The Ancient Breed

by David Brookover

  Nick closed his eyes and pictured the island grotto beneath Lake Griffin. He felt Death’s icy breath. Both his sons had tragically died down there last year.

  Hugo tapped Nick’s shoulder. “Nick.”

  Nick’s eyelids popped open.

  Angry tears trickled down Hugo’s cheeks. “Bring her back alive, Nick.”

  Lisa hooked Crow’s arm during his third attempt at the wind-walking chant. This time there were no distractions to disturb his mental focus. An early morning breeze kicked up and bathed them with the sweet scent of clover and baled hay. His lips silently formed the ancient tribal words. Again, he failed.

  “I just can’t seem to get it right,” he sputtered, kicking the spiny weed tops.

  Lisa smiled calmly, took his hand, and squeezed it gently.

  “Let’s try it one more time. For Neo’s sake,” she said softly.

  Crow gathered what little poise remained and tried again. This time, they were whisked into a black, soundless void where time and space were nonexistent and where Grandfather’s presence was mysteriously absent.

  Nick materialized in the island’s bowels. The gruesome, deadly Mortal Eclipse experiments had taken place down there and had spawned hideous, killer mutants. Only one, the Creeper, had managed to escape into the outside world where it had preyed on innocent men, women, children, and not-so-innocent world leaders and drug dealers.

  He scanned the vast, dark cavern with his night vision for any sign of Glenna or the mysterious fireball, but all he saw was a faint, flickering blue glow rising from the distant castle moat. No Glenna. No fireball. The only other place they could be was in the underground tunnel that ran deep below the castle and led to the underground river.

  The eerie bastion, built into the grotto wall, loomed like a Gothic apparition. The castle had belonged to Nick’s inhuman ancestors. The ancient nightmare had been casting a sinister pall for centuries. Its lofty battlements, arched windows, massive stonework, moat, and drawbridge were enough to frighten anyone away.

  Before proceeding to the tunnel entrance inside the moat, Nick paused to inspect the massive stone and mortar construction and to marvel at how every inch of the castle’s surface was devoid of mildew or mold despite the dank atmosphere. Magic. He still hated the word and everything it stood for.

  Nick descended the well-hidden steps that led to the bottom of the moat. He wondered how he had managed to subsist through his childhood, college days, and all the unique FBI and Orion Sector training and experiences without suspecting that he possessed magical gifts. He yearned for that naive life again. But magic was in his DNA, and there was nothing he could do about it. Although it had tormented him by revealing his true parents last year, had nearly gotten his friends killed, and had been responsible for his sons’ deaths, it had one upside: He had met and fallen in love with Gabriella Wolfe.

  But like his life before magic, she was water over the dam, too. Exiled to the pureblood’s original dimension last year for saving his life. And, even though she promised to return to him soon, he was growing impatient. He wasn’t getting any younger, and there was a major complication by the name of . . .

  Lisa Anders.

  Nick snapped out of his reverie and entered the tunnel. It was a long hike to the underground river. One of the meteors that had ripped the time-space fabric separating the dimensions of Earth and Kundze lay on the far bank, and was the sole source of the Duneden witches’ magical energy.

  He marched along the narrow tunnel, keeping his eyes on the pulsating, blue brilliance ahead. Nick sensed that the source of the blue light was extremely powerful. He just hoped that he would get there in time to rescue Glenna.

  Nick stopped. This was taking too long. He closed his eyes, pictured the underground river, and suddenly he was there. Glenna’s spine-chilling scream split the heavy air as he arrived, and he froze at the incredible sight before him. A winking, blue energy net covered the enormous space like an electric spider web.

  Across the river, Glenna Guttentag was spread-eagled against the mysterious meteor while a black, writhing cloud circled her. The pear-shaped meteor emitted a dazzling, reddish-orange blaze, and Nick rapidly realized that the ominous black mass couldn’t penetrate its enormous power to kill Glenna.

  He backed away. It didn’t appear that she needed rescuing, and besides, what the hell could he do against such a powerful enemy? Nothing. But, then again, he thought, the fireball had turned tail and run from me inside the warehouse, so why wouldn’t it react the same way in this black, cloud form?

  Still, Nick remained silent. He didn’t want to attract its attention until he had a damn good plan. He thought about Hollis Danforth again. Would his father have allowed such a creature to work its will in his family’s domain? Nick was certain that Danforth would’ve shown the hostile thing the front door and sent it packing with a robust kick in the ass.

  Nick forced a grin or at least imagined he did. Defenseless and devoid of a plan, he decided to test his repulsive qualities with the black mass. He strode boldly to the riverbank.

  The blue energy net crackled, sizzled, and hissed as Nick passed under it. Sensing Nick’s approach, the black cloud gathered into a perfect black globe and transformed itself into the familiar fireball. The overhead energy net flickered and then disappeared into the growing fireball.

  Nick raised his arms. “Leave!”

  Instead of retreating as it did in the warehouse, the fireball rushed Nick and rendered a knockout punch that sent him flying. He landed fifteen feet from the bank.

  Nick shook his head. The fireball was now a bit fuzzy in his glazed eyes. He licked the salty liquid painting his lips as the fireball hovered above the underground river. He sensed that it was waiting to reach its maximum energy level before it closed in for the kill. He grunted as his bruised leg muscles pushed him to a standing position.

  His knees wobbled, but he remained upright. Nick angrily wiped the blood from his eyes and glared at the fireball. No one, especially a goddammed fireball, was going to take control of his family’s legacy. He clenched his fists and managed a crooked smile.

  “C’mon, you bastard,” he taunted the cloud. “Come and get a heaping helping of whoopass.”

  The words had barely passed through his swollen lips when the fireball sped toward him. Nick suddenly sensed that, this time, the murderous creature was going for the kill.

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  lethal, reddish-orange dagger rocketed from the meteor and sliced through the heart of the fireball just before it reached Nick. The fireball abruptly rolled into itself until it was reduced to a miniscule spec hovering in the cavern shadows. The distressed mass released another high-pitched, earsplitting whine that shook the castle’s foundation far above. Rivulets of dust and stone rained down on Nick, and he dropped to his knees and buried his head beneath his arms as the abhorrent sound echoed inside his head.

  Grisly images flickered to life in his mind like a silent movie showing on a local Regal Cinema screen. He observed an unrelenting battle between two powerful mages that rattled the earth and agitated the air into fierce, tornadic storms. The two black-robed sorcerers hurled blazing lightning forks at each other ; the errant tosses sliced the turbulent, ebony skies into jagged pieces of black.

  A multitude of small, crooked beasts surrounded the mage who controlled the blue lightning forks, and they leaped and bobbed frantically like heated popcorn kernels each time their enemy cast a white lightning bolt their way. Nick strained his mind to get a closer look at their features, but they remained distant shapes. By their outlines, however, Nick guessed them to be a race identical to that of the transformed Jay Walkingman creature’s. The mages’ identities also remained a mystery because their features were cloaked in a turbulent sea of darkness. Only the mottled, black-white shadows that pursued the lightning forks jeopardized their anonymity.

  The scene suddenly shifted to a placid night landscape of silhouetted tropical foliage, a lake of cham
pagne diamonds glittering beneath a pale moon, and four far-off figures walking the shoreline. It ended as quickly as it had appeared. Although the revelation was brief, it was deeply etched into Nick’s memory. He easily recalled that two of the figures were women; one, a man of medium height; and the fourth, a tall, broad-shouldered man. But why was the seemingly innocent vision so lucid? Was it important? Where was that lake? And, who were those four people, and why were they important? His mind was spinning with questions without an answer in sight.

  The mass’s whining ceased, and it vanished from the grotto. After the hailstorm of dust and stones ceased, Nick painfully stood again and gingerly dusted himself off. His battered body was incredibly sore and stiff.

  Suddenly, the lakeshore vision flashed back into his mind. The tall man’s silhouette had looked extremely familiar, and now he knew why.

  It was Neo!

  “Nick!”

  The small voice scattered the images, and Nick glanced across the river.

  “Glenna!” he shouted back.

  “You all right, son?”

  “I’m pretty beat up,” he replied.

  Aside from blood-crusted cheeks from a deep forehead gash, swollen lips, a body that felt like a worn punching bag, he was doing okay. Considering the fireball’s immense power, Nick realized that he was damned lucky just to be alive.

  Suddenly, panic rolled through his system and cleaved more frayed nerves. Who were those people at the lake with Neo? And why was he hiking along a lakeshore when he was supposed to be in New York investigating Aspirations?

  Nick reconstructed the circumstances surrounding his vision. The fireball’s shrinking to the size of a black marble. The thing’s deafening wail. Then he understood! He was mentally connected with the wounded fireball as he was earlier in the warehouse. So, he figured, that seemed to indicate that Neo’s lakeside stroll might not have happened yet. Maybe it was another of the fireball’s future plans. If that was the case, Nick had to warn his friend. As soon as he returned to the surface, he’d contact Neo.

  “You gonna stand there all day and daydream, or are you gonna help this old woman home?”

  His mind was jarred back to the present. The meteor still glowed brightly behind Glenna.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’ll need some assistance, Nick. The ornery thing busted my wheelchair.”

  In his dazed state, Nick didn’t think to question her explanation. If his brain had been functioning on all eight cylinders, he would’ve realized that the powerful Wiccan could have easily transported herself to St. Louis, sans wheelchair, with a snap of her fingers whenever she felt the urge.

  Nick stared blankly at the forty-foot, watery expanse. What was he supposed to do now? Swim?

  “Use your powers,” Glenna directed, as if reading his thoughts.

  “I . . . can’t,” he croaked. “Too . . . ,” he pointed at the gash in his forehead, “ . . . painful.”

  Suddenly, Nick was swathed in a warm, reddish-orange glow and was surprised to find himself floating above the river’s rushing current toward Glenna. The energy force set him gently down beside her. The old woman radiated the same color as the meteor.

  “Is that what the doctors mean when they say you have a healthy glow?” he quipped.

  Glenna’s plump chest heaved with laughter. “You are the most mentally resilient man I ever knew,” she said. “Half dead, and you still manage to crack on poor old Glenna.”

  “From where I’m standing, you look like you have a whopper of a sunburn.”

  Her chest heaved again. “Just letting the radiation rejuvenate these old bones. For your information, smarty pants, Mother Nature occasionally needs a helping hand after a body hits the three-hundred-year-old milestone.”

  “Three hundred!” he shot back. “Why, you told me last year that you were only ninety-two years old.”

  “Well, it’s a woman’s prerogative to lie about her age, ain’t it?” Glenna huffed. She was a rotund woman with wobbling triceps, a plump face, bluish-silver curls, and vigilant, black eyes.

  A sudden stab of pain from the gash in his forehead sent his senses reeling. Pressing on the wound with his hand, he bent over and moaned.

  She peered at him from the depths of her fleshy furrows. “You poor dear,” she said. “Lean against the meteor, and you’ll get some relief.”

  Nick hesitated. He wasn’t big on seeking medical attention; he preferred to doctor himself.

  “Oh, come on,” Glenna scolded. “It’s just like a man to fall to pieces from a little pain.”

  He scowled. “Well, as long as you put it that way . . .” He swiftly backed against the meteor before he changed his mind.

  Nick braced for the onslaught of pain, but there was none. Instead, the meteor’s therapeutic energy was warm and soothing. The slashing discomfort in his forehead faded, and his body’s stiffness and soreness vanished. The meteor Windexed his dazed mind as well so that he was thinking clearly again after the fifteen-minute treatment. In fact, Nick felt like Superman.

  The meteor also stocked his mind with volumes concerning the history of the universe and its multiple dimensions. And, like a web link, it downloaded remarkable mind connections into his brain, surfacing like abstract, computer-display icons that gave him new access to vague, frightening, and yet intriguing, mental and physical abilities.

  Abruptly, the mysterious radiation retreated into the meteor, and Nick stepped away, feeling for his forehead wound. It was completely healed. He flexed his repaired muscles. “I feel like a million bucks.”

  Glenna studied him. “You look different, somehow,” she said pensively.

  Nick’s celebration crashed. “What do you mean?”

  “I just can’t put my finger on it.” She moved around him, appraising him from different angles. “Now I’ve got it!”

  “What?” he implored.

  “You don’t look a bit like the candy ass who stood here whining a while back.” She leaned back and guffawed loudly.

  Nick allowed himself a fleeting grin. “I don’t have time for this, Glenna. I’ve got to get out of here and contact Neo Doss,” he informed her. “I think he’s in big trouble.”

  The large woman clucked her tongue. “And just where are you going to look for him? There are tens of thousands of lakes in this country.”

  Nick tensed. “How could you possibly know. . .”

  “I’m a psychic, remember?”

  “But I thought you needed your crystal ball for that stuff.”

  “That’s just part of my dog-and-pony show to give the tourists the cliché they expect and pay for,” she replied.

  “Then I was right. Neo was the tall man at the lake,” he stated.

  “Yes.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then tell me!”

  “In due time. You of all people, Nick Bellamy, should know that a body just can’t go barging into a dangerous situation without a proper plan and backup,” she reprimanded him.

  “But. . . .”

  She wagged a finger at him. “Patience. First, we’ve got to go back to my home and see about setting Fritz right again. And, there’ll be no telephoning anyone until I say so. Agreed?”

  “I don’t understand any of this, but I’ll go along with it for now,” he agreed.

  “A wise decision.”

  Nick searched the area around the meteor and along the riverbank. “Hey, wait a minute . . .”

  She planted her hands on her generous hips and regarded him tolerantly. “What now?”

  “Where’s your wheelchair?”

  He watched her left, fleshy brow open and close in a barely perceptible wink. “Land sakes, Nick, you didn’t really think I needed that old thing to get out of here, now did you?”

  All he could do was laugh at his prior gullibility, despite his concern for Neo. He kept reminding himself to respect his elders, especially ones who were three hundred years old.
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  Glenna vanished from the grotto, and with a deep sigh, Nick did the same.

  After mixing a potion with ingredients that looked to Nick to be obscene, illegal, and maybe a tad bit immoral, Glenna saturated a tattered, gray rag with the gooey liquid, folded it into a wide strip, and placed it lovingly on Fritz’s forehead. She sat on the edge of the sofa for the next three hours chanting and stroking her grandson’s lifeless hand. Nick rested in a recliner across from them and attempted to identify his new mind connections without success. Finally, the stalwart fireplug, Fritz, stirred, blinked numerous times, and declared, “I’m hungry.”

  Glenna pushed her considerable bulk away from the sofa and grinned broadly at Nick. “All’s well again. Want something to eat?”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Well, you’re not leaving here without a good home-cooked meal, young man. Remember, an army marches on its stomach,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  Nick started to object, but Glenna raised her hand.

  “You’ll do as you’re told in my house,” she said firmly. “After brunch, we’ll have our little talk. I have a story to tell you that defies belief.”

  “I’m just worried about Neo, that’s all.”

  “I know, dear, but don’t trouble yourself. Neo isn’t at the lake yet. He won’t be there until tonight.”

  Nick stood. “But if I can stop him before he gets there . . .”

  She shook her head. “Neo has to go to the lake.”

  Nick’s face wrinkled questioningly. “You mean he’s supposed to be captured?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why, for godsake?”

  “Why, he’s the bait for our trap,” she answered as if it was perfectly obvious.

  “Wait a minute here. Just how did you . . .”

  Glenna turned away, effectively arresting his question, and bustled into the kitchen.

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