Queen of Wands-eARC (30 page)

“Not to mention, what was it? Christian whack-job?” Barbara said, tightly. “Because I do not enjoy being shouted at. But the Lord tells us to take people as they are instead of, oh, throwing them through a wall.”

“You and what army?” Stan said, angrily.

“Stan?” Janea said, still sweetly. “You really don’t want to ask that question. Because I’ve seen her when she gets mad. You don’t want to be the one she gets mad at.”

“I would never harm a human who was not intent on harming others,” Barbara said. “But can you please just calm the tone a bit? And if you would like the other information, we will give it to you. But your first instinct will be to shout ‘morons’ and ‘religious nuts’ and other similar insults. And then the only person you have to blame for not being able to do your job is you.”

* * *

Stan looked at Barbara, then looked at the screen. Very faintly he started quivering. He looked at Barbara, then looked at the screen. More quivering. It wasn’t fear, it was just his body trying to tell him to go away. From the thought of what they’d said as much as anything.

“The term you’re looking for here is ‘cognitive dissonance,’” Janea said, trying not to laugh. “I take it you’re an atheist.”

“No one can be a scientist and
not
be an atheist,” Stan said firmly.

“Feel free to hold as true to your beliefs as I hold to mine,” Barbara said, mildly. “But you’re also looking at something that is plainly impossible. And we have given you a rational—for values of rational—explanation. However, it is an explanation that is entirely at odds with your beliefs. Thus the cognitive dissonance. May I make a suggestion?”

“Please,” Stan said.

“You do not have to think of this as metaphysical,” Barbara said. “Think of it, instead, as a very advanced form of science. One for which we do not have the theory, yet. Feel free to work on theories for it in your back brain.”

“There’s a body of scientific literature on this, actually,” Janea interjected. “I’ve read some of the papers. Most demons that manifest have what is called transform DNA, which is basically DNA made up from scratch. Some don’t have any DNA at all, but those have no capacity for reproduction with humans. These appear to have something different, again. This is the first I’ve seen of this sort of approach. Makes sense since it’s Old Ones and not demons. They’re assumed to come from completely different backgrounds. This is sort of a proof of that hypothesis.”

“Demons have cellular structure?” Stan said, blinking.

“Manifested ones do,” Janea said. “Mammalian, primarily. Those with DNA appear to have no senescence coding, thus the ‘immortal’ aspect. And there appears to be no cellular turnover. How that works is being very quietly studied by a group of SC scientists.”

“Why don’t
I
know about this?” Stan asked angrily.

“Because if you don’t
have
to know about SC you don’t
find out
about SC,” Randell said. “And once you do find out about SC you wish you
didn’t
know.”

“Think of it this way,” Barb said. “You can now do the first and only paper on the biological structure of Old Ones. You’re the world expert.”

“But there’s only about five hundred people in the world who can read the paper,” Janea said. “And only about fifteen who will.”

“You being one of them?” Stan asked.

“I’m not a biologist,” Janea said. “I’ll read the abstract and the conclusion and skim the rest because I won’t understand half of it. But I’ll get the important bits that I need to know the next time I run into an Old One. The first and most important being, how do we kill these things?”

“Well…” Stan said, turning back to the screen with a huff. “The first sample was a…sku-gnon?”

“
Skru-gnon
,” Janea corrected. “I’ll leave you the spelling.”

“Certain poison gases might work,” Stan said musingly. “The hyperproduction of cells explains the regeneration. Fire…would be mostly useless unless it’s
very
hot. Thermite or something like that. Cold? Impervious. You could hit this thing with liquid nitrogen and it wouldn’t blink.
Might
die if you immersed it in liquid helium, but good luck on that. I don’t know anything about the rest of its structure. I don’t suppose you could bring one back alive?”

“Not even going to try,” Barb said. “These are a crime against God.”

“And on the part that you don’t like to think about,” Janea said, as Stan started to get worked up again, “they have a psychological impact on the unprotected that is severe. You don’t want to be in the same room with a live one.”

“Just their cells are driving me crazy,” Stan said, grabbing his hair.

Barb looked at Janea, her eyes wide.

“Uhm, Stan,” Janea said, her face tight. “Just how crazy are you feeling?”

“What?” Stan asked.

“One of the aspects of the Old Ones is that they tend to induce panic and insanity,” Janea said. “Just how crazy are you feeling?”

“I’m…” Stan said, collapsing in a chair and grabbing his head. “I’m not feeling good, that’s for sure.”

“Okay,” Janea said, patting him on the shoulder. “Feeling obsessive?”

“I’m OCD,” Stan said. “Obsessive is normal for me.”

“More obsessive than normal?” Janea asked.

“Maybe,” Stan said, still not looking up.

“Voices?” Barbara asked.

“What are you, my psychiatrist?” Stan asked.

“Seriously,” Barb said.

“No,” Stan said. “But I am feeling more frantic.”

“
More
frantic?” Randell said.

“Stop,” Barb snapped. “And?”

“I’m not normally a violent person,” Stan said. “I shout, but I don’t feel violent. Angry, yes. But not violent. But I’ve been feeling very violent since I’ve been studying these samples. And…Yes, crazy. I am neurotic, not psychotic. I am beginning to manifest traces of what I would diagnose as psychosis.”

“There’s not enough material for emanations,” Barb said. “And I don’t feel any at all. Do you?”

“Not a twinge,” Janea said. “A fundamental aspect?”

“How?” Barb asked. “How could it be a fundamental aspect?”

“Arachnophobia,” Stan said.

“Non sequitur,” Janea replied.

“Arachnophobia,” Stan repeated, finally raising his head. “Arachnids induce fear and panic in a large number of people. The theory is that they are so unworldly, so unlike any normal creature, that it induces an automatic ‘other’ response in many humans. It’s been studied because of the possibility that there would be a similar response on the part of anyone encountering aliens. Ladies, I don’t think that we are dealing with something…metaphysical,” he said with a spit of distaste.

“I think that these are extraterrestrial. So, yes, a higher form of biological science. Perhaps with other abilities that are beyond our current understanding. My reaction is, therefore, a reasonable one. My psychological issues with it are a function of that response and there are appropriate medications to relieve some or all of the response. I will immediately consult my psychiatrist. I don’t know how, exactly, I will explain that something I am studying is driving me insane, but I will explain it as best I can and avail myself of the appropriate medications. I’m thinking Haldol. It will slow my thinking and make me marginally less functional, but I will be able to continue to study this phenomenon without, in fact, becoming insane. Hopefully, once I’ve finished the study I will be able to resume my normal medication schedule.”

“It’s possible you won’t,” Janea pointed out. “These things tend to put people in the loony bin. Maybe you should just put the samples away until we figure out a way to study them without resorting to antipsychotics. I know this sounds sort of Catch-22, but I think that continuing to study them is a little crazy.”

“I am a scientist,” Stan said, standing up. “It’s what we do.”

“That is pretty much the same thing Victor Von Frankenstein said,” Janea replied.

“He was a fictional character,” Stan replied, firmly.

“Bet you a dollar?” Janea said. “Seriously, we’ve got what we needed. Drop it.”

“Not on your life,” Stan said.

“It’s not your life I’m worried about,” Barbara said. “It’s your soul.”

CHAPTER SIX

“Graham,” Barbara said unhappily, looking at the house that was the site of the second attack.

The two-story house was in a small neighborhood near the town of Goin, Tennessee. Brick front, vinyl siding, two-car garage. It looked enough like Barb’s house to be a twin, right down to the holly hedging.

At the trailer she had managed to avoid, to the greatest possible degree, thinking of the victims. The horror that they had experienced she now clearly understood, and if she sunk too far into sympathy it was going to take the edge off her deadliness.

With this set of victims, she suspected empathy was going to be unavoidable.

Local police were keeping the news media well back, but they were staying nearly as far away. The forensics van was from the FBI, as was everyone on site at the house.

“Two dead, two missing,” the special agent said without preamble. “Dead, father Wilkerson Boone, age thirty-two, Jason Boone, age nine.”

“Oh, Lord,” Barb said, taking a deep breath.

“MO of deaths is slightly different,” Graham said, looking at her oddly. “Both were strangled. The marks are…strange.”

“I bet,” Janea said. “Sucker marks?”

“Yes,” Graham said, blinking.

“We’ve got some updated information,” Randell said. “Keep going.”

“Missing, Wendi Boone, mother, age thirty-one; Titania Boone, age thirteen.”

“These things are gathering hosts for the Gar,” Janea said.

“
More
hosts,” Barb replied, tightly.

“The what?” Graham asked.

“I’ll update you in a second,” Randell said, holding up a hand. “Trail?”

“Similar trail leading up the hill to a cave,” Graham said. “The cave is known in the area. A local kid got lost in it a couple of years ago and a rescue team had to find him. Attack occurred approximately two AM.”

Barb looked at the horizon, where the sun was already falling below the mountains.

“If this thing recognizes that there is more prey here, it might come back,” she said, frowning.

“That’s what’s got me worried,” Graham said.

“Okay,” Barb said, nodding. “We need to clear the forensics people by sundown. I’d like to get the FBI to take over holding back the media. Hopefully get rid of the media. Can we get the other houses cleared?”

“Not without some sort of serious cover story,” Graham said. “Washington is getting really exercised. They want to know what you’re going to do about this.”

“There’s only two of us,” Janea said, angrily. “There are, or were, at least two of these Old Ones, and now we’re pretty sure there’s a major Old One involved. That means there could be
dozens
. These caves go all through this region, and that’s the natural environment of the Hunters of the Dark. I’m not sure we can get in there and comb them out one by one. I’m pretty sure that it would be suicidal to
try
.”

“We have to do something,” Graham said, waving his hands.

“We’ll wait for this one tonight,” Barb said. “It may use the same exit, looking for more prey. We need another cave team, but this time, no civilians.”

“You’re civilians,” Randell pointed out.

“You know what I mean,” Barb said. “Send out an urgent message. There are bound to be cavers in the military. Get us a team of people who know how to survive
and
know how to cave. Get them here, and all the gear we’re going to need, fast.”

“You don’t want much, do you?” Graham said.

“How many more do you want to die?” Janea asked. “You asked for our answer, that’s it. We need a team of fighters to go into the caves and find these things. On their own turf, which is a bit like fighting a leopard in the brush. But leopards aren’t the size of a water buffalo, stronger than a gorilla, invulnerable to most weapons, and able to drive you insane if you look at them. Hopefully find out where they’re coming from. And, you know, survive.”

“And we’re going to want military-grade weaponry,” Barb said thoughtfully.

“Why?” Graham asked. “I thought you said these things weren’t vulnerable to normal weapons.”

“We don’t know that,” Barb said. “The
skru-gnon
wasn’t, but the other beasts might be. And when people fought them before, they were using spears and clubs. I would personally like to see what a grenade does to one. And if we fight them aboveground, a rocket launcher would be nice. You have to see these things to understand.”

“But if I do see them, they’ll drive me insane,” Randell said. “Great.”

“Hey,” Janea said, “that’s what Thorazine is for.”

* * *

“So we’re going to sit here all night?” Janea asked.

The hillside was covered in secondary growth, mostly poplar and pine with scrubby undergrowth. Barb had carefully pointed out the poison ivy to her less-than-outdoors-oriented partner. She’d found a clear spot above the cave opening with a good view of it and the rest of the hillside, and settled down for a long stalk.

The cave opening was larger than the one by the trailer, irregularly shaped, again, but nearly the size of a manhole cover.

“Unless we get a visitor earlier,” Barb said, taking a sip of coffee. She was on short sleep from the night before, she’d had some very vivid and really awful dreams, and it had been a long day. It was working up to be a longer night.

“I don’t sit still very well,” Janea pointed out.

Especially with Janea around.

“Try,” Barb said.

“Fighting these things in the dark is going to suck,” Janea said about five seconds later.

“That’s what night-vision systems are for,” Barb said, holding up a set of thermal goggles.

“Yeah,” Janea said, picking hers up and turning them on. “Cool. You can see the FBI guys standing over in the shadows.”

“That’s because they pick up on heat sources,” Barb said.

“Which means they might be next to useless with these things,” Janea said, setting her goggles down.

“Huh?”

“We don’t even know if they’re exothermic,” Janea pointed out.

“Exo…?”

“Hot-blooded,” Janea said. “They could be, you know, like insects. They don’t give off heat. We don’t really know anything about them.”

“How’s it going?”
Graham said over the radio. Both women were wearing tactical headsets.

“It would be fine if Janea could understand the basic premise of hunting,” Barb said. “Which is to be quiet. For that matter, if you keep asking me every five minutes, I am going to come down there and take your radio away.”

“We need regular commo checks,”
Graham said.

“Agreed,” Barb said. “Nominal.”

“Out.”

“You really are way too into this,” Janea said. “I’m starting to agree with Stan. We need to study them.”

“The problem being that anyone who studies them goes insane,” Barb pointed out.

“Maybe do it like ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Joke,’” Janea said.

“What?”

“You never watch Monty Python?” Janea asked, surprised.

“I tried to watch that…what was it?
The Meaning of Life
?” Barb said. “I didn’t get it. I don’t get most British comedy.”

“Aesir shit!” Janea said. “How the Hel did I get you for a partner?”

“Language.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Janea said. “Let me rephrase. Fecal matter of a Great Old One. How in Niflheim did I get a stuck-up, prissy, doesn’t-get-British-comedy person like you as a partner?”

“Because you know more about this stuff than I do and I’m better at killing things than you are,” Barb said. “Now this is supposed to be a stakeout. Which means we need to be
qui-et
so that they won’t know we’re
here
.”

“Barb.”

“Yes?”

“We’re two reproductive-age females,” Janea said. “We’re not a stakeout, we’re
bait
. You probably survived that
skru-gnon
because it
wanted
you alive.”

“You put the most pleasant spin on things,” Barb said.

“I just thought of it,” Janea said. “I think we should have waited for the rocket launcher to do this.”

* * *

“Master Sergeant,” Major Esgar said. “Sorry to get you out at this time of night. Please sit down.”

Master Sergeant Scott Attie, five foot nine inches, one hundred and ninety-five pounds, brown hair and eyes, was a fifteen-year veteran of the Special Forces. As such, he was used to callouts at
any
time of night. But this one was different. Just as he was getting to bed, on his first real downtime in five years of constant deployments to Afghanistan, he’d been told to report to an office at Joint Special Operations Command, wear civilian clothes, and be prepared to be TDY—on temporary duty—for an unspecified period.

His wife, who had been wearing a negligee that left nothing to hide at the time, had been less than amused.

“Yes, sir,” Attie said, taking a seat and trying not to sigh. He enjoyed his job, but he’d really been looking forward to some downtime. Maybe heading over to the Cape for some fishing.

“All of the following is Top Secret, Special Compartment Intelligence,” the major said. He looked tired, as if Attie’s brief was just one more item to be checked off in a very long day. “There is a priority need for someone with combat experience and experience working in caves for a rapid-deployment mission. Your bio states that you have extensive civilian caving experience with additional military experience in Afghanistan. The mission will be undercover, civilian clothes, has a high risk of loss of life, and will be in CONUS.”

“Uh, sir?” Attie said, looking puzzled. “Posse Comitatus?”

Posse Comitatus was an act passed just after the Civil War that prohibited the military from being used within states of the United States for anything other than disaster relief and suppression of rebellion. It was holy writ in the military that you did not violate Posse Comitatus.

“There will be a more complete briefing,” the major said. “But to cover that, there is a formal and secret determination by the Supreme Court that in matters of Special Circumstance, Posse Comitatus does not apply.”

“Special Circumstance, sir?” Attie said, realizing he was getting out of his depth.

“There was a reason I told you to sit down.”

* * *

“Janea. Wake up.”

Janea, despite Barb’s mostly monosyllabic replies, had chattered fairly constantly for two hours and then fallen asleep on Barb’s shoulder. She was clearly having nightmares at a couple of points, but Barb couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep at all. Given where they were and what they were waiting for, tired as she was, Barb could not imagine sleeping.

But when she started to hear stirrings from within the cave, it seemed like a good idea to wake up her partner.

“Freya hjelpe!”
Janea muttered then came awake. “Freya aid, that was a horrible dream.”

“Quiet,” Barb whispered. “I think we have company.”

“That’s just what you were
saying
,” Janea said, shaking her head. “I
am
awake, right?”

“Just grab your axe,” Barb hissed.

Barb recognized the major aid that she was receiving from the Lord was simply to be able to look upon these horrors with some degree of calm. But as the tentacles slowly crept into the moonlight, she had to hold hard to her sanity. They were causing flashbacks to the battle in the cavern, the
skru-gnon
questing for any opening to flow into. There was a special horror to it as a woman. She’d never been raped, but what the
skru-gnon
did was beyond any rape by mortal being or even demon.

She slowly drew her katana, as quietly as she could, then slid to her feet. She had borrowed an MP-5 from the FBI, and she’d use it if it turned out to be effective. But she already knew that, with God’s aid, the katana would work.

“Ready?” she whispered as the monstrosity came fully into view.

“Wait,” Janea said, holding her arm.

The reason for the pause was apparent as a second entity wriggled from the ground. The two stopped in the area in front of the cave, their tentacles writhing and twisting together in what might be silent communication.

Then a third joined them. And a fourth. And a fifth.

As a sixth started to emerge, one of them turned its attention uphill. And they all began to climb towards the two women.

“Uh-oh,” Janea muttered.

* * *

“Graham!”

Graham’s head came up at the sound of Barb’s voice. Except for a regular “Nominal” it was the first time she’d communicated all night.

The FBI team had been augmented by more personnel from area offices. The investigation was beginning to have all the aspects of a war zone. Washington had admitted that, given the level of threat, they were considering calling in the military, at least covert portions thereof. The problem being that every cover story they could come up with was almost as bad as the reality. Clearing four hundred square miles of American territory and having a mini-war with an alien, or possibly metaphysical, army was going to require quite the cover story.

But at present they had twenty special agents on duty, both to keep the press away from the crime scene and as potential backup.

He got the feeling from the sound of the normally unflappable Mrs. Everette’s voice that they might be a bit short.

“Go,” he said, waving to Randell to turn on a speaker in the command van.

“We are headed down the hill!”
Barb said, then cut off.
“Sorry, I tripped. This is Old One large force. Say again, large force. At least
eight
Old Ones are in pursuit! FLIRs seem to reduce the horror aspect. Recommend all agents don night vision gear and prepare for assault.”

“And please don’t shoot
us
!”
Janea added.
“We’re the ones with
legs
running
away
!”

“Shit,” Randell said, grabbing his M-4 and piling out of the truck. “We have incoming hostiles! All agents, form a perimeter behind the house! Friendlies on the way in. Don night vision gear! Do
not
look at these things with your naked eyes!”

“We’ve got you covered,” Graham said, calmly. “Come on in.”

* * *

“Damn,” Janea said as she tripped and bounced off a sapling.