"The Brotherhood of Forty Hunchbacks"
May. 16th, 2022 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Brotherhood of Forty Hunchbacks"
7/22-/24/2020
I.
Lightning crashed way too closely for comfort, glaringly bright against the deep black sky. During its flash, Timothy saw a frozen diorama of distorted figures right on top of him. In the blinking afterimages left on his eyes and during the thudding roll of thunder, he was thrown
down by massive weights climbing over him. Powerful fists and feet smashed into his body where he was lying in the mud. The flexible Trom armor dispersed most of the impact but his exposed head took a vicious onslaught. The rain made everything so slippery it was hard to get a fix on the situation
With long years of Kumundu training, Timothy did not curl into a defensive ball as instinct told him. He got over onto his stomach and leaped up to get out of reach of his attackers. Then he could wheel around and fight back, first drawing the dart gun holstered at his side. The tactic didn't quite work. One boot slid in the sloppy mud and he went down on one knee again. Hands seized his lower arms and pulled them out straight, hauling him up right.
In the heavy rain, even as his vision returned after the lightning, Timothy Limbo could only make out that his attackers were solid bulky men, not tall but wide and stocky. The hands holding him were stronger than Human normal. Timothy hooked one foot behind an opponent's ankle and kicked that man's leg forward to get him off balance. As the enemy fell, his grip loosened and Timothy wrenched his arm free to immediately slammed a short hooking punch to the other one's unseen face. It was like hitting a slab of frozen beef. Something crashed against the back of Tim's head that made sparks blink behind his eyes and his knees buckled. If he fell again, he would have a hard time defending himself.
Then unexpectedly, a new figure rushed out of the darkness. Hard blows landed with the crisp decisiveness that meant perfect impact had been made. The misshapen attackers yelled and bellowed. Freed for the moment, Timothy seized a pencil flashlight from inside his leather jacket and thumbed it on.
That brilliant thread of light showed the high rounded backs of four deformed men running off into the storm. Hunchbacks, four hunchbacks. It WAS the Brotherhood Timothy swung the beam around to reveal a dramatic muscular figure in a black leather uniform. Strapped to the left forearm was a round circular shield and sheathed at the left hip was a straight sword three feet long.
The newcomer wore a silver helmet crafted to resemble a grim unsmiling skull. In a hollow voice, the man said, "We will meet again." Then he spun and raced off into the storm.
Left alone in the cold drizzle, hearing thunder roll again further away this time, Timothy Limbo gingerly touched the lump at the back of his throbbing head. Well, at least the enemy hadn't gotten inside that house where the Palimpest was thought to be hidden. He could search in there and return to Manhattan to report. But at the moment, he was giddy at the thought that the Silver Skull had returned to the Midnight War.
II.
"It's been fifteen years since the Skull has last been seen," Sable told her teammate around the long oak table. They were in the conference room on the second floor of KDF headquarters, meeting where four earlier generations of heroes had assembled. That night, only two were in attendance. "Even then, no one found out his true identity. He showed up when needed and fought hard, but then left without explanation."
"Who WAS that masked man?" Timothy quoted.
"Exactly." Sable leaned back and tilted her head quizzically. "You say he stood six feet tall?"
"Yeah. A couple inches taller than me. A little heavier." Timothy himself was a slightly built young man with a thick mop of butter-yellow that badly needed trimming. "It was hard to judge from just the glimpse I got of him, but I'd say he weighs maybe two hundred even. Not heavy in build, just athletic."
The team leader clasped her hands before her and regarded her teammate somberly. Lauren Sable Reilly had been up waiting Tim's return. She wearing Navy blue slacks and long-sleeved pullover with an open white cardigan across her shoulders. "I don't know if this is good news or not. He did help you in a tight spot, Tim."
"Well, yeah, I have to admit that's true. I didn't exactly have them begging for mercy. And the house had already been searched before they got there, there was nothing in the hidden drawer you wanted me to find."
"It's just... I'm not sure how to react to this," Sable said. "The Silver Skull is such an ancient heritage. It goes back to the Darthan Age, thirty thousand years ago. It has been passed down from one wielder to a chosen successor ever since."
"Not in an unbroken line, of course. I've been studying Midnight War lore." Timothy couldn't help reaching up to the back of his head but there was no sign of the beating he had taken earlier that night. His enhanced healing from the Tagra diet enabled that. "There have been long stretches, sometimes centuries at a time, without a Silver Skull."
"We are always so short-staffed," Timothy abruptly burst out. "Sorry for changing the subject, but we never did a find a replacement for Haley. Shouldn't Galvan or Jin be here tonight? Their kid is almost a year old by now."
"I hear you," Sable said. "But let's face it, potential Tel Shai knights are hard to find. Galvan was here yesterday, working out upstairs and cooking some mutton. There wasn't an active case underway for him. I think Jin comes on duty at eight this morning." She raised a single finger more to signal attention than admonishment. "Back to the matter at hand. One of the founding members of our KDF was a Silver Skull, Dr Larry Taper. None of us met him of course, he died in 1990. And his successor showed up a few times about five years later but he was the one who didn't reveal himself."
"Is this the same man?" Tim wondered. "Fifteen years is a long stretch for fighting Midnight War."
"No way to tell. He hasn't been reported since, oh 2012 or so. Maybe this is his successor." The leader of their team stood up. "Now for the other part of our current problem. The men who attacked you. I ran a search through KDF records and found nothing about such possible suspects. Then, while waiting for you to drive back here, I started rushing through paper records which haven't been entered yet."
"There are so many reports and memoirs and letters and such," Timothy agreed. "Rooms full of them. We could have someone working full time to scan the pages and put them into the computer files."
"I did find one suggestive phrase," said Sable. "Only a name and a date. In 1987, Jeremy fought something called the Brotherhood of Forty Hunchbacks...."
III.
At nine-fifteen the next morning, the front doorbell buzzed twice. In Sable's office just down the main hall, a green light flashed high up in one corner and Demrak Jin leaped to her feet as if someone had thrown a dart at her. Jin was tiny, lithe and taut with the build of a life-long swimmer. She was wearing plain dark pants and a button-front flannel shirt a size to large for her.
At once, the Gelydra was up off the couch where she had been reading about the current case, moving smoothly out of the office and into the hall. Jin was not pretty by most conventional standards. Her wide flat face with its cloudy blue eyes and that short shock of bristly white hair gave a distinctive appearance though that people found fascinating.
On the wall by the front door was a wooden panel which slid aside to reveal a monitor and control panel. She studied the image from the outside camera with deep suspicion that was her response to almost everything. Standing on the sidewalk of East 38th Street, in a wheelchair, sat a stocky white man with sullen features and crisp greying hair. Up on the six concrete steps that placed him in front of their door was a tall black man with lightish skin and old-fashioned horn-rimmed eyeglasses. It was he who was pressing the doorbell.
"What do you want?" asked Demrak Jin with a noticeable lack of courtesy. All these years with her friends on the surface had not given her polished manners.
"Ah. Good morning. My name is Marv Winston, I'm the personal aide to Professor Maitland. That's him over there. He'd like to see Miss Reilly. This IS the Kenneth Dred Foundation?"
"Yes. Hold on a second." Jin swung her head as she saw Sable striding quickly down the wide staircase and along the hall toward her. "Captain? Were you expecting anyone?"
"No. Stand by, Jin." Moving over by the control panel, Sable said, "Please excuse the delay. I will be out in a minute." The team leader frowned at the image on the monitor screen. "Body language seems to indicate no immediate hostile intent. The man on our stoop isn't carrying a gun, judging by the way his clothes hang. The man in the wheelchair has no blanket over his lap. I don't see any obvious threat."
Demrak Jin came from a warrior culture and she regarded anyone she didn't know as a likely opponent. "Let me go out, captain. Let them dare try anything...."
"Please. Stand by and be ready. I'm going out." Sable opened the steel-reinforced inner door, took one step to cross the tiny foyer and swung open the outer door to meet the two men. Her gralic powers of perception were not as flamboyant or destructive as those of her teammates but they were even more useful in most circumstances.
In an instant, her eyesight and hearing and sense of smell were augmented way beyond the normal limits of what flesh and blood could detect. She knew what this young man Marv Winston had eaten for breakfast, she knew from his heartbeat that he took in too much caffeine daily, she knew from the speed and extent his pupils dilated and returned to normal that he found her attractive but wasn't seriously interested. He was only twenty-one years old, and barely that. Winston shifted his weight as she emerged, but not in a way that would enable him to reach any concealed weapon. He was only making room for the door to swing outward.
In the next flash, she turned her full perception on the man in the wheelchair. The upper body was strong and toughened, but below the waist, blood circulation was poor. The legs were thinner than the arms. The man had a steady healthy heartbeat and the perspiration of someone who ate a lot of red meat and drank some brandy on a regular basis. Age would be fifty-seven or fifty-eight. She judged the degree of relaxation in those forearms which rested on the wheelchair arms and saw no readiness for quick movement.
Less than a full second had passed. Sable could have continued in infinitely greater detail if she thought it necessary. For the moment, she felt satisfied. "Good morning. I'm Lauren Reilly of the Kenneth Dred Foundation. You don't have an appointment?"
"I'm sorry we didn't phone ahead," Maitland answered. He had a rich confident baritone, educated with an East Coast college inflection. "But I think we have something your organization seriously needs to look at."
"All right. We can meet." She moved down the steps to the sidewalk. "This may be awkward. I apologize, we're a private research foundation and haven't been required to provide handicap access..."
"Let me," growled Jin as she pushed past her leader. Before anyone could intervene, the Gelydra moved behind Maitland. Only five feet three and slender to the point of seeing frail, Demrak Jin easily lifted the wheelchair with a two-hundred pound man in it up to her chin level. She stepped forward and lowered him onto the stoop as if putting down a beachball. There had no been any hint of strain in her movements.
Both men were staring with eyes bugging out and neither could speak after what had just happened.
Jin caught on that they were startled within inches of their lives. "What?!" she said in a grieved tone. "I helped out."
Sable moved over to assist Winston in wheeling Maitland up over the doorsill into the foyer. "Jin is very strong for her size," was all she could think to say. In the few seconds it took to manuever the wheelchair up into the front hall, a barely audible series of clicks and buzzes could be heard overhead. Both visitors were too preoccupied to notice.
IV.
Everyone headed to the office to the left as you entered. Once Professor Maitland was situated in front of the desk, with his aide in a straightback wooden chair beside him, Sable circled around to lower herself into her own swivel chair facing them. Demrak Jin remained standing slightly behind the two men with fists on her slim hips, oblivious to any possibility she might be making them uncomfortable.
"I think I recognize your name, sir," Sable began. "Professor Francis Maitland of Wingate University? That's you?"
"It is indeed," the man replied. "I'm flattered, miss. Mine is hardly a household name."
Sable leaned her chin in her cupped palm, elbow braced on the desk. She seldom bothered with even traces of make-up and wore her straight black hair brushed back off a high forehead. But with her large dark eyes, snub nose and full lips, Lauren Sable Reilly was naturally attractive enough that both men and women warmed up to her. "Yes," she said. "Our group researches a wide range of esoteric subjects. Mostly for debunking. I've seen some articles you wrote about the lost civilization of Zhune."
"All considered wild conjecture by my colleagues!" Maitland snorted. "Oh, I wasn't ostracized or anything. But my attempts at locating Zhune artifacts were humored as an eccentric hobby."
"What happened to your legs?" Jin asked without softening the question.
"Demrak Jin! You know better. I'm sorry, sir," Sable hastened to intervene.
"Oh, that's quite all right." Maitland twisted around to study the Gelydran woman's surly features. "I believe you are from far away? Yes, absolutely. Miss Jin, six years ago I was shot by accident. Two drunks were arguing over a drug deal in Oakland and I had the misfortune of being across the street. The bullet ripped my lower spine apart badly enough that surgery could not even be attempted. I will never walk again. But thank God, I was lucky enough to find this infinitely patient young man here to help me."
"Oh, there's more to it than that. He's tutoring me to finish college online while I work for him," Marv Winston said. "All I had was a GED which doesn't mean much. One more year and I'll hold a BA in accounting and administration." He smiled over at the wheelchair-bound man, then added, "The boss is grouchy and grumpy as hell but he's tolerable when you get to know him."
Jin hauled over a chair for herself, reversing it so she sat facing its back with her forearms resting across the top. "Sorry, sorry. I don't think I will ever be polite but I mean no harm."
"Not a problem." Maitland turned his attention back to Sable. "I've read quite a bit about your organization, Miss Reilly. Established in 1979 by the infamous Dire Wolf himself, Jeremy Bane. You've been tied to so many documented instances of the seeming supernatural that I started double-checking everything in disbelief. Remarkable, really. There are many hints that the New York Police Department and the FBI's Department 21 Black turn to you for more outre problems."
Sable turned her closed-mouth sly smile on him. "What brings you here today, professor?"
"Ah. Here we are." Reaching into his suit jacket, Maitland drew out a clear polymer bag which held a piece of material eight inches by twelve inches against a stiff piece of cardboard. "This is acid-free and archival sealed, you understand. I wouldn't open it again without the proper material."
Without speaking, Sable Reilly accepted the object and regarded it with her enhanced perception. For a long moment, she was silent and then she glanced up. "This is incredibly old. Many thousands of years old but well preserved evidently in dry sand. I recognize the ideograms, although I can't read them. This is from Zhune."
Maitland allowed himself a grin. "Very good. You do not disappoint."
"Hmm. I see traces beneath the symbols of scratched areas in the vellum which held earlier markings. Those were scraped away but not entirely. A palimpest."
"I do not know that word," Demrak Jin interrupted, still watching the two men as if ready for a brawl at any second.
"It's a piece of material which held writing which was erased so new writing could be done," Sable said. "This was common in ancient times. Vellum such as this was valuable and would be reused several times."
Leaning back in his wheelchair, Professor Maitland said, "I admit I can only recognize a handful of Zhune ideograms. Scholars have never made much progress since the Zhune symbols are unrelated to any other known system. They predate even Sumerian cuneiforms."
"I know someone who may be able to figure out some of this," Sable responded. "If nothing else, we have scanning equipment which should be able to produce a clear image of the original symbols. Hmm. This is not lambskin. The pores are wrong. I wonder if it might be from some extinct grazing animal..."
Maitland took in a deep breath and let it out so slowly he seemed to be delating. "The only symbol I think I can make out is near the top left corner. It means 'wrong' or 'forbidden,' possibly 'danger.'
After arrangements had been worked out for study of the palimpest, Professor Maitland was helped from the building down to where his customized van waited at the end of the block. Again, Demrak Jin did most of the lifting of his wheelchair but this time she was diplomatic enough to let the aide Winston chip in. As the black panel van eased out into traffic, Sable and Jin returned to the headquarters and the doors closed behind them with clicks and buzzes as the alarms armed themselves.
Timothy Limbo was coming out of the Waiting Room. Further along the left side wall after the office, this was a room which did not see much use. Visitors could wait here if the office was being used or members could relax here with some privacy during slack moments. It was sparsely furnished with a few comfortable chairs, a couch and a regular TV set on a stand. There was also an intercom that allowed anyone in there to follow conversations in the office.
As his teammates neared, Tim held up an open palm and one of his caspers swirled around it. Barely visible even in directly sunlight, these resembled tiny swirling tornadoes which buzzed around Timothy like affectionate hummingbirds. He could see and hear whatever they perceived, making his specific gralic ability extremely useful for intelligence gathering.
"They're heading toward the West Side Highway," Timothy informed Jin and Sable. "One of my boys is in the car with them. That guy Winston is driving, Maitland kind of wrestled himself into a more comfortable seat in the back. They're talking about starving and having missed breakfast."
"Thanks, Timothy," said Sable. "It was good to know you were in the next room with your little ghosts watching us. I wish Jocelyn would get back earlier."
"She said her flight leaves today Bangkok at one. I bet this is all over by the time she's here."
"All right." Sable slid open the wooden panel by the front door and studied the readings which the Trom scanners had taken off their visitors. "Hmmm. Nothing unexpected. No gimmicks in the wheelchair. No hidden weapons. Look at Maitland's sacroiliac, lots of tangled scar tissue that has settled. He's not faking being disabled. I want to study these images later but for now we can proceed on the premise that those two are what they claim."
"So, seems we have a couple different angles going on," Timothy said. "Those freaky bruisers who pounded on me. The Silver Skull unexpectedly showing up. And now this Maitland dude turning up with the exact palimpest we were looking for. Wanna bet they're all tied together?"
Sable regarded her two teammates. "Tim, I want you and Jin to go back and dig for any clues about who those deformed men were. The Brotherhood of Seven Hunchbacks, we need to know about them. I will keep harping on the phone contacting our network of observers. And let me see if Megan is available to be called in."
Timothy Limbo's crooked grin made him look about twelve. "Yep, she's best suited for deep super-science analysis of an ancient vellum, all right."
"You guys get rolling," Sable said. "After I contact Megan, I'll get started on our list and ask who has seen either a man with a silver helmet that looks like a skull or else seen a tribe of murderous hunchbacks. Sometimes I wonder how stunned our network is by the weird things we ask them about."
V.
It was almost noon before Timothy swung the dark green Subaru Outback onto a side road in the middle of a snoozy hamlet named Lakington up past Westchester County. He rolled past two houses and a boarded up cement building that still had a rusting backhoe stored alongside it before finding the small bungalow he had been seeking.
"Looks better without all the rain and lightning," he said. Timothy had changed to the KDF field suit with its high boots, snug trousers and waist-length jacket, all of tough black material. Underneath it, he wore the silk-thin flexible Trom armor which left only his head and heads exposed. As usual, the field suit was loaded with a dozen tiny gadgets and weapons in small slits and pockets. Timothy brushed back that thick yellow hair with the back of a hand but it immediately fell back near his eyes again. "Ground's still muddy."
The bungalow had not been lived in for some years, judging by the rank overgrown grass and the peeling white paint. By the front door, two lightweight wooden chairs had been blown over and never set upright again. A metal sign standing nearby read FINSTER REALTY, meaning the property was available.
Beside him, Demrak Jin glared out at the scene. Instead of a KDF field suit, she had insisted on wearing her own Ulgoran clothing. This consisted of a long-sleeved tunic and leggings of grey sharkhide with the rough denticles on the outside so that brushing up against her meant a bloody loss of skin. A thin leather belt held her Link and a few of the miniaturized devices but it was her long knife in the back seat that she now reached for. Crafted by herself from bear bone, the wide flat blade was kept sharp enough to slice through a piece of falling tissue. She kept it in a sheath of walrus ivory, quite illegal to own, and she could not wait to jump outside of the car and strap the weapon to her back with the simple hilt up near her right shoulder.
"Can't you feel it?" she snapped. "Deadly enemies are near. The air is heavy with the promise of battle. Hurry, Tim."
Keeping his reaction to himself, Timothy Limbo reflected that Jin had acted this way many times when there turned out to be nothing at all dangerous in the area. She was aching for a fight most of the time. It also seemed droll to him that her lover Galvan was even then probably changing a diaper or rocking their one-year-old son to sleep while the mother was out craving conflict.
He closed the driver's side door and reached under the back of his jacket to loosen the anesthetic dart gun in its holster. "Hang on a second, Jin," he said in a reasonable tone. "Let me send a few of my caspers to look..."
But he never finished the sentence. Jin had been right. A half dozen massive men in dark ragged clothing had come around the side of the rundown bungalow and immediately charged at the two newcomers to the scene. Tim had a momentary impression of men below average height but immensely thick and sturdy, each with a curved spine so extreme that their heads were below the ridge of their backs. All of them were clutching wavy-bladed daggers.
They thudded right at Jin and Timothy without any cries of warning, moving together in a tight formation. And Demrak Jin vaulted to meet them. The white bone blade blurred in a left-right arc that slashed open chests and abdomens to spill internal organs out. The Gelydra hopped back as the hunchbacked men tried to slice her with their own weapons, then dove in again to whip the edge of her weapon through a throat so deeply that the victim's head nearly fell off.
With a body adapted to crushing depths and to moving against stiff water resistance, the Gelydrim were both stronger and faster than true Humans when in open air. Demrak Jim had taken out three of the hunchbacks in a flash with any of their strokes even touching her. Abruptly, the remaining deformed men spun and ran full tilt back toward the side of the house.
Timothy had reached her by then, the dart gun held in both hands. "I'll go left, you go right," he said. Jin was already right on top of the fleeing men. She swerved around the bungalow to find the hunchbacks scrambling into a white SUV which was already running. With a growl deep in her narrow chest, the Gelydra raised her long knife and took fifteen 9mm slugs to the body as one of the men unloaded a semi-automatic at point blank range. She was knocked back off her feet and slid across the wet grass in a tumble.
The SUV roared past, barely missing her. Timothy made no attempt to pursue. He had holstered his dart gun and was kneeling over his teammate. Jin's sharkhide tunic had been shredded by the bullets until only a few scraps remained across her torso. Underneath the dull gleam of the Trom armor showed. This material protected them by dispersing any impact across its entire surface, as well as preventing penetration. It was good but nothing is perfect and she had taken a fusillade.
Tough as she was, Demrak Jin struggled to rise but couldn't quite make it. One small pale hand still clutched the hilt of her bloodied weapon. "Grelok split me...!" she cursed.
"Easy there, let me help you," said Timothy. He was one of the very few she trusted enough to let him touch her. "Feel like any broken bones?"
"No. No. I have been taken worse wounds and gone to the feasting table." With his hands lifting under her arms, the Gelydra managed to get up and a second later was standing unsupported. Unexpectedly, she gave a short barking laugh. "I must admit it, I did not expect them to have a gun."
"I know what you mean," he agreed. "For some reason, I thought they were one of the old-fashioned cults that rely on knives and nooses. Listen. We need to get out of here quickly. Neighbors might be calling the cops right now, those shots were loud."
Jin yanked up a handful of the damp grass and wiped her weapon's blade. "True enough. Yes, Tim, you are right."
"Let me take some readings." Unclipping his Link, he waved it low over the still bleeding bodies. The Trom device recorded the scene in minute detail, also measuring the body temperatures and analyzing any aromas for chemical content. "Okay," he said, adjusting the controls. "I'm sending the information to Sable. Let's roll."
Jin satisfied herself that the bone blade had not chipped or taken any cracks during the action. She rubbed her chest tenderly where the bullets had pounded a moment earlier, scowling more than usual. "Are Hunchbacks not rare in the surface civilizations?"
"Yeah. I don't think we use the word 'Hunchback' much any more, it's considered offensive." Timothy actually opened Jin's door for her and helped her get in, something she would not accept from too many others. "But I guess it's mostly something that older women get as osteoarthritis sets in. Sometimes it interferes with breathing and causes heart problems."
She scoffed and sheathed her weapon. "Strange then, to find seven strong healthy people men in such a condition, isn't it?"
Getting behind the wheel, Timothy glanced back at the three dead men. "Absolutely. And strange that as soon as they saw us, they tried to kill us. What's going on here?"
VI.
At forty-three, Megan Salenger's figure had filled out slightly since first joining the KDF, her face was rounder and had lost some of that inquisitive foxlike look of her teen years. But the dark eyes were sharper and more alert than ever. Under that familiar tousle of thick black hair, those eyes were constantly moving, observing and analyzing.
Coming down the elevator from her sixth floor labs, Megan wriggled out of a disposable paper overall and folded it up under one arm. Her latex gloves and clear helmet came off next. Underneath, the Trom Girl was wearing nothing remarkable, only sneakers, black jeans and an olive-colored polo shirt. She stepped into the office and Sable sat up straighter in anticipation.
"Analysis is underway," Megan reported. "I project eighteen minutes before we receive a translation but some possibility of error remains. Six to eight per cent, at worst."
"Thanks, Megan." Sable gestured for her long time partner to pull up a chair. "We don't have any other members who could run that analysis. I'm glad you stayed on reserve duty."
Megan placed the bundle of her protective clothing on the chair next to her. "Lately, I have not been going on too many of what Archie calls the 'Trom Girl Mysteries'. Upkeep on our house and socializing with his rowdy friends are more time-consuming than I expected. I have listened to a good deal of indifferent music, though."
"When the Trom raised you from infancy, they wanted a cold logical genius who functioned without emotion. You sure went your own way!"
A flashing smile made Megan look like a girl in her early teens again. "Heh. I for one am so glad. To have lived without friendship, without falling in love, would not be a life well lived. And I will be immodest enough to say that meeting me has made Archie's life better than it would have been."
"I'm sure he'd agree," Sable said. "Maybe you could manage to come in three days a week, Megan. We could use you on duty more. I think we might be looking for a new member or two soon."
"I think that would be workable," the Trom Girl replied. "About your current case, regarding this Zhune palimpest? I don't remember learning anything about about a group of Forty Hunchbacks."
"Even as wild as the Midnight War gets, I think a phrase like that would stick in your memory."
Megan leaned forward, eager again as she seldom became in her civilian life. "You've turned up nothing so far?"
"No. I have been on the damn phone all day, working through our list of observers. I need to take a break soon, even a ten minute walk to get out of this room."
Glancing down at the Link she was toying with, the Trom Girl said, "Oh! There are a few words coming in. Check your own screen, captain."
"This... is odd," Sable reacted. "'Chicken eggs. Cow milk. Cinnamon dust'..? I don't understand, Megan."
Regarding her Link with a furrowed forehead, the Trom Girl finally said, "The program seems to require more time than I expected. Perhaps I will set it to alert us when a substantial amount has been verified?"
"Yes, might as well." Sable spotted the bulb high up in one corner flash green. "Oh, one of us is here. Just a second. Yes, that's Timothy's tread."
Poking his head into the office, their teammate grinned. The crooked flash perfect white teeth in that boyish face was immensely appealing. "One of our sources says he has heard of the Brotherhood of Hunchbacks. They're not normal Humans afflicted with a medical condition, they're a sort of cult from Androval."
"Really. If they're Melgar, that explains their strength and durability," the Trom Girl said.
"Oh, hi, Megan. Good to see you." Timothy slid another of the straightbacked chairs over and dropped down with obvious self-satisfaction. "That was old Max Werschkul who gave me some information. I dropped in on him personally, he doesn't answer the phone much. You remember him. He interviewed both Sulak and Valera for a book that he privately printed at his own expense."
"We have a copy on file, of course," Megan said. "I have not read it yet. I should search through it."
Sable waved a dismissive hand. "I wouldn't bother, dear. Werschkul said all he knew was that the Brotherhood inflicted bent spines on their young ones to make them grow that way, and that they were involved in the usual sordid drunken orgies that most Melgar sorcerers go for. They haven't been known to ever leave Androval, so they're real obscure."
"Receiving another phrase on the translation," Megan interrupted. "'Coarse Salt?' I was expecting something more esoteric. Does this sound like a recipe to anyone else?!"
"We don't seem to be making quick progress on the case," Timothy observed. "Why are Melgar hunchbacks looking for that palimpest? What did this new Silver Skull have to do with them? Why was he there, why did he intervene for me? For that matter, how did Professor Maitland obtain that artifact anyway? He didn't offer any details beyond buying it from a shady dealer in Midnight War talismans."
"It is possible that Maitland's assistant is the new Silver Skull," said Megan. "He is young and fit, and he is the same height at the Skull that Timothy saw."
Sable stood up. "As long as I have all three active members and our reserve Trom Girl here at the same time, I'm calling a meeting. We don't need to go up to the conference room, we can work out our agenda right here."
"If I may say so," Timothy said. "It looks like we already have a few pieces of the stereotypical puzzle and we need to see how they fit into each other. A nice sedate little mystery, right? But I'm sure it has also occured to you guys that these Hunchbacks attacked our Demrak Jin with knives and a semi-auto. So they wouldn't hesitate to kill a regular civilian."
Facing her teammates, Lauren Sable Reilly showed them a wicked smile they had never seen on her before. "There's also a possibility these Hunchbacks know we have the palimpest. They will be coming for it. And we will be ready!"
At eight-fifteen that night, Maitland's car was standing near the KDF building, in a spot that had defied the odds by being available at the right moment. Maitland himself did not emerge, but opened the rear door of his customized van to speak with Sable. Winston had come out from behind the driver's side to stretch for a moment. He was well-dressed, with a preference for classic cut tan business suits and narrow ties that went well with his long lanky body.
Seeing him again, Sable wondered if Winston might be the new Silver Skull. There was no way to tell. The armor and helmet and sword appeared as if by their own volition on a worthy subject when the previous Skull died. This was called "the Passing of the Burden."
Maitland accepted the resealed polymer bag containing the priceless Zhune vellum. "Are you quite sure you want to return it so soon?"
"Yes," Sable said. "Our expert is engrossed in studying scans we have made down to the microscopic level. She also is doing chemical analysis from vapors given off at room temperature, I assure you that we didn't take any samples."
"Remarkable." Maitland offered his hand and they exchanged a firm warm shake before Winston started closing the rear door. "You folks are everything I had hoped you'd be. I'll be waiting for your call."
"We'll be in touch as soon as possible," Sable. She stepped back, watched as the van signaled and pulled out into traffic. As soon as it turned the corner was out of sight, the KDF's own Subaru rolled up from the left to stand next to her.
From behind the wheel, Timothy leaned over to call, "All set, captain?"
"I stuck the signaler behind their rear license plate. You can follow it as long as they stay within two hundred miles," she said.
Timothy chuckled. "And hopefully we'll intercept some pursuers. If they saw Maitland get the palimpest back, we might be tangling with those Hunchbacks again."
In the front passenger seat, Demrak Jin rumbled in her flat chest. "I can not wait..."
Sable watched her teammates drive away after the Maitland car, uneasy but not able to pinpoint why. She wanted to go with them. Her earpiece beeped and she tapped it lightly with the tip of her index finger.
"Captain," came Megan's voice as clear as if she were standing there, "This is an interesting development. I have refined the scanning program and it seems there was a still earlier layer of ideograms. We were translating mundane instructions for food of some sort. Before that, the vellum had been used by someone using very primitive symbols"
VII.
A long drive of more than an hour had taken Maitland's van out to the Northern Shore of Long Island. Some of the posh estates here covered a dozen acres, so the houses were well spaced. So the explosion which boomed at eleven that night received little notice. To the nearest neighbors, there had been a single deep thump which might have been taken for thunder. In any case, no calls to police were made.
On the deep expanse of well-trimmed lawn which led down to merge with a rocky beach and the Atlantic, nearly a dozen grotesque figures were revealed by thick torches which many of them held. These men wore dark shirts and pants but were mainly barefoot. All were hunchbacked, the rounded curve of their upper spines rising up behind their shaggy heads so they were bent forward in a permanent bowing posture. All the Hunchbacks resembled each other as closely as twins, even though there were eleven of them. In the unsteady torchlight,
Most toyed with wavy-bladed daggers, but several brandished more semi-automatic pistols and one rested the butt of a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun on the grass. They were standing in a loose semi-circle around a man and a woman who had been stretched out on the ground.
Timothy Limbo was recovering rapidly from the effects of that flash-bang grenade which had taken him and Jin off-guard. At such close range, a normal person might be permanently deafened or suffered vision loss. A decade on the Tagra tea regimen had enhanced Timothy's healing factor to where he recovered from near-fatal injuries within a short time. Tel Shai knights were neither invulnerable nor immortal, but they were notoriously difficult to harm.
Already, the pounding in his head was easing. Timothy propped himself up on elbow and immediately turned to check on his partner. Demrak Jim was not given access to Tagra because the Teachers had declined to accept her at Tel Shai, but as a Gelydra she was extremely tough and resilient in any case. Blood was drying from where it had leaked out of both nostrils onto her lower face. The small white-haired woman pawed uncertainly up to her right shoulder and found nothing. Her bone-bladed knife had been taken from her.
The rasping growl she gave made the Hunchbacks shift their weight uncomfortably. It did not sound like any noise a Human should be able to make.
Timothy coughed, groaned and forced himself up to a seated position. "Not fair throwing grenades," he mumbled, "I don't think much of you guys..." Then he saw the two other prisoners fifteen feet away from where he sprawled. Winston Falk had been forced down on both knees, hands tied behind his back, with a knife held from behind next to his throat. Near him, Professor Maitland had been allowed to remain in his wheelchair.
Timothy was surprised to see no fear in Maitland's face, even surrounded by these hideous killers out in the dark where no help was coming. Instead, the disabled researcher seemed furious and defiant.
"Glad to see you're all right," Maitland called over to Timothy. "That was a military flash-bang they threw. I can hardly hear and I wasn't even that close. How's your friend?"
"Ready to slay..." was the reply from Jin. She had managed to get into a seated position on the lawn, within arm's reach of Timothy. The Gelydra extended an arm and pointed at the crowd of Hunchbacks. "Not one of you will live to see the dawn. This I swear."
"A Gelydra? Really? You are far from Ulgor, little one." Although it was difficult to tell the Hunchbacks apart, the speaker was distinguished by a white fur collar and cuffs on his drab outfit. He also leaned slightly on a cudgel. Given how distorted their postures were, mostly likely all the Hunchbacks would have appreciated some support. "You speak to Volmir, chief of the Forty Hunchbacks."
"Melgar scum!" she shouted. "Go back to the hellhole of Androval where you fit in!"
"Jin, your boyfriend is a Melgar," Timothy objected. "Remember? The father of your child?"
She seemed not to hear as she got to her feet, legs braced well apart and seeming none too steady. "I know what you want. The manuscript from Zhune. Well, you're not going to get it."
The leader of the Hunchbacks raised a gnarled hand as his brethren had drawn in closer around the defiant Gelydra woman. "You overestimate yourself, child. Where is that parchment?"
"It's vellum, not parchment, you fool..." Timothy began but cut himself short. "You know, it seems to me that this is a good time for negotiations. I'm sure you guys have been searching both our vehicles with no luck. Let's work out some terms where we each get what we want."
Volmir considered this. "Tell us where the manuscript is and we will release you Humans. The Gelydra's fate is set, long and bitter is the history between our Races."
"Nope, no deal," Timothy responded as he got up on one knee and readied to rise. Beneath their field suits, he and Jin were both wearing the flexible Trom armor which gave them protection against edged weapons and blunt impact. Slugs from those pistols would bruise but not incapacitate them. Still, against such a mob, he didn't see how even Jin's ferocity would be of any use. "We all walk free and then you get your prize."
"Like these freaks can be trusted," said Winston, receiving a cuff to the side of the head for his comment. Maitland's aide twitched from the blow but he held his tongue after that. Watching the incident, Tim decided that the young black man was not the new Silver Skull after all; surely by now he would have taken action.
"I can promise that her death will be quick and painless," the leader of the Hunchbacks suggested. "That's the best she can expect. That is our offer."
Bracing his hands on the arms of his wheelchair, Francis Maitland took in a deep breath and spoke in a suddenly more authoritative voice. "What we can offer you.. is Justice." In a shimmer of blue gralic light, he became a lean dynamic figure in a black leather uniform crested by a gleaming helmet. Vaulting out of that chair directly at the mob, sword in hand, was the Silver Skull.
VIII.
The next four minutes were a nightmare haze filled with screams and thuds and wet slashing noises. Only one Hunchback got a few shots off before being sliced open from sternum to ribcage, and a single bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the Skull's circular shield into the night.
Nor did the black-clad figure fight alone. Within a second after the dramatic revelation, Demrak Jin plunged headlong into the crowd. She had spotted the Hunchback who held her long knife and immediately wrestled it away from the man, reversing it in a backhand arc that opened the deformed cultist's throat so blood spurted out from the main artery. The Gelydra whirled and spun, never still long enough to be struck herself but slaying wherever she reached.
Watching the two fighters, Timothy Limbo wisely went over to help Winston up off his knees. They both backed off. Timothy was a skilled Kumundu master and easily held his own against nearly any opponent. But he had seen Demrak Jin go berserk before and realized he would only be in the way.
"Quite a surprise about your boss," he managed to say to Winston.
"We try to keep it a secret," the young aide replied. "Man! Look at that girl go. She's a buzzsaw with legs."
None of the Hunchbacks even considered making a run for safety. At first, there were enough of them that they actually got in each others' way. A minute later, only a handful remained standing. Then there was only the leader Volmir, who dropped his cudgel and began scuttled away, bent over so far he nearly ran on all fours.
"Oh no you don't," came a voice made hollow by the grimly-shaped helmet. The Silver Skull whipped the shield off his left arm and flung it like an oversized discus to rebound hard off the back of Volmir's head with an audible crunch. The shield reappeared strapped the Skull's forearm instantly. Like the sword and uniform, he could summon it from wherever it was.
"Yes! Yes! Grelok is generous to his children!" yelled Demrak Jin, brandished her bloody weapon. "Grelok always sends us foes to strike down!"
Next to Winston, Timothy muttered, "She's not usually like this, I swear. She has a little boy who was one year old last month. She's as gentle with him as anyone could ask."
"It's fine with me," replied Winston. "I honestly expected to be a human sacrifice or something."
Coming over to join them, the Silver Skull knelt and wiped his sword carefully on the coarse burlap of a Hunchback's robe. "Too bad none of them survived. We have no one to question about why they wanted that palimpest."
Jin stayed well out of reach, regarding the Skull without any noticeable warmth. "You walk. You fight. But only when you wear the helmet and costume?"
"And now the need for the Silver Skull has passed," the leather-clad warrior answered. Oddly, his eyes could not be seen within the helmet. The two eyeholes were as black as if no one was wearing it. "This is the part that always breaks my heart."
The blue shimmer played over him, the black leather and sword and shield were replaced by a plain business suit. Francis Maitland dropped heavily to his knees and struggled to get into a sitting position. "Ow. I never remember to sit down first when I know that's going to happen." Winston hustled to bring the wheelchair over, locking it into place so he could help his employer back up into it.
Once he was secured again, Maitland said, "Thank you, Winston. I'd be lost without you, you do know that?"
"It's not just a job, sir. I believe in what you do. I'm glad to help."
Drawing closer, gesturing for Jin to sheathe her own weapon, Timothy Limbo exhaled sharply. "This is a lot to take in. We have to report to our captain, Professor Maitland, but I can promise that your secret will remain among our team. No outsider needs to know."
"I appreciate that, my boy. We may well be working together again," Maitland said. He gave Demrak Jin a quizzical glance. "You ARE a Gelydra, that's for sure. I could not keep up with you."
Surprisingly, Jin bowed from the waist, one arm stretched out toward the man. "Always proud to fight alongside a worthy ally, 'grandfather.' We Gelydrim are born at the same time a shark is born and the spirit of the shark lives within us."
"I hate to bring up inconvenient details," Timothy said. "But I count eleven dead bodies on your property. All bearing unmistakable signs of grievous bodily trauma. All amazingly deformed, too. We can't let the neighbors see this carnage when the sun comes up."
Unlocking the wheels on his chair, Maitland rolled closer to the nearest corpse. "Yes. Well. It's going to be tedious but I do have a small Eldar travel crystal in the house. We can send them back to Androval but it will have to be one at a time. Quite a nuisance, unpleasant work in any case."
Timothy's Link buzzed and he unclipped it. "Sable? Hi. Everything is fine here. I'll give a full report when we get back. Yes, Jin is okay. Maitland and his friend Winston are unharmed. We do have a lawn full of dead Hunchbacks to dispose of, though. Wait, what? Sure, we'd like to know." Timothy listened for a few seconds, repeated that he and Jin would be reporting back to headquarters and broke the connection.
"I take it the palimpest has been deciphered?" asked Maitland.
"Yes. Our Megan says accuracy is within a ninety-three percent margin of error. If those Hunchbacks were hoping for a treasure map or some Alchemical secret, they were in for a big letdown. The oldest layer seems to be nothing more than a checklist of supplies for a merchant. Rugs, benches, coats. Interesting from an historical point of view, but nothing these men should have been willing to kill or be killed for."
"I see," Maitland responded. "That's rather droll. What about that other layer of symbols, with the chicken eggs and cow milk and so forth? What the devil was that about?"
Timothy could not keep a straight face, despite the slaughterhouse scene around him. "As far as Megan can translate, it's a recipe for what we call French Toast."
9/25/2020
7/22-/24/2020
I.
Lightning crashed way too closely for comfort, glaringly bright against the deep black sky. During its flash, Timothy saw a frozen diorama of distorted figures right on top of him. In the blinking afterimages left on his eyes and during the thudding roll of thunder, he was thrown
down by massive weights climbing over him. Powerful fists and feet smashed into his body where he was lying in the mud. The flexible Trom armor dispersed most of the impact but his exposed head took a vicious onslaught. The rain made everything so slippery it was hard to get a fix on the situation
With long years of Kumundu training, Timothy did not curl into a defensive ball as instinct told him. He got over onto his stomach and leaped up to get out of reach of his attackers. Then he could wheel around and fight back, first drawing the dart gun holstered at his side. The tactic didn't quite work. One boot slid in the sloppy mud and he went down on one knee again. Hands seized his lower arms and pulled them out straight, hauling him up right.
In the heavy rain, even as his vision returned after the lightning, Timothy Limbo could only make out that his attackers were solid bulky men, not tall but wide and stocky. The hands holding him were stronger than Human normal. Timothy hooked one foot behind an opponent's ankle and kicked that man's leg forward to get him off balance. As the enemy fell, his grip loosened and Timothy wrenched his arm free to immediately slammed a short hooking punch to the other one's unseen face. It was like hitting a slab of frozen beef. Something crashed against the back of Tim's head that made sparks blink behind his eyes and his knees buckled. If he fell again, he would have a hard time defending himself.
Then unexpectedly, a new figure rushed out of the darkness. Hard blows landed with the crisp decisiveness that meant perfect impact had been made. The misshapen attackers yelled and bellowed. Freed for the moment, Timothy seized a pencil flashlight from inside his leather jacket and thumbed it on.
That brilliant thread of light showed the high rounded backs of four deformed men running off into the storm. Hunchbacks, four hunchbacks. It WAS the Brotherhood Timothy swung the beam around to reveal a dramatic muscular figure in a black leather uniform. Strapped to the left forearm was a round circular shield and sheathed at the left hip was a straight sword three feet long.
The newcomer wore a silver helmet crafted to resemble a grim unsmiling skull. In a hollow voice, the man said, "We will meet again." Then he spun and raced off into the storm.
Left alone in the cold drizzle, hearing thunder roll again further away this time, Timothy Limbo gingerly touched the lump at the back of his throbbing head. Well, at least the enemy hadn't gotten inside that house where the Palimpest was thought to be hidden. He could search in there and return to Manhattan to report. But at the moment, he was giddy at the thought that the Silver Skull had returned to the Midnight War.
II.
"It's been fifteen years since the Skull has last been seen," Sable told her teammate around the long oak table. They were in the conference room on the second floor of KDF headquarters, meeting where four earlier generations of heroes had assembled. That night, only two were in attendance. "Even then, no one found out his true identity. He showed up when needed and fought hard, but then left without explanation."
"Who WAS that masked man?" Timothy quoted.
"Exactly." Sable leaned back and tilted her head quizzically. "You say he stood six feet tall?"
"Yeah. A couple inches taller than me. A little heavier." Timothy himself was a slightly built young man with a thick mop of butter-yellow that badly needed trimming. "It was hard to judge from just the glimpse I got of him, but I'd say he weighs maybe two hundred even. Not heavy in build, just athletic."
The team leader clasped her hands before her and regarded her teammate somberly. Lauren Sable Reilly had been up waiting Tim's return. She wearing Navy blue slacks and long-sleeved pullover with an open white cardigan across her shoulders. "I don't know if this is good news or not. He did help you in a tight spot, Tim."
"Well, yeah, I have to admit that's true. I didn't exactly have them begging for mercy. And the house had already been searched before they got there, there was nothing in the hidden drawer you wanted me to find."
"It's just... I'm not sure how to react to this," Sable said. "The Silver Skull is such an ancient heritage. It goes back to the Darthan Age, thirty thousand years ago. It has been passed down from one wielder to a chosen successor ever since."
"Not in an unbroken line, of course. I've been studying Midnight War lore." Timothy couldn't help reaching up to the back of his head but there was no sign of the beating he had taken earlier that night. His enhanced healing from the Tagra diet enabled that. "There have been long stretches, sometimes centuries at a time, without a Silver Skull."
"We are always so short-staffed," Timothy abruptly burst out. "Sorry for changing the subject, but we never did a find a replacement for Haley. Shouldn't Galvan or Jin be here tonight? Their kid is almost a year old by now."
"I hear you," Sable said. "But let's face it, potential Tel Shai knights are hard to find. Galvan was here yesterday, working out upstairs and cooking some mutton. There wasn't an active case underway for him. I think Jin comes on duty at eight this morning." She raised a single finger more to signal attention than admonishment. "Back to the matter at hand. One of the founding members of our KDF was a Silver Skull, Dr Larry Taper. None of us met him of course, he died in 1990. And his successor showed up a few times about five years later but he was the one who didn't reveal himself."
"Is this the same man?" Tim wondered. "Fifteen years is a long stretch for fighting Midnight War."
"No way to tell. He hasn't been reported since, oh 2012 or so. Maybe this is his successor." The leader of their team stood up. "Now for the other part of our current problem. The men who attacked you. I ran a search through KDF records and found nothing about such possible suspects. Then, while waiting for you to drive back here, I started rushing through paper records which haven't been entered yet."
"There are so many reports and memoirs and letters and such," Timothy agreed. "Rooms full of them. We could have someone working full time to scan the pages and put them into the computer files."
"I did find one suggestive phrase," said Sable. "Only a name and a date. In 1987, Jeremy fought something called the Brotherhood of Forty Hunchbacks...."
III.
At nine-fifteen the next morning, the front doorbell buzzed twice. In Sable's office just down the main hall, a green light flashed high up in one corner and Demrak Jin leaped to her feet as if someone had thrown a dart at her. Jin was tiny, lithe and taut with the build of a life-long swimmer. She was wearing plain dark pants and a button-front flannel shirt a size to large for her.
At once, the Gelydra was up off the couch where she had been reading about the current case, moving smoothly out of the office and into the hall. Jin was not pretty by most conventional standards. Her wide flat face with its cloudy blue eyes and that short shock of bristly white hair gave a distinctive appearance though that people found fascinating.
On the wall by the front door was a wooden panel which slid aside to reveal a monitor and control panel. She studied the image from the outside camera with deep suspicion that was her response to almost everything. Standing on the sidewalk of East 38th Street, in a wheelchair, sat a stocky white man with sullen features and crisp greying hair. Up on the six concrete steps that placed him in front of their door was a tall black man with lightish skin and old-fashioned horn-rimmed eyeglasses. It was he who was pressing the doorbell.
"What do you want?" asked Demrak Jin with a noticeable lack of courtesy. All these years with her friends on the surface had not given her polished manners.
"Ah. Good morning. My name is Marv Winston, I'm the personal aide to Professor Maitland. That's him over there. He'd like to see Miss Reilly. This IS the Kenneth Dred Foundation?"
"Yes. Hold on a second." Jin swung her head as she saw Sable striding quickly down the wide staircase and along the hall toward her. "Captain? Were you expecting anyone?"
"No. Stand by, Jin." Moving over by the control panel, Sable said, "Please excuse the delay. I will be out in a minute." The team leader frowned at the image on the monitor screen. "Body language seems to indicate no immediate hostile intent. The man on our stoop isn't carrying a gun, judging by the way his clothes hang. The man in the wheelchair has no blanket over his lap. I don't see any obvious threat."
Demrak Jin came from a warrior culture and she regarded anyone she didn't know as a likely opponent. "Let me go out, captain. Let them dare try anything...."
"Please. Stand by and be ready. I'm going out." Sable opened the steel-reinforced inner door, took one step to cross the tiny foyer and swung open the outer door to meet the two men. Her gralic powers of perception were not as flamboyant or destructive as those of her teammates but they were even more useful in most circumstances.
In an instant, her eyesight and hearing and sense of smell were augmented way beyond the normal limits of what flesh and blood could detect. She knew what this young man Marv Winston had eaten for breakfast, she knew from his heartbeat that he took in too much caffeine daily, she knew from the speed and extent his pupils dilated and returned to normal that he found her attractive but wasn't seriously interested. He was only twenty-one years old, and barely that. Winston shifted his weight as she emerged, but not in a way that would enable him to reach any concealed weapon. He was only making room for the door to swing outward.
In the next flash, she turned her full perception on the man in the wheelchair. The upper body was strong and toughened, but below the waist, blood circulation was poor. The legs were thinner than the arms. The man had a steady healthy heartbeat and the perspiration of someone who ate a lot of red meat and drank some brandy on a regular basis. Age would be fifty-seven or fifty-eight. She judged the degree of relaxation in those forearms which rested on the wheelchair arms and saw no readiness for quick movement.
Less than a full second had passed. Sable could have continued in infinitely greater detail if she thought it necessary. For the moment, she felt satisfied. "Good morning. I'm Lauren Reilly of the Kenneth Dred Foundation. You don't have an appointment?"
"I'm sorry we didn't phone ahead," Maitland answered. He had a rich confident baritone, educated with an East Coast college inflection. "But I think we have something your organization seriously needs to look at."
"All right. We can meet." She moved down the steps to the sidewalk. "This may be awkward. I apologize, we're a private research foundation and haven't been required to provide handicap access..."
"Let me," growled Jin as she pushed past her leader. Before anyone could intervene, the Gelydra moved behind Maitland. Only five feet three and slender to the point of seeing frail, Demrak Jin easily lifted the wheelchair with a two-hundred pound man in it up to her chin level. She stepped forward and lowered him onto the stoop as if putting down a beachball. There had no been any hint of strain in her movements.
Both men were staring with eyes bugging out and neither could speak after what had just happened.
Jin caught on that they were startled within inches of their lives. "What?!" she said in a grieved tone. "I helped out."
Sable moved over to assist Winston in wheeling Maitland up over the doorsill into the foyer. "Jin is very strong for her size," was all she could think to say. In the few seconds it took to manuever the wheelchair up into the front hall, a barely audible series of clicks and buzzes could be heard overhead. Both visitors were too preoccupied to notice.
IV.
Everyone headed to the office to the left as you entered. Once Professor Maitland was situated in front of the desk, with his aide in a straightback wooden chair beside him, Sable circled around to lower herself into her own swivel chair facing them. Demrak Jin remained standing slightly behind the two men with fists on her slim hips, oblivious to any possibility she might be making them uncomfortable.
"I think I recognize your name, sir," Sable began. "Professor Francis Maitland of Wingate University? That's you?"
"It is indeed," the man replied. "I'm flattered, miss. Mine is hardly a household name."
Sable leaned her chin in her cupped palm, elbow braced on the desk. She seldom bothered with even traces of make-up and wore her straight black hair brushed back off a high forehead. But with her large dark eyes, snub nose and full lips, Lauren Sable Reilly was naturally attractive enough that both men and women warmed up to her. "Yes," she said. "Our group researches a wide range of esoteric subjects. Mostly for debunking. I've seen some articles you wrote about the lost civilization of Zhune."
"All considered wild conjecture by my colleagues!" Maitland snorted. "Oh, I wasn't ostracized or anything. But my attempts at locating Zhune artifacts were humored as an eccentric hobby."
"What happened to your legs?" Jin asked without softening the question.
"Demrak Jin! You know better. I'm sorry, sir," Sable hastened to intervene.
"Oh, that's quite all right." Maitland twisted around to study the Gelydran woman's surly features. "I believe you are from far away? Yes, absolutely. Miss Jin, six years ago I was shot by accident. Two drunks were arguing over a drug deal in Oakland and I had the misfortune of being across the street. The bullet ripped my lower spine apart badly enough that surgery could not even be attempted. I will never walk again. But thank God, I was lucky enough to find this infinitely patient young man here to help me."
"Oh, there's more to it than that. He's tutoring me to finish college online while I work for him," Marv Winston said. "All I had was a GED which doesn't mean much. One more year and I'll hold a BA in accounting and administration." He smiled over at the wheelchair-bound man, then added, "The boss is grouchy and grumpy as hell but he's tolerable when you get to know him."
Jin hauled over a chair for herself, reversing it so she sat facing its back with her forearms resting across the top. "Sorry, sorry. I don't think I will ever be polite but I mean no harm."
"Not a problem." Maitland turned his attention back to Sable. "I've read quite a bit about your organization, Miss Reilly. Established in 1979 by the infamous Dire Wolf himself, Jeremy Bane. You've been tied to so many documented instances of the seeming supernatural that I started double-checking everything in disbelief. Remarkable, really. There are many hints that the New York Police Department and the FBI's Department 21 Black turn to you for more outre problems."
Sable turned her closed-mouth sly smile on him. "What brings you here today, professor?"
"Ah. Here we are." Reaching into his suit jacket, Maitland drew out a clear polymer bag which held a piece of material eight inches by twelve inches against a stiff piece of cardboard. "This is acid-free and archival sealed, you understand. I wouldn't open it again without the proper material."
Without speaking, Sable Reilly accepted the object and regarded it with her enhanced perception. For a long moment, she was silent and then she glanced up. "This is incredibly old. Many thousands of years old but well preserved evidently in dry sand. I recognize the ideograms, although I can't read them. This is from Zhune."
Maitland allowed himself a grin. "Very good. You do not disappoint."
"Hmm. I see traces beneath the symbols of scratched areas in the vellum which held earlier markings. Those were scraped away but not entirely. A palimpest."
"I do not know that word," Demrak Jin interrupted, still watching the two men as if ready for a brawl at any second.
"It's a piece of material which held writing which was erased so new writing could be done," Sable said. "This was common in ancient times. Vellum such as this was valuable and would be reused several times."
Leaning back in his wheelchair, Professor Maitland said, "I admit I can only recognize a handful of Zhune ideograms. Scholars have never made much progress since the Zhune symbols are unrelated to any other known system. They predate even Sumerian cuneiforms."
"I know someone who may be able to figure out some of this," Sable responded. "If nothing else, we have scanning equipment which should be able to produce a clear image of the original symbols. Hmm. This is not lambskin. The pores are wrong. I wonder if it might be from some extinct grazing animal..."
Maitland took in a deep breath and let it out so slowly he seemed to be delating. "The only symbol I think I can make out is near the top left corner. It means 'wrong' or 'forbidden,' possibly 'danger.'
After arrangements had been worked out for study of the palimpest, Professor Maitland was helped from the building down to where his customized van waited at the end of the block. Again, Demrak Jin did most of the lifting of his wheelchair but this time she was diplomatic enough to let the aide Winston chip in. As the black panel van eased out into traffic, Sable and Jin returned to the headquarters and the doors closed behind them with clicks and buzzes as the alarms armed themselves.
Timothy Limbo was coming out of the Waiting Room. Further along the left side wall after the office, this was a room which did not see much use. Visitors could wait here if the office was being used or members could relax here with some privacy during slack moments. It was sparsely furnished with a few comfortable chairs, a couch and a regular TV set on a stand. There was also an intercom that allowed anyone in there to follow conversations in the office.
As his teammates neared, Tim held up an open palm and one of his caspers swirled around it. Barely visible even in directly sunlight, these resembled tiny swirling tornadoes which buzzed around Timothy like affectionate hummingbirds. He could see and hear whatever they perceived, making his specific gralic ability extremely useful for intelligence gathering.
"They're heading toward the West Side Highway," Timothy informed Jin and Sable. "One of my boys is in the car with them. That guy Winston is driving, Maitland kind of wrestled himself into a more comfortable seat in the back. They're talking about starving and having missed breakfast."
"Thanks, Timothy," said Sable. "It was good to know you were in the next room with your little ghosts watching us. I wish Jocelyn would get back earlier."
"She said her flight leaves today Bangkok at one. I bet this is all over by the time she's here."
"All right." Sable slid open the wooden panel by the front door and studied the readings which the Trom scanners had taken off their visitors. "Hmmm. Nothing unexpected. No gimmicks in the wheelchair. No hidden weapons. Look at Maitland's sacroiliac, lots of tangled scar tissue that has settled. He's not faking being disabled. I want to study these images later but for now we can proceed on the premise that those two are what they claim."
"So, seems we have a couple different angles going on," Timothy said. "Those freaky bruisers who pounded on me. The Silver Skull unexpectedly showing up. And now this Maitland dude turning up with the exact palimpest we were looking for. Wanna bet they're all tied together?"
Sable regarded her two teammates. "Tim, I want you and Jin to go back and dig for any clues about who those deformed men were. The Brotherhood of Seven Hunchbacks, we need to know about them. I will keep harping on the phone contacting our network of observers. And let me see if Megan is available to be called in."
Timothy Limbo's crooked grin made him look about twelve. "Yep, she's best suited for deep super-science analysis of an ancient vellum, all right."
"You guys get rolling," Sable said. "After I contact Megan, I'll get started on our list and ask who has seen either a man with a silver helmet that looks like a skull or else seen a tribe of murderous hunchbacks. Sometimes I wonder how stunned our network is by the weird things we ask them about."
V.
It was almost noon before Timothy swung the dark green Subaru Outback onto a side road in the middle of a snoozy hamlet named Lakington up past Westchester County. He rolled past two houses and a boarded up cement building that still had a rusting backhoe stored alongside it before finding the small bungalow he had been seeking.
"Looks better without all the rain and lightning," he said. Timothy had changed to the KDF field suit with its high boots, snug trousers and waist-length jacket, all of tough black material. Underneath it, he wore the silk-thin flexible Trom armor which left only his head and heads exposed. As usual, the field suit was loaded with a dozen tiny gadgets and weapons in small slits and pockets. Timothy brushed back that thick yellow hair with the back of a hand but it immediately fell back near his eyes again. "Ground's still muddy."
The bungalow had not been lived in for some years, judging by the rank overgrown grass and the peeling white paint. By the front door, two lightweight wooden chairs had been blown over and never set upright again. A metal sign standing nearby read FINSTER REALTY, meaning the property was available.
Beside him, Demrak Jin glared out at the scene. Instead of a KDF field suit, she had insisted on wearing her own Ulgoran clothing. This consisted of a long-sleeved tunic and leggings of grey sharkhide with the rough denticles on the outside so that brushing up against her meant a bloody loss of skin. A thin leather belt held her Link and a few of the miniaturized devices but it was her long knife in the back seat that she now reached for. Crafted by herself from bear bone, the wide flat blade was kept sharp enough to slice through a piece of falling tissue. She kept it in a sheath of walrus ivory, quite illegal to own, and she could not wait to jump outside of the car and strap the weapon to her back with the simple hilt up near her right shoulder.
"Can't you feel it?" she snapped. "Deadly enemies are near. The air is heavy with the promise of battle. Hurry, Tim."
Keeping his reaction to himself, Timothy Limbo reflected that Jin had acted this way many times when there turned out to be nothing at all dangerous in the area. She was aching for a fight most of the time. It also seemed droll to him that her lover Galvan was even then probably changing a diaper or rocking their one-year-old son to sleep while the mother was out craving conflict.
He closed the driver's side door and reached under the back of his jacket to loosen the anesthetic dart gun in its holster. "Hang on a second, Jin," he said in a reasonable tone. "Let me send a few of my caspers to look..."
But he never finished the sentence. Jin had been right. A half dozen massive men in dark ragged clothing had come around the side of the rundown bungalow and immediately charged at the two newcomers to the scene. Tim had a momentary impression of men below average height but immensely thick and sturdy, each with a curved spine so extreme that their heads were below the ridge of their backs. All of them were clutching wavy-bladed daggers.
They thudded right at Jin and Timothy without any cries of warning, moving together in a tight formation. And Demrak Jin vaulted to meet them. The white bone blade blurred in a left-right arc that slashed open chests and abdomens to spill internal organs out. The Gelydra hopped back as the hunchbacked men tried to slice her with their own weapons, then dove in again to whip the edge of her weapon through a throat so deeply that the victim's head nearly fell off.
With a body adapted to crushing depths and to moving against stiff water resistance, the Gelydrim were both stronger and faster than true Humans when in open air. Demrak Jim had taken out three of the hunchbacks in a flash with any of their strokes even touching her. Abruptly, the remaining deformed men spun and ran full tilt back toward the side of the house.
Timothy had reached her by then, the dart gun held in both hands. "I'll go left, you go right," he said. Jin was already right on top of the fleeing men. She swerved around the bungalow to find the hunchbacks scrambling into a white SUV which was already running. With a growl deep in her narrow chest, the Gelydra raised her long knife and took fifteen 9mm slugs to the body as one of the men unloaded a semi-automatic at point blank range. She was knocked back off her feet and slid across the wet grass in a tumble.
The SUV roared past, barely missing her. Timothy made no attempt to pursue. He had holstered his dart gun and was kneeling over his teammate. Jin's sharkhide tunic had been shredded by the bullets until only a few scraps remained across her torso. Underneath the dull gleam of the Trom armor showed. This material protected them by dispersing any impact across its entire surface, as well as preventing penetration. It was good but nothing is perfect and she had taken a fusillade.
Tough as she was, Demrak Jin struggled to rise but couldn't quite make it. One small pale hand still clutched the hilt of her bloodied weapon. "Grelok split me...!" she cursed.
"Easy there, let me help you," said Timothy. He was one of the very few she trusted enough to let him touch her. "Feel like any broken bones?"
"No. No. I have been taken worse wounds and gone to the feasting table." With his hands lifting under her arms, the Gelydra managed to get up and a second later was standing unsupported. Unexpectedly, she gave a short barking laugh. "I must admit it, I did not expect them to have a gun."
"I know what you mean," he agreed. "For some reason, I thought they were one of the old-fashioned cults that rely on knives and nooses. Listen. We need to get out of here quickly. Neighbors might be calling the cops right now, those shots were loud."
Jin yanked up a handful of the damp grass and wiped her weapon's blade. "True enough. Yes, Tim, you are right."
"Let me take some readings." Unclipping his Link, he waved it low over the still bleeding bodies. The Trom device recorded the scene in minute detail, also measuring the body temperatures and analyzing any aromas for chemical content. "Okay," he said, adjusting the controls. "I'm sending the information to Sable. Let's roll."
Jin satisfied herself that the bone blade had not chipped or taken any cracks during the action. She rubbed her chest tenderly where the bullets had pounded a moment earlier, scowling more than usual. "Are Hunchbacks not rare in the surface civilizations?"
"Yeah. I don't think we use the word 'Hunchback' much any more, it's considered offensive." Timothy actually opened Jin's door for her and helped her get in, something she would not accept from too many others. "But I guess it's mostly something that older women get as osteoarthritis sets in. Sometimes it interferes with breathing and causes heart problems."
She scoffed and sheathed her weapon. "Strange then, to find seven strong healthy people men in such a condition, isn't it?"
Getting behind the wheel, Timothy glanced back at the three dead men. "Absolutely. And strange that as soon as they saw us, they tried to kill us. What's going on here?"
VI.
At forty-three, Megan Salenger's figure had filled out slightly since first joining the KDF, her face was rounder and had lost some of that inquisitive foxlike look of her teen years. But the dark eyes were sharper and more alert than ever. Under that familiar tousle of thick black hair, those eyes were constantly moving, observing and analyzing.
Coming down the elevator from her sixth floor labs, Megan wriggled out of a disposable paper overall and folded it up under one arm. Her latex gloves and clear helmet came off next. Underneath, the Trom Girl was wearing nothing remarkable, only sneakers, black jeans and an olive-colored polo shirt. She stepped into the office and Sable sat up straighter in anticipation.
"Analysis is underway," Megan reported. "I project eighteen minutes before we receive a translation but some possibility of error remains. Six to eight per cent, at worst."
"Thanks, Megan." Sable gestured for her long time partner to pull up a chair. "We don't have any other members who could run that analysis. I'm glad you stayed on reserve duty."
Megan placed the bundle of her protective clothing on the chair next to her. "Lately, I have not been going on too many of what Archie calls the 'Trom Girl Mysteries'. Upkeep on our house and socializing with his rowdy friends are more time-consuming than I expected. I have listened to a good deal of indifferent music, though."
"When the Trom raised you from infancy, they wanted a cold logical genius who functioned without emotion. You sure went your own way!"
A flashing smile made Megan look like a girl in her early teens again. "Heh. I for one am so glad. To have lived without friendship, without falling in love, would not be a life well lived. And I will be immodest enough to say that meeting me has made Archie's life better than it would have been."
"I'm sure he'd agree," Sable said. "Maybe you could manage to come in three days a week, Megan. We could use you on duty more. I think we might be looking for a new member or two soon."
"I think that would be workable," the Trom Girl replied. "About your current case, regarding this Zhune palimpest? I don't remember learning anything about about a group of Forty Hunchbacks."
"Even as wild as the Midnight War gets, I think a phrase like that would stick in your memory."
Megan leaned forward, eager again as she seldom became in her civilian life. "You've turned up nothing so far?"
"No. I have been on the damn phone all day, working through our list of observers. I need to take a break soon, even a ten minute walk to get out of this room."
Glancing down at the Link she was toying with, the Trom Girl said, "Oh! There are a few words coming in. Check your own screen, captain."
"This... is odd," Sable reacted. "'Chicken eggs. Cow milk. Cinnamon dust'..? I don't understand, Megan."
Regarding her Link with a furrowed forehead, the Trom Girl finally said, "The program seems to require more time than I expected. Perhaps I will set it to alert us when a substantial amount has been verified?"
"Yes, might as well." Sable spotted the bulb high up in one corner flash green. "Oh, one of us is here. Just a second. Yes, that's Timothy's tread."
Poking his head into the office, their teammate grinned. The crooked flash perfect white teeth in that boyish face was immensely appealing. "One of our sources says he has heard of the Brotherhood of Hunchbacks. They're not normal Humans afflicted with a medical condition, they're a sort of cult from Androval."
"Really. If they're Melgar, that explains their strength and durability," the Trom Girl said.
"Oh, hi, Megan. Good to see you." Timothy slid another of the straightbacked chairs over and dropped down with obvious self-satisfaction. "That was old Max Werschkul who gave me some information. I dropped in on him personally, he doesn't answer the phone much. You remember him. He interviewed both Sulak and Valera for a book that he privately printed at his own expense."
"We have a copy on file, of course," Megan said. "I have not read it yet. I should search through it."
Sable waved a dismissive hand. "I wouldn't bother, dear. Werschkul said all he knew was that the Brotherhood inflicted bent spines on their young ones to make them grow that way, and that they were involved in the usual sordid drunken orgies that most Melgar sorcerers go for. They haven't been known to ever leave Androval, so they're real obscure."
"Receiving another phrase on the translation," Megan interrupted. "'Coarse Salt?' I was expecting something more esoteric. Does this sound like a recipe to anyone else?!"
"We don't seem to be making quick progress on the case," Timothy observed. "Why are Melgar hunchbacks looking for that palimpest? What did this new Silver Skull have to do with them? Why was he there, why did he intervene for me? For that matter, how did Professor Maitland obtain that artifact anyway? He didn't offer any details beyond buying it from a shady dealer in Midnight War talismans."
"It is possible that Maitland's assistant is the new Silver Skull," said Megan. "He is young and fit, and he is the same height at the Skull that Timothy saw."
Sable stood up. "As long as I have all three active members and our reserve Trom Girl here at the same time, I'm calling a meeting. We don't need to go up to the conference room, we can work out our agenda right here."
"If I may say so," Timothy said. "It looks like we already have a few pieces of the stereotypical puzzle and we need to see how they fit into each other. A nice sedate little mystery, right? But I'm sure it has also occured to you guys that these Hunchbacks attacked our Demrak Jin with knives and a semi-auto. So they wouldn't hesitate to kill a regular civilian."
Facing her teammates, Lauren Sable Reilly showed them a wicked smile they had never seen on her before. "There's also a possibility these Hunchbacks know we have the palimpest. They will be coming for it. And we will be ready!"
At eight-fifteen that night, Maitland's car was standing near the KDF building, in a spot that had defied the odds by being available at the right moment. Maitland himself did not emerge, but opened the rear door of his customized van to speak with Sable. Winston had come out from behind the driver's side to stretch for a moment. He was well-dressed, with a preference for classic cut tan business suits and narrow ties that went well with his long lanky body.
Seeing him again, Sable wondered if Winston might be the new Silver Skull. There was no way to tell. The armor and helmet and sword appeared as if by their own volition on a worthy subject when the previous Skull died. This was called "the Passing of the Burden."
Maitland accepted the resealed polymer bag containing the priceless Zhune vellum. "Are you quite sure you want to return it so soon?"
"Yes," Sable said. "Our expert is engrossed in studying scans we have made down to the microscopic level. She also is doing chemical analysis from vapors given off at room temperature, I assure you that we didn't take any samples."
"Remarkable." Maitland offered his hand and they exchanged a firm warm shake before Winston started closing the rear door. "You folks are everything I had hoped you'd be. I'll be waiting for your call."
"We'll be in touch as soon as possible," Sable. She stepped back, watched as the van signaled and pulled out into traffic. As soon as it turned the corner was out of sight, the KDF's own Subaru rolled up from the left to stand next to her.
From behind the wheel, Timothy leaned over to call, "All set, captain?"
"I stuck the signaler behind their rear license plate. You can follow it as long as they stay within two hundred miles," she said.
Timothy chuckled. "And hopefully we'll intercept some pursuers. If they saw Maitland get the palimpest back, we might be tangling with those Hunchbacks again."
In the front passenger seat, Demrak Jin rumbled in her flat chest. "I can not wait..."
Sable watched her teammates drive away after the Maitland car, uneasy but not able to pinpoint why. She wanted to go with them. Her earpiece beeped and she tapped it lightly with the tip of her index finger.
"Captain," came Megan's voice as clear as if she were standing there, "This is an interesting development. I have refined the scanning program and it seems there was a still earlier layer of ideograms. We were translating mundane instructions for food of some sort. Before that, the vellum had been used by someone using very primitive symbols"
VII.
A long drive of more than an hour had taken Maitland's van out to the Northern Shore of Long Island. Some of the posh estates here covered a dozen acres, so the houses were well spaced. So the explosion which boomed at eleven that night received little notice. To the nearest neighbors, there had been a single deep thump which might have been taken for thunder. In any case, no calls to police were made.
On the deep expanse of well-trimmed lawn which led down to merge with a rocky beach and the Atlantic, nearly a dozen grotesque figures were revealed by thick torches which many of them held. These men wore dark shirts and pants but were mainly barefoot. All were hunchbacked, the rounded curve of their upper spines rising up behind their shaggy heads so they were bent forward in a permanent bowing posture. All the Hunchbacks resembled each other as closely as twins, even though there were eleven of them. In the unsteady torchlight,
Most toyed with wavy-bladed daggers, but several brandished more semi-automatic pistols and one rested the butt of a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun on the grass. They were standing in a loose semi-circle around a man and a woman who had been stretched out on the ground.
Timothy Limbo was recovering rapidly from the effects of that flash-bang grenade which had taken him and Jin off-guard. At such close range, a normal person might be permanently deafened or suffered vision loss. A decade on the Tagra tea regimen had enhanced Timothy's healing factor to where he recovered from near-fatal injuries within a short time. Tel Shai knights were neither invulnerable nor immortal, but they were notoriously difficult to harm.
Already, the pounding in his head was easing. Timothy propped himself up on elbow and immediately turned to check on his partner. Demrak Jim was not given access to Tagra because the Teachers had declined to accept her at Tel Shai, but as a Gelydra she was extremely tough and resilient in any case. Blood was drying from where it had leaked out of both nostrils onto her lower face. The small white-haired woman pawed uncertainly up to her right shoulder and found nothing. Her bone-bladed knife had been taken from her.
The rasping growl she gave made the Hunchbacks shift their weight uncomfortably. It did not sound like any noise a Human should be able to make.
Timothy coughed, groaned and forced himself up to a seated position. "Not fair throwing grenades," he mumbled, "I don't think much of you guys..." Then he saw the two other prisoners fifteen feet away from where he sprawled. Winston Falk had been forced down on both knees, hands tied behind his back, with a knife held from behind next to his throat. Near him, Professor Maitland had been allowed to remain in his wheelchair.
Timothy was surprised to see no fear in Maitland's face, even surrounded by these hideous killers out in the dark where no help was coming. Instead, the disabled researcher seemed furious and defiant.
"Glad to see you're all right," Maitland called over to Timothy. "That was a military flash-bang they threw. I can hardly hear and I wasn't even that close. How's your friend?"
"Ready to slay..." was the reply from Jin. She had managed to get into a seated position on the lawn, within arm's reach of Timothy. The Gelydra extended an arm and pointed at the crowd of Hunchbacks. "Not one of you will live to see the dawn. This I swear."
"A Gelydra? Really? You are far from Ulgor, little one." Although it was difficult to tell the Hunchbacks apart, the speaker was distinguished by a white fur collar and cuffs on his drab outfit. He also leaned slightly on a cudgel. Given how distorted their postures were, mostly likely all the Hunchbacks would have appreciated some support. "You speak to Volmir, chief of the Forty Hunchbacks."
"Melgar scum!" she shouted. "Go back to the hellhole of Androval where you fit in!"
"Jin, your boyfriend is a Melgar," Timothy objected. "Remember? The father of your child?"
She seemed not to hear as she got to her feet, legs braced well apart and seeming none too steady. "I know what you want. The manuscript from Zhune. Well, you're not going to get it."
The leader of the Hunchbacks raised a gnarled hand as his brethren had drawn in closer around the defiant Gelydra woman. "You overestimate yourself, child. Where is that parchment?"
"It's vellum, not parchment, you fool..." Timothy began but cut himself short. "You know, it seems to me that this is a good time for negotiations. I'm sure you guys have been searching both our vehicles with no luck. Let's work out some terms where we each get what we want."
Volmir considered this. "Tell us where the manuscript is and we will release you Humans. The Gelydra's fate is set, long and bitter is the history between our Races."
"Nope, no deal," Timothy responded as he got up on one knee and readied to rise. Beneath their field suits, he and Jin were both wearing the flexible Trom armor which gave them protection against edged weapons and blunt impact. Slugs from those pistols would bruise but not incapacitate them. Still, against such a mob, he didn't see how even Jin's ferocity would be of any use. "We all walk free and then you get your prize."
"Like these freaks can be trusted," said Winston, receiving a cuff to the side of the head for his comment. Maitland's aide twitched from the blow but he held his tongue after that. Watching the incident, Tim decided that the young black man was not the new Silver Skull after all; surely by now he would have taken action.
"I can promise that her death will be quick and painless," the leader of the Hunchbacks suggested. "That's the best she can expect. That is our offer."
Bracing his hands on the arms of his wheelchair, Francis Maitland took in a deep breath and spoke in a suddenly more authoritative voice. "What we can offer you.. is Justice." In a shimmer of blue gralic light, he became a lean dynamic figure in a black leather uniform crested by a gleaming helmet. Vaulting out of that chair directly at the mob, sword in hand, was the Silver Skull.
VIII.
The next four minutes were a nightmare haze filled with screams and thuds and wet slashing noises. Only one Hunchback got a few shots off before being sliced open from sternum to ribcage, and a single bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the Skull's circular shield into the night.
Nor did the black-clad figure fight alone. Within a second after the dramatic revelation, Demrak Jin plunged headlong into the crowd. She had spotted the Hunchback who held her long knife and immediately wrestled it away from the man, reversing it in a backhand arc that opened the deformed cultist's throat so blood spurted out from the main artery. The Gelydra whirled and spun, never still long enough to be struck herself but slaying wherever she reached.
Watching the two fighters, Timothy Limbo wisely went over to help Winston up off his knees. They both backed off. Timothy was a skilled Kumundu master and easily held his own against nearly any opponent. But he had seen Demrak Jin go berserk before and realized he would only be in the way.
"Quite a surprise about your boss," he managed to say to Winston.
"We try to keep it a secret," the young aide replied. "Man! Look at that girl go. She's a buzzsaw with legs."
None of the Hunchbacks even considered making a run for safety. At first, there were enough of them that they actually got in each others' way. A minute later, only a handful remained standing. Then there was only the leader Volmir, who dropped his cudgel and began scuttled away, bent over so far he nearly ran on all fours.
"Oh no you don't," came a voice made hollow by the grimly-shaped helmet. The Silver Skull whipped the shield off his left arm and flung it like an oversized discus to rebound hard off the back of Volmir's head with an audible crunch. The shield reappeared strapped the Skull's forearm instantly. Like the sword and uniform, he could summon it from wherever it was.
"Yes! Yes! Grelok is generous to his children!" yelled Demrak Jin, brandished her bloody weapon. "Grelok always sends us foes to strike down!"
Next to Winston, Timothy muttered, "She's not usually like this, I swear. She has a little boy who was one year old last month. She's as gentle with him as anyone could ask."
"It's fine with me," replied Winston. "I honestly expected to be a human sacrifice or something."
Coming over to join them, the Silver Skull knelt and wiped his sword carefully on the coarse burlap of a Hunchback's robe. "Too bad none of them survived. We have no one to question about why they wanted that palimpest."
Jin stayed well out of reach, regarding the Skull without any noticeable warmth. "You walk. You fight. But only when you wear the helmet and costume?"
"And now the need for the Silver Skull has passed," the leather-clad warrior answered. Oddly, his eyes could not be seen within the helmet. The two eyeholes were as black as if no one was wearing it. "This is the part that always breaks my heart."
The blue shimmer played over him, the black leather and sword and shield were replaced by a plain business suit. Francis Maitland dropped heavily to his knees and struggled to get into a sitting position. "Ow. I never remember to sit down first when I know that's going to happen." Winston hustled to bring the wheelchair over, locking it into place so he could help his employer back up into it.
Once he was secured again, Maitland said, "Thank you, Winston. I'd be lost without you, you do know that?"
"It's not just a job, sir. I believe in what you do. I'm glad to help."
Drawing closer, gesturing for Jin to sheathe her own weapon, Timothy Limbo exhaled sharply. "This is a lot to take in. We have to report to our captain, Professor Maitland, but I can promise that your secret will remain among our team. No outsider needs to know."
"I appreciate that, my boy. We may well be working together again," Maitland said. He gave Demrak Jin a quizzical glance. "You ARE a Gelydra, that's for sure. I could not keep up with you."
Surprisingly, Jin bowed from the waist, one arm stretched out toward the man. "Always proud to fight alongside a worthy ally, 'grandfather.' We Gelydrim are born at the same time a shark is born and the spirit of the shark lives within us."
"I hate to bring up inconvenient details," Timothy said. "But I count eleven dead bodies on your property. All bearing unmistakable signs of grievous bodily trauma. All amazingly deformed, too. We can't let the neighbors see this carnage when the sun comes up."
Unlocking the wheels on his chair, Maitland rolled closer to the nearest corpse. "Yes. Well. It's going to be tedious but I do have a small Eldar travel crystal in the house. We can send them back to Androval but it will have to be one at a time. Quite a nuisance, unpleasant work in any case."
Timothy's Link buzzed and he unclipped it. "Sable? Hi. Everything is fine here. I'll give a full report when we get back. Yes, Jin is okay. Maitland and his friend Winston are unharmed. We do have a lawn full of dead Hunchbacks to dispose of, though. Wait, what? Sure, we'd like to know." Timothy listened for a few seconds, repeated that he and Jin would be reporting back to headquarters and broke the connection.
"I take it the palimpest has been deciphered?" asked Maitland.
"Yes. Our Megan says accuracy is within a ninety-three percent margin of error. If those Hunchbacks were hoping for a treasure map or some Alchemical secret, they were in for a big letdown. The oldest layer seems to be nothing more than a checklist of supplies for a merchant. Rugs, benches, coats. Interesting from an historical point of view, but nothing these men should have been willing to kill or be killed for."
"I see," Maitland responded. "That's rather droll. What about that other layer of symbols, with the chicken eggs and cow milk and so forth? What the devil was that about?"
Timothy could not keep a straight face, despite the slaughterhouse scene around him. "As far as Megan can translate, it's a recipe for what we call French Toast."
9/25/2020
