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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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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 jus
t 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.
Inquisitively, I scanned the underground cavern as best I could. But there was nothing more to see, the destruction of the sla ... of the partisan city was complete. Must have been a nasty side effect of the illegal conjure. Magic had laws and breaking even a minor one was a dangerous act. Feeling ill at ease, I descended the ladder, gathered my pack and moved. But in the back of my mind, I wondered—if I had my briefcase, could I do the same thing? Kill myself to destroy the island? In painful honesty, I didn't know for sure. Just did not know.
For an hour I crawled, lost in thought, then I encountered a small cave-in. The ceiling was smashed, the collapsed soil completely blocking the tunnel. Swell. The ground was sandy in texture and the broken pieces of the tunnel sides appeared fresh. Getting a hunch, I used my compass and did some quick calculations. Yep. It was our work. The satchel charge we used had more effect then we supposed. It also meant I was almost under the wall.
Another hour passed as I dug with my hands, shoving the sandy soil behind and kicking it further down the tunnel. My gloves gave some protection, but I would have happily traded my pension for a shovel, or even an entrenching tool. Dripping sweat dampened my clothes and stung the bandaged cut on my neck. If there had been room, I would have removed my body armor. It was getting worse than a Swedish sauna in here. At one point, I tied a bandana around my head to keep the sweat from my eyes and was sorely tempted to try blasting with a grenade. But explosives are what caused the collapse and I had no desire to aggravate the problem. Handful by handful, I dug onward, finally making a breach large enough for me to wiggle through. As I cleared the obstruction, a kick from my boots made the ground collapse again, filling the hole.
Too tired to escape, I lay there and waited for the rest of the tunnel to fall, but the ceiling thankfully held. After a while, I took a grenade and buried it in the loose soil. A pistol would have been better, but I couldn't spare mine. As a fast exit was impossible, if something chased me down this passageway, I wanted a bit of insurance. Plan for disaster, reap success, Ben Franklin. Or was that Doc Savage? Damn, I always get those two guys confused.
Fifteen more minutes of crawling and I reached the end of the tunnel. In the chamber at the bottom of the ladder, I gratefully stood and stretched listening to my joints creak. Some water from the canteen and candy bar later, I was feeling fit for duty again.
Removing the flashlight from the barrel of my rifle, I shouldered the backpack and started climbing. At the top, a simple hinged panel offered an exit. For a change, the hatch was bolted closed from this side. How nice. I gave the bolt a drop of oil just to be safe, and eased it back slowly. Didn't make a sound, god love it. Carefully opening the hatch, exposed a split canvas curtain. Exiting warily, I parted the flap with my rifle barrel and stepped into a small empty tent, about the size of a summer cottage. A metal pole supported the umbrella top, the cloth walls were lined with wooden shelves and the open front bisected at waist level with a flat-topped counter. Reminded me of a carnival booth. Across the way, I saw a line of similar booths, the side of a tall brick building behind them. Maybe this was an alley market.
Keeping circumspect, I moved to the counter and looked about. Nobody was in sight. The ground was paved with asphalt, and remarkably free of the ever-present dust like outside. Shouldering my pack, I hopped over the counter, and worked my way stealthily to the front of the alley.
What confronted me was a major intersection, with sidewalks and the streets filled with a motionless traffic jam of weird three-wheel vehicles. There were street lights and traffic signs. Garbage cans and billboards. Glass and steel skyscrapers towered above me. It was bizarre. The place could have been any modern metropolis; London, Berlin, Miami. Yes, at last, I was in the city proper, and in very big trouble.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The streets were packed solid with life-size statues of people, thousands, zillions of people. Men and women, young and old. In full color and exquisite detail, all with shockingly similar features: small noses, large jaws, blonde hair, black eyes and skin the color of honey. This was no race I knew. Mostly they were wearing short white togas and knee length flowing capes, but a few were in everything from full body black leather jumpsuits to something that resembled chainmail lingerie.
As if frozen in time, the stationery throng went off in all four directions of the intersection and into the distance. It was as if the entire population of the city had piled into the street and been zapped into mannequins. But what really caught my attention, was that each held a wizard's wand or staff pointed at the dome overhead. A nation of mages. Zounds. No wonder Satan Department rose these guys from their millennium old watery grave. They could conquer the world before lunch. No problem.
Almost imperceptibly, the people near me began to turn their eyes in my direction. Jumping Jesus! They weren't frozen in time, only tremendously slowed and still conscious. Quickly, I moved away. Yet wherever I went, if I stood still for more than a minute, they started to notice me and turn. Had to keep moving and find a place to think.
Dashing round a corner, I inadvertently bumped into an old woman sporting a leering grin and holding a long silver staff.
In extreme slow motion, she started to fall to the ground. Turning, I snatched a cape off a nearby man and placed it under her to cushion the impact, when I saw a necklace of polished human finger bones about her scrawny neck. Little bones, like those of a child. With a curse, I kicked the cape into the street. Let the bitch drop.
Good thing George wasn't here, or else, he would have simply mowed down the entire population with that assault cannon. Which might not be such a bad idea, except that we simply didn't bring enough ammunition to do the job properly.
Stepping out of sight into an alley, I tried to decide what to do. Okay, I was in the city. What next? I could search the city to locate and destroy whatever was raising the island. Should be pretty easy to identify. The thing must be enormous. Or I could try and find my team. That would give me much needed personnel and equipment. Their captors would surely knew where the machine was, what the machine was and how to reverse the process.
Sounded good, but time was against me. Unfortunately, my friends could be anywhere. This was a complex metropolis and totally confusing. I glanced at my watch. Only four hours till the killer cloud got too close to America and the Pentagon would launch the nuclear missiles. I decided to allot one hour to search for the team, before turning my attention elsewhere.
Then it occurred to me that with this many wizards, magical items should be abundant. I tried my sunglasses and was delighted to find that the dome blocked the majority of interference from the cloud and they could now function properly. Cool. Maybe I could steal something that would help in the search.
Moving briskly through the crowd, I spotted hundreds of personal items that registered magical; shoes, hats pins, rings, spiked ben wa balls, whips, dildos, nearly every damn one with an aura as black as their owner. Not born stupid, I wasn't touching any of that stuff. Along the way, I encountered a possible solution to my problem, the aura of the item was green, laced with black. Neutral, leaning towards evil, but not pure evil like the rest. Still, I decided against it. Too dangerous. The only way to survive in this business was calculated risks, not wild gambles.
Since I had to dig my way in, I assumed the Satan gang used the front door. So I sta
rted my search at a mammoth edifice near the gate, but that proved to be only a tavern. A mirrored bar lined one wall and plush velvet seats curved in tiers to face a pit in which lay a big dartboard that had the outline of a human in the center. Feeling ill, I departed posthaste.
Taking a chance, I went directly to the tallest skyscraper, an impressive glass monolith in the center of the city. But there were no stairs and, of course, the elevators didn't work. Or, maybe they did, but even slower than usual. Disgruntled, I moved on.
An elegant white sandstone building looked important, but proved to only be a gymnasium. I was surprised at the advanced design of the exercise machines. Guess there were only so many ways to get buff.
In the main room was a pool large enough to land our seaplane, and it was filled with a group of buxom mermaids frozen in their struggle to operate a lock on a grilled gate that lead to a run-off canal. Their long cascading hair was the loveliest shade of green, while their large breasts were firm and high, with two nipples each. Most likely they were only concubines or harlots, I reasoned. Stark naked except for a few pieces of jewelry, it was blatantly obvious that the mermaids were true females, because they only sported scales and fins from the knees down. But more importantly, the shapely backsides were scarred by whip strokes and broken chains dangled from their necks. Trying for a mass escape, eh ladies?
Glad to help, I put a water-proof map of New York in the hand of one emerald haired lovely, gave another my switchblade and shot the lock to bits. An enemy of my enemy is my friend. Ever so slowly, they started to move their eyes towards me. I smiled politely, bowed and moved onward. Then I returned to my search.
Cannibal restaurant, kindergarten brothel, hospital-from-hell, obscene museum, tacky shopping mall, miniature golf course, my fruitless search continued until the buzzer on my watch sounded. Enough. This was impossible. They could be anywhere within the cubic kilometers of this huge megalopolis. A needle in a haystack was a cinch compared to this. You could always sit on the haystack, or set it on fire and sift through the ashes. I debated setting off a grenade and letting Satan Department find me, but couldn't take the risk. If they managed to capture the whole group, what chance did I have fighting them alone?
Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One] Page 16
