From Hell with love sh-4

by Simon R. Green

  A mist formed around us, grey tendrils coalescing out of the cold air, thickening into a grey sea of churning, roiling mists, that cut us off completely from the rest of the world. Sounds became increasingly distant and diffuse, as though we were underwater. Or as though the world was drifting farther and farther away. Molly and I moved instinctively to stand back to back, searching about us for some sign of an enemy. The thick grey fog had an unnatural chill to it, that made me shudder even inside my armour.

  "Unnatural," I said, just to show I was keeping up.

  "Very," said Molly. "Look! You see that?"

  I did. Dark shapes were moving in the fog, circling slowly, keep ing their distance for the moment. Their movements were awkward, strange, not human, for all their basically human shape. I tried counting them, but the number always came out different, as though they were fading in and out. Over a dozen, certainly, maybe twenty. There was something horribly abstract about them; their details kept changing, like the menacing shapes we see in dreams, or just briefly out of the corner of an eye. My skin crawled under my armour, and sweat ran down my face. I could hear Molly breathing heavily behind me, feel her back shaking where it pressed against mine. The shapes circled faster and faster, closing in on us from every direction at once.

  I struck out at the first dark shape to come within reach, but my spiked golden fist shot right through without touching anything. I stumbled forward, caught off balance. And the shape grabbed me by the shoulders with two dark hands, lifted me up and threw me a good thirty feet. I shot through the air, tumbling ungracefully, and then hit the packed snow hard, half burying myself. I lay still for a moment, getting my breath back. I hadn't expected that. I wasn't used to being physically dismissed that easily. I shook my head hard, rolled over onto my side, and forced myself up onto my feet again. My armour had protected me, but I was still shaken. But then I saw Molly, blazing brightly in the fog, surrounded by fast-moving dark shapes, and that was all I needed to get moving again. I charged forward, ploughing through the snow at speed, sending it flying left and right in sudden flurries.

  Molly threw spitting fiery magics at the dark shapes, attacks so powerful they crackled and roiled on the freezing air, but none of it did any good. Magics powerful enough to crack open mountains passed through the shapes without affecting them in the least, as though they weren't really present in our world. Except when they chose to be. Molly's magics were keeping the things at bay, for the moment, but they were pressing in closer all the time. Snow exploded several feet beyond the shapes as the magics passed harmlessly through, blasting out deep craters and leaving them full of steaming water.

  The dark shapes swarmed around Molly, reaching out with dark hands to drag her down, but they couldn't touch her either. Her protective shields flared up viciously whenever dark hands came near her, and the shapes fell back, thwarted. But Molly's shields were only powerful enough when she gave them her full concentration, when she was facing the shapes attacking her. Which meant she had to keep turning, circling, twisting sharply this way and that, frustrating one attack after another, never able to relax her concentration for a moment. The dark shapes were packed around her now, crowding in, reaching out with dark eager hands.

  I slammed into them at full speed, sending some of them flying. I lashed about me with my golden fists, but they were quickly gone again, as insubstantial as the fog that thickened around us. I flailed about me, desperate to drive them back from Molly, and then one of the shapes grabbed me from behind, lifted me up and threw me thirty feet in the other direction. I turned over and over in midair, trying desperately to get my feet under me, and then I hit the packed snow hard, much harder than before.

  I had to dig my way out, throwing great handfuls of snow in all directions, and then went charging back again. I wasn't hurt; hell, after that fall into the Amazon rain forest, I didn't think any fall would ever worry me again. But I was angry, and worried, because every time I was thrown away it left Molly to fight on her own.

  I couldn't let her be hurt again. I'd die before I let her be hurt again.

  This time I thought it through. I slowed to a fast walk as I approached the crowd of jostling shapes, and when one turned to face me I thrust out one arm, tantalisingly, and when the shape grabbed it I grinned inside my mask. Because that meant the shape had made itself solid. I punched it hard in the face with my other hand, and my golden fist sank deep into its head. I pulled my hand out, and it was like pulling back toffee, with streamers of dark stuff following my hand. The shape fell apart, slumping into a dark sticky mess at my feet.

  The other shapes forgot about Molly, and turned on me. They hit me from all sides at once, their fists very real and very solid, hammering me with a terrible unnatural strength. I hit back, but they were never where my fists were. I staggered back and forth in the snow, lashing about me but never connecting, while they beat me viciously with a strength and ferocity I'd never encountered before. I spun round and round, keeping my shoulders hunched and my head well down, because I could feel every blow, inside my armour. I had no doubt it was still protecting me; those dark shapes would have beaten me to a pulp in a minute without it. But I'd never been hit so hard before, and there were so many of them… and there was nothing I could do to protect myself. I had to wonder if the strange matter of my armour had finally met its match, and if it might actually split and crack and break open under such a relentless assault, such never-ending punishment.

  I raised my head for a moment, and saw Molly hovering desperately on the outer edge of the dark shapes.

  "I can't call up enough power to hurt them, without dropping my shields!" she cried out to me.

  "Don't do it!" I yelled back immediately. "That's what they want!"

  Their attack intensified, heavy fists crashing into me from all sides at once, and I was driven down onto one knee. I could feel blood trickling down my face under my mask, feel its bad copper taste in my mouth. I don't think I cried out, but as I reared up again, flailing savagely about me, I saw the shimmer on the air disappear from around Molly, as she dropped her shields. Immediately, all the dark shapes spun around, ready to go for her. But I realised that I could see Molly more clearly than before. The mists were thinner where she was, away from the shapes. And the dark shapes had only appeared after the fog materialised…

  "It's the fog!" I yelled to Molly. "Disperse the fog! That's what gives them a hold on this world!"

  Even as a dozen of the dark shapes fell upon her, Molly raised both hands and blasted the fog with a sheet of blisteringly hot flames. The fog was blown away in a moment, consumed by the intense heat, and along with the fog went all of the dark shapes. The air was clear and distinct and utterly empty, and Molly and I were left alone on the snowy prospect.

  I sat down hard. I couldn't tell how badly hurt I was without lowering my armour, and I wasn't about to do that and expose myself to the cold. I hurt all over, but it didn't feel like anything was broken. I flexed my fingers and my toes, and tried to probe my ribs through my armour, but had to stop that because it hurt too much. Molly came crashing through the deep snow to join me. She wasn't hovering anymore, from which I deduced that the fight had taken a lot out of her too. I forced myself up onto my feet again. We stood facing each other, like two fighters fresh out of the ring, trying to hide how hurt we were.

  "You okay?" I said finally.

  "Down, but not out," she said. "You?"

  "Shaken, but not stirred. What the hell were they?"

  "Beats the hell out of me," said Molly. "Some kind of demon. Clearly someone at Area 52 didn't place all their faith in science."

  "Magical attack dogs," I said. "Hate to think what Area 52 paid for their services…"

  "Come on," said Molly. "We have to get out of here. There's always the chance the fog could re-form, and then the demons would be back again."

  "Moving right along," I said. "Moving right bloody along."

  Finally, at a point in the snowy landscape that loo
ked just like every other, the Merlin Glass appeared in my hand without waiting to be summoned, and shook and shuddered like a divining rod in the presence of an underground lake. I held it firmly, and the scene in the hand mirror exactly matched the scene before me. Molly peered over my shoulder into the Glass, and sniffed loudly.

  "I'm starting to think that thing's alive."

  "Funny you should say that," I said. "The Armourer thinks there's someone trapped inside the Glass, hiding in the background of its reflections."

  "Okay, seriously creeping me out now," said Molly. "As long as it doesn't turn out to be a young Victorian girl with long blond hair."

  "I said that!"

  "You would."

  I put the Glass away, and studied the scene before me with my Sight. And there, buried deep under the snow, was a circular steel door, maybe ten feet in diameter. I pointed it out to Molly, and she whooped loudly as she confirmed it. I dug away the snow with great handfuls, and then looked back to see Molly watching me.

  "You could help, you know," I said.

  "I just like watching you work," she said. "Or maybe I just like the thought of you all sweaty."

  "Oh good," I said. "I knew there had to be a reason. Want me to build you a snowman, when I'm done here?"

  "Did you bring any carrots?"

  "Damn," I said, clearing the last of the snow away. "Knew I forgot something."

  "Why did they bury the entrance so deep?" said Molly, coming in close for a better look. "It's like no one's used it for years."

  "From the look of it, this was never intended for use as an entrance," I said. "This has all the appearances of an emergency exit. For getting out of Area 52 in a hurry, when the brown stuff is hitting the revolving blades."

  I crouched down in the hole I'd made, and studied the steel door carefully. Molly pressed in close, peering over my shoulder. The door was solid steel, inches thick, with a really complicated locking system. Reminded me very much of an airlock.

  "I could probably smash through this," I said finally. "It's only steel. But given the sophistication of the locking systems, I'd bet good money that any break in the door's integrity would result in a complete shutdown of the access systems. Not to mention setting off all sorts of alarms and security systems. Which means… either we figure out how to open all those locks, or we don't get in."

  "When in doubt, cheat," Molly said cheerfully. "Lend me that Chameleon Codex thing of yours, for a minute."

  I reached through my golden armour at the wrist, carefully undid one of my cuff links by touch, brought it out and handed it to Molly. I watched interestedly as she pressed the cuff link carefully against the various sensors, picking up the latent DNA traces left by whoever touched them last, preserved, hopefully, by the snow and the cold. She then held the cuff link up, muttered over it for a while, and suddenly a small cloud of dust motes was flying around her hand. They leapt up and coalesced into a vaguely human shape, becoming gradually clearer and more distinct as Molly shaped them with her muttered Words. She was putting together what we in the trade call a smoke ghost: a mindless, soulless re-creation of a human body, made from discarded DNA, skin flakes and other human remnants, mixed with whatever happened to be floating about in the air at the time. Not real, not even the memory of a person, just a flimsy spectre created from what men leave behind them. They don't tend to last long, but you can do all kinds of interesting things with them.

  Molly's first few attempts at smoke ghost sculpting weren't too successful-deformed and misshapen, bits missing or wildly out of proportion… but eventually she put together something that would pass. It crouched in the hole with us, bent over the steel door, made of shades of grey so fine it was hardly there. It had no sense of presence, of anyone actually being there with us, which was actually quite disturbing. I gestured sharply for Molly to get a move on, and the smoke ghost moved jerkily as Molly moved it with her mind. It presented its grey eye to the retina scanner, touched the fingerprint lock with a grey fingertip, and even managed a few words for the voice recognition circuits. And then it collapsed, returning to the dust from which it was made.

  "Freaky," I said.

  "Lot you know," said Molly. "I knew this guy who used to put together smoke ghosts just so he could have sex with them…"

  "Far too much information," I said.

  The steel door revolved slowly beneath us, making low grinding noises, and then fell away, revealing a bleak steel chamber below. A light snapped on, illuminating the chamber. It had no details, no controls, just a single red button on one wall. Molly drew back, shaking her head.

  "No way. There is no way on this good earth that I am trusting myself to that. I mean, come on; it looks like a coffin!"

  "Emergency escape capsules are not usually noted for their frills and fancies," I said patiently. "It's the only way in, Molly."

  She scowled. "Damn thing hasn't been used for years. Suppose it gets stuck halfway down? Or we can't open the door at the other end?"

  "Then you'll just have to teleport us the rest of the way."

  "Jump blind? In a base crawling with all kinds of shields and protections? Are you crazy?"

  "I was hoping for a rather different response," I said. "Look-this is the only way into Area 52 that we know of. And time, as you have already pointed out, is getting tight."

  "I really don't want to get into that thing," muttered Molly.

  "I'll hold your hand," I said. "You'll be fine. Come on, be a brave little soldier and you can have a sweetie afterwards."

  "You want a slap?"

  We helped each other down into the steel chamber. It was big enough to hold maybe half a dozen people, if they were all on really friendly terms. It was the lack of details that made it so claustrophobic; this wasn't a place people were supposed to be in, unless they absolutely had to. I pressed the red button firmly, and the heavy steel door lifted back up into place, revolved a few times, and was still. For a worryingly long moment nothing happened, and then the chamber descended slowly into the depths. There was no sound of any motor, no sense of speed, only the sense of falling into an unknowable pit.

  The descent went on for rather longer than was comfortable, and I had to wonder just how deep they'd buried Area 52, under the concealing snow and ice of the Antarctic. Just what were they hiding here, that needed to be imprisoned so deep in the earth? Were they worried about something getting in, or something getting out?

  "They built this place deep," said Molly, echoing my thoughts.

  "Well, wouldn't you?" I said reasonably. "Given some of the truly dangerous things they're supposed to have stored away here?"

  "Like what?" Molly said immediately. "Come on; you're the one who's read all your family's files on this place; what exactly are they sitting on here?"

  "Ah," I said. "Nothing too important or frightening, of course, because we always get to those first. But they are supposed to have squirreled away a fair collection of very interesting pieces…"

  "You don't know!" said Molly. "You haven't got a clue what's down here, have you?"

  "Be fair," I said. "No one in my family has even been to Area 52 before. Never felt the need, until now. We've always relied on reports from people on the inside. But don't worry, sweetie, I'm sure we'll find something nice you can take home as a souvenir."

  The steel chamber finally came to a halt deep underground, and a door opened that I would have sworn wasn't there a moment before. I stepped quickly out and looked around, ready for any response. Molly was right there with me; but the shining steel corridor was completely empty. The door slid shut behind us, and then the corridor was utterly still and silent. Fierce electric light meant there were no shadows, and there wasn't even a whisper of air-conditioning. Nothing moved. The steel corridor stretched away in both directions, empty and deserted.

  "You know, I thought for sure someone would be expecting us," said Molly. "I had some really unpleasant transformation spells lined up, just waiting to be unleashed on the wicked a
nd deserving."

  "I thought those took a lot out of you," I said.

  Molly smiled. "The look on people's faces makes it all worthwhile. Your trouble is, you just don't know how to have fun."

  "I have a really bad feeling about this," I said.

  "You always have a really bad feeling," said Molly.

  "And I'm usually right."

  Molly looked up and down the long steel corridor. "So, which way do we go?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Your guess is as good as mine. I told you-no one in my family has ever seen the inside of this place. Even the floor plans in our files are years out of date. And the regular reports we get usually just consist of Everything's fine, nobody panic. I have to say, I'm not entirely sure we're getting value for money there."

  "And there's no one here to ask," said Molly. "Funny, that. There ought to be somebody around. Especially as we've just arrived out of nowhere, riding an emergency exit in reverse. You'd have thought someone would have noticed that."

  "Yes," I said. "Spooky, isn't it?"

  I armoured down. There was always the chance Doctor Delirium, Tiger Tim, Methuselah, or any of the base's security people might be able to detect the presence of strange matter. I turned to look at Molly, and she actually gasped, her hands rising to her mouth.

  "Oh Eddie, what have they done to you?"

  I looked at my blurred reflection in the steel wall. Even in that distorting surface, I looked pretty bad. I raised a hand to my face, and winced as I touched swollen eyes and nose, and a pulped mouth. When I took my hand away, there was blood on my fingers. As though seeing made it suddenly real, my whole face pulsed with pain. Those dark shapes really had done a number on me, even inside my armour. Suddenly it was all I could do to stand up straight, as the pain kicked in; all the damage, from torn muscles to cracked ribs, the sharp aches flaring up from a hundred injuries, inside and out. Molly must have seen something of it in my bloodied face, because she stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on my chest.