to be our top priority."

Hesitantly, the group accepted that, but they were less than thrilled by the idea of running. Following my example, rifles were slung and the slim Bureau silencers screwed onto our HK 10mm automatic pistols.

Mindy exchanged the explosive arrow in her bow for a simple barbed razor tip and Richard struggled to load a crossbow.

Rummaging through the supplies, Father Donaher pulled on a cloth cap and asked what our next move was.

"Let's take the road,” George offered, gesturing with his head. “It appears to lead straight into the heart of the island. As good a place to start our hunt for the owners as any."

I agreed. Mindy was given point duty again and we started pushing our heavily laden carts down the old road, the rubber wheels bumping along with a kind of natural rhythm. There was little to see and nothing to hear, but a faint whispery wind. It was an unnatural silence. No birds, no insects, no people, no nothing. Made my skin crawl and I wondered if we were the only people alive on the island.

"Very probably,” Jessica said in that unnerving manner of hers.

"What?” Richard asked, joining the conversation in the middle.

The telepath gave a shiver. “This island is deserted. Can't you feel the years pressing down on us? The countless ages, the oppressing silence of undisturbed, eons old death?"

"No,” the mage replied.

"And what about Big Bird?” I asked.

"The jabberwocky? Oh, there are lots of animals here,” Jess recanted. “Just no people."

A minute passed in silence.

"Yet,” she added in a small voice. An explanation of that cryptic remark was not forthcoming.

Approaching, Father Donaher tapped his hip flask of Tullamore Dew whiskey, 90 proof, $35 a bottle and worth every penny. “Sounds if you need a dose of neural inhibitor."

Wanly, Jessica smiled. “Later. At dinner, perhaps."

Two kilometers, down the road, Mindy returned. The martial artist was dusty from head to toe, frowning and her sword was drawn. That told me she didn't have good news.

"Found a body,” Mindy reported bluntly.

"Old?"

"Brand new. Satan Department."

That brought the group to a halt and weapons clicked in swift orchestration.

"How did he die?” Donaher asked, checking the clip in his pistol.

"Unknown,” the woman said. “Got to see this one for yourself."

"They got inside,” George said, through clenched teeth, a hand going for the stock of the Masterson Cannon.

Grimly, I pulled my own handgun. “Some of them, at least. Okay, get hard people. Leave the stuff, pattern four, double time."

Without comment, the team scattered and following Mindy's directions, we converged on the body from different directions.

Naked, he was laying spread-eagled in plain sight in the middle of a small clearing. At first I thought the man was simply fantastically obese. But upon closer inspection, no amount of overeating could do this to a human. The body was horribly distended, the skin stretched to the burst point. Face, hands, belly, everything swollen to the absolute limit of tissue endurance.

With my magnifying glass, I started at the feet and worked my way to the head, closely studying every inch, but touching nothing. It was weird beyond words. Every orifice was sealed shut with a sort of clear secretion. On his neck were two tiny puncture marks about an inch apart, closed with tabs of scarred flesh. Finished, I gave a brief summary.

George whistled. “Vampires?"

"Who put blood in?” I said, stressing the last word. “No, this is something perverse and terribly new."

As Rich and Donaher performed a few tests on the corpse, Mindy went through his backpack, and found the usual assortment of weapons and supplies. The only oddity was a set of four batteries in the shape of an ammunition clip for a pistol. Obviously, the
Machlokta d’ Sitna
agents must have some sort of energy weapon. A laser most likely, or microwave beamer. We had the room, so I confiscated them.

Glancing at my mission watch, I frowned. Great, in roughly 20 hours the cloud will reach the East Coast and start killing people and now it was a race with Satan Department. The crazed bastards probably wanted to cut a deal with these island guys.

"Maybe they already have,” Jessica whispered.

A chilling thought. “Time's wasting. Let's move."

"Wait a minute,” George said, lifting a fat curved object into view. “I want to leave our friends a present."

Mindy smiled. “How thoughtful of you! Here, let me help with the fuse."

Pulling on gloves, we shifted the bloated corpse and George slid an anti-personnel Claymore mine underneath.

"There,” he said, stepping back and wiping his hands with a cloth. “When whoever returns for lunch, they will soon embark on a fast journey to the moon in many small pieces."

"The cloud is in the way,” Richard reminded.

George grinned. “That will only slow ‘em down."

Mindy and I took double point this time and we kept in constant radio communication. Nothing of interest was found, until a few miles later when the road ended at a small pavilion. We approached with caution and checked for traps, but it was clean.

The supporting pillars of blue marble still stood, but the tiled roof was gone, only shattered fragments laying on the ground spoke of its presence. A flecked marble pedestal centered the pavilion and on it were numerous small structures made on colored glass in exquisite detail.

"Eureka! A model of the island!” Jessica cried happily.

"Photographs,” I ordered. Cameras clicked and George started sketching on a pocket note pad.

"Apparently it is laid out in concentric circles,” Father Donaher said, crouching low to peer in owlishly from the side. “Here is the cliff and the forest. This appears to be a garden, and lastly, the city proper."

"A walled city,” George muttered, indicating a ringed miniature with a pencil. “How odd. Why a defensive wall with no offensive turrets?"

But there were defenses and I searched for the home of Big Bird, the jabberwocky. The tall mountain was located outside the town, on the far side of the island. Fine.

"What could this be,” Richard asked, fingering a small area off to the side. “Storage facilities? Homes?"

"A cemetery,” Jessica decided.

"Now why would they consider a cemetery important enough to place on the map?"

"Reverence for the dead?"

"These guys?” I snorted. “No way."

A finger pointed. “Look here, in the center of town is a sort of arena, or coliseum,” Father Donaher noted. “Observe those columns and archways! Definite Roman influence."

"Unless, ancient Rome was influenced by these people."

Richard scowled at me. “Geez, Ed, just how old do you think this place is?"

"Pre-historic."

"Dinosaurs built it?” Donaher asked sounding amused.

Mindy gave him a smack on the arm. “Don't be a dope. He means it was built before recorded history. And I agree with him and Jess. This place is seriously old."