by Michael West
DeParle ran a hand across his face, tugged at his lips; at last he motioned for Larry and the others to follow him. “Come on then. The way things are goin’, guess we don’t have much left to lose.”
They moved past the front desk and down a hallway toward Ed’s private quarters. Carol hid the book behind her back, not wanting yet another person to grab for it when they entered the room. When she saw the elderly woman standing by a window, she thought of her father. Carol would find him looking out the glass, but not seeing the scenery beyond; the expression on his face had been one of great sadness, of great loss. This woman looked the same way.
“Barb?” Ed called out. “We got company.”
The old woman turned to look at them and her face changed, concern giving way to anger. “What the hell are you doin’? Who are all o’ these — ?”
“It’s all right,” Ed told her. “I think they’re batting for our team, not that we could even field a team, as few players as we got right now.”
DeParle’s nostrils flared, as if she noticed something was burning, and her eyes found Larry. “I can smell her on you,” she told him. “You went to the temple?”
He nodded.
“I thought she was going to make you leave.”
“She tried. Kind of backfired. After your grand entrance last night, I can’t believe you just left Peggy alone in that cave. If those things found her up there —”
Barbara held up her hand to quiet him. “They’d never harm her there.”
“They went on a rampage in a public hospital.”
“What they did, they did because they believe in Varuna’s will. They may be fanatics, but they wouldn’t spill blood in his temple. They’d be too afraid of his wrath.” DeParle scanned the group; she appeared very uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t know any of you and I think you should all just get out of here before —”
“But I know you, what you are.” Miyagi held up the book. “This is all quite an impressive act you’ve been able to keep up here. But it’s falling apart. I think you understand that.”
Barbara reached for the aged volume and Carol let her take it. The old woman leafed through it briefly, then held it tightly against her breast. It looked as if an incredible weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“We were led to your temple,” Carol told her. “There’s a force there that pulled at our compass needle, drew us to the statue. What is it?”
Barbara’s teary eyes shot to her. “You know so much. How could you read the book and not see the wrath of the gods?”
The wrath of the gods.
Zeus struck people down with lightning bolts. Odin’s fits of rage caused the north winds to blow, the storms destroying everything in their path. Even modern Man referred to natural disasters as “acts of God.” But this woman was not speaking of anything natural. Carol remembered the etchings on the temple wall, cities destroyed by holy fire, and her stomach sank.
“Okay,” she said softly, “what is it?”
PART THREE
THE WRATH
OF THE GODS
FORTY FIVE
From his balcony, Roger Hays watched the sun set on Colonial Bay. Given what he knew now, he expected the view to be somehow different, more sinister. But it wasn’t. The town looked just as quiet and tranquil as ever.
It sickened him.
His wait ended just after nine o’clock with a loud, very insistent knock. Roger checked his clip, then ran across the room, handgun ready as he threw open the door.
A tall, brawny man stared calmly down the barrel of Roger’s weapon with a stoic poker face. “Mr. Hays, Mr. Ludwig sends his condolences.”
“You must be Horror Show.” Roger holstered his .45. Behind the hitman stood three shorter henchmen; he waved them all inside and locked the door behind them. “Did Ludwig get you the weapons I asked for?”
“Yeah. He said you would fill us in on the wet work when we got here.” Horror Show motioned to his men. “We’re here.”
“My son is dead.”
“Yes, sir. We’re sorry to hear that. Nobody should outlive their own child.”
“He was killed by...” Roger searched for something they would believe. “...a crazy cult.”
The man to Horror Show’s right spoke up. “Christ Almighty! A cult?”
Roger noticed the slight hint of an Irish accent. O’Shea, I presume. “I want to get them. I want to get them for what they did to my boy.”
“Did I hear you right?” Horror Show asked. “You wanna whack a bunch of hippies?”
“They attacked me last night. I want them dead, all of them dead.”
Horror Show held up his hand. “You want to calm down, sir. You’re upset, letting your emotions fuck with your head. Hell, if my son was hit, I’d be kickin’ ass and takin’ names too. But, Mr. Hays, I want you to think about what you’re askin’ here. I take care of problems for you, usually one problem at a time. Sounds like you wanna start some kind of war.”
“It’s not a war. We find where they’re hiding, blow them all to shit, then torch the place to cover our tracks. They’ll think it was another Waco.”
Horror Show frowned. “There were seventy people in that Branch Davidian compound. Most of ’em women and children. Is that what we’re talkin’ about here?”
“This is one man with no more than a handful of people helping him.”
“Give me numbers, Mr. Hays. Is it five? Ten? Fifty?”
Roger grew annoyed. “Let’s say ten. Does that help you?”
“They got shot guns, scud missiles, anthrax, pipe bombs?”
“They tore my son apart with their fucking hands and ate him!”
Horror Show was struck dumb. O’Shea crossed himself. The other two men looked at the marbled floor.
Roger quickly broke the silence, his tone forcibly made level. “Gentlemen...I killed one of these sick freaks already last night.”
Horror Show’s head made a surprised twitch.
“With or without you, I will go after the rest of them. I should point out, however, that I pay you all quite well for your talents, and if I can’t get a return on my investment, I might just have to see that certain bits of evidence find the light of day, evidence that would help clear some cold cases from the NYPD books. I’m sure none of you want that to happen.”
O’Shea was quick to speak up, “We’re all loyal to you, Mr. Hays.”
Roger nodded, his eyes still locked with Horror Show’s.
“You’re the boss,” the hitman said at last.
“Good.” Hays smiled. “Then we should get going.”
•••
When Hays burst through the door, the look on John Canon’s face was one of total surprise. Horror Show and Carlo rushed in and were on the chief in a flash; they lifted his bulk from the leather seat and slammed him against the paneling. The fat man struggled against their muscular grasps. “What the hell are you people doin’?”
“Shut your hole,” Carlo ordered.
Hays strolled toward the chief’s desk, his black trenchcoat lending him the look of a Gestapo agent. He glanced down at a photograph; Canon and his young deputy, the monster in man’s clothing that tried to kill Roger the night before. Hays held the picture out for the chief’s inspection, tapped the deputy’s face with his forefinger. “This man...where are the others like him?”
Canon’s eyes still floated in astonishment. “You lost your fuckin’ mind, Hays?”
“No, I’ve lost my fucking son.” Roger tapped the photo more insistently. “Where?”
The chief said nothing and Horror Show smacked him hard across the face. “The man asked you a fuckin’ question, Lardo.”
Canon remained silent.
With a flick of his wrist, Horror Show unfolded a straight razor and held it over the man’s flabby hand, a guillotine ready to fall. “Answer the man’s question or lose a fuckin’ finger.”
“Screw all o’ you!”
The razor came down, severed Canon�
��s index finger just below the knuckle, and the chief bit his lip until it bled, denying them the satisfaction of his pained screams.
“Jesus Christ,” O’Shea exclaimed from the doorway where he and Neil Shiva acted as look-out. “He’s a fuckin’ cop.”
“He’s one of them,” Hays roared back.
O’Shea looked at his shoes, his head wagging.
Carlo’s eyes widened. “Santa Maria!”
On the desktop, Canon’s severed digit writhed like a snake with its head removed; the skin bubbled, as if coming to a boil, and a long, bony talon poked out through the fingertip. The finger flipped over; tiny suction cups ran down its length, each rimmed with jagged teeth, lending them the appearance of hungry mouths.
His true nature revealed, Canon roared with rage; hair retreated into his scalp as the back of his head exploded into a vast pulsating mass. His nose grew into a long trunk, and tendrils of sinew shot away from his skull to form a squirming beard of tentacles.
“Where you goin’?” Neil called.
Hays turned to see that O’Shea had deserted his post. Worthless bastard!
“Help me hold this fuck down,” Horror Show cried.
Carlo nodded; he pushed down on Canon’s chest, felt it undulate beneath the uniform.
Something moved in Canon’s pants, as if the man had a tremendous cock that wanted to slither free of its master. The zipper gave way, allowed a long, maroon tentacle to slither from his fly and whip through the air.
Carlo released the aberration and backed away; he kissed his right thumb and crossed himself, his lips moving in silent prayer.
With his arm now free, Canon reached over and threw Horror Show across the desk. The hitman rolled to his feet and held up his straight razor, a move that was far more defensive than threatening.
Canon ripped off his shirt and threw it to the floor. His black-speckled skin changed color again, the fury of his emotions reflected by the chromatophores buried deep within his flesh; he was now blood red, his eyes black as India ink. Fluid, triggered instinctively by Canon’s body chemistry, sprayed from his pores; in water, it formed a poisonous chemical cloud that cloaked his escape, but, in the air-conditioned office, it hid nothing.
Some of this poison rained onto Carlo’s hand and he screamed as it burned into his skin.
The beast ripped its pants off, freed the nest of serpents that wriggled between its legs, then it roared at the hitmen, facial tentacles spreading like the petals of a red orchid, revealing the open beak at the center of the blossom.
O’Shea rushed back inside, an AK-47 in his hands. .30-caliber slugs ripped across the room, burrowed through the creature’s body, and exploded from its back. The ruined monster fell to the floor in a heap; the entire room shook from the impact.
O’Shea kept his finger on the trigger, emptied all thirty slugs into the carcass. Smoke poured from the chamber, a ceiling fan twisting it into a funnel around his head. Spent shell casings blanketed his feet, each jacket the size of a Bic pen.
Roger ran over to him, wrapped his hand around his neck and screamed into his face, “Nice shooting, Rambo! We needed him to tell us where the others were hiding.”
O’Shea pried the man’s hand from his collar. “That motherfucker wasn’t gonna give you shit. Coulda killed us all!”
Hays spun around and his face met Horror Show’s fist; he fell to the floor, his lip split under the force of the punch. “What — ?”
Horror Show’s face never changed, but his tone made it clear that he was pissed. “You knew exactly what the fuck we were dealin’ with and didn’t say dick.”
Roger wiped his mouth, stared at the blood on his fingers. “And you would’ve believed me when I told you we were in a town full of monsters?”
“Maybe not,” the hitman agreed, “but you don’t pay me to have an opinion. I asked you what we were up against so I could have my crew prepared. Dealin’ with...” He pointed toward the desk and the riddled corpse beyond. “...whatever the hell that was is a lot different than dealin’ with a bunch of comet freaks waitin’ for their mothership.”
Roger wiped the last of the blood from his lips. “Point taken.”
Horror Show extended a hand to help Hays up and the businessman took it.
O’Shea stood motionless in the center of the office, the AK-47 lowered but still clutched tightly in his hands; he stared at the desk and the blood-splattered wall behind it in disbelief.
Horror Show gave him a pat on the shoulder to get him moving again. “Good work.”
O’Shea blinked. “What was that thing?”
Horror Show shrugged and turned to Roger. “Truth time, Mr. Hays. What the hell are we after here?”
“Sea monsters. The whole town is nothing but sea monsters.” Hays ran a hand across his face. “The bastards...they...they ate my son. Who knows how many other people they’ve killed. They have to be destroyed.”
“‘Who knows how many other people they’ve killed.’ Lookin’ out for the good o’ mankind.” Horror Show stepped over to the thing’s corpse. “How fuckin’ noble.”
He examined the chest, watched to make certain the beast wasn’t breathing, then kicked the animal with the steel tip of his boot. “Well, at least we know they can be killed. It always pisses me off when the monster won’t die.”
The hitman reached into his pocket, felt the granite shard he kept there, thinking again of Dillinger and the movie theater; he found himself wondering, perhaps too late, if Hays had become his woman in red. After a moment of silent contemplation, he turned and walked across the room, kicking spent metal jackets from his path and coughing at the stench of ammonia and gun smoke that hung thick in the office air.
Neil studied the raw patch on Carlo’s left hand.
“How is it?” Horror Show asked.
Carlo glared at him, then winced. “How do you think? Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.”
“He needs a doctor,” Neil announced.
“Doctors can wait!” Carlo said, then looked to Horror Show. “I’ll be fine if you got somethin’ to take the edge offa this.”
“Sure.” Horror Show reached into his pocket, produced a prescription bottle filled with pills and popped the cap, flicking two white tablets into his palm. Neil examined the blue and green flecks that littered their chalky surfaces. “What are you giving him?”
“Vicodin.” Horror Show handed the pills to his friend, then reached inside his jacket and produced a small metallic flask. “Wash ‘em down with this.”
“And what’s that?” Shiva’s voice was a shy whisper. “Vodka.”
“Shit yeah!” Carlo took the flask, pushed the Vicodin onto his tongue, then washed it down with a healthy surge of alcohol.
“You think that’s smart?”
“It’s not your fuckin’ hand, firebug!” Carlo whined through clinched teeth.
“I know. I only meant, if you’re carrying a gun, I don’t think you want to be fucked up with pain-killers and booze.” Shiva lifted his shirt to reveal a large mass of scar tissue on his belly. “Fire and that shit don’t mix.”
“Kid, I was havin’ buckshot pulled outta my ass when you was still in Juvi Hall. Hell, I’m probably so tolerant of this shit it won’t even gimme a buzz. If you’re worried I’ll pop you, stay the fuck outta my way.” Carlo splashed some Vodka on his open sore, then slammed his eyes shut and stomped the floor; if the man had a bullet between his teeth, Horror Show thought he might have bitten it cleanly in two.
Horror Show took back his flask, rubbed a hand through his friend’s hair and assured him, “When this is over, we’ll tell the hospital you spilled battery acid on it.”
Carlo wiped his mouth. “Yippy.”
Hays looked toward the office door. “I’m sure someone heard all the gunfire. We should go now.”
The hitmen were more than happy to oblige; they followed Roger into the parking lot. Horror Show was about to ask if Hays had any ideas on how to proceed when they saw a rusty green Cordoba ra
ce by, headed up the hill and out of town. Roger recognized the car, or perhaps one of the passengers he saw through its windows.
“Miyagi,” he said aloud, then his eyes shot back to Horror Show. “Wherever she’s headed, we should follow.”
•••
“This doesn’t make any damned sense,” Earl Preston told Barbara as he climbed into her Cordoba. “Your people were being slaughtered, you had this prehistoric Weapon of Mass Destruction, and nobody’s thought of using it before now?”
She offered him a look of disapproval. “You say you were a soldier, Mr. Preston?”
He stiffened in the passenger’s seat. “I’m an officer in the United States Coast Guard.”
The old woman nodded, threw the car into reverse, and backed onto the street. “Somebody hands you a gun, shows you the enemy, and all you gotta do is pull the trigger. You don’t have to stop and think about what might happen afterwards.”
In the back seat, Carol frowned. “When Einstein saw the first atomic bomb, he wished he’d been a watchmaker.”
“It’s a doomsday bomb?” Brahm asked.
The car sped down darkened roads as Barbara shrugged. “The Book tells us the creators used it to punish the disobedient.”
“A whip for their slaves,” Earl said with contempt.
Barbara nodded. “Legend says it holds all the fires of Hell. The Paralichts thought it was magic. They knew the warrior clans wouldn’t be smart with it, so they hid it away.”
“In the place they go worship?” the guardsman asked.
She briefly took her eyes from the road to look at him. “I didn’t hide it. Never seen it myself. Back then, Poseidon’s children all lived in fear. To them, there was no safer place than under the watchful eye of a god. When the ones that hid it died, the only one to pass it on to the next generation was The Teacher. And so we’ve kept it secret and left well enough alone.”
