Good enough. I nodded. “Go.”
Weaving golden trails in the air, the buxom woman consulted her pocket books of spells and started to chant in a language not English or Russian. Someday, I would discover what the private language of magic was, and why nobody but a wizard could even pronounce the words.
With a shuddering gasp, Jessica began to breath again. In mere seconds, color returned to her cheeks and she softly called my name. Lowering my voice as much as possible, I said her name and gave her hand a squeeze. Alive. She was alive! But at what cost? Only time would tell.
There came sounds from the other side of the hangar doors.
“Who?” I asked in sign language.
“Jewels,” came the fumbling reply. Mindy had never been a good speller, and George had never been very adept at sign language.
“Katrina,” I asked of Edwardo. “Seal the hangar doors with a Lock spell!”
My head was shaken. “Nyet. You have no magic for me to use.”
Hell and damnation. “Raul?”
He shook her head, blonde locks swishing. “No can do, chief. I'm drained after fixing Jess.”
“Drained! From one Heal?” I asked. “Just how bad was she?”
He-in-she paused. “Let's just say she knows the Grim Reaper by sight and leave it at that.”
Zounds. In angry thought, I closed a hand into a fist, the knuckles cracking and popping. Okay, nothing else to do. Fingering the words for routine one, the team shifted to both side of the doors and waited for the rush. There was no means of escape, or place to hide. We couldn't use magic, or shoot them, or knock ‘em out with BZ or sleep gas. That left only one remaining option. The oldest ploy in military history.
Ponderously slow, the double doors parted and as the gang of reporters boldly entered, my stumbling team laid into them with fists, feet, teeth and staffs.
Professional spectators, the reporters had no ability for bare knuckle brawling, such as it was, so we were gentle and limited their destruction to a few black eyes, a couple of lumps and a broken nose or two. But down they went and for the count.
Dusting our wrong hands off afterwards, we tromped on the video camera, smashed the tape recorder, then stole Englehart's pants, and took several tasteless pictures with 35mm at F100 at medium focus suitable for 8X10 color portrait shot, and pocketed the film. These could come in useful at some future date, and there was always the possibility of a bulk mailing. Not to mention the Internet!
“Faith, its the police!” Father Donaher-in-Raul shouted, as the hangar doors cycled shut with a hollow boom. “Lots of them! They must have heard the slaughter.”
“Street cops, or SWAT?” Mindy-in-George asked, twisting her hands to reach a sword pommel not there.
“SWAT, with Navy SEALS, I think.”
Then we were dead meat. This ploy wouldn't work twice, especially on SWAT and SEALS. Even in our prime, these guys could give us a run for the money.
“Can we disguise ourselves as the reporters?” George-in-Donaher asked urgently. “Steal their clothes?”
“None of them are women!” I snapped. “Maybe Mindy could pass, but not Jess, and how are we going to hide those?” I pointed at Raul-in-Katrina's ample chest. He/she blushed.
“Smash the keypad lock,” Mindy-in-George suggested. “That should slow ‘em down, at least.”
It was done.
“Who's got a watch?” Donaher-in-Raul demanded. But nobody did. Every one had been used in battle.
Limping to the pentagram, Donaher-in-Raul took a hand radio from the belt holster of an unconscious guard and dialed to the proper CB channel which the Bureau secretly monitored for emergency broadcasts from agents. He pressed the transmit switch. “Alert! Alert! Tunafish on toast! Need immediate evac! Co-ordinates on request! Respond!”
The only response was a rush of static.
“Goddamn thing is broken!” Donaher-in-Raul snarled irritably.
“Nyet! Give to me!” Ed Alvarez ordered, rushing over with a very feminine sway to his hips.
“Faith, you can't use it, lass,” Raul aghast said. “No mage can!”
“I am not mage!” the handsome fellow snapped. “I am mage in a human. You are human in a mage!”
Confusing but accurate. I could see that soon nametags would be necessary. Oh lord, this was weird and dangerous. One agent had the power, but another had the knowledge to use it. Thus our own training was working against us, and on the way were squads of grim calvary who would probably think we were the bad guys. You ever just have one of those days?
“Bureau, respond!” Katrina-in-Ed said, into another radio. More static. Tossing the communicator aside, she/me grabbed another. “Hello, Bureau!” the PI shouted trying another radio. “Bureau, respond!” Static.
“Use code!” I snapped at myself. “No open transmissions on a public airwave!”
“No matter,” Ed sighed. “Most of devices are broken.”
“Maybe they're not free from their pocket dimension yet,” Mindy-in-George suggested, scratching at a place most women normally did not.
Grinding my teeth, I smacked fist into palm. If only we had some BZ gas. The harmless military hallucinogenic would befuddle the troops long enough for us to escape. No, that was wrong. We had no masks, and they most definitely did.
A pounded sounded on the doors. Then sparks crackled on the dangling wires of the broken keypad. They were trying for a bypass.
“Hey, breaker breaker one-three, there good buddy,” drawled a radio on the deck. “This is Dragon Master looking for a ten-eighteen on I-80 west. Kicker back.”
Katrina-in-Ed stared at the CB as if it was speaking Martian.
Was it the Bureau, or just some truck driver actually asking for road information? We had to chance it. I snatched the radio from my hands. “Ten-two, Dragon Master. Negatory on the eighteen, friend. This is the Suicide Jockey and we're in ten-one hundred up to our necks. Got the hammer down with a party of thirty cold friends and the smokies are a knocking on our door. They'll be hanging paper on us till doomsday unless we find a rocking chair to slide into fast! Can you help? Come on.”
“Well, ten-four, good buddy. I ain't Uncle Charlie, but I'm a cousin of his and always happy to oblige. I got your ten-twenty on the flip-flop. But your voice sure sounds funny for the Suicide Jockey. Is this the Mad Mexican from the Windy City?”
Oh shit, I was Mindy!
“That's part of the problem, Dragon Master. We have switched vehicles. The Suicide Jockey is in the chassis of the Tiger Lady.”
“Say what? Come again?” Confusion filled his voice.
The warning lights set above the doors began to flash.
“We'll explain later, Dragon Master,” I snapped. “This is zero hour. Move it, or lose it.”
“Well, then,” he said, and there was a short pause. “I'd surely appreciate knowing what is your favorite type of sandwich?”
“Tunafish!” we cried in loose unison.
Nigh instantly, an amber oval formed in the air and flexing lines of force spun outward to pass over the moaning reporters and ensnare everybody else; us, the guards, LaRue, Hoto, Tanner, the charred remains of Sanders and even the jeep. We levitated into the magic portal just as the double doors to the hangar slammed open and a single flashbulb went off from a tiny pocket camera held by a rumpled man on the deck.
But all Jules Englehart got was the fuzzy picture of a transparent ghost giving him the finger as it faded away.
Ha! Print that, ya bozo.
EPILOGUE
As the portal closed, the strands released us gently on a cushioned mat inside a huge pentagram, ringed by armed guards, most of whom I knew. A squad of medics pushed their way through and swarmed over us, hauling Jessica away on a hospital gurney. After a moment, I recognized where we were. The observation tower on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. Holy Cow, we hadn't used this place in seventy years!
Jessica spent a week in an iron lung at Bellevue Hospital, but was then mo
ved to the Rehabilitation Ward of the Mayo Clinic. She would live and there would be no physical damage.
As Wilson LaRue had so kindly repaired the damage caused by our fight with his battle machines, the entire USS: Intrepid incident was discounted as mass hysteria augmented by swamp gas. One of our all-time favorite cover stories. The few civilians killed on the streets were merely considered the normal causalities in the endless violence of New York City. Sad, but true.
The files of the missing 30 guards were hastily changed to show that they had been transferred to another post the day before and the Intrepid had been totally deserted that night. The attack on Englehart and his crew was attributed to a foiled mugging attempt. But our blackmail photos of his lacy bikini briefs came out wonderful.
In short order, the Holding Facility was shifted to the far side of the moon, the connecting doorway located two hundred miles into the desert of New Mexico, smack in the middle of the White Sands nuclear testing range. In case of another mass escape, there will be a small, unscheduled Hydrogen Bomb test. So there.
As soon as possible, my team led a foray into an alternate universe where we traded junk scrap iron for 12 more tokomac fusion reactors from the peaceful machine culture of Click. Nice folks, but as oil was against a tenant of the local religion, they squeaked something awful. Next trip, I was bringing earplugs.
Then Technical Services decompartmentalized the entire Holding Facility with Faraday cages so this nasty incident could never happen again.
It was discovered that the reason the old car in the hospital parking lot had captured our attention so was because LaRue had coated the vehicle with an alchemical ‘Steal Me’ potion. After we departed, the exploded wreck was stolen a few hours later. Its cross country odyssey of being swiped from the thieves who snatched it from the crooks who ripped it off from the initial joy-riders, was a magnificent exercise in futility. At present, we believe the car to be somewhere in Outer Mongolia.
Our archenemy, Jules Englehart got fired from the staff of the National Gazette and started immediately his own private newspaper, The Secret Truth. Oh well, win a few, lose a few.
Instituting a massive recruitment drive, we inducted the Alabama bus driver, the two Chicago police officers, the kid with the video camera, the toll booth attendants Lumpy tried to consume, the Cincinnati officer who broke into our revelry in LaRue's Book Store, the entire class of Hebrew Union College rabbinical students, now Team Macabee, and even the traffic cop who gave George a ticket. She did not actually have a supernatural experience, George couldn't quite drive that fast, but desperately short of personnel, we were willing to bend the rules.
The six Navy Shore Patrol officers who survived LaRue's torture needed microsurgery to separate them from their deceased companions. But afterwards, each was happy to join the Bureau and fight such villains. One man proved to be a latent telepath, and another had become a wizard from the ethereal bombardment she twice received. A bonanza, all round.
Plus, four of the animated jet fighters remained in that augmented state and once free of the master's odious control, the loyal American fighters became machine agents for the existing Bureau techno-warrior division: Team Cyber Cops.
LaRue's Book Store was rebuilt into the Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, but this time by a White Witch from Massachusetts who would keep very careful records of who bought what. Not a Bureau agent, she was merely an associate who owed us a favor.
During the five minutes that there was no magic in the world, no end of bizarre events occurred. Fairies fell from the sky, Las Vegas casinos started losing money, a dozen werewolves were cured, a hundred crime bosses disappeared and a thousand haunted houses went condo. Republicans became Democrats, Democrats became Liberals, and Liberals got jobs. The Aurora Borealis winked out, boomerangs stopped returning and countless famous actors aged years instantly. Then everything precisely reversed as the magic returned.
However in Manhattan, there momentarily appeared a secret third tower of the World Trade Center. A medieval-style, block stone, structure and placed prominently on top was a giant neon that read, B13. It caused quite a stir.
B13 Vitamin Pills were released on the health market two weeks later. Yes, of course, the incredibly detailed laser hologram of the building had been only a crazy publicity stunt.
The structure is no longer there. Personally, I now think our headquarters is situated inside the support structure of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. But it's only a guess.
In the following week, Horace Gordon himself leaked the information that the young stripper in Huntsville was actually a federal agent on undercover assignment to crack a white slavery ring. Her family was astonished by the news that their daughter had died in a shoot out with international terrorists and had personally saved the life of the president. He came and visited them for an hour and gave them the Congressional Medal of Valor, the highest award a civilian can achieve in peace time. The politician was glad to do it. Plus, the parents were consoled a bit by the million dollars they received as their agent daughter's backlog of danger pay. Her name was Veronica Harmond.
Jess and I plan to call our first girl child that. It isn't much, but it helps me sleep at night. Sometimes.
Eventually, we returned to our original bodies. But not quite soon enough and I now have new respect for ladies who quietly suffer through that time of the month. Me, I'd would rather get hit in the head with a baseball bat every 28 days. Ugh.
Finally, Katrina Somers was permanently assigned to our group. Mr. Renault and the Russian beauty took permanent residence with each other. Oddly, according to the security monitors in the apartment something invisible from Raul's room went to visit Mindy in her room every single night and twice on Sundays. Gosh, whatever could that be?
In an unprecedented move, Horace Gordon himself told Father Donaher that his next sabbatical had better be to Hell-sinki, Finland, but leave the original alone. I wonder why?
Pizza-Pizza in Chicago cancelled our account and will no longer deliver to our pet pirate. Serves him right for under tipping. Justice will always triumph.
And then I received an odd letter in the post, no return address, no cancelled stamp. Inside was a plain piece of paper that simply told me to stop offering my soul for assistance, or else. Then it crumbled into dust and was blown away by unseen winds. A crank letter obviously. On the other hand, it was a stupid habit of mine, so what the heck.
Unfortunately, as the weeks passed it became apparent that Jessica had been rendered psionically dead from the overload of MCD, and her mental powers would never return. My wife would remain a Bureau 13 agent, but her personnel records have been shifted from Unique, to Normal: Previously Unique.
From the bombardment of raw magic that had coursed through our mages, Raul's staff went to silver topped with gold and Katrina was elevated to a stainless-steel mage.
Contrarily, the remote-control photocopier machine Raul had used to duplicate the Aztec manual was hauled away by the garbage men in many small broken pieces. The book Katrina saved from the fire at LaRue's Store proved to be a first edition of The Kitchen Magician: Basic Alchemy in the Home for Fun and Profit. Surely the volume that had started LaRue on his journey to hell. However, chained to the andirons in our fireplace, the animated book made a small, but pleasant blaze. I can only tolerate so much nonsense from any wizard.
Upon returning to our Chicago apartment, at dinner on our first free evening, we held our ritual toast welcoming Katrina Somers into our ranks. Then from another more special cup, we bid farewell to Lt. Colonel Kensington Sanders, the student who died giving humanity its fighting chance against a mad god.
The name of Special Agent Ken Sanders was placed on the Bureau 13 Roll of Honor, we hung his picture in our trophy room and a dignified monument to the brave soul was erected in his ancestral hometown of Lokitaung, Kenya. Funny, he hadn't looked African.
We never did discover his terrible secret and perhaps it was for the best. But Ken was a good man,
a top-notch agent and a damn fine friend.
Personally, I was going to miss the big gorilla.
THE END
Bonus short story:
UPGRADING
Impatiently, I waited for death to awaken.
The basement of the Los Angeles mansion was dark, but air conditioned and luxuriously paneled in real wood with plush velour carpeting. A giant screen TV with a state-of-the-art DVD player adorned one wall and a compact gym was located next to an assortment of clocks showing the time around the world. Nice. The only real oddity of the basement was that the windows were bricked shut. A logical precaution.
Slow as a shadow, the armored lid of the stainless steel coffin next to the jacuzzi opened and the thing inside sat up. He was pale, of course, clean shaven, dressed in light blue turtleneck sweater, black pants and Oxford two-tone shoes. Rather natty actually and he appeared totally human. Turning about, he stared at me in shock. Then questioning fear, puzzlement and finally delight.
“Not armed,” I announced, raising my empty hands. “No crosses, wooden stakes, garlic, Holy Water, nothing.”
The monster displayed a big smile full of long teeth. “Then you are a fool,” he hissed.
I smiled. “Yep. Kill me now.”
Stepping out of the coffin, the dapper humanoid paused. “You are ... a suicide?”
“Nope, a convert.”
Furrowing that noble brow, he seemed confused. “Eh? A what? You wish to become a vampyre?”
I could hear the old world pronunciation. Wow. This guy was really ancient. “Definitely.”
Striding closer, the midnight stalker breathed hot and heavy upon me. Oddly, his breath did not have the salty-copper smell of some hellish charnel house, but was minty fresh. He must have just brushed.
“Why?” the blood-beast demanded, looming closer.
“Why?” I gave him a lop-sided grin. “Get serious, dude. Vampires live forever.”
“But only at night,” he retorted, grabbing me by the collar and lifting my two hundred pounds of muscle as if I was a small child. “Never again shall you see the sweet majesty of the sun!”
Doomsday Exam [Bureau 13 #2] Page 24
