Archangel Chronicles 7 - Shot In the Dark

by LaBarthe L. J.

  “There’s a fire tower over there,” Declan said.

  “Huh?”

  “Over there.” Declan pointed. “A fire watchtower. Maybe we should go over and climb up, see if we can see more from up high.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “Angelique,” Declan said, getting her at ention, “let’s head toward the fire tower. Liam and me can climb up and see what the lay of the land is.”

  The large dark gray wolf nodded and turned toward the tower. Liam thought they might have to slog through forest to get to it, but there was a narrow track, barely larger than a deer path, and although trees loomed all around them, the track showed signs of frequent use.

  “Wasn’t there supposed to have been an avalanche?” Liam asked his brother.

  “Allegedly.”

  “So where is it?”

  “No idea.”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Great.”

  “Let’s see what we can see from the tower.”

  It didn’t take long to reach it, a tall structure with an octagonal observation deck and what looked like a large, self-contained room atop steel poles and girders and reached by climbing a flight of steep steel stairs. “Here goes nothing.” Declan holstered his weapon. “Keep watch,” he said to Angelique, and he began to climb. Liam followed suit.

  At the top of the stairs, the platform was narrow and surrounded the observation deck. Liam peered through a grimy window and saw that within the room were two steel-frame beds, a sink, a gas burner, and a small fridge. There was also a card table, and on it were two cans of beer and an empty plate. There was an old twentieth-century shortwave radio against the far wall, and Liam wondered if it still worked.

  They walked around the platform, looking this way and that, but for the most part, all they could see were trees.

  “Maybe we should see if there’s anything useful inside that room,”

  Declan said.

  “You’ll have to pick the lock,” Liam said. He was peering through the foliage toward the town. “I wonder when the last time they had to use this was.”

  “We’ll soon find out,” Declan said. He’d gone to the door and was busily working on the lock. Liam walked over to join him. A few moments later, the lock clicked and Declan gave the door a push. It swung open with a loud creak of rusty hinges.

  “Do you remember how to use a shortwave radio?” Declan asked.

  “God, I haven’t used one since we were kids playing around with Dad’s old one,” Liam said. “I’ll have a look.”

  The shortwave radio proved to be useless; it was disconnected and Liam wasn’t entirely sure how to fix it. He pulled it away from the wall and looked into the body of the thing, seeing only cables, strange-looking wires, circuit boards, and odd glass things he thought were called valves.

  This thing wasn’t just old; it was antique.

  “Here’s something.”

  Liam looked up and saw that Declan was leafing through what appeared to be a diary or logbook. “What is it?”

  “Apparently, two scientists stayed here six months ago before deciding to make a run for the next town during a storm.”

  Liam frowned. “Why would they do that?”

  Declan looked confused. “No idea. Do the names Dr. Melody Johnson or Dr. Peter Won mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. They worked on something they called The Betterment Project.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “No clue.” Declan turned a few more pages. “Huh. So this Betterment Project was supposed to work out a way to improve humanity’s immune system. It doesn’t say how, only that the warehouse up the mountain road was where they came from. And that it was run by Transom Corp.”

  “Transom Corp?” Liam rubbed his chin, thinking hard. “Don’t they usually deal in pharmaceuticals?”

  “Yeah, big pharma. Also pesticides, but those were banned in the early years of the war. They were doing more harm to people and animals than anything.”

  Liam snapped his fingers. “That’s right—I remember now, there was a class action against them in Italy for producing a pesticide that actually killed fruit and manipulated the DNA of the fruit fly, making it larger and poisonous. It took them around six years to get rid of the new strain, and Transom Corp had to pay for the cleanup. It cost them billions.”

  “I vaguely remember that.” Declan looked at Liam, his expression troubled. “What is a company like that doing out here in the wilderness, working on something that sounds so benign?”

  “Nothing good, I bet,” Liam said.

  Declan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, Mr. Tree-Hugging-Antiestablishment-Hippy.”

  “Shut up, you hate mega corps just as much as I do.”

  “Only because it was a fucking mega corp that started the fucking war.” Declan returned his attention to the diary and, a moment later, let out a low whistle of surprise. “The good doctors wrote that no one survived up in the warehouse and they did their best to close it off forever, but the dynamite didn’t go off.”

  “The avalanche,” Liam exclaimed.

  “I bet that’s what happened,” Declan said. “They set charges, but something went wrong and they ran away. Somehow, something set the charges recently, long after they’d intended, and brought down a bunch of rock and mud.”

  “Which is great, but what were they trying to hide? And why did it take six months for this to blow?”

  “Lightning strike, maybe?”

  Liam shook his head slowly. “No idea. I’m not a scientist.”

  “Me either. We might need to call for Raziel.”

  “Let’s wait a bit before we do that. I still think it’s damn weird that there’s no one living or dead around. Let’s do a patrol and then call Raz or Mike or both. We can’t report when we don’t have much to tell them.”

  Declan grunted, but he closed the diary and shoved it into his backpack. Then he shot Liam a knowing look. “You’re going a bit stir- crazy not having a job to do, huh?”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Tell me you aren’t.”

  “Not into lying to family. And I know damn well if we call in the Feathered Bureau of Investigation, they’ll take us home, pat us on the head, and say ‘Good job,’ and we’ll be back to sitting on our asses with nothing to do except fuck or work on the cars. That’s not what our job is.

  That’s not what our life is.”

  “Yeah, agreed.” Liam nodded. Then he jerked his chin in the direction of Declan’s backpack. “You keeping that diary?” Liam was surprised.

  “I think it might be something we should read carefully once we’re back in civilization,” Declan said. “There’s a lot of notations that I don’t understand, and I think someone with a better grasp of science would figure out what the hell was going on here.”

  “Okay. Well, let’s get back to the Venatores and go back to the road.”

  Declan nodded and headed toward the door. “I don’t like this, Liam,” he said over his shoulder. “Not one bit.”

  “Me either. I almost feel like this is a bad horror movie setup.”

  Declan pulled a face in agreement. “Yeah, me too.”

  They made their way back to join the pack of wolves clustered together at the foot of the tower. All of them had their hackles up and Danny and Angelique were snarling.

  “What did we miss?” Liam asked.

  “We can smell carrion. Old, inhuman carrion,” Lily replied.

  “Animal?”

  She shook her head. Liam and Declan shared a look. “Let’s move out of here,” Declan said.

  “Good fucking idea,” Liam said. He pulled the .50 from its holster and held it low.

  “You know, before we got here, I was going to ask why you brought along a gun that shot bullets that could come from a cannon, but now that we’re here, I’m only sad you didn’t bring an actual cannon,” Declan said.

  Liam barked a laugh that held no humor. This place was really getting to
him. “I don’t know what we’re up against. I want big, deadly weaponry in my hands.”

  “Amen to that.” Declan held a semiautomatic rifle. “Let’s go.”

  They went back to the road, the wolves growling all the way, the whites of their eyes showing. Liam found the reaction of the Venatores only added to his growing sense of unease. Whatever it was they could smell had obviously unsettled them, and he still couldn’t see any ghosts, which made him wonder what the carrion was in the forest. Maybe it was for the best that he didn’t know. The whole place was beginning to give him the serious heebie-jeebies.

  “Up here,” Declan said from where he stood, several feet ahead of the rest of the group. “I can see a parking lot.”

  “Weird,” Liam said as he marched up the road and looked at the empty lot. Weeds grew between the cracks in the tarmac, and the white paint that marked the lines of each parking space was chipped and faded.

  It looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades, not just six months, if the dates in the diary they’d found back at the tower were to be believed.

  “And there’s our avalanche,” Declan said.

  Liam turned to look at what Declan was pointing at. A large warehouse had been built into the face of the mountain, and a good three-quarters of its façade had been covered with rock, dirt, and broken bushes and trees. It looked as if the destruction had been very recent, the path of the debris down from the top of the mountain still bare dirt, pebbles rolling down in the wind.

  Liam frowned and moved closer, and when he was a few inches away from it, he reached out one hand and touched the nearest piece of jagged rock.

  It felt strangely warm. He let out a startled oath and jerked his hand back, then leaned forward and stared at the rock, wondering why it felt as it did. “What is it?” It was Baxter.

  “The rock felt warm,” Liam said. He reached out again and touched it once more, a lot more cautiously. “Huh. It feels like it’s been heated in a fire or something.”

  “Dynamite?” Declan asked, recalling, Liam thought, the words in the diary. “I have no idea. You touch it.”

  Declan did, his expression astonished. “It feels almost like it’s alive.”

  “Great, thanks for making this even more creepy, dude,” Baxter grumbled, his mental voice sounding tense. “Not like we’re not freaked already or anything.”

  “Sorry.” Declan didn’t sound too sorry; he sounded confused. “What the hell has been going on here?”

  “Guys, over here,” Danny called to them. “I found a door, and it’s open.”

  They went to join him, and Liam pulled a flashlight from one of the pockets in his flak jacket and clicked it on, shining it through the door. He couldn’t see anything, not really, just dust and some broken glass. There was a faint odor of stale air, which stood to reason if this place hadn’t been used for six months or more. He looked at Declan and then at the Venatores. “Do we go in and check it out?”

  “I think we should,” Angelique said. “If there are wounded civilians in there, we need to get them out and call for backup. This destruction was obviously triggered by something, and I think that’s what it was in the report that Michael gave us. Pity there wasn’t more intel.”

  “Al he real y had to go on was a local news report,” Lily said. “It was probably felt in the neighboring towns, and that’s why it got picked up. You know he’s got an alert set for any natural disasters, no matter how small.”

  “God, does he?” Declan asked. “His evening reading must be fucking depressing.”

  “He cares, is all.” Lily shrugged, which looked odd on a wolf.

  “Maybe he cares too much, but better too much than not at all.”

  “That’s the sort of sentiment that leads to a shortened life span,”

  Declan said. “Still, I guess we can’t just leave. Let’s do a quick sweep inside, then, if there’s any injured, call for another chopper.”

  “I think that’s the best plan,” Angelique said. “We can’t just wander around an abandoned town and leave without having any information on why the damned place is empty. Michael would give us that ‘I’m very disappointed in you’ look, make us feel like shit, and send another team here to check it out.”

  “And we’d all feel like we’d failed because we didn’t do our job properly,” Danny agreed.

  “What do you think, Riley?” Liam asked.

  “I think we should make sure no one is hurt,” Riley said after a moment’s pause. “But I don’t think we should linger here. I don’t think anything good happened here.”

  “Hey, before we go in, you know science, right?” Declan asked.

  Riley canted his head to one side, his golden lupine eyes curious. “A little, yes, why? ”

  “Found a diary back at the tower,” Declan said. He gave them a brief rundown of what he’d read.

  “Transom Corp? The pharmaceutical giant?” Riley’s puzzled expression looked amusing on the face of his wolf shape. “I’d read a few years ago that they were pulling out of that industry to concentrate on humanitarian causes instead. They had a new board and the CEO decided that the money and talent in Transom’s employ should be used to help the world after the war.”

  “How damn altruistic of them,” Declan muttered. “I don’t trust big business. Sorry, but I don’t. Remember the war? It was fucking big business that started that, the book business of Lia Darguill’s that was owned by Bob Taytton, and his plans for world domination that led to opening all the fucking Hell portals. Remember that?”

  “Some of us will never forget.” Danny’s mental voice sounded brittle. “And now we’re working to ensure nothing like that happens again. So we need to check this place out, then make a report.”

  “Enough talk,” Angelique said. “I can’t smell anything dangerous; about all I can smell is dust. If that’s all there is in there, we should have no problems making sure no one is injured. If any civilians need help, we’ll do what we can. That’s what we do, remember, people? Venatores: help those who need it, guard against the darkness. And you two, you track, hunt, and kill bad things. So let’s get to work, because this is our damn job, and this is what we signed up to take care of. Form up, Venatores, and Declan and Liam—be on your guard and weapons at the ready.”

  “Sir!” Liam said before he could stop himself. He rolled his eyes and then grinned, and drew his .50 from the holster.

  “You’re such a good soldier,” Declan teased.

  “Bite me, Yorkie,” Liam shot back.

  The wolves all laughed, their tongues lolling out.

  “What did I fucking say? Do not tease me about my shifter shape!”

  Declan glared at them all, his jaw stuck out pugnaciously.

  “Don’t tease me and I won’t!” Liam rolled his eyes at his brother.

  “Jesus Christ on a cracker, it’s like living with two grumpy old men,” Angelique said. “We’re moving, people.” With that, Lily at her side, Angelique entered the building through the open door. Danny, Riley, and Baxter formed up around Liam and Declan and walked a few paces behind her into the darkness beyond the door.

  Liam turned and looked back before crossing the threshold into the building. A wind had started to blow, picking up and tossing the tree branches back and forth. Dust eddies swirled and piles of dirt were flying across the parking lot. Liam swal owed hard as he watched the wind grow stronger and stronger in a mat er of heartbeats. He could hear the ominous rumble of rock and debris above him, and he had the feeling that as soon as he entered the warehouse, this door would be blocked closed. But that was impossible. There was no way that wind could contrive such an event to occur so precisely.

  Wind wasn’t sentient. It did not possess the power of independent thought or make decisions or behave malevolently. This was not a fantasy or science-fiction show, and there were no evil clowns lurking in the darkness, aliens loitering in corridors, or horror movies in the making.

  This was simply an abandoned warehouse th
at had the misfortune to be half-buried beneath the press of a natural phenomenon, not something sinister. The town of Yaak was also abandoned, but there were plenty of perfectly logical reasons for that. It didn’t matter that Liam, at that moment, could not think of a single one.

  And wind was definitely not self-aware and definitely did not behave as if it were an evil entity, determined to see Liam and his loved ones to their doom.

  Right?

  GABRIEL READ through the last report and sat back, reaching up to rub at his left shoulder. It ached, and he knew he’d been sitting for too long in one position, but he’d wanted to get the paperwork out of the way before it grew too late in the day.

  Michael sat opposite him, writing notes in a spiral-bound notebook as he consulted a pile of reports of his own. The windows and doors were open, and a gentle sea breeze filled the study with the fresh, sweet scent of the ocean and sunshine. Gabriel leaned back in his old worn-leather chair and stretched his arms above his head.

  “You work too hard,” Michael said without looking up.

  Gabriel barked a laugh. “Says Mr. Overworked.”

  Michael did look up at that, and he smiled. “I am not overworked. It is merely that there are a great number of reports that require my attention.”

  “Right, sure.” Gabriel stood. “I’m going to get a drink, and then I think I’ll go for a run. Want to come with?”

  Michael appeared to consider it. Then he set down his pen and nodded. “A break from work would be a fine idea. We have been at this for some hours.”

  “Aye, and most of the reports were tedious,” Gabriel said.

  “Most of mine are as well, I confess. Yet I prefer that. When they are not so tedious, things are very bad.”

  “True, that,” Gabriel said before he sauntered out of the study and into the kitchen. He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the sideboard and then went to the refrigerator, opening the doors and pulling out a bottle of cold water for himself and a bottle of iced green tea for Michael.

  Closing the door, he turned and handed over the iced green tea.

  “Thank you,” Michael said.