Doomsday Exam [Bureau 13 #2] Page 11

  It was him all right, no doubt about that, whatever his name actually was in his native tongue. The cryptic symbols on the front of the alien battlesuit seemed to vaguely resemble the Earthly letters TNR, and so it had been nicknamed Tanner. The sentient powerarmor had forcefields, a force shield, laser beams, proton rays, bio-disrupters, very nasty imploders, was superstrong and could fly. A remnant from some forgotten alien empire, Tanner was always raiding military stores and NASA to try and steal enough parts to build a battlecruiser and conqueror the Earth to forge a slave army and then return home with an armada to help win a war, which we believe, was long over a millennium ago. But try and convince him of that.

  “Yes. Our. Plan. Has. Worked. Well,” Tanner spoke, each word pronounced separately.

  Undulating closer, Goshnar burbled and gargled.

  Arching an eyebrow, the mage seemed to take umbrage. “That is not true! Only I was able to penetrate this base and disrupt their magical defenses, especially the ethereal bonds holding Tanner prisoner.”

  “And it took the destruction of your wand to do it, scum,” Raul throated, his hands twisting on his staff as if was the enemy mage's throat.

  “Yet,” Tanner said in its smooth, emotionless voice. “It. Was. I. Who. Then. Released. An. Electro. Magnetic. Pulse. That. Disrupted. Their. Primitive. Devices.”

  “However,” Hoto interrupted, “Only I had communications with the outside world through a link with my only surviving slave and could coordinate the escape plans.”

  Mentally, I tipped a hat to the creatures on the screen. Nothing I loved more than chatty enemies. Maybe if we listened long enough we might find out the location of Jimmy Hoffa. I started to alert Base Command that Hoto had a slave, but Jessica stopped me with a thought.

  They already know, she sent. Besides, it doesn't matter.

  Why?

  Watch.

  Strolling along the strangely quiet walkway, the fearsome four went to the access corridor, turned and entered the base again. But this time, they appeared in Storage. Alert and armed, the guards rallied to defend the level. It was a slaughter.

  “Are you sure there are no recording devices functioning?” Rasamor asked, wiping a trickle of blood from his red mouth. At his shoes, a guard was groaning into death, a hand blindly clawing at a holster, then went forever still.

  “Impossible,” Mystery Man snorted, straightening his hair with one of our combs. “Every magic powered machine is numb from my deudonic blast.”

  Deudonic, ah ha! Now what the heck was that?

  The material that composes a wizard staff.

  “And. All. Electronic. Machines. Are. Deactivated. From. My. E. M. Pulse,” Tanner added, pushing buttons on his forearm control panel.

  That was correct, ya bozos, but they never considered something more basic. In case of general failure, next to each video camera was a spring-driven, 16mm film camera that went into operation when the power cut off. Nothing electronic or magical, just a simple clockwork driven chemical film camera. TechServ strikes again! I must remember to send them a Thank You card.

  Drooling and slurping loudly, Goshnar used a ropy pseudopod to remove a clean human skull from a lower mouth.

  “Yes. Agreed. Time. Is. Short,” Tanner said, and pointing a finger, a scintillating ray shot across the walkway to vaporize an armored door. Calmly they walked inside and the camera shifted view.

  Storage was a multi-level room, with the center a wide open space. Metal catwalks zigzagged upward leading to several platforms which ringed the outer wall. Wooden boxes of every conceivable size filled the place with only stenciled numbers on the sides to identify the contents. But in the center of the room was one large crate located behind a curtain of laser beams and sealed under an airtight Armorlite dome.

  But the lasers were deactivated from the EM pulse, and Mystery Man smashed apart the Armorlite dome was if it was ordinary glass. Brushing aside the glistening shards, he ripped open the crate and hauled a thick book into view. Then he quickly tossed it away.

  Hitting the floor, the book exploded into thousands of steel-tipped flechettes, but none of the monsters were close enough to be riddled by the barrage. Drat.

  Outstretching a palm, Tanner sent out a disrupter beam and disintegrated the block of steel the crate had been resting on. Now exposed was a hollow section inside the column with an identical volume chained to a slab of cold iron. The cover of this volume pulsed with a kid of malevolent life not of this Earth.

  Grinning widely, Mystery Man stared to reach for the shackled book, then recoiled. “Ah,” he hissed in annoyance. “There are additional protections. Would the three of you get me one of those obsidian knives from the big crate near the exit door? Hurry, we must leave soon.”

  “There's no such knives in there,” George stated with a frown.

  "Da. This he knows,” Katrina said grimacing.

  Why so he did, the dirty bastard.

  “Ngarle, burble,” Goshnar replied politely, oozing to the crate with Tanner and Hoto following behind trying not to step in his slime trail.

  Extending a ropy tentacle, Goshnar easily lifted the unattached lid as Tanner and Hoto stepped in closer to assist. Smiling, the mage turned around quickly and braced himself.

  Knowing what was coming, we averted our sight. Blazing light emanated from the movie screen, and when the screaming ceased, the wooden lid fell back into place and only greasy wisps of writhing smoke hung in the air where the supernaturals had once been standing. But in the corridor outside the room, Mystery Man was standing in smoking rags, horribly sunburned, with blood seeping from both ears, yet still alive and holding the Aztec Book of The Dead cradled in his arms.

  “Idiots!” he sneered as a rude eulogy. “Why did you think the Bureau only had the lid laying in place and not tightly fastened?”

  The creep was correct on that point. The Ark of the Covenant was nothing to fool around with. The story of how we obtained it would make a great movie by itself. Now the Ark served as a lock on the room, if anybody departed without the proper ID, the lid would pop up and zap! The Bureau wished it could use the Ark to exterminate some of the prisoners, but if anybody tried to use the Ark to deliberately commit the act of murder, then the Ark turned on you instead. A trap was okay, but nothing more. Apparently, God has very strict terms on how you could interpret His commandments.

  Indeed, the holy relic was the only barrier that hold some of the more hellish objects in Storage. Yet Mystery Man had outmaneuvered it in merely minutes. For the first time in many years, I felt a touch of fear tighten my stomach. This guy was good enough to be a Bureau 13 agent.

  Keeping a grip on the pulsating book, the mage drew two small vials from inside his shredded tuxedo and popped off the corks with his thumbs. Wafting along, the oily residue in the air was sucked into the vials like a genie returning to his lamp and Mystery Man palmed the corks back into place. One vial held about an inch of yellowish fluid, while the other was half full of tan and black crystals. Hoto and Tanner?

  Smiling contently, the mage flipped through the forbidden book, found a page he liked, muttered a few words, waved a hand and vanished from sight. After a few seconds, the projector clattered to a stop and the ceiling lights flickered back on.

  So the whole thing had been a trick, an insidious plan to steal a very special book of magic. The Aztec Book of the Dead contained every forbidden spell and conjure ever created. I would have been happier if the guy had swiped the nuclear bomb under the crossbar. That trifle we could deal with easily. By just holding the Aztec volume, he had escaped from the very heart of the Holding Facility and back into the real world.

  “That's everything of importance,” Rosy said, setting the projector for rewind. “The rest you know as participants.”

  “Thanks, Reverend,” I said, folding away my notes.

  He frowned deeply. “Wish I could have helped more, Ed.”

  Yeah, me too. Shaking off those kind of glum thoughts, I clapped my hands. �
�Okay, conference,”

  Rising and stretching, the gang pulled their chairs closer to me so we could review what data had been gleaned from the short film.

  “Anybody recognize him?” I asked hopefully.

  “Nope.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nyet.”

  “Negative, chief.”

  “Sir, no sir!”

  “Anti-yes.”

  Oh well, it had been worth a try.

  An amateur philologist, Jessica had already analyzed the speech pattern of our new enemy and sadly declared that he had studied with a speech therapist. Okay, that could mean the mage originally had a lisp or a stutter, possibly a highly distinctive accent, as if he was from the deep south, Brooklyn, or even East Chicago, but we couldn't be sure.

  “Did you examine those ears?” Raul asked, glancing at the blank screen. “He is a young man. That gray hair was fake.”

  “You mean hands,” Katrina corrected. “Gray hair, da. But no age spots, and wrist were not wrinkled enough. He might use cream to remove spots, but face-lift hands?”

  Thoughtfully, I rubbed my broken nose. “A false face, eh? Then we can't circulate screen captures of him taken off the film.”

  “Better try anyway,” George suggested, resting a chin on the upright barrel of his M60. To outward appearances, his jaw was two feet in the air hovering above a small banjo. “It might be his favorite face, and maybe he uses it often.”

  “Plus I saw no scars or calluses. Not even softened ones on his hands,” Mindy said, rubbing her own collection of healed wounds. “This man has never done manual labor, and that tuxedo looked expensive.”

  “But that didn't mean he is rich. The lack of calluses could only mean that he was a video store clerk, or CPA, and anybody can rent a tuxedo.”

  “About that tuxedo,” Ken started, worrying a knuckle.

  “Just a confusion factor to make a witness focus on the evening wear and not him,” George explained. “Old cat burglar trick.”

  “Agreed,” Raul added. “But a good one that usually works.”

  The end result was that Mystery Man covered his tracks as well as a professional, or a highly talented amateur.

  “It's not much to go on,” I said, tallying my notes. “High probability that he is male. Caucasian. Approximately in his mid-thirties. Five feet ten inches, one hundred thirty pounds, right handed, never did any manual labor. Wizard.”

  “Not wizard!” Katrina snapped, hostile. “All chemist. Beneath contempt!”

  “He is an alchemist,” I translated as a question.

  The Russian blonde nodded vigorously. “Da! Yes, bottles tell truth.”

  “But he had a diamond wizard staff,” Ken objected.

  “Which he destroyed to free the prisoners,” Raul growled, thumping his wand on the floor in an angry tempo. “Any damn fool alchemist can concoct a brew to give them the full power of an adult wizard for twenty fours hours.”

  “But,” Jess prompted, leaning forward.

  “It kills you afterwards,” the mage said gruffly. “Total biological and spiritual burn out. Not even your ghost would remain.”

  Whew, that was serious death.

  Beaming a smile, George threw his arms across the back of the ring of chairs. “Then our problem is solved.”

  “Nyet!” Katrina stated, slicing a hand through the air. Then she barked a long sentence in Russian.

  “He has the Aztec Book,” Raul reminded, rubbing his mouth as if desperate for a drink. “Just holding the volume will protect him from the ravages of his own potions.”

  Only a day, eh? I started jiggling numbers in my head. From when the fake boojum first threw the police officer out the window, to us capturing him, to the escape...

  We went through a time zone, Jessica added.

  Thanks. “Hoo boy, twenty three and a half hours!”

  Sitting upright, George gave a low whistle. “With only a thirty minute margin of error. That's one hell of a gamble for any wizard.”

  “Which seems to indicate a desperate personality,” Ken said.

  Brandishing his wizard staff, Raul stood and glared at us. “Do not say that again,” he ordered. “This man was an alchemist! Nothing more!”

  “Which is why he did it,” Katrina garbled, tugging thoughtfully on a lock of her long golden hair.

  “Explain that, please,” I requested, sharpening the point on my pencil. This promised to be a long sessions.

  Pacing about the room, Raul started to speak twice, then finally stop moving. “Magic is a kick,” he said. “A thrill. Better than any drug. Sometimes better than sex.”

  "Da," Katrina sighed sadly, her ample bosoms heaving.

  From the soulful expression on Mr. Renault's face, that particular problem might be solved for our Russian pal quite soon.

  “As an alchemist,” Raul continued, “he could only nibble around the edges, get a fleeting taste every now and then.”

  “So magic is addictive,” Mindy noted, thoughtfully massaging an old scar. “Similar to the adrenaline high of combat. Always leaves you wanting more.”

  “You better believe it,” Raul sighed, dropping heavily into a folding chair. “Did you know that in the history of the Bureau, eight wizards lost their powers and each committed suicide?”

  A grim statistic, but fortunately our pal Richard Anderson was not counted in that somber list. Anderson retired with his powers and abilities intact, just unable to perform any major magic. But that happened at his advanced age. However I was staring to get the big picture.

  “So Mystery Man would have done anything, even gamble with true death, for a chance at real magic,” I said, loosening my tie.

  “No question.”

  “Great,” George grumped. “So now he's an ultra-powerful junkie.”

  As a butterfly tattoo rose into view on her cleavage, Katrina scratched it behind the ears and nodded. “Unfortunately, that is correct.”

  “But why did he steal the gaseous remains of the other two supernaturals?” Ken asked, pressing for details like a hound on the hunt. “And why not Goshnar?”

  “Good taste?” George offered as a joke.

  Tucking the tattoo away, Katrina snorted. “All chemist steal anything.”

  “So true,” Raul agreed. “They're infamous for being chemical and herbal packrats.”

  The slight mention of food made my stomach rumble announcing that lunch was becoming an imperative. Feed the belly to fuel the brain, as my mom always used to say. Tucking away my pencils, I put the talk on hold and shooed the team out of the projection room heading for the cafeteria. The corridors branched constantly in a complex maze, but the rich smell of food quickened everybody's step.

  We found the cafeteria in a state of disarray, half of the tables were occupied and the rest were smashed. Apparently there had also been some fighting here. Probably just a spectral chef furious over what the cooks did to meat loaf here at the Academy. We still had some leftovers tucked into the walls of our RV as bulletproof shielding. Worked pretty good, too.

  Noticing Patricia sitting alone at a table, I asked Jessica to grab me anything fried on toast with onions and ambled over to talk to the Healer. She looked like she could use a friend at the moment.

  “Long time no see,” I asked, taking a chair. “How's your wife and my kids?”

  Almost smiling, Pat wearily spooned a good pound of sugar into her mug of coffee. “I've been busy,” she said, taking a slurp, then adding more sugar. “There are so many wounded, so many more dead. I haven't done anything like this since that 1989 earthquake in San Francisco.”

  “You were there?”

  “My team stopped the giant beetle that caused the quake.”

  "¿Que?" I lapsed into Spanish.

  She gave a sly smile. “I am not a student,” the Healer confessed. “I'm a field agent from Team Angel in Los Angeles, here to be a ringer in the final exam. You know, open inappropriate doors, get captured, head in the wrong direction, that sor
t of stuff.”

  Wow. Burton was even sneakier than I imagined.

  “Well, I have friends in Frisco,” I said, offering the milk. It was refused. “Lucky a Bureau team was there.”

  “Yeah, lucky,” the gypsy said the word as if it had a bad taste. “Every night I wake to the screams of the civilians we couldn't save in time from the quake. Lucky.”

  I said nothing. There was nothing to say. This was an agent's burden, you accepted the load, went mad, or quit. Sometimes all three.

  With fierce strength, Patricia grabbed my arm. “Ed, I'd like to join your team for this mission.”

  “Why?”

  “After having seen what that alchemist can do, he's gotta go down for the count. Terminate with extreme prejudice, and I want in.”

  Frankly, I was surprised. “Kind of rough talk for a Healer.”

  “My powers may be benign,” Pat snarled, “but not me, baby.”

  Wow, major personal dichotomy there. I seriously thought about the offer. “What about your home team?”

  She smiled. “I already called Team Angel and its fine with Aki and Damon.”

  This was mighty tempting, but logic forced me to decline. “Sorry,” I said softly. “But I must say no. Every field team in the Bureau has been temporarily assigned to the Facility until the damage can be repaired. Gordon has given Tunafish the job of getting Mystery Man, and besides, I've already been assigned Somers and Sanders. Eight is the most I can handle.” I offered a grin. “Any more and the tires might blow on the RV.”

  The Healer accepted the rebuff with class. “Fair enough,” she acknowledged, and released my arm to sit back in her chair.

  Arriving at our table with a tray of food, Jessica gestured at me with a steaming bowl of chili. Quickly I stood, my gut rumbling in impatience. “Gotta go. Take care, Ms.... say what is your last name anyway?”

  This seemed to embarrass the Healer for some reason. “I am of true gypsy heritage,” she explained. “And we often don't have last names. Lineage is sometimes just a matter of opinion. I was going to use the name Gypsy, but the TechServ random name generator decided upon Ritter.”

  “Then take care, Pat Ritter. Call if you ever need help.”