“Fourth office from the east corridor,” Other Dave said, pausing the video again. “From the floor plan, that’s Professor Halybutt’s office.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I said, looking up Halybutt. “Professor of Akkadian Antiquities and Mysteries. Lecturer in same. Sent here from the main branch of the university in, holy shit, 1962?”
“Either that’s an old photo, or he’s got a picture that’s slowly decaying somewhere,” Other Dave said, tapping keys. “Yup, I’m betting he’s got a painting decaying in the attic, because here’s a picture from the department’s non-denominational end of the year celebration last year, and he looks the same.”
“Or he cut a deal with an Akkadian Chaos god,” I said, looking at Halybutt’s face. It was a bit fleshy, but you could see strong lines under the flesh. His hair was blue-black and tightly curled.
“Bet he shaves twice a day,” I said. “Anything else on him?”
“Not in the open files,” Other Dave said, lifting an eyebrow in question.
“By all means,” I said, watching him hack into the university’s servers.
Other Dave is an artist when it comes to hacking. QMG had acquired his services when the IT team had caught him hacking our systems. He’d have gotten out clean if QMG IT hadn’t had the pointy hat and pipe smoke brigade ‘enhance’ web security after Other Dave’s first probe at the system. It ended up being a win-win situation for everyone—QMG hired one hell of an IT guy and hacker, and Other Dave avoided gaining a new understanding of the sex lives of the common newt.
While Other Dave was hacking, I watched more video. They’d used magic to disguise Professor Halybutt’s face, but the body configuration, the shelf full of Akkadian artifacts, and the ‘I love me’ wall all shouted Halybutt.
“You know, they take all that effort to hide who they’re talking to and forget the brag wall,” Other Dave said, looking over my shoulder.
“Makes you wonder how smart these guys are, or how well the gods and devils they’re working for understand modern technology. I take it you’re in?”
“Yup. This guy is all kinds of special. He ran across ‘something,’” finger quotes, “in the Al-Hajarah desert of Iraq in the 1950s that’s kept him from aging ever since. They were studying him at the Massachusetts branch until he committed a faux pas in 1961 they had to cover up,” Other Dave said, taking a hit on his vape.
I cocked my head, dog-like, and waited for him to continue.
“He’s a pescetarian,” Other Dave said.
“What does eating a diet of fish have to do with i…oh, you mean he’s a fish lover,” I said, tapping keys. “Technically that’s an ichthyophile, not a pescetarian.”
“Whatever, man. They found him in flagrante delicto with a follower of Dagon in his campus office back in ‘61. It wasn’t one of the ones who appears human,” Other Dave said, grimacing. “Since the US Government officially frowns on contact between humans and fish men, Miskatonic had to cover it up without losing their research material. The solution was to place him two hours’ drive from the nearest lake, and lay a geas on him to keep him away from large bodies of water.”
“So they sent him here, where he’s been for the last fifty-six years,” I said.
“According to his files, he reformed. He’s been outside of London County twice—once to London, England in the 1980s to look at some artifacts for a paper he was writing, and a second time when he travelled to Iraq after the museum there was sacked in 2004.”
“At which time he could have made contact with Abzu. I wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“Can you get into the servers of the Knights of St. Quintus?” I asked.
“Not just no, but hell no,” Other Dave replied. “The protective software the Vatican uses makes the stuff we use look like something an amateur cobbled together in fifteen minutes in his shop. They consult with the actual patron saint of computers to write the stuff. No one on my team will touch it.”
“I guess I’ll call Father Miller then,” I said as the Granite shook.
“Earthquake? I didn’t think they were fracking around here,” Other Dave said.
“Probably the negotiations going on downstairs,” I said, dialing Miller on my phone. He answered on the third ring. “Robert, Jesse. You busy?”
“Not at the moment. Whatcha need?”
“Can you step out to Granite Twenty-Seven? I need to ask you a couple things in a secure location.”
“Right, be there in a couple minutes,” he answered.
I hung up, and the Granite shook again.
“Must be some serious negotiating going on,” Other Dave said, plugging in the popcorn popper again.
A couple minutes turned out to be long enough for the popper to refill the bowl. Other Dave had just dumped the last of the old maids out of the machine when someone pounded on the back of the Granite. I rose and let Miller in.
“You rang?” he asked in a bad Lurch imitation.
“I’ve got a question. When did ‘Ye Olde Spelle’ start showing up big time?” I asked, gesturing him to a seat.
“I’d have to pull up the data, but if I remember correctly, early 2007 or so. Why?”
“We might have the source. When did Halybutt return to the states?” I asked Other Dave.
“Early 2007. After a brief stop in Phuket, he came home.”
“Wonder if he got his ashes hauled in Thailand?” I replied.
“That’s fucking gross, man,” Other Dave replied.
“What have you found?” Miller asked with a confused look on his face.
“There’s a professor here at MU who’s an expert in ancient Akkadian folklore and artifacts,” Other Dave said. “He also had his picture painted by Dorian Grey’s artist buddy.”
“What do you mean ‘had his picture painted by Dorian Grey’s artist buddy?’” Miller asked.
“He hasn’t aged a day since 1952,” I said, “after he went on a dig in Iraq.”
“That would be highly indicative of some sort of magic,” Miller said. “Why hasn’t this come up before?”
“Because MU was studying him to figure out how to…” I said as the Granite bounced about a foot into the air.
“Negotiations, my ass,” Other Dave said, pulling up the sensors.
Miller’s phone rang, followed shortly by mine.
Miller answered his—mine was a text that the fertilizer had hit the rotary air movement device in the negotiations, and it would be nice if I were to come and join in the fun.
I grabbed my gear from a rack by the back door as Miller hung up.
“You want my team?” he asked.
“Are all of them exorcists?” I replied.
“Yes.”
“Bring them, then. The more the merrier, after all.”
“Where?”
“Into the tunnels, first right at the base of the stairs, then all the way to the end. If you get lost, follow the sounds of gunfire,” I said, dropping from the Granite and trotting into the Gas N’ Go.
The secret door vomited a crowd, with Bubba at the rear, slipping shells into a well-loved and -used .45-70 lever-action rifle.
“Status?” I asked Diindiisi.
“Unknown. Something infiltrated the lower levels of the tunnels and worked its way higher. We were pushed out of the corridor to the conference room.”
“Your people are still alive,” Cletus said from behind the counter. He was behind a computer looking at a feed from the conference room. “I told Bubba we needed to get the dwarves in here to look at the lower levels last year, but did he listen?”
“That’s not important right now,” I said, doing a quick head count. We were four people short—six, if you counted the lawyer and Fedora. I looked at the stairwell. Whatever it was had stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Anyone got any idea what we’re facing? And where’s Dalma, Ozzy, Cathe, and Alfie?”
“They’re trapped in the treatment room,” Cletus said. “It looks like what
ever’s down there just filled the corridors and stopped.”
“Is there another way into the lower levels?” Fred asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Bubba said sullenly. “Why?”
“Because I got one look at that thing, and I want to make sure I’m right. And I’d rather not have it chase me into the stairwell here if I can help it,” Fred replied.
“That makes sense, Bubba,” Cletus said.
“Follow me,” Bubba replied.
We waited while they went wherever to check out the monster. I sent a text to Austin, explaining the situation—bad but hopeful—and waited for Bubba and Fred to return. Fields, the lawyer with Fedora, reported that they were fine, and she was going to continue to work on breaking the contract. Cathe reported they were fine—there was some seepage under the door, mostly a slick, clear liquid, but otherwise they were doing well. I could hear Dalma in the background, complaining that if God had returned her to Earth in order to be eaten by a slime monster, she was damn sure going to give God a piece of her mind when she got back.
Fred and Bubba came back about twenty minutes later, covered in used motor oil.
“Cletus, we need to call our lawyer. That son-of-a-bitch who’s supposed to be cleaning the waste oil tanks hasn’t been. And we’re paid up on the contract.”
Fred stood there, dripping oil and laughing.
“It’s the biggest damn lipid golem I’ve ever seen,” he said finally. “You have any ideas how we’re going to clear it?”
“Usually I’d burn it out, but if it’s taken up all the corridors down there, that might not be an optimal solution,” I said.
“Burning that much grease would damage the stonework. And that’s if the fire didn’t smother the people we’re trying to save,” Fred said.
“We could spray it with holy water, like the blobs we fought,” Holt said, raising his sprayer.
“No place for it to retreat to,” I said, scratching my chin in uffish thought.
“What about a degreasing agent?” Cletus asked.
We all turned and looked at him.
“Degreasing agent?” Fred asked. “We’re talking about driving off or killing several hundred tons of semi-sentient fat, not washing baby ducks so they can be returned to the wild.”
“I’m not talking about using dishwashing liquid,” Cletus replied. “We’ve got a couple hundred pounds of sodium carbonate and about a thousand pounds of citric acid in storage out back. That should be enough to get the damn thing moving, if we mix it with water and spray it on the golem.”
“I take back everything I said about daddy wasting money sending you to college for a chemistry degree,” Bubba said to his brother.
“How do you want to deliver the solution?” Fred asked.
“Simple, Fred. We use a pressure washer,” Heibert answered with a laugh.
I gave the short form of chasing blob daemons around the Shadow Lands when I finished laughing myself.
It took about twenty minutes to get everything mixed in the tank on the washer. Fred’s dwarves ‘improved’ both the pump and the delivery lines while we were mixing chemicals under Cletus’ watchful eye. Fred insisted he would dwarf the nozzle.
“One of two things is going to happen,” Fred said as we waited for Miller to signal that he and his team of exorcists was in place by the emergency exit to the tunnels. “Either that bastard is going to run, or it’s going to try to flood us.”
“That’s why I’m blessing the stairs, and Miller’s blessed the emergency exit,” I said. “Hopefully the glop is going to run.”
“Well,” Fred said, putting on a clear plastic face shield, “there’s always hope. Course, I understand your god helps those who help themselves.”
“There is that,” I said, dropping my face shield into place. I wasn’t going to let Fred have all the fun. “You ready?”
He nodded. I signaled the dwarf who was running the pump. He hit the starter. Normally a pressure washer has a five to ten horsepower motor at best. The dwarves had replaced that with the three-o-five short block from the damaged General Leclerc. It howled to life, and the thousand or so feet of inch-and-three-quarter fire hose they’d attached to the new pump filled with degreaser solution.
“No half measures!” Fred thundered, grinning at me through the thick plastic shield.
At least they weren’t playing K-Pop as we went down the stairs. Fred held up a hand in the stop gesture, and then raised his middle finger to the sky.
I was wrong. There are things worse than K-Pop, and one of them came screeching out of a huge boom box the commo dwarf was carrying.
“What in the name of Jesus and all the saints is that shit?” I shouted at Fred.
“Albanian Hardcore Urban Hip Hop,” he shouted back. “It gets the blood flowing!”
“It sounds like someone murdering cats!” I shouted back.
He probably didn’t hear me, though, because he opened the nozzle on the fire hose at the same time, and water thundered out at over a thousand gallons a minute. The lipid golem didn’t dissolve; it exploded under the onslaught of the degreasing solution. The resultant goo covered Fred and I in a matter of seconds. On the upside, the monster started withdrawing under the pressure. We pushed it to the bottom of the stairs, and then Fred started sweeping the hose along the right-hand wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he took a break from washing down the right.
“The room we need is that way at the end of a dead-end corridor,” he said, slowly closing the nozzle to prevent the water hammer from trashing the jury-rigged pump. “If I cut this thing in half, all I’ve done is create a second, pissed-off lipid golem to deal with. I’m trying to encourage it to leave on its own.”
“Fuck, that makes sense,” I said. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Shoot.”
“Could we change the music?” I asked, expecting him to say no.
“Got a preference?”
“Anything but K-Pop or Albanian Hip Hop,” I said.
He grinned wickedly before holding up four fingers. I winced at the thought of J-Pop or Bollywood show tunes thundering out of the player. Instead, the opening riff of “Immigrant Song” thundered out as Fred went back to work.
“The kids love that K-Pop shit,” he shouted with a grin. “I’m a fan of the classics, myself.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen
It took all of Mothership: The Very Best of Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits, and a good chunk of Blue Oyster Cult’s Career of Evil to clear the upper level. We had to stop twice—once we ran out of holy water to bless stairwells, and once because the dwarves had to add more hose at the pump end. However, we’d cleared all of the upper level, leaving it with the overpowering scent of orange, before turning the hose over to one of the young dwarves, backed by one of Miller’s combat exorcists.
“Wait there a minute,” Diindiisi called when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
A second pressure washer kicked in, and Fred and I were cleaned of the goo we’d collected pressure mining our way into the first level. At least someone had figured out a way to warm the water, so it was more of a high-pressure shower than anything else.
“There’s dry clothes in the bathroom,” Diindiisi said, frowning. “Bubba wants to talk to you when you’re dressed.”
“Figures,” I said, stepping into the bathroom to change.
Bubba was waiting behind the counter when I came out.
“So look, Jesse, we want to help and all that,” he started. I held up a hand.
“But you didn’t count on someone exploiting the weakness in your Fortress of Solitude with a billion or so gallons of fat,” I replied. “Whatever we’re paying you will probably cover the clean-up, but it’s not worth it, right?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Cletus chipped in. “We’re going to have to shut down the Gas N’ Go until all this shit is cleaned up, and replace the entire inventory.”
“Let me see if F
ields broke the contract, okay?” I asked.
Fields and Fedora were waiting outside, next to one of the Granites.
“Before you ask,” she said, “yes, he’s free of the contract, so we can move him. I’d suggest doing it as soon as possible.”
“That bad?” I asked.
“Worse. He’s seen the principal and some of his agents. The attempt with the lipid golem was to hold him in place until they could get a more powerful agent to deal with you,” she replied.
Fedora was shaking.
“How do you want to move him?” I asked.
“That depends,” Fields said, taking my arm and leading me away from Fedora. “When are you planning on pulling out of Piccadilly?
“I’d hoped to leave in the morning, but we’ve got enough vehicles we can leave tonight if we need to,” I replied.
“That would be best, although I’d advise moving my client by air in a null box,” she said.
“You’re fucking kidding, right?” I replied. Null boxes were what we used to move vampires long distances—the boxes had enough spells on them they were untraceable by any known means. Gods were supposed to have issues tracking a null box.
“No,” she said, handing me a slip of paper. On it were a series of instructions.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“It’s the only way,” she replied.
“Well, the bosses should be in the office still,” I said, looking at my watch. “And it’ll take a couple of hours to set all this up.”
“I took the liberty of sending Austin a message through the secure channels, and they approved the plan,” she said, gesturing at the Granite. “The birds are in the air with the necessary gear.”
“You realize you’re putting the flight crews at risk, right?”
“Yes, but we need a distraction for this to work.”
“What about multiple ground convoys? Far less susceptible to dying from falling out of the sky like a brick.”
“You can discuss your reservations with Austin or Dallas. Until they change the plan, this is how we’re transporting my client,” she said, poking my chest for emphasis.
Blood Moon Eclipse (The Shadow Lands Book 2) Page 12
