Heart of Stone (13 page)

Tyra erupted into instant orgasm,
consumed. Thex came, no longer able to contain himself as he saw
what Simon did. Simon came as he felt Thex drive to the hilt in his
ass and felt their mutual orgasm. “Bloody hell!” No one was sure
who said it.

George found them all in a cuddled
heap on Simon’s office rug. “Sorry boss but the police guy is here.
He’s most insistent.”

Simon, who was on the bottom of the
heap, groaned and opened his eyes. “Okay, tell him to wait in the
lounge. Give us five, we’ll need to shower and get
dressed.”

Sergeant Wilson was pacing the lounge.
Melissa, the waitress from the pub was with him.

Simon frowned as he walked into the
room, wondering at the visit. Usually Michael kept a professional
distance from him as he didn’t want to know too much about Simon’s
activities and the paperwork they might cause. “Michael?

“
There’s something afoot
Simon. Steven and his cronies are meeting in the pub’s upstairs
conference room. The barman sent Melissa over to let me know.
“

Simon’s frown deepened, that sounded
ominous. “And you came here because...?”

Michael gave Simon his
official stare which everyone in the town knew translated to
‘
tell me if I’ve got this
wrong
’. “Because when there’s trouble in
this town you either seem to be somewhere on the edge of it or
somehow involved in putting things right.” He drew in a breath and
seemed to be steeling himself to say something he didn’t want to.
“Also, call me crazy if you want, but no one in this town has ever
seen you age a day. Which mostly is none of our business so we
don’t ask and we don’t say anything to those outside the town but
if what my grandad told me before he died is true then you’ve been
in this town a very long time. I’ve usually stayed out of your way
because I just didn’t want to know and as long as you stayed within
the law with your business I’ve left you to whatever it is you do.
Steven and his meeting, though, has got the hair on the back of my
neck prickling and when that happens something bad’s going to
happen. Can you help?”

“
First you can stop your
pacing. You’re wearing a hole in my floor.”

Michael stilled himself. He made a
distinct effort not to see the bordello decor of the lounge and
instead kept his focus well and truly on Simon, Tyra and a half
naked Thex who hadn’t had time yet to put a shirt on. He indicated
to Thex with an annoyed questioning look. “I don’t know this
guy”.

Simon deciphered that as
‘
who the hell’s this stranger in my town
and you’d better not be expanding your business
Simon
’. Simon’s mouth quirked in a half
smile. “I guess it’s time to put the cards on the table then.
Sergeant Michael Wilson, our local law enforcement, meet Commander
Aleksios Thex, the galaxy’s guardian for this sector of the
universe, recently rescued from his millennia of imprisonment. He’s
also my mate, as is Tyra.”

Tyra blushed but was
overjoyed at that little announcement,
well that put things out there
.

Melissa looked awed.

Michael gave everyone an appraising
look.

Thex stepped forward and shook
Michael’s hand. “You can just call me Thex”.

They moved their conversation to the
kitchen. Tyra, still smiling contentedly to herself, busied herself
getting drinks for everyone.

Thex paced thoughtfully then turned to
Simon. “Could you do one of your thingies?”

Simon rolled his eyes at the warrior’s
well known disdain for all things mystical. “If you mean contact
the all-spirit and see if it gives me a prophecy or vision, yes I
could”. He sat down on the floor mat, away from any objects like
chair and table legs, in case he fell. “Here goes.” He turned his
mind to the all-spirit and listened.

Everyone in the room stopped what they
were doing and just about held their collective breath. You’d hear
a pin drop.

Simon suddenly slumped forward, his
breath stilled for a moment then he opened his eyes. He was back.
“The enemy are coming, they have a ship. In the vision I saw them
landing it on the football oval. They mean to take Thex and destroy
him once and for all or destroy the town trying. If they can
dispose of me and probably Tyra as well they’ll try for that
too.”

“
Michael straightened his
shoulders and glared, at no one in particular. “We don’t negotiate
with terrorists. Thex stays, no one’s touching Tyra and as for you
Simon, you are the town, you’ve lived here longer than any of us.
Now how do we protect the town. Have I got time to call in the
army?”

“
I’d advise against
contacting the authorities. The enemy have infiltrated your world
so thoroughly there is no knowing who to trust. They’re just as
likely to engineer a situation that brands us as the terrorists,
still results in Thex’s demise and the demise of half the town as
well. They’ll cover it all up later as a gas leak or something
similar. I’ve seen it done many times before. We can only trust the
people in this town, Steven and his cronies excepting.”

Michael sagged back in his chair,
weighed down by the enormity of it all. “And the when”.

“
They’ll come tonight under
the cover of dark”.

The people they could trust most had
gathered in Simon’s lounge. Simon had slid back a wooden folding
wall divider and opened the the high ceilinged room back up to its
original ballroom size.

They’d listened intently, with more
than a few mouths gaping, while Thex and Simon outlined the full
extent of what they faced as well as a bit of background history on
the enemy.

Thex drew breath to finish. “So to sum
up, we need to disarm the spaceship and take out the enemy on
board, before they can harm anyone in the town.”

Tyra winced “by take out the enemy,
you mean kill them.”

“
I don’t see that there is
any other way”.

“
We’re assuming they are
coming in their full form. If they’re just hitching a ride in the
aura of a human we’ll be killing humans. Either way it’s pretty
final for them. You said once before that they came from a place
between the dimensions, a place that was pretty unpleasant. If we
kill their bodies here their spirits will just go back there and
they’ll just use their portal technology to come back.”

Sally stood to speak “What if we
cursed them back to the lower planes you just told us
about”.

Thex shrugged his shoulders and looked
at Simon for help. Simon just shook his head. “The beings of our
plane don’t know such things”.

“
But I do.” This from
Thomas, the irresponsible cat owner. No one was sure why he was
here.

Melissa glared at him but nodded in
agreement “I don’t like to admit it but he probably
can”.

The townsfolk seemed a little amused
at the friction between Melissa and Thomas but Thex and Tyra were
just confused.

Thex turned to Thomas “Care to
explain”.

“
What Melissa and her
wiccan wannabees hate is that I’m a ritual magician, they consider
me the dark side. I can do you a banishing spell. But I’ll need
something to bespell.”

Melissa restrained herself from going
over to punch him, wiccan wannabees indeed. “We’ll be using bullets
I gather, why don’t we get Thomas to bespell those. We don’t need
to shoot to kill then. One shot anywhere on their body should be
enough to send a Din entity to the lower planes and if they happen
to just be in the aura of a human at the time it will free the
human. If they’re in human form we’ll need a way to see auras
though, that’s a bit of a problem”.

Simon smiled, he still had his herbal
dust. “Nothing insurmountable and we could use heavy duty
tranquilizer darts on any possessed humans, if Sally has some to
spare from the vet clinic.”

Tyra was still disturbed “That’s all
very well but what if they surrender? If they give up peacefully we
shouldn’t just throw them into the lower worlds. We have to give
them an option, some way they could stay in this world if they
promised to leave us alone.”

Thex sighed, Tyra’s compassion was
going to complicate things but he still admired her for it. She was
after all a follower of filia, the path of love and compassion so
he couldn’t very well blame her for being true to her path. “Only
if they surrender and you’ll have to come up with a convincing
option or we go back to plan a.”

Tyra gave a quick nod and looked to
Simon for support. “I’ll go seek the Goddess’s advice”.

Melissa looked excited at that, “Could
Rob and the rest of our coven come with you?”

Simon thought on this “I can’t see why
not but we’ll need either a sacred place or a place of death if we
are going to call her”.

Melissa had an idea. “There’s a grove
where we perform our rituals, will that do?”

“
Yes that will be
fine.”

Thex cleared his throat to interrupt.
“Okay we’ve got that bit sorted. We still need to contain, board
and disarm the ship, not necessarily in that order. We also need a
place to hold those who surrender or who we capture. Like Simon and
me the Din can’t be contained easily. They only manifest a material
body through choice. They’ll just zap out of anything we put them
in.”

Thomas laughed arrogantly, bemused at
their collective lack of knowledge. “Not if you put them in a
Circle of Solomon.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “I thought
that was just a ring sorcerers like you put on their
fingers”.

Thomas shrugged. “It can be but it can
also be a ritual space on the ground. At its most basic you only
need two concentric circles with a Star of David in the middle. A
paint marker and we could mark one out as big as you like on the
football ground. Football club might not be amused
though.”

Thex absentmindedly scratched his head
and looked confused. “Explain to me Thomas what a Circle of Solomon
does and how its going to help us?”

“
Simple, its a ritual
circle for containing demons. Throw them in and they can’t get out.
What I’m thinking is if we mark one out on the football ground then
when the ship lands it won’t be able to take off.”

Thex was starting to like the idea but
it sounded too easy. “Won’t they see it and just land
elsewhere?”

Thomas shrugged his shoulder, the
whole thing was so obvious in his mind. “Not if we mark it out in a
colour that doesn’t show up in the dark. Anyone got some grey paint
we could use?”

Michael thought he knew where there
was some left over from when they last painted the fire station.
“We’ll find some.”

Well that sounds like a plan Thex
thought to himself. “Okay then how do we take the ship?”

George stood to speak. “That’s where
the Major and I come in. There’s some real cool weapons back in
Jack’s hut including a Barrett M82 that can shoot heavy calibre
.50BMG rounds from at least a kilometer away, maybe two. Simon
could zap those back here. I’ll take sniper position on top of the
disused church tower with the Barrett. I’ve had a quick word with
Ally, the local electrician, who now has it as her home. She’ll let
me up there. I should be able to take out even weapons from there.
Although a grenade launcher would have been nice as
well.”

Michael grinned, finally pleased he
could offer something to help. “As it turns out there’s one stored
at the station, would you believe in case of civil unrest or
invasion or some sort. I think we can class this as fending off an
invasion. There is also the old cannon that sits out the front of
the Returned Services League club, I think they still have a few
cannon balls that go with that.”

Thex was still unsure of their
collective capacity to deal with what was coming but things were
sounding sort of plausible. “Okay, but we won’t use the cannon,
except for intimidation purposes, unless we have to. I’d like that
to keep that ship if we could, it’s an asset that might come in
handy. Can we we load the cannon on the back of some kind of
vehicle that we could drive up to point it at their front door when
we want in?”

Michael nodded “Might take a bit of
doing but I think I can rustle up enough guys to set it up on the
flat tray of an old truck we can use.”

Thex turned back to George. “And the
Major.”

“
Ah well, it seems when you
were being rescued the Goddess gifted the Major with some real cool
powers. Go on show ‘em John.”

The Major sat down and concentrated.
Everyone turned, somewhat aghast, as he also walked into the room
from the hall outside. “As you can see I can project myself and...”
He bent to pick up a coffee cup from a nearby table, “I can also
touch and move things in my projected form.” If Sally would kindly
come here...” Sally came over. “Now reach out with your hand.” The
hand went through him like his projection was a ghost, Sally jerked
back in surprise. “Thanks Sally. “They won’t be able to damage me
with their weapons like they could Simon or Thex. I’m thinking I
can project myself onto the ship once it’s landed. I’ll relay you
back intel and cause general confusion on board. It also appears
that I now have the ability to sense entities that pose a threat,
at least within a hundred meter radius, so I can let you know
numbers”.