“Come again?” asked Sparks.
“I’ll explain when you get here. I’m going to get the girl to wash up and maybe run a brush through her hair if I can find one. I’m sure I’ve got toiletries stowed away somewhere in an old duffel bag.”
I hung up the phone and padded over to the water closet. I’d installed a small shelving unit when I bought Das Bunker from Crown Assets, and I was pleased to find a hairbrush along with a tube of toothpaste, a collection of small bars of soap I’d pilfered from a Super 8 in Truro and a pair of unused hotel-grade toothbrushes. There were three rolls of paper towels on the bottom shelf next to a steel wash basin. I gathered everything together and headed to the kitchen area. I poured piping hot water from the immersion heater into the steel basin and then turned around to see Charlotte standing behind me.
“Any news from your mural?” I asked.
She shook her head. “We’re safe for a bit, Mister R. Is all that stuff for me?”
I nodded. “Yeah, kid. We’ve got soap and toothpaste and a hairbrush for you. I’m going to dig through my duffel bag and see if I can find something else for you to wear besides that old nighty.”
Charlotte busied herself with washing up while I rifled through a duffel bag I’d kept in the sleeping area. I was rewarded for my efforts with the discovery of an old Molson Export Ale T-shirt that was likely ten sizes too large for the girl. I gave it a sniff, and it didn’t smell musty at all. I wandered back to the kitchen area and tossed the t-shirt to Charlotte.
“Thanks,” she said as I turned around and headed back to the firing bay. I texted Sparks to tell her to bring something for the girl to wear. She replied with one word: “Duh.”
“You decent, kid?” I shouted.
“Yes,” she said, walking into the firing bay.
I took one look at Charlotte and stifled a laugh. The T-shirt draped down over her bony frame like a flapper’s dress from the 1920’s.
“There are some clothes on the way, kiddo,” I said easily. “The beer shirt is just temporary.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Right. You can see it in your scribblings.”
“They’re not scribblings, Mister R!” she snapped. “I wish I could make you understand, but I can’t.”
I motioned for her to calm down. “It’s cool, Charlotte. I’m just trying to understand. It’s almost like this was supposed to happen, you know?”
“It was,” she conceded. “Someone is coming up the grid road.”
I glanced at my watch. “That will be Detective Sparks. You remember her from back at your house on Victoria Road, yeah?”
Charlotte nodded. “She is a good person. She shines with goodness that nobody sees.”
“She can also fire a bullet up a flea’s arse, and she’s really good at putting you in a hammerlock. Let’s go meet her.”
Charlotte slipped her leather gloves on and followed me through the thick steel blast door and into the tunnel. We strolled through the other end of the tunnel and spotted a very serious looking Carol Sparks behind the wheel of a Toyota RAV 4. She parked next to her nearly destroyed police cruiser complete with missing roof and climbed out of her vehicle. Sparks held up a hand and then disappeared underneath the Crown Victoria, emerging a few seconds later holding a small black box with wires sticking out of it.
“GPS,” she called out as she tossed the black box onto the back seat of the cruiser. “Also, you owe the Halifax City Police a late model Crown Victoria, Reaper. What the hell happened to my car?”
I snorted. “As mentioned on the phone, we ran into some bad company on the way to my safe house. Sorry about your car.”
She exhaled in frustration and gazed at Charlotte. “What’s with the gloves?”
“All the better to not kill you with,” I chortled. Charlotte elbowed me in the ribs.
“I can speak for myself, Mister R,” she said with a hint of defiance in her voice. “Bad things happen if I touch you, so I’m wearing gloves.”
Sparks opened the hatch to her SUV with a flick of the key fob. The rear door opened slowly amid the sound an electric hum. She pointed to her SUV and said, “You can carry that big box of stuff inside, Reaper. I’ll carry the breakfast.”
“I was just joking about your bringing along some grub, Sparks,” I said.
The detective opened the driver’s side door, reached in and then emerged with two bags from McDonald’s along with a tray with a couple of large coffees and what I assumed was a big cup of orange juice.
“This meal is temporary,” she declared, closing the driver’s door with her right foot. “We need to eat and then sit down to figure out what to do next.”
The three of us wandered back down the tunnel and emerged a minute later back inside the bunker. I closed the door with a loud metallic clang, and then sealed us inside using the combat locks. Sparks padded over to the small dinette table inside the kitchen and then quickly took all of the food out of the McDonald’s bag, creating a large stack of fast-food breakfast.
“Help yourselves,” she said. “Sorry if it’s cold. I hit the drive-thru in Truro and that was more than half an hour ago.”
Charlotte sat down at and grasped a paper envelope containing a hash brown. She pulled it out and began to nibble as she eyeballed a sausage muffin.
“Eat up, kiddo,” I said, snatching an egg muffin from the stack. I immediately unwrapped it and took a huge bite. “Seriously. There is nothing on this Earth better than a good fast-food breakfast.”
Sparks pulled up a folding chair and took a seat between Charlotte and me. She pried open the lid on her coffee and took a sip as she reached for a breakfast sandwich. “I did a cursory search on your mother, Charlotte. She’d never had a run-in with the law. I dug a bit further and found something interesting.”
“What’s that?” said Charlotte through a mouthful of breakfast sandwich.
Sparks glanced at me uncomfortably for a second and then cast her gaze at Charlotte. “I couldn’t find any record for you. When police can’t find any record connecting a child to its parent, we tend to think that child either doesn’t exist or was abducted.”
I nearly spit out my breakfast. “Abducted!”
“Jesus, Reaper,” Sparks griped. “Don’t you ever read the newspaper?”
“He was a real person, you know,” said Charlotte, raising a finger. “But everything he ever taught has been messed up by people.”
“Bingo,” I announced, pointing an index finger at Charlotte. “People gotta put their spin on stuff, don’t they?”
Sparks chewed on a hash brown for a few seconds and softened her features. Helping her come to terms with the fact that supernatural forces exist in the human world isn’t exactly a simple process for Carol Sparks. She typically wears a face that screams she’s about a second away from pulling your colon out sans surgical instruments. You’re basically taking your life in your hands.
“Charlotte,” she said carefully. “Is it possible that your mother might have—”
“You think that my mother took me,” said Charlotte in her guidance counsellor voice. “I can see why you would believe that because there are no records of me having ever been born. What you don’t understand is why there are no records of me.”
Sparks blinked, and then looked across the table at me. She mouthed the letters WTF.
“That’s still Charlotte, Sparks,” I said easily. “She speaks in two different voices. It’s complicated.”
“Fair enough, I’ll bite,” said Sparks as she eyeballed the girl with more than a glint of suspicion in her eyes. “Why are there no records of you?”
Charlotte took another bite from her hash brown and said, “Because I wasn’t born in a hospital. I was born in secret. I have never been to school because I have no need of schooling. I have never been to a doctor or a dentist because I have remained healthy.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You were born in secret because of what you are? Is that it? I guess what comes to mind i
s how could your mother have known what you are before you were conceived?”
Charlotte emitted a slight chuckle and leaned across the table. “You are asking me about how my mother could have known that I was different before I was born yet you are not even human. That’s a bit rich, death-dealer.”
Sparks nearly choked on her coffee. “She knows what you are?”
I nodded. “Smart kid. She knows everything about anything, past, present and future.”
“This is crazy,” Sparks said, exhaling heavily. “And people have been after you all your life because of what you are.”
“Not people,” said Charlotte, reverting to her eight-year-old voice. “Monsters. From the bad place.”
No sooner had the words fallen from the girl’s lips when an almighty crash rocked the bunker. Chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling as the floor pitched and the three of us were thrown from our chairs. A cloud of thick white dust filled the air as another blast of explosive force rocked the bunker.
“It’s like we’re on the receiving end of an artillery barrage!” I hollered as I grabbed my Zippo and gave it a flick. A bright amber glow burned through the thick cloud of dust. “Can you see the flame?”
A pair of leather gloved hands grabbed my forearm, and I pulled Charlotte close. I handed her the lighter and reached for the gun in the small of my back. A few feet away I could here Sparks coughing. A bright light filtered through the dust and I quickly realized that Sparks had a flashlight. Charlotte closed the Zippo and handed it back to me just as another crash rocked the bunker.
“What the hell is happening, Reaper?” Sparks shouted as I followed the light while I slung Charlotte under my left arm like a sack of flour.
“Someone or something has found us!” I coughed as I stumbled into Sparks. “That arsehole Abraxas has probably come back to take another shot at Charlotte!”
Another blast of explosive force shook the bunker as we stumbled to the blast door. We had to exit the bunker, and that meant we’d have to fight through whatever was waiting outside. Remaining inside the bunker was no longer an option.
“I thought you said this place was safe!” Sparks groaned as she began turning the combat lock on the steel blast door.
“It used to be!” I fired back. “This bunker was designed to withstand an artillery barrage from the German battleship Tirpitz!”
“Why didn’t I see this coming?” Charlotte coughed as she struggled to escape my grip. “I need to see my formula on the wall!”
The door swung open just as another explosion rocked the bunker and sent us tumbling out into the tunnel. I picked up Charlotte with my left arm and carried her to the entrance of the tunnel, my gun pointing the way. Another blast and a thick plume of concrete dust rolled up the tunnel, enveloping the three of us. I could spot daylight ahead, but I knew that as soon as we emerged from the tunnel whatever was waiting for us out there wanted us dead.
The story of my life.
7
I needed a plan, but the problem was that I didn’t have a clue who was bombarding the bunker.
“Charlotte,” I coughed out a lung-full of dust. “Can you tell me anything about who is attacking us?”
She shook her head. “No. I should have seen them coming. They were shrouded somehow.”
I blinked. “Shrouded? Great, so the bad guys have a stealth mode. Perfect.”
“We can’t stay in here, Reaper,” Sparks shouted. “This place won’t withstand much more of this.”
I let go of Charlotte. “Kid … you stay here with the detective. She’s a peace officer. She will lay down her life to protect you. I’m going out there. Do not come out until I call for you both, do you understand?”
Through the dust, I could see her dirt-smeared face. She nodded a couple of times as Sparks draped an arm around the girl’s waist and took up a firing position.
“I’ve got her,” Sparks said, coughing. “Are you going to do something like you did back at the beach?”
I stood up. “Don’t know yet. If I do, I’ll yell, and you guys head back to the bunker.”
Charlotte blinked a few times and emitted a loud dry cough. “What did you do?”
“Long story, kiddo. Stay put and listen to the detective. Got it?”
She nodded again. “I got it.”
Another blast hit the bunker, and a billowing curtain of dust blew through the tunnel. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do once I stepped outside. If only I’d been allowed to keep the Holy sword I’d used to take down Jael at the beach in Lawrencetown. I pushed on through the dust, and within seconds I was standing outside the tunnel. All around me were large clumps of torn sod, broken trees and chunks of concrete. Miraculously, Sparks’ SUV had survived the barrage. The same couldn’t be said of the roofless police cruiser as it was now flat as a pancake and laying on top of the bunker. I gazed skyward, and an icy chill crept along my skin. Instead of a bat-winged freak from the depths of Hell, what gazed down back at me was a trio of angels, each carrying a flaming gladius.
“My life is rich,” I grumbled.
All three angels wore armoured chest plates of gold that glowed brightly in the morning sun. Their powerful wings cut through the air like the rotors on a trio of attack helicopters. Each wore armoured plate over their shins, and each shared your typical angelic facial features: chiselled, blue-eyed and flawless. It was as if Michelangelo himself had carved their bodies from marble.
“We know who is inside your cave death-dealer,” shouted the angel closest to me. And by closest, I mean he was fifty feet in the air, hovering straight above me.
“The name is Reaper,” I shouted back. “If we were friends, I’d let you call me by my first name, but friends don’t bombard other friends’ safe houses with magical super cosmic holy heavenly artillery! What is your name? Did that arsehole Ezekiel send you?”
A sharp gust of wind blew across the bay, and the temperature suddenly dropped like a stone as the trio of angels landed about ten yards away from me. Yellow-golden flames blazed from their swords, and I could feel the blistering heat against my face. Obviously, I wouldn’t stand a chance against three angels unless He was working through me again. And I had no evidence that He was even paying attention.
“I am Raziel, the keeper of secrets, and you are anathema for all time,” sneered the first angel. “The creator might well believe you to be a force for good, but we do not. Stand aside or we three will strike you down. We have come for the abomination.”
“That is no way to talk about Detective Sparks,” I fired back. “If she heard what you guys just said she’d come out with both guns blazing. Look, if you’re the keeper of secrets, then I’m gonna assume The Man with the Big White Beard probably doesn’t know what you’re up to.”
I’d just taken a breath to unleash another snappy comeback when the first angel swung his sword overhead. An arc of crimson force swept across the ground and hit me square in the chest. I flew through the air and crashed hard into the trunk of an oak tree. Acorns rained down on me as I slowly got back to my feet. I grabbed my Beretta from the small of my back and emptied the entire magazine, but the angel swept my volley aside like the bullets were an annoying swarm of gnats.
I was just about to load another magazine of nine-millimetre ammunition when my Beretta was plucked out of my right hand by an invisible force. A second later the same invisible force grabbed me by the torso and squeezed. My breath gushed out of my mouth like air rushing from a balloon. I struggled hard to free myself, but the first angel would have none of it. Raziel made a snatching motion, and I was swept off the ground like a dog snatching a chew-toy. I tumbled through the air and crashed into the fender of the police cruiser atop of the bunker. The car spun around on its roof like a top, and I tumbled down the front of the bunker facing the ocean.
I groaned as I slowly tried to get back to my feet. In front of me was a steep incline and I dug my feet into the ground with each step in hopes that I wouldn’t slip and fall
into the ocean a couple of hundred feet below.
Raziel wasn’t the first angel I’d battled. I remembered the angel Sariel who tried to kill me a few months ago. I recalled that I’d dug my fingers into his holy flesh and reached out with my essence until I’d latched onto his spirit. If I could get Raziel to touch me with his bare hands, I might have a chance at taking him down. But there were two more angels to contend with, and I wondered how I was going to manage to repeat the effort two more times without getting myself torn to pieces in the process.
I struggled back up to the top the bunker, and I spotted the trio of angels standing at the entrance to the tunnel. I saw their sandaled feet on the bare ground, and I thought for a moment there might be a chance of latching onto all three. They hadn’t spotted me yet and could see they were about to enter the tunnel and head into the bunker. If that happened, they’d easily blast through the steel door, and that would be the end of both Sparks and Charlotte. I had one shot at this.
I scrambled down the side of the bunker and doubled around as quiet as a church mouse. Ahead was a thicket of scrub brush about four feet high. I’d only lashed out with the death energy that fuelled my unnatural essence a few times before when everything was at stake. As I dove into the bush, I could see the three angels readying their swords. Each spoke angelic words of power in unison, and I stared dumbfounded as the flames on their swords instantly turned bright blue like the cutting flame from three different welder’s torches. I knew they’d cut through that steel blast door like a hot knife through butter. It was time to make my move.
I drew on the ancient power from within as I dug my fingers into the turf. I could taste the dampness of the soil in my mouth and my mind filled with scattershot images of the history of the place. My senses came alive as I lashed out. Blades of grass which were bright green only seconds ago, wilted and turned grey. I could feel the creatures beneath the soil crying out as their lives ended at the display; their living energy fuelling my body and nourishing me against the damage I was expecting to receive once the three angels realized they were under attack.
The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 7
