by T S Paul
“State has him. Both they and Agent Klarkson think he was in on the kidnapping. Why else bring them here?” The young agent motioned to the museum around us.
“No idea. It’s my understanding the delegation’s from Greece. Maybe they wanted a taste of home?” I stated.
“Washington is much more impressive than Nashville. Most people here forget this place is even here. They’d much rather spend time at the Opry chasing after their favorite singer,” the young agent pointed out.
“Something brought them here and I need to know what that was.” I shook my head. “This wasn’t a kidnapping.”
“I don’t know!”
Those were the first words I heard when entering the room. The speaker, Agent Asem, sat facing a trio of men in black suits. Wires that I perceived to be part of a lie detector were attached to the Agent.
“How many times do I have to say the same damn thing?” Agent Asem cried out.
All three men in black looked up at me with anger in their eyes. “This room is closed!”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not. How about you let the Agent here have a break?”
“Agent Asem is under our jurisdiction. Who are you to say otherwise?” one of the men asked.
Holding up my credentials, I mimicked a favorite movie character of mine. “Dalton, Jack Dalton. I’m the Magical Division Chief. Director Hoover himself placed me in charge of this operation.”
“Hoover has no jurisdiction over the State Department. We’re in charge here,” the taller of the three men answered.
Shaking my head, I replied, “No. The Agent there is a member of the FBI and falls under our control. If anyone is to either reprimand or remove him, it will be us. Now either release him or be arrested. We are on the same side here. Let me do my job.”
“Your job?” The tall man approached me, getting so close his suit touched mine. “We have an entire delegation of foreign nationals missing and you’re telling me that this is your job?”
“I am. The I in FBI stands for investigation. It’s what we do.” I pointed to Agent Asem. Hanging his arms off the chair, he had the look of someone whose day had been very long. “That Agent is now my responsibility. If I find something within State’s realm of influence, you will be the first ones I call.”
“Not acceptable. We get our orders from the State Department and only the State Department. FBI has nothing on us,” the tall man replied.
Cocking my head to one side, I changed tactics. “Eventually there will be a report written explaining all of this...mess. I’m not known for exaggeration. The Director usually believes what I give him, however far-fetched it might be. So unless you can top sea monsters and rogue Weres, I think I’ve got you. Do count on me telling him how you and your associates here delayed the investigation for hours while you tried to push blame off onto the Bureau.”
“State doesn’t respond to threats, Agent Dalton,” the tall man bristled.
Hooking a thumb over my shoulder, I pointed to the door. “Report me if you like, but this is now my case. We are just as concerned that a delegation disappeared from the building, but I don’t see you doing anything constructive to help, other than trying to blame one of our agents for it. Now is the time for you to leave. Do I need to call in Agent Karlson and his men to remove you forcibly?”
The man glared at me with fire in his eyes, but he backed down. Motioning to his two goons, he stormed past me. “This isn’t over!”
Without turning, I waited for the door to slam behind me before commenting, “I’m sure it isn’t.”
Agent Asem’s head was bowed and for just a moment I thought he was sleeping. Touching his shoulder, I gave him a gentle shake. “Agent?”
“Which answer do you want to hear again?” the very tired agent whispered.
I stepped around him and squatted down to his level. “You tell me.”
Asem slowly raised his head to look me in the eye. Glancing to one side then the other, he gasped. “They’re gone?”
“Yup. This is an FBI investigation, not State. Trust me when I say that the Director himself will hear of this.” I smiled at him to try and gain his trust. “My name is Jack Dalton. Stuff like this is my bread and butter. So you might say I get all the creepy cases.”
“Dalton,” Asem muttered my name and scrunched up his eyes as if in concentration. “The one from the Portland office?”
With other regular agents, it always came back to the experiences I’d rather not remember. Trying to play it off, I was light about it. “I’ve been there. Nice town.”
“What do you want from me?” Asem asked.
I shrugged. “The same thing those bozos wanted. Down deep we’re both FBI. Investigation is in our blood. I’m completely confident that you can walk into a room and remember all the details down to the color of the wallpaper. It was training one-oh-one at the academy. Those fools only cared about one thing. Where the diplomats went. What they really should have asked is why come here? What’s so special about this place? Why would Magical creatures cross the ocean and journey to a copy of a place they own the original of? Those are the sorts of questions that I want you to answer for me.”
Agent Asem leaned forward and stood. Looking down at me, he stretched his arms out to both sides. I could hear his joints pop as he did the maneuver. He stepped over to the wall and gave it a push with both hands. At the academy, Isotonic Exercises was a course taught as an elective because many of us would spend long hours sitting or standing without really exercising.
I stood as he limbered up.
“Did you know they’ve been grilling me for more than a day? My wife and kids must be losing their minds in worry,” the Agent commented as he pushed off from the wall.
“I’ll have the local office send them a note and see if there’s a phone here you can use. We take care of our own,” I replied. “Do you want to move to a different room? This place is supposed to have a cafe or something downstairs. At least that’s what the Park folks told me.”
There was a water cooler with cups in the corner of the room and Asem stepped over to it. “Water’s fine. Let me tell you what I can before those… people return. Team players they are not. Makes me wonder how anything gets done on their end.”
Processing what he was saying, I only nodded. International politics and policy weren’t things I was familiar with, and to be truthful, I didn’t want to get involved. Director Hoover was irritated with me enough already. Changing direction, I asked a few questions of my own to get things started.
“Talk to me. Start with meeting the delegation and we’ll work from there,” I said as I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Whew! Was that a crazy day, let me tell you,” Asem started. Avoiding the chair he had previously sat in, he selected another. “So I get this call from the Washington field office to meet up with a party of foreign diplos and their State handlers out at Berry Field. As you might know, Clarksville is way out there, so it took me forever to get to the field. Dodging the construction traffic, I took more than one wrong turn. They have that place ripped up all to hell.”
“Why is the airport all torn up? Bad storm or something?” I asked.
Asem shook his head. “You must not have come in that way. The city’s expanding the place. I’ve heard the plan is to add a couple of extra runways and triple the size of the main terminal. Nashville’s getting a jet service. Can you believe that? This place will turn into New York before you know it. So back to my story. I get there and use my credentials to park. Washington didn’t tell me a single thing about the group, not even how many or what was in the party, and most importantly what country they were from. You can imagine my surprise then.”
I snorted. “That must have come as a shock.”
“Ya think? Who knew that Greece even still had an airline, much less one that could cross the Atlantic ocean. The airport mechanics and State Department weenies were crawling all over the thing after it landed,” Asem answered.
“I think the c
ountry’s called Athenia now, like the city,” I commented.
Casting me a look, Asem chuckled. “That’s what the State Department guy told me at the terminal. It seems these folks flew all the way to Washington to deliver some document from their queen and were supposed to see the sights, according to the one man I spoke to about it. Little did anyone know that they didn’t mean just Washington.”
“Why here? The Director’s office told me it was to check the accuracy of the building here but that can’t be right, can it?” I asked him.
“I don’t know anything about that. When the State Department guy chose to speak to me, he told me that half the delegation set up an embassy while they were in DC. The rest came here and only here. Nothing was said to me about accuracy. They just wanted to visit and see the inside of the place,” Asem replied.
I frowned. Something was off and I didn’t know what it was. “Why you?”
Asem frowned and then looked at the floor. “Once upon a time I worked for the diplomatic corps. I was young and my parents got me the job. You have to understand, Agent Dalton…”
Raising my hand, I interrupted him. “Jack. My name is Jack.”
“Ok. Jack. What you have to understand, Jack, is my family were or are part of the government in exile from Greece. My great-grandfather was a regional governor, and when the Gorgon appeared, he fled the country. According to my father, things were easier back then. Less complicated than today. Finding and boarding a ship was easy if you had money. Even buying your way into a country was possible. They just appeared, you know, the Paranormals. Trees and rocks that had stood the test of time for millennia were suddenly creatures that could speak. Things from nightmares were giving orders and seizing towns, all in the name of myths and legends. My family told tales of when the Turks ruled us, and they didn’t want a repeat of it. So after much travel and turmoil, they ended up here, in the United States. I’m a first-generation citizen here. But to answer your original question, it might be that I speak Greek and Italian. Italy was the first and only place I was assigned while in the diplomatic corps,” Asem explained. “I wasn’t there long, though. The church controls pretty much everything except for the very top of the government there. I can’t blame them. The destruction of central Europe hurt just about all the surrounding nations. Losing a good chunk of their Northern region didn’t help either.”
I nodded. The Demon War was pretty devastating to Europe. It was one of the major factors in turning their governments against Paranormals and those that supported them. My own father was testament to that. His army unit may have saved many lives, but once the locals found out his men were of the Were persuasion things always got ugly. My mom told me many times that he’s written in letters to her that he wondered why we went overseas in the first place. Too many lives lost for no reason.”
“I understand. My father served in the tank corps in France,” I replied.
“Then you know. So the airport. The group was way bigger than I expected it to be. Even the State guy was shocked. My first thought was where was I going to rent a bus!” Asem shook his head. “We were all surprised when one pulled up out front. They’d somehow arranged for one already. You should have seen it, Jack. It was one of those Greyhound Scenic Cruisers. The ones with the funny upper deck? Two of the diplomats were Satyrs and getting those little guys up the stairs to the observation deck was a real challenge. It was more like a circus act than a diplomatic mission,” Asem laughed.
“How so?” I asked.
“Two Satyrs. A faun. Three humans or at least I thought they were human. It was hard to tell with the costumes they were wearing. They’d brought along a three-person team of…well…the best I can say would be gladiators, for security. They wore tin pot helmets and carried swords. Sort of like that Charlton Heston movie last year, Ben Hur. Airport security had a fit when they refused to give them up,” Asem chuckled again. “The State weenies did their jobs and talked everyone down. We finally loaded up and came here. They knew exactly where they wanted to go, Jack.”
“Hmm.” I grunted. Looking the man in the eye, I asked him, “What makes you think the humans weren’t human?”
“The way they moved. You know how we’re taught to read people. They were sinuous. I thought they might be women under the cloaks, but it really was hard to tell. Something was really off about them and their status as diplomats didn’t allow me to look,” Asem replied.
“They were wearing cloaks? That’s different. Could they have been Arabic or Egyptian?” I asked him.
“I don’t think so. The language they spoke was pure Greek like you’d hear if Homer himself was speaking to you. I learned more about the mother tongue sitting on that bus than I did my entire childhood speaking to my grandfather. They were the real deal,” Asem explained. “We got here, stepped inside, and all hell broke loose.”
“...an attack! We’ve got an incursion on the Plain of Meggido!”
Callimachus, known as Mack in these modern years, looked up from his work in the library. A new batch of books, some old, some new, had recently appeared in the middle of the main entryway. That was how it worked with the Gods of Light. Preserving the knowledge of the ages was the task he was given, after all. Trust the Gods to make it difficult at times. This collection must have come from a library somewhere. “How bad is it?”
“Scouts are reporting two cohorts of infantry at least, with a possible squad of Ogres and Trolls in the rear. We won’t be completely sure until they reach site of the wall,” the messenger reported.
Mack sighed, “If it’s not one thing it’s another. Send your commander my regards and tell him to do his best. Owl and our Mage corps are dealing with an incursion of another kind. A random Gate opened in the middle of Athena’s temple here in the library. The moment we are able to send help, we will. Understood?”
The Centurion saluted and raised his submachine gun to his chest. “Sir!”
Mack watched the soldier leave, murmuring to himself. “The Gods have it in for us today.”
It started like any other day, in what some called Otherwhere, and Mack called The Library. He had books to catalog. Always more books. Mankind in the worlds above seemed to be both creating new and disposing of old. All at the same time. The Gods of Light collected things that they deemed useful in their eternal fight against the Dark. Books, weapons, people, whatever they thought would bolster the fight. It was both of the caretakers’ jobs to enforce the rules and give whatever assistance they could. That being said, they did slip and fall occasionally. Mack was human at one time.
There were five permanent Portals in town. The two inside the library were closed off. Athena had informed the duo that their locations would one day be revealed. The town square held the largest and primary entrance. All food and most travelers came this way. It led directly to a place called The Garden, located in the middle of a valley controlled by Witches. Owl, the ruler of Otherwhere, claimed it was one of the most protected spaces upon the entire Earth and having been there once, Mack believed him. Otherwhere was a waystation. A hedge against the Dark on the path of the great hallway of doors that spanned the universe. If you knew how to travel them, it was possible to pass from one reality or time at will, but it was very, very, dangerous to do so. Only the brave went there and lived.
The Library came from Egypt, but the tavern was Germanic. Mid to late eighteenth century is what Mack’s research had shown. Its bartender just appeared one day, many years after the building. A closet that wasn’t a closet was one of the last remaining doors. It led to Russia, a permanent link to the cities controlled by Vampires. It too was rarely used anymore. On Earth, aftereffects of the Purge destroyed many of the doorways.
Where there is Light there is also Dark. Those that fought to protect the place called The Library were soldiers from many eras of Earth. Ties of brotherhood and admiration won in battle tied them to each other and formed the core of the Legion of the Damned. They held the gap and fought on the plain that lead
to the final Portal in Otherwhere, Drakon the realm of the Dragons.
Athena, the leader of the Gods of Light, built Otherwhere from nothing. She took fragments of power from all the Gods, creating a storehouse of knowledge. Her only mistake was not making it self-sufficient. Portals and gates needed to be used to transport food and other necessities to the small pocket universe. They say that information is power and clues about the place’s existence abounded, for there were those who constantly searched. One day no enemy Portals, the next a big one.
Tiamat’s children, the Draconic Empire, once ruled Earth with a scaled fist. Only the combined power of the Gods of Light and a few scattered Mages were able to push them away. Tiamat’s death at the hands of Marduk shattered the Empire, leaving it rudderless for centuries. But the Dragons hadn’t forgotten about Earth. All pathways were blocked to them except Otherwhere. It was there that they could push through and return. Once upon Earth they could find Tiamat’s treasure and rule for all eternity.
With all of that as a background, Mack was incredibly surprised when a small group of people and creatures appeared inside the temple, one of the safest and hardest to reach areas in the entire Library.
Rumble…
“What was that?” Mack asked as he looked skyward.
Owl swiveled his head from side to side clicking his beak. “No idea. Did you lock down the new row of book shelving? You remember what happened last time.”
Mack looked back at the giant bird perched on the chair across from him, and said, “Not helping. And it wasn’t my fault that time. Besides, this is just a rumble, not a crash or a boom.”
The bird cocked his head to one side as if listening. “There are voices in the air. Language I haven’t heard…in millenia. Get up. We need to check the temple.”
“The temple? Why do we have to go there? Athena hates me,” Mack whined as he stood up. Owl had already launched himself from the table and was gliding down the hall toward what was once the main room of the Serapeum. As the library grew, the original building, called by some historians the daughter library of Alexandria, had been encircled and enclosed. The statue of Serapis was long gone but Athena had taken his place.
