FOOD?
Now that thought has come through loud and clear. As do the next three.
FOOD? FOOD. FOOD!
And then this slightly more sophisticated one.
EATEATEATEAT!
The immense crocodile’s cold-blooded metabolism has been in a state of semi-dormancy that enabled it to go for a long, long time without eating. But enough is enough, already.
The big crocodile covers the distance between it and Super Snake’s twitching body with leaping strides that propel it twice as fast as any human could run. It turns its head slightly sideways as it engulfs the snake’s head, then it begins to back up toward its pond, dragging the snake’s body with it. Quite a feat, seeing as how the immense anaconda’s body is twice as long as the croc is. But this is not the moment for me to pause in admiration.
Time for all the leisure swimmers to leave the pool! I scramble out and sprint upslope as fast as I can without bothering to look back. I’m heading for a spot I’ve seen where the crushed fence is leaning over the elevated roadway to the mansion. I clamber up it, drop on to the pavement. I roll onto my back, exhausted. Breathe, breathe again, and finally I feel able to push myself up to my feet and look back down to the pond.
If I was wondering how any croc, even a mammoth one, could consume something twice its size and body weight then I needed to wonder no more. The waters of the pond look like they are being hit by a typhoon as the crocodile, its crushing jaws gripped tight on the snake’s head, is spinning in the water to rip off just enough meat—yup, there it goes—to be able to swallow it. It vanishes under the water. Doubtless it will be back soon to drag the remainder of the carcass into the water where it can chomp off juicy bits at its leisure.
Enough food to keep it alive for another year.
I actually feel a little sad as I watch. There’s a certain beauty to a big predator doing what it was meant to do, even one blown out of normal proportion by genetic manipulation. But this may be the last food it will find here.
Should I be thinking about killing it, too? Why? There’s no reason. Unlike the snake, this croc is a true water animal. If it ventures out beyond its pond for too long in search of food it will not get far. Perhaps a few miles. And then a more powerful enemy than any beast or human will overcome it as it falls victim to the heat and dryness of this land.
Then again, it might just survive if animals such as deer are drawn into Big Ranch by the water, come too close to the pond edge to drink, and then . . . whomp! Even so, it’s not on my agenda today to hunt this croc. It’s no longer an immediate threat.
Half of what I’ve come here to do has been accomplished. But now I have to finish my task by finding the Dreamer’s mirror. It’ll be the easy part after this. I look myself over. The slice across my palm was shallower than I’d feared. It’s already stopped bleeding. I heal faster than most, so I should be fine. As for the rest of me, there will be bruises, but nothing seems broken. I’m limping a little but that will pass.
I follow the roadway back to the entrance, climb the stairway, and regain the top of the wall. My pack is right where I left it, untouched by the massive serpent’s death throes. I put things back into their places inside it, sling it over my shoulder and walk over to the broken guardrail.
There is no sign of either snake or croc. The pond’s surface is placid. I look up the roadway toward the crazily crenulated castle on the hill. And as I do so I feel my Power twitching at me again. More danger.
Maybe this last half of my assignment is not going to be just an easy stroll through the park after all.
As I walk up the elevated road to the open gate of the castle, the midday sun is shining down on me, drying me out after my little dip. I might be grateful about that were it not for the fact that it is baking the layer of green scum I gathered from the swim. Even my eyebrows are covered. The only clean thing is my pack, which did not take that mud bath with me. I look like a sickly, stunted version of the green giant printed on our bags of freeze-dried peas. My jeans and my khaki shirt make a crackling noise as I move.
And then there is the smell. A redolent, delightful combination of muck, rotted vegetation, and reptile poop. At this moment I am less than grateful for my over-developed sense of smell. Skunks would turn up their noses at me right now.
The thought comes to me of what it would be like to report in this very condition to the Dreamer. Despite the fact that I stink worse than a dead polecat left out in the sun for a fortnight, I can’t help but chuckle at the expression that might come to his blasé countenance.
My amusement is brief. The stench is so bad that it’s hard to control myself from bending over and puking up everything in my stomach. But I am not going to waste the precious water in my canteens by using it to wash off some of the putrid layer.
Despite my disgusting condition, and my overwhelmed olfactory, my ears are still working fine. I’m beginning to hear a faint gurgling sound. Water. Trickling somewhere nearby. It’s coming from within a pipe that leads from somewhere up ahead down to the pond.
I continue to walk, crackling like a pot of corn kernels being popped.
This small stream of water may be what is keeping the croc’s pond below from evaporating into nothingness. Maybe from the spring that gave this place its name.
And just before I reach the open door of the crazy Doctor’s mansion I see it. Welling out of the exposed rock just to the left of the building is the most beautiful thing I have seen today. Pure, flowing water that fills a small natural basin before disappearing into that pipe. It’s so clean I almost don’t want to touch it and contaminate it with my filth.
Almost. But not quite.
I kneel down by the spring basin. I clean my fingers, wipe them dry. I take a pinch of pollen from my pouch and offer it.
“Thank you,” I say in a voice as cracked as the layer of dried goo clinging to my body.
Then I stick my head into that basin of water.
I strip, wash myself, and thoroughly rinse my clothing. As I do so I take note of my new minor injuries. Nothing serious again. My left knee is skinned from scraping it against a rock during my dive into the pond. My left shoulder is a little sore and the tenderness on my right thigh is probably going to blossom into a big purple bruise. I am in a hurry, but doing this cleansing and personal injury inventory gives me time to think. I sit naked in the sunlight next to my drying shirt and jeans and underclothes, quietly considering things.
Step Numero Uno is the most obvious. Go inside and retrieve that mirror.
But I can sense more waiting for me inside the mansion than just that mirror. Probably not anything living, anymore. Not after all this time. But there may still be something that could result in my dying.
What do I know about Doctor Samson from the evidence before me? The hellscape below me is a reminder, as if I needed one, that he was fixated on mammoth cold-blooded beasts.
But behind me, its ramparts leaning over me, is another clue about his psyche. His medieval mansion. Within it is the other love of his twisted life—his hall of mirrors, in that book the Dreamer showed me, was said to rival the hall in Louis the Fourteenth’s eighteenth-century palace in Versailles.
And all of this leads me to deduce . . . what?
I put my clothes back on and stand for a moment in front of the mansion’s open doorway. I can see clearly into the cavernous front hall. It is naturally lit by gigantic windows of unbreakable glass set high in the walls.
I don’t sense any immediate threats. Any electronic security devices stopped working long ago. But I still walk slowly and carefully as I pass through the hall. There’s a wide marble stairway at the back. It gives me my first broad hint that the Doctor’s interest in medieval things extended beyond architecture.
There’s a skeleton at the foot of those stone stairs. Not human. It’s some kind of twenty-foot-long lizard which must have come in here either to escape the snake or to look for food. It’s clear what killed it. Its bones are still pierc
ed through by the big portcullis-like device that dropped from the ceiling to pin it to the stone as soon as it started up the stairs.
No need for me to go up there, so I don’t. Curiosity killed even the cat, and I am totally lacking in feline genes. My objective, as I recall from the Dreamer’s instructions, should be off to the left, down that narrower hall. Lined with cut stones that make it look as if it was built with hard-carved blocks centuries ago, it looks right to me.
If I had any doubts, the sign on the wall dispels them. It states, as politely as if this place were not a million miles from normal, THIS WAY TO HALL OF MIRRORS.
The passageway takes a hard turn to the left just ahead.
Perfect place, my conscious mind suggests.
You betcha, my Power agrees. I drop to my stomach and crawl forward. My assumption is that this trap will be set for someone walking. And that it does not involve anything heavy dropping from the ceiling since that might mar the hardwood floor.
I am at the corner now. I reach around it with my right arm and press hard. The board under my hand depresses half an inch with a barely audible click.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
I peek around the corner. Stuck in the wall on either side are the two crossbow bolts that were fired from recesses to either side of the passageway.
Nice. I stand up and examine the bolts. Deeply embedded, but I can lever them out easily enough. I look carefully into the recess on my right. It holds a modern crossbow. It’s made entirely of composite material with strings of braided metal. Same thing in the recess on the left. Beautiful weapons. Unlike those in medieval times that might be made ineffective by moisture or aging, it has no parts that cannot withstand the passage of decades. I lift one from its cradle. It weighs about the same as a .303 rifle. Doesn’t have an automatic cocking feature—no CO2 tube—nor does it have a retractable mechanism to wind back the string. I hold the crossbow down, put my foot in the stirrup, reach down, and draw back the string with both hands.
Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds of pressure. Not that hard to do—for me. Uncle Chatto owned a crossbow much like this one and taught me how to use it. When you cock it, you have to be sure not to pull harder on one side or the other. Use a nice even pull so that the release won’t throw the bolt wide of its intended mark. Each of these crossbows is an efficient weapon for killing silently at fifty yards or less. Good additions to my illegal arsenal. Maybe in a certain dry, deep crevice two miles to the south of Haven near Place Where a Stone Stands Like an Old Man. Or the hollow under a flat rock beneath Old Saguaro Who Looks Tired in the arroyo just a few hundred yards beyond Haven’s west wall.
Next to each crossbow are quivers, each with a dozen spare quarrels. I imagine them being used by the servants whose jobs it had been to reset them—after dragging off the carcass of whatever intruder (or merely luckless guest) tried to pass this way unchaperoned. There are levers by each crossbow. I pull one and hear a click from the loose floorboard. The lever must connect to the floor and were probably pulled into the safe position whenever Doc Samson was leading a tour of his museum.
I remove the second crossbow and lay it down by the first one along with the two quivers of spare arrows. I take a piece of cord from my pack and tie the crossbows and quivers of arrows together. I heft them. Not that heavy. Then I put them back down on the floor. I’ll get them on my way back, assuming I make it through the next obstacle I am sure awaits me.
I don’t have to go far. I sense as much as see the almost invisible wire strung two inches off the floor across the passageway. Meant, no doubt, to do more than just trip an unwary intruder. I take one of the crossbow bolts, slide it under the wire, lift hard. A large pendulum ax swings down at frightening speed four feet in front of me. I would have had a split personality for sure. Like the crossbows, it has no automatic reset. After its initial cut it swings back slower, moves back and forth a few times and then stops. I push it aside by the handle and slide carefully past the razor sharp edge.
Two trapdoors later. I’m standing in the ornate entrance to a room where my own image is reflected back at me in dizzying multiplicity. Aside from a bruise on my forehead, I have no further injuries. But I am a little disheartened. There are too many danged mirrors in there. How am I going to find the right one?
I study the entrance carefully. No sign of a steel-barred portcullis with daggered blades designed to impale me. No warning from my Power or all five of my heightened senses. But I still have to dope out where . . .
Duh! Talk about dopes!
Right there next to me, below a wall-mounted panel for a dead security system is a small ornate table. On it are several colorful little brochures. I pick one up. It’s a printed guide to the Hall of Mirrors. Clearly meant for the favored few who were brought here as guests, it maps, with numbered photos, the location of every precious object in the collection.
A mere twenty seconds of reading and I know just where to go. I take my pack off my back and put it down outside the doorway. I flex my hands, take a deep breath. Then, I walk down the hall to the last of a dozen alcoves off the main hall, turn into it and look straight at the Dreamer’s prize.
My own face gazes back at me, scarred cheeks, jet black hair, aquiline nose, and all. It looks troubled, as it should. Something tells me that trouble still lies ahead. As soon as I take that mirror, it’s going to start. I take two steps back and look down the way I’ve walked. A hundred paces, a third that many running strides to reach the entryway and turn into that hall. I can run faster than any other person I’ve ever met, so it won’t take me that long.
Snatch and grab. That’s one of the oldest ways to take something. But is it the best way right now? The mirror hangs all by itself on this wall. It is ornamented with gold, studded with jewels and pearls. And it doesn’t look more beautifully made to me than anything else. It might not be recognized by most eyes as one of the most special treasures in this vast collection. But it’s the Dreamer's choice. It’s also about twelve by eighteen inches. Just the right size to fit into the padded bag I was given to carry it in.
I study the wall and the mirror from all sides. No visible pressure plates or poison needles. I carefully touch the mirror’s frame. No razor-sharp edges.
I take a breath. Time’s passing. I need to get moving. Now or never. I grasp it firmly, lift.
Click! goes the innocuous hook as it snaps up, relieved of the mirror’s weight.
Crap!
I press the mirror to my chest and take off like a deer being pursued by a mountain lion. I hit the corridor in two strides, turn and speed past mirror after mirror that displays my flying feet, my body bent forward over the artifact whose removal from that triggered hook may have just sealed my doom.
And ahead of me is the entry way and I can see that . . .
Double crap!
Can you guess what is now falling from the ceiling?
I was wrong about there being no steel-barred portcullis. Without slowing I drop to my side and slide beneath its spears just before they drive into the flood and splinters fly up. I guess Doctor Samson didn’t care that much about his hardwood after all.
You’re not safe yet, girl!
I roll up to my knees, hook my pack with one arm and jet down the hall, around the bend and . . .
BOOM!
The sound of the explosive charges triggered by the lifting of that latch, which struck the spark to a long but quick-burning fuse, is deafening. The corridor behind me fills with smoke and flame from the explosives hidden under its floor. But I’ve gone far enough that the shock wave from the blast does nothing more than knock me to my knees.
I hold up the mirror, but not to look at myself. No, I want to make sure that this looking glass I’ve risked my life for has emerged unscathed. It’s perfect. Not a scathe on it.
I pull the padded bag from my pack and slide the mirror into it.
Time to head back to my so-called home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Song
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I am back in Haven. It’s now two days since I left Big Ranch with the Dreamer’s prize mirror. First came an uneventful bike ride back up through the pass and then an uninterrupted night protected by fires. Then an equally unmolested trek back to the walls of Haven. The only four-leggeds I saw were jackrabbits and ground squirrels and one coyote. The only winged creatures were no larger than hawks and the turkey buzzards I saw kettling far behind me over the Dragoon Springs valley when I paused to look over my shoulder.
My return trip was so un-anything that I was a nervous wreck by the time I got here. I’d been at high alert the whole time. I had been fully expecting at any second to be warned by my heightened senses that I was about to be attacked by some creature, waylaid by Big Boy’s crew, or at least contacted by Hally. But nada—and that, in itself, was stressful.
So here I am—sound if not safe.
The evening guard at the gate when I arrived just before sunset was not Edwin. As of this moment, he is still out in the desert somewhere, holed up with the rest of Big Boy’s crew that I sent wandering off my track. With any luck, none of them will ever make it back here alive.
My first stop inside, of course, was to report to Guy. As always, while I silently handed over my weaponry, he ticked each item off.
“One .357 handgun. Check.”
“Sixty rounds of .357 ammunition. Check.”
“One Bowie knife. Check.”
“Two M67 fragmentation grenades. Check.”
I smiled inside my mind as he listed those last items. Only two of the four unused ones. The other two were in my hidey-hole near Haven along with the crossbows.
As he did the debriefing I sensed a presence behind that one-way mirror. I could have guessed who it was, even before I heard her thoughts. It was not the One who sent me on my mission. Not the Dreamer or any of his surrogates. The unspoken words that stabbed into my mind, sharp as needles, made it clear to me who was back there.
Killer of Enemies Page 15
