Full Moonster Page 4

  The stars on his T-shirt twinkling brightly, Raul leaned in close. “They're called imps,” he whispered.

  The Russian mage nodded. “Da. Thanks."

  “Imps wearing boots?” Jessica asked in disbelief. “There is no sign of tail drag. Nor is any of the grass wilted from any brimstone contamination."

  “Hey, Ed,” Raul said, looking my way, “do you think it might be some more of the Augmented Men?"

  Vehemently, I shook my head. “We killed the last of those schizo mechazoids in Idaho. This is something new and nasty."

  “Strange and serious."

  “Deadly and dangerous,” George said, finishing the slogan.

  “And hairy as a hound,” Father Donaher added.

  Eh? That wasn't part of the litany.

  Using tweezers, the priest lifted a minuscule item from a crimson splattered shoulder. “Ed, this was done by werewolves!"

  The whole team hurried closer, and the long coarse hair was passed around.

  “What?"

  “Can it ...?"

  “Nyah."

  Damnation, this mad no sense. Each clue contradicted the others. The marks on the victims appeared to have been made by amateurs, yet identification was expertly removed. The tracks were human, tool-using humans, but werewolf hair was on the bodies. Okay, so it was humans, or humanoids, with supernatural strength, speed, agility. But certainly not dumb ol’ werewolves. Those idiots driving cars? Using machetes?

  “Impossible,” Jessica snorted, holding the follicle to the sun. But the stern expression on her face softened into puzzlement. “Ed, werewolves are not sentient. Wolfmen even less so!"

  Standing, Kathi appeared puzzled. “Explain, please. Werewolf, wolfman is not same?"

  “Faith, lass, a werewolf is a person who assumes the partial form and abilities of a wolf,” Donaher said lugubriously. “A wolfman is an animal which achieves the partial structure of a human."

  “Both are not smart?"

  “Dumber than a politician,” I stated firmly. “It's only in the movies and bad horror novels that were-creatures chat on the phone or use a coffee machine. The best we've every encountered was a wolfman who figured out how to trigger a rifle. Unfortunately for him, the muzzle was pointing in the wrong direction."

  Raul agreed. “Most werewolves are stymied by revolving doors and light switches. It's the lone saving grace in fighting the bastards. Weres are the meanest, toughest, most stubborn, amoral, devious sons-of-bitches in this whole dimension."

  “Even worse than corporate lawyers?” she asked, amazed.

  A nod. “Yep."

  With her butterfly flapping nervously, Kathi muttered something appropriate in Russian. “So were-creatures stealing wallets is impossible?"

  “Absolutely,” I stated.

  “Then how came this to be?"

  There she had us stumped. Lifting my left hand, I activated my wristwatch, established a relay link with our van, and turned on the scrambler circuit.

  “Calling Merlin's Tower,” I said loud and clear. Hopefully the transmission could be heard. The Rocky Mountains were dense enough to foul anybody's communications system.

  “This is Merlin's Tower,” the Bureau answered. “Identify, please."

  “This is Team Tunafish. Report number 3 for 7/26."

  “Stardate 4132.96,” Raul joked.

  Mindy shushed him.

  I shot the mage a dirty look and continued. “We have a multiple slaying on a country road outside Hadleyville, West Virginia. Indications are that the killing was possibly done by intelligent werewolves."

  “By what?” crackled my watch.

  Bemused expressions came from the team. It was the first time HQ had ever interrupted anybody during a field report.

  “Intelligent werewolves,” I repeated. “There may be a link between the deaths and the ethereal explosion of yesterday. We will investigate and report every 30 minutes from this mark.” I gave ‘em a beep. D-flat, I believe. “If we miss two reports consider this area a Class Alpha Three hot zone and send in General MacAdams and the Phoenix Squad."

  A short whistle of astonishment sounded, but was cut short. Must be a new guy at Communications.

  “Ah, acknowledged, Tunafish."

  “Roger, base. Over and out."

  “Over and out,” the tiny speaker crackled.

  Shaking my watch to terminate the transmission, I grimly reached into a pocket and started screwing a silencer onto the barrel of my Model #42 ultra-lightweight Magnum. The muzzle blast of the heavy-duty Model #66 gave silencers an annoying tendency to explode, which simply ruined my aim. However, I made good-and-goddamn sure both pistols were loaded with blessed silver bullets.

  “Okay,” I announced, easing the cylinder closed. “The stolen cars will take hours to trace. So let's follow the forest trail. Maybe we can find the transdimensional hole, the flying saucer these things landed in, or whatever caused these freaks."

  Steadfast, my team murmured assent.

  I clicked back the hammers. “On foot. Standard formation. Single file, one meter spread. Mindy on point. George take the rear."

  “Check."

  “No problem, Ed."

  As we entered the thick array of bushes, I noted a faded sign on the road which boasted: ‘Welcome to Hadleyville. Population 2,572.’ Somehow, I doubted the first and wondered about the validity of the second.

  The team lost sight of the carnage as we proceeded deeper into the morass of bushes, trees, and shrubbery that composed the dense West Virginia forest. In ragged stages, the cool, lush greenery swallowed us whole.

  Then the plants attacked.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In a wild explosion of green and brown, the bushes raked at our faces, weeds whipped our legs, and trees slammed their limbs towards our heads. Even the very grass under our feet moved, trying to trip us. Cursing, my team stumbled into a defensive circle, firing every weapon we owned.

  “Alex Haley!” I cried aiming my Magnums for the roots. A thorny vine ripped away the front of my shirt, exposing the molded body armor underneath. As my bullets blasted the vine apart, sticky sap spraying into the air, I made a mental note that I must get tougher shirts.

  “Huey, Dewey, and Louie!” George shouted, and we all ducked. In a stuttering roar, his banjo began spitting flame. For a single moment, the protective illusion faded to reveal the huge ungainly M-60 machine rifle in his trained grip. The shiny belt of linked ammunition dangling from the breech mechanism of the huge weapon shrank with alarming speed, as the heavy duty .30 combat rounds chewed a path of destruction through the attacking foliage.

  A prismatic blur, Mindy's sword flashed with rainbow eagerness. A tree branch thrust close to her and withdrew as kindling. Jessica's camera sprayed pneumatic death at the Spanish moss. Father Donaher's shotgun boomed a hellstorm of hot lead, blowing away bushes, destroying daisies, and pulverizing pansies.

  “ ...!” Raul shouted in the secret language of mages, and a blizzard of ice and snow began howling from the business end of his wizard's staff.

  “ ...!” Katrina added, as volcanic flames poured from her own wand.

  In deadly harmony, the two mages went back-to-back, and turning around each other, overlapped the area-effect zone of their spells. Soon, the nearby greenery was reduced to charred ice statues and dirty snow, with only a muddy band of steaming bare ground encircling us.

  As the rest of the forest rustled its leaves in unbridled anger, we caught our breath. Whew. I'd heard about planting a trap, but ... trapping the plants?

  “Thank you, Lawn Doctors Mengele,” I said saluting.

  Flushed with excitement, Raul smiled. “No prob, chief-a-roo."

  “My pleasure, comrade,” Kathi said, firing a miniature Lightning Bolt at a suspicious hunk of honeysuckle. The plant fried and dropped the rusty nail it had been hiding behind its stalk.

  While reloading my Magnums, I noted that my Bureau-issue sunglasses gave no Kirlian aura reading off these ambulatory pla
nts. There was no white for good, black for evil, green for magic. Nothing! Maybe botanical life was too primitive to register.

  “This was a trap,” Father Donaher stated, ramming fresh shells into his shotgun. “If the plants had been simply trying to get food, they would have attacked the instant Mindy was among them."

  “Instead, they waited for the lot of us,” I said with a shiver. Swell.

  After cleaning sap off my sunglasses, I adjusted the focus and gave the combat zone a fast once-over. While the brunt of the dense forest separated us from the van, there was only scattered bushes between here and Hadleyville. No details of the place were clearly visible at this range. Just buildings and houses. Interestingly, not a person was running this way to find out what the firefight had been about. Not very surprising. We had already surmised that nobody was alive, or at least conscious, in the village. Could the plants have attacked the cars on the highway?

  “Should we go back for the RV?” Jessica asked, screwing a long telephoto lens onto her camera.

  In scorn, Mindy curled her lip. “Retreat? Never!"

  A tiny meteor shooting across his starry chest, Raul proffered his wristwatch. “I can call Amigo and have him bring the van to us."

  “The way that lizard drives?” George scoffed. “No thanks. We're safer with the plants."

  “Priority one is getting to Hadleyville,” I reminded them, stomping on a dandelion trying to get up my pants leg. “If there are any survivors trapped, they may need immediate evac and medical help."

  “Hey babe, can you conjure some military defoliant?” George asked, removing the tape from the handle of a thermite grenade clipped to his belt. I approved. The time for subtly was over.

  Lovingly, Kathi caressed the short soldier's grim face, making his expression noticeable soften. Ah, young lust. Messy, but romantic.

  "Da, babushka," she purred. “But maybe can do better than that. How far is to town?"

  “Hadleyville? About half a mile."

  Kathi and Raul started mumbling to themselves in that secret wizard way.

  “You've never done it before,” Raul warned.

  “Da. But you good teacher."

  The mage gave a cocky smile. “Yes, I am. Okay, go for it."

  “Mindy!” Kathi called, her staff starting to visibly pulse with power.

  Sword in hand, the slim woman turned from slicing apart a particularly determined bit of ragweed. “Yeah?"

  “I will be point."

  “Be my guest,” Mindy said, waving her forward.

  After consulting her pocket spell book, Katrina started chanting and spinning her staff in the manner of a drum major's baton. Steadily, the speed increased until the wand was only a blur. Then the Russian mage removed her hand, and the steel length continued to twirl in place, going faster and faster, until into the rod hummed from the sheer raw velocity of its violent rotations.

  “Forward!” Kathi boomed in a Voice of Command, and the staff levitated towards the town.

  As the smear advanced, everything in front of us—plants, trees and even rocks—was instantly reduced to flying splinters and dust. Some of the greenery tried to make a run for safety, but all were annihilated. The saps. Single file, we followed the wizard and her wand, staying in the trail of bare dead earth behind her.

  Occasionally, some fanatic bush would try to run close anyway, and we shot it to pieces. Brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘crabgrass'.

  As the team progressed, I caught an occasional glimpse of the street beyond the row of houses. There did not appear to be any wrecked vehicles or bodies. But I wasn't sure. Definitely a lot of damage to the buildings. Maybe this whole incident was only a horticultural experiment gotten entirely out of control, or a lunatic killer wearing a bad toupee. Intelligent werewolves?

  Exiting the forest, Kathi reclaimed her staff and allowed Mindy to take point again. Only dried mud, gravel, and a flimsy wire fence stood between us and Hadleyville. We moved closer. It was a hurricane wire fence, topped with an array of thin wire resting on insulated posts.

  “Electrified?” Mindy asked, furrowing her brow.

  “Detection wire,” I answered. “Works on proximity, same principle as the warhead on a missile. However, with two mages nearby, it should be dead."

  Boldly, I touched the wire and nothing happened. The same as with radios, TVs, and computers. Mages were just a wet blanket on the fire of technology. Whenever we had to use a commercial airline, getting Raul and Kathi past the security scanner was always a royal pain in the butt. Banned under official edict, we weren't ever allowed to visit Dulles Airport anymore. Plus, I don't even want to think about the problems we experienced getting cable TV installed!

  Set in a sturdy iron-pipe framework, a simple hinged door with a commercially purchased lock barred our use of the fence. A key lock? Trying not to laugh, I reached for a lock pick in my shirt, but Mindy cut off the restraining bar with a swipe of her sword. The metal pieces tumbled to the ground, the cut ends mirror-bright. Raul scanned for magical runes, while George checked for booby traps before we swung the gate ajar. It was clean. Beyond the fence was a wide expanse of plush lawn, deep green and smooth as a billiard court. Or was that a pool table? Golf course? Sports were not my forte.

  Sword in hand, Mindy started through the fence.

  “Freeze,” George growled, his eyes mere slits.

  Everybody went motionless.

  Silently chewing the inside of his cheek, George stared at the manicured lawn. “Ed, got an EMS with you?"

  I patted my hip. “Natch."

  “Do a full spectrum scan, will ya?"

  What an incredible paranoid the man was. But then, that's how you survive in the Bureau. I once got bit ‘where the sun don't shine’ because I thought a banister was safe to sit on. I had been very wrong.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Reaching into the jacket of my sports coat, I removed a portable electromagnetic scanner and started a general sweep of the lawn. The readings went off the scale.

  “Land mines,” I said, returning the device to my coat.

  My team gave assorted noises of displeasure, but we kept it relatively clean, since Donaher was present.

  “What kind of mines?” Kathi asked, a touch of fear marring her lovely face.

  Aghast, the big priest stared at her. “Saints above, lass! What kind? The kind that go boom. Are there any others?"

  “Who cares?” Raul stated cavalierly, the tiny bells on his yacht moccasins chiming a merry two o'clock. “We're mages. The mines won't go off when we walk on them. Kathi and I will blaze a path for the rest. Okay?"

  As the only ex-soldiers in the group, George gave me a weary glance, and I returned the look with proper embellishments. Civilians!

  “Wrong, Mr. Wizard,” George explained. “Some mines explode when you step on them. Others when you get near. More detonate when you step on some other mine yards away. Plus, a few wait after being stepped on and then explode later."

  Raul turned paler than usual. “Good gods, why?"

  “A delayed blast gets more of the invading group by exploding in the middle of them."

  There was a long pause. “Oh,” he said softly.

  “And some first ignite a small charge to shoot the huge secondary charge into the air so it explodes in your face,” I added succinctly.

  “Or your groin,” George snarled. “I know a couple of soprano Marines who can testify to that. They're called Bouncin’ Bettys. The land mines, not the Marines,” he quickly corrected.

  Morally outraged at the very concept, Father Donaher hawked to spit at the minefield, then paused in reflection and swallowed instead. Wise move.

  “So how do we get past them? Circle round to the main road?” Jessica asked, turning along the fence. Suddenly, the bushes and trees in that direction went very still. “No. Never mind. That's probably even better protected than this side exit."

  “We could crawl along on our hands and knees probing the soil with
a knife like they do in the old war movies,” Mindy suggested eagerly, drawing a foot-long butterfly knife from inside her shirt.

  “Knifing may work, may not,” George growled, pulling the big bolt on his M-60 machine rifle. “But this definitely will."

  In a thunderous roar, the weapon began spraying a stream of armor-piercing rounds into the ground, the big .30 bullets chewing a path through the manicured grass. A few meters away the soil exploded in a geyser of flame. Then a bit further out a dark metallic oval boomed into the air and then exploded at chest level. There was another of those, two more geysers, and the bullets began impinging on the wooden fence. In a spray of splinters, the clapboard collapsed, offering us a path through to the town.

  Releasing the trigger, a ringing silence engulfed us and for a moment everybody worked their jaws to try and stop the echoes in our ears. Wow. Dolby Surround Sound, eat your heart out. Even the animated forest seemed temporarily stunned. However, during the bombardment, I had been watching the town. Not a window curtain stirred, nor a light blinked on. Hadleyville appeared totally deserted. Yet, somehow, I had the feeling that we were not alone. Maybe it was ghosts.

  On the other hand, what the hell was this place? Augmented humanoids, animated trees, high tech proximity sensor wires, and a Whitman's Sampler of land mines. What had we stumbled upon here? A lost Bureau 13 base?

  Mindy made the same observation aloud, Kathi asked for an explanation, and Jessica obliged. In the summer of 1987, an unknown foe had decimated the Bureau, killing 90% of our operatives in less than four hours. We still had no idea who, or why, it was done.

  Only slightly less important than the identity of the mysterious foe was the fact that a lot of files were lost in the aftermath, including the locations of hundreds of our secret hideouts. Mostly small boltholes—some only hidden rooms in hotels—the covert locations had been used as emergency hideouts or surveillance blinds. Occasionally, a Bureau team relocated a lost base. The sites were usually deserted, sometimes with the bones of the original Bureau agents trapped behind magical doors that would no longer function. But once we discovered a bolthole turned into a foul nest for Cherubs of Hate, and another occupied by Tibetan Imperial Bloodslugs, demonic escargot using Bureau 13 equipment and weapons to seek revenge on the staff of a local French restaurant. I shuddered at the memory of their illustrated menus. Feh. It was enough to make a grown man become a vegetarian.