by John Conroe
“Yes, Miss Stacia. I told them that they would be sorry. That Mr. Chris and Miss Tanya would come and 'Sos and everyone and it would be real bad. I told them that Mr. Chris would be angry,” she said with an anxious look in my direction.
I turned to the beast by my side and grabbed his muzzle. “You—get her out of here. Do not stop to fight with anything—got it? Just kill anything in your way, but head straight out,” I told my bear. “You—stay on the bear! Hang on tight, both fists full of fur!” I told Toni.
“You two: follow them and get out. There will be people upstairs that’ll help you get home,” I told the two shocked teens who were anything but ordinary.
I turned to Stacia, who was watching me and the others with that damned big shotgun braced on one cocked hip. The boy’s eyes were about to jump straight out of his head at the picture she presented. “Stewart upstairs?” She nodded. “Follow this crew and make sure they all get out all right. Stewart should meet these guys,” I said, sweeping a hand at the kids who were moving quickly around and away from me. “I’m gonna find Tanya and have a chat with whoever took Toni,” I said, Grim pulling my voice deeper at the end of my sentence.
“Time to go, everybody. Grimmy’s gonna smack somebody,” Stacia said, shooing everyone in front of her but still watching me. She gave me a sharp nod, then followed her charges out.
I turned and went back out to the main corridor, following the bond that pulled me to my vampire.
Chapter 42
I found her at the end of the corridor, near the elevator. A wall of transparent glass or Lexan or something sealed us off from the people on the other side. It was like a big box of glass, only one story tall, but its top was sealed with more thick glass, like a big rectangle of aquarium material. The elevator shaft came down from above and opened into the glass room.
A man and a woman stood inside the box, staring at my vampire. Tanya was trying to figure out how to get in. The glass nearest her was battered and chipped, but intact. The man was in his early fifties, bald but for a crown of gray hair, sporting a van dyke mustache and beard—the pointy kind that only skinny-faced men can pull off. He had the right face for it, thin like a hatchet blade. He was average height and looked fit for his age, wearing an immaculate two-thousand dollar suit. The jacket was off, showing his white shirt, snappy suspenders, and a paisley tie.
The woman was blonde, taller than Tanya by a couple of inches, and dressed like a Fed in a pantsuit, complete with holstered gun.
“Ahh, Chris. I wondered when I would see you,” the blonde greeted me with a nasty smile, her voice issuing from a speaker mounted high above us. She was standing in front of a big spray-painted pentagram, the center of which was missing and replaced by the greasy black of Hell. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked, her smile widening. “Wow, that sniper I hired did a better job than I thought. I’m Briana Duclair. We’ve got some history, you and I. From before I came to work for Director Hosta here. It’s a good gig. Great toys, lots better pay, and not so many pesky rules and procedures.”
“Agent Gulliotine, please introduce me to our guest,” the man said, his eyes never leaving me. Despite his calm voice, a bead of sweat had formed on his brow. The two-inch-deep sword gashes and starred impact damage in the thick plastic glass might have been the cause of that.
“I found them here, locking themselves in,” Tanya said.“Bullet-resistant glass, nine inches thick. Even the door,” she said with a nod at the only visible way into the room besides the elevator. She was completely focused on the task of getting at the two behind the glass.
“As I told you, Hosta, the woman is a rather special vampire and he is her… mate? Boytoy? Lunch?” Duclair said, her tone snarky but her eyes showing just a hint of worry. “If you recall, I think I was pretty clear that if you drew him in, you’d get her, too.”
“Well, yes, it seems that this whole project was more… involved than we imagined,” Hosta replied, still watching us but darting quick glances at the Hellgate. I noticed a smear of dried reddish material on one wall. Blood?
“You’re standing next to an open portal to Hell,” I said.
“Yes, well, not an ideal saferoom, but one makes do when one has to. I’m now thankful that we had the foresight to build this containment room so well. Sometimes, one avenue of research provides a benefit for others.”
“We’re not here to listen to any monologuing. Christian, please cut through this stuff,” Tanya asked.
Aura-formed mono-edge flickered on my right arm. I speared through the Lexan with one really hard strike. Man this stuff was tough, but it would cut with the right edge.
Hosta and Duclair jumped backward, both thoroughly alarmed.
“I told you this was gonna go down the shitter!” Duclair said, turning to her cell phone. She opened an app while I began to open the wall. Looking highly stressed, her fingers fluttered over the app. Something whirred to life overhead. I looked up. So did Tanya. Damn! Why didn’t I look up sooner? Just like the patrol in the woods, I had forgotten to check above.
The massive metal Spider had at least twelve legs and hung upside down from the metal superstructure two stories above our heads. Four feet long, it had at least six long gun-barrel-like tubes sprouting from its back, and all six were swiveling to lock onto Tanya and me.
I yanked my arm from the wall while Tanya whipped a silver spike at the metal tarantula. The guns began to fire, and six inch bolts of silver or dull gray flashed at both of us simultaneously.
Tanys’s spike hit and stuck but didn’t stop the metal beast. I was racing clockwise around the wall, a string of mini-arrows appearing in the thick plastic millimeters behind me. The Spider shuffled its dozen legs as it twisted in an effort to keep both targets locked under its sights.
The gun barrels moved on tiny mounts that only had to change millimeters to reap the benefit of several feet of adjustment. The barrels were some variation of stacked munition, firing at electronically fast speeds. The combined result was computer-controlled targeting at a speed that actually threatened our survival. In fact, if Tanya’s spike hadn’t blocked one of the gun tubes, it might have already hit one or both of us.
My vampire is not patient with attackers, be they flesh or metal. She doesn’t subscribe to the run-away-and-fight-again club. She threw another spike and followed it with herself, tungsten sword swinging for the Spider’s body.
Her first spike, the blocking one, fell free from the hole it had punched, and the guntube, previously hindered, now swung around toward the attacking vampire. My vampire. I didn’t think, I didn’t plan. I just leapt. I used every bit of power in me, every Push and Pull of vampire energy I could manipulate, to physically impose myself between her and the burst of high-velocity bolts.
My free-flying body passed over hers. Our eyes locked as I went by and she kept flying straight in. They stayed locked as pain flared across my back and across my left shoulder. They stayed glued as her sword continued its swing and as I hit the opposite wall. Then my eyes shut and I fell in an awkward clump to the ground.
I heard the spider’s demise as I worked to get one arm under me and sit up. I couldn’t seem to get my left arm to work properly, but my ears heard her gasp as she landed softly behind me. Strong arms turned me over and our eyes met again, but just for a second. Then hers broke away to look at my chest. They widened in fear. I looked down at myself. The dull gray point protruding from my sternum was covered with dark red blood, and since I could no longer hear any beating in my chest, I imagined that must be the color of heart blood. So red. I looked back into her eyes one final time before my eyes fell shut. I died.
There was no dark tunnel with a light at the end. I was just simply there—in a great, beautiful place of sunlight and music. My Brothers were lined up in two rows to either side of me, glorious beings of gold and silver, almost too bright to look upon. They welcomed me with song, a song without sound, but rather of vibration. It was felt not heard, flowing from everyw
here and nowhere. It told a story of battle and war. The never-ending conflict, the Forever War. I was home, where I belonged, where I had never thought to be again.
“Be welcomed, Malahidael! You have returned to us.” The Brother who spoke to me was more gold than silver, more gold than the others.
After a moment, I knew his name. “Michael!”
“Yes, Brother, but we have much to discuss and little time. And you must know that you cannot stay. This is not your time.”
Confused, I glanced behind me, but I couldn’t see where I had come from. Still, I knew that She was there, somewhere back there. I understood. I nodded. “But when I go back, may I ask a boon?”
He raised one golden eyebrow then laughed and nodded, even as he understood my need. He began to talk.
I gasped and sat bolt upright, then gasped again at the searing pain. My chest felt like liquid fire, every breath acid. Any further attempt at movement was blocked by bands of fleshy steel. “Stop it, you idiot! Stop moving,” she said, her voice trembling.
Tanya’s worried face met mine, her harsh words negated by her tear-streaked cheeks. Her hands were bloody, as was my chest where my tee shirt had been ripped open. A small pile of silver and gray arrow-shaped rods lay in a pool of blood by my side. A tiny wound on Tanya’s wrist healed itself as I watched. I looked down at the bonfire on my chest, expecting ruin and horror. But the flesh was smooth, yet covered in blood.
I hurt, a lot. But I could move. My brain was spinning up fast, part of it observing my surroundings, but another, less-used part, was running numbers. Calculations. Algorithms and equations that my observational side could not identify. I was also aware that part of me was Pulling something—an immense weight from above.
Slowly, supported by my best half, I sat up. Then stood up.
The Spider lay in three pieces on the ground. Well, more than three, but there were only three pieces big enough to recognize. The rest was smashed beyond recognition. The two people behind the glass wall were watching with dismay and fear. I ignored them, still looking around. The elevator shaft behind the glass room seemed to have taken damage. More spider parts were strewn across the top of the glass room. Shuffling across the floor, I picked up a likely looking chunk of Spider and wedged it into the door frame, locking them in.
“What are you doing?” Duclair asked. I turned to look at her, and so I saw when it happened. In her fear, she had strayed across the pentagram and now stood right on the edge of the Hellgate. Her eyes were watching me, so they didn’t see the tentacle that lashed up from the greasy black and wrapped around her ankles. Her eyes had time to widen, then she was gone, yanked straight to Hell.
Hosta was as suddenly at the door, trying to get out, but my Spider lock worked great.
“Come on. We gotta leave—now,” I told my vampire, heading back up the corridor. Lydia and Arkady met us as we got to the stairs.
“We found a vampire and a were in cells. They’re both headed out now.”
“As are we, Lydia. We don’t have much time. Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds, to be exact.”
“Till what?” Lydia asked.
I didn’t answer but just started up the stairs, my brain still humming with math. Tanya picked up on my urgency and literally tossed me to Arkady, who carried me like an invalid. Our speed picked up, and we were topside in twenty seconds.
Four Blackhawk helicopters were parked on the runway, blades spinning. Armed soldiers in cammies ringed the perimeter of the facility. Director Stewart and his assistant moved toward us. We met them and moved right on past, making them swing around to follow. I headed to the nearest helicopter.
“What’s going on?” Stewart asked.
“We have eight minutes and forty-nine seconds to get at least a mile from this spot. Anything or anyone here after that is dead,” I said. “I suggest you grab what you’ve managed to get your hands on, load everyone up, and let’s get the f outta here.”
Not waiting for an answer, I shuffled my way to the Blackhawk that had Toni in it, my wolf-bear sitting next to her, Stacia still buckling her in.
Stewart looked from me to Tanya, who nodded, then spoke to his assistant. Two minutes and seven seconds later, we took off. All four birds headed south, fast. We cleared my one-mile mark in less than a minute. We were a full five miles away when the crew chief yelled into his mike, alerting us to the speck of light in the sky to the west. My calculations had stopped and I could feel that part of my brain fall back asleep.
The dot grew rapidly as we watched, turning into a white-hot streak that seemed to be moving slowly, then suddenly became a flashing blur before disappearing below the treetops behind us.
A moment later, a fireball rolled up to the clouds and a concussive wave tried to brush us from the sky. The pilot fought the controls like a bronco rider, and then it was past.
Stewart turned to me from his position across the flight cabin. “What did you do?” he asked, horrified. The others all watched me as well: Lydia, Stacia, Arkady, Adine Benally, Toni, Tanya, and even 'Sos.
“I made a statement,” I said, leaning back and closing my eyes. I was never very good at math and it always made my head hurt. Now, I had the mother of all headaches. It didn’t stop me from falling deeply asleep, though.
Epilogue
Metal bleachers are always the same—cold and hard. These were no different, just a short, eight-tier set of aluminum butt busters set on the side of a standard soccer field. Gina, Roy, and I sat near the top, watching the boys and girls of Toni’s club team scramble around the field.
It looked pretty official, with both teams sporting expensive uniforms and two adult referees in black and white. A little overboard if you ask me, but hey, I guess there are worse things for people to spend their money on.
The fat guy two rows below me was reading a tabloid newspaper, and I was shamelessly reading over his shoulder between watching plays on the field. A week after impact and it was still full of asteroid crap. Citizens call for plan—Senators demand investigation of anti-asteroid program—Russian president claims the strike was a US conspiracy to blame them. On and on like that. I even saw Bigfoot dodges space born assassination attempt. Pretty good pictures, though. The front page had an aerial shot of the impact crater, circled by flattened trees. Lots of experts and pundits opining about a whole lotta this and that. Estimated energy of the strike, the odds of a small asteroid making it to the surface intact, stuff like that. But hey, inquiring minds want to know. None of the stories mentioned a Hell hole buried under a hundred tons of pulverized concrete though.
The ref blew his whistle for like the thousandth time in the first quarter. They were two overly serious grown men dressed in matching black shorts and striped black and white shirts. The younger one was the lead ref, and you’d have thought he was the head of Homeland Security, the way he acted. All puffed up and self-important. And more than a little biased toward the other team. Our side couldn’t touch the ball without incurring some infraction or the other. The opponents, however, could probably have stolen a car and gotten away with it.
Roy got up to get some food from the concession stand. I tried to hand him some money to get me a dozen hot dogs, but he mock glared and waved me off. The stands shook as he clambered down like a grizzly descending the mountain. Big guy, that Roy.
“How are your memories?” Gina asked as soon as her husband had stepped away. Made me wonder if he’d been sent.
“Well, I have a lot more of them. Mostly jumbled fragments. But I spent most of a day with Grim out, so I guess I should be grateful I got that many.”
“Give it time. It’s very encouraging that you get memories from Grim. How is he, by the way?”
“He’s close. Always close. Like something shifted,” I said, trying to put it into words. “He’ll offer suggestions about how to handle day-to-day stuff, like an old lady driving too slow in front of me. You know, like to ram her rear left quarter panel and spin her off the road. I try and explain t
hat would be inappropriate.”
“You’re integrating him. Which is great… as long as you still know that his regular ideas are generally bad ones.”
The pumped-up ref called a foul on Toni. She was left forward offense, and apparently, she kicked the ball too hard or something. He awarded possession to the other team. A couple of guys on our side yelled about him needing glasses. A father from the other team in the bleachers fifty feet to our right yelled "Good call.”
“How did Stewart make out?” I asked, curious after seeing a picture in the fat guy’s paper of the president talking to reporters. Nathan Stewart was in the background of the picture, leaning on his cane.
“The President put him in charge of rolling up the AIR people. Those scientists and all the computer stuff that got grabbed before you blasted the base gave him all kinds of information. That girl that helped Toni? Caeco? She and her mother escaped from another lab out in New Mexico. We rolled that one up, too. Lots of hybrid, gene-splicing work going on there.”
