Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] (26 page)

Shucking my protective wrap, I craned my neck to watch the building fall. Sadly, I observed that the individual pieces had joined together and it was a completely whole ten-story building hurtling down towards ... hey, that wasn't O'Hare! Or Chicago!

No, it isn't.

Jess!

Who else, pumpkin?

No coherent thoughts came to mind.

How sweet. I love you too. And to bring you up to date on current events, Raul used his and Katrina's wands to Gate the whole damn building away from any populated area.

Brilliant! Where?

She told me, and with a contented smile, I settled in to watch the show. From this high upward, I should have a splendid view of the crash.

A trail of flame stretched out behind the rocketing hotel like a comet's tail. Knifing through the cloud layer, the hotel reached and went past Mach One. With a sonic boom, the building broke apart again, the chunks continuing like a shotgun blast.

What remained of the hotel crashed precisely in the middle of Hadleyville, West Virginia, instantly converting into 700 million ergs of pure radiant heat.

In a blinding flash, the stores and homes disappeared, everything pulverized by the sheer force of the concussion. Jagged cracks spread out from the impact point like earthy lightning bolts. Motionless for a million geological years, the nearby Appalachian Mountains danced from the shock waves, but maintained enough integrity to contain the brunt of the nuclear-grade explosion.

For a split second, the twisted skeleton of a subterranean base was silhouetted in the hellish fury. Brought into view and annihilated. Feebly, the volatile chemicals in the armory added their pittance of destruction to the violent display. Fusing into fission, the structures vanished in a strobe sequence, the lambent vapor converting metal and stone into radiant flame. Layers of bedrock dissolved. Then the sheer mass of the planet pushed back against the ravening onslaught, and the plasma blast rebounded. Superheated gasses belched forth from the bottom of the incandescent crater in a deafening roar, coruscating flares leapt for the sky and boiling smoke formed a clean mushroom cloud overhead.

Clutching the fringe of Runner, I held on for dear life and rode the volcanic storming as best I could. After what seemed an eternity, the rumbling vibrations ceased and an eerie stillness enshrouded the decimated headquarters of the Scion with a graveyard peace.

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We never heard from the Scion of the Silver Dagger again. However, as the news of how I stopped the head of the Scion began to spread through the occult community, werewolves start disappearing across the entire world. Talk about taking a bite out of crime!

After Katrina beat the mage, and Jess killed her evil counterpart, they rushed to join the fight, rescuing George and saving the good Father's life. Mike had been one heartbeat away from death. He walks with a wooden cane these days. A cane built by Remington Firearms that fires 12 gauge shotgun shells, of course.

Our jetsam equipment crashed in farmland and the only victims were an assortment of squash. How appropriate.

A short phone call from Horace Gordon to the President, and NASA started replacing their moon rocks on display with precise duplicates tooled out of rocks from Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. Who's going to know the difference? It cost NASA a pretty penny, but after a special favor we had done for them once, it was considered only fair payment.

Our Cyber Cops had wisely fled the vicinity of Hadleyville when the sky began falling and we didn't lose a single robot.

In less than a month, Mathias Bolt and most of the top echelon of the Brotherhood of Darkness were arrested for committing a wide variety of crimes directly traceable to them by the money I had marked inside that safe.

The crew of the USS:
Idaho
was rescued, and with the assistance of the Bureau mermaids, we even managed to save the mighty battleship herself. The mass marriage is next month. Oh, those crazy sailors.

It took micro surgeons from West Virginia to remove the moon rock from the fist of Dr. Joanne Abernathy, but she has a nice robotic replacement and doesn't really mind. After a pep talk from Horace Gordon it appears that Dr. Abernathy will be joining our august organization. Lord knows we can always use trained medical personnel.

Our running battle on the Ohio Turnpike was declared a shoot-out between rival drug gangs. The firefights in Chicago attributed to mob warfare. Officially, the
Idaho
never sank.

Exposed to the truth about the supernatural threats to America, the Bureau received over a thousand recruits from every branch of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense. For the first time since the Slaughter of ‘77 we have a full compliment of agents.

Plus, ten new mages
, Jessica added.

The more the better, in my opinion. Oddly, Runner and Amigo have become the best of friends. Now, if only we could stop them from taking joy rides and strafing the Chicago Zoo. Those dry cleaning bills are killing us!

Damaged from her deadly psionic battle, Jessica found that her telepathic powers had been reduced to her natural level and ME! is visiting a psychologist and getting some treatment for its maniac depression.

We got a new RV.

After rebuilding the downtown Chicago apartment building, an old dead friend of ours, Abduhl Benny Hassan, moved into the basement of our new urban fortress. This pleased every member of my team, especially Mindy. Without a ghost in the basement, it just wasn't home. Besides, who else could get a deep dish pizza from Carmen's on Sheridan Avenue, and be back in less than a split second? That was an extremely useful talent. I mean really, cold pizza? Horror of horrors!

During this, George was in the Geneva Medical Institute recovering from his latest rounds of plastic surgery. He'll be fine, and resembling Sean Connery if the lovely Ms. Katrina has anything to say about his facial reconstruction.

Bureau 13 headquarters is no longer located in the Sears Tower, and the ‘Lazy Eight’ has been renamed the ‘Vogue’ Motel.

I started growing hair every full moon, but with my monthly anti-lycanthropy shots and a fresh razor I'm doing fine.

The fight between the buxom ThunderBunnies and the demonic Colombian mercenaries at the Museum of Science and Industry will be released next summer by TriStar pictures under the title, “Windycity Wipe-Out!". The movie will be rated: H. No heart attack patients or heretics allowed.

To this day, J.P. Withers will not talk to me.

Once again doing the impossible, the Army Corp of Engineers diverted a West Virginia river and managed to flood the impact crater from the hotel, then a private investment company started construction on Meteor Lake Amusement Park. We even got to help design the Extreme Haunted House. Now that was fun! Sometimes, my team even stops by to play the monsters, just for a change of pace. The amusement park also happens to have a hotel that hosts a lot of conventions. Hey, it was a great idea, and we would be fools not to use it ourselves.

Waste not, want not
.

Exactly! A few days later, the entire Bureau 13 organization was present at a private ceremony in a secluded section of Arlington National Cemetery, as we laid to rest the men and women, soldiers and civilians, mages, monsters, and mortals, who paid the ultimate price to defend this crazy world. Then Horace Gordon gave the same speech that he always does at funerals, quoting the great philosopher Marcus Aurellius.

"A wall of troops surrounded the campfire, guarding the civilians and children through the chilly darkness until the dawn,” he said softly, the ancient words sounding brand new in the silvery light of the full moon. “And so shall it ever be, soldiers standing bold against the creatures of the night!"

Amen, brother. Amen.