Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One] (19 page)

A stainless steel picket fence some thirty meters tall surrounded the place, the top of the barrier strung with wire supported by glassy knobs. Electrified wire, without a doubt. An ornate double gate, slightly ajar, fronted the fence. Plus, the gateway was bracketed by a pair of giant purple crabs resting on marble stands, their claws raised as if to do battle. The team exchanged puzzled looks. Purple crabs the size of a school bus? These folks either had strange taste in decorations, or some really bizarre sea life around here.

Using binoculars, I gave the place a fast once over. Filling the encampment were row upon row of iron bar cages, some large, some small, a few on stilts, others in sunken pits. Hmm. There was easily a hundred cages little more than piles of rust and quite a few of the standing cages had broken doors, the metal framework hanging loosely from twisted hinges.

"It's a freaking zoo,” I declared, lowering the binoculars.

Mindy pocketed her own field glasses. “Agreed. Well, this certainly explains the weird monsters."

"Why a monster zoo?” George asked, around a fresh stick of gum. “Doesn't make any sense."

"Zoos never make any sense,” Jessica retorted angrily.

Glumly, Richard shook his head. “No, George has a good point. What was its purpose? This island is hardly designed for the tourist trade."

"Maybe it was a sanctuary for endangered species,” I offered. “Or a kind of wildcard defense against invaders.” But both ideas sounded pretty lame.

"It could have been a quarantine pen for pets,” Mindy added.

George jerked a thumb. “Pets that required those kind of restraints?"

"Okay, maybe not,” she relented.

"Excuse me,” Father Donaher hesitantly spoke. “But wasn't there a coliseum sort of building inside the town?"

I scowled. That raised a few chilling possibilities. The old Christian-and-lions routine had occurred in the decadent period of ancient Rome just prior to the collapse of the empire. Maybe the same scenario was played here, with some magical Nero fiddling away while the island sank into the ocean? Sure fit the psychological profile of ‘The Masters'.

Thoughtfully, Richard munched on a thumbnail. “If it is for the coliseum, then there might be an underground transport system for moving the animals that we can use to gain entrance to the city."

That's my wizard. Always thinking.

"Must be what the ghost was talking about,” I said. “Let's go."

Thoughtfully, Donaher ran a hand over his endless forehead. “Okay, how do we get in?"

"Something wrong with the front gate?” I asked.

"What about the Cancer twins?” Mindy said, fingering the hilt of her sword. “With explosives banned, how are we supposed to take them out? Drown them in our blood?"

"Bah, I'll use a medium grade sleep spell,” Richard said, twirling his staff like a majorette's baton.

"Nonsense, a dose of BZ gas will do the trick,” George said confidently, tapping a military gas canister. “That'll have them so confused they may start dancing with each other, or order out for Chinese.” Good ol’ BZ gas was the unofficial party favor of the US Army.

"There are no detectable organic components,” Jess said, scrunching her forehead. “They must be either statues, or robots."

That stopped conversation for a second.

"Either could be the broken statue,” Mindy whispered, notching an arrow to the bow.

"Interesting,” Donaher said. “But if robots, programmed to do what, I wonder? Greet guests, or repel invaders?"

Jacking the cover on his mammoth assault rifle, George checked the indicators. Even from a meter away, I could see the digital display said 14,000 rounds remaining in the mammoth weapon.

"Who cares?” George announced confidently, sliding the cover to the former position. “We can take them easy."

"Barbarian,” Richard admonished. “Why not just walk past the things first and if that fails, try talking?"

None of us could really find a flaw in that plan.

"Well, Ed?” Donaher asked, extending a palm ahead of the group.

I shrugged. “A short life, but a merry one.” Experimentally, I rustled a bush to see what would happen. Nothing did. In attack formation, we exited the shrubbery and slowly approached the zoo, our boots silent on the fresh green grass. Keeping a careful watch on the crabs, our weapons at the ready, we came abreast and then passed beneath the towering crustaceans. At one point, I could have sworn that I heard a metallic creak, but neither seemed to have moved, so maybe it was only my imagination. Hope, hope, hope.

Moving through the dusty paths of the zoo, we gave the timeworn cages a cursory inspection. The place was spartan to the point of being crude. This was definitely no entertainment complex. Reminded me more of a prison. Chains and locks were everywhere, more than seemed necessary. The bars of the cages were barbed on the inside and the sanitary facilities were painfully obvious. The things in the cages were mostly skeletons covered with stripes of fur or bits of scale. However, a few were fully composed, merely desiccated corpses and a couple whole and alive.

Nasty hairy things, with a jointed proboscis and stiff wings, sort of like a cross between a bat and a vacuum cleaner. Strange that the animals were reviving, but no people yet. Slaves, or masters. Where were the damn inhabitants?

"Yuck,” Richard said, curling a lip. “Mosquitoes."

I blinked. By gad, he was correct. A hairy black mosquito. Warily, I stepped closer and that was when I noticed something odd on the floor of the cage. Took me a second to identify it, and when I did, the world became very quiet.

"Something wrong?” Mindy asked stepping close, her sword drawn.

"Let's kill all of these things before they finish healing and do a mass escape,” I said, checking the clip in my pistol.

"What? Why?” demanded Jessica confused.

Using the barrel of my weapon, I pointed. Laying scattered in the dirty rubbish of the cage were numerous bones, the top most clearly a human leg bone. Aside from the skull, the femur was the most easily identifiable piece of our skeleton.

The telepath gasped and I nodded.

"Bureau regulation

***43,” Father Donaher quoted, working the slide on his shotgun. “If any non-sentient creature has consumed human flesh it is regarded as too dangerous to let live and must be exterminated."

As a priest, Michael had very definite opinions on such matters. He never used his weapon on a live human. That would be murder. But blowing away monsters and hellspawn, Donaher considered a holy chore, and one he performed with relish.

"How do you know they're non-sentient?” Jess demanded.

It was a valid question that George answered by rattling the cage door. “These locks would stop a 400 pound gorilla, but not a twelve year old child."

"Agreed,” Richard said, the tip of his staff already starting to glow with power. “That thing this morning was only an animal. The sole reason it got the drop on me was ... um..."

"It caught you with your pants down,” Mindy supplied.

He almost smiled. “Literally."

Trying to cover every possibility, I exchanged the clip in my gun, for another in the belt ammo pouch. “A silver bullet in the head apiece should do the job."

"Want me to gather some wood and hammer a stake through their hearts?” George offered, pausing to blow a bubble.

"Too time consuming. We're on a tight schedule. But as a fillip, lets wire the front gate with Willy Peter just in case something survives."

Willy Peter, aka, white phosphorus, wasn't as hot as thermite, but it spread better and could fry anything this side of a cyborg whale. Now those babies are hard to kill.

"A Crispy Critter special, coming up,” George smiled, pulling wire and things from his shoulder pouch.

Mindy assumed a guard position while the man got to work. “The smoke will draw attention,” she reminded.

"Pressure switch,” George said connecting a wire to a battery. “Won't detonate unless the gate is moved."

"How long?” I asked.

"Take me five minutes."

"Check."

While the soldier prepared to rig the incendiary charge, the rest of us started moving systematically along the cages, our pistols coughing silver slugs into anything that resembled a head. Sometimes it took three or four shots to make sure we got the braincase.

The team separated to expedite things. There was little danger, we could easily see each other through the assembly of bars. Moving steadily along, I turned into an alleyway boasting a cage large enough to hold a flying elephant. In fact, I was actually wondering if it did, when the ground crumbled at my feet and I started to fall. Dropping my rifle, I made a desperate leap for the iron bars, but failed miserably.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

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Plummeting out of control, I yelled. Who wouldn't have? Shouting and cursing has never slowed me down a bit and I guess it never will, yet still I try.

Attempting to angle myself vertical in case I could grab something, my weighty backpack pulled me over and I fell facing the dark top of the earthen shaft. As there was little else to do, I forced my muscles to go limp. Mindy taught it helped saved bones when you hit ground.

But it was a net of some kind that caught me, the strands stretching deep with the force of my drop. As the snare contracted, I tried to ride the forthcoming recoil upwards and land on my feet, but the net came with me and for a while I simply bounced up and down until the undulations ceased and I was still.

A dim luminescence pervaded the dark and faintly I could see that I was sprawled on a giant spider's web. Hoo boy, in spades.

With icy calm, I struggled to free myself, but nothing moved except my left arm, from the elbow down. Every finger of my right hand stuck to the web and no matter how hard I pulled the skin would not come loose from the resinous strands.

Craning my neck, which painfully pulled some hair free, I could see my rifle was dangling about ten feet away. Damn.

Waitaminute, my bracelet! What did I have? Flame Blast? Force Blade? Ah, no. I had Invisibility. Swell. Guess it had sounded like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, it wouldn't do spit against a spider. They saw in the ultra-violet spectrum. It would spot me in a hot second.

Using my left hand, I searched my body and took inventory. My pistol was holstered on my right hip, totally out of the question. But I could reach my front pants pocket, my medical kit and the ammo pouch for the M16. My combat knife in its reverse shoulder rig was just out of reach. What could I do with it anyway? Fight some two ton monster with a eight inch knife and my left arm down free from the elbow. Right. Afterwards I'd invent a cure for cancer and fly to the moon.

Horribly loud, my wristwatch began to beep. It was the gang trying for contact. Shaking my wrist I turned the thing off. It would only disrupt my concentration and the noise might attract unwelcome attention sooner than necessary. Besides, I couldn't reach the transmit switch and tell them where I was, so it was useless.

Quickly, I reviewed my situation and options. Of the top six possible courses of action, I took the most daring. Think big, be big, and I planned on living.

Being damn careful not to touch any of the strands with my left hand, I dug about in my pants pocket for my cigarette lighter. I didn't smoke, but the silly things had a thousand uses; burning through ropes, lighting fuses, emergency light source, etc. Plus, this was a Bureau lighter, turn the top and four seconds after you depressed the lever the lighter would blow your hand off. Very useful for distracting enemies, opening locks and getting rid of unwanted seasonal house guests.

It was part of what the Bureau called a city kit. Went along with things like a video camera inside a soda can, gas mask handkerchiefs and our lovely collection of pens. They squirted acid, launched tiny flares, were telescope/microscopes, gave a two minute supply of air, you name it. However, all that cool James Bond stuff was in New York. Seemed silly to haul along an exploding pen, when we were armed with bazookas and grenades.

Yet the lighter gave me comfort. If things got really bad, I could always use its special function and take the Bug Boy with me into the abyss. Beats being eaten alive. Or so I have been told.

Somewhere in the dark, I heard a scuttling noise and tried my best to ignore it. If I panicked now, it was the big boom. Keeping a firm grip, I turned the flame control wheel to maximum and thumbed the lighter on. Craning my hand, I aimed the four inch flame at my arm, and started burning the khaki fabric of my military jumpsuit. My goal was the cuff button. The twilled cloth resisted my efforts, but the button thread flamed nicely and in a couple of seconds the charred button fell away. The ventilation slit on the forearm gaped wide and I could now reach my knife. God, did I need that knife.

Pocketing the lighter, I released my combat knife and started to slit the fabric on my shoulder. Razor sharp, the knife did a good job, but my clumsy slices made me damn thankful I was wearing body armor.

Reducing the jacket to strips gave me more freedom of movement, but not enough, so I also cut the straps that supported my backpack. Caught in the web, it wasn't going anyplace.

That did it. Wiggling out of my jacket, I sat up with a heartfelt sigh. My clothing had been stuck to the spiderweb, not much of me. Using the lighter, I burned away the strands on my right hand. It hurt, but I could do repairs later. Drawing my pistol, I gave it a kiss and briskly unscrewed the silencer. No time for quiet now. Besides, the silencer retarded the muzzle velocity of the weapon and I might need every ounce of punch my 10mm could deliver.

Removing the half spent clip, I inserted a full one, a deadly mix of soft-lead dum-dums, armor piercing steel slugs and mercury tipped explosive rounds. Up yours, Mr. Spider.

I almost lost my sunglasses getting them out of my jacket pocket, but made a last ditch save below the web. Whew. Through them, the pit was even darker and nothing showed. I put them in my T-shirt pocket for safety. Okay, no magic, fine. Physical monsters I could handle by the dozen.