Once again, I ducked under a fist the size of an express train. Diving past the hairy titan, I tripped on the ropes. Frantically rolling aside, a hairy foot slammed on the floor, cracking the marble and just missing my head. Since it was so close, I did the only logical act and buried my teeth into the shin of the monster. Hey, any damage done to an opponent, no matter how minor, was a point in your favor. Crunching hard, my mouth filled with the coppery taste of warm blood. Bleh. How do vampires live on this stuff?
Strangely, the werewolf screamed from the tiny wound as if he had lost a limb and violently shook me off. Taking advantage of the situation, I scrambled to my feet, grabbed a hairy arm and tossed the giant creature over my shoulder in a classic Judo throw. The monster hit the marble wall like a sack of wet newspapers advertising cement and slid to the floor, leaving a grisly trail on blood to mark its passage.
Forcing itself to stand, the groggy creature turned to face me eye-to-eye. Eh? When had the beast shrunk in size?
Shrieking in pain, the werewolf seemed to blur as ripples of change spread outwards from the trivial wound in its leg. Hair follicles withdrew into the skin, its jaw shortened, fangs shrank and ears became round and pink.
Catching my breath, I had a flash of understanding. According to the legends, if a werewolf bit a person, they became a werewolf. So maybe to cure a werewolf, what you had to do was ... bite him back? Well, waddayano!
In stark terror, the transforming monster tried to escape, but I tripped him. Scrunching his face, the Scion agent tried to countermand the transformation. But it proved unstoppable, and soon I was towering over a naked man with the most amazingly innocent expression on his face.
"Why, I am cured!” he cried joyously. “It is like I have awakened from a bad dream."
Oh brother, now tell me the one about the magic bunny. I guess my expression revealed my feelings, because he went pale.
"Don't you believe me, officer?” the runt asked, with a sickly sweet grin.
Now how would he knew I was a cop unless he remembered his actions as a werewolf? “Should have copped the Fifth, pal,” I said, slamming the cowardly killer smack in the bazoo with every ounce of strength I possessed.
The blow nearly succeeded in melding his nose to ear. Spinning like a drugged top, the scrawny bastard spewed blood and teeth as he toppled to floor, nowhere near as dead as he deserved.
Hurriedly turning about, I kicked over the ropes and advanced for the rock lady. But then from the midst of the raging dimensional storm came a dark flash, followed by a sucking retort. Then everything went calm, and with a sick feeling in my stomach, I knew the Fly spell had just been cancelled. The hotel was starting to fall.
Retreating a meter, I charged at the old woman. Instantly, I was bombarded by delusions of madness: scenes from my personal past, movies clips, TV commercials and vignettes from the legitimate theatre. Struggling to retain my sanity, I fought my way through the phantasmal hordes of historical figures and cartoon caricatures. Step by step, I advanced. Grimly determined to reach her or die. My heart began to pound wildly. It was difficult breathing. My skin tightened painfully, my bones shifted positions, my hair began to grow ... Holy tapdancing Jesus, I was becoming a werewolf!
As ghostly bicycles raced through the room, I threw myself forward against the hurricane force of the space-twisting rift. Stretching until I thought joints would pop, I just barely managed to slip the bracelet on her skinny wrist.
"Home!” I screamed, then in my mind, HOMEHOMEHOME!
In a flash of ethereal light, she instantly vanished taking along the transdimensional vortex. Whew! But still braced counter the ethereal winds, I was caught off balance and hit the floor. Success! Chicago was safe! Ouch, landed on my car keys.
My joy dimmed as giant cracks appeared in the floor, and the ticket booth collapsed. The whole damn hotel was shuddering from the raw velocity of its unchecked plummet. I always knew this job would kill me someday. Well, at least it would be quick. No, wait a damn minute, I'm in a hotel for an occult convention!
Adrenaline rushing in my veins, I glanced about. With the departure of the moon rock, now exposed on the other side of the exhibit hall was a line of dealers booths. Struggling to keep my balance on the disco-dancing building, I did a fast inventory of the magical paraphernalia: crystal balls, books, pyramids, Tarot cards, Quija boards, cassette tapes, knives, rugs. Rugs! Yes! But my sunglasses were long gone. How was I supposed to know which was real and which the sham?
Gathering air into my lungs, I shouted a Word Of Power above the deafening noise of cracking concrete. A rug at the bottom of the pile seemed to tremble. Maybe it was just my imagination. I yanked it free, sending the rest of the carpets tumbling to the floor. Then again, maybe not.
The doorway collapsed and the windows exploded. Icy winds howled throughout the hotel tearing the fixtures off the walls.
Rummaging in the debris, I found an assortment of ornamental daggers. Hoped they were clean. Snatching a serpentine kris, I sliced my palm and squeezed a fist letting the drops fall onto the carpet.
"One is for thy weaver.” Drip. “One is for thy master.” Drip. Oh hell, what was next? Ah, yes. “One is for thee.” Drip, drip, drip. “And three is for me."
Nothing happened.
As the building started to break apart around me, I angrily dropkicked the carpet. “Fly, damn you!"
Instantly responding to a direct command, the woven cloth went rigid hovering at knee level. Banzai! Grabbing another carpet, I hopped onto the Egyptian Express wrapping the second rug tight around me. Oh god, I hoped this worked.
The curtains and carpet burst into flames, and a steel I-beam pierced a wall, coming dangerously close.
"Get me out of here!” I commanded.
Wafting casually, it headed for the stairs.
"Straight through the window!” I screamed. “And don't spare the horsehairs!"
In a shower of glass I was suddenly outside the hotel and flying through the starry sky. Yowsa! When this thing cut loose, even George would be impressed with the speed. I decided to name it Runner.
Shucking my protective wrap, I craned my neck to watch the building fall. Sadly, I observed that the individual pieces had joined together and it was a completely whole ten-story building hurtling down towards ... hey, that wasn't O'Hare! Or Chicago!
No, it isn't.
Jess!
Who else, pumpkin?
No coherent thoughts came to mind.
How sweet. I love you too. And to bring you up to date on current events, Raul used his and Katrina's wands to Gate the whole damn building away from any populated area.
Brilliant! Where?
She told me, and with a contented smile, I settled in to watch the show. From this high upward, I should have a splendid view of the crash.
A trail of flame stretched out behind the rocketing hotel like a comet's tail. Knifing through the cloud layer, the hotel reached and went past Mach One. With a sonic boom, the building broke apart again, the chunks continuing like a shotgun blast.
What remained of the hotel crashed precisely in the middle of Hadleyville, West Virginia, instantly converting into 700 million ergs of pure radiant heat.
In a blinding flash, the stores and homes disappeared, everything pulverized by the sheer force of the concussion. Jagged cracks spread out from the impact point like earthy lightning bolts. Motionless for a million geological years, the nearby Appalachian Mountains danced from the shock waves, but maintained enough integrity to contain the brunt of the nuclear-grade explosion.
For a split second, the twisted skeleton of a subterranean base was silhouetted in the hellish fury. Brought into view and annihilated. Feebly, the volatile chemicals in the armory added their pittance of destruction to the violent display. Fusing into fission, the structures vanished in a strobe sequence, the lambent vapor converting metal and stone into radiant flame. Layers of bedrock dissolved. Then the sheer mass of the planet pushed back against the ravening onsl
aught, and the plasma blast rebounded. Superheated gasses belched forth from the bottom of the incandescent crater in a deafening roar, coruscating flares leapt for the sky and boiling smoke formed a clean mushroom cloud overhead.
Clutching the fringe of Runner, I held on for dear life and rode the volcanic storming as best I could. After what seemed an eternity, the rumbling vibrations ceased and an eerie stillness enshrouded the decimated headquarters of the Scion with a graveyard peace.
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Epilogue
We never heard from the Scion of the Silver Dagger again. However, as the news of how I stopped the head of the Scion began to spread through the occult community, werewolves start disappearing across the entire world. Talk about taking a bite out of crime!
After Katrina beat the mage, and Jess killed her evil counterpart, they rushed to join the fight, rescuing George and saving the good Father's life. Mike had been one heartbeat away from death. He walks with a wooden cane these days. A cane built by Remington Firearms that fires 12 gauge shotgun shells, of course.
Our jetsam equipment crashed in farmland and the only victims were an assortment of squash. How appropriate.
A short phone call from Horace Gordon to the President, and NASA started replacing their moon rocks on display with precise duplicates tooled out of rocks from Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. Who's going to know the difference? It cost NASA a pretty penny, but after a special favor we had done for them once, it was considered only fair payment.
Our Cyber Cops had wisely fled the vicinity of Hadleyville when the sky began falling and we didn't lose a single robot.
In less than a month, Mathias Bolt and most of the top echelon of the Brotherhood of Darkness were arrested for committing a wide variety of crimes directly traceable to them by the money I had marked inside that safe.
The crew of the USS: Idaho was rescued, and with the assistance of the Bureau mermaids, we even managed to save the mighty battleship herself. The mass marriage is next month. Oh, those crazy sailors.
It took micro surgeons from West Virginia to remove the moon rock from the fist of Dr. Joanne Abernathy, but she has a nice robotic replacement and doesn't really mind. After a pep talk from Horace Gordon it appears that Dr. Abernathy will be joining our august organization. Lord knows we can always use trained medical personnel.
Our running battle on the Ohio Turnpike was declared a shoot-out between rival drug gangs. The firefights in Chicago attributed to mob warfare. Officially, the Idaho never sank.
Exposed to the truth about the supernatural threats to America, the Bureau received over a thousand recruits from every branch of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense. For the first time since the Slaughter of ‘77 we have a full compliment of agents.
Plus, ten new mages, Jessica added.
The more the better, in my opinion. Oddly, Runner and Amigo have become the best of friends. Now, if only we could stop them from taking joy rides and strafing the Chicago Zoo. Those dry cleaning bills are killing us!
Damaged from her deadly psionic battle, Jessica found that her telepathic powers had been reduced to her natural level and ME! is visiting a psychologist and getting some treatment for its maniac depression.
We got a new RV.
After rebuilding the downtown Chicago apartment building, an old dead friend of ours, Abduhl Benny Hassan, moved into the basement of our new urban fortress. This pleased every member of my team, especially Mindy. Without a ghost in the basement, it just wasn't home. Besides, who else could get a deep dish pizza from Carmen's on Sheridan Avenue, and be back in less than a split second? That was an extremely useful talent. I mean really, cold pizza? Horror of horrors!
During this, George was in the Geneva Medical Institute recovering from his latest rounds of plastic surgery. He'll be fine, and resembling Sean Connery if the lovely Ms. Katrina has anything to say about his facial reconstruction.
Bureau 13 headquarters is no longer located in the Sears Tower, and the ‘Lazy Eight’ has been renamed the ‘Vogue’ Motel.
I started growing hair every full moon, but with my monthly anti-lycanthropy shots and a fresh razor I'm doing fine.
The fight between the buxom ThunderBunnies and the demonic Colombian mercenaries at the Museum of Science and Industry will be released next summer by TriStar pictures under the title, “Windycity Wipe-Out!". The movie will be rated: H. No heart attack patients or heretics allowed.
To this day, J.P. Withers will not talk to me.
Once again doing the impossible, the Army Corp of Engineers diverted a West Virginia river and managed to flood the impact crater from the hotel, then a private investment company started construction on Meteor Lake Amusement Park. We even got to help design the Extreme Haunted House. Now that was fun! Sometimes, my team even stops by to play the monsters, just for a change of pace. The amusement park also happens to have a hotel that hosts a lot of conventions. Hey, it was a great idea, and we would be fools not to use it ourselves.
Waste not, want not.
Exactly! A few days later, the entire Bureau 13 organization was present at a private ceremony in a secluded section of Arlington National Cemetery, as we laid to rest the men and women, soldiers and civilians, mages, monsters, and mortals, who paid the ultimate price to defend this crazy world. Then Horace Gordon gave the same speech that he always does at funerals, quoting the great philosopher Marcus Aurellius.
"A wall of troops surrounded the campfire, guarding the civilians and children through the chilly darkness until the dawn,” he said softly, the ancient words sounding brand new in the silvery light of the full moon. “And so shall it ever be, soldiers standing bold against the creatures of the night!"
Amen, brother. Amen.
-THE END-
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Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] Page 20
