by Greg Taylor
“Do a lot of monsters come in from the monster side?” Annabel asked.
“Not in droves. But it’s still a very important division here at Killer Pizza. Mostly they’re monsters we’ve captured. Remember, a lot of our enemies don’t start out as enemies. They were humans bitten by any number of creatures. But in this case, with the dekayi, contact was made with one of our Canadian MPP specialists. Our agent was on her way to New York with her charge, when…”
The elevator abruptly shuddered to a stop. The doors slowly opened. Harvey lead the trio out of the elevator and down a deserted basement hallway.
“When what?” Toby asked.
“As it turned out, the dekayi had been followed by some of her people. There was a skirmish near the Canadian-American border. My person was injured. She’s in the hospital. The dekayi managed to escape and has been on her own ever since.”
“How is your agent doing?” Annabel asked.
“Time will tell. At present she’s still in intensive care.”
The foursome fell silent after this somber news. They were approaching a large metal door at the end of the hall when Strobe broke the lull in the conversation. “What makes you think this dekayi defector can be trusted?”
“Excellent point. One always has to be wary of a deserter from the other side. Which is why, after making contact with this one, you will take her to an apartment where she’ll stay until we can debrief her. We need to be absolutely certain the flight from her community is not just a ruse to gather information on our organization. Until then, she’ll be kept far away from KP headquarters.”
Arriving at the end of the hall, Harvey slid a plastic card through a slot next to the metal door and pushed his way into a large gym. Strobe smiled at the sight. The trio’s secret training center in the basement beneath the Killer Pizza building back in Hidden Hills was more than adequate, but it was nothing compared to this. A full-size basketball court took up one half of the large room. The other half was filled with a maze of sleek-looking exercise machines.
“Now I know what it feels like coming to the bigs after playing in the minors,” Strobe said. “There is definitely money in pizza, isn’t there.”
“Let me put it this way,” Harvey replied. “The man who owns one of my rival pizza chains built an entire university in Florida. I built … this.” Harvey stared across the gym with an indecipherable look in his eyes. Then he turned and led the trio through an open doorway and into a locker room that was easily ten times the size of the one back in Hidden Hills. As in the gym, there were no people in sight.
“Why’s it so deserted?” Toby asked. “Where is everyone?” Toby had been expecting overdrive activity, something like the scenes in all of those movies in which the lead characters are led into the bustling headquarters of some secret organization or other.
“There may be money in pizza, but there’s never enough money. Which means I’m chronically understaffed. I had to send a large crew to Thailand last week. Just this morning, Steve took another group to Mexico.” Steve Rogers, Harvey’s right-hand man, had helped train the trio back in Hidden Hills. “The rest of my New York people are spread out across the U.S., helping the MCOs of various KP outposts.”
Toby frowned as Harvey led the trio down a long row of lockers. “Is this typical, all this monster activity?”
“No, this is an especially busy time for us. Leap years tend to be like that. Don’t ask me why. But every seven years, things get much more active in the monster community. Always been like that, according to my grandfather.” Harvey stopped and nodded at several lockers. “You’ll find the necessary gear in here. Prepare a backpack. Then I’ll take you to the weapons room. You’ll be using the crossbow on this excursion.”
Toby felt a familiar tingle of excitement—laced with anxiety—as he exchanged his backpack for a black KP field pack. Preparing for a possible rumble with monsters was a unique feeling—to put it mildly—one that Toby had learned to channel instead of allowing it to bring him to his knees, which is what had happened when he first started out in the KP program. As he and his partners filled their packs with the necessary items, Harvey relayed the few facts he knew about dekayi.
They were an ancient, secretive race. Unlike the guttata the trio had battled back in Hidden Hills—who, with their ability to morph between their human and monster personas, preferred to live among the human population—the dekayi lived in their own secluded communities. They raised their children very strictly. No television. No public schools. No contact with the outside world. The dekayi the trio were about to meet apparently felt that life in her colony had become too repressive. Not to mention weird. She wanted a clean break. A new life.
“So you don’t know what the dekayi’s specialty is, how they go about doing their monsterly deeds?” Strobe had selected his crossbow—the same collapsible, high-tech variation on an ancient weapon the trio had used back in Hidden Hills—and was concealing it in a side slot of his backpack.
“No. What I do know I got from my father. He made contact with one decades ago. A similar situation to this one. The dekayi escaped from his village, got in touch with my father. A meeting place was arranged. When my father arrived, no dekayi. He never heard from him again.”
“So his people got to him.”
“That’s what was assumed.”
“Ruthless group.”
“It’s clear they don’t want anyone leaving their community, that’s for sure.”
The foursome were waiting for the elevator door to open when Harvey gave his final instructions. “From the subway, it’s three blocks to Central Park, which is where you’ll be meeting the dekayi. Here’s a map. The meeting place and the apartment where you’ll be taking this young woman are clearly marked.”
“Sounds simple enough to me,” Strobe said.
“One thing I’ve learned over the years dealing with monsters, Strobe. It’s never simple. Count on it.”
The trio slung their backpacks over their shoulders. With Harvey’s warning as their exit line, they headed off for their meeting with the mysterious dekayi.
3
It was still light and the traffic still heavy when the trio emerged from the subway station. Annabel studied the street signs, then led the way to Central Park.
“Here we are,” Annabel announced.
“Did you know that at more than fifty blocks long and almost eight hundred and fifty acres, Central Park is one of the largest urban parks in the world?”
Strobe rolled his eyes at the return of Toby’s alter ego, the New York tour guide.
“Several lakes, a skating rink, a zoo, an opera shell, and a really cool-sounding monument called Cleopatra’s Needle are all within its borders.”
“Fascinating,” Strobe commented drily as the trio walked across Fifth Avenue to the park. “But we’re here for a rendezvous with a monster called a dekayi. That’s all I need to know right now. So let’s get to it.”
Annabel and Toby gave each other a look, then followed Strobe as he headed down a nearby concrete path, one of many entrances into Central Park. The path soon arrived at a main road that crossed through the park. Formerly used for traffic of the vehicular variety, the road was now a throughway for bikers and joggers. After dodging their way across the street, Annabel consulted her map, then led the way to a path that twisted off through dense trees and heavy foliage. The trees and bushes that rose up on either side of the walkway obscured their view of the park and the city beyond.
Following Annabel, it felt to Toby as though they were heading farther and farther away from civilization. But then the trio came around an abrupt turn in the path, the trees and foliage on either side fell away, and a large lake was revealed.
“Wow, nice,” Toby said.
It was as though they had stumbled upon a fairy-tale-like setting right smack in the middle of one of the most densely populated cities on earth. A large boathouse was off to their right. To the left, a stone bridge connected one side of
the lake to the other. Trees along the twisting shoreline of the lake were reflected in the lake’s surface. It was a beautifully pastoral and peaceful spot.
If Strobe was taken with the scenic beauty, he wasn’t letting on. “Where do we need to go, Annabel?” he asked, getting right to it.
“Over there, to that gazebo.” Annabel indicated a secluded part of the lake, an inlet where a dense wall of trees hugged the water’s edge.
“Doesn’t look like anybody’s waiting for us yet,” Toby observed.
“It could be hours before the dekayi arrives,” Annabel replied. “She’s been traveling exclusively at night since she and the KP agent were attacked. I think you were in the bathroom when Harvey told us that.”
“Oh … okay. Hey, did you hear that?”
“What?” Annabel asked, tensing at the concerned tone in Toby’s voice.
“That was my stomach, grumbling. I noticed a hot dog stand back near the entrance. I read in one of my tour guides they have really good dogs here in the Apple. I wouldn’t mind checking them out.”
“Not a bad idea,” Strobe said. “I haven’t had much of anything since breakfast. I’ll take a dog.”
“How can you two even think about eating right now?” Annabel asked. The rendezvous with the dekayi was making her more hyper than hungry.
“Hey, I’m running on empty here,” Toby replied.
“Me, too,” Strobe said. “Make it two dogs, Tobe. With everything.”
“You got it. Annabel?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
“I think you should eat something. All we’ve had since breakfast are candy bars and Cokes. We need some protein. Feed our brains. Keep ’em sharp.”
Maybe Toby had a point, Annabel decided. “Okay. A dog. With mustard.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Toby? Take this.” Annabel handed Toby the map.
“Good idea.” Toby took the map and headed back down the path that had led the trio to the lake. Strobe and Annabel headed in the opposite direction, toward the gazebo.
* * *
“You Okay Strobe?”
Glancing sideways at Strobe as they sat side by side on the gazebo bench, Annabel had caught him frowning as he looked out across the lake. The light had slowly drained from the lake as night replaced day. One by one, the rowboats on the lake had returned to the boathouse, leaving the ducks and mallards to patrol the shoreline.
“Worried about Toby, huh,” Annabel teased.
“Yeah, right. Leave it up to the dude to get lost. A lot of good all his research did.”
“I think I got him pointed in the right direction the last time he called. He’ll find us soon enough.” Annabel stood, walked to the edge of the gazebo, and leaned against the railing. Gazing at the panorama of the lake, framed in the distance by the twinkling New York skyline, Annabel smiled and shook her head. “Do you believe we’re actually here? In Central Park, waiting for something called a dekayi to show up?”
“Not the most typical thing for a couple of high school kids to be up to. Especially during the school year.”
Smiling at Strobe’s response, Annabel’s expression suddenly changed. She had noticed a shape in the woods beyond the gazebo. It was as though the figure had materialized out of thin air, its unexpected and sudden appearance causing a swift chill to run through her. Indicating the figure to Strobe, Annabel cautiously stepped outside the gazebo. Strobe joined her. The shape among the trees hadn’t moved.
“Welcome to the Big Apple,” Annabel offered. It was the sentence Harvey had given them to introduce themselves to the dekayi.
No response from the woods. Then, in an exotic accent entirely foreign to Annabel and Strobe … “Why do they call it that?”
It was the correct response. The figure stayed hidden in the darkness for a few more moments, then slowly approached the edge of the woods. When the dekayi became visible to Annabel and Strobe, they were surprised at what they saw.
The reflected illumination from the lake and a nearby streetlamp revealed a stunningly beautiful teenage girl. Coffee-colored skin. Perfect complexion. High cheekbones and deeply dark, soulful eyes. The girl looked like she would be right at home on a Paris fashion runway. Well, except for her cheap, ill-fitting thrift-shop ensemble of too-tight pants, an oversize T-shirt, and a black baseball cap.
“My name is Calanthe,” the girl said, her eyes wary.
“I’m Annabel. This is Strobe.”
“There is supposed to be someone else with you,” Calanthe said, glancing around the dark landscape.
Calanthe’s statement surprised Annabel. Obviously, she had been in touch with Harvey within the past few hours, since he had sent the trio out to meet her. According to their KP boss, the dekayi didn’t have computers or phones. So what did Calanthe do? Use a pay phone? Or perhaps a cell the Canadian MPP specialist had given her.
Regardless of how Calanthe had contacted Harvey, Annabel was suddenly struck by the enormity of what this girl was doing. Namely, abandoning a culture she had grown up in, the only way of life she had ever known, for something very, very different.
“Yes, there is someone else with us,” Annabel replied. “He went to get something to eat and got lost.”
“I say we leave without him,” Strobe said curtly. “He’ll just have to find his way back to KP by himself.”
“I agree that we should not stay here,” Calanthe said. “Since arriving in New York … I believe my scent has been rediscovered.”
“Your scent?” Eyeing the surrounding woods, Strobe slowly took out his crossbow and started to assemble it.
“Yes. I was certain I had lost my pursuers, but that does not seem to be the case.”
“Well, then I’d say that’s our cue to giddyup.” But as Strobe started down the path that led away from the gazebo, Calanthe called after him, “No. This way.” She was indicating the heavy foliage where she had emerged from the woods. “If we are in an open area, we will not be able to see if the rukh comes.”
“Rukh?” Annabel echoed. “What is that?”
“My master’s bodyguard. Former master, that is.”
Annabel detected a fierce kind of pride in Calanthe’s voice when she said “former master.” It was like a declaration of independence.
“What kind of bodyguard are we talking about here?” Strobe asked as he backed up toward the woods.
“A very ancient demon. Invisible.”
“Ouch.”
“If we stay in among the trees, we will be able to hear and see if it comes. The rukh is very powerful, but it does not have the power to stop branches and bushes from moving when it walks among them.”
Strobe looked down the path. There was nothing in sight. But then, if an invisible rukh was coming at them, there wouldn’t be anything in sight, anyway. “Okay, we’ll go through the woods then. I’ll take the lead.”
“I will lead,” Calanthe said. “I have a better chance of sensing the demon if he comes.”
This one’s pretty feisty, Strobe thought as he followed Calanthe into the woods. Bringing up the rear, Annabel flipped her NVGs down over her eyes to be able to navigate through the dark woods. At this point, Annabel just wanted to get out of the park safely. When she was waiting with Strobe in the gazebo, she had studied the map Harvey had given her and knew exactly which paths they needed to take to get out of the park and which streets would lead them to the apartment that would be Calanthe’s temporary New York residence.
But now all bets—and all memorized directions—were off. It was time to improvise. The threesome had been walking though the deep darkness of the woods for a few minutes when Calanthe suddenly stopped.
“Hear something?” Strobe asked. He hadn’t detected any unusual sounds interrupting the typical nighttime soundtrack of the woods.
“Yes. The rukh is somewhere in front of us. The master is here as well.”
Strobe detected a strong undercurrent of fear in Calanthe’s voice when she mentioned the m
aster. The rukh sounded scary enough, but there was obviously something about the master that intimidated Calanthe even more.
“We should go back to where we were.” Without waiting for a response, Calanthe walked past Strobe and Annabel and headed back in the direction they had just come. Annabel exchanged a look with Strobe, then followed Calanthe. Now at rear guard, Strobe kept a watch behind them. Chirping crickets, muted voices in the park, traffic in the city streets wafted softly through the woods as they went. Such a peaceful sound, Strobe thought, which only made their situation seem that much more surreal.
Calanthe once again stopped in her tracks. Strobe immediately spotted what had caused her to halt their progress through the underbrush. At the point where they had entered the woods stood a very tall, very thin man, his silhouetted shape so exaggerated that it could have been a cartoonist’s caricature of a tall, thin man.
“Is that the master dude?” Strobe said in a low voice.
When Calanthe nodded, Strobe didn’t hesitate. Stepping to his right to get a clear, unblocked shot at the Tall Man, Strobe brought up his crossbow and locked on the figure through the weapon’s powerful scope. He was about to fire when a sharp hissing sound cut through the muted sounds in the park. The sound stopped as quickly as it had begun.
What was that? Strobe wondered. Through his scope he found the answer. An arrow was embedded in the Tall Man’s long, thin neck. The angle of the arrow indicated it had come from a different direction from theirs.
Strobe was about to send another arrow flying in the man’s direction when Toby suddenly burst from the darkness, tackled the Tall Man, and took him down hard to the ground.
4
Only moments before—when he had finally made it back to the lake—Toby was concerned when he didn’t see Annabel and Strobe in the gazebo across the dark water. Hurrying across the bridge, he had lost sight of the gazebo when the path briefly entered the woods before emerging at the shoreline about twenty yards from the wooden structure.
That’s when Toby had spotted the Tall Man, standing at the edge of the woods. There was something so otherworldly about the figure, Toby was certain the man couldn’t be human. He just knew it. Which meant that his friends could be in some very real danger. After quickly assembling his crossbow, Toby had aimed, shot his arrow, then charged and tackled the Tall Man.
