Under Cover of Darkness (8 page)

“Are we dead?” he asked, soft and confused. Kyri laughed through a sob and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“No, Commander, you're not dead,” she confided as she reached out to brush his hair aside, “and neither am I.”

“What . . .” he began, but Kyri quickly put a finger on his lips to silence him.

“Illusion, Commander, and an example of our power combined.” She put her hands behind his shoulder and guided him into a sitting position. “I am the only member of the Coven physically present on this station.” His gaze snapped to Kobe's prone form, and he tried to struggle to his feet.

“No, wait,” Kyri said as she held his shoulder. “She's only sleeping.” Velk turned back to her, confusion once more taking root in his eyes. She chuckled.

“I'd like you to meet someone.” She held out her left hand before the loop in her blouse and Eperr scurried into her palm.

“A hamster?” the Legionnaire asked, nonplussed.

“Hiya!”
Eperr greeted them both with a little wave.

“A . . . talking hamster?”

“Hey!”
protested Eperr as Kyri chuckled.

“A NLYX,” Kyri offered, “Neurologic Linkage Experiment. An engineered symbiote and the secret of the Coven's power. We are never a single person, but always two. And more. The linkage, along with the ability to cast illusion and plumb memories, means the Coven can act as one. More than enough for the Senate to sentence us to death.”

“It's not a hamster?”

Kyri smiled and shook her head. “No. But that is neither here nor there. You wanted an alliance and you shall have it.”

He stared in disbelief. “You had to torture us to do that?”

“Not torture . . . test,” Kyri said flatly. “A trip through a mental gauntlet to gauge your true self. Although we may seem young to you, we are not so silly as to trust even an enemy of an enemy by their word alone. We wanted to take your measure, and now we have it. Your actions speak louder than all the rhetoric of the Senate.”

She reached out and took the commander's right arm, clasping his wrist.

“You have made your pact with the shadows and gained friends and spies across the human sphere, as well as instantaneous ship-to-ship communication once you add a Coven member to each ship's company. The Senate has called us outlaws and pirates, but mankind has never seen corsairs such as we shall be. Together we'll turn their treachery back on them and take back the inner worlds.”

“Pirates?”
exclaimed Eperr as he scampered up onto their rapidly warming clasp.
“I can do pirates! I saw a vid once.”
He stood up on his haunches and brandished a tiny fist.
“Arr!”

Nick Pollotta

 

 

UST AS THE OLD church clock started to chime midnight, the moon was suddenly blanketed by thick clouds and there came the sound of heavy footsteps outside my office.
Oh, no, they had finally found me!

Moving fast, I silently opened the top drawer to my desk and pulled out a Glock .357 Magnum. The checkered grip filled my palm like the handshake of an old friend, firm and reassuring. Dropping the clip, I quickly checked the load inside. Lead dumdum, silver bullets, and US Army armor-piercing rounds. Not much, but it was the best I had. But then, in spite of what the movies show, private investigators rarely use a gun. Especially ones that specialize in corporate espionage. No damn dirty divorce work for me. Love betrayed, weeping and screaming, widows and orphans . . . no way. I was trying to keep my soul clean, ever since I took possession of the Key.

Easing the clip back into the grip, I gently worked the slide to chamber a round and leaned back in my chair. This didn't have to be demons from hell. Might be pure coincidence that a visitor came exactly at midnight and fog blanketed the city. Hey, anything was possible. I tightened my grip on the Glock, disengaging the safety.
Then again
. . .

The footsteps thumping along the hallway stopped right outside my door. There was a short pause, and then somebody politely knocked twice.

“Excuse me, I saw the light under your door,” a soft feminine voice said. “May I use your bathroom?” She sounded sweet and southern. Pure corn pone and hom iny grits. A delicate flower of the South. “The one in the lobby is broken, and I really have to pee something fierce. Please?”

“Just a sec,” I answered cheerfully, aiming at chest level where the heart would be on a human being.
Yeah, she was from the South, all right. Straight down south. Near the core of the planet.

Two thousand years ago, King Solomon himself had built a temple to keep the Key safe from the wrong hands. Inhuman hands. The Crusades in the Middle Ages—just a cover story for the Knights Templar to get it back after being stolen by a traitor in our ranks. William Shakespeare wore it around his neck in a leather pouch for safekeeping, which is why all of his hair fell out so young. Mozart died from touching it with a bare finger, and Beethoven went stone deaf from doing the exact same thing, trying to prove it wasn't really dangerous. George Washington wanted to use it to help his troops in the American Revolution, but Ben Franklin gave it to Paul Revere to hide somewhere safe until the fighting was over. The key he tied to that famous kite was merely a decoy to throw pursuers off the trail.

Finally, Jules Verne devised a way to keep it safe—wrap it in soft lead foil—and Oscar Wilde pretended to be a homosexual and went to jail rather than divulge that secret. Nikola Tesla tried to destroy the Key and was driven insane. Jack Benny was badly scared just from looking at it in the moonlight, while Louie Arm-strong and Colonel Sanders flatly refused to believe it could possibly exist. John Glenn wanted to cast it into space, but Wally Schirra talked him out of it. Presidents, congressman, and generals kept it hidden in Fort Knox for decades, but when that location became known to the others, the Key was given to me.

For over two millennia, my brother Freemasons had fought, lied, cheated, stolen, and died, to keep the Key from the unholy hands of our enemies. Some of them even took the blame for crimes they had not committed and been sent to jail for life, or executed, just to keep any official investigations from going further and discovering the possible existence of the Key. And, more importantly, what it unlocked.

Now, I have the bedamned thing sown into my leather belt, and somehow, They had found me, were knocking on my office door, coming to get me,
kill me
, and take away the Key of Solomon to unlock That Which Should Never Be Opened.

“Come in,” I said smoothly, taking the Glock in a two-handed grip and holding my breath.
Steady now, easy does it, don't want to shoot a civilian
. . . .

In a thundering explosion, the door was blown off the hinges, a maelstrom of smoke and splinters buffeting me hard. Blindly, I triggered the Glock, blasting the big Magnum rounds at the shadowy figures gliding through the burning remains of the door.

One was hit and fell, flashing into ash. Another staggered backward, clutching a withering arm that pumped yellow blood. But the rest pulled out sawed-off shotguns and discharged a volley of steel flechettes, the fiery barrage tearing my desk apart until only the Lexan military plastic shell underneath remained. That caught them by surprise, and I used the confusion to kill two more of the demons.
To achieve success, plan for failure. And, brother, did I ever plan
.

Firing twice more at their misshapen heads, I rose and kicked aside my chair, then dove through the closed window. The shattering glass sounded like the end of the world, and searing pain slashed along my back and legs as I fell five stories toward the misty waters of the Chicago River.

Holding my breath, and praying that I didn't smack into a boat, I hit the water hard, losing a shoe as I just scraped past a concrete pylon, missing a grisly death by a scant inch.
Hand grenades and horseshoes
. Dark things rushed at my face from the murky depths—old cars, shopping carts, union officials—but I stayed calm and tried to holster my gun before flailing my arms and swimming for the surface.
Follow the bubbles, hot shot. Always follow the bubbles!

But even as I started heading upward, big things with too many arms dropped into the water alongside me. Fueled by adrenaline, I tried to swim faster, but clawed hands reached out to rip at my clothing and flesh, pulling me down, away from the light, down to the muddy bottom and a slow death by suffocation.

Glowing eyes filled the darkness, and blood began to cloud the water. Red blood.
My blood
.

Reaching desperately into my jacket, I fumbled for the cigar tube I had carried since the day I became the Guardian. My predecessor had carried it for fifty years without ever using it, as had the man before him. The ancient steel was oily beneath my fingers, but I managed to pop the top and a tiny vial floated upward. Gnarled hands snatched for it, but I was there first and crushed it in my fist.

The contents of Christian Holy Oil, blessed kosher salt, and Moslem Holy Water mixed freely and then dissolved into the Chicago River to spread outward like a healing balm, clearing the dirty water to crystal clarity. Choking and burning, the things slithered away from me, seeking refuge in the Stygian mud below, bottom feeders seeking their natural habitat.

Now free, I moved for the surface, concentrating on the task, not the goal. My lungs were nearly bursting. I was burning for air, tiny bubbles squeezing out from my clenched lips, sips of life leaving me behind. But I had to ignore that. Get past the pain. There was only swimming, nothing else in the world mattered but the movement of my arms and legs. Keep swimming, keep going.
Move with a purpose, Freemason!

Erupting from the expanding pool of clean water like a dolphin on steroids, I splashed about, pulling in a ragged lungful of fresh sweet air, almost reeling from the rush of oxygen.

As my head cleared, I swam out of sight beneath a wooden pier, and clawed my back onto the brick-lined shore. I was exhausted, but could not stop. Had to keep moving. Get away from here and find someplace to hide. Steal a car and drive out of town.

Glancing across the river, I saw Them standing in the smashed window frame of the office building. Human shapes with nightmare eyes that watched me hatefully, desperate to follow, but knowing to do so would burn them to the bone, or whatever demons had.
Chitin
? Could be. Lord knows, they always bugged me.

A swirling cloud covered the moon for a single heartbeat, and when it returned, they were gone. Instinctively, I went for my gun and found only empty leather. Damn! Must have lost my Glock in the river. Time to boogie.

Dripping wet, I stumbled for the street and headed downtown. I needed help, and fast. There was a Freemason lodge only a few blocks away. One of the main reasons I had chosen an office overlooking the smelly Chicago River.

The night was warm in spite of the unnatural fog and my clothing was almost dry by the time I found a police car parked at the curb, the two police officers inside sipping steaming cups of coffee. Smoothing back my damp hair and straightening my ragged clothing, I tried to look more like the loser in a bar fight, than the winner in a battle against demons.

“Excuse me, officers?” I asked hesitantly, stopping a few feet away.
Never rush toward the police
.

“Well, well, and what do we have here?” the younger cop drawled in a voice heavy with contempt.

The older cop watched me closely, then dismissed me as harmless. “Been drinking and fell in the river, buddy?” he demanded, defying me to question his authority.

“Actually, no,” I started, but was interrupted by the sound of the car door opening.

“Keep your hands in sight, asshole,” the young cop demanded, placing his Styrofoam cup on the hood and pulling a set of stainless steel handcuffs into sight. “The locals don't like drunks wandering the streets and bothering the tourists. A night in the tank will do you the world of good.”

And get me killed
. With no choice, I spoke a Word of Power.

The younger cop wrinkled his face in confusion, but the older cop did an abrupt change of attitude.

“Hold it, rookie,” he commanded, climbing from the vehicle. “I know this man.”

“You do?” the policeman asked sounding confused.

“Sure.” Reaching out, he took my hand and we shook, exchanging grips and signs. The grips were familiar, but different. Not a Freemason, but FOP, Fraternal Order of Police. Our secret division of law enforcement agencies. Good enough.