The Ancient Breed (33 page)

Nick watched the creature’s deformed shape lunge toward him, but before it could bury its long nails in his shackled body, it abruptly froze in mid-leap. Nick’s breath caught in his throat.

A gargantuan, gray webbed hand tipped with three, rubicund claws held the squirming, squealing Walkingman creature in midair. Nick gulped and slowly rotated his gaze until it locked eyes with a familiar pair of red and green eyes. He instantly recognized his old nemesis, the demon guardian, as it bore its daunting stare into his.

Then, with a single twist, it snapped Walkingman’s back and tossed the dying creature like so much garbage onto the pile of bones against the wall. The demon guardian maintained its eye contact with Nick, as its pointed ears flattened against its head, and a volcanic rumble vibrated its broad chest.

Slowly, Nick heard himself repeating the magical words that had opened Alick Tobhor’s fortress.

“Rohbot Kcila,” he said softly, although his panicked mind was screaming the words. “Rohbot Kcila,” he repeated, a bit louder this time, but so loud as to enrage the murderous demon guardian.

The gray demon cocked his sloped skull to the right, then left, and drew its lips back from the single picket row of jagged fangs. It stepped forward and stopped.

Any more bright ideas, Nick! God, what was he going to do now?
A mental picture of Alick Tobhor’s terrified face during the remote viewing episode flashed into his mind. He had a sudden epiphany!

“Alick Tobhor,” he said to the formidable demon guardian. “Save me, and I’ll help Alick Tobhor escape.”
Escape? How was he going to pull that one off?
However, a small voice in his brain insisted he offer the promise, so he blurted it out like an undisciplined school kid.

The demon guardian threw its head back and bellowed. Again, the beams shook overhead and coated them with dust. The demon’s abhorrent eyes snapped back and captured Nick’s gaze once again, and then it advanced menacingly.

Nick held the demon guardian’s eye contact and tried not to show any fear. If he was about to die, then he would go out like a man, not a coward. Its huge form wedged into Nick’s confined, plywood cubicle and hovered over Nick, cloaking him in blackness. Thick, acerbic saliva dripped onto Nick’s head and chest. Its hissing breaths wheezed like a blacksmith’s bellows

This is it.
Death’s frigid silhouette seemingly appeared at Nick’s side and tugged at his soul.
Zero hour.

The demon guardian’s huge claws curled around Nick’s chair arms and easily yanked it from the concrete floor. Backing from the cubicle, it hoisted Nick and the chair into the air and strode with ground-shaking footfalls up the stairs. Nick managed a quick glimpse at Walkingman’s twitching, bleeding corpse before the demon guardian crashed through both the locked, basement door and the reinforced, steel entry door to the outside. It deposited Nick and the chair on the smoking veranda with a jolting thump, lowered its massive face close to Nick’s, and studied his eyes. Seemingly satisfied with what it saw, it lumbered into the night and disappeared without the supernatural fanfare of its arrival.

Nick struggled with the manacles, but he was still securely fastened to the chair.

“Great,” he sighed, exasperated. “Now what?”

An owl hooted from a nearby pine.

“Neo!” His voice exploded into the night, momentarily silencing the night creatures. Mosquitoes buzzed his face and ears, making his spared life uncomfortable.

“Neo!” he shouted again. No answer. Now he was worried. What did Hood do with Neo? Murder him?

Nick sat there in the lonely gloom, helpless, angry, cold, anxious, and frustrated that he was back to square one –
he desperately needed to escape.

38

N

ick didn’t waste time contemplating the demon guardian’s sudden change of heart. He needed to locate Neo, and soon. He might be seriously wounded and awaiting Nick’s help.

Bats flitted through the moonlit woods, flying closer to Nick with each erratic orbit around the asylum, but he ignored them. Bats could be nuisances, but they were basically harmless.

He spotted the mammoth profile of a spiny pine on the other side of the circular drive, closed his eyes, and concentrated on teleporting himself to the silver, grassy patch beside it. He was on the brink of success when his meditation was shattered by a sharp cracking of branches and a high-revved growling from the direction of the parked Navigator; in the gloom, it sounded like a dozen charging grizzlies stampeding through the woods, hell bent for the asylum.

Seconds later, blinding halogen beams and blue-and-white flashing lights stripped the blackness from the night as they closed in on the asylum. The bats squeaked and scattered into the woods at the alien approach.

Five deputy sheriff cars skidded to mud-splattering stops, and a host of stooped, armed silhouettes scrambled onto the drive and rapidly surveyed the situation. Twelve guns were leveled at the solitary man on the porch.

“Nick?” A familiar voice rang through the chaos.

“Neo?” Nick replied.

A mountainous shape stood erect, holstered his gun and rushed onto the porch.

“Man, am I glad to see you,” Nick said.

“What happened?”

“Could we remove the manacles first?”

“Yeah, sure.”

A deputy, a full head shorter than Neo, knelt beside the chair and worked on picking the locks.

A rotund outline stepped onto the veranda and extended a hand. “I’m Sheriff Larkins.”

“I’ll have to give you a rain check on that handshake, Sheriff,” Nick said, rattling the manacles.

“I see.” He glanced at the man working the locks. “Get a move on, Squires!”

“What happened, partner?” Neo repeated. “I radioed the sheriff for backup when I couldn’t find you. He and his men were a helluva lot closer than our guys, and I had a feeling that time was of the essence.”

“More than you know, but I’ll fill you in later. Sheriff, take a look in the basement. You’ll find enough bones down there to fill a cemetery, and the broken body on top of the bone pile is nice and fresh.”

“Human bones?” the sheriff asked incredulously.

“Not many, I’m afraid.
Mutant
is a better description of what you’ll find.”

“Jesus!” He curtly ordered six deputies to join him in a search of the basement and six more to fan out around the building and maintain a sharp lookout for the press, nosy neighbors, and the asylum owners.

“And Sheriff, let’s keep a tight lid on this, huh? We don’t need this leaked to the press before we even begin our investigation.” He turned to Neo. “Give our first team forensic guys a call and tell them to get here on the double. This is a Priority One situation, and if any one of those prima donnas gives you any shit, kindly inform them that the directive came from yours truly.”

“I’m on it.” The big man stepped off the veranda and unclipped a satellite phone from his belt.

“And Neo?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to know who owns this asylum, and I want that information before my breakfast eggs are scrambled.”

“Right.”

“Finished!” Deputy Squires announced as he parted the final manacle.

Nick stood, stretched, and massaged his bruised wrists. “Thanks. You feel up to a little exploring?” he asked the deputy and nodded toward the dark, forbidding asylum.

The man swallowed. “I’m not sure that the sheriff would . . .”

Nick flashed his FBI identification. “You’re officially working with me for the next hour, okay?”

The young man rose to his full height and nodded his accord.

Nick located his rucksack and slipped it over his shoulder. Since his earlier flashlight lay shattered on the floor inside the steel threshold, he retrieved a spare from the sack and lighted a path past the mangled entry door.

Time to discover more about the mysterious hooded man and his nasty surprise for the residents of Duneden.

39

N

ick located another room inside the asylum protected by an armored door operated by a keypad password. Nick quickly pried away the keypad panel and jerry-rigged the electronic circuit board to bypass the owner’s code and default to the manufacturer’s code. From his years of fieldwork experience, this procedure was second nature to Nick. The steel door slid noiselessly aside, and Nick swept the flashlight beam throughout the interior until he determined that it was safe to enter. Deputy Squires found a row of light switches inside the door, and the brilliant illumination revealed a sizable, sophisticated laboratory-office combination.

Nick’s eyes darted across the room warily. Although the asylum structure itself was antediluvian, this room was a recent addition. The pristine, white walls and ceiling nearly blinded the two men. To their left, a lengthy, stainless-steel operating lab table lay beneath a series of operating lights. Beyond, a stainless-steel counter spanned the room’s width, with a dozen cabinets installed above its spotless surface.

Another counter ran along the far wall, with secured cabinets above and below it. Two glass partitions separated a pair of office cubicles on their right. Each mini-office was equipped with a stainless-steel desk, a heavily padded swivel chair, an expensive computer, a flat screen monitor, a landline telephone, a satellite phone, a pencil sharpener, leather blotter, and a chrome steel pen and pencil holder.
The asylum owners were used to the best of everything
, Nick reflected.

Neo entered the room behind them and shielded his eyes from the sudden brilliance.

“What the hell?” he gasped.

“Looks like a combination office and operating room,” Nick replied. “Squires, you got a first name?”

“Tom.”

“Okay, Tom, I need you to work on all the locks in here. Start with the cabinets on the far wall.” He turned to Neo. “You and I’ll check out the computers.” He reached into the rucksack and tossed Neo and Tom each a pair of latex gloves. “But before we touch anything, we’ll use those gloves.” He slipped on a pair and attacked the first computer, but after twenty minutes of futility, he switched it off. It was too cleverly encrypted to access any information. He decided to seize the computers and give Geronimo a crack at the codes.

“Bingo!” Tom shouted. “Got the big cabinet open,” he said triumphantly.

Neo shut off the other computer and joined Nick beside Tom. Nick turned the unlocked handles and slowly swung the doors aside. All three men stepped back, shivers rattling their spines.

“Let’s get those things out of there,” Nick ordered, gently gripping one of the large, sealed bell jars and gently placing it on the counter. Tom and Neo followed Nick’s lead while Nick handled the fourth jar.

“This is goddammed murder, plain and simple,” Neo said darkly.

Tom’s face turned ashen, and he quickly asked to be excused. Nick nodded his approval. Retching gags from the direction of the smoking veranda spilled into the silent room.

Nick leaned close to the four bell jars and examined their contents. Inside each eighteen-inch diameter bell jar, a human skull was displayed in a clear fluid. It appeared as if the four human skulls represented progressive stages of rejuvenation.

Neo’s face was pinched in disgust. “Man, how can you get so close to those . . . things?”

“After years of looking at your mug, these are pieces of cake,” he retorted dryly without looking up.

“Up yours!” Neo muttered and moved in for a closer look. “This last skull looks the freshest. The others are much older, judging by their various stages of decay,” he observed.

Nick glanced up. “Just the opposite, I’m afraid. Whoever’s been working on these skulls has been trying to
regenerate
them.”

“You mean bring them back from the dead?”

Nick nodded. “And by the appearance of the fourth skull, it looks like they’re getting close to success.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“The condition of the skin. Look here.” He pointed at skull number two. “That’s not old, decaying flesh; that’s new. Look at the texture and tightness. And on the edges there, the skin is slightly pink where it should be in worse shape and color than the rest. It’s growing somehow, Neo.”