Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two] (30 page)
Read Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two] Online
Authors: Nick Pollotta
For a long moment, we could only stare. Then hesitantly, LaRue drew a ragged breath. Hell's bells, not dead yet, only stunned.
"Jessica,” I croaked from parched throat. “Mine is the only voice you can hear. Mine the only will to obey."
Back in a trance, she dumbly nodded assent.
"The activation code is Apocalypse,” I said quickly. “The command phrase is Armageddon. The go word is Ragnarok."
Jessica grit her teeth, there was a cracking noise and she swallowed. Her whole body became flushed and she started gulping air.
"What have you done to her?” Mindy demanded, tears of pain running down her cheeks.
"Jess has a hollow tooth filled with a massive overdose of MCD, the brain-booster drug,” I rasped, fighting off the agony that every motion brought from the spikes. “She blocked its existence from her own mind. Only I can make her remember."
My wife was hyperventilating, her eyes rolled into her head until only solid white showed. Her nude body spasming, jerking and twisting against the wall almost succeeding in tearing free. Fresh blood gushed from her wrists and ankles.
"Ed, it's killing her!” George raged, bunching his muscles. “Or worse!"
Not for at least five minutes
, Jessica sent into our minds like a cool silver river.
No more pain, my friends.
Instantly, the searing agony in my hands and feet was gone. I wanted to thank her, but there was no time to waste on niceties.
"Brain Blast him into ash!” I ordered, the words raspy from all the screaming.
Can't, my love. I am too weak. He might survive.
"Link us together,” Katrina suggested, her face a feral mask of hatred. “Many minds better than one."
Still dangerous. Maybe a Death Dream?
"Do it!” I commanded furiously.
In a swirl of thoughts, our conscious minds joined and as a fighting unit Team Tunafish began to mesh with the living, insane mind of the multiple personalities of the fledging god.
Kill or be killed, we were going in.
The ‘I’ of me became a ‘we', as the team gestated into a single identity and guided by the adroit control of the Jessica part, smoothly and without a trace, meshed with the dreaming brain of our woozy enemy. We had only seconds in which to act. A Death Dream, eh? Okay, let's make it a doozy.
In his disorientated thoughts, LaRue was reliving the events that had just happened a moment ago. As Sander leaped, he stepped aside. No. As Sanders leaped, he hit the man with a Disintegration spell. No. As Sanders leaped, LaRue used a Death Spell and—
We took over his subconscious.
...and the two of them crashed through the paper hull of the aircraft carrier and tumbled into the dirty water of the Hudson River. Floundering and splashing, the surprised LaRue turned Ken into lead and the big man sank into the murky depths. Wilson started for shore via a dog paddle, when a violent tug on his leg jerked him down. In the jumbled blurred view of underwater, smoky tendrils of blood muddied the river, and the horrified alchemist saw a blue-gray shark swimming off with his leg. LaRue screamed and polluted water filled his lungs. Gagging, the new wizard formed a platform beneath himself, and more sharks shot out of the stygian river depths. The ultra-mage tried to cast spells, but his arms moved with nightmarish slowness through the water.
At this point, he almost understood this only an illusion in his mind so we had more sharks attack as a diversion to keep him busy! Jerk, and another leg was gone. An arm went, taking the diamond staff along. Then his head! The sharp teeth—
"
No
!” the mage screamed inside his head.
Alive and whole, a dripping wet LaRue was standing on the pier trembling from exertion, when a car horn blared. He turned and a taxi rammed into him. His body wrapped around the hood, bones crunching audibly. With a squeal of brakes, the car stopped and LaRue was airborne, tumbling head-over-heels. Brutally, he crashed through a window, the glass shards slicing him to ribbons. He landed on an electrical outlet with a thump and hard current zapped into him. Rolling away, the alchemist pulled himself together when a piercing whine rapidly built to a deafening volume, and suddenly a jumbo jetliner smashed into the office building! Ah subtlety, I love it.
In an explosion of pain, the Navy librarian was crushed and violently slammed-slammed-slammed through numerous walls to reach the outside. Pulped to jelly, he fell to the street, stopping himself an inch above the sidewalk. From the core of his being, LaRue extended a Heal spell, and twisting about, landed on shaky feet. Damnation, this guy was hard to kill.
Just then the city disappeared in a blinding atomic flash. Horribly burned by the thermal wave, his charred remains were blown into the sky as a second nuclear bomb detonated. In a desperate time jump, LaRue moved backwards to avoid the bomb blasts.
Okay, no more Mr. Nice Guys. Time for the nightmare from hell. Instantly, a hundred thousand thermonuclear detonations dotted the entire North American continent only seconds before the moon crashed into the Earth.
Whole oceans left their beds from the meteoric impact, continents split, mountains erupted, gouts of primordial magma vomited into space and the planet cracked in half. A heart beat later, the cleaved world closed its two halves like snapping jaws to crush the rogue moon with a vengeful force.
Spinning out of orbit, Earth plunged into the sun, tongues of nuclear flame annihilating chunks of the world until only molten residue remained. Caught in the hellish crushing gravitational field of the staggering astronomical body, the boiling elements splashed into an atomic sea to be further rendered into random nuclei. Then the violated solar orb went nova creating a blinding cosmic firestorm whose starkly incalculable fury extended to fill the planetary system, and went beyond, expanding to reach another star. All the stars! In a wild chain reaction, the whole galaxy flared into a supernova of raw cosmic energy whose unbridled chaos threatened to destroy the very fabric of the Time/Space continuum!
Then the Creator of the Universe closed a mighty hand about the tiny flame and made a fist, squeezed with all of His prodigious strength until even the immortal souls of the trillions dead screamed in limitless anguish and died, winking out of existence.
Nothingness.
Absolute and infinite.
Mentally, we heard a pitiful whimpering cry, then sensed Wilson LaRue and all of his multiple personas die in an endless parade of surrender.
In echoing silence, the ‘we’ separated and I became myself once more.
Utterly fatigued, I felt no physical pain, only a type of soulful weariness, a mental exhaustion I had not felt since my infamous date with those Swedish triplets during college finals.
Ah, youth. Wish I had some left
.
Still attached to the wall, I forced apart my gummy eyelids, but could see only a blurry whiteness. Then I realized that it was the colorless smear that was pressing on me. A gentle warm pressure, but one which held me motionless in its encompassing grip.
It was the magic! With LaRue dead and the magic was returning to the world! Caught here at the epicenter, the reverse vortex was a tangible force to even non-magical beings. At least, that's what I sincerely hoped was happening.
In gradual stages, the velveteen hurricane diminished in magnitude, until I was allowed to slide down the wall and slump onto the cold metal deck. Hey, I was free!
Glancing about, I found the rest of my team and some handsome stranger sitting on the metal floor. I felt odd, but there was no pain and I was wearing clothes. Only the bare essentials, but at least I wasn't naked. Katrina and Raul must have recharged from the outpouring and done a few quick conjures. Mages, aren't they wonderful? I hoped they both increased a level or two from the experience.
The overturned jeep wreck was still whole and undamaged once more and beyond the bloody pentagram of guards was Wilson LaRue in street clothes, Rasamor Hoto in his kimono and the TNR battlesuit. All individuals again and each looking very deceased. There was no sign of the Aztec book.
Scrambling closer, I found Tanner limp but I yanked out his powerpack just to be safe. Hoto proved to be a desiccated corpse weighing about as much as a dry leaf. He crumbled to the touch, so I touched him with my closed fist. A lot. Lying sprawled on the cold deck, Wilson LaRue had his ugly head split asunder. Inside the cranial cavity was only a gnarled lump of flesh, vaguely the size and shape of a fried raisin.
Deciding that a dose of lead poisoning couldn't hurt, I reached for my Magnums. Or rather, I thought of reaching for my weapons, but my hand went over my shoulder and produced a sword whose razor length shimmered with rainbows. Eh?
That was when I noticed my hands were slim, muscular, covered with tiny scars and a dark rich brown. Glancing down, I was in the loose black cloth of a ninja, combat sneakers and had small pert breasts. Jumping Jesus, I was Mindy! No, I was in Mindy's body.
Hey, Mindy! You in here also?
Only silence.
Now I understood why I was so clumsy. My mind was giving directions to muscles that responded differently from my own. Geez, it was a wonder that I could even walk upright!
Moving carefully, I diced and sliced the alchemist into convenient chunks and then kicked the pieces away from each other. I was far from finished with him, but this would do for starters.
In a half glide, half lurch, I shambled back to my team. Had to find out who was who and how long this bizarre phenomenon was going to last. Hell! This could get embarrassing!
Across the deck, George, Donaher, Katrina and Raul were moving and attempting to stand. The handsome stranger I noticed earlier was, of course, me. I started to ask whomever was in me to turn about so I could get to see the back of my head, when I noticed Jessica laying deathly still on the cold deck.
Clumsy as a newborn, I threw myself to her side, only Mindy's instinctive reactions kept me from falling flat. Quickly, I checked my wife's pulse and respiration. Neither was detectable. Wasting no time, I titled her head, straightened the tongue and started giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Soon Donaher was next to me, his big hands pressing down on her chest with a pause, release, pause, and press.
"Mike?” I asked between breaths.
"I'm George,” the big priest replied. “Ed?"
I exhaled. “How'd you know?"
"Kind of obvious,” he said looking at the still telepath.
Yeah, I guess it was.
"Hey!” George's body cried from the double doors of the hangar deck. “The police are here!” The plump soldier was standing in an odd position, a fist held at his waist, the other hand slightly extended as if to offer a friendly shake. The cat stance, I believe it was called. George must be Mindy. This was getting confusing.
Using his precious staff to depress a button on the small control panel, Raul placed an ear to the wall mounted intercom. “And saints preserve us, it sounds as if that pimple Jules Englehart with his bedamned camera crew is with them!"
Donaher, without a doubt.
"Forget ‘em!” I squeaked. “Jess is dying!"
In an awkward gait, Katrina shoved her way close. “Let me,” the blonde offered.
"Who?” I demanded.
"Raul,” she growled, waving her wooden staff. Twinkling fairy lights sprinkled over my wife.
"Well?” George-in-Donaher demanded.
"I can save her life,” the mage replied. “But that's all I promise."
Good enough. I nodded. “Go."
Weaving golden trails in the air, the buxom woman consulted her pocket books of spells and started to chant in a language not English or Russian. Someday, I would discover what the private language of magic was, and why nobody but a wizard could even pronounce the words.
With a shuddering gasp, Jessica began to breath again. In mere seconds, color returned to her cheeks and she softly called my name. Lowering my voice as much as possible, I said her name and gave her hand a squeeze. Alive. She was alive! But at what cost? Only time would tell.
There came sounds from the other side of the hangar doors.
"Who?” I asked in sign language.
"Jewels,” came the fumbling reply. Mindy had never been a good speller, and George had never been very adept at sign language.
"Katrina,” I asked of Edwardo. “Seal the hangar doors with a Lock spell!"
My head was shaken. “Nyet. You have no magic for me to use."
Hell and damnation. “Raul?"
He shook her head, blonde locks swishing. “No can do, chief. I'm drained after fixing Jess."
"Drained! From one Heal?” I asked. “Just how bad was she?"
He-in-she paused. “Let's just say she knows the Grim Reaper by sight and leave it at that."
Zounds. In angry thought, I closed a hand into a fist, the knuckles cracking and popping. Okay, nothing else to do. Fingering the words for routine one, the team shifted to both side of the doors and waited for the rush. There was no means of escape, or place to hide. We couldn't use magic, or shoot them, or knock'em out with BZ or sleep gas. That left only one remaining option. The oldest ploy in military history.
Ponderously slow, the double doors parted and as the gang of reporters boldly entered, my stumbling team laid into them with fists, feet, teeth and staffs.
Professional spectators, the reporters had no ability for bare knuckle brawling, such as it was, so we were gentle and limited their destruction to a few black eyes, a couple of lumps and a broken nose or two. But down they went and for the count.
Dusting our wrong hands off afterwards, we tromped on the video camera, smashed the tape recorder, then stole Englehart's pants, and took several tasteless pictures with 35mm at F100 at medium focus suitable for 8X10 color portrait shot, and pocketed the film. These could come in useful at some future date, and there was always the possibility of a bulk mailing. Not to mention the Internet!
"Faith, its the police!” Father Donaher-in-Raul shouted, as the hangar doors cycled shut with a hollow boom. “Lots of them! They must have heard the slaughter."
