“This is required training!” the instructor wailed to our backs as we grabbed bags and fled the room.
Hiebert was driving for me today, and he had somehow made it to the Tacticool Tahoe ahead of me.
“Got it in the GPS,” he said over the rumble of the big diesel.
“Ready,” Diindiisi called over the radio from the second Tahoe.
“Go.”
We rolled out the gate and headed across Austin. I reached up and hit the switch to turn on the lights under the grill. Not that it would do much good in Austin traffic—I’ve watched people pull into the space in front of an ambulance running lights and sirens to get around the traffic ahead of them. However, there’s always hope that we won’t end up ramming at least one idiot as we rumble across town.
“You seeing this?” Johnson asked over the radio.
This was a column of green light rising into the sky. Straight into the sky, almost like a laser.
“That’s not good,” I said to the world in general.
Hiebert hopped up on the sidewalk and drove past the stalled traffic on Howard. A cop stopped us before we got to Thermal/Metric—its Metric going south, and Thermal going north, a very Austin thing. I swung out of the Tahoe, while the others armored up.
“Mornin’ officer, who’s in charge?” I asked, looking at the forest that had replaced a residential subdivision.
“Captain Miller is on the way,” she replied.
There was a creaking, and the ring of trees expanded. I showed the officer my bona fides.
“When Captain Miller gets here, tell them QMG went in,” I said.
“Sir, my instructions are to allow no one past here,” she replied.
“Then you need to get on the radio for new instructions,” I answered. Something was going on, otherwise APD would let us get to work. It couldn’t just be the latest crop of rookies were small-minded rules lawyers, could it?
“I…I guess I’ll have to,” came the response. She turned to her radio and started making calls.
I walked back to the Tahoe and started pulling on gear. The trees creaked ominously and expanded again.
“Notice anything about the trees?” Diindiisi asked,
“Um, they’re green and growing?” I asked, checking the contents of one of the pouches on my armor.
“They’re evergreens, silly,” she said, tugging my armor to make sure it was in place.
“And?” I replied. “Evergreens grow around here. Look at all the scrub cedar around here.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Most of the large, old-growth trees around here are pecans, oaks, or hackberry,” she said. “Those are old-growth pines. Probably European.”
“Which means what?” I asked, confused.
“It means we’re probably dealing with something that’s not from around here,” she replied.
“I figured that,” I said. “Hon, there are a lot of things about the US that are, well, weird. One of them being, since we’re not a monoculture—yes, there is a dominant culture, but that’s different—you run across little pockets of ‘local’ flavor. In the Korean parts of Austin, you run across Korean monsters. It’s why we’re constantly fighting akaname out at the sewer plants—someone brought the initial ones over with them from Japan, and the akaname liked it here. The Anthropology department at the University of Texas has notes from speaking to a banshee. My point is, whatever the construction guys found could be from anywhere—although the trees and burial at a crossroads point to Northern Europe, probably some sort of forest spirit. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to talk to it. If we’re really lucky, we’ll be able to get it to move to one of the parks.”
I motioned for everyone to circle up and reached into a pouch on my armor.
“I know there’s been some concern that we don’t have a team patch. I took the liberty of designing one and having them run off.”
I handed the patches around. They were circular, with a cow’s skull in the center. Surrounding the skull were the words ‘God will judge our enemies—We’ll arrange the meeting.’
“These are better than Salazar’s Saints’ patches,” Dalma said. “Where’d you steal them?”
“My unit in Iraq used something similar—with a camel’s skull rather than a cow. Looks better this way, no?” I said with a laugh. “Now, if everyone else is ready, Tortelli, take lead. Malone will take drag.”
The last bit got me a raised eyebrow from Diindiisi.
“Look, you do the whole ‘talk to spirits’ thing better than I do. My God, well, he’s not really into that kinda thing,” I said.
She grinned. “Then I guess I should start the dance.”
She turned and stalked into the trees, her team following. I followed behind Hovis, my team following me. Before I crossed into the tree line, it was a typical early fall day in Austin—bright, humid, and about 85 degrees. Crossing into the trees, everything changed. The temperature dropped into the high sixties, and the air took on a somber, greenish hue. The birdsong changed from the raucous cries of mocking birds and the harsh calls of grackles on the make to the kind of things Disney had the little birds singing. Roe deer peeked shyly around the moss-covered boles of ancient trees. Underlying it all, however, was the feeling that one wrong move and we would see the mailed fist hiding under the velvet glove.
What should have been a quick, quarter-mile jaunt at best turned out to be miles of wandering the new woods.
Diindiisi signaled a halt, then for me to move up the line. I did, and the others watched the woods around us.
“S’up?” I asked, dropping to one knee.
“We should be there,” she replied.
“We should have been there a while back, by my count,” I replied. “So not only is whatever messing with the vegetation, it’s messing with distances, too.”
“My thoughts as well,” she said.
The forest seemed to drink the words at any distance. For that matter, we weren’t hearing a lot besides the twitting of the little birdies and a steady drip of water, somewhere, at this point.
Wilson worked his way up the line.
“I saw something,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Looked like a little wizened woman dressed in moss. Reminds me of something from when I was stationed in Germany at Spangdahlem,” he said, blushing.
“Why is that embarrassing?” Diindiisi asked.
“I was dating this local,” he said, flushing darker, if that was possible. “She was really into the whole new age thing, and wanted to see if we could find the moss people. So she arranged a trip where we went to this forest over by the Czech Republic to look for them.”
“Ok, and did you see them?” I asked, grinning.
“No. Well, I didn’t. She claimed to, but she was on top…” he trailed off.
“Oh. One of those,” I said with a grin.
“One of those?” Diindiisi asked.
“Yeah, there are some,” I paused, “hmm, call them ‘Sexual Practitioners of the Myztic Artz,’ who think you have to have sex to work magic,” I said.
“Oh,” she replied. “There are some spells that make use of sexual energy.”
“Yup. But not every spell,” I said, turning to Wilson. “Was the sex at least worth it?”
“Yes. Most of the time, anyway,” he said, smiling. “But this forest here looks like the forest we were in across the border from Bohemia.”
“That gives us something to work from,” I said. “Saddle up and let’s get moving.”
Diindiisi lead deeper into the forest. The deeper we got under the trees, the gloomier it got. After another hour, we could see a clearing ahead. We paused at the edge of the woods and peered into the clearing. There was a simple cottage, with smoke gently rising from the chimney.
“Fuck,” Padgett said. “There’s absolutely no reason for me to think this, but that’s the most frightening place I’ve ever seen.”
“But it looks so inviting,” Holt
quipped, shifting the sprayer on his back so it rubbed a different spot. “Cool and foresty, with a hint of old lady fattening you up to toss in the oven.”
“That’s why it scares me, man,” Padgett replied.
An old woman with scraggly white hair came out of the cottage and looked around before focusing on the area where we stood.
“Shiiiittt man, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Dalma whispered.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Diindiisi said as she strode confidently over to where the old woman stood.
“Eyes out,” I said. I’d cover Diindiisi. I wanted everyone else watching our backs.
Diindiisi and the old woman spoke for a while, trying to find a common language. Once they’d settled on that, Diindiisi and the old woman exchanged a few phrases, and the old woman stepped into the cottage, returning with a stool. Diindiisi removed her armor and took a fine-toothed comb out of a pouch.
“Hairdressing?” I asked over the radio. Diindiisi nodded in return, and then started combing the old woman’s hair in sections. When she was finished with a section, she’d twist it up before moving on to the next section. We squatted in that forest for an hour while Diindiisi meticulously combed the old woman’s hair, then braided it. Finally, she was done. The old woman handed her some yellow leaves, and Diindiisi motioned for me to join them.
“Jesse, may I introduce the Buschgrossmutter?”
I gave a half bow to the old woman. She grinned up at me through horrible teeth, and then said something in what I guessed was German. Diindiisi responded, although even I could tell the dialect was different.
In my defense, I speak English, Tex-Mex, and enough Arabic to know when the locals were really pissed off and might start throwing things at us. I never went near Germany when I was in the Corps.
“Buschgrossmutter apologizes for the forest, but she can’t remove it. She’s willing to move to a park, if Austin has one she finds suitable,” Diindiisi translated.
“If not?” I asked.
“That might cause a problem. Although she is willing to look at wider areas in the state before becoming truly upset. Avoiding her anger would be a good thing. Finally, we have to dig up the…Schwarzer Stein.”
The Buschgrossmutter grinned her horrible grin when Diindiisi mentioned the Stein.
“So, the beer mug?” I asked.
“No. It’s a black stone, buried under what was the crossroads,” Diindiisi said, exasperation in her tone. “Buschgrossmutter will let us bring in shovels, but no heavy equipment, so we’re going to have to dig it up by hand. She’ll also stop the ‘confusion’ in the woods.”
“Roger that. Break break. Clavin, can you bring shovels in to my position?”
“Ten-four, can do, good buddy,” Clavin Johnson replied.
“Out.” I sighed. I was going to have to sit through another ‘Proper Radio Protocols’ class.
It took three fucking hours to dig up that damn stone. When we found it, I’d have tossed it aside if I hadn’t seen the Buschgrossmutter start dancing a jig out of the corner of my eye.
She spat out a string of German, then held out a hand for the stone. Diindiisi responded in kind. The Buschgrossmutter grimaced, but put her hand down. Diindiisi took the stone from my hands and carefully wrapped it in a woolen cloth.
“We’re done here,” Diindiisi said. “I’ll turn the stone and the Buschgrossmutter over to…Sola Stellus. She should like him.”
I looked at her as I swung my armor back on. Diindiisi was wearing a look that said butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“But how’s the old elf going to feel about the Buschgrossmutter?” Wilson asked.
“I have no doubt he’s going to hate her,” Diindiisi replied, her eyes shining with innocence.
Served the old elf right, I thought.
* * * * *
Chapter Six
Sola Stellus found me in the break room the next day. He was a welcome interruption, since the article I was reading about the ‘new’ forest was so full of technobabble it broke my brain. Seriously, they quoted the Physics Guy, who said that the new forest was a result of a shift in the quantum foam, bringing trees from a different timeline into our plane of existence, all without explaining how species never before found in North America—let alone Texas—had appeared. I figured the insurance companies were going to be pissed, because there was about five acres of old growth Northern European forest where a bunch of homes and businesses had been.
“Do you hate me so?” Sola asked with a moan.
He had moved on to his Blue Hawaii phase, so I couldn’t really complain about what he was wearing. He actually looked good in a red Hawaiian shirt and white chinos with the tips of his ears peeking through his hair. He also looked disrupted.
“Why would you think I hate you, Sola?” I asked.
“That…Germanic wood goblin you saw fit to place in my care,” he replied.
“What about her?” I asked.
“She’s been obstreperous,” he replied.
“She’s powerful magic,” I said. “Powerful magic is your realm. I just pull triggers and kill things.”
“Yet you couldn’t kill this thing,” he said, sighing dramatically.
“No, we couldn’t,” I agreed.
“At least she’s stopped speaking only Knaanic to me. As if I’d speak a dead Slavic tongue. She says all the elves from Bohemia speak it. Like that’s a recommendation, thank ya, uhuh, thank ya very much,” he said, dropping his ukulele to the table. “Or if she’d even know. She’s been buried under that crossroads for at least forty years now.”
“So how are you communicating?” I asked, more to get him moving than anything else.
“Oh, she speaks three or four languages other than German and Slavic variants. She’s speaking to Cathe in High Elvish, of all things.”
“Wait, your lab assistants speak High Elvish?”
“Of course. Some of the magic concepts we deal with are only expressible in Elvish. Well, that or mathematically, but you can’t hold a spoken conversation in math,” he said, dropping into a chair.
He waved a hand and a teapot and tray floated gently to the table. Apparently, I was his choice to assuage his issues with the wood goblin. Yay, me!
“Well, you could help her find a park here in town,” I said.
“Yes, well, she wants to ‘change’ the parks for the ‘better,’ and Austin Parks and Recreation are objecting to anyone meddling in their plans,” he said, idly fixing his tea.
“Oh. What about TPW?”
“What is TPW?”
“Texas Parks and Wildlife. Isn’t there a big pine forest east of here?” I said with a shrug.
He looked thoughtful for a minute.
“You know, I need to contact one of my cousins,” he said, rising. The tea tray and ukulele followed him out of the room.
“Praise be unto God,” I said as Fred wandered up.
“I see you managed to get rid of the elf,” he said.
“Yeah, he needed to make a phone call, I guess,” I said, grinning at the dwarf.
“You missed all the fun the other day. Have you had a chance to read the report?”
“Yes. Sort of. Ok, it confused me,” I admitted.
“Spoken like a true Marine,” Fred replied with a laugh. “What we think happened is something in the implants she had allowed her to overload the tensile strength of the chains while also overloading the spells on them.”
“Fucking magic,” I said, trying to balance an egg yolk on my fork. As usual, the damn thing broke just before I got it in my mouth, and I had to wipe yolk off my shirt. That’s what I get for eating eggs over medium.
“Exactly. Fucking magic. But it’s ancient magic.”
I looked up from my plate. “How ancient?”
“I’ve got the archivists back home looking into it, but this is Old World stuff. It feels…Mesopotamian,” he said. “Why?”
“Mesopotamian, or Akkadian?” I asked.
I started swearing just as Diindiisi walked into the room.
“I’m glad to see you and Fred are…what did Dalma call it? Bonding, yes, that was the word, but why are you treating Fred to a display of your ability to swear creatively?” she asked, taking a chair.
“Fred thinks the spells used in the implants Jennifer the werebear had are Mesopotamian,” I said, pausing in my tirade.
“That might be a problem,” she replied, turning to Fred. “Is it possible that the spell was Akkadian?”
“You missed that part,” Fred replied with a smile. “But Mesopotamian, Akkadian, Assyrian, what’s the difference? Akkad was in the land between the rivers, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but we haven’t been dealing with moldy old Assyrian gods recently. We spent a couple of months dealing with an Akkadian deity and his minions,” I said. “I fucking hate coincidences.”
“I thought you said there was no such thing as coincidence,” Diindiisi replied.
Fred gave us both a puzzled look.
“There isn’t,” I replied, carefully stacking my silverware on my now empty plate. I turned to Fred. “How much were you told about what happened back in April and June?”
“Enough to know that the cover story is bullshit,” he said, looking thoughtful. “I’ve also been involved in designing some equipment to use on daemons in the Shadow Lands. That was y’all?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that we were involved in a recent incident in the Shadow Lands and might have pissed off multiple ancient Akkadian gods and/or goddesses,” I said in my best X-Files conspiracy voice.
“Fuck. Which ones?” Fred asked with a grimace.
“Abzu. His wife might also have been involved,” Diindiisi said.
“You pissed off Abzu and Tiamat? Damn, son, even for a Marine, you’re an overachiever,” he said, pulling out a cellphone and typing a message before looking at me. “I’ve got to go talk to your boss about what he’s kept from us.”
Blood Moon Eclipse (The Shadow Lands Book 2) Page 5
