Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (21 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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slowly t
oward him. "That's impossible. You couldn't have shot me. I saw nothing."
"That's right, little man, you saw nothing. You saw bullets before because I let you see them." Crowley smiled cruelly. "You intruded at my sufferance, and now you suffer."
Heinrich pushed off with his right foot and clawed at the padding to pull himself away from Crowley. "It won't matter. There are others. They will come back here. They hunt you down. You can't win."
"I've already won, Heinrich. If there are others, I will destroy them, and no one will mourn your passing or theirs." The occultist stepped around the bloody streak on the padding and stabbed the gun's muzzle to Heinrich's forehead. "No one cares if you live, Heinrich, so now you have to die."
He stroked the trigger once.
Heinrich lay staring dead-eyed at the ceiling, his head surrounded by a blackhalo of blood. Atiny rivulet wormed its way out of the hole in his forehead. It flowed down to the bridge of his nose, then split in two and slowly filled both eyes with blood. When those shallow basins brimmed over, the dark fluid ran like tears down both sides of Heinrich's face
As Crowley looked down at the small man's twisted body, he decided Heinrich had been right about at least one thing in his life. There
were
other Warriors—stupid, homicidal bigots—who would return. They would find their dead comrades. They would swear vengeance. And, if they ever learned who had hunted down their friends, they would come after him.
Crowley smiled. He knew that crew would need a big clue to figure out the identity of the culprit. He decided he'd give it to them.
He slipped a new clip into the Ingram.
He sat down to wait.
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Will filled a Styrofoam cup with what passed for coffee in Turquoise. He skirted a knot of men sitting in a circle in thecenter of the mess tent and found afolding chair that looked strong enough to support his
weight. The second he sat down, the sharp legs of the chair dug into the earth and started to tip, but he righted himself without spilling a drop. Shifting the chair around to more solid ground, he sat back and
put his tired feet up on a table.
He blew on the coffee for a second, then carefully sipped it. ft tasted better than it had the day before, or at least seemed to taste better. He put it down to a real improvement instead of just wishful thinking, as a couple of the workmen had actually volunteered to take responsibility for things like coffee and meals.
The daily influx of supplies usually brought with it some surprises that made living in the blue wilderness an enjoyable, if stressful, adventure.
Will had been amazed by the intricate and elaborate charade Jytte had set up in conjunction with the
Japanese. She had argued, quite rightly he thought, that the workers were not going to function well if
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they be
lieved they were being sent out and away from Earth to another dimension that could prove
danger
ous. The dimensional
travel aspect just made things
too
weird, and that could have caused mass defections and unrest in the work camps.
To avoid that, the workers were introduced into Turquoise through a three-step process that worked
exceedingly well. From Phoenix the workers were flown in a jet to Japan. With the exception of a few
workers who had been in the armed forces, it was the first plane ride for the workers, and it took very little persuasion to get them to avail themselves of anti-motion-sickness drugs. The systemic sedatives they were given kept their stomachs under control and dulled their senses until they functioned on a level just higher than that of a lobotomized zombie.
Once they reached Japan, they were shipped in buses from the airport to the Galbro Center. Cinder the
pretense of a physical examination and inoculations, they were drugged again and shipped to Turquoise
through the dimensional gateway located at the center. Barely conscious when they arrived, Will, Tadd Farber and others in the know got them to the temporary buildings erected by the IDC ninjas.
The third step involved the workers' acclimatization to Turquoise. For most it was not difficult, because the change of scenery made the place fascinating. The generally cooler temperature and abundance of plant life—
albeit blue—seemed to have a calming effect on the workers. Very few of them knew enough in the way of
astronomy, botany or biology to tell they were not on Earth, and those expressing concerns were soon argued into complacency by self-proclaimed experts in whatever subject happened to be being discussed.
Everyone had gotten used to their new, temporary home. Most assumed they were somewhere in southeast
Asia, and Borneo had recently been offered as a site. Will knew the night-music of birds and insects in the jungle
was unlike any heard on Earth, but the Eclipsers had no frame of reference from which to draw that sort
of conclusion. In absence of fact, they made up their own reality and felt more secure in it than they
would have if they knew the truth.
Will found himself slowly beginning to offer evidence that backed their explanations for things, because
it kept a peace in the camp. The hardest thing for him to accept was that the blue foliage, when it started to die, turned green, then degenerated into a slime. One of the men suggested the bluish tint meant the
plants were better suited to the cold, since everyone knew people's lips became blue in the cold. The
green things turned to slime because they got too hot and just melted. While that explanation twisted
logic into a Klein pretzel, Will saw that it made a basic sense and agreed to it to bolster the self-esteem of the man who had suggested it.
Tadd Farber entered the tent and slapped a couple of men on the shoulder. He laughed at a joke, then got
himself some coffee and came over to join Will. "Long day, eh, Will?"
The Native American nodded. "Long, yes, but you seem to be holding up well."
Tadd smiled proudly and straightened his shoulders. Will had seen Tadd grow stronger with the
responsibility thrust upon him. The workers seemed to regard Tadd as an informal supervisor and often
shared little problems with him. Because of Bat's apparent respect for Tadd, the other toughs patrolling
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the camp deferred to Tadd, and that made i
t easier for Tadd to keep some sort of order within th
e worker
"I'm just burning off energy I've been hoarding for years." Tadd slapped his paunch. "More cases of beer went into this than I care to remember, but 10 days here is sweating it out of me. We're ahead of schedule on
setting up windmills and might maintain this pace if the phantom masons can stay ahead of us."
Will nodded as Tadd lowered his voice. In conjunction with Vetha, a number of creatures that Jytte had
called Plutonians had been brought to Turquoise to do heavy lifting work. About the size of a Caterpillar tractor, and looking like an ant built by the same firm that manufactured armadillos, the Plutonians had
incredible strength and actually seemed possessed of a basic intelligence. With Vetha giving them simple
directions, they were capable of excavating and positioning over a dozen huge rock plinths on hillside
terraces, then raising dolmen on them to provide the height needed for the windmill mechanism. Will had
seen them the evening they cleared the space for the encampment, and he'd not slept well for the next two nights.
One of the men from the circle looked over at Tadd. "Hey, boss, you figure the phantom masons are out there tonight?"
Tadd shook his head. "How many times I gotta tell ya, Bill, them's fairies on steroids. You leave a bowl of milk out for them, and they do your work."
Will laughed lightly to bolster Tadd's joke. From the first, the biggest discipline problem they had
encountered was the desire of the workers to go out and watch the dolmen going up in place. The lack of
tractor marks around the work site, the lack of engine noise and the occasional breeze carrying some
heavy and almost noxious scents from the work area became a mystery the men wanted to solve. Tadd
had told all of them that the Japanese were in charge of that portion of the project, hence the lack of
interaction, but a few brave souls had made attempts to see what really went on at night.
The Native American looked over the lip of his cup and studied the men in the circle.
Two are missing.
The fat
one—
Kent
—
and the kid from bwa.
He grabbed Tadd's shoulder. "Kent and Billy Kaufman aren't here."
Tadd set his cup of coffee down and swore. "Aw, shit, Mooney, you're not here gaslighting me while the Kent and Bill show tries to get a glimpse of the Japs, are you?" He stood and shook his head. "Not only will the security guys we got beat the hell out of them if they find them, but the Japanese have their cybeminja dudes out there. You guys stay here. Will, come with me and we'll see if we can find the Hardy Boys before they get into trouble."
Will dumped his coffee in a plastic trash bin as he followed Tadd out of the tent. "You find Bat and get his people to secure the perimeter. I'll tell Hal about these two, and he can warn the ninjas." Tadd nodded and cut off toward Bat's tent while Will shot off in the opposite direction. Dead center in clearing he found the mobile home that served as the command center for the beachhead. He vaulted the wooden steps in one leap and
pulled the door open.
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"Sorry t
o burst in, Hal, but we have two guys..." Will hesitated when he saw Hal Garrett was not alon
e and
nodd
ed to both the Yidam and Crowley's shadowform. "Two guys went into the jungle to try to see the
'phantom masons' at work. You need to alert..."
"...the Japanese." Hal reached for a walkie-talkie. "They'll find them, don't worry."
A hoarse male scream cut through the cool night air. Will turned and leaped off the stairs, then started to run north in the direction of the jungle and the windmills beyond. The Yidam caught up with him in two steps and Crowley came up right behind, though he seemed to be favoring his right leg. "1 don't know what it could be— there's been nothing large and predatory we've found the jungle yet."
"Could be as little as someone having fallen and broken
a leg."
Will heard Crowley's words, but he knew neither of them believed it. They broke through the broad-
leafed undergrowth and stepped into an alien world. The night-music had stopped with the scream,
reducing the jungle to a static scene of long shadows and deceptive vistas. Unconsciously, Will began to
