posted
Hi all. Well, I've been doing some writing, and this one seems to be coming to me a lot easier than some other stuff I've been working on, so, I'm gonna post it here for some feedback and critics.
It's not legion related, it's something I hope to one day possibly maybe publish. I wont say it will go up fast, or even in a years time, but as the sections are done, I'd love some real reader thoughts.
Thanks.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
The deputy banged on the bars of my cell a little after two pm.
“Brody! Wake yer ass up. Lunch!” He flipped the cover of the pass-through open and dropped a box lunch and glass of iced tea , plastic cup naturally, onto the ledge.
“Thanks.” I grunted back. Wolcheski was an ass, always had been, I imagined. Wasn’t much good for anything in particular, but could pass a physical and fire a gun straight.
He backed up three steps and I rose and crossed over to my lunch. Cold beef stew on white bread, potato salad, greens and two biscuits. Didn’t look spit in, so I grabbed it and headed back to my cot, a solitary star in a one horse town’s jail.
“You tore the place up good last night. Thousands of dollars of damage according to Hank, the owner. Public intoxication, Public Brawling. But, the Coupe de Resistance (he pronounced it cup de resist ants) was them guns. No permit to carry. And such pretty guns, too. Bone handled Colt .45, dragoon style pistol with Gen U Wine silver bullets, and an illegally modified 12 gauge pump action Winchester sawed off barrel and stock shotgun. The Judge is gonna have a field day with your ass!” He grinned a nasty little snide piece of work.
I said nothing, just continued to eat. Unfortunately, I’d heard this riff before. Same tune, different location. I didn’t take the bait. Not telling what was being recorded or who was outside the door listening.
“My question is… what’s a worthless shit like you doing with guns that nice? And silver bullets? You damn sure ain’t no Lone Ranger. What’er you wasting silver like that for?
He waited as I finished my bite of biscuit I had used to sop up the beef stew gravy. I decided to be generous.
“You’ll know come sundown.”
“Sundown? Why sundown?”
I finished up my meal and took my box and glass back to the pass through ledge, then stepped back. I looked him in the eyes and smiled.
“That’s when the screams will start!” Whatever he saw in my eyes, he didn’t like it one bit. He sort of went on point like a dog on a scent.
“How do you think you’re gonna start any trouble locked up like you are in there?”
“You’re looking at this all wrong, Deputy. I’m not locked up in here. You… are locked out there!” And the simple truth in my statement finally tripped all his internal alarms. He knew the truth when he heard it. It tickled something in his hind brain, that reptilian part of the mind that everyone had that sensed when some serious trouble was about to come down. He turned to leave, forgetting the box and cup, and was to the door leading out of the holding cells area when I said…
“Deputy, when the screaming starts, do me a favor, would you. Toss me my guns. I’ll pick a few off for you from in here. My civic duty, you might say.” He froze a moment, hand on the doorknob, his back stiffened ram rod straight, but he didn’t turn around or reply. My gently mocking chuckle followed him out.
I lay back down on my cot and started to think furiously. You can’t let them see you sweat… but you can’t be stupid either.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Three days before in a abandoned old fifties era Googie style gas station, I picked up their trail. Three nasty killers, real pieces of work: John Busker, Vonnette Moore, and “Cotton” Fields.
John Busker was white trash pure and simple. He was from the side of the tracks that even those on the wrong side wanted nothing to do with. His home was Georgia, but even they wanted nothing to do with him. He started his Juvie record at 13, gradually escalating in violence until he reached his first warrant for murder at twenty six. A few years later, the wheels really left the tracks completely. Over eight deaths were laid at his doorstep. Then, mysteriously, he dropped off everyone’s radar for three years, only to turn up with a cokehead girlfriend even meaner and sicker than he was, and Fields.
You can’t explain someone like Fields except to say that his wiring was wrong from the start. Most nut jobs have a preferred method and pattern to their evil. Not Fields. He was suspected of having stabbed and murdered the grandmother who had raised him from a babe in swaddling. He was eleven at the time. He attempted to cover his murder by burning down the house with her body in it. His six year old sister was asleep in the back bedroom at the time. I say suspected because it was never proven in a court of law, they couldn’t find him to try him.
To be around Cotton Fields was to feel dirty by proximity down to your soul. You knew he was evil, that he did evil things to innocent people and your first instinct was to kill him over and over until the body was dead and destroyed.
Somewhere in Buskers’ missing years they met and entered into some sick, demented buddy-buddy relationship. And somewhere along the line they were both changed, along with Moore, into werewolves. I don’t know where or how it happened, but their coming out party was a slaughter in a small town so bad it was hushed up in the news to keep mass panic down.
Together, they were white trash neo-Nazi murderous redneck werewolves. And its my job to take them down and out.
And I’m damn good at my job!
My name is Thomas Ford. Most folks just call me Ford. It’s one of those names that become the one name you’re known by as time goes on. The deputy called me Brody because that was my cover name for this operation. I work for The Department of Supernatural Event Management, or SEM. It’s a covert branch of the Justice Department, in conjunction with the Supreme Council for Mystical Oversight. The SCMO was a ruling branch of the mystical world, which walked side by side with the real world.
You see, there are all kinds of different levels to the world. The base level is … well, reality. No magic, other than Prestidigitators and stage magicians, and maybe a little Hollywood screen magic. That is the world I was born in. On top of this world, like layers to an onion, are the mystical realms. Something as simple as turning a corner or opening a door can lead you to it, if you have the talent. Some people can move between layers easily, like I can. Most people will never move between layers.
My abilities were due to my birth. Mother was a Wytch. She walked the wild ways, carried herself with a regal bearing that attracted many suitors. Hers was a top level mystical ability. She was pursued professionally and romantically by multitudes. To say that my own mother exuded a sensuality that was overpowering and uncomfortable to many, including myself, would be an understatement (and highly uncomfortable to me). She met a mortal man, here on the earthly plane who not only wasn’t overpowered by her sheer femininity, but managed to turn the tables and fascinate her. He was maybe the only man, woman, or entity that ever really had. Mother had to pursue my father. He finally came around to her way of thinking, and they produced me. My mother lived on earth prime (as I call it) with us until I was six. But, the world being the way it was, eventually the negatives of living here overcame the positives and she was forced to move back up the magical line.
At nine, I turned a doorknob and walked into a room that didn’t exist, which led to a world that didn’t exist. I was lost for seven months on my own, until my mother found me. My father, Garrett Ford, was with her. He had no talent for magic, but he wouldn’t give up either. The love was still there, but the demands of each were such that it was impossible for them to stay together.
Still, my abilities were fairly impressive, even at nine years old. From that point on, I spent time in both realms, learning and growing. After a time, I developed senses that allowed me to transverse the realms with ease…but home was always Earth Prime.
Eventually, I came to the notice of the human world and the mystical world, and became an agent for both. My job is simple, when the supernatural invades the prime realm, I shut it down. Sometimes its as simple as returning a lost individual to their proper place. Sometimes its much more sinister. When it is, I shut the offenders down. Hard. But don’t ask about our little group. If you have to ask, you don’t need to know.
So, here I was in Gamble’s Bend, population 462. Well, 458 now. My cover was that of a traveling biker. Not much of a stretch for me, true. Long, dark hair, I shaved about once a week, and dressed for the road. My ride was originally a Harley panhead, but over the years I had modified it a bit. For one, I grafted the personality of my old dog Banjo onto it, which made it fiercely loyal. I also grafted a few other traits, such as a dragon heart and wings for flight, and a basilisks glare to the headlight. One final little trick was the ability to transform into the physical form of a Heaven Hound. Most people would say “don’t you mean hell hound?” and the answer would be “NO!” Hell Hounds were evil, with no redemptive qualities. Heaven Hounds were stronger, tougher, faster, better, and sneakier. And it was imbued with the power of earthbound Angels. Go ahead, screw with my ride. I warned you.
I pulled into town two nights ago. There was one place were you could rent a room for the night, Pearl’s Motor Court. You could spend the night for free… in the jail if you cared to, but it wasn’t near as nice.
With the town dark, there was really only one place after dark where people were meeting and that was the Thunderbird Grill and Saloon. I knew Busker was in town, but his kind avoided motel rooms. They…camped out, you might say. I headed to the Saloon and had me a whiskey, neat. One thing, I can move between the planes of existence easily, but vision is limited to the plane I’m in at the time. If I want to see more than one, I have to … alter… my perceptions. Alcohol was the least damaging to me, at least, over the short term, and the most controllable. Amount of alcohol equaled distance across the barriers.
Just over three hours in, some new people entered the Saloon, three of them to be precise. Busker and the coke head were in a fine mood. I could see a faint red aura around Busker, but nothing around Moore. I looked again. This woman had personally tortured and mutilated two women and an eight year old boy. But she wasn’t a Were. Another look revealed the darkness at her heart. Another shot and it was clear. She wasn’t Were, she was a stalking horse. A lower level demon held her in sway, it’s poisonous claws sunk into her clear through to her heart. It feed on her depravity, and in return, I suspected she would be the toughest to take down.
And then there was Fields.
I cannot describe adequately the impression this animal makes on you. You got the feeling you couldn’t clean your soul with acid to scrub away the filth just by being in his presence. Fields was a brown-haired man, cut scalp short and forming a deep vee on his forehead of dark against white skin, with blue eyes that were set deep and wide on his face. Looking at his face gave the impression that someone had taken a baseball bat and caved the front of his face in. His beard was anything but full, being a scraggly piece of work that showed in patches. He gave off an animal smell that was enough to make most people loose their lunch, as if he never bathed, which was probably true.
The place was full. I could try and take them out, but innocents would be hurt most likely. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but the only idea I could come up with to get people out and not have them hurt was to make a pre-emptive strike. So, I had a couple more shots and I became the bad guy. Tore the place up a bit, waved my bang stick around, and chased the wolves away temporarily.
That’s why I was sitting in jail. I should have been out by now, but the local magistrate was a) pissed off that I had bashed up his local watering hole, and b) gone on a fishing trip for the weekend. My firm is good, but they were hours away with legal aid. And besides, this was my job.
So, I sat and I waited. And then came Sundown.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
A chill came with the night, even inside the heated jail. It wasn’t a natural chill, it was one of darkness that fed on the darkest parts of the human soul. Just under an hour after sundown, with the station empty but for me, the promised screams started. A few moments later there was an explosion somewhere in town. By the size of it I guessed it was the gas station. Then more screams.
Okay, time to leave. I whistled a short little tune, and just a moment later, the light outside my cell started to get much brighter. I quickly stepped back from the wall, my back against the bars of the cell, and covered my eyes. A second later the exterior wall of the jail burst inward and there sat Banjo, my ride. Gleaming midnight black, very little chrome, my ride screamed “don’t screw with me” to everyone in my office that looked at it. I didn’t dissuade them. The guys and one lone gal over at MTS (Mystic Tech Support) had longed to examine my ride, but I never let them. Some secrets are mine and mine alone.
I walked over to my ride, sat down on it, and flicked on the headlight. The steel bars that formed the cell front and door changed color from gray to black, and then shuddered and crumbled. Basilisk stare, don’tcha know. I calmly walked into the office, opened the desk and removed my guns.
An old girlfriend of mine once commented on watching men in movies “gear up”, meaning getting their gear on to go to war, into battle, etc. She said all she could think when seeing that was the song lyrics “I feel pretty, o’ so pretty…” I laughed at the time, and still think it funny to this day, but the truth is, gearing up is kinda like the old expression “girding your loins” for battle. I settled my pistols in place, one on my hip, one behind my waistband, and the shotgun slung across my back. Then I walked back to my ride, climbed aboard, and fired him up. With all the death and misery taking place outside the jail, I really shouldn’t have been smiling the way I was.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
I hit the street on my ride and made a hard left, turning northward. I gunned it and Banjo 2, as I called him, growled and tore it up main street as I headed for the Thunderbird. Main street was ablaze, buildings on fire, people running in the streets, cats chasing dogs… yeah, some seriously weird stuff.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
Base was a former closed up old furniture factory outside DC in Virginia. It now housed Dynamic Solutions, a name that promised help, but didn’t say what kind. It had a staff of about 30 people, sixty percent which might be on site at any time. It didn’t look like much from the outside, which was the point. It was run by Cilla Presley. No, not that one. Her first name actually was Cilla, not a shortened derivative of anything. Cilla was in her middle forties, but looked ten years younger. She was tall and well dressed, but not what anyone might call a looker. Her nose was slightly hooked, and while she dressed very nicely, you immediately got the feeling that she was out of dress. By that I mean that to those that just met or glimpsed her, they got the feeling that she was severely out of place in a business suit. They would be right.
Cilla Presley was a top of the line Wytch. She had been a field agent for over two decades before a last job that had made it impossible for her to continue in the field. Her cover blown, she came into an assistant directors job at the agency, her region was the southwest. In less than three years time, with the unexpected retirement of the then Director, she was a natural choice for the job. She’s tough, wily, smart, and ice cold to the touch. Its’ rumored that she doesn’t have any blood in her veins, but ice water. That’s not true. Its not ice water. It’s regenerative elf blood. A transfusion was needed on that last assignment of hers. The only thing available was elf blood. It was a horrible thing. Elf blood is not meant to reside in humans. Even interspecies mating brings about horrible consequences to the few recorded offspring.
But, this is Cilla. I once saw her freeze a soul grenade in place, plunger her hand into the explosion, and rip out the soul of the child sacrificed to make the grenade. Her hand and arm should have disintegrated upon touching the explosion. She didn’t have a scratch on her. Iron is tin foil compared to her.
There is an access tunnel to the shop whose entrance is three blocks away through a parking deck. Banjo made the three block journey in less than ten seconds. We passed through the solid cinder block wall and emerged on the parking pad. If you aren’t one of us, I don’t recommend trying that little maneuver. Several other specialized vehicles were on the pad, parked well away from the arrival/launch pad. I recognized one or two of them as belonging to other agents, but didn’t pay any heed to them otherwise. It was odd to note that Christine Wall was in house. She worked the LA district. She was only in DC once every five years or so. Her Bentley was calmly munching on what looked like barley, probably getting drunk for extra oomph in the speed department. I suspected her ride was an extension of herself, much like Banjo is for me.
One of the techs waved to me as I left Banjo parked well away from the other vehicles. They knew better than to attempt to inspect my ride. But not every ride was as highly specialized as mine. The techs did a lot of modifications and upkeep on some of the other rides. It’s why at least one was always on duty.
I stowed some of my gear in my office, but not all. Two things stayed with me; my vest, which was made of unicorn hide, and my Sharps pistol. A one of a kind, that pistol. It fired .50 caliber slugs, specially made for me, by an old acquaintance. It wasn’t standard issue.
There were three new items that I took into the lab before heading off to Cilla’s. The tech on hand was Andrew.
“I hear you had a successful mission again. Bring me back anything good?” We often scavenged at the end of a mission. We had to, in a way we were required to be almost self sustaining. Things wound up in our tech lab and then wound up in the armory, often adapted in really ingenious ways.
“Maybe.” I dropped the bloody bundle I was carrying in wax paper to absorb excess runoff onto a clean table. “Two Were hides, and the horns of a Misery Demon.”
““Were hunh? …standard stuff.” h e said as he pawed through the swag. Misery Demon? No way. You didn’t!?”
“Take a look for yourself.” Andrew unwrapped the other package and nearly jumped for joy when he found the horns. And then he immediately calmed down. As a Mystech, he knew the only way to bring in those horns was for the host to be no longer among the living. He looked at them a moment, then turned back to me. “I’m sorry. Eagerness got the better of me for a moment. I presume you will…?”
“If you can adapt them for me, great, if not, use them as best you see fit. I get first crack at anything really good, mind…”
“Of course. The Were stuff is kind of standard.”
“Should be a couple of fangs and claws in there. And enough blood for extraction purposes.”
Andrew pushed his glasses up his nose, a nervous reaction on his part. He regularly lost in the poker pool. He knew it was a tell, but never learned to get it under control.
“Umm, how did the vest work for you?”
“Great… for anything other than Weres. Wolves will take down a horse, remember?”
“Sorry, I had tried to fortify it, but I take it it didn’t work?”
“No, unicorns, naturally resistant to magic. Your spells failed against the Weres.”
“I did mention that possibility, though.” He was obviously disappointed, and a little worried as to what my reaction would be to a critical piece of field equipment failing on a dangerous mission.
“I know. Director in?”
“She said you would come here first. Said when we were done for you to head her way.”
“Thanks. And Andrew, the vest was a good idea. Not everything is going to work, no matter the thought behind it.”
He nodded as I turned to leave. As I got to the door he asked…
“If you don’t mind… how did you stop the Were?” he said.
I tossed back over my shoulder as I was leaving “He was a bad doggy. I taught him to play dead.”
The elevator took me up to the forth floor of the building, the second highest floor. The place had about twenty floors, but only five of them were above ground. The top floor was “unused”. By that I mean that we used it for housing emergency transports of a more real world nature. No permanent offices, just storage. The roof had a helicopter landing pad, and a retractable roof for vehicles that had VTOL tech and both Tech and Sense scrambling capabilities. No good to hide a jet from radar, etc… if someone on the ground can see and hear it landing.
The forth floor was the domain of the Director and her support staff. It housed communications and a light armory, as well as the bathrooms and meeting rooms. I headed for the Directors office and was stopped by her personal secretary, a real gorgon if ever there was one.
Janet Munch was seated behind her desk, stationed outside the Directors office. She wore her hair back in a severe bun, pulled so tight and coiled so that not a hair was out of place. She was typing way on what looked like a cross between a steampunk computer and a glowing Artificial Intelligence machine from the future. She paused and looked up at me from behind her very large sunglasses.
“Yes?” Janet’s voice was very dulcet, the kind of voice that would make a fortune on the phone sex lines, but don’t let that fool you. It may have been dulcet, but there was also a stony quality to it that sent chills down your spine the first time you heard it.
“Hello, Janet. I’ve a meeting, I’m told. How’ve you been?”
“Yes, you do, but she’s occupied at the moment. I’m fine. I understand you had a bit of trouble on this last assignment.” Janet read all the files that came to the Director. Among her other talents were speed reading and a perfect recall memory.
“No more than usual. How’s Arthur?”
“He’s well.”
“Did that specialist I recommended work out?”
“Oh yes, no more blindfolds for him. And I do thank you for that. It’s been such a relief.”
“You are more than welcome.”
I took a seat in one of the comfy chairs arranged around the little reception room and waited. I didn’t watch Janet out of the corner of my eye like so many others here did. When I said Gorgon, I meant it. Her “hair” was coiled so tightly for safety. Each of the snakes was poisonous in the extreme. The glasses were to protect the unwary from the sight of her eyes, which would turn them to stone. Janet was one of the original sirens, turned into a Gorgon by a jealous old god when one of the sirens lured a demi god to his death on the rocks of some small Island in the Grecian ocean.
Arthur was one Arthur Romaine, a former agent that had his sight severely damaged on a mission and was retired. He still retained enough sight to be in the danger zone, loving a siren/gorgon, and the specialist I connected them with fixed that. Arthur had not been completely blind, but now was able to see due to a special combination of tech and magics. The spell had built in automatic protection from any possible accidental exposure to Janet’s gaze. It had a built in record of her immortal face, but the eyes and snakes were blanked. As I understand it, to Arthur, Janet never had the same hair color twice in his “eyes”, and her eyes were a permanent deep, rich black. The two made a lovely couple. Arthur, while retired from field work, still did a bit of Intel gathering on occasion. he said it was amazing how many people spoke around a blind man, thinking they were a kind of invisible. He felt no shame in using societal prejudices against the bad guys.
A simple wave of my hand, and a type of holographic screen appeared in the air in front of me. It was magical, and allowed me to do my paperwork by telepathy. No one else could see the screen, not even someone standing directly behind me and looking at it. It was a neat little trick I picked up in Texas, of all places, many years ago. I had not shared it with anyone at the office, though. No agent gives up all his tricks.
I was almost finished with some routine paperwork when the Director’s door opened and Christine Wall emerged. She spoke to no one and looked neither left nor right as she stormed past Janet and myself. She was gone in a moment. Seemed to be in a huff, but it wasn’t my business. I returned to my paperwork and a light blinked on Janet’s desk.
“The Director will see you now.” was all Janet said.
I smiled at her and went in.
Cilla Presley was wearing a cream-colored business suit, pristine with not a particle of fuzz out of place. Her thick black hair was cut in some elegant configuration around her head that would have cost hundreds in some women’s salon, but she probably magiced it into place before leaving her home that morning. Don’t ask me where her home is. No one knows.
“Agent Ford, have a seat.” she said without looking up from her desk. There was a single sheet of paper on it, nothing else as far as I could tell. But then, I know better than to believe what I see at face value.
“It went well?” she finally asked as she looked up and leaned back in her very expensive leather chair.
“It went.” was my reply.
She raised a single eyebrow. “Problems?”
“Intel was a little off. The woman. She wasn’t Were.”
“Oh?”
“Misery Demon.”
“How far along was…?”
“She had to have been a child. The demon was wholly merged, except for one small bit of her foot.”
“So.” The Director leaned forward in thought. Her little tell, but I would never mention it to her. “Misery Demons cannot take over children. You must have been mistaken.”
“No. For the progression to be that far along, it had to have been when the subject was a child given her current age. And they can take over children, as long as the parent or guardian is in full knowledge of the facts, and agrees with no reservations. But usually even the blackest of hearts never really fully intends it. So unless they’ve come by some unfortunate for them/fortunate for us circumstances, somewhere out there is a human that is jacked in to the hosts of hell on a superhighway.
“We’ll get someone right on it.” She said and I nodded.
“Anything else?”
“No Ma’am.”
“Good. Feeling fit? Any problems?”
“No, Ma’am, no problems. And yes, I feel fine.”
“Good. I know you should have a bit of downtime after the mission, but the reason I called you in precludes that. I have an “all hands on deck” situation.” The director pressed a button on her desk that wasn’t there an instant before she pushed it, and wasn’t an instant after she pushed it. A screen dropped down from the ceiling in front of windows that darkened in an instant.
The “hot sheet”, as some of the techs had dubbed it, was a simple screen with a map of the US on it. At the directors cue, that screen could focus in on any territory like a satellite from space could, becoming increasingly detailed as it did so. Just last week, the screen showed about forty blue lights and around three to four red lights at any given time spread across the US. Today, it showed less than five blue lights, but over twenty red lights. Blue meant “bears watching”. Red meant “Oh shit!” in the tech parlance. Something was up. Something big. But one red dot had what looked like a small yellow circle with spikes coming off it, not unlike a small sun you might see displayed on a 70’s weather forecasters board.
“Three days ago, the board spiked. Our best readers were caught unprepared. We lost two in as many minutes from the psychic feedback. The rest were quickly disconnected and treated. It’s why you had no backup. None were available. As you know, we have thirteen agents, not enough to cover this many hot spots. We were at a loss until one of the readers awoke from her slightly catatonic state. Her precognitive abilities flashed on this point … (she indicated the small star around the red light over Joplin). That was three days ago. I recalled agents Red and Green and sent them to investigate. We lost contact day before yesterday. Agent Orange found them yesterday. Dead. Bodies were in a field, strung up like scarecrows. Problem was, they were each on five different posts. Someone placed them on one post each, and simply split them apart. The differential lines were clean. No blood loss. Each post was paired with the counterpart of the other body. Ten posts in all, forming a five pointed star.”
She paused and waited for my reaction. I had barely known Red, but Green, Stacy Gruenwald, was an old acquaintance and former lover. We were more friends with benefits than anything else. A booty call in today’s slang. Still, it was a horrible way to die. I looked at the picture the Director had placed on the screen showing the scene in all its horrible, gory detail. The body parts were obscenely mated to each other. Torso and heads facing each other, almost close enough to kiss, arms and legs as well in some sickening dance of magic and death.
“Red and Green had become partners. Quite close partners from what I understand.” the director said. There was a slight bit of disapproval in her voice, she didn’t like agents fraternizing with each other, thought it broke their focus. “I know you don’t know anything about it, you were quite a few hundred miles away.” I looked at her. “I know you had nothing to do with the murders of our agents, even though you had a physical relationship with Green. (More disapproval.) However, I need you to set aside any personal feelings you might have and find out who is behind this. Agents are not easy to take out. And their deaths appear to have been used for a working of some sort. Whatever it is, sex and death magic never amount to anything good. I need you to go, tonight, and investigate. I want you to find out who did this, why, what the ultimate goal is, and stop it if it is a dark tiding. If it was something else, I need to know what.”
“Yes Ma’am.” I heard myself speak, and even I could hear the quite rage in my voice. The Director was no fool. She wouldn’t tell me to set aside personal feelings on a job like this and expect it to go that way. She wanted this mess cleaned up and handled with extreme precision and effectiveness. But, while I’m very effective, I’ve never been accused of being quiet or precise. I’m more of a brickbat through a plate glass window.
“There is one other thing. No doubt you saw Agent White leaving my office when you came in. She is to be your partner on this one.” She raised a hand stopping me from saying anything. “I know partners is not a specialty of either of you. But I’ve already lost two agents. I don’t want you going in on this without someone for backup. You’ll be each others. Understood?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded.
“Fine. Wall is no doubt as happy about this as you are, but I expect you both to be professional. Now, grab your gear. What info we have is ready for you to access when you choose. I expect the two of you on the pad in twenty minutes.”
With that last line, the Director pressed the Schrödinger button once again and the hot screen disappeared back into the ceiling. She reached around as a large clear orb rose out of the floor on a marble stand and began to place a secure line call. I turned and left.
Outside the office, Janet had a small envelope for me and a small smile. “Good luck.” was all she said. I thanked her and headed for my gear once again. I was now going on three days without a bath and I looked, felt, and smelled it. I wasted fifteen minutes on a shower, dressing, and heading back up to the pad. On the way, I opened the plain manila envelop and pulled out the seed in it.
The seed was simply that, a small object about the size of a pea that an agent inserted into his ear. The seed would then flow into his ear canal and merge with his nerve endings. After the connection, it would be just like hearing books on tape as the agent was able to go about doing other tasks. Each seed was keyed to the agent supposed to receive it, it wouldn’t work for anyone else, and instead would deliver a nasty shock to their systems rendering them unconscious for around three hours. Each agent, upon joining the team, experienced that when given a blank, un-coded seed, so they would know what it felt like. Much like cops and tasers. I can honestly say it didn’t feel good. When the seed was done, it dissolved and disappeared. So far, an absolutely foolproof method of information and Intel transfer.
When I arrived at the pad, White was already in her car and headed for the jump gate. Jump gates could set us down anywhere in the US instantaneously, but we used pre-coded coordinates exclusively. Not a good idea to jump blindly and come out in the middle of a high rise building, someone’s house, or a tree.
I whistled up a tune and Banjo fired up, headed for me and I jumped aboard as he headed for the gate. What I should have done was take a moment to place the seed, but I didn’t, figuring I would catch up with White and do it on the other side of the gate. Such a small, simple mistake. “For want of a nail…” as my old granddad said.
I roared through the gate and came up somewhere that certainly wasn’t outside Joplin. The landscape was white with snow, the road was frozen, and Banjo immediately started to skid. There was no help for it as he lay down on the highway. Well, road really. It was a rough two lane road that managed to take a bit of my clothes, my bike, and me as a fee for its sudden and unexpected use. I lay there on the ground, getting my wind back and doing a mental inventory on myself. No broken bones as near as I could tell. Some scrapes, a few bruises… nothing to serious.
I pulled myself up and managed to stagger over to Banjo. He was down, but not seriously damaged. A few dents here and there, a scrap or three. I whistled and he popped back up on two wheels. He would be fine to ride now, it was the unexpected that got him. Hey, he was patterned after a dog. Great friend, loyal companion, but Mensa member he isn’t.
My next thought was “What the hell just happened?” I quickly popped the seed in my ear. It was always a bit unsettling to me, like having that runny earwax sensation combined with a water logged ear in swimming.
“Hello, Agent Garnet.”
The seed downloaded this to me:
“Ford…” It was the Director, personally. “… for Carruth and Gruenwald to be killed in such a manner, it would require tremendous resources. As you know, practically the only thing strong enough to take down our agents… is another agent. For some time now I’ve had concerns about Agent White. This solidified in my mind four days ago when she completely dropped off the grid. As you know, we keep tabs on agents for practical and security purposes. Agent White was unavailable by any known means for two days. It was during this time that our agents were murdered.
We did, however, get one small flash on her, and it was near Toronto, less than three miles from where you have arrived. We narrowed it down to a three square mile block. Centered in this area is the Bartek Research and Development Corporation. Over time, they have come to our attention as possible suppliers of tech enhanced occult items. Somehow, we believe they have developed a technique to marry technology to old magics.
This is important because the precision with which our agents were murdered would have required a precision that magics or technology alone would not have been capable of. That she was near the facility at this most crucial juncture leads me to believe that she may have had something to do with our current problem.
Investigate. If she’s innocent, clear all doubts. If she’s guilty, I want proof, and I want her heart on my desk. If BRDC is part of the problem, shut them down with all appropriate and judicious means.
Good Luck.”
And with that Director Presley was out of my head, and the seed proceeded to download schematics, maps, and directions to BRDC. And suddenly, I was to be our own version of Internal Affairs. Not something I liked, but Stacy was dead, and someone else was going to join her.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
So, I was in Canada, Ontario Province. Okay. First up, I did a simple warming spell. It was a little sloppy, I admit. What I did was capture a warm spring day from the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Then, I used it to create a ball of warmth centered in my torso, and let it grow and spread outwards from there. Basically, I created a sphere around my body that was centered on me, and extended four feet in radius around me. It wouldn’t last very long, maybe a day, but while I was in this cold clime, I would be comfortable. I made a rookie mistake years ago and grabbed a hot summer day’s warmth. While it was great out in the cold, I had to enter a building that time and the unfortunate circumstance was that, against all laws of physics, the exterior temp and the sphere temps were additive. So instead of it being a balmy ninety 92 degrees in my sphere, it was over a hundred and twenty. Hottest four hours of my life. Some things you only learn by doing.
The spell was a bit sloppy because my hands were freezing by the time I made the signs for the spell, but it worked. My next move was to alter the appearance of my clothing. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I couldn’t actually change my clothes, I’m not a transmuter, but I made them look seasonal appropriate to avoid any unnecessary scrutiny. I was suddenly wearing heavy winter clothes to any observer, including a long coat that was lined with beaver fur. Let the animal lovers throw paint on me. I had a small spell for that to that involved their next bath and the paint they would have “loaned” me.
Still, I was set now, so I climbed back on board Banjo, he fired up, and we headed slightly South, in the direction I appeared to be coming from when I landed. BRDC was situated on a the side of a hillock that overlooked a small depression that had been artificially transformed into a pond. The building, from the outside, appeared to be a squat, wide, three story affair that was all concrete and glass. The sign for the place was a granite affair with the lettering carved into the stone and painted black, except for the lead letters of each word, which were painted red.
I stopped in a little grove that looked down on the site and leaned back on the seat of my bike. I pulled out a pair of binocs that I had had custom made. The binocs were standard except for a minor modification. I had fought a … gentleman, lets say, some years back that incorporated the abilities of a seer. He actually had his eyes damned with “true site”. They showed him the hidden, real world. Nothing was hidden from his sight. Poor, deluded moron. He didn’t last three days before he was certifiably insane. No one should see the unvarnished reality all the time. The little white lies we tell ourselves and each other could find no purchase. The true hearts and nature of man were as open as a book. Simply appalling.
However, I had taken his eyes and had a little firm outside of Florence, South Carolina incorporate them into the lens of these binocs. Excellent for surveillance. I checked out BRDC through them. The place went from looking like an ordinary office building to being lit up like a Christmas tree. There were spells on top of hex’s on top of hidden surveillance on top of automated ordinance. There was no way I was breaking in there in a full frontal assault without setting off every alarm within a two mile radius. Okay, fine. Lets look at it another way.
I thought a minute and cranked out an idea.
One hour later I had shed all my magics, other than the ones inherent in me personally, and was walking up to the front door, a large pizza box in my hand. The guy that brought it out to me was driving a Honda Civic, and had a coat big enough to cover most of me, but not quite all. I borrowed his hat, car, coat and job for just over three hundred dollars. Don’t worry, the money was real. The office would reimburse me. The kid had delivered here before and told me a name to give for a fairly regular delivery customer. Amazingly enough, I was buzzed in without a single trip alarm going off. The receptionist, a bored little brunette that looked like she was barely out of high school, but already weary with the world, directed me to one James Grover, second floor.
Once out of the reception area, I was able to do a quick scan of the empty hallway. Amazing. Nothing. No cameras, no spells, nothing. Everything was on the outside. My guess, no one figured that anyone could pass through the exterior perimeter without being caught, so they saved a bit of money on the inside. Stupid, but fortunate for me. Off went the disguise and I headed down the hall to the elevators. From the outside, they showed only three stories. But on the inside, a little sideways vision showed that the building had approximately seven stories. I wasn’t to sure about one, the button kept sliding out of my vision, even when I concentrated.
Well hell, if ya gonna beard the lion, don’t be shy ‘bout it. I concentrated as hard as I needed to, which was pretty damn hard and for a moment the button stayed still. But I was prepared, finger waiting to stab the button at a seconds notice. The elevator seemed to lurch… sideways. I was interested at the mechanics of the movement for all of the ten seconds it took for me to find the missing eighth floor. Considering the amount of cloaking needed to hide the extra four floors from my binocs, that there was an eighth floor was highly disconcerting. I did a mental pull and shifted a little space to grab my guns. No point in being subtle now, the second the doors opened I was gonna be blown anyway. But it didn’t take that long. The alarms sounded the second I shifted space for my guns.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. I hate when I’m right. A black dwarf stood waiting. That’s tough enough. Black dwarves aren’t actually black. What they are… is a bunch of social outcasts. They are the dwarves that travel into the light. They say its for money, work, but it’s a lie. Dwarves can easily make more in their mines, even as simple laborers, than they can on the surface. You only get them in the light when they are… off. They come up into the light for the thrill, the experience, the rush of the societal taboo. That makes them a little crazy to start with. And given that dwarves are tough enough to head butt granite and crack it to start with, a slightly crazy dwarf with a job and a mad on for an interloper… well, it isn’t good.
But, he was flanked by two very nasty looking Wraiths. Dwarves are nasty, evil little buggers above ground with a permanent mad on for “bigs”, normal sized humans. But… they have easily identifiable pressure points. If you know the tricks, and I do, a Dwarf isn’t really a problem. Wraiths, on the other hand, are something else. No one controls them, they do what they want when they want. If they sign on to a project, you can count on only one thing. You better keep them busy and interested or they will be out the door faster than you can spit. Problem is, no one really knows what motivates wraiths, what they want or desire, what their pressure points are. And they are deadly bastards. Wraiths main kill weapon is their eyes. If they catch your eyes, their look blasts your soul out of your body. Your soul is destroyed. Your body becomes available to any thing looking for a physical host. Nasty business. Wraiths like to eat souls for snacks. Only one thing has ever been found to take out a Wraith. Unfortunately, I don’t’ have a handy defrocked sex addicted nun handy. Apparently, it’s a Wraith’s favorite show, kinda like Soaps in America.
Well, no help for it.
“Hello. I’m here to ascertain whether to destroy you or to buy you a beer. Your choice.”
“What kinda beer?” That was the Dwarf. Like I said, ya gotta know the pressure points.
“Morgan’s Stout, Red.” I took a chance. Morgan’s Stout Black was the normal choice of the average Dwarf. So I took a chance and said Red. I figured if he was bit of an odd duck in his own society, he might be enough of one to drink something else.
“Works for me. Doubt these two will like it, though.” The wraiths seemed to slide around him, their feet never touching the floor. I wasn’t too worried though. My glasses were in place. Part of my disguise, they looked like heavy black glasses a repair man with bad eyesight might have. At a word from me, they suddenly went opaque. Line of eye sight wit a wraith must be true, not filtered. Still, it isn’t their only weapon. When my glasses went dark, each reached into the loose robe they were wearing and pulled out the biggest freakin’ sword I’ve ever seen. But they weren’t just any swords, they were bone handled Japanese style swords, and the blades burned an intense white flame with blue tips. One touch and I was dead.
That’s when I clicked over into fight mode, and frankly, its what I’m best at. Out popped my Sharp’s and I leveled two shots each into their bodies. Now, a lot of people think wraiths aren’t solid. Not true. They are solid, if you count a sort of dirty soul mist as solid. The bullets passed through them with minimal harm, but truthfully, they were just a stalling tactic. My real trick was in my vest. I never go anywhere without my little tricks. And one of them was a real doozy.
Have you ever watched those old cartoons where a character will pick up a black circle of ink, call it a hole and throw it onto a wall or a floor or ceiling and something will disappear into it? Well, I got one. Several in fact. Collapsible, portable, and the other end is uncharted. Oh, they can expand on will. So, one small hole becomes one really big, black hole that sucks mightily, as the youth used to say. Bye bye wraiths. That just left the dwarf.
“Well, that was easy enough. Now, I have all sorts of tricks, weapons, and down right unpleasant things that make things that go bump in the night disappear. You don’t want to met them and I don’t want to use them. So, instead of some tedious battle that you are not going to like, how ‘bout you answer my questions?” I asked the dwarf. “Like what?” His hand was slowly inching towards his waist and slightly behind him. Like I didn’t notice.
‘Like, whats BRDC doing here? Who’s in charge? What was Christine Wall doing here? Did you have anything to do with the deaths of two of our agents? And is it really true what they say about dwarves?” I kept them short and not so sweet, just like the dwarf.
“…far as I know, research and development. Elricht Gorn. I don’t know. I didn’t. What do they say about us?”
“Not good enough. I’ll get to him. Sure you do. I didn’t think you did. That you love gold more than you love sex.”
“I’m a dwarf. I don’t know what “research” is. I know fighting. That’s his business, I’m hired to protect this place. No, I really don’t. Glad you didn’t. I guess for most, but not me. I like sex more, but you aren’t my speed. Now, are we going to battle, or are you going to try and talk me to death?” With that his left hand popped up with a two headed battle axe like a magicians stage pass. Stupid me, I was watching the right hand when he’s left handed. The axe was flying through the air towards my head with incredible speed almost before I could react to it.
My shotgun appeared in my hand and blasted the axe out of the air, splinters and steel flying everywhere. The dwarf had dove behind the clear, inch thick compostite glass desk as I shot, his hands filling with more weapons. But instead of throwing them, he angled himself, kicked hard and the desk flew through the air at me, and it was my turn to dive out of the way. He let loose with a blood curdling war scream and fan at me, fast, pick hammer in one hand, steel pry ram used for breaking blocks of rock loose in the other.
He was almost on me before I leveled the almost forgotten Sharp’s in my had at him and let drive with the last two remaining rounds. Both found their target on his chest, reversing his direction and sending him flying. But, I had forgotten about the legendary Dwarf vests the race was famous for. The vests where known to have magical properties that protected the wearer from all kinds of harm. Apparently, blessed bullets were one of them. He sprang back up, blood flying from his broken nose on which he landed, and screamed an incoherent sound of rage and fury, a small, heavily armed killing machine with a serious mad on for me. I popped out one of my tech weapons, a simple, standard flash bang, and let’er rip. The explosion rocked my senses, but while it was bad for me, it was something akin to the greatest of horrors for the dwarf.
Dwarves live underground. The dark is their natural environment. The light from the burning manganese was so intense he screamed as the sight was burned from his eyes, as opposed to what the wraiths would have done to me. Okay, maybe the vest was tough, but his head wasn’t as tough.
“Should have taken the beer.” I said as I leveled the shotgun at his head. But at that point I didn’t feel clean at all. Its one thing to kill something that was able to fight back, to defend itself. But the dwarf clearly wasn’t at this point. And he would never see again, that much was for sure. He was babbling something incoherent when I pulled the double triggers on the shotgun. His head exploded in bloody chunks all over the place.
As the sound of the blast died away and my ears returned to normal a bit, I looked around. The room was almost fanatically white. The only things of color in the room where the dwarves body and bloody chunks, the charred spot on the floor from my grenade, and me.
On shattered window showed the outside world still covered in snow, the air in the room was taking on a decided chill. Along the north side wall was a bank of computer screens on the wall, each showed a different section of the facility, except for two that were shattered in the fight. On the wall on the other side of the room were lithographs of something that looked like colored exrays of mystical objects married to technical devices that distorted them, made them even more… evil of intent. How could I tell that just by looking at them? Don’t ask me, it was just a feeling. A deep, visceral, gut reaction that made me want to throw up just seeing them.
In between two of the pictures, though, was a door. I could tell because the blast had blown it slightly open.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
posted
by the way, I'm terrible at spelling and grammar as written, so if something doesn't look right, isn't spelled right, or doesn't read right, please let me know. I've already spotted several spelling errows.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic | Subscribe To Topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
