Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One] (20 page)

Twisting about, I began burning the strands holding my pants. My plan was to get out of here before the spider came home. Escape should be a cinch. My backpack held rope and a grappling hook shell for the grenade launcher. All I had to do was find secure footing and unless the top of the pit was out of range, I would be gone in a few minutes.

Without warning, the web vibrated. I looked everywhere and found the spider coming at me from the west. Its fat body was round and furry with tiger stripes. The head was an ugly collection of faceted eyes and snapping mandibles. I almost laughed. All this worry and the stupid thing was not much larger than a dog. No more than four feet tall.

Contemptuously, I leveled the pistol and let the beastie have it. The heavy slugs from the banging automatic hit the insect like sledgehammer blows, the plump body jerking with each impact. But no blood showed and as I stopped, the spider began to scuttle forward again, apparently undamaged. Dropping the clip, I reloaded and gave it some more to the same result.

Activating my wristwatch, I beeped the emergency signal, waited and then beeped again. Nothing. Yet my transmission had to be getting out, because their message got in. Suddenly, I had other considerations as the spider spat a long stream of a milky fluid towards me from its mouth. I ducked and the filaments shot overhead. From its mouth? That was not where spiders normally emit strands. Then as I watched, the eyes enlarged into glistening jeweled pools and it haltingly spoke in a foreign language. Shit. Magical. The damn thing must have been hiding, or possessed an aura so black I couldn't even see it in the dark.

In the back of my mind, I made a mental note to laugh at the remark once I got out of here. Correction, if, I got out of here.

Answering the spider in English, I tried to sound puzzled, arrogant and then commanding. Make it think I was a Master. The insect paused and then asked a question. Haughtily, I snorted in disdain. Obviously, not the proper response because the spider promptly charged.

The chugging 10mm automatic pistol forced it away, but each time the creature was getting closer. I might end fighting with the knife, for grenades were useless. Unless I timed a throw perfectly, the canister would fall through the web and explode below the bug doing no damage, or worse, kill me too.

No, wait. That was wrong. Shoving the pistol between my legs, I squeezed my thighs tight to keep it in place. Then with both hands I yanked off my shirt and tied a sleeve around the middle of an incendiary grenade. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or as the Bureau always says in their training films: make your problems work for you.

I dodged another stream of spider spit and pumped a full clip of bullets into the thing. Before it could recover, I twirled the shirt above my head and it let fly. The throw went true, the grenade arcing beautifully, my shirt spreading behind like a camouflage cape. As expected, the canister dropped through a gap in the web, but the shirt caught on the sticky strands. With a jerk, the grenade came to a halt and hung there only a foot below the web.

Curious, the spider paused for a precious moment to stare at the dangling bomb, so I cried out in pain and went limp.

Instincts are hard to fight. Eagerly, the insect raced towards the clearly helpless prey and the Willy Peter grenade detonated into flame. The shock wave knocked me back and my right arm hit the web again.

Covered with white phosphorous, the flaming spider screamed in a high pitched shriek and raced straight at me. Switching the pistol to my left hand, I gave it the clip. But the burning bug dashed right by and slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch. Its eight legs weakly clawing at the dirt, the terrible torch limply slid down to hit the floor—which from the light of the fire I could see was about ten feet away. Oh brother.

The web was burning, so I had to make haste. Holstering the pistol, I used the lighter to cut the major strands supporting me and I fell to land on my feet. Yes! In a circle of flame, the heavy assault rifle above ripped loose. Moving fast, I made the catch. Then using the lighter, I cleared off what few pieces of web were still attached. It was gummy, and hot to the touch, but in working condition.

Over by the wall, the spider was still feebly moving, so I thumbed a HE shell into the grenade launcher and blew the stubborn corpse to bits. Bouncing off the wall of the pit, the burning head rolled to my feet and took a snip at my boot. Oh give me a break. I stitched the head with a burst from the machine gun and then stomped on it with my Army boot for good measure.

Satisfied that super-bug was finally deceased, I located my backpack and started uncoiling the rope for the climb to the surface.

Struggling out of the hole, I elbowed my way onto the dusty ground and rolled over to safety. Whew. Getting to my feet, I brushed the dirt from my T-shirt and looked about. Nobody was in sight. Something important must have taken them elsewhere. I tried my radio. Again, nothing.

Holding the cut straps of my pack in one hand, I keep my rifle ready and walked out of the dead end scanning the cages. Moving to the front gate I found a spent gas canister laying on the ground. Not our brand. Empty shells and brass casings were scattered everywhere. A blast crater spoke of explosives, and a charred zigzag indicated a lightning bolt. Amid the wreckage were strips of bloody cloth and Mindy's supposedly indestructible sword, broken into bits.

The sight chilled my bones. To do that would take major magic and contemporary firearms. Only a single answer for that combo.

"Satan Department,” I cursed, through grit teeth.

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Furious, I could have kicked myself for speaking aloud. Moving fast, I retreated into the shadows of a nearby broken cage and waited for retaliation. But everything remained quiet. Using my sunglasses, I tried scanning the zoo, but the aura of the dire cloud above overpowered any local emanations. I switched to binoculars. Nothing was moving. Good, my mistake had not been fatal.

Taking a moment to think, I reviewed the situation. There were no departing footprints in the dirt, so they had probably flown. The blood stains had partially dried, so this happened awhile ago. The chances of finding my friends by tracking were pretty slim. Deductive logic was the answer.

Satan Department would not have hauled dead bodies along with them, so my friends were still alive. For now. Where they had been taken was fairly obvious. The Arabs must be somewhere bivouacked in the city. If our theory was correct and the mad scum had helped raise the island, then they would have a way in. Maybe even the front door.

Okay, it was a good hour walk to where we had hidden the emergency supplies, even further to the camp. I decided not to go back. Timing might mean everything in saving my friends.

Besides, I was relatively well armed. Two clips for the pistol and three for the machine gun, one of them silver. The combat knife, two grenades, a smoke canister, one 40mm HE round, a dozen garrotes, the derringer, a switchblade, a cross, Holy Water, garlic, salt, wolfbane and the Invisibility bracelet. Not too shabby. But first off, I had to locate that tunnel.

A double-granny knot tied a pair of socks to the straps of my backpack making it functional once more. I hid the switchblade in my underwear, hung the cross around my neck, took a bite of garlic and tucked a grenade into the backpack. The Bureau special derringer was already in my right boot. Returning to the gate, I took the pieces of the broken sword with me. It was a token act of faith. I would find my friends!

Starting at the front, I worked an overlapping pattern, trying not to miss anything of importance as I searched the zoo for that statue. Cages, cages, fence. Cages, cages, fence. Cages, cages, fence. Fence, fence, gate. Frustrated, I was getting ready to start checking the purple crabs and then hit the garbage dump when for the Nth time, I went by a dry fountain in the middle of a prominent intersection. But on this pass I noticed the pedestal crowning the rising set of tiers was topped by a jagged lump. Going closer, I saw it was a cloven hoof broken off at the ankle. The orange metal was deeply eaten with green rust and must have been like this long before the island sank. Bingo.

Climbing into the empty water basin, I felt incredibly vulnerable standing there, running my fingers over the main support block. I half-expected a bullet to hit me at any moment, but it was the sole piece of the fountain large enough to hide a secret door. If only the fountain was running, I would be safely out of sight under an umbrella of water. Probing a cornice, I found a small piece of loose marble that could be pressed, so I did. With a click, the entire corner of the block swung aside just above the water line, exposing a narrow passage leading downward. Pegged wooden planks lined the walls and a moldy wooden ladder offered questionable access. With no choice, I crouched low and entered.

Standing precariously on the slimy wooden rungs, I found a chain hanging from the underside of the fountain, near the water pipes and gave it a pull. The cornice grated close, as expected and once more I was in the dark. Twisting the generator handle on my flashlight to charge the battery to max, I hooked it to my belt and started my descent.

It was a long, uneventful, climb.

Reaching bottom, I fanned the brilliant white beam around. There was only a single exit. A small tunnel about a meter in diameter on ground level. In front of it was a human skeleton entangled with the linked-bones of a two-headed snake with wings. The fight had been a tie.

My compass said the tunnel headed due south, towards the graveyard. But who would dig an escape tunnel that led directly to the exit point? It must twist about to reach the city if the lady ghost didn't lie to us. I was betting a great deal on that assumption.

Removing my pack, I laid it on the ground. Velcro belts strapped the flashlight to the barrel of my rifle, which I then laid atop the bundle. Pushing it in, I followed and began crawling along the tunnel, the flashlight beam bobbing ahead.

The passageway was gritty, the soil fused, or glued, into a crude sort of cement. Buckled ridges every three meters supported the roof. The air was dank, rich with the smell of the sea.

George would have hated this place. The main reason he weighed so much was little tunnels. Years ago when he was a skinny private in the Army, he had done a tour of duty in Viet Nam and because of his slim size, George had been designated a tunnel rat. The Viet Cong loved to dig tunnels and go hide in them. When the US military found one, they couldn't use gas because the Cong had masks and they couldn't use explosives, because the warrens were so complex the entire thing would not be destroyed. So some poor putz had to boldly go in there and flush the enemy out. It was usually the newest, thinnest, recruit who got the dirty job because the death toll was horrendous. The underground passages were lined with deathtraps; crushing weights, nests of poison snakes, roofs that would cave in, buried Cong who would let you crawl over them and then stab you in the belly. After a few of these hellish tasks, George spent every spare minute eating, stuffing his face to become as fat as possible until he simply couldn't do the job anymore. Really couldn't blame him. Might have done the same thing myself.

Years later, after destroying a platoon of zombie KGB agents with a truck load of salt pork, he departed the service to join the Bureau, but maintained his portly shape. I only hoped my buddy was still alive.

Eventually, my beam showed a side chamber with another ladder, going up this time. As I was making good time, I decided to check it out. Might be important.

Leaving my pack and rifle in the tunnel, I screwed the silencer onto my pistol and started climbing. A wrung broke on my journey to the top, but no harm done. Reaching the end of the ladder, I pushed a hinged panel out of the way. Total blackness. Twisting the lens of my flashlight on its lowest setting, I shielded the weak beam with my hand and swept the light around. Dimly, I could see the burned ruin of a house. Only the barest outline of crumbled motor on the ground marked the boundaries of the building. Not one single stone was atop another.

Extending the beam, I could vaguely discern sprawling ruins that stretched into the darkness, far beyond the limits of my flashlight. But what could this be? An underground city? Why? Maybe this huge cavern was where the Masters kept the Slaves.

Certainly would have retarded escapes and explain the tunnel I was standing in. But why was the place destroyed? This did not look like the work of the cloud. Even if it could have gotten in down here.

A soft glow in the distance caught my attention, and I trained the binoculars in that direction. Things were a bit fuzzy at first. Focusing, I found a forest of multi-colored sticks, standing upright as if the ends were shoved into the ground. Punching for computer augmentation, I traced a straight line joining another to form a point. Star? No, a pentagram. A pentagram formed of painted sticks.

My blood went cold. I had found the answer to my question. Those were not sticks, but wands. Magician wands. Wood, copper, bronze, iron and silver. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, in a galaxy of lengths. I even located several gold staffs as long and resplendent as Richard's wand. Enough stored power to ... sink an island?

But this was impossible. How could anybody steal the staff of a mage? Might as well just stick your head in a microwave oven. The result would be the same. Unless, of course, that didn't matter.

Suddenly I realized that this was where the slaves had performed the ceremony to destroy the island. Who knew how many of them died just to bring the staffs down here, and how many more perished forming the pentagram when every touch meant death. Poised in the center, were three shriveled figures, two men and a woman. Their desiccated remains still standing on their feet, hands raised as if in the middle of a gesture. Brave souls who must have died casting the spell that sank the island. They never even knew if it worked.

I had to do something, so foolish as it sounds, I threw a salute. This was the most heroic act I had ever encountered, ever heard of. Alone in the dark, I made a solemn vow never to refer to these people as slaves anymore, but partisans, resistance guerrilla fighters.