Portals of Infinity: Book Five: Demigods and Deities

by John Van Stry

  "We know that they have firearms, so we know that swords are not going to do it for us."

  "The guns they have there are pretty clunky, they're handmade, revolvers, kind of slow, and while they have cartridges, they're hit or miss," I told her. "When I was attacked by that one priest, he had a misfire, and the thing belched so much smoke, it helped me surprise him."

  "Primitive black powder weapons," Nikki told me.

  "But they were using cartridges!" I told her.

  "What do you think we used in ours, before smokeless powder was invented?" Nikki sighed looking at me like I was an idiot.

  "Oh, I forgot," I said feeling like one too.

  "If we were to show up with some nice modern weapons and a lot better firepower, I bet we could get in and out of there with a small team, and do it pretty quickly." Nikki mused.

  "And where would be get those?" I said.

  "Where did you get them last time?"

  "Cenewyg showed up with them," I said. I had of course lied to the FBI agents about what was in the bags, but I hadn't known that Cen was an arms dealer; I just assumed he knew where to get them from.

  "Well, that sounds like a good place to start," Nikki smiled.

  "First off, he's still out of commission," I said glaring at her, "secondly, the next time I see him, I intend to kill him."

  "He'll only come back you know," Nikki pointed out.

  "I know," I grumbled, "I'm still working on that one. But still, we can't do business with him."

  "Who said anything about doing business with him? I was thinking more about raiding his estate," Nikki said smiling.

  "You think he'd have anything there?"

  "The estates in South Africa are armed camps, which is probably why he set up there. When I was in the army I spent some time there, and there were lots of stories about stuff moving through there constantly. Seems there's always four or five revolutions going on somewhere on that continent."

  "And how do we get in?"

  "You let me worry about that, Bro."

  "Okay, so we get fresh arms, how do we know that they'll work?"

  "We can test them when we get there, but if black powder works, I'd expect the other stuff to work as well. It doesn't sound like the chemistry is all that different from Earth's there."

  "Then why don't they have better weapons? They have the same level of tech in their instruments as Earth does."

  "Who controls the existing firearms?" Nikki asked smiling.

  "The gods do ..." I said getting it. "They've been holding the tech back."

  "Probably. Aryanna has told me that it's not uncommon."

  "Oh? She doing that here?"

  "Chemistry is different here," Nikki told me. "A few minor changes in the laws of physics, and you get stronger magic and weaker science. Explosives can't work here, well non-magical ones can't. I don't really understand it; physics was never my best subject."

  I nodded. "Okay, so we go see about stealing guns from Cen's estate. Then what?"

  Nikki smiled, "Then I get to teach you all about special weapons tactics, clearing buildings, and hostage situations."

  "I didn't know you studied that in the army," I said surprised.

  "Anti-terrorism was one of the few places where they'd let women get into the line of fire," Nikki said smiling. "Terrorists don't expect women in plain clothes to be soldiers, and now I finally get to use some of that training."

  # # # #

  I gritted my teeth as we bounced down a rather poorly maintained road in an older Range Rover, which Nikki had bought earlier today. Finding Cen's estate hadn't been as hard as we thought it might be, a few questions, one small bribe, and we had the address as well as directions, and were on our way out of Johannesburg and on our way.

  "Do you think you could slow down?" I asked.

  "Nope," Nikki laughed and sped up.

  "It's not my life I'm worried about, so much as my kidneys," I told her.

  "Oh, don't be such a wuss. Check the map, how much further?"

  I looked at the folded map on my lap and leaning over I looked at the odometer on the dash, then looked out the windshield.

  "I think that's it up on the left there," I said and pointed.

  Nikki nodded and slowing down, turned into the drive. There were a pair of columns to either side of the road, with the name 'Gatwick' on them. Each of them were topped by a rather curious design; it looked like a stylized letter 'G' with a dagger sticking down from the top, with the top of the dagger on fire.

  "Must be the place," Nikki said and shifting into first we drove past. It was a perhaps a quarter of a mile, until we rounded a bend and the main house came into sight. It was pretty impressive, two stories, with probably a dozen outbuildings. There were a few people working the grounds, I guess they were the hired help.

  Nikki pulled up front, honked the horn twice and hopped out, I followed her around.

  "Sean!" she called out, "Come on out!" she turned to me and said in a lower voice, "Get our bags, okay?"

  "What are you up to?" I asked curious."

  "Oh, just a little something I learned in the army," she smiled.

  "Uncle Sean!" She called again, "It's Nikki!"

  I got the bags and started to follow her up the two steps onto the porch as she headed for the front door, which had the same curious design painted on it as was mounted on the columns by the driveway. The door opened at that point and an older white man stepped out looking at us in a rather disapproving manner. There was another man with him, he was an African, and both were wearing side arms. Both men were dressed in khaki shirts and pants, with that same symbol sewn into the left breast pocket of their shirts.

  "Who are you?" The first one asked.

  "Oh hi!" Nikki said and stuck out her hand, "I'm Nikki Taylor, this is my husband Will. Uncle Sean said that as long as I was going to be out here this fall I should stop by and he'd take us out hunting."

  "Uncle Sean?" He said looking Nikki up and down slowly.

  Nikki nodded, seemingly oblivious to the scrutiny. "He in town or something? He said he'd be here."

  "Young Lady, Mister Gatwick has not been here in some time, and he is most definitely not here now."

  Nikki turned from looking around at the grounds, and looked him right in the eye, "You sure about that? He was just out at my parents' ranch in Texas a few months ago, picking up a few things he had stored there."

  "And who would your parents be?" He said a little stiffly.

  "Stephanie and Joseph," Nikki said, and then I felt her put a little power into her words, "I'm sure you've heard him speak of them before?"

  I watched as the man pondered that, as shots in the dark went, that wasn't a bad one. Knowing Cenewyg, he'd probably talked more than once about Stephanie, and whether or not the words had been kind, it wouldn't be hard to guess at the kind of relationship he'd told this guy he'd been having. Cenewyg did like to brag after all.

  I watched the expression on his face, as he gave Nikki a second look over. I suspect he was probably looking for a resemblance and wondering if Nikki was Cenewyg's illegitimate daughter.

  "I do not recall Mister Gatwick mentioning anything about a brother Joseph," he said. "And in either case, Mister Gatwick is not here."

  Nikki smiled and leaned in closer, lowering her voice. "Yes, well, he didn't even tell me he had a place here until I told him I had a job to take care of up in Angola. My Uncle Sean sure loves his secrets, as I'm sure you know. In any case, I'm here on work, and he told me I could use the place, and that he'd be here. If I were you, I wouldn't want to tell him when he finally shows up that you had to turn me away, now would you?"

  I could feel her push hard with her champion's voice the entire time she was talking to him. He hesitated a moment, but I could tell the other man was already thinking of her as a guest, and possibly even his boss's daughter, if not his niece. He straightened himself up and started to look non-threatening.

  "Yes, yes I agree," he said
nodding slowly. "You said you saw him recently in Texas?"

  Nikki smiled and nodded, "Yes, may we come inside? Kind of hot out here,"

  "Yes, Missus Taylor, oh, where are my manners, I'm Stanley Chamers, I run Mister Gatwick's, I mean your Uncle's estate for him."

  I set the bags down I had been holding and shook hands with him when he turned to me.

  "Botha, be a good man and get those for us, would you?" Chamers said to the other man who nodded and picked them up as he led us inside.

  "How long will you be staying?" He asked Nikki.

  "Oh, that depends. You do know that interpol has the grounds staked out, right?"

  I watched as he almost stumbled and looked at her surprised, "What?"

  "Why do you think Uncle Sean has been avoiding the place? Supposedly they're after him for some 'thing' he did up in Greece a few years ago, and he's just waiting for the heat to die down."

  "Then why are you here?" He asked.

  "To use the facilities, like I said," Nikki smiled, "and to see if I can find out who on his staff has been informing on him, and deal with it. Uncle Sean felt it would be easier if I cleaned things up for him before he came back."

  Chamers looked shaken, "He believes there's an informant here, on the grounds?"

  Nikki smiled, "Yup, like I said, I'm here to take care of it, before he shows up. But don't worry about it none. He told me I could trust you. Otherwise I wouldn't be telling you any of this of course."

  Chamers nodded slowly, still a bit pale "Of course."

  "Now, how about a tour of the grounds?"

  It was nighttime and we were lying in bed, the only problem with telling Chamers that we were married is that we had to at least appear to be so. We'd both checked the rooms we were using for any listening devices, and nothing had turned up.

  "That was pretty ballsy," I whispered to her, it was the first chance we'd had to talk in private since getting here.

  "If you can't baffle them with brilliance," Nikki snickered.

  "They taught you that in the army?" I asked surprised.

  "When you're dealing with flunkies, especially criminal flunkies, big brass balls and a cheery smile work wonders."

  "Uh-huh, sure."

  "Well, the voice thing helps too. Bet he's gone by the time we get out of bed in the morning." Nikki said with a soft laugh.

  "You think so?" I whispered back surprised.

  "You saw how panicked he got when I mentioned an informant."

  "So?"

  "So, if it wasn't him, he would have been mad, not scared. He has a pretty good idea of the kind of work 'Sean' does, and now he has a pretty good idea of why I'm here. He either figures that I'm warning him off, or he managed to fool Sean, or that I'm a racist and would never ever suspect a white person when there are so many black people around."

  That stopped me, "What does being white have to do with it?"

  "Bro, haven't you noticed how they're treating all the blacks here?"

  "I thought that was just because they were the hired help!"

  Nikki sighed, "I swear, you're so dense sometimes. This is South Africa, Apartheid, ring any bells?"

  I started to shake my head, then stopped. "Oh shit, so the stories are true?"

  "Course they're true. Why do you think your friend Cen set up here? If he's anything like you say, he probably just loves being able to play god."

  I nodded and filed that all away. I knew a little about European history, and a fair bit about American. But I knew next to nothing about Africa.

  "So what do we do next?" I asked.

  "Keep our guard up and see what's going on come morning. You can take the first watch, night!"

  When morning came, I woke up as one of the maids knocked on the door. Nikki was already up, having taken the second watch.

  "Enter," Nikki called out.

  "Breakfast, Madam, Sir," One of the local women said opening the door and stepping in.

  "We'll be down shortly," Nikki told her, and I went and took a quick shower, then we both went downstairs.

  The woman, I guess she was one of the maids, served us at a rather nice table, in a large room off the kitchen.

  "Will Mister Chamers be joining us this morning?" Nikki asked.

  "No, Ma'am, he had important business in town, said he'd be gone quite a few days. He told us you'd be in charge until he got back." She said nodding.

  Nikki turned to me and smiled, "I see. Well, please let Botha and the staff know that I'm expecting a few guests over the next few days, and that we'll be using the special training range to the east of the house. So I want them to make sure it's in order and ready for use. Okay?"

  "Yes, Ma'am," she said nodding and left the room.

  "We're expecting people?" I said looking at her.

  "You saw the stuff he's got set up out there, we need to do a few run-throughs first, make sure everyone works together well. Now that I own the place, might as well use it, right?"

  I sighed and shook my head. "You don't think he's coming back, do you?"

  "I bet he cleaned out the mansion's safe and is probably on a flight out of the country as we speak. Finish up your breakfast there, lets go have a look around and see what we weren't shown yesterday."

  Botha found us about an hour later; we were sitting in Cenewyg's, or rather 'Sean Gatwich's' office and looking around. As Nikki had suspected, the safe was open, and had been neatly rifled and I suspected, cleaned out of any money, as there was no money in it now.

  "Mrs. Taylor," Botha said coming in. "I have the men cleaning up the team practice range as you requested. I stopped by Mister Chamers room, but he was not there. Selli told me he went into town, but I don't think he's coming back. He cleaned out most of his stuff.

  "No, he's not coming back. My Uncle Sean called us last night while we were discussing some problems with the estate and fired him."

  Botha looked at Nikki surprised. "Mister Gatwick fired him? Then who will run the estate?"

  Nikki smiled one of her winning smiles at him, "Why you will, Botha. You've been here how many years now? It's not like Chamers could have run this place without you anyway, am I right?"

  Botha smiled and stood a little taller, "Yes, Mrs. Taylor, that is true." He looked over and saw the open safe, "Should I call into town and have someone stop Mister Chamers?" He asked.

  "No, I think my Uncle will deal with that little issue himself. Could you direct me to the armory please?"

  Botha nodded and gestured to the door, "Of course, Mrs. Taylor, this way please."

  He led us down the hallway, down three flights of stairs into the basement, then to a heavy metal door, which he unlocked with a key, and led us inside.

  I looked around, impressed. There were a lot of guns arrayed on stands, on the walls, followed by what I guess were heavy weapons. It was a rather long room and there were also a lot of crates stacked nicely in the center of the room, as well as along the far wall.

  Nikki walked up to one of the smaller weapons, I had no idea what it was, it was too large to be a pistol, but smaller than a rifle.

  "Oh nice, just what I was looking for, MP5's." She turned and looked at Botha, "Do we have silencers for these?"

  "Yes, Ma'am," He said and pointed to one of the sets of stacked crates.

  Nikki smiled with genuine glee. "Wonderful! Could you have someone bring a dozen of these, with a dozen silencers, two hundred magazines and ten thousand rounds of ammunition up to the office please?"

  "Sure thing, Mrs. Taylor," Botha said and nodded.

  "Oh, and cleaning kits for them as well, if you have them."

  Botha smiled, "Yes, Ma'am, I'll have them up there after lunch."

  "Thanks, Botha! Will and I will take these two out to the target range and get a little practice in," she said grabbing another one off the wall and grabbing a couple of magazines off the table under them.

  "Grab that ammo can please, dear?" she said to me and pointed to one of those big square green thing
s you always see in the war movies. I nodded and picking it up I followed her out of the armory, up the stairs, and out back to the small target range that was behind the main house.

  "What are these?" I asked her; once I was sure no one else was around.

  "MP5's are small submachine guns made by Heckler and Koch. A rather reliable gun firm. The SEALs use these, and quite a few of our commando teams. They're good for close in work. Now pay attention, let me show you how it works."

  I nodded and examined the gun, "Hey, what's this?" I said and pointed to the handgrip. The same symbol I'd been seeing all over the estate was stamped into it.

  "Huh," Nikki said, "never seen that before."

  "Haven't you noticed it's all over the place here?" I said to her, "All the workers here have it sewn onto their shirts."

  Nikki shrugged, "I thought it was the family crest for Gatwick or something."

  I scratched my head and thought about that, "Maybe so, but why would an arms dealer stamp that on his weapons? They'd be able to trace them back to him."

  "Handgrips are easy to change out, Will. And maybe these are his private stock? Anyway, pay attention."

  I nodded and spent the next hour learning all about how an MP5 worked, how to shoot it, how to clear it, and when we were done, how to clean it.

  "So, any idea who else will be joining us?" I asked Nikki after we had gone back inside to eat lunch.

  "Not yet, I'll find out tonight from Aryanna, I'm sure."

  I nodded, "So what are our plans for the rest of the day?"

  "We have a dozen weapons to strip, clean, and prepare for use, after that, if you want we can look through the rest of the house."

  We didn't get to do much poking around that day, as all of the MP5's were in need of some serious cleaning, apparently they'd been prepped for long-term storage, and there was a lot of grease and such in the parts, and even coating the insides of the barrels to protect them against rust I guess. When we finally settled down for the night, we moved a wardrobe in front of the bedroom door, to keep it from being easily forced open and both collapsed on the bed in our champion forms. Hopefully I'd hear anybody and wake up long before they could be a problem.