Crowley eschewed fatigues in favor of a thick black sweater and black jeans. He used a harness and belt to carry the Mac-10s he favored, as well as their spare clips. In a holster on his right hip, he also carried a silvery baton that I assumed to be some sort of stunner. I asked him about it, but he only described it as an old friend and would tell me nothing more.
Crowley led the way across the cactus and tumbled rock expanse between us and the estate. I brought up the rear and caught bursts of anxiety from Jytte. In driving up toward to the area, she had been subdued and drank in everything Crowley and I could think of as last-minute instructions about the recon. When we left Route 93 and headed north, she became more agitated, leaving none of us with any doubt concerning the choice of targets for the night's outing.
Halfway to the target, we stopped in a shadowed gully and drank some water. Using simple hand signals, Crowley urged caution and silence. I reached out and gave Jytte's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She smiled at me, the tremor in her bottom lip betraying her nervousness, then followed Crowley back into the night.
The only viable approach to reach the top of the low mesa was up the causeway that clung to the side of the mesa like ivy. While the road had been graded, it had not been paved or landscaped. The rocks on either side gave us plenty of cover, if we needed to hide from a vehicle going in or coming back out. Because of the stillness of the night air and the utter darkness so far from civilization, we assumed we would have plenty of warning about any approach.
We found the first passive security device halfway up the causeway. Thick cement blocks had been set in the roadway so that a driver would have to swerve around them. Anyone attempting to dash up the road to make a quick car-bomb attack or the like would have to slow down here or literally go off the road and down the side of the mesa. Slowing would make negotiating the barriers feasible, but would also leave the vehicle open to fire from guards located farther up the hill.
Crowley dropped to one knee in the shadow of the first barrier. From a pouch on the left side of his belt he pulled out a small aerosol can and pumped some air into it. He hit the nozzle, and a thin mistcloud hissed out. The cloud drifted invisibly through the darkness, then became a dazzling spot of purple-blue light for a second.
From an earlier explanation I knew the chemicals in the mist fluoresced under ultra-violet light. Using the spray cautiously, Crowley was able to define where UV security lasers criss-crossed the area in a warning net. He located more than I felt comfortable negotiating, but far fewer than required to make our passage impossible.
Past that, we continued up the causeway to the main gate. A chain and padlock held the cyclone-fence closed. I squatted next to Crowley, and he pointed out the wires that electrified the fence. He produced a two-tined probe with a small LED display and thrust the tines in between the strands of the fence. Clearly puzzled by the result, he used the device twice more, the last time actually touching the tines to the wire itself.
He drew his hand across his own neck, letting me know the fence was dead. Standing, he crossed to the padlock and produced a set of lockpicks. He had Jytte hold the lock steady while he opened it, then he pulled the gates far enough apart for the three of us to slip between them. Closing the gates, he reset the lock but did not snap it shut.
A close inspection of the estate showed us what the Starlight scope had hidden. Long, dry grasses predominated in the yard, even growing up in between the slabs of concrete laid down for the driveway near the garage and back behind the pool house for a helipad. One of the doors to the pool house stood half-ajar, and a couple of tumbleweeds lay up against the interior of the fence.
The whole compound looked deserted, but clearly it had not been abandoned for terribly long. None of the windows I could see were broken. From the causeway, we did have evidence that the laser-intrusion system still functioned — indicating a basic desire to keep the place inviolate. I found myself hoping that this place had been abandoned only since Pygmalion had taken Ryuhito away. That would explain the good shape it was in and let me imagine we might find something of use in it.
The three of us made our way to the main building. As we closed on it, I began to feel uneasy. It was odd because I felt fairly certain that no threat to me existed in the whole place. In addition, the sensation rose and fell as if it were an emotional siren undulating out a warning. As I got closer to the house, the sensation became stronger and almost overpowering.
Jytte slumped against the building's wall, and I knelt beside her. She gave me a weak smile, but I saw it wax and wane with the siren. I nodded to let her know I felt it, too, as Crowley used his lockpicks on the front door. I heard a click, then he slipped into the building. I wanted to get up to follow, but my resolve crashed head on into the rising tone of the siren, and I could not move.
Suddenly, the emotional siren stopped. Crowley reappeared at the door and waved the two of us in. I helped Jytte up, and we followed the occultist into the house. He shut the door behind us, then led us over to a small cloakroom. He twisted a coathook built into the wall and caused a panel to withdraw.
At first glance, I knew I was looking at an alarm system. Bright little lights on a crude schematic of the grounds defined different areas of the estate. Around the house, the pool and a portion of the fence, an angry red light pulsed repeatedly. Green lights marked the rest of the compound, it all looked almost normal.
The reason it was not normal was because the components built into the alarm panel were not mechanical or electronic. The panel had not so much been assembled as it had been grown. Wormlike creatures glowed red and green. Wet lines of mucus traced the connections from the circuitry and detection devices outside the building into this panel. Down below the light display, I saw a number of small creatures that looked like horseshoe crabs in miniature. One of them had a hole in its carapace that leaked a thick, green fluid on the ground.
Crowley kept his voice a low whisper. "This is the place. Dark Lord equipment. The alarm sent a message of unease out. It was a distress signal, and I would wager it did not make it through the armored shell of Pygmalion's dimension."
I pointed to the red alarm lights around the pool house and fence. "You neutralized the alarm for the main house by killing it. Why weren't these two working?"
The occultist flicked a lockpick against one of the other crabs. Its brittle shell cracked and fell to dust on the floor. "Those alarms went off a while ago and died from their exertions, I would assume."
"Since the alarm was going off when we arrived, we have to assume others were here recently." Jytte worked the charging lever on her Ml 77. "Or are still here."
I nodded. "Let's do it like we planned. We start at the top and work our way down."
I led the way from the front door back into the house. From the floorplan, we determined two likely spots for Pygmalion to maintain an office. The first was where the former vice president had put his office. The advantage to it was, according to the floorplan, a number of built-in shelves, a built-in safe, hidden bar and an external door to the pool. I did not think those practicalities would matter as much to Pygmalion as his desire to set himself up in a place that once belonged to the second most powerful man on Earth.
Stalking through the house, I began to assemble a picture of Pygmalion that surprised and revolted me. The original Santa Fe decor, which we had seen in numerous magazine layouts on the estate, had been stripped out and replaced with something much more European. Heavy dark woods predominated both in fixtures and furnishings, as if their bulk and age could give the owner a legitimacy he could not otherwise possess.
Just looking at the items, I knew they were antiques that had been lovingly restored. I admired the workmanship and, as we moved deeper into the house, I saw that the restorer's skill had gotten much better. I got the sincere impression that the house itself was a work of art, or a retrospective display of work that had filled a career.
I had not doubt Pygmalion was the artisan and that by loo
king back over my shoulder at Jytte, I would see one of his finest creations.
The leftmost of the double-doors to the office stood open. I peered quickly through the crack, then slipped into the room. I crouched immediately and swept the room with my MP-7, but I saw no targets so I did not shoot. Reaching back, I opened the door more fully and waved my two companions on in.
Crowley crossed immediately to the huge portrait on the south wall and swung it away from the wall to expose the safe. Jytte entered the room, then stopped in the center of it. She looked up and around at the vaulted ceiling, then slowly started to spin around as if in a daze. She made one complete circuit, then started another before she shivered and blinked her eyes.
I walked over to the huge, hardwood desk near the bank of windows in the west wall and dropped myself into the chair behind it. "It's Pygmalion. This chair is cranked high enough that I'll smash my knees on the desk if I pull myself up to it," I whispered.
The occultist grinned. "This safe is very good. It will take explosive to open."
Jytte said nothing, but drifted toward the bookcase built-in beside the door. She reached up and tugged on one book, bringing it halfway out of the neat row. Nothing happened, so she shifted to a lower shelf and tugged two or three books out of place. When that produced no results, she went to a third shelf, her pulling becoming more frenzied.
Suddenly, a rumble sounded through the room. Jytte jumped back as the shelving unit slowly slid forward, then to the side to block the door. Where it had stood, I saw a gray rectangle sunk into the floor. Light came up from below, giving Jytte's face a granite hue.
Crowley ran over beside her, then knelt near the hole in the floor. I came around the desk on the other side and tried to squeeze past Jytte and the moved bookshelf. She remained in place, and one of the pulled-out books stopped me.
"Coyote, we may have hit pay-dirt." Crowley looked up at me. "I can't see much more than a stairwell, but it goes far enough down that it's safe to suggest the whole mesa is hollow."
"Could be," I mumbled as I pulled the book that had stopped me from the shelf. With it in my hands, I corrected my earlier impression and saw it for what it was: a leather-bound binder. In the darkness, I could not tell if the cover was blue, but the dim light reflected beautifully from the gold foil stamp of the Build-more logo on the cover. As I realized what I had in my hands, I also remembered the last thing I'd seen before the grenade went off.
I drifted back over to the desk and laid the folder down in the muted puddle of moonlight making it through the wispy drapes. "I don't know what's down there, Damon, but we may have our staging area right here." Page by page, I flipped through the proposal, skipping the standard boilerplate stuff that had been in the one Darius MacNeal had sent to me, and concentrated on the diagrams in the back.
The plan was brilliant. It consisted of the equivalent of sinking an aircraft carrier in the ground so only the superstructure remained visible. The base, which would be powered by a set of seven geothermal generators, would have the facilities for outfitting, maintaining and manufacturing the things needed for a full-scale military assault.
I closed the binder. "This is it. Build-more is putting it together for Pygmalion. Sin said something about a secret project in Nevada using up a lot of Build-more resources. This thing is dated two years ago, with an estimated 30 months for completion."
The occultist straightened up. "We have what we came for. We will have to get location information out of Build-more."
The image of the Build-more grenade flashed before my mind's eye once again. "That will be a distinct pleasure. Let's go."
"No!" Jytte looked at the two of us. "We have to go down there. We have to see what is there."
"Jytte, we have the information we sought. It is time to leave."
"You cannot! We, I have to know what is down there." Jytte descended a couple of steps. "I need you to come with me. I've never asked before. I need you now."
I acknowledged the plea in her voice with a nod. "We'll take a look."
A flash of rainbow light from outside filled the library with a second of brilliance. All three of us hunkered down reflexively, but heard and felt no alarms. "What the hell was that?" I asked.
Crowley shifted his shoulders. "That sort of light display usually only comes when something comes through a dimensional gate. With the direction it came from, I'd guess the pool or helipad. Now we know why other alarms had been going off."
Jytte's eyes narrowed to blue slivers. "So we are not alone?"
Crowley shook his head. "No. I'd guess some extra-dimensional creatures have recently discovered this place and have started looting it."
I rechecked the clip in the MP-7. "And, in this case, I'd suggest that enemies of our enemy are not our friends at all."
I shivered as I worked my way past Jytte and on down, step by step, along the stone stairway. Harsh, bright lights set at the base of the stairs leeched color from the red rock nearest them, leaving it a baby-flesh pink. I held my left arm up to block the direct light and kept the MP-7 pointed downward. I kept it trained on the dark square 20 feet below me, ready to blast anything that appeared in the corridor leading deeper on into the mesa.
I realized, as I descended, that my shiver had come from more than fright. The air around me grew cold. I could not see my breath, but this did not surprise me because dry desert air does not allow breathmist to form except at more frigid temperatures. Even so, the chill reminded me of a refrigerator and made me mindful of ice caverns located amid the extinct volcanoes in the north of Arizona. Part of me wondered if the complex was natural, while the even sides of the corridor and the edges on the stairs told me it was not.
Oddly enough, the lack of adornment suggested the stairs and the corridor below had not been crafted by Pygmalion. I could not imagine him having created either without the addition of leering gargoyles or seductively simple and sensuous carvings to decorate them. As bizarre and grotesque as Pygmalion's choice of medium for his work, he did have an artist's touch. Realizing that meant, then, that he had chosen to leave this area plain, and I determined that must have been to provide contrast for whatever work he had wrought in the heart of the mesa.
As much as I might have wished it would be otherwise, I found my assessment of him had not been wrong. At the base of the stairs, I entered a corridor which I found a bit small and tight, but for one of Pygmalion's statues it would have been quite roomy. Curving around to the left, the only illumination in the corridor came from the backlighting of the stairs and hint of silvery-white light from farther on around the bend.
I turned back to my two compatriots and saw Crowley lay his left hand on Jytte's right shoulder and give it a squeeze. Even making allowances for her light complexion and the brutal lighting, she had taken on a ghostlike pallor. She leaned back against the wall with her eyes closed and, exposing her lovely long throat, tipped her face toward the ceiling.
"What it is, Jytte?" I whispered.
She shook her head slightly, then swallowed. "I have been here before. The stairs. I know this place."
Crowley gently cupped the right side of her face in his left hand. "You left a victim, you return a saviour. You have survived and you will survive."
"Thank you." I saw a bead of sweat roll down over her Adam's apple, then her eyes opened and she nodded. "After you, Coyote."
Though Crowley's words had been for Jytte, they emboldened me as well. Jytte and I were both constructs of a Dark Lord. We had both fled our former masters as victims, yet now rose to oppose them. We were the slavemaster's nightmare in black fatigues and carrying automatic weapons. We had both resolved that our masters would pay for what they had done to us and others, and right around the bend we could start collecting.
I made my way down the corridor less cautiously than might have been prudent, but I felt armored with the righteousness of what I had come to do. That makes it sound ridiculously like a religious convert describing his visit to a den of iniquit
y, and it probably did approach that experience in the extreme. For the barest of moments I felt assured of the mythic quality of my quest to reach the lair of evil at the end of the corridor.
The difference between a myth and a horror tale, I discovered, is a matter of perspective.
The corridor opened on to a huge cavern that appeared quite natural in that stalactites and stalagmites filled it like petrified teeth in fossil jaws. Darkness hid the arched depths of some vaults, while shadows hinted at yet further chambers and corridors elsewhere. The uneven floor had a molten smoothness to it, as if it had frozen while yet fluid, or had been washed into gentle, undulating hills and valleys by eons of water seepage.
The vista struck me as appropriate and right, except that I found it in the middle of a mesa in the desert southwest. There the formation was utterly unnatural, which meant it had been planned and designed and created by other than random chance. Had the geographical and geological paradox not been enough to point out the problem with the cavern, its overwhelming aspect would have clued me in quickly enough.
Fiddleback Trilogy 3 - Evil Triumphant Page 20
