Imperium (Caulborn) (13 page)

“So how did you catch Nathan Singravel the first time?” Megan asked.

“Miguel had noticed that Nathan’s quality of life was improving beyond what his Caulborn salary should allow. It was little stuff really; new computer, new tech toys, new TV, stuff like that. On their own, they wouldn’t have meant much, but there were so many of them in such a short period of time that Mikey noticed.” I took my leather bomber from the back of my chair and shrugged into it.

“Singravel was that obvious?”

“No, Miguel was that observant. Nathan didn’t flaunt his new toys, didn’t even talk about them. But Mikey would see them on Nathan’s desk, would see Nathan ordering stuff online. Lots of stuff. And as that was happening, some of the Caulborn’s enemies started being able to dodge us, like they knew what we were planning. Mikey got permission from Galahad and did some digging. A Swiss bank account had been opened in Nathan’s name and it had seven figures in it. Gears installed an electronic monitoring device on Nathan’s PC at work and at his apartment. We found that Nathan was sending coded transmissions to several less than reputable individuals.”

Megan whistled. “So what happened?”

“Miguel, Kristin and I went to Nathan’s apartment. The confrontation was short. Nathan has a Fylgiar and he sent it at us while he tried to run. Kristin sent Mist to intercept it. Miguel ran after Nathan and tackled him. Nathan pretty much broke on the spot and told us everything.”

“That seems too easy,” Megan said as we started back into the hall.

“That’s what I thought. Thing is, Nathan had been selling info for months while trying to stay under the radar. The shrinks say that his mind was getting close to breaking from the stress of that, so once he finally got caught, it was a relief to unload everything.”

Megan stopped. “Wait. Nathan has a Fylgiar?”

“Yeah, its name is Smoke.”

Megan shook her head. “Then you can’t be involved with this. I spent a lot of time talking with Kristin about Fylgiar yesterday. One of the people I worked with in New Mexico had an ancestral guardian, and I wanted to see if they were the same kind of thing. Smoke will be able to pick up on your scent from up to a mile away. If he thinks you’ve been poking around Nathan’s apartment, Nathan will be on alert.”

Crap. She had a point there. “Okay, so what do you suggest?”

“Let me take some surveillance photos of his apartment, and tail him for a time. I should be able to see who he meets with.”

“All right. But you be careful. Do you have the lifeline’s phone number in case you run into trouble?”

She nodded.

“Okay, while you do that, I’ll see if I can dig up anything on this Robert Maxwell.” Megan left and I went back to my office and jotted some notes on the whiteboard. That done, I looked up directions to Robert Maxwell’s house using the address Thad had given me and decided to go check his place out. My phone buzzed and I looked down to see an email from Thad with a list of items Maxwell had purchased. I couldn’t help but smile; Thad’s timing has always been impeccable.

I took the train to the address and found Maxwell’s apartment building. I went up to the third floor and knocked. No answer. I waited a minute and tried again. Still no answer.

I glanced up and down the hallway, and when I was sure no one was watching, I touched the door and Opened it. My father was a god of doors and I was lucky enough to inherit that particular domain. The door unlocked itself and swung open for me. I’d have done this at the Delion’s place, but Megan seemed so excited to use her picks.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. The apartment opened on a living room smelling of fresh paint. A quick glance showed me a TV, a couch, recliner and coffee table. While the furniture was new, everything looked cheap; the coffee table was one of those flimsy pressboard jobs, the recliner and couch were the overstuffed kind you find at bargain basement outlet stores, and the TV was a no-name brand.

This certainly didn’t match the profile of a person who shopped at a place like Antiquated Treasures. I stepped through into the kitchen and found a small table and two chairs. I opened the cabinets and saw they were completely empty. So was the fridge. There was no garbage can in the kitchen either. I opened the oven and found the little tag that told how to use a gas range.

Two doors were off the living room. The first was the bathroom. The medicine chest was completely empty; there wasn’t even a toothbrush. I opened the second door, which I guessed should’ve been the bedroom. Inside I found a handful of empty cardboard boxes, some of them with the Antiquated Treasures logo on them. There was no bed, no dresser, and no clothes in the closet. Robert Maxwell didn’t actually live here. The place was made up just enough so that a delivery person or someone looking in from the hall would see a normal looking apartment.

I found the shipping list from one of the boxes that didn’t come from Antiquated Treasures. It listed a medieval ball and chain for contents. There were a few other boxes from a nursery. These had no packing slips, but I suspected they’d contained wolfsbane. I looked around again. There were no photos, no books, no notes next to the telephone. The TV wasn’t even plugged in. I copied down the items Maxwell had ordered and names of the other shops into my notebook and headed out.

I got back to the office and found Megan skipping toward the building’s door. Her eyes were bright and her dimple was prominent. “Good news?” I asked.

“Yep.” We opened the office door and stepped into the lobby. “I’ve got a photo of the guy Nathan Singravel has been selling information to.” She patted her camera.

I gawked. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That was fast.”

She smiled. “Just lucky, I guess. Come on, I’ll show you in my office.”

We went upstairs and Megan popped the flash card from her camera into the computer. She scrolled through some images and brought up one of Nathan Singravel speaking with a tall man with a shaved head. He was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, and had a tattoo of a sun on the left side of his neck. “Recognize him?” Megan asked.

“No, but he matches a description Thad gave me.” I had Megan email the photo to Thad with a quick message asking if it was Robert Maxwell. Thad responded less than thirty seconds later with a message simply saying, “Yes.”

Megan’s extension rang and she picked up. “Megan Hayes.” There was a brief pause. “Okay, we’ll be right down.” She hung up. “Doc Ryan and Mrs. Rita have turned up some information on that corpse you brought in.”

We headed down to Medical where we found the Doc lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke out his nostrils and shook his head. “Incredible. This is incredible. This thing looks like someone tried to clone a gremlin and then alter the clone’s DNA.” He pointed to a computer screen. There were a bunch of chemical equations that probably wouldn’t have made sense to me back when I was in college. The Doc rolled his eyes at my blank look.

“That looks like the chemical formula for chlorpromazine,” Megan said, squinting at the screen.

The Doc’s face brightened. “That’s right. Nice to know someone around here was paying attention during chemistry class.” The Doc took another puff. “For the underachievers in the room,” the Doc looked directly at me, “chlorpromazine is an extremely powerful tranquilizer. These ‘neo-gremlins’ secrete it naturally and deliver it via poison glands that line their mouths. One bite from one of these little bastards and you’d be out for a week.”

“What else is different about them?” I asked.

“They’re bigger and stronger than the original gremlins, probably so they can subdue their prey better. Their brains are about thirty percent smaller, though, so I don’t think they’d be as intelligent as the gremlins we know and love.” The Doc glanced at the corpse on the table across from him. “They also have chameleon-like pigmentation, so they’ve got situational camouflage that would be very effective in sneaking around.” The Doc finished his cigarette and crushed it out in an ashtray. I thought about the creatures that had taken a swipe at me the other night and how I hadn’t been able to see them. I shuddered.

“Anything else?” I asked.

The Doc looked at me. “Well, yeah,” he said as he put another cigarette to his mouth. “They’re uglier, too.”

Leslie’s voice came over the intercom system. “Doctor Ryan, Agent Hayes, Agent Corinthos, please come to the conference room.” We started for the door when one of the computers played a soft chime. “Finally,” the Doc said. “I’ve been running a facial reconstruction simulation on that zombie Kristin brought in the other day. This scan was to match up and give us a picture of what the poor cuss looked like before he got all runny.”

The image rendered onscreen confirmed Kristin’s initial suspicions. I was looking at Seamus McElery.

Chapter 11

Begin Coded Transmission
The hobgoblins and trolls, frustrated that one of the most docile of peoples had suddenly risen up against them, launched a final, full-scale attack against the Urisk. Fourteen war clans made up of soldiers, mages and shape shifters were deployed into Urisk territory. They did not return. The hobgoblins claim that the Urisk are cursed, and the trolls have refused any further contact.
While it may be unorthodox, I suggest that a portion of the Urisk population be killed by envikan to reduce Corinthos’ overall powers, defeat him, and thus make conquest possible. The Urisk population can then be replenished via breeding programs.
-NS
End Coded Transmission

I rushed up to the conference room with Doc Ryan and Megan in tow. Galahad and Mrs. Rita were already there. “Mrs. Rita informed me that you have discovered a new breed of gremlin,” Galahad said as we sat down. He pulled a keyboard up from below the table and tapped on it. The giant plasma TV on the far wall flashed to life as Galahad logged into our secure systems.

“What I am about to share with you is classified information. It is not to leave this room.” Galahad keyed in a few more commands and we were looking at a black and white photograph of Adolph Hitler surrounded by a group of men and women.

“Some of you may know that Hitler was a bit of a fanatic about the occult. During World War II, he recruited many men and women who claimed to have mystical powers in order to give his soldiers an edge in battle. Luckily for the Allies, the majority of these people were frauds. This one, however, was not.” The image zoomed in on a young woman four people to the right of Hitler. Her dark hair was cut short and she wore a plain black dress. Her eyes had the hard edge of determination in them. I could tell this was a woman who did what she set out to, no matter what.

“This is Millie von Hassen. Her father was an expert on folklore who took her throughout Europe when she was a child. She was exposed to dozens of cultures, their superstitions, and their magics. She dabbled in magic herself, and from the intelligence I have, became quite good at it. She joined Hitler’s inner circle here about a year before the war ended.”

“What did she do?” Megan asked. “Put hexes on Allied soldiers? Give the Nazis potions to make them supermen?”

“Nothing so mundane,” Mrs. Rita said. “Von Hassen learned how to create golems from Hebrew traditions and created many artificial soldiers. She expanded on the golem making techniques and improved them. Ultimately, she created an entire race of creatures designed to infiltrate and sabotage Allied airplanes, convoys and boats.”

“Gremlins,” Galahad said. “Ms. von Hassen here is the mother of the gremlin race.” I gawked at him. Galahad smiled at me. “Oh yes, if you listen to fairy tales today, there have been gremlins right alongside goblins and pixies all along. The truth of the matter is they’ve only been here since the 1940s.”

“Von Hassen worked closely with this man, Gottfried Herrscher,” Galahad clicked again and showed a man with a short haircut and a square jaw. He was muscular and looked like he was in his early twenties. His expression suggested he, too, was used to always getting what he wanted. “Herrscher had an innate ability to control supernatural beings, including Millie’s golems and gremlins. They called him the Dominator. Their combined efforts cost the allies hundreds of lives and destroyed a substantial amount of equipment.”

Galahad folded his hands in front of him. “After the war, German Caulborn agents set about splitting up as many of Hitler’s occultists as they could. Herrscher was sent to Russia and died in 1973 of a rare blood disorder. Millie was sent to America and she’s been living in Sudbury ever since.”

“Where’s that?” Megan asked.

“It’s not too far from here,” I said. “I thought Hitler’s cronies were all tried and executed, Galahad. Why was she allowed to live?”

“Because of the gremlins, Vincent. The Caulborn wanted to make sure that we knew everything possible about the creatures. So in exchange for that knowledge, we gave her a fresh start. Vincent, Megan, I want you to go speak with Millie today. Part of our agreement was that she would not create anything again.”

Megan told Galahad about her surveillance photos on Nathan Singravel. Galahad nodded. “I will arrange for a constant watch on Nathan. Good work, Megan.” He pointed at me and then Megan. “You two should head over to Millie’s house immediately. Doctor Ryan, Mrs. Rita, I would like to speak with you further.”

Megan and I left the room and headed to our offices. I printed out directions to Millie’s house and we drove to Sudbury. Megan chattered as we rode. “Wow, an entire race, synthetically created. Do you really think she’s making new gremlins? Why now, after all this time? She must be really old by now, too, so she’d probably have to have help; I can’t imagine an eighty-some-odd-year-old woman bustling about a laboratory.”

“Hard to say. She might have mystically enhanced herself to slow her aging, or she might’ve been creating new gremlins all along and kept it hidden from us.”

Megan tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Doesn’t add up,” she said after a moment.

“That’s why we’re going to talk to her,” I replied. All this talk about gremlins made me think about Gears and the encounter we’d had at Axlesnapper’s garage. “Gears seemed kinda down after we got back from Axlesnapper’s. I didn’t get a chance to check in on him. I hope he’s okay.”