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"Footprints in Red"
"Footprints In Red"
6/21-6/22/1988
I.
The last house had been left behind ten miles back and he had seen no man-made lights of any sort since then. Shiro Mitsuru rushed his bright red Mazda RX-7 along at a speed just a little too fast to be quite safe on the winding back roads. The moon was a thin crescent to his left, hanging over the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains with its subdued glow. He had never been in West Virginia before. The Tiger Fury smiled contentedly at the knowledge he was heading toward danger as quickly as he could. With all the windows down, the warm air swept up his face and ruffled his coarse black hair. Shiro's hazel eyes were almost gleeful.
At thirty, he was hitting his physical peak. A lifetime literally spent training under experts around the world had left him with zero body fat and incredible wiry definition in muscles shaped not by weight training but by movement. The Tiger Fury was wearing plain black canvas sneakers, slightly baggy denim jeans and a white T-shirt. An open black vest had two pockets on the left, but the throwing stars clipped to the inside were not apparent. He seldom carried more weapons than that, although a pair of nunchaku and a short staff were packed in the trunk of his car.
Shiro glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 11:59. The Midnight War was well named, he thought. He went up a steep winding hill, shifting gears smoothly, and emerged where he could see down the other side. There! In his headlights to the left, a long white form shimmered on the ground alongside the road. Shiro braked hard, swung his car over and yanked the parking brake. He had been expecting something like this. Either it would be a person flagging him down for help or something blocking the road, whatever it would take to make him stop. He leaped nimbly from the car and hurried over to the prone form.
It was a young woman with curly black hair, lying on her side and facing away from the road. As Shiro approached, he knew he was surrounded. An average person would not have heard the breathing or heard the faint creaking of the earth as men shifted their weight. Nor would they have smelled the odor of Westerners who ate too much beef and sugar, nor would they have caught the vaguest peripheral glimpse of motion which should have been behind his line of sight. But Shiro was no ordinary man.
"You're not fooling anyone," he said with the slightest trace of a British accent. He had spent his childhood on the run with his parents, but they had been in Hong Kong and London more than anywhere else. "Might as well get up off the cold ground."
The woman rolled over abruptly, sitting up with a Browning 9mm automatic in her hand. Her face was furious, apparently at the ruse being detected. "Freeze! Don't you dare move."
All around him, a dozen shadowy figures closed in on Shiro. The woman was the only one with a gun, the others held axe handles or butcher knives or softball bats. They were men of average size, wrapped in loose robes that rose to pointed hoods. In the backflash from the MG's headlights, their garments were a flat sullen black. He had heard of this new cult but had never seen Ebonites in person before.
"Good work, Melinda," said one man, voice muffled by the hood. "You can get dressed now, he ain't going no where with us here."
The Tiger Fury stood in a relaxed stance, open hands down by his side, apparently unconcerned about the situation. "So, I guess you think I'm in trouble?"
"A Jap!" said the leader. "Wasn't expecting that. Guess it don't make no never mind, though, the ritual will play the same." A cultist stepped forward to hand him a length of clothesline. "Hold out your hands, son, don't make it harder than it has to be."
"You guys crack me up," Shiro said with a barely repressed chuckle. Without any preliminary signals, without setting himself, he smacked his right foot hard to the side of the head of the man directly in front of him, then reversed that leg to whip it backwards without setting it down. His heel smashed in the hooded face of a cultist behind him. Both men were still falling when Shiro took a hopping step forward and drove out a straight side kick to the chest of the Ebonite, knocking him off his feet and tangling him up with still another cultist. He was moving so fast no one had reacted yet.
A full second had passed. Expecting the woman with the pistol to have recovered her wits by now, he whirled and dropped to crouch with his fingers and toes touching the ground. The heavy automatic exploded twice, its muzzle flash dazzling everyone in the gloom. Behind him, Shiro heard a man scream, hit by a bullet that passed overhead, but he was already rushing forward to yank the woman's arm out straight, dislocating her shoulder and wrestling the gun from her slack grip. The Tiger Fury tossed the automatic far away into the darkness. Guns detracted from the purity of combat.
Now the Ebonites had grasped the idea that somehow, unbelievably, the victim had been fighting back. Seven men in robes rushed in at Shiro from all directions, raising their weapons and ready to beat him to death. The piercing shriek of a real tiger rang out in the West Virginia night, echoing from the hills, a ferocious snarl that brought half the cultists to a stop in confused fear. None of them would have believed a Human throat could have produced that roar. In the instant that they hesitated, Shiro plowed into them in a bronzed blur of fists and fist. Bones broke wherever he struck, sternums cracked and necks snapped and he moved on. The Tiger Fury was working with a smoothness and speed that made it seem as if the Ebonites were allowing him to strike them down one after the other. Only two were left, one with a crowbar swinging wildly. Shiro swayed a mere inch, just enough to let the crowbar whistle past, and he chopped down the edge of his stiff open hand at the base of that man's neck.
The final man standing dropped his baseball bat and folded his arms defiantly. "Boy, I don't know what you got, karate or kung fu or whatever, but obviously I cain't fight you. Do what you want, I ain't gonna beg."
Shiro was not even breathing hard. "I need two of you to answer questions," he said, "And you seem to be the reasonable one." Closing the gap before the man could react, Shiro slammed a heel palm to the midchest that forced the air from the cultist's lungs with explosive force. The man fell to a seated position, unable to think of anything other than desperately catching his breath.
Around him, some of the men moaned and some stirred feebly. Shiro reviewed his techniques for the previous few minutes and was not entirely satisfied. He felt he should have set the Ebonite members up so they were closer together. Next time he faced multiple opponents, he must remember that getting them into position made everything more certain. Still, he had done all right. He went over to the woman, reset her arm with a lack of gentleness that made her pass out, and lifted her easily in his arms to bring her over to his car. He tossed her in the backseat of the Mazda, went to get the gasping man and threw him in as well. He took a second to yank off the black hood, revealing a pudgy balding face that glared at him belligerently.
Taking handcuffs and duct tape from the trunk, Shiro spent some time making sure the prisoners were secured and could not make any outcries. He tossed a light blanket over them and arranged it to cover them. "Let's not have any trouble from you two," he warned sternly. "Knocking you both out would not be a problem." With that, the Tiger Fury started up his car and pulled out onto the road. In a second, the red convertible was gone around a corner and the Ebonites were just beginning to regain consciousness.
II.
The RIVERVIEW INN was big for a roadside motel, with a second floor that had an enclosed walkway and an spacious parking lot. Behind the building, a steep hill led down to the Shenandoah River. The front of the motel faced a highway with a steep forested hill beyond that. Standing in a room on the first floor, a blind man faced the window and perceived more than any sighted person could. Garrison Nebel stood with folded arms, barely breathing as he extended his awareness out over the region. There were pockets of intense gralic force nearby, mostly hostile and malevolent, but there was one exception. Near to him, no more than a few miles away, someone was tapping gralic force without hatred. Someone young. He reached out toward the source, but the connection was broken.
In his late forties, Nebel was thin, almost frail looking. He was wearing black slacks and a white crewneck sweater, barefoot on the motel carpet. Nebel had a long somber face and the pupils of his eyes were smoky and opaque, as they had been for twenty years. When he had been blinded by the Group Mind, his innate perception had awoken to compensate. Together with the Eyeless Helmet, he had become a focus for truth and light in the world as no Human had been before. But he was still mortal, still flesh and blood. He slept and ate meals and used the bathroom and laughed at jokes, no matter how remote and transcendent he seemed to be most of the time.
Heading back into the motel suite, Nebel wondered why he had not been able to maintain contact with that gralic source. Well, he would find out when the time was right. In the meantime, his duties as a Tel Shai knight remained. He walked over and lowered himself to the couch and resumed waiting to hear from his partners. Without glancing up at the clock he could not read in any case, he knew it was thirty-one minutes past midnight. On the dresser facing him was a travel bag containing his Imthril uniform, and on top of that dresser sat a golden helmet crafted without eyeholes. No matter where he was, Nebel could feel the presence of that helm.
He reached for his Link before it buzzed. This unsettled people when they saw him do it, but there was no one here. Raising it to his ear, he said, "Yes, captain?"
"Gary! What's up?" said the familiar urgent voice of Jeremy Bane. "Hear from Shiro?"
"No. I assume you have found nothing, then?"
"Nothing. I've been driving up and down these backroads since it got dark. I'm back in Wilgarth, getting gas. I was hoping our pal had better luck." There were noises as Bane held the Link under one arm to evidently hook the gas pump hose back on its holder and to tighten his gas cup. "How about your mystic perception stuff?"
Nebel smiled slightly to himself. "Nothing of any usefulness, I'm sorry to admit. There are some beings in the area tapping gralic force, but we knew that. At the moment, I can say no more. Are you heading back here?"
Bane's voice scoffed. "Nah. Hours before dawn. I'll keep driving up and down. Maybe by luck I'll find the trap that caught those three people and they'll be sorry they sprung it on me!"
"Very well," said Nebel. "I will remain on duty." He broke the connection and clipped the Link back to his belt but immediately raised it again in the same motion. "Shiro?"
"Hai. Yes. I have met the enemy and beat the snot out of them," said Shiro over the Link. "Two of them are in my back seat now. I should be at the motel in, on, thirty minutes or so."
"You were not harmed?"
"Me? Are you kidding?" laughed Shiro. "These Ebonites are nothing special. They'll be nursing headaches and bruises for the next week."
Shiro sounded as cocky as ever, Nebel thought. True, the Tiger Fury was extremely skilled but overconfidence was destined to be his downfall. Aloud, the blind Sorcerer said, "I just heard from Jeremy, he has had no results. I will tell him to return here."
"Good. Great. We need to smuggle these two into the motel for some serious questioning. See you when I see you."
After calling Bane to fill him in on this development, Nebel rose to his feet again. So little was known of these Ebonites. Some sort of cult with gralic powers, that seemed certain, but their goals and motives were a mystery at this point. They were led by a man named Gerard Bertrand, a Belgian with a criminal record involving human trafficking. The Sorcerer of Truth went back to the window, holding the curtains aside even though it made no difference to him. Bertrand had been in the Army for eight years, nearly court- martialed before going AWOL and had been a fugitive ever since. Normally, such a criminal would not be of interest to the KDF but Bertrand had also been associated with both Red Sect and Those Who Remember. Those notorious occult groups had clashed with the KDF many times.
Had Gerard Bertrand decided to form his own cult? Nebel thought so. A cult where he could be the big boss. Nebel turned as he sensed a familiar lifeforce entering the immediate area. He could recognize people he knew long before they would have come into view. The Dire Wolf was in that building, approaching quickly. Nebel went across the living room and opened the door to the hall just as the elevator door dinged open and Bane emerged.
"I should be used to that by now," Bane said as he strode past the blind Sorcerer into the motel suite. The Dire Wolf was wearing his usual uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. Like Nebel, he was a gaunt six footer with dark hair. But where Nebel had a calm composed face and unreadable opaque eyes, Bane was intense and restless, and his pale grey eyes stabbed out at the world as if taking in every detail.
Stopping in the middle of the living room, Bane turned to watch Nebel close the door. "I just heard from Department 21 Black. Do you know about that?"
"No."
"Well, I'm never sure what you know or don't know," Bane said. "It's hard to figure your limits. Anyway, they have found proof Bertrand was in Tennessee at the time of the first Roadside Disappearance. They found he rented a car two days before. So now it's established." He went over to his knapsack in the corner and drew out a 6" ham and cheese sub. One price for his enhanced metabolism was a constant hunger, and he started chewing huge chunks. As he ate, he started pacing as usual.
"So. Four Roadside Disappearances in three different states. Tennessee, North Carolina and West Virginia. Cars found abandoned on remote back roads with the driver missing, as well as a total of two passengers. No sign of foul play, but indications were found at each scene that up to a dozen people had been hidden in the bushes alongside the road." Bane gulped and continued, "The FBI was interested enough to forward the cases to their Department 21 Black, who decided that the KDF should be informed. Unofficially and off the record as usual, we have helped 21 Black capture a number of maniacs and stop supernatural activity. When we caught Samhain, we earned a lot of credit with 21 Black."
"I have never liked the KDF handling mundane crime," Nebel said. "Our area should be the Midnight War. Let the regular authorities handle what they are best suited to handle."
Bane shrugged. "Usually, I agree. But there is some overlap, Gary. Samhain, Seneca, Golgora... there are serial killers who are also Midnight War." He went on, "So I looked into the abductions. At the same time, we received a report that Gerard Betrand had snuck into the country from Canada. Bertrand had been spotted in the same area as the first Roadside Disappearance but the local police had not been aware of it and the FBI had not known either. It was chance that I saw the two facts at the same time and had connected them. I already knew that Bertrand had unsuccessfully tried to take over Red Sect, and had parted on unfriendly terms."
"These abductions are Betrand's new cult in action," Nebel interrupted quietly. "The Ebonites are starting their own agenda."
The Dire Wolf had finished the sub and tossed the crumpled wrapper into the wastepaper basket by the door. "Yes. Just what the world doesn't need, a new cult worshipping Draldros or the Sulla Chun or who knows what."
Nebel turned blind eyes toward the window. "Shiro has arrived. He is in the parking lot."
"With the prisoners," Bane added. "Time to sneak two people in here without anyone seeing us. You ready?"
"This will not be difficult, captain." Nebel unlatched the window and slid it open. As Shiro backed his Mazda up toward them, the blind mystic raised a hand to tell him when to stop. Bane had already hurried down the hall and out a side door to help. Both Bane and Shiro were Masters of Kumundu, trained in stealth and timing. With Nebel's uncanny guidance, they knew exactly when no one would be watching from a window and they slid the tied-up figures through the window without incident. Nebel left the window partly open but drew the curtains. A second later, Bane and Shiro entered the room and closed the door behind them.
"Now for the interrogation!" Shiro said with a little too much enthusiasm. "I'll get the veratilin syringes."
"That will not be necessary, my friend." Garrison Nebel raised the gleaming eyeless helmet, thirty thousand years old and more potent than any but a handful of talismans. "We have a better way available to us."
III.
Nebel had changed to a uniform of white pants and boots, with a white long-sleeved tunic belted at the waist with a sash. On his chest, a small blue gem hung on a silver chain. The blind mystic clasped the floor-length cloak of shiny goldcloth around his neck, and glanced up to find Shiro and Bane watching him. "You have seen me in this rainment before," he said thoughtfully.
"Well I'M not used to it," the Tiger Fury answered. "I haven't worked with you that often and frankly it's awesome when you get suited up. Kinda makes my hair stand up." He grinned but his voice was completely serious.
Lifting the Eyeless Helmet, Nebel slowly lowered it over his head. The metal shimmered warmly in the subdued light of the motel room. Bane and Shiro glanced uneasily at each other, then stepped over to where the two prisoners had been duct taped to heavy armchairs.
"They had wallets on them," Bane said. "I've got their names and addresses and drivers' license photos. While you two were prepping them, I used the Link to tap into FBI records. Not that the FBI knows about it since we're using Trom technology. These two are not listed. I scanned their fingerprints with Link sensors and right now the tech is running through all police databanks without results. We seem to have two people here without criminal records." He glanced down at the device in his hand. "Search still negative."
Standing in front of the dark-haired woman, Nebel reached down and yanked the tape from her mouth. She gasped at the pain but did not start screaming. She seemed fascinated by the blank faceplate of the golden helmet. After a second, she asked in a remarkably calm voice, "Who ARE you people? What do you want with us? Who are you?"
"Truth." The single word echoed strangely in the hushed room. The Eyeless Helmet flashed and a shaft of warm golden light shone from it directly onto the captive's face, fixing her helplessly in its grip. This was the radiance of the Halarin Themselves which shone on Elvedal, where the helmet had been crafted so long ago by the Eldarin. In that light, no deception could survive. As the woman bathed in that illumination, her body relaxed and a blissful smile spread over her face.
"Tell us your name and your age," came the hollow voice behind the helmet.
"Ellen Ruth Yorke. I am thirty-one," she answered promptly.
"What was your purpose in luring someone to stop on the road tonight?"
"Our Leader ordered it."
"What is his name? What is the name of your congregation?"
"Gerard Bertrand. We call ourselves Ebonites." The woman smiled peacefully, apparently showing no resistance to answering the questions.
"And what do you do with your victims?" asked Nebel.
At this, the male prisoner made frantic grunting noises behind his taped mouth and tried to rock his chair back and forth. Shiro said, "Quiet, you," and casually backhanded him so hard that his eyes crossed and he slumped.
"Steady there," Bane warned him. "We don't want to start hitting prisoners. We're Tel Shai knights." He looked back over at Nebel. "Sorry, Garrison."
The golden helmet still had the woman pinned its light. The blind mystic repeated, "What do you do with your victims?"
"We sacrifice them to Draldros in exchange for power. Our Leader performs the ritual. Draldros sends a dimbuk to possess one of us for a week afterwards."
Nebel straightened up a bit. "A dimbuk! Where is your congregation to be found?"
"The Island-URK!" She convulsed and died as a hole suddenly appeared in the center of her chest, and a splash of bright arterial blood jetted out. A bare instant later, the crack of a high-powered rifle echoed outside and the second prisoner fell over backwards as a steel-jacketed slug drilled through his head. Even as that body started to fall, Jeremy Bane had already left the room, diving through the half-open window and hurtling across the parking lot faster than any athlete who ever competed. As agile and alert as he himself was, Shiro Mitsuru did not react quite as quickly. He dropped into a crouch near the floor, took in the situation and leaped from the room after his captain. Only Nebel did not move, other than to sadly sigh.
The two Tel Shai knights raced across the parking lot and across the highway in a blur, but even Shiro could not keep us with Bane at full speed. The Dire Wolf was across the highway in a blink and halfway up the hill across from the motel when he saw tail lights moving at the top. He veered far to the right, hoping to intercept the getaway car but the distance was too great. As he reached the back road, the car was already out of sight.
A few seconds later, Shiro caught up with him, gliding effortlessly through the high grass. "Captain?"
"No luck. I didn't see the plates or even the make of car." Bane looked back down the hill at the motel but there seemed to be no commotion there yet. "We have to act fast. Listen, I want you to go back and help Garrison secure the bodies in one of our cars. We have to dump them somewhere. Clean up the hotel room, make sure there's no blood. I don't think the bullets touched the window on entry, but find them if they exited the bodies. I'll join you in a minute."
The Tiger Fury had lost his usual flippancy. "You're going to look for evidence?"
"I'm going to try," said Bane. With that, he started loping up the hill as easily as if running on a level surface. Shiro shrugged and headed back down, crossing the highway just after an 18-Wheeler thundered by and strolling casually across the parking lot to the RIVER VIEW. As far as he could tell, no one was watching him from the windows. The cars in the parking lot were unoccupied. Just as he opened the outside door to the corridor, though, he glimpsed a white Ford van starting to pull in over by the front office. It was packed with a noisy family including shrieking children.
In their suite, he found Nebel had removed the Eyeless Helmet and goldcloth cloak and was busy cleaning up the bodies. He had already removed the duct tape, placed adhesive pads over the entry and exit wounds and was now straightening their clothes.
"How many felonies do we commit on a typical case?" asked Shiro as his normal insolence returned. "Shouldn't you be leaving everything untouched until the police get here?"
Nebel did not smile. "Shiro, please get the dark metal case in Jeremy's knapsack. There are five clear bottles in it, bring the one marked 'Adnisol' if you will."
As he complied, the Tiger Fury asked, "And why am I doing this?"
"That is an Alchemical solution that removes bloodstains quite thoroughly. Use a handtowel from the bathroom and wipe some Adnisol right on that blood behind this woman. I sense some on the couch next to this man as well."
"Oh, all right. Fine thing for a dreaded Master of Kumundu to be doing maid work." Despite his words, Shiro did a thorough and conscientious job. "What about the bullets?"
"The woman's body still has the bullet inside it," Nebel answered. "The other bullet exited the man's body but did not penetrate the flooring. It's lying in that corner. Please bring it here as well."
"We're lucky the shooting didn't do more damage," he said. "Lucky the window was half open, too."
"If luck you call it," Nebel answered enigmatically. "After Jeremy returns, we must return these unfortunates to one of our cars and place them where they will not be found in the immediate future."
Shiro Mitsuru stared down at the two bodies, not at all made uncomfortable by their presence. His violent life had left him more callous about corpses than any Medical Examiner. "At least you got some information-" He froze as the door opened but it was Bane. Wrapped in his sportjacket was a Marlin 30-30 with telescopic sights.
"No useful clues," the Dire Wolf told his friends. "And I doubt we'll get anywhere examining this weapon, either. The one interesting touch up there were the bare footprints on the rocky ledge."
"Wait, what?" asked Shiro. "How can you see bare prints on shale?"
"Because they were red," Bane told him. "The killer left bloody footprints everywhere up there."
III.
By dawn, Nebel had sent the bodies far out into the Atlantic Ocean with his travel crystal. They had scrubbed the motel room until they were satisfied not even FBI forensics could find anything incriminating. It was clear that no one had reported the two gunshots on the hill in the middle of the night, but then occasional rifle fire was not that rare in a county where people might pick off a possum in their yard. The three KDF members had a huge breakfast at the diner across the highway and then all slept until noon.
As usual, Bane was first to be up again. His hyper metabolism meant he only needed four hours of sleep most nights and even when he had been on the go all day, he woke up refreshed after only a brief sleep. The Dire Wolf glanced around. Shiro was sound asleep on the other bed under a light sheet. Nebel was sitting up in a corner, back straight against the wall, legs tucked in the full lotus and head held up. Yet he was asleep. Bane had gotten used to things like that from Nebel. Since he had received the Eyeless Helmet, the blind mystic had been getting more eccentric year after year.
Taking a hot shower and shaving, Bane got fresh underwear, socks and a clean turtleneck from his travel bag. He had taken off the flexible Trom armor, which looked like a bodysuit of dark silk, and he tugged it on again before getting dressed. The matched silver daggers were strapped to his forearms again, concealed beneath his sleeves with the hilts forward. The Dire Wolf shrugged into his sport jacket with its hidden gadgets in a dozen concealed pockets and felt ready for anything once again.
Pacing silently away from his teammates, he kept turning over everything they knew about the case. It should be enough to proceed. The Roadside Disappearances had taken place about four weeks apart, suggesting the ritual was tied to the moon. But last night, Shiro had broken the pattern when he had thrashed the Ebonites and taken away two prisoners. What would Bertrand do? Would he immediately move on to another, safer location and wait a month before starting up again? Or would he stay here and try to find what who was on his trail? The shots last night implied the second possibility.
Someone from the Ebonites had found Bane and his teammates here. Those shots from across the road had been clean and accurate. How had Betrand followed them here? Did he have gralic perception? Or was there a more prosaic explanation, just that he knew about Bane and the KDF and had located them by bribing motel clerks or using simple ruses, even tracing the license plates of the KDF cars? Then there were the bloody bare footprints. That was just weird.
Hearing movement, the Dire Wolf turned to see Shiro sitting up, yawning and ruffling his thick black hair with one hand. "Morning, captain. What's the plan?"
"We're going to start searching for the Ebonites," Bane said. "Better get ready."
"Four minutes tops," answered the Tiger Fury, hopping out of bed in his white boxers. Stripped, Shiro was an amazing sight, muscles standing out like bundles of wire under his tawny skin. He grabbed his knapsack and disappeared into the bathroom as Garrison Nebel rose smoothly from the floor.
"My subconscious has been pondering while my body slept," Nebel began without pleasantries. "Last night, I sensed pockets of hostile gralic force in this area. One is larger and stronger than all the others and logically we should investigate there first."
"Sounds like a plan," Bane said. "The prisoner started to say something about an island just before she got tagged. So that's another pointer. I figure she meant an island in that river down there."
"The Shenandoah has a long history regarding occult matters," Nebel told him. Just then, Shiro emerged from the bathroom and threw his knapsack on the floor. The Tiger Fury was wearing the same canvas sneakers and loose jeans as the day before, with a dark green polo shirt and the open vest.
"Time to start hunting?" he said.
"Absolutely," Bane answered, opening the door to the hallway. He saw Nebel place the eyeless helmet and the folded golden cloak within a gym bag. The bind mystic had already put on dark sunglasses before going out in public. He declined to wear the Trom armor or to carry any KDF weapons. He said they would interfere with his purpose. Shiro also would not wear the armor or carry the weapons, claiming his body was all he needed and if he became dependent on gadgets, he would lose his edge. Bane did not insist.
Stepping outside, naturally all three were alert and scanning for danger. Bane and Shiro had come to trust Nebel's mystic perception more than their own senses, and the way he casually walked over to the dark green Mustang and got in the back seat reassured them. Getting behind the wheel, the Dire Wolf still kept watching in all directions for anything suspicious. Shiro took the front passenger seat, winding the window down so he could rest one elbow on the opening. They pulled out into morning traffic and headed east.
Wilgarth, West Virginia was a medium-sized city with a lot of strip malls containing grocery stores, tanning salons, auto parts shops and the like. As they headed toward the outskirts, they passed two competing auto dealerships on opposite sides of the highway. After another ten minutes, the roadside business had become more scattered as houses dominated. Then open fields became more prominent. They passed a boarded up wooden plank building that had a big unlit neon sign TREASURE ISLAND - NUDE DANCERS nightly, and then a video rental store called MOVIETOWN and an auto repair shop. After that, it was just woods with an occasional side road leading to a house.
Nebel leaned forward and said, "The next road to your left, Jeremy. Be alert. The gralic focus is strong and malicious."
"Got it," Bane replied, turning onto a dirt road that led up a hill. There was a cabin under two white birch trees, with a Kawasaki motorcycle on its kickstand to one side. The Dire Wolf pulled to a stop and shut off the engine. All three Tel Shai knights got out and stood by the Mustang, gazing around warily. Shiro began approaching the cabin as if stalking an animal.
In less than a full second, a rifle shot rang out behind them, a slug smacked hard high up on Bane's back and he spun around with his long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 blasting four times in close succession. It all happened so quickly that the rifle shot and the pistol shots overlapped. The Dire Wolf rose from his marksman's crouch with his arm still extended. His back stung painfully but the Trom armor had dissipated most of the bullet's impact and prevented any penetration.
"Damn," said Shiro, "I thought you were carrying the dart gun, captain."
"Anesthetic darts have their uses," Bane answered as he rose to his normal stance. "But against a rifle, I wanted something more emphatic." He broke the cylinder open and inserted more slugs, then clicked it shut again. "Gary, what can you tell us?"
"That lifeforce is ended," the blind mystic said. "Something more powerful than Human life has fled. It is safe now."
"All right then." Bane led his teammates up a rocky outcropping under the trees not fifty yards from where they had stood. Sprawled face up on that stone ledge was a stout man about fifty years old, wearing flannel shirt and worn jeans. Two bullet holes in his chest. The man was barefoot, and strangely, the soles of those feet were covered with bright fresh blood. Red footprints led up to where he had been kneeling. The Winchester repeater had been flung aside as the man had taken those bullets.
"I don't think he even had time to be surprised," Shiro chuckled. "Before he could try a second shot, you tagged him. What's with the blood on his feet, though?"
"Beats me," Bane answered. He was kneeling and examining the corpse. "No cuts or anything. I don't see where the blood is coming from. Gary?"
"I am not familiar with the phenomenon. Our prisoner mentioned a dimbuk. Perhaps this is a sign of Fanedral demonic possession. The gralic force is gone now." The blind mystic turned toward the cabin. "Answers may be found in there."
Leaving the body where it was, the three headed toward back toward the rundown little structure. A stovepipe protruded from one corner of the roof, and there were only two small windows and a door. Shiro broke the door open with a smack of the heel of his palm, and they entered. It was almost empty inside. A cast-iron wood-burning stove sat in one corner, there was a table and a few chairs and a couch piled with blankets and pillows. Some magazines were on the floor next to the couch.
Bane walked around the cabin. A saucepan on the stove had dried grease in it. There was an empty thermos bottle on the floor nearby, and some crumpled paper towels and junk food wrappers. The magazines were more than a year old but a newspaper was dated two days earlier. He lifted the blankets and touched the couch to check for depressions, then turned back to his teammates. "This place hadn't been lived in for months. Yesterday, the man outside came in here to wait for us. It was a trap."
"I'm not going to ask how you figure that, Jeremy. What I want to know is, how do the Ebonites know about us? Are they watching us somehow? How did that man know to wait outside for our arrival?" Shiro shook his head irritably. "I'm a simple sort of guy, this cat and mouse stuff gets on my nerves!"
Standing just inside the doorway, Garrison Nebel interrupted him. "Draldros is the answer. The Lord of Fanedral is granting gralic ability to Bertrand in exchange for sacrifices and offerings. It is Draldros who sends the dimbuk spirit to possess these assassins, and I believe it is Draldros who has informed Bertrand about us. The Lord of Fanedral has reason to hate us."
Bane snorted. "We've certainly broken up his schemes as much as we could. Okay, enough of this fooling around. We need to find Bertrand and his Ebonites right now and end this case. The woman last night started to tell us they could be found on an island. Our next step to rent a powerboat and go up that river out there looking for an island big enough to be their headquarters." He started pacing. "Maybe I'll call Steve back in New York and have him fly the CORBY out here-"
Standing by the small grimy window, Shiro had been watching the breeze stir tree branches while he thought. He interrupted, "Wait. Maybe the answer is closer than that, captain."
Bane stood in midstride and turned, "What do you mean, Shiro?"
"That closed up place we passed on the way here. The strip club, TREASURE ISLAND. It has no windows, no neighboring buildings."
The Dire Wolf allowed himself the slightest of smiles. "Let's check it out." With that, he rushed to the cabin door and headed straight for his car, not looking back to see if his partners were following. Shiro grinned as he was right behind the Dire Wolf.
IV.
As they approached TREASURE ISLAND on their right, they saw a gravel parking lot behind the shabby plank building, where a black van and a dark red Jeep were standing. The grass around the lot was overgrown, the building itself needed paint and some repairs, including a gutter that was hanging down at an angle. The poster on the simple door listing the hours and promising "More Pleasure Than You Can Handle" was worn and peeling off. Standing to one side of that door, smoking a cigarette, was a big man in overalls that stretched taut over a beer belly.
"You take the guard and go in," Bane said as he swerved toward the building. "I'll circle to the back. Gary?"
"This is the main gralic focus," the blind mystic told them somberly. "We face a powerful and hateful force, my friends." Nebel unzipped the gym bag and pulled the golden helmet out as he spoke.
"Got it," answered Bane. "Okay, Shiro, time for some dancing." Without slowing, Bane drove off the highway and within ten feet of the startled guard. With the car still moving, the Tiger Fury dove out to roll on the hard-packed dirt and leap up almost on top of the guard. A blurring left hook and an elbow strike from the same arm rocked the big man and dropped him before he could shout a warning. Shiro took one step back to let the hulk fall face down. He had felt the neck snap under those blows. This Ebonite would not be rising.
The Mustang swung around behind the abandoned strip club. Here was a weathered redwood picnic bench and table where the dancers had taken smoke breaks. There was a small dirty window in the back wall and a narrow door with a naked light bulb over it. Bringing his car to a sudden halt that made its rear wheels skid to one side, the Dire Wolf plunged out and hurtled straight at that door as it wasn't there. At the last instant, he swung sideways and blasted a side kick that crashed that door inward and off his hinges.
Emerging from the car, Garrison Nebel lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over his head and fastened the goldcloth cloak to hang from his shoulders. He moved calmly and deliberately. As he stepped away from the car, Nebel quietly closed both front doors as if tidying up after impulsive children, then came to stand nearer the building. The heavy cloak fell to cover his body, leaving him a figure covered in gold that shimmered in the afternoon sunlight.
Bane tore through what had once been a dressing room, with a table that held a long mirror and a few folding chairs against a wall. A swinging door was in front of him, and he stopped to push it open half an inch. In a big open area was a waist high stage and to the right was a counter and shelves where the bar had stood. Six men and three women in black robes were all facing away from him, staring in shock as the sudden entrance of the Tiger Fury.
"GodDAM," said one of the Ebonites. "It's the Jap again."
"Half Japanese, half Chinese," laughed Shiro. "Not that I expect you to know the difference. Ebonites, eh? Which one wants to die first?"
One by one, the cultists tugged the pointed black hoods up over their heads. Masked, they seemed more sinister but Shiro was not impressed. "Okay, we'll do this the hard way. Which one's your leader?"
Behind the counter which had once been covered with liquor bottles and shot glasses, a tall man in the Ebonite robes threw back his head and his body stiffened. Everyone stared at him. From under that cowl came a deep, hollow voice that echoed as if speaking from a great distance. "Tel Shai dog! This hour is your last."
"Nice trick," Shiro said carelessly, "Can you do impressions?"
"You face the greatest enemy your mortal Race has ever known," answered the sepulchral voice. "Before your ancestors stood upright, I was all-powerful. With my brother and sister, I defied even Halar-Koth and dared create what He had forbidden. All these ages have I lived in exile in my dismal realm. But that... shall end soon." And the voice broke into ominous laughter.
Shiro seemed concerned for the first time. "Draldros?" he said in a small voice.
"It is good that you know the true name of your slayer," boomed the echoing voice. Moving stiffly, awkwardly, the Ebonite leader came around from behind the bar. As he lurched forward, it could be seen in the dim light that he was barefoot and he left bloody footprints.
The Ebonites drew wavy-bladed knives from inside their robes and gathered into a mass facing the Tiger Fury. With one voice, they screamed, "Blood for the Dread One! Blood and souls for the Lord of Fanedral!" and they rushed for him just as a fast-moving figure in black slammed into them from behind in a full bodyslam. Half the Ebonites were knocked sprawling to the wooden floor, the rest stumbled and were off-guard. In that instant, they were lost. Shiro seized the nearest one by the front of the robe and cracked a knife-hand blow that broke that man's neck, then seized two others and slammed their heads together with murderous force. Coming in behind the Ebonites, Bane had whipped the matched silver daggers from their sheaths beneath his sleeves and he whirled them in a figure 8 pattern that sliced two of the cultist wide open across the torso. As one man stabbed downward with his own knife, Bane blocked that blow to one side and sank his silver blade to the hiltless handle in the Ebonite's chest.
The Tiger Fury swept one Ebonite's legs out from underneath with his heel and stamped down hard on that man's chest, breaking the sternum cleanly and rupturing the heart. Glaring around, he saw the final cultist being lowered to the floor by Bane, who was withdrawing a silver dagger from the body as it went down. The clash had taken only a few seconds. Shiro exhaled sharply. He had once had to duel Bane at Tel Shai, it had been so close and so punishing that neither of them had any desire to ever spar with each other again.
The Dire Wolf wiped his daggers on a black robe, staring up at the leader who stood where he had been as the carnage had begun. "All right, you're all that's left of this band of losers. And you're nothing special, just a mouthpiece for Draldros to speak through. You can be killed just like these others."
The Ebonite leader shook violently and sagged to his knees. Something shadowy and half-seen, a manlike shape like dark heavy smoke, poured up from his body and scrabbled across the filthy floor leaving claw marks gouged in the wood. The form loped toward the open back door.
"The dimbuk!" Bane yelled, and jumped in pursuit. Shiro was right behind him, but there was no chance they could catch the rapidly-moving shape before it escaped. The demon from Fanedral scuttled on all fours for the opening where the door had been and then stopped abruptly in its tracks, skidding almost comically.
There in the doorway stood a thin figure hidden beneath a golden cloak, regarding the demon with an implacable eyeless stare. As the dimbuk reared up to its full height, Garrison Nebel intoned, "Spawn of Draldros, you shall not return to Fandedral. By the light that shines on Elvedal, I bid you disperse!" The helmet flared up to fill the interior of that building with brilliant golden light, warmer and clearer than sunlight. As that radiance faded and their vision returned, a blinking Shiro and Bane saw no sign of the shadowy form.
Slowly sheathing his silver daggers, the Dire Wolf stepped forward nearer his teammate. "Is it over, Gary?"
"For now," answered the blind mystic. He reached up to raise the helmet from his head. "The demon is no more."
Shiro looked back and prodded a dead Ebonite with the toe of his sneaker. "You could say the same for this bunch. Did we get them all?"
"We'll have to search their vehicles out there for IDs and do some basic detective work the next few days," Bane said. "But without their connection to Draldros, I don't see where they're going to be much of a threat." The Dire Wolf sighed as he looked over the carnage. "Ten dead bodies. I'll have to call Department 21 Black and tell them to come here to clean up. Officially of course, we were never here. It'll be an unsolved mystery."
"Of course," said Shiro. "We do the dirty work and get no credit. Just once I'd like to see big headlines, KDF BUSTS ANOTHER SATANIC CULT."
"More like, CRAZED VIGILANTES INDICTED FOR MASS MURDER," Bane told him. "We're smart to keep as low a profile as possible. What bothers me is that we can't touch Draldros. That makes me furious. Someday I swear we will invade Fanedral and bring him down."
Unexpectedly, Garrison Nebel let out a hearty laugh. It was so unlike him that his teammates stared in shock. "You do not know what you say, Jeremy," the blind mystic chuckled. "Yet, I admire your audacity. Who can say? Perhaps that is indeed your ultimate destiny and you will shake the very stars from the sky."
11/17/2014
6/21-6/22/1988
I.
The last house had been left behind ten miles back and he had seen no man-made lights of any sort since then. Shiro Mitsuru rushed his bright red Mazda RX-7 along at a speed just a little too fast to be quite safe on the winding back roads. The moon was a thin crescent to his left, hanging over the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains with its subdued glow. He had never been in West Virginia before. The Tiger Fury smiled contentedly at the knowledge he was heading toward danger as quickly as he could. With all the windows down, the warm air swept up his face and ruffled his coarse black hair. Shiro's hazel eyes were almost gleeful.
At thirty, he was hitting his physical peak. A lifetime literally spent training under experts around the world had left him with zero body fat and incredible wiry definition in muscles shaped not by weight training but by movement. The Tiger Fury was wearing plain black canvas sneakers, slightly baggy denim jeans and a white T-shirt. An open black vest had two pockets on the left, but the throwing stars clipped to the inside were not apparent. He seldom carried more weapons than that, although a pair of nunchaku and a short staff were packed in the trunk of his car.
Shiro glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 11:59. The Midnight War was well named, he thought. He went up a steep winding hill, shifting gears smoothly, and emerged where he could see down the other side. There! In his headlights to the left, a long white form shimmered on the ground alongside the road. Shiro braked hard, swung his car over and yanked the parking brake. He had been expecting something like this. Either it would be a person flagging him down for help or something blocking the road, whatever it would take to make him stop. He leaped nimbly from the car and hurried over to the prone form.
It was a young woman with curly black hair, lying on her side and facing away from the road. As Shiro approached, he knew he was surrounded. An average person would not have heard the breathing or heard the faint creaking of the earth as men shifted their weight. Nor would they have smelled the odor of Westerners who ate too much beef and sugar, nor would they have caught the vaguest peripheral glimpse of motion which should have been behind his line of sight. But Shiro was no ordinary man.
"You're not fooling anyone," he said with the slightest trace of a British accent. He had spent his childhood on the run with his parents, but they had been in Hong Kong and London more than anywhere else. "Might as well get up off the cold ground."
The woman rolled over abruptly, sitting up with a Browning 9mm automatic in her hand. Her face was furious, apparently at the ruse being detected. "Freeze! Don't you dare move."
All around him, a dozen shadowy figures closed in on Shiro. The woman was the only one with a gun, the others held axe handles or butcher knives or softball bats. They were men of average size, wrapped in loose robes that rose to pointed hoods. In the backflash from the MG's headlights, their garments were a flat sullen black. He had heard of this new cult but had never seen Ebonites in person before.
"Good work, Melinda," said one man, voice muffled by the hood. "You can get dressed now, he ain't going no where with us here."
The Tiger Fury stood in a relaxed stance, open hands down by his side, apparently unconcerned about the situation. "So, I guess you think I'm in trouble?"
"A Jap!" said the leader. "Wasn't expecting that. Guess it don't make no never mind, though, the ritual will play the same." A cultist stepped forward to hand him a length of clothesline. "Hold out your hands, son, don't make it harder than it has to be."
"You guys crack me up," Shiro said with a barely repressed chuckle. Without any preliminary signals, without setting himself, he smacked his right foot hard to the side of the head of the man directly in front of him, then reversed that leg to whip it backwards without setting it down. His heel smashed in the hooded face of a cultist behind him. Both men were still falling when Shiro took a hopping step forward and drove out a straight side kick to the chest of the Ebonite, knocking him off his feet and tangling him up with still another cultist. He was moving so fast no one had reacted yet.
A full second had passed. Expecting the woman with the pistol to have recovered her wits by now, he whirled and dropped to crouch with his fingers and toes touching the ground. The heavy automatic exploded twice, its muzzle flash dazzling everyone in the gloom. Behind him, Shiro heard a man scream, hit by a bullet that passed overhead, but he was already rushing forward to yank the woman's arm out straight, dislocating her shoulder and wrestling the gun from her slack grip. The Tiger Fury tossed the automatic far away into the darkness. Guns detracted from the purity of combat.
Now the Ebonites had grasped the idea that somehow, unbelievably, the victim had been fighting back. Seven men in robes rushed in at Shiro from all directions, raising their weapons and ready to beat him to death. The piercing shriek of a real tiger rang out in the West Virginia night, echoing from the hills, a ferocious snarl that brought half the cultists to a stop in confused fear. None of them would have believed a Human throat could have produced that roar. In the instant that they hesitated, Shiro plowed into them in a bronzed blur of fists and fist. Bones broke wherever he struck, sternums cracked and necks snapped and he moved on. The Tiger Fury was working with a smoothness and speed that made it seem as if the Ebonites were allowing him to strike them down one after the other. Only two were left, one with a crowbar swinging wildly. Shiro swayed a mere inch, just enough to let the crowbar whistle past, and he chopped down the edge of his stiff open hand at the base of that man's neck.
The final man standing dropped his baseball bat and folded his arms defiantly. "Boy, I don't know what you got, karate or kung fu or whatever, but obviously I cain't fight you. Do what you want, I ain't gonna beg."
Shiro was not even breathing hard. "I need two of you to answer questions," he said, "And you seem to be the reasonable one." Closing the gap before the man could react, Shiro slammed a heel palm to the midchest that forced the air from the cultist's lungs with explosive force. The man fell to a seated position, unable to think of anything other than desperately catching his breath.
Around him, some of the men moaned and some stirred feebly. Shiro reviewed his techniques for the previous few minutes and was not entirely satisfied. He felt he should have set the Ebonite members up so they were closer together. Next time he faced multiple opponents, he must remember that getting them into position made everything more certain. Still, he had done all right. He went over to the woman, reset her arm with a lack of gentleness that made her pass out, and lifted her easily in his arms to bring her over to his car. He tossed her in the backseat of the Mazda, went to get the gasping man and threw him in as well. He took a second to yank off the black hood, revealing a pudgy balding face that glared at him belligerently.
Taking handcuffs and duct tape from the trunk, Shiro spent some time making sure the prisoners were secured and could not make any outcries. He tossed a light blanket over them and arranged it to cover them. "Let's not have any trouble from you two," he warned sternly. "Knocking you both out would not be a problem." With that, the Tiger Fury started up his car and pulled out onto the road. In a second, the red convertible was gone around a corner and the Ebonites were just beginning to regain consciousness.
II.
The RIVERVIEW INN was big for a roadside motel, with a second floor that had an enclosed walkway and an spacious parking lot. Behind the building, a steep hill led down to the Shenandoah River. The front of the motel faced a highway with a steep forested hill beyond that. Standing in a room on the first floor, a blind man faced the window and perceived more than any sighted person could. Garrison Nebel stood with folded arms, barely breathing as he extended his awareness out over the region. There were pockets of intense gralic force nearby, mostly hostile and malevolent, but there was one exception. Near to him, no more than a few miles away, someone was tapping gralic force without hatred. Someone young. He reached out toward the source, but the connection was broken.
In his late forties, Nebel was thin, almost frail looking. He was wearing black slacks and a white crewneck sweater, barefoot on the motel carpet. Nebel had a long somber face and the pupils of his eyes were smoky and opaque, as they had been for twenty years. When he had been blinded by the Group Mind, his innate perception had awoken to compensate. Together with the Eyeless Helmet, he had become a focus for truth and light in the world as no Human had been before. But he was still mortal, still flesh and blood. He slept and ate meals and used the bathroom and laughed at jokes, no matter how remote and transcendent he seemed to be most of the time.
Heading back into the motel suite, Nebel wondered why he had not been able to maintain contact with that gralic source. Well, he would find out when the time was right. In the meantime, his duties as a Tel Shai knight remained. He walked over and lowered himself to the couch and resumed waiting to hear from his partners. Without glancing up at the clock he could not read in any case, he knew it was thirty-one minutes past midnight. On the dresser facing him was a travel bag containing his Imthril uniform, and on top of that dresser sat a golden helmet crafted without eyeholes. No matter where he was, Nebel could feel the presence of that helm.
He reached for his Link before it buzzed. This unsettled people when they saw him do it, but there was no one here. Raising it to his ear, he said, "Yes, captain?"
"Gary! What's up?" said the familiar urgent voice of Jeremy Bane. "Hear from Shiro?"
"No. I assume you have found nothing, then?"
"Nothing. I've been driving up and down these backroads since it got dark. I'm back in Wilgarth, getting gas. I was hoping our pal had better luck." There were noises as Bane held the Link under one arm to evidently hook the gas pump hose back on its holder and to tighten his gas cup. "How about your mystic perception stuff?"
Nebel smiled slightly to himself. "Nothing of any usefulness, I'm sorry to admit. There are some beings in the area tapping gralic force, but we knew that. At the moment, I can say no more. Are you heading back here?"
Bane's voice scoffed. "Nah. Hours before dawn. I'll keep driving up and down. Maybe by luck I'll find the trap that caught those three people and they'll be sorry they sprung it on me!"
"Very well," said Nebel. "I will remain on duty." He broke the connection and clipped the Link back to his belt but immediately raised it again in the same motion. "Shiro?"
"Hai. Yes. I have met the enemy and beat the snot out of them," said Shiro over the Link. "Two of them are in my back seat now. I should be at the motel in, on, thirty minutes or so."
"You were not harmed?"
"Me? Are you kidding?" laughed Shiro. "These Ebonites are nothing special. They'll be nursing headaches and bruises for the next week."
Shiro sounded as cocky as ever, Nebel thought. True, the Tiger Fury was extremely skilled but overconfidence was destined to be his downfall. Aloud, the blind Sorcerer said, "I just heard from Jeremy, he has had no results. I will tell him to return here."
"Good. Great. We need to smuggle these two into the motel for some serious questioning. See you when I see you."
After calling Bane to fill him in on this development, Nebel rose to his feet again. So little was known of these Ebonites. Some sort of cult with gralic powers, that seemed certain, but their goals and motives were a mystery at this point. They were led by a man named Gerard Bertrand, a Belgian with a criminal record involving human trafficking. The Sorcerer of Truth went back to the window, holding the curtains aside even though it made no difference to him. Bertrand had been in the Army for eight years, nearly court- martialed before going AWOL and had been a fugitive ever since. Normally, such a criminal would not be of interest to the KDF but Bertrand had also been associated with both Red Sect and Those Who Remember. Those notorious occult groups had clashed with the KDF many times.
Had Gerard Bertrand decided to form his own cult? Nebel thought so. A cult where he could be the big boss. Nebel turned as he sensed a familiar lifeforce entering the immediate area. He could recognize people he knew long before they would have come into view. The Dire Wolf was in that building, approaching quickly. Nebel went across the living room and opened the door to the hall just as the elevator door dinged open and Bane emerged.
"I should be used to that by now," Bane said as he strode past the blind Sorcerer into the motel suite. The Dire Wolf was wearing his usual uniform of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. Like Nebel, he was a gaunt six footer with dark hair. But where Nebel had a calm composed face and unreadable opaque eyes, Bane was intense and restless, and his pale grey eyes stabbed out at the world as if taking in every detail.
Stopping in the middle of the living room, Bane turned to watch Nebel close the door. "I just heard from Department 21 Black. Do you know about that?"
"No."
"Well, I'm never sure what you know or don't know," Bane said. "It's hard to figure your limits. Anyway, they have found proof Bertrand was in Tennessee at the time of the first Roadside Disappearance. They found he rented a car two days before. So now it's established." He went over to his knapsack in the corner and drew out a 6" ham and cheese sub. One price for his enhanced metabolism was a constant hunger, and he started chewing huge chunks. As he ate, he started pacing as usual.
"So. Four Roadside Disappearances in three different states. Tennessee, North Carolina and West Virginia. Cars found abandoned on remote back roads with the driver missing, as well as a total of two passengers. No sign of foul play, but indications were found at each scene that up to a dozen people had been hidden in the bushes alongside the road." Bane gulped and continued, "The FBI was interested enough to forward the cases to their Department 21 Black, who decided that the KDF should be informed. Unofficially and off the record as usual, we have helped 21 Black capture a number of maniacs and stop supernatural activity. When we caught Samhain, we earned a lot of credit with 21 Black."
"I have never liked the KDF handling mundane crime," Nebel said. "Our area should be the Midnight War. Let the regular authorities handle what they are best suited to handle."
Bane shrugged. "Usually, I agree. But there is some overlap, Gary. Samhain, Seneca, Golgora... there are serial killers who are also Midnight War." He went on, "So I looked into the abductions. At the same time, we received a report that Gerard Betrand had snuck into the country from Canada. Bertrand had been spotted in the same area as the first Roadside Disappearance but the local police had not been aware of it and the FBI had not known either. It was chance that I saw the two facts at the same time and had connected them. I already knew that Bertrand had unsuccessfully tried to take over Red Sect, and had parted on unfriendly terms."
"These abductions are Betrand's new cult in action," Nebel interrupted quietly. "The Ebonites are starting their own agenda."
The Dire Wolf had finished the sub and tossed the crumpled wrapper into the wastepaper basket by the door. "Yes. Just what the world doesn't need, a new cult worshipping Draldros or the Sulla Chun or who knows what."
Nebel turned blind eyes toward the window. "Shiro has arrived. He is in the parking lot."
"With the prisoners," Bane added. "Time to sneak two people in here without anyone seeing us. You ready?"
"This will not be difficult, captain." Nebel unlatched the window and slid it open. As Shiro backed his Mazda up toward them, the blind mystic raised a hand to tell him when to stop. Bane had already hurried down the hall and out a side door to help. Both Bane and Shiro were Masters of Kumundu, trained in stealth and timing. With Nebel's uncanny guidance, they knew exactly when no one would be watching from a window and they slid the tied-up figures through the window without incident. Nebel left the window partly open but drew the curtains. A second later, Bane and Shiro entered the room and closed the door behind them.
"Now for the interrogation!" Shiro said with a little too much enthusiasm. "I'll get the veratilin syringes."
"That will not be necessary, my friend." Garrison Nebel raised the gleaming eyeless helmet, thirty thousand years old and more potent than any but a handful of talismans. "We have a better way available to us."
III.
Nebel had changed to a uniform of white pants and boots, with a white long-sleeved tunic belted at the waist with a sash. On his chest, a small blue gem hung on a silver chain. The blind mystic clasped the floor-length cloak of shiny goldcloth around his neck, and glanced up to find Shiro and Bane watching him. "You have seen me in this rainment before," he said thoughtfully.
"Well I'M not used to it," the Tiger Fury answered. "I haven't worked with you that often and frankly it's awesome when you get suited up. Kinda makes my hair stand up." He grinned but his voice was completely serious.
Lifting the Eyeless Helmet, Nebel slowly lowered it over his head. The metal shimmered warmly in the subdued light of the motel room. Bane and Shiro glanced uneasily at each other, then stepped over to where the two prisoners had been duct taped to heavy armchairs.
"They had wallets on them," Bane said. "I've got their names and addresses and drivers' license photos. While you two were prepping them, I used the Link to tap into FBI records. Not that the FBI knows about it since we're using Trom technology. These two are not listed. I scanned their fingerprints with Link sensors and right now the tech is running through all police databanks without results. We seem to have two people here without criminal records." He glanced down at the device in his hand. "Search still negative."
Standing in front of the dark-haired woman, Nebel reached down and yanked the tape from her mouth. She gasped at the pain but did not start screaming. She seemed fascinated by the blank faceplate of the golden helmet. After a second, she asked in a remarkably calm voice, "Who ARE you people? What do you want with us? Who are you?"
"Truth." The single word echoed strangely in the hushed room. The Eyeless Helmet flashed and a shaft of warm golden light shone from it directly onto the captive's face, fixing her helplessly in its grip. This was the radiance of the Halarin Themselves which shone on Elvedal, where the helmet had been crafted so long ago by the Eldarin. In that light, no deception could survive. As the woman bathed in that illumination, her body relaxed and a blissful smile spread over her face.
"Tell us your name and your age," came the hollow voice behind the helmet.
"Ellen Ruth Yorke. I am thirty-one," she answered promptly.
"What was your purpose in luring someone to stop on the road tonight?"
"Our Leader ordered it."
"What is his name? What is the name of your congregation?"
"Gerard Bertrand. We call ourselves Ebonites." The woman smiled peacefully, apparently showing no resistance to answering the questions.
"And what do you do with your victims?" asked Nebel.
At this, the male prisoner made frantic grunting noises behind his taped mouth and tried to rock his chair back and forth. Shiro said, "Quiet, you," and casually backhanded him so hard that his eyes crossed and he slumped.
"Steady there," Bane warned him. "We don't want to start hitting prisoners. We're Tel Shai knights." He looked back over at Nebel. "Sorry, Garrison."
The golden helmet still had the woman pinned its light. The blind mystic repeated, "What do you do with your victims?"
"We sacrifice them to Draldros in exchange for power. Our Leader performs the ritual. Draldros sends a dimbuk to possess one of us for a week afterwards."
Nebel straightened up a bit. "A dimbuk! Where is your congregation to be found?"
"The Island-URK!" She convulsed and died as a hole suddenly appeared in the center of her chest, and a splash of bright arterial blood jetted out. A bare instant later, the crack of a high-powered rifle echoed outside and the second prisoner fell over backwards as a steel-jacketed slug drilled through his head. Even as that body started to fall, Jeremy Bane had already left the room, diving through the half-open window and hurtling across the parking lot faster than any athlete who ever competed. As agile and alert as he himself was, Shiro Mitsuru did not react quite as quickly. He dropped into a crouch near the floor, took in the situation and leaped from the room after his captain. Only Nebel did not move, other than to sadly sigh.
The two Tel Shai knights raced across the parking lot and across the highway in a blur, but even Shiro could not keep us with Bane at full speed. The Dire Wolf was across the highway in a blink and halfway up the hill across from the motel when he saw tail lights moving at the top. He veered far to the right, hoping to intercept the getaway car but the distance was too great. As he reached the back road, the car was already out of sight.
A few seconds later, Shiro caught up with him, gliding effortlessly through the high grass. "Captain?"
"No luck. I didn't see the plates or even the make of car." Bane looked back down the hill at the motel but there seemed to be no commotion there yet. "We have to act fast. Listen, I want you to go back and help Garrison secure the bodies in one of our cars. We have to dump them somewhere. Clean up the hotel room, make sure there's no blood. I don't think the bullets touched the window on entry, but find them if they exited the bodies. I'll join you in a minute."
The Tiger Fury had lost his usual flippancy. "You're going to look for evidence?"
"I'm going to try," said Bane. With that, he started loping up the hill as easily as if running on a level surface. Shiro shrugged and headed back down, crossing the highway just after an 18-Wheeler thundered by and strolling casually across the parking lot to the RIVER VIEW. As far as he could tell, no one was watching him from the windows. The cars in the parking lot were unoccupied. Just as he opened the outside door to the corridor, though, he glimpsed a white Ford van starting to pull in over by the front office. It was packed with a noisy family including shrieking children.
In their suite, he found Nebel had removed the Eyeless Helmet and goldcloth cloak and was busy cleaning up the bodies. He had already removed the duct tape, placed adhesive pads over the entry and exit wounds and was now straightening their clothes.
"How many felonies do we commit on a typical case?" asked Shiro as his normal insolence returned. "Shouldn't you be leaving everything untouched until the police get here?"
Nebel did not smile. "Shiro, please get the dark metal case in Jeremy's knapsack. There are five clear bottles in it, bring the one marked 'Adnisol' if you will."
As he complied, the Tiger Fury asked, "And why am I doing this?"
"That is an Alchemical solution that removes bloodstains quite thoroughly. Use a handtowel from the bathroom and wipe some Adnisol right on that blood behind this woman. I sense some on the couch next to this man as well."
"Oh, all right. Fine thing for a dreaded Master of Kumundu to be doing maid work." Despite his words, Shiro did a thorough and conscientious job. "What about the bullets?"
"The woman's body still has the bullet inside it," Nebel answered. "The other bullet exited the man's body but did not penetrate the flooring. It's lying in that corner. Please bring it here as well."
"We're lucky the shooting didn't do more damage," he said. "Lucky the window was half open, too."
"If luck you call it," Nebel answered enigmatically. "After Jeremy returns, we must return these unfortunates to one of our cars and place them where they will not be found in the immediate future."
Shiro Mitsuru stared down at the two bodies, not at all made uncomfortable by their presence. His violent life had left him more callous about corpses than any Medical Examiner. "At least you got some information-" He froze as the door opened but it was Bane. Wrapped in his sportjacket was a Marlin 30-30 with telescopic sights.
"No useful clues," the Dire Wolf told his friends. "And I doubt we'll get anywhere examining this weapon, either. The one interesting touch up there were the bare footprints on the rocky ledge."
"Wait, what?" asked Shiro. "How can you see bare prints on shale?"
"Because they were red," Bane told him. "The killer left bloody footprints everywhere up there."
III.
By dawn, Nebel had sent the bodies far out into the Atlantic Ocean with his travel crystal. They had scrubbed the motel room until they were satisfied not even FBI forensics could find anything incriminating. It was clear that no one had reported the two gunshots on the hill in the middle of the night, but then occasional rifle fire was not that rare in a county where people might pick off a possum in their yard. The three KDF members had a huge breakfast at the diner across the highway and then all slept until noon.
As usual, Bane was first to be up again. His hyper metabolism meant he only needed four hours of sleep most nights and even when he had been on the go all day, he woke up refreshed after only a brief sleep. The Dire Wolf glanced around. Shiro was sound asleep on the other bed under a light sheet. Nebel was sitting up in a corner, back straight against the wall, legs tucked in the full lotus and head held up. Yet he was asleep. Bane had gotten used to things like that from Nebel. Since he had received the Eyeless Helmet, the blind mystic had been getting more eccentric year after year.
Taking a hot shower and shaving, Bane got fresh underwear, socks and a clean turtleneck from his travel bag. He had taken off the flexible Trom armor, which looked like a bodysuit of dark silk, and he tugged it on again before getting dressed. The matched silver daggers were strapped to his forearms again, concealed beneath his sleeves with the hilts forward. The Dire Wolf shrugged into his sport jacket with its hidden gadgets in a dozen concealed pockets and felt ready for anything once again.
Pacing silently away from his teammates, he kept turning over everything they knew about the case. It should be enough to proceed. The Roadside Disappearances had taken place about four weeks apart, suggesting the ritual was tied to the moon. But last night, Shiro had broken the pattern when he had thrashed the Ebonites and taken away two prisoners. What would Bertrand do? Would he immediately move on to another, safer location and wait a month before starting up again? Or would he stay here and try to find what who was on his trail? The shots last night implied the second possibility.
Someone from the Ebonites had found Bane and his teammates here. Those shots from across the road had been clean and accurate. How had Betrand followed them here? Did he have gralic perception? Or was there a more prosaic explanation, just that he knew about Bane and the KDF and had located them by bribing motel clerks or using simple ruses, even tracing the license plates of the KDF cars? Then there were the bloody bare footprints. That was just weird.
Hearing movement, the Dire Wolf turned to see Shiro sitting up, yawning and ruffling his thick black hair with one hand. "Morning, captain. What's the plan?"
"We're going to start searching for the Ebonites," Bane said. "Better get ready."
"Four minutes tops," answered the Tiger Fury, hopping out of bed in his white boxers. Stripped, Shiro was an amazing sight, muscles standing out like bundles of wire under his tawny skin. He grabbed his knapsack and disappeared into the bathroom as Garrison Nebel rose smoothly from the floor.
"My subconscious has been pondering while my body slept," Nebel began without pleasantries. "Last night, I sensed pockets of hostile gralic force in this area. One is larger and stronger than all the others and logically we should investigate there first."
"Sounds like a plan," Bane said. "The prisoner started to say something about an island just before she got tagged. So that's another pointer. I figure she meant an island in that river down there."
"The Shenandoah has a long history regarding occult matters," Nebel told him. Just then, Shiro emerged from the bathroom and threw his knapsack on the floor. The Tiger Fury was wearing the same canvas sneakers and loose jeans as the day before, with a dark green polo shirt and the open vest.
"Time to start hunting?" he said.
"Absolutely," Bane answered, opening the door to the hallway. He saw Nebel place the eyeless helmet and the folded golden cloak within a gym bag. The bind mystic had already put on dark sunglasses before going out in public. He declined to wear the Trom armor or to carry any KDF weapons. He said they would interfere with his purpose. Shiro also would not wear the armor or carry the weapons, claiming his body was all he needed and if he became dependent on gadgets, he would lose his edge. Bane did not insist.
Stepping outside, naturally all three were alert and scanning for danger. Bane and Shiro had come to trust Nebel's mystic perception more than their own senses, and the way he casually walked over to the dark green Mustang and got in the back seat reassured them. Getting behind the wheel, the Dire Wolf still kept watching in all directions for anything suspicious. Shiro took the front passenger seat, winding the window down so he could rest one elbow on the opening. They pulled out into morning traffic and headed east.
Wilgarth, West Virginia was a medium-sized city with a lot of strip malls containing grocery stores, tanning salons, auto parts shops and the like. As they headed toward the outskirts, they passed two competing auto dealerships on opposite sides of the highway. After another ten minutes, the roadside business had become more scattered as houses dominated. Then open fields became more prominent. They passed a boarded up wooden plank building that had a big unlit neon sign TREASURE ISLAND - NUDE DANCERS nightly, and then a video rental store called MOVIETOWN and an auto repair shop. After that, it was just woods with an occasional side road leading to a house.
Nebel leaned forward and said, "The next road to your left, Jeremy. Be alert. The gralic focus is strong and malicious."
"Got it," Bane replied, turning onto a dirt road that led up a hill. There was a cabin under two white birch trees, with a Kawasaki motorcycle on its kickstand to one side. The Dire Wolf pulled to a stop and shut off the engine. All three Tel Shai knights got out and stood by the Mustang, gazing around warily. Shiro began approaching the cabin as if stalking an animal.
In less than a full second, a rifle shot rang out behind them, a slug smacked hard high up on Bane's back and he spun around with his long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 blasting four times in close succession. It all happened so quickly that the rifle shot and the pistol shots overlapped. The Dire Wolf rose from his marksman's crouch with his arm still extended. His back stung painfully but the Trom armor had dissipated most of the bullet's impact and prevented any penetration.
"Damn," said Shiro, "I thought you were carrying the dart gun, captain."
"Anesthetic darts have their uses," Bane answered as he rose to his normal stance. "But against a rifle, I wanted something more emphatic." He broke the cylinder open and inserted more slugs, then clicked it shut again. "Gary, what can you tell us?"
"That lifeforce is ended," the blind mystic said. "Something more powerful than Human life has fled. It is safe now."
"All right then." Bane led his teammates up a rocky outcropping under the trees not fifty yards from where they had stood. Sprawled face up on that stone ledge was a stout man about fifty years old, wearing flannel shirt and worn jeans. Two bullet holes in his chest. The man was barefoot, and strangely, the soles of those feet were covered with bright fresh blood. Red footprints led up to where he had been kneeling. The Winchester repeater had been flung aside as the man had taken those bullets.
"I don't think he even had time to be surprised," Shiro chuckled. "Before he could try a second shot, you tagged him. What's with the blood on his feet, though?"
"Beats me," Bane answered. He was kneeling and examining the corpse. "No cuts or anything. I don't see where the blood is coming from. Gary?"
"I am not familiar with the phenomenon. Our prisoner mentioned a dimbuk. Perhaps this is a sign of Fanedral demonic possession. The gralic force is gone now." The blind mystic turned toward the cabin. "Answers may be found in there."
Leaving the body where it was, the three headed toward back toward the rundown little structure. A stovepipe protruded from one corner of the roof, and there were only two small windows and a door. Shiro broke the door open with a smack of the heel of his palm, and they entered. It was almost empty inside. A cast-iron wood-burning stove sat in one corner, there was a table and a few chairs and a couch piled with blankets and pillows. Some magazines were on the floor next to the couch.
Bane walked around the cabin. A saucepan on the stove had dried grease in it. There was an empty thermos bottle on the floor nearby, and some crumpled paper towels and junk food wrappers. The magazines were more than a year old but a newspaper was dated two days earlier. He lifted the blankets and touched the couch to check for depressions, then turned back to his teammates. "This place hadn't been lived in for months. Yesterday, the man outside came in here to wait for us. It was a trap."
"I'm not going to ask how you figure that, Jeremy. What I want to know is, how do the Ebonites know about us? Are they watching us somehow? How did that man know to wait outside for our arrival?" Shiro shook his head irritably. "I'm a simple sort of guy, this cat and mouse stuff gets on my nerves!"
Standing just inside the doorway, Garrison Nebel interrupted him. "Draldros is the answer. The Lord of Fanedral is granting gralic ability to Bertrand in exchange for sacrifices and offerings. It is Draldros who sends the dimbuk spirit to possess these assassins, and I believe it is Draldros who has informed Bertrand about us. The Lord of Fanedral has reason to hate us."
Bane snorted. "We've certainly broken up his schemes as much as we could. Okay, enough of this fooling around. We need to find Bertrand and his Ebonites right now and end this case. The woman last night started to tell us they could be found on an island. Our next step to rent a powerboat and go up that river out there looking for an island big enough to be their headquarters." He started pacing. "Maybe I'll call Steve back in New York and have him fly the CORBY out here-"
Standing by the small grimy window, Shiro had been watching the breeze stir tree branches while he thought. He interrupted, "Wait. Maybe the answer is closer than that, captain."
Bane stood in midstride and turned, "What do you mean, Shiro?"
"That closed up place we passed on the way here. The strip club, TREASURE ISLAND. It has no windows, no neighboring buildings."
The Dire Wolf allowed himself the slightest of smiles. "Let's check it out." With that, he rushed to the cabin door and headed straight for his car, not looking back to see if his partners were following. Shiro grinned as he was right behind the Dire Wolf.
IV.
As they approached TREASURE ISLAND on their right, they saw a gravel parking lot behind the shabby plank building, where a black van and a dark red Jeep were standing. The grass around the lot was overgrown, the building itself needed paint and some repairs, including a gutter that was hanging down at an angle. The poster on the simple door listing the hours and promising "More Pleasure Than You Can Handle" was worn and peeling off. Standing to one side of that door, smoking a cigarette, was a big man in overalls that stretched taut over a beer belly.
"You take the guard and go in," Bane said as he swerved toward the building. "I'll circle to the back. Gary?"
"This is the main gralic focus," the blind mystic told them somberly. "We face a powerful and hateful force, my friends." Nebel unzipped the gym bag and pulled the golden helmet out as he spoke.
"Got it," answered Bane. "Okay, Shiro, time for some dancing." Without slowing, Bane drove off the highway and within ten feet of the startled guard. With the car still moving, the Tiger Fury dove out to roll on the hard-packed dirt and leap up almost on top of the guard. A blurring left hook and an elbow strike from the same arm rocked the big man and dropped him before he could shout a warning. Shiro took one step back to let the hulk fall face down. He had felt the neck snap under those blows. This Ebonite would not be rising.
The Mustang swung around behind the abandoned strip club. Here was a weathered redwood picnic bench and table where the dancers had taken smoke breaks. There was a small dirty window in the back wall and a narrow door with a naked light bulb over it. Bringing his car to a sudden halt that made its rear wheels skid to one side, the Dire Wolf plunged out and hurtled straight at that door as it wasn't there. At the last instant, he swung sideways and blasted a side kick that crashed that door inward and off his hinges.
Emerging from the car, Garrison Nebel lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over his head and fastened the goldcloth cloak to hang from his shoulders. He moved calmly and deliberately. As he stepped away from the car, Nebel quietly closed both front doors as if tidying up after impulsive children, then came to stand nearer the building. The heavy cloak fell to cover his body, leaving him a figure covered in gold that shimmered in the afternoon sunlight.
Bane tore through what had once been a dressing room, with a table that held a long mirror and a few folding chairs against a wall. A swinging door was in front of him, and he stopped to push it open half an inch. In a big open area was a waist high stage and to the right was a counter and shelves where the bar had stood. Six men and three women in black robes were all facing away from him, staring in shock as the sudden entrance of the Tiger Fury.
"GodDAM," said one of the Ebonites. "It's the Jap again."
"Half Japanese, half Chinese," laughed Shiro. "Not that I expect you to know the difference. Ebonites, eh? Which one wants to die first?"
One by one, the cultists tugged the pointed black hoods up over their heads. Masked, they seemed more sinister but Shiro was not impressed. "Okay, we'll do this the hard way. Which one's your leader?"
Behind the counter which had once been covered with liquor bottles and shot glasses, a tall man in the Ebonite robes threw back his head and his body stiffened. Everyone stared at him. From under that cowl came a deep, hollow voice that echoed as if speaking from a great distance. "Tel Shai dog! This hour is your last."
"Nice trick," Shiro said carelessly, "Can you do impressions?"
"You face the greatest enemy your mortal Race has ever known," answered the sepulchral voice. "Before your ancestors stood upright, I was all-powerful. With my brother and sister, I defied even Halar-Koth and dared create what He had forbidden. All these ages have I lived in exile in my dismal realm. But that... shall end soon." And the voice broke into ominous laughter.
Shiro seemed concerned for the first time. "Draldros?" he said in a small voice.
"It is good that you know the true name of your slayer," boomed the echoing voice. Moving stiffly, awkwardly, the Ebonite leader came around from behind the bar. As he lurched forward, it could be seen in the dim light that he was barefoot and he left bloody footprints.
The Ebonites drew wavy-bladed knives from inside their robes and gathered into a mass facing the Tiger Fury. With one voice, they screamed, "Blood for the Dread One! Blood and souls for the Lord of Fanedral!" and they rushed for him just as a fast-moving figure in black slammed into them from behind in a full bodyslam. Half the Ebonites were knocked sprawling to the wooden floor, the rest stumbled and were off-guard. In that instant, they were lost. Shiro seized the nearest one by the front of the robe and cracked a knife-hand blow that broke that man's neck, then seized two others and slammed their heads together with murderous force. Coming in behind the Ebonites, Bane had whipped the matched silver daggers from their sheaths beneath his sleeves and he whirled them in a figure 8 pattern that sliced two of the cultist wide open across the torso. As one man stabbed downward with his own knife, Bane blocked that blow to one side and sank his silver blade to the hiltless handle in the Ebonite's chest.
The Tiger Fury swept one Ebonite's legs out from underneath with his heel and stamped down hard on that man's chest, breaking the sternum cleanly and rupturing the heart. Glaring around, he saw the final cultist being lowered to the floor by Bane, who was withdrawing a silver dagger from the body as it went down. The clash had taken only a few seconds. Shiro exhaled sharply. He had once had to duel Bane at Tel Shai, it had been so close and so punishing that neither of them had any desire to ever spar with each other again.
The Dire Wolf wiped his daggers on a black robe, staring up at the leader who stood where he had been as the carnage had begun. "All right, you're all that's left of this band of losers. And you're nothing special, just a mouthpiece for Draldros to speak through. You can be killed just like these others."
The Ebonite leader shook violently and sagged to his knees. Something shadowy and half-seen, a manlike shape like dark heavy smoke, poured up from his body and scrabbled across the filthy floor leaving claw marks gouged in the wood. The form loped toward the open back door.
"The dimbuk!" Bane yelled, and jumped in pursuit. Shiro was right behind him, but there was no chance they could catch the rapidly-moving shape before it escaped. The demon from Fanedral scuttled on all fours for the opening where the door had been and then stopped abruptly in its tracks, skidding almost comically.
There in the doorway stood a thin figure hidden beneath a golden cloak, regarding the demon with an implacable eyeless stare. As the dimbuk reared up to its full height, Garrison Nebel intoned, "Spawn of Draldros, you shall not return to Fandedral. By the light that shines on Elvedal, I bid you disperse!" The helmet flared up to fill the interior of that building with brilliant golden light, warmer and clearer than sunlight. As that radiance faded and their vision returned, a blinking Shiro and Bane saw no sign of the shadowy form.
Slowly sheathing his silver daggers, the Dire Wolf stepped forward nearer his teammate. "Is it over, Gary?"
"For now," answered the blind mystic. He reached up to raise the helmet from his head. "The demon is no more."
Shiro looked back and prodded a dead Ebonite with the toe of his sneaker. "You could say the same for this bunch. Did we get them all?"
"We'll have to search their vehicles out there for IDs and do some basic detective work the next few days," Bane said. "But without their connection to Draldros, I don't see where they're going to be much of a threat." The Dire Wolf sighed as he looked over the carnage. "Ten dead bodies. I'll have to call Department 21 Black and tell them to come here to clean up. Officially of course, we were never here. It'll be an unsolved mystery."
"Of course," said Shiro. "We do the dirty work and get no credit. Just once I'd like to see big headlines, KDF BUSTS ANOTHER SATANIC CULT."
"More like, CRAZED VIGILANTES INDICTED FOR MASS MURDER," Bane told him. "We're smart to keep as low a profile as possible. What bothers me is that we can't touch Draldros. That makes me furious. Someday I swear we will invade Fanedral and bring him down."
Unexpectedly, Garrison Nebel let out a hearty laugh. It was so unlike him that his teammates stared in shock. "You do not know what you say, Jeremy," the blind mystic chuckled. "Yet, I admire your audacity. Who can say? Perhaps that is indeed your ultimate destiny and you will shake the very stars from the sky."
11/17/2014