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"The Ungrateful Dead"
"The Ungrateful Dead"
2/17/2003
I.
When the doorbell rang, Jeremy Bane jumped up from behind his desk as if he had been stung by a scorpion. The newspaper he had been studying fell unnoticed to the floor. Crossing his office, he went through the open door to the tiny reception room, barely big enough to hold two chairs and a low table with a few magazines on it. On the wall was a 12" monitor and he checked the image on the security cameras he had installed himself in the hall outside. Two men were standing out there. Both were well-dressed and well-groomed, in early middle age, professionals or government employees in his estimation. Decades of training and experience went into the instant appraisal Bane gave them. The way they stood, the fit of their clothes, the degree of tension in their faces, the distance they kept between them... in a second, he had looked for a dozen clues that these two might be dangerous and he saw nothing to support the idea. And he suddenly remembered them from a decade earlier.
The Dire Wolf smiled faintly. A few years earlier at the KDF headquarters, he would have scanned these guys with sophisticated Trom sensors more detailed than CAT scans for weapons or poisons, and he would have gotten positive IDs if they were listed in NYPD or FBI files. But that was in the past. Now he had to trust his instincts. But then, most of the great villains were dead now and he mostly had to deal with lesser antagonists. He opened the door and said, "Good morning."
The taller, slightly balding man smiled politely. "Ah... Mr Bane, I hope?"
"I'm Bane. Can I help you?"
"I hope so. I don't know if you recall us."
"Absolutely," Bane said, gesturing for them to enter. As they passed through the reception room, the Dire Wolf glanced quickly around the lobby before closing the outer door just out of general suspicion. He followed the two men as they took seats in the two straightback chairs before the desk. Scooping up the newspaper and putting it to one side, Bane dropped down in his chair behind the desk. "Let's see, you're Francis Carnes and you- you're Barry H Sawyer. We met eight, no, nine years ago when I was tracking down Samhain. You were working for the Miami Attorney General's office, right?"
"Exactly," answered the taller one, Sawyer. "I'm impressed. We only met for a few minutes. We heard that Samhain was killed in a plane crash and you reported very briefly to the Attorney General before leaving the state."
"Samhain... well, that maniac has been reported killed a hundred times. The last I heard, he escaped custody by breaking both his thumbs to get out of handcuffs and jumping out of a police van going seventy on a highway. He hasn't been seen for a while."
Both men looked uncomfortable at that statment. The smaller one, who had black-rimmed glasses over a prominent nose, was Carnes. He placed a briefcase on his lap and fiddled with the latches. "Mr Bane, since we met that one time, I admit I developed a certain fascination with your career. You're a difficult man to learn anything about. Officials I've talked to in various agencies deny knowing you at first but eventually it comes out that you are regarded as a...well, a troubleshooter. A freelance vigilante. You have been asked to step in when crimes are so inexplicable or seemingly supernatural that conventional law-enforcement agencies are baffled."
Bane's pale grey eyes were wary. "Go on."
"I know that in 1979, you founded the Kenneth Dred Foundation, supposedly a research organization into the occult but which somehow kept getting tangled in the affairs of crimelords like Wu Lung or John Grim. In fact, the KDF acted more like a strike force than anything else. You disbanded it in 1990."
Leaning back, the Dire Wolf paused before speaking, then simply repeated, "Go on," but his voice was not encouraging.
"Also, you have for years been licensed by the State of New York as a private investigator. You used a room at the KDF building for your practice before relocating here to 44th Street. Although you have solved a number of homicides and a few blackmail cases, for the most part you are still called on for the weird, the unexplained, the occult. All unofficially and off the record, of course, but the NYPD and the FBI think of you as a useful outsider when they have failed."
"Mr Carnes," Bane said, "I am not that happy about people investigating me. I get enough of that from the authorities and my enemies. You don't seem to mean any harm, but you might get yourself in trouble if you dig in too many dark places." His narrow feral face was hard to read but the pale eyes were slightly hostile. "But enough about me. What brings you two up to New York on such a bitter cold morning?"
sawyer, the taller one, cleared his throat to interrupt. "Well, sir, it's a series of odd and frankly rather disturbing events. The State and local police are getting nowhere. They're good men but they are trained to deal with normal crime and criminals. Not these horrible events."
For the first time, a gleam of interest came into Bane's expression. "Tell me all about it."
"It started two years ago, as far as we can tell. Every few months, a wealthy businessman or minor political figure cashed in all his assets and took the money with him. A day later, their bodies were found in various secluded areas. This has happened eleven times. The last occurence involved a gambling boss who ran an illegal casino calleed the Sportman's Rest just outside of Miami. He emptied his safe, drew every cent from the bank, and disappeared. His wife found his body parked in their car a few blocks away from their home the next day. Of course the money was gone."
"Some racket," Bane observed. "Extortion? Blackmail? Murder? But what makes it something that you figured I was the one to handle these crimes?"
Sawyer took a deep breath, glanced at his partner and sighed. "Mr Bane, all these men were described as acting strangely when collecting their money. Still coherent, still in seemingly cognizant but listless. They were all found dead the next day. The grotesque part is this. The coroner's report clearly stated that these men had actually been dead from four to six days at the time of the autopsy."
II.
Bane leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. "Now this is getting interesting."
Shaking his head slowly, Sawyer went on. "We've checked it over and verified every detail, but no matter how we look at it, it just doesn't make sense. When last seen alive, these men were recognized by people who had known them for years. The next day, their bodies gave every sign of having been dead for up to a week. The forensic evidence was quite clear."
Suddenly, the Dire Wolf got to his feet and moved past his two visitors, who turned their heads to follow. He was always restless and it was difficult for him to sit still. As they watched, he began to slowly pace without seeming to be aware of it. "One explanation comes to mind," he said. "But I can guarantee right now that you men won't like it." Stopping, he pointed at the briefcase in Carnes' lap. "I guess you have details in there for me. Eyewitness accounts, autopsy reports, police statements?"
Carnes nodded and pulled out thick file folders held closed with black tape. "Yes. Everything we have. This is eyes only, you understand, and we ask that nothing here be released to the public."
"I don't talk to reporters," Bane said. "They're scared of me." Striding over, he picked up the folders and ran his fingertips over them. "I'll study these now. Tonight or tomorrow morning, I will head down to Florida to begin my investigation."
"Excellent. Very good. When can we expect to hear from you?"
Bane put the files on his desk and folded his arms. He could not keep still. The same enhanced metabolism that gave him his speed and reflexes also kept him wired. "A day or two. Most cases like these are resolved pretty quickly. You men were right to bring this to me. I think this is a menace outside the normal territory that police are equipped to handle."
Carnes had taken out a checkbook. "And your fee?"
"My usual retainer is one thousand dollars flat. And that's just a formality. It lets me claim confidentiality on behalf of my clients when dealing with cops." Bane took the check, went to his desk to enter the details in a red leather ledger from the center drawer. He wrote out a receipt and handed it to Carnes. "I'm on the job starting now." He indicated that his visitors should leave and showed them to the door. As they paused in the hallway, Carnes suddenly blurted out, "Unofficially, Mr Bane, just as a thought.. just what do you think is going on down there?"
"Zombies."
Neither man spoke, they turned to each other with bulging eyes and looked back as Bane said, "I'll be in touch." As the two walked across the lobby to the double glass doors opening on 3rd Avenue, the Dire Wolf watched them with a barely perceptible smile at the corners of his mouth. A second later, his jaw dropped as he saw a yellow taxi pull up outside and a tiny blonde girl leaped out. For a second, he considered hiding, sneaking out through the EMERGENCY EXIT door or locking himself in his office and not answering the bell. But Unicorn had already spotted him.
Ashley Whitaker was just over five feet tall, slim and curvy, barely twenty-one, with glossy platinum blonde hair and an adorable face that had always gotten her whatever she wanted in life. Today, she was wearing navy blue slacks, a white blouse and a dark blue ski jacket with white trim. Strapped across her back was a cylindrical leather sheath three feet long. As she breezed into the lobby, she waved to Bane. "Captain! Everything is all right now, Unicorn is here!"
Despite his natural sour disposition, the Wolf could not keep a frown as she raced up. Unicorn was so oblivious, so bubbly, that it rubbed off on even him. "Hi, Ashley. Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"
"Nah, not today. I saved my day off and took a two day mini-vacation, and I thought, who needs a visit from me the most? You, of course. Don't give me that look, you know you love me more than life itself. Got any exciting cases lined up? We have been slack lately, all we do is train and study. I could use some action!"
Bane gave in and smiled widely. "Sure. Your timing is on the mark as usual. Come on in the office and I'll fill you in."
Unicorn headed for the leather couch under the long curtained window and threw herself down. "I'm not a client, so I won't sit in front of the desk. What's up, captain? Did I really turn up just as you're starting a new adventure?"
"Settle down, Ashley. Yes. Not five minutes ago, some guys from the Miami District Attorney office hired me to look into some weird gruesome shenanigans going on. Listen..." For five minutes, Bane carefully explained what he had been told as Unicorn listened with complete attention.
"So there you have it. I intend to leave for Florida immediately, using an Eldar travel crystal. Is there any point in asking you if you want to come along?"
"Florida in February? Sounds better than that arctic wasteland that is Manhattan today but wait, wait, I have a better idea. Sable has the team in Berlin, tracking down some stupid cult or other. No one is at HQ. Let's take the CORBY."
Bane shook his head. "I don't want to use KDF equipment. I stepped down as chairman."
"Hah! I will be using it! I will fly us to Florida, you will be my guest. The Unicorn and her sidekick, Dire Wolf," she chuckled. "Come on, cut me some slack. I'm certified and it will be a big advantage getting around."
To his own surprise, Bane agreed. "All right. Just this once. We will have a lot of territory to cover and it beats renting a car. Now, you wait in the reception room while I get into my field suit."
Unicorn sniffed. "Fine. It's not like I want to see you in your underwear." She trotted out to the reception room and closed the door behind her a little too emphatically.
Sliding the bookcase aside on its hidden casters, Bane reached down into the pit and brought up the trunk that held his field suit. As he got into the flexible Trom armor, tough slacks and waist-length jacket with its built-in weapons, he raised an eyebrow in surprise at how Unicorn got him to break so many rules. Checking his dart gun, cradling the war helmet in one arm, he rolled the bookcase back into place and went to join Unicorn. She leaped up from a chair and slapped a copy of TIME down on the table. "Damn, Jeremy, buy some new magazines once in a while, why don't you? The pages are turning yellow on this one!"
III.
They walked the six blocks to 38th Street. Bane was wearing his insulated field suit, but he had long ago become hardened to extremes of weather. Unicorn pulled up the hood of her ski jacket, tugged on leather gloves, put on a thin cloth mask that covered her nose and mouth and trotted happily beside him. The entire trip, she chatted about what the new KDF team was up to. As they approached the ten story building, she was going on about what Argent said to Megan about her lack of a love life that made her give him the silent treatment for three days and how Sable had had to make them both knock it off and now they were best buds. "Honestly, it's better than a reality show," she said.
Hurrying up the seven steps to the front door, Ashley slid a concealed panel to one side and punched in her ID code, then pressed her small hand to a screen. With a buzz and a click, the door unlocked. They passed through the foyer with its painting of Kenneth Dred and into the main hallway. On the right hand side was a coat rack and she wrestled out of her ski jacket, putting her gloves in one of its pockets.
"You feel a little funny coming back here, captain?" she asked quietly.
"Not really," Bane said. "I've been back a few times to confer with Sable and we did have Pizza Night on Wednesdays for a while." He glanced around the building where he had lived for twenty years. He still owned it, although he leased it to the new KDF team for their use. He felt only the barest twinge of nostalgia. Maybe I'm just not a sentimental person, he thought.
Nothing much seemed to have been changed.
"Well, everyone would like it if you stopped by once in a while," Unicorn said. She led the way up the wide stairs in the middle of the hall and stopped at the third floor, where the members had their private quarters. "I'm gonna change into my own field suit. How about you go on up to the top floor and warm up the CORBY for us?"
"Fine. I don't want to see you in your underwear either."
"Hah!" she snorted. "EVERYBODY would like to see me in my underwear, get serious." She went into her room and Bane continued up the stairs. There was an elevator to one side but he wanted to think as he went up to the tenth floor. Breathing as easily as if he had just gotten out of a chair, he entered the hangar. This had once been the roof, but long ago he had had it covered over with a sliding panel. Here under brilliant fluorescent lights sat a black stealth helicopter. The craft was sleek and shark-shaped, with no identifying marks at all. There were three of these copters in existence; one was stored at the facility on Hawk Island off the coast of Maine and the third was at the HCE complex in New Mexico, where Steven Weaver took care of it.
Bane glanced around at the wall of tools and maintenance equipment, wooden boxes full of parts, inevitable oily rags and scraps, the round coffee table in a corner with a few chairs and the waist-high refrigerator. Then he opened the hatch to the pilot compartment and looked inside. Everything was slightly different. The two control sticks and foot pedals were almost the same as he remembered, duplicated on the co-pilot side, but the gauges and dials and screens had moved around. He studied them thoughtfully.
Behind him, Unicorn hurried up. She was now wearing a black field suit like his, complete with all the weapons, and she had tied her platinum hair up into a tight bun at the back of her head. In the crook of her arm was her own visored helmet. Strapped to her back was the sheathed Unicorn horn. "What do you think?"
"What the hell has Megan done to the instruments?"
She laughed. "Our Trom Girl can't leave this bird alone. Every chance she gets, she tunes it up and moves things around and adds improvements. Sable has ordered her to fill us in on all the changes. Here, let me get in." Hopping up nimbly into the pilot seat, Unicorn began thumbing buttons and flipping switches as the cabin lights came on and the instrument panels hummed into life. "It all makes sense, though," she added. "You'll figure it out in two seconds." Overhead, the rotors began to slowly turn.
"I left a message what we're up to, but I bet we'll be back before the rest of the team," Ashley said. She lowered the helmet over her head and hooked it up to the ship's systems. "Just another few minutes, I'm waiting for everything to warm up."
Walking around the nose of the craft, Bane climbed into the co-pilot seat and also hooked his helmet into the CORBY's systems. "Not much left of the original Bell copter I bought."
"Nope. Maybe a bolt here and there. We're good to go, captain. You want to leave through the roof?"
"I'd rather avoid that. We have no flight plan, no clearance to be in Manhattan airspace. Too many questions and maybe an encounter with a police chopper." He reached up and placed his fingers on a large pale blue gem set in the ceiling between them. Bane glanced over the hangar and saw the green ready light over the door that meant the building was sealed and all defenses up.
"I'm lifting her to knee level," Ashley said. She brought the CORBY just off the concrete floor, the rotors turning smoothly, and retracted the landing gear. The CORBY was so close to being silent that even a person standing nearby would only hear a faint rush of air from the slowly moving blades. "We're ready."
Bane stared at the Eldar crystal and drew on his full concentration. Blue light flared up silently around them and when it cleared, they were hovering hundreds of feet above New Jersey marsh. They had gated forty miles in less than a second. Bane let out a deep unsteady breath. "That is getting harder to do. Jeez. We'll wait for darkness next time and fly out the roof in stealth mode."
"The gateway takes a lot of effort, that's for sure," Unicorn agreed. "None of us can do it alone, we usually have two people touch the gem together."
"Good idea. Okay, Ashley, let's roll. Stealth mode on?"
"You bet. Radar deflection on, rotors silent, heat signature concealed. Co-ordinates for Florida state line until you give me more detailed information. Going to cruise speed, 350 mph. I'm hitting the gas pedal."
The CORBY hurtled through the freezing air like a shadow. Unless someone happened to be looking right at it, it would usually escape detection. If by chance another aircraft spotted them and requested identification, Bane would use the Eldar crystal and appear miles away, leaving a confused pilot behind.
Once they were underway, Unicorn disengaged the rotors so they turned freely and cut in the Trom impulse engines. The CORBY shot up to just under the speed of sound, still flying smoothly and quietly. These CORBYs seemed to be helicopters but they were in fact craft running on principles advanced beyond Human science, and only the fact that the KDF had counted two Trom as members explained how humans could own and operate them. The CORBYs could fly and manuever perfectly well without the rotors and on several occasions had operated underwater without trouble. Bane explained them to his team as basically spaceships disguised as helicopters, which was true enough.
The next hour was uneventful as Ashley chatted gleefully away, filling Bane in on what the new KDF team had been up to. She delved a little deeper into their emotional interactions than he was really interested in, but the Dire Wolf let it slide as he caught all the references to their successful missions. Sable had met his hopes for her as new team leader, and he was glad. As they neared the Florida state line, Unicorn was going on about how she understood her own abilities with the Alicorn were not always useful in a firefight but several times she had saved the day (and the team) by neutralizing an enemy attack. "So it balances out. Being able to disrupt gralic spells is important. Also, I'm better at a lot of skills than anybody else on the team. People underestimate me because of my looks, and that's a big advantage in itself..."
"Ashley, we're in Florida," Bane interrupted. "Drop to cruising speed and re-engage the rotors, now. Okay. Drop down a little."
"Got it!" the Unicorn sang out. "Where are we headed, captain?"
"Sixty miles due south, town called Sweetwater. Once we get in the area, I'll know landmarks. Let me call ahead. Where the devil did Megan put the communications mike? oh. Here. Okay, let me cut into the telephone systems. 979-2833. Hope he's still there.."
A few seconds later, a deep male voice came over the cabin speakers. "Hello?"
"Samuel? This is Jeremy."
"Jeremy? Jeremy Bane?! Well, I'll be blessed. Are you calling from Manhattan?"
"No, we're nearing your town right now. Listen, Samuel, I know you're retired but I need a place to park our bird. Do you still have that nice big back yard?"
Warm deep laughter came from the console. "Of course. You are welcome to land, old friend. When can we expect you?"
"I'd say ten minutes," Bane said. "I'm bringing one of the new Tel Shai knights with me."
"Your favorite one!" Unicorn put in under her breath.
"The next generation of heroes," said the voice. " 'The old order changeth...'"
"Tell me about it," Bane grumbled. "see you in a minute."
staring down through the windshield, Ashley said, "Who's your friend?"
"Eh? Oh, SamuelWatesa. A wise man and sorceror from Danarak. I haven't seen him in years."
Ahead, they spotted an estate surrounded by a high stone wall. There was a mansion on top of a hill with a barn nearby, and a few cars parked in a circular driveway. Ashley brought the CORBY down smoothy a safe distance away as two figures emerged from the mansion onto a patio.
"Hah? Smooth landing, right? I know I'm good!" Unicorn gloated as she began to power down the copter. As the rotors came to a stop, Bane popped open the pressurized hatch and swung out onto the neatly kept lawn. A man and a woman approached quickly.
"It's good to see you again, Jeremy," boomed the bass voice. "You look marvelous." Watesa was a stout black man just over six feet tall, massive but not fat. He had short hair and a goatee with plenty of grey in it. The mage wore blue-tinted sunglasses and was dressed casually in white slacks and a colorful open-necked sports shirt. Beside him, his wife Maria was younger by a number of years, slim and attractive in a thin sundress. She looked as if she had some French blood in her, with a beautiful head of curly hair.
"Samuel! Maria!" Bane called out with uncharacteristic warmth. "I'm only sorry it takes a mission to make me visit you two. It's been forever. Let me introduce my partner here. This is Ashley Whitaker, the new Unicorn. You remember her mother, Mary Cassidy."
"Of course." Watesa offered his hand, which Ashley shook. Maria nodded and smiled, and Ashley returned the gesture. "Come with us," said the Danarakan sorceror. He led them up to a patio of wide flat stones under a sunshade. Around a table were a half dozen chairs and, as everyone was seated, he began filling glasses with ice water from a pitcher.
"I'm sorry I can't offer you real drinks but our discipline forbids that," Watesa said. "We do have lemonade and iced tea in the house, if you like."
"Water's best," replied Bane. "Samuel, the last time I saw you, the KDF had just been disbanded."
Watesa's features grew heavy and his voice was low. "That was a bad time, my friend. Many brave hearts fell in the line of duty."
"Yes," the Dire Wolf said after a long pause. "Only a few survived and I felt we had done enough. I declared an end to the Kenneth Dred Foundation. I tried to retire, to travel and lose myself in casinos and art galleries and concerts. But you know me. I was not meant for a peaceful life."
"I heard you became a private detective?"
"Yep. Still am. I have spent the last ten years as a PI. Not as good as the Midnight War but at least I get to chase serial killers and sometimes something supernatural turns up. I feel I'm doing some good at least."
Putting down his glass, Watesa smiled wistfully. "And now you are ready to start anew. Training a new generation of heroes. It makes my heart glad! I myself am a peaceful scholar. I am content with my beautiful wife, my books, my mystic art. My time as a hungan is done. But you.. ah, you were born to slap tigers in the face and tackle dragons. It is no accident you are known as Dire Wolf."
Unicorn chuckled, as if to herself.
Bane took another sip. "Samuel, let me explain what brings me here." Again, the Dire Wolf summarized what he had been told about the strange events when men gathered all their money and then were found as week-old corpses the next day. Mutesa listened in silence, took a deep breath and sat up.
"I have heard something of these horrors," the sorceror said, "although the newspapers and television have played it down. The same word comes to my mind as must come to yours. Zombies. A forbidden art that cannot be allowed to be practiced anywhere but must be stamped out."
"Do you have any names you might offer us?"
"There are fools in this area who might dabble in such a cursed game. The witch queen, Sophia Lamoureaux, but she lives far to the west, almost in New Orleans. I have never heard of her coming near this area. Then there is a pitiful cult of Cuban expatriates. They will do anything to shock and disgust. I can see them performing the rituals without real knowledge or results. No, true voodoo is beyond them."
Bane said nothing, and Watesa went on after a pause. "My friend, I can think of only one person in this area who is wicked enough and knowledgable enough to carry out such a scheme. If I speak his name, I know you will seek him out and I am not sure I should do that. This is not an enemy to be challenged lightly. More than your life is at stake. To be beaten by him is to risk becoming his undead slave, a zombie yourself."
The Dire Wolf raised his eyebrows. "You know me, Samuel. Do you think I will leave this state without destroying such a menace?"
Finally, Watesa said, "Jean-Louis Caruso. Papa Louis."
"Thank you. Samuel, you know I wear the silver daggers given me by Kenneth Dred. They were ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin and are deadly to all creatures of the night. But is there another weapon I should use against these undead?"
"SAlt. Common salt" Watesa held up his hands, palms upward."No one can say why. Salt is a preservative, used since the dawn of the human race. For whatever reason, salt disrupts the zombie spell. Some say the walking dead return to their graves if they taste food with salt in it. Others say that the touch of salt cancels their unnatural existence and they fall into ruin where they are."
Now Bane stood up. Those who knew him at all understood why he found it hard to remain still. "Thanks again, Samuel. We have some preparations to do in town. I'll let you know how it works out."
"Jeremy, wait. I think you are still underestimating the danger you are walking into. Papa Louis has survived many attempts on his life. Many of his undead slaves are former rivals. Think about what you challenge."
"Ah, but I have a secret weapon," Bane said. He gestured toward Ashley next to him. "I have the Unicorn."
And the pretty little blonde flashed her most innocent smile.
IV.
In the overcast, moonless night, the CORBY was nearly invisible as it sat silently just a hundred feet from the manor house of Papa Louis. Using infra-red and light enhancers, the stealth copter could function with no visible lights. Its rotors barely made a whisper in the still night air. Jeremy Bane disembarked and closed and sealed the hatch. Unicorn was standing a prudent distance away, still dressed in her field suit with the sheathed horn across her back. Both of them wore control cuffs fastened to their right wrists, and as Bane adjusted a dial on his cuff, the cORBY rose silently upward and hovered over a gigantic willow tree.
"Stay!" Unicorn told the craft in the tone of voice she would use for a dog.
The Dire Wolf lowered the visor on his helmet and its light enhancers clicked on. It was not as good as broad daylight, but he could see well enough to read signs. He turned to his youngest knight. "Are you scared, Ashley?"
"HELL, yes!" she said.
"That's the spirit. Let's go." He handed her a canvas satchel about the size of a bowling ball, and carried a similar satchel himself.Unhurriedly, they marched along a stone flagged path that led from a dirt road, An iron fence topped with wavy spikes surrounded the manor house but the gate was open and hanging by one hinge. In their way, standing motionless in the dark, an emaciated black man in coarse white cotton pants and sleeveless shirt watched them pass without reaction. Across the rolling lawn, more silent figures were hauling bundles in the dark. Unicorn stayed so close to Bane that their shoulders kept brushing each other. She kept her hand on the butt of her airpistol, loaded tonight with full-impact resonance caps.
The manor house was old but well-kept, and lights were burning in every window. A vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was parked under an archway, and a man with one arm was lethargically polishing it with a chamois. Bane and Ashley strode up to the front porch, where he laid down his satchel to one side and she did the same. The tall oak door opened from within and the two Tel Shai knights stepped boldly inside.
Just inside the door, a very fat old man in formal evening dress stood at attention. For just an instant, his glassy eyes flickered over them but no expression showed. This close to a zombie, Ashley Whitaker felt bile rise up in the back of her throat. It was so wrong. Dead people should be allowed to rest in peace, not forced to labor on when their time was past.
To her surprise, she was not so much frightened as she was angry. She felt pity for these creatures, denied the rest they deserved. Her lips were pressed in a thin line and her blue eyes were narrowed under frowning white brows. Bane noticed this and nodded slightly in approval. It was a reaction he had been hoping for.
No one stopped them as they walked through the huge reception room to a dining room and met Papa Louis. The house was deathly quiet, with just an occasional sound of feet slowly shuffling by upstairs. At the head of a long table covered with immaculate white linen, the hungan glanced up from his supper. Silver platters and white china were laid out for a dozen places but only his plate held gourmet food. A bottle of cognac was at hand.
Papa Louis was old, thin and wiry. He had a thick bushy head of white hair over a narrow foxlike face. Against his dark skin, a pair of hazel eyes stared out dramatically. The sorceror wore a tailored white linen suit and a silk shirt open at the throat. "I did not expect company," he said pleasantly, with just a trace of a French accent. "Please don't bother to knock, just walk in."
"My name is Bane. This is my partner, the Unicorn. We intend to have words with you, Mr Caruso."
"Ah, the notorious Dire Wolf. There is much blood on your hands, young man." Papa Louis glanced at the woman seated to his right. She was a gorgeous redhead in a strapless black evening gown, and her beauty was spoiled only by the way her eyes were rolled up in her head to show the whites. The plate and wine glass in front of her were both empty. "Go upstairs, Collette," he said. The woman clumsily got to her feet and walked stiffly from the room.
Turning back to the intruders, Papa Louis leered at Ashley. "How charming you look. It has been too long since I enjoyed a living woman with warm flesh."
"In your dreams," spat the Unicorn, "you sick freak!"
The hungan leaned back and took a sip of the cognac. "You do realize that I have more than twenty slaves at my command? That I need not even call to them, they will respond to my thoughts? Speak with a bit more prudence, child."
Bane moved closer so the sorceror had to look up. "Your chef was Ross montfort of the Rusterman Arms hotel?"
"Why, yes. A fine artist. Even now, he has lost none of his skill."
The Dire Wolf frowned. "I spent some time checking missing persons reports for the past few years. You've been busy. You are wealthy because you have murdered rich men and made their zombies bring you the money. You have murdered at least five women and used their corpses to satisfy your lust. Your chef, your servants, all enslaved victims to black magick."
Papa Louis put down the cognac and followed it with a sip of ice water. "Perhaps the two of you would like to join my staff? I could use you as a bodyguard and of course the young lady offers her own possibilities."
Unicorn glanced around and saw zombies in rags starting to enter the room. She watched them sadly.
The hungan was still smiling. "Any last words, Dire Wolf?"
//////////
"Oh, sure. Just not tonight." Bane thumbed two buttons on the control cuff. A few seconds later, as the undead neared them, a blast of blindingly bright white light shone in through the windows. Disoriented, ill-adapted to deal with that brilliance, the zombies reeled in confusion.
Papa Louis covered his eyes with both hands and screamed. "What the hell? What is that? Make it stop!"
With a faint smile, the Dire Wolf answered, "That is the searchlight of my helicopter outside. Remote control. It's much brighter than the sun. Your poor slaves can't handle it, I'm afraid."
Getting to his feet, the hungan rushed past the two intruders, staggered through the reception area and made it to the front doors, which were still open. Outside, a dozen hideous forms were gathering, some with farm tools like hoes and shovels still in their decaying hands. "Come quickly!" he yelled. "Kill my enemies. Kill them now!"
Hovering just above treetop level, a silent black helicopter shone its spotlight down on the house. The zombies were having trouble moving in that glare, which creatures of the night were not meant to endure. Still, they drew closer as Papa Louis summoned them. Coming up behind the enraged sorceror, Bane and Ashley watched the scene.
"That worked well," the Dire Wolf said to his partner. "I hadn't used the remote control for the CORBY in years."
"Captain... those things are getting a little too close," Unicorn said. "I'm going to blow the satchels." As she said this, she pressed a button on her own cuff and the two satchels by the front door exploded with deep thumping detonations. There was only a little smoke, but pounds of coarse rock salt were sprayed violently in all directions. Not a single zombie escaped being hit by that strange fine shrapnel, and they all fell straight down where they stood.
"Dead at last," Unicorn said. "Buying up all the rock salt in that supermarket was worth it."
Papa Louis was speechless. A bit of coarse salt had grazed his cheek, drawing blood. He swung around and stared wildly at the Tel Shai knights. "You... how could you? Your lives are forfeit. You will rise as my slaves and serve me for years."
Looking back over his shoulder, Bane saw six of the house zombies, better dressed and in fresher condition than the field workers, coming up behind him. Even the redheaded woman was lurching down the staircase to join them. He glanced at Unicorn and said, "Only a few left, Ashley."
"My servants will kill you!"
"They can try," Bane replied casually. The nearest zombie was a big man with one eye missing and a gash down that side of the face. As he grabbed the Dire Wolf by the shoulder, the undead thing stiffened and dropped to the floor. The same thing happened as the redhead seized Ashley by one arm, and she fell face down and did not move.
"What? How?" Papa Louis was shaking with rage.
"I don't usually give away my tricks," Bane said, "But we are not going to be meeting again, Caruso. It's common salt. We soaked our field suit jackets in salt water this afternoon. We're untouchable as far as your slaves are concerned." He turned toward the sorceror. "And now, 'Papa Louis,' I think your own time has come."
"Wait. Listen to me. I have millions in cash in this house. Rare paintings. Vintage cars. Surely we can make a deal."
The Dire Wolf shook his head. "You don't know us very well. You're worse than a mass murderer, Caruso. I can't think of a punishment severe enough for you. Unicorn?"
The little blonde had shrugged off the sheath she wore across her back and slid out a three-foot length of ivory, capped with silver at its base and tapering to a sharp point. This was her sigil of power, the horn that gave her her name. She held it up at eye level with both hands.
"Don't think I've forgot what you intended to do to me," she said in a voice very different from her usual tone. "You twisted old creep. With this horn, I remove thy power!" Unseen force swirled in the air and the ancient sorceror sagged back against the doorway as his magick left him, dropping to his knees.
"Quick, Ashley," Bane said as he tugged his partner outside. "We won't want to watch this."
Still holding her horn, Unicorn looked up at him and then suddenly understood. Despite herself, Ashley glanced back and saw something that would haunt her memories for a long time. Freed of Papa Louis' spell, the four remaining zombies in that room suddenly and horribly smiled. They encircled the kneeling hungan and moved in.
The Dire Wolf slammed the doors shut to that nightmare manor. "Come on, Ashley. Let's bring the CORBY down and get out of here." He began walking quickly to where the copter still hovered.
Unicorn put her hands over her ears as the first scream of Papa Louis reached her, and she hurried after her captain.
11/27/2013
2/17/2003
I.
When the doorbell rang, Jeremy Bane jumped up from behind his desk as if he had been stung by a scorpion. The newspaper he had been studying fell unnoticed to the floor. Crossing his office, he went through the open door to the tiny reception room, barely big enough to hold two chairs and a low table with a few magazines on it. On the wall was a 12" monitor and he checked the image on the security cameras he had installed himself in the hall outside. Two men were standing out there. Both were well-dressed and well-groomed, in early middle age, professionals or government employees in his estimation. Decades of training and experience went into the instant appraisal Bane gave them. The way they stood, the fit of their clothes, the degree of tension in their faces, the distance they kept between them... in a second, he had looked for a dozen clues that these two might be dangerous and he saw nothing to support the idea. And he suddenly remembered them from a decade earlier.
The Dire Wolf smiled faintly. A few years earlier at the KDF headquarters, he would have scanned these guys with sophisticated Trom sensors more detailed than CAT scans for weapons or poisons, and he would have gotten positive IDs if they were listed in NYPD or FBI files. But that was in the past. Now he had to trust his instincts. But then, most of the great villains were dead now and he mostly had to deal with lesser antagonists. He opened the door and said, "Good morning."
The taller, slightly balding man smiled politely. "Ah... Mr Bane, I hope?"
"I'm Bane. Can I help you?"
"I hope so. I don't know if you recall us."
"Absolutely," Bane said, gesturing for them to enter. As they passed through the reception room, the Dire Wolf glanced quickly around the lobby before closing the outer door just out of general suspicion. He followed the two men as they took seats in the two straightback chairs before the desk. Scooping up the newspaper and putting it to one side, Bane dropped down in his chair behind the desk. "Let's see, you're Francis Carnes and you- you're Barry H Sawyer. We met eight, no, nine years ago when I was tracking down Samhain. You were working for the Miami Attorney General's office, right?"
"Exactly," answered the taller one, Sawyer. "I'm impressed. We only met for a few minutes. We heard that Samhain was killed in a plane crash and you reported very briefly to the Attorney General before leaving the state."
"Samhain... well, that maniac has been reported killed a hundred times. The last I heard, he escaped custody by breaking both his thumbs to get out of handcuffs and jumping out of a police van going seventy on a highway. He hasn't been seen for a while."
Both men looked uncomfortable at that statment. The smaller one, who had black-rimmed glasses over a prominent nose, was Carnes. He placed a briefcase on his lap and fiddled with the latches. "Mr Bane, since we met that one time, I admit I developed a certain fascination with your career. You're a difficult man to learn anything about. Officials I've talked to in various agencies deny knowing you at first but eventually it comes out that you are regarded as a...well, a troubleshooter. A freelance vigilante. You have been asked to step in when crimes are so inexplicable or seemingly supernatural that conventional law-enforcement agencies are baffled."
Bane's pale grey eyes were wary. "Go on."
"I know that in 1979, you founded the Kenneth Dred Foundation, supposedly a research organization into the occult but which somehow kept getting tangled in the affairs of crimelords like Wu Lung or John Grim. In fact, the KDF acted more like a strike force than anything else. You disbanded it in 1990."
Leaning back, the Dire Wolf paused before speaking, then simply repeated, "Go on," but his voice was not encouraging.
"Also, you have for years been licensed by the State of New York as a private investigator. You used a room at the KDF building for your practice before relocating here to 44th Street. Although you have solved a number of homicides and a few blackmail cases, for the most part you are still called on for the weird, the unexplained, the occult. All unofficially and off the record, of course, but the NYPD and the FBI think of you as a useful outsider when they have failed."
"Mr Carnes," Bane said, "I am not that happy about people investigating me. I get enough of that from the authorities and my enemies. You don't seem to mean any harm, but you might get yourself in trouble if you dig in too many dark places." His narrow feral face was hard to read but the pale eyes were slightly hostile. "But enough about me. What brings you two up to New York on such a bitter cold morning?"
sawyer, the taller one, cleared his throat to interrupt. "Well, sir, it's a series of odd and frankly rather disturbing events. The State and local police are getting nowhere. They're good men but they are trained to deal with normal crime and criminals. Not these horrible events."
For the first time, a gleam of interest came into Bane's expression. "Tell me all about it."
"It started two years ago, as far as we can tell. Every few months, a wealthy businessman or minor political figure cashed in all his assets and took the money with him. A day later, their bodies were found in various secluded areas. This has happened eleven times. The last occurence involved a gambling boss who ran an illegal casino calleed the Sportman's Rest just outside of Miami. He emptied his safe, drew every cent from the bank, and disappeared. His wife found his body parked in their car a few blocks away from their home the next day. Of course the money was gone."
"Some racket," Bane observed. "Extortion? Blackmail? Murder? But what makes it something that you figured I was the one to handle these crimes?"
Sawyer took a deep breath, glanced at his partner and sighed. "Mr Bane, all these men were described as acting strangely when collecting their money. Still coherent, still in seemingly cognizant but listless. They were all found dead the next day. The grotesque part is this. The coroner's report clearly stated that these men had actually been dead from four to six days at the time of the autopsy."
II.
Bane leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. "Now this is getting interesting."
Shaking his head slowly, Sawyer went on. "We've checked it over and verified every detail, but no matter how we look at it, it just doesn't make sense. When last seen alive, these men were recognized by people who had known them for years. The next day, their bodies gave every sign of having been dead for up to a week. The forensic evidence was quite clear."
Suddenly, the Dire Wolf got to his feet and moved past his two visitors, who turned their heads to follow. He was always restless and it was difficult for him to sit still. As they watched, he began to slowly pace without seeming to be aware of it. "One explanation comes to mind," he said. "But I can guarantee right now that you men won't like it." Stopping, he pointed at the briefcase in Carnes' lap. "I guess you have details in there for me. Eyewitness accounts, autopsy reports, police statements?"
Carnes nodded and pulled out thick file folders held closed with black tape. "Yes. Everything we have. This is eyes only, you understand, and we ask that nothing here be released to the public."
"I don't talk to reporters," Bane said. "They're scared of me." Striding over, he picked up the folders and ran his fingertips over them. "I'll study these now. Tonight or tomorrow morning, I will head down to Florida to begin my investigation."
"Excellent. Very good. When can we expect to hear from you?"
Bane put the files on his desk and folded his arms. He could not keep still. The same enhanced metabolism that gave him his speed and reflexes also kept him wired. "A day or two. Most cases like these are resolved pretty quickly. You men were right to bring this to me. I think this is a menace outside the normal territory that police are equipped to handle."
Carnes had taken out a checkbook. "And your fee?"
"My usual retainer is one thousand dollars flat. And that's just a formality. It lets me claim confidentiality on behalf of my clients when dealing with cops." Bane took the check, went to his desk to enter the details in a red leather ledger from the center drawer. He wrote out a receipt and handed it to Carnes. "I'm on the job starting now." He indicated that his visitors should leave and showed them to the door. As they paused in the hallway, Carnes suddenly blurted out, "Unofficially, Mr Bane, just as a thought.. just what do you think is going on down there?"
"Zombies."
Neither man spoke, they turned to each other with bulging eyes and looked back as Bane said, "I'll be in touch." As the two walked across the lobby to the double glass doors opening on 3rd Avenue, the Dire Wolf watched them with a barely perceptible smile at the corners of his mouth. A second later, his jaw dropped as he saw a yellow taxi pull up outside and a tiny blonde girl leaped out. For a second, he considered hiding, sneaking out through the EMERGENCY EXIT door or locking himself in his office and not answering the bell. But Unicorn had already spotted him.
Ashley Whitaker was just over five feet tall, slim and curvy, barely twenty-one, with glossy platinum blonde hair and an adorable face that had always gotten her whatever she wanted in life. Today, she was wearing navy blue slacks, a white blouse and a dark blue ski jacket with white trim. Strapped across her back was a cylindrical leather sheath three feet long. As she breezed into the lobby, she waved to Bane. "Captain! Everything is all right now, Unicorn is here!"
Despite his natural sour disposition, the Wolf could not keep a frown as she raced up. Unicorn was so oblivious, so bubbly, that it rubbed off on even him. "Hi, Ashley. Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"
"Nah, not today. I saved my day off and took a two day mini-vacation, and I thought, who needs a visit from me the most? You, of course. Don't give me that look, you know you love me more than life itself. Got any exciting cases lined up? We have been slack lately, all we do is train and study. I could use some action!"
Bane gave in and smiled widely. "Sure. Your timing is on the mark as usual. Come on in the office and I'll fill you in."
Unicorn headed for the leather couch under the long curtained window and threw herself down. "I'm not a client, so I won't sit in front of the desk. What's up, captain? Did I really turn up just as you're starting a new adventure?"
"Settle down, Ashley. Yes. Not five minutes ago, some guys from the Miami District Attorney office hired me to look into some weird gruesome shenanigans going on. Listen..." For five minutes, Bane carefully explained what he had been told as Unicorn listened with complete attention.
"So there you have it. I intend to leave for Florida immediately, using an Eldar travel crystal. Is there any point in asking you if you want to come along?"
"Florida in February? Sounds better than that arctic wasteland that is Manhattan today but wait, wait, I have a better idea. Sable has the team in Berlin, tracking down some stupid cult or other. No one is at HQ. Let's take the CORBY."
Bane shook his head. "I don't want to use KDF equipment. I stepped down as chairman."
"Hah! I will be using it! I will fly us to Florida, you will be my guest. The Unicorn and her sidekick, Dire Wolf," she chuckled. "Come on, cut me some slack. I'm certified and it will be a big advantage getting around."
To his own surprise, Bane agreed. "All right. Just this once. We will have a lot of territory to cover and it beats renting a car. Now, you wait in the reception room while I get into my field suit."
Unicorn sniffed. "Fine. It's not like I want to see you in your underwear." She trotted out to the reception room and closed the door behind her a little too emphatically.
Sliding the bookcase aside on its hidden casters, Bane reached down into the pit and brought up the trunk that held his field suit. As he got into the flexible Trom armor, tough slacks and waist-length jacket with its built-in weapons, he raised an eyebrow in surprise at how Unicorn got him to break so many rules. Checking his dart gun, cradling the war helmet in one arm, he rolled the bookcase back into place and went to join Unicorn. She leaped up from a chair and slapped a copy of TIME down on the table. "Damn, Jeremy, buy some new magazines once in a while, why don't you? The pages are turning yellow on this one!"
III.
They walked the six blocks to 38th Street. Bane was wearing his insulated field suit, but he had long ago become hardened to extremes of weather. Unicorn pulled up the hood of her ski jacket, tugged on leather gloves, put on a thin cloth mask that covered her nose and mouth and trotted happily beside him. The entire trip, she chatted about what the new KDF team was up to. As they approached the ten story building, she was going on about what Argent said to Megan about her lack of a love life that made her give him the silent treatment for three days and how Sable had had to make them both knock it off and now they were best buds. "Honestly, it's better than a reality show," she said.
Hurrying up the seven steps to the front door, Ashley slid a concealed panel to one side and punched in her ID code, then pressed her small hand to a screen. With a buzz and a click, the door unlocked. They passed through the foyer with its painting of Kenneth Dred and into the main hallway. On the right hand side was a coat rack and she wrestled out of her ski jacket, putting her gloves in one of its pockets.
"You feel a little funny coming back here, captain?" she asked quietly.
"Not really," Bane said. "I've been back a few times to confer with Sable and we did have Pizza Night on Wednesdays for a while." He glanced around the building where he had lived for twenty years. He still owned it, although he leased it to the new KDF team for their use. He felt only the barest twinge of nostalgia. Maybe I'm just not a sentimental person, he thought.
Nothing much seemed to have been changed.
"Well, everyone would like it if you stopped by once in a while," Unicorn said. She led the way up the wide stairs in the middle of the hall and stopped at the third floor, where the members had their private quarters. "I'm gonna change into my own field suit. How about you go on up to the top floor and warm up the CORBY for us?"
"Fine. I don't want to see you in your underwear either."
"Hah!" she snorted. "EVERYBODY would like to see me in my underwear, get serious." She went into her room and Bane continued up the stairs. There was an elevator to one side but he wanted to think as he went up to the tenth floor. Breathing as easily as if he had just gotten out of a chair, he entered the hangar. This had once been the roof, but long ago he had had it covered over with a sliding panel. Here under brilliant fluorescent lights sat a black stealth helicopter. The craft was sleek and shark-shaped, with no identifying marks at all. There were three of these copters in existence; one was stored at the facility on Hawk Island off the coast of Maine and the third was at the HCE complex in New Mexico, where Steven Weaver took care of it.
Bane glanced around at the wall of tools and maintenance equipment, wooden boxes full of parts, inevitable oily rags and scraps, the round coffee table in a corner with a few chairs and the waist-high refrigerator. Then he opened the hatch to the pilot compartment and looked inside. Everything was slightly different. The two control sticks and foot pedals were almost the same as he remembered, duplicated on the co-pilot side, but the gauges and dials and screens had moved around. He studied them thoughtfully.
Behind him, Unicorn hurried up. She was now wearing a black field suit like his, complete with all the weapons, and she had tied her platinum hair up into a tight bun at the back of her head. In the crook of her arm was her own visored helmet. Strapped to her back was the sheathed Unicorn horn. "What do you think?"
"What the hell has Megan done to the instruments?"
She laughed. "Our Trom Girl can't leave this bird alone. Every chance she gets, she tunes it up and moves things around and adds improvements. Sable has ordered her to fill us in on all the changes. Here, let me get in." Hopping up nimbly into the pilot seat, Unicorn began thumbing buttons and flipping switches as the cabin lights came on and the instrument panels hummed into life. "It all makes sense, though," she added. "You'll figure it out in two seconds." Overhead, the rotors began to slowly turn.
"I left a message what we're up to, but I bet we'll be back before the rest of the team," Ashley said. She lowered the helmet over her head and hooked it up to the ship's systems. "Just another few minutes, I'm waiting for everything to warm up."
Walking around the nose of the craft, Bane climbed into the co-pilot seat and also hooked his helmet into the CORBY's systems. "Not much left of the original Bell copter I bought."
"Nope. Maybe a bolt here and there. We're good to go, captain. You want to leave through the roof?"
"I'd rather avoid that. We have no flight plan, no clearance to be in Manhattan airspace. Too many questions and maybe an encounter with a police chopper." He reached up and placed his fingers on a large pale blue gem set in the ceiling between them. Bane glanced over the hangar and saw the green ready light over the door that meant the building was sealed and all defenses up.
"I'm lifting her to knee level," Ashley said. She brought the CORBY just off the concrete floor, the rotors turning smoothly, and retracted the landing gear. The CORBY was so close to being silent that even a person standing nearby would only hear a faint rush of air from the slowly moving blades. "We're ready."
Bane stared at the Eldar crystal and drew on his full concentration. Blue light flared up silently around them and when it cleared, they were hovering hundreds of feet above New Jersey marsh. They had gated forty miles in less than a second. Bane let out a deep unsteady breath. "That is getting harder to do. Jeez. We'll wait for darkness next time and fly out the roof in stealth mode."
"The gateway takes a lot of effort, that's for sure," Unicorn agreed. "None of us can do it alone, we usually have two people touch the gem together."
"Good idea. Okay, Ashley, let's roll. Stealth mode on?"
"You bet. Radar deflection on, rotors silent, heat signature concealed. Co-ordinates for Florida state line until you give me more detailed information. Going to cruise speed, 350 mph. I'm hitting the gas pedal."
The CORBY hurtled through the freezing air like a shadow. Unless someone happened to be looking right at it, it would usually escape detection. If by chance another aircraft spotted them and requested identification, Bane would use the Eldar crystal and appear miles away, leaving a confused pilot behind.
Once they were underway, Unicorn disengaged the rotors so they turned freely and cut in the Trom impulse engines. The CORBY shot up to just under the speed of sound, still flying smoothly and quietly. These CORBYs seemed to be helicopters but they were in fact craft running on principles advanced beyond Human science, and only the fact that the KDF had counted two Trom as members explained how humans could own and operate them. The CORBYs could fly and manuever perfectly well without the rotors and on several occasions had operated underwater without trouble. Bane explained them to his team as basically spaceships disguised as helicopters, which was true enough.
The next hour was uneventful as Ashley chatted gleefully away, filling Bane in on what the new KDF team had been up to. She delved a little deeper into their emotional interactions than he was really interested in, but the Dire Wolf let it slide as he caught all the references to their successful missions. Sable had met his hopes for her as new team leader, and he was glad. As they neared the Florida state line, Unicorn was going on about how she understood her own abilities with the Alicorn were not always useful in a firefight but several times she had saved the day (and the team) by neutralizing an enemy attack. "So it balances out. Being able to disrupt gralic spells is important. Also, I'm better at a lot of skills than anybody else on the team. People underestimate me because of my looks, and that's a big advantage in itself..."
"Ashley, we're in Florida," Bane interrupted. "Drop to cruising speed and re-engage the rotors, now. Okay. Drop down a little."
"Got it!" the Unicorn sang out. "Where are we headed, captain?"
"Sixty miles due south, town called Sweetwater. Once we get in the area, I'll know landmarks. Let me call ahead. Where the devil did Megan put the communications mike? oh. Here. Okay, let me cut into the telephone systems. 979-2833. Hope he's still there.."
A few seconds later, a deep male voice came over the cabin speakers. "Hello?"
"Samuel? This is Jeremy."
"Jeremy? Jeremy Bane?! Well, I'll be blessed. Are you calling from Manhattan?"
"No, we're nearing your town right now. Listen, Samuel, I know you're retired but I need a place to park our bird. Do you still have that nice big back yard?"
Warm deep laughter came from the console. "Of course. You are welcome to land, old friend. When can we expect you?"
"I'd say ten minutes," Bane said. "I'm bringing one of the new Tel Shai knights with me."
"Your favorite one!" Unicorn put in under her breath.
"The next generation of heroes," said the voice. " 'The old order changeth...'"
"Tell me about it," Bane grumbled. "see you in a minute."
staring down through the windshield, Ashley said, "Who's your friend?"
"Eh? Oh, SamuelWatesa. A wise man and sorceror from Danarak. I haven't seen him in years."
Ahead, they spotted an estate surrounded by a high stone wall. There was a mansion on top of a hill with a barn nearby, and a few cars parked in a circular driveway. Ashley brought the CORBY down smoothy a safe distance away as two figures emerged from the mansion onto a patio.
"Hah? Smooth landing, right? I know I'm good!" Unicorn gloated as she began to power down the copter. As the rotors came to a stop, Bane popped open the pressurized hatch and swung out onto the neatly kept lawn. A man and a woman approached quickly.
"It's good to see you again, Jeremy," boomed the bass voice. "You look marvelous." Watesa was a stout black man just over six feet tall, massive but not fat. He had short hair and a goatee with plenty of grey in it. The mage wore blue-tinted sunglasses and was dressed casually in white slacks and a colorful open-necked sports shirt. Beside him, his wife Maria was younger by a number of years, slim and attractive in a thin sundress. She looked as if she had some French blood in her, with a beautiful head of curly hair.
"Samuel! Maria!" Bane called out with uncharacteristic warmth. "I'm only sorry it takes a mission to make me visit you two. It's been forever. Let me introduce my partner here. This is Ashley Whitaker, the new Unicorn. You remember her mother, Mary Cassidy."
"Of course." Watesa offered his hand, which Ashley shook. Maria nodded and smiled, and Ashley returned the gesture. "Come with us," said the Danarakan sorceror. He led them up to a patio of wide flat stones under a sunshade. Around a table were a half dozen chairs and, as everyone was seated, he began filling glasses with ice water from a pitcher.
"I'm sorry I can't offer you real drinks but our discipline forbids that," Watesa said. "We do have lemonade and iced tea in the house, if you like."
"Water's best," replied Bane. "Samuel, the last time I saw you, the KDF had just been disbanded."
Watesa's features grew heavy and his voice was low. "That was a bad time, my friend. Many brave hearts fell in the line of duty."
"Yes," the Dire Wolf said after a long pause. "Only a few survived and I felt we had done enough. I declared an end to the Kenneth Dred Foundation. I tried to retire, to travel and lose myself in casinos and art galleries and concerts. But you know me. I was not meant for a peaceful life."
"I heard you became a private detective?"
"Yep. Still am. I have spent the last ten years as a PI. Not as good as the Midnight War but at least I get to chase serial killers and sometimes something supernatural turns up. I feel I'm doing some good at least."
Putting down his glass, Watesa smiled wistfully. "And now you are ready to start anew. Training a new generation of heroes. It makes my heart glad! I myself am a peaceful scholar. I am content with my beautiful wife, my books, my mystic art. My time as a hungan is done. But you.. ah, you were born to slap tigers in the face and tackle dragons. It is no accident you are known as Dire Wolf."
Unicorn chuckled, as if to herself.
Bane took another sip. "Samuel, let me explain what brings me here." Again, the Dire Wolf summarized what he had been told about the strange events when men gathered all their money and then were found as week-old corpses the next day. Mutesa listened in silence, took a deep breath and sat up.
"I have heard something of these horrors," the sorceror said, "although the newspapers and television have played it down. The same word comes to my mind as must come to yours. Zombies. A forbidden art that cannot be allowed to be practiced anywhere but must be stamped out."
"Do you have any names you might offer us?"
"There are fools in this area who might dabble in such a cursed game. The witch queen, Sophia Lamoureaux, but she lives far to the west, almost in New Orleans. I have never heard of her coming near this area. Then there is a pitiful cult of Cuban expatriates. They will do anything to shock and disgust. I can see them performing the rituals without real knowledge or results. No, true voodoo is beyond them."
Bane said nothing, and Watesa went on after a pause. "My friend, I can think of only one person in this area who is wicked enough and knowledgable enough to carry out such a scheme. If I speak his name, I know you will seek him out and I am not sure I should do that. This is not an enemy to be challenged lightly. More than your life is at stake. To be beaten by him is to risk becoming his undead slave, a zombie yourself."
The Dire Wolf raised his eyebrows. "You know me, Samuel. Do you think I will leave this state without destroying such a menace?"
Finally, Watesa said, "Jean-Louis Caruso. Papa Louis."
"Thank you. Samuel, you know I wear the silver daggers given me by Kenneth Dred. They were ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin and are deadly to all creatures of the night. But is there another weapon I should use against these undead?"
"SAlt. Common salt" Watesa held up his hands, palms upward."No one can say why. Salt is a preservative, used since the dawn of the human race. For whatever reason, salt disrupts the zombie spell. Some say the walking dead return to their graves if they taste food with salt in it. Others say that the touch of salt cancels their unnatural existence and they fall into ruin where they are."
Now Bane stood up. Those who knew him at all understood why he found it hard to remain still. "Thanks again, Samuel. We have some preparations to do in town. I'll let you know how it works out."
"Jeremy, wait. I think you are still underestimating the danger you are walking into. Papa Louis has survived many attempts on his life. Many of his undead slaves are former rivals. Think about what you challenge."
"Ah, but I have a secret weapon," Bane said. He gestured toward Ashley next to him. "I have the Unicorn."
And the pretty little blonde flashed her most innocent smile.
IV.
In the overcast, moonless night, the CORBY was nearly invisible as it sat silently just a hundred feet from the manor house of Papa Louis. Using infra-red and light enhancers, the stealth copter could function with no visible lights. Its rotors barely made a whisper in the still night air. Jeremy Bane disembarked and closed and sealed the hatch. Unicorn was standing a prudent distance away, still dressed in her field suit with the sheathed horn across her back. Both of them wore control cuffs fastened to their right wrists, and as Bane adjusted a dial on his cuff, the cORBY rose silently upward and hovered over a gigantic willow tree.
"Stay!" Unicorn told the craft in the tone of voice she would use for a dog.
The Dire Wolf lowered the visor on his helmet and its light enhancers clicked on. It was not as good as broad daylight, but he could see well enough to read signs. He turned to his youngest knight. "Are you scared, Ashley?"
"HELL, yes!" she said.
"That's the spirit. Let's go." He handed her a canvas satchel about the size of a bowling ball, and carried a similar satchel himself.Unhurriedly, they marched along a stone flagged path that led from a dirt road, An iron fence topped with wavy spikes surrounded the manor house but the gate was open and hanging by one hinge. In their way, standing motionless in the dark, an emaciated black man in coarse white cotton pants and sleeveless shirt watched them pass without reaction. Across the rolling lawn, more silent figures were hauling bundles in the dark. Unicorn stayed so close to Bane that their shoulders kept brushing each other. She kept her hand on the butt of her airpistol, loaded tonight with full-impact resonance caps.
The manor house was old but well-kept, and lights were burning in every window. A vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was parked under an archway, and a man with one arm was lethargically polishing it with a chamois. Bane and Ashley strode up to the front porch, where he laid down his satchel to one side and she did the same. The tall oak door opened from within and the two Tel Shai knights stepped boldly inside.
Just inside the door, a very fat old man in formal evening dress stood at attention. For just an instant, his glassy eyes flickered over them but no expression showed. This close to a zombie, Ashley Whitaker felt bile rise up in the back of her throat. It was so wrong. Dead people should be allowed to rest in peace, not forced to labor on when their time was past.
To her surprise, she was not so much frightened as she was angry. She felt pity for these creatures, denied the rest they deserved. Her lips were pressed in a thin line and her blue eyes were narrowed under frowning white brows. Bane noticed this and nodded slightly in approval. It was a reaction he had been hoping for.
No one stopped them as they walked through the huge reception room to a dining room and met Papa Louis. The house was deathly quiet, with just an occasional sound of feet slowly shuffling by upstairs. At the head of a long table covered with immaculate white linen, the hungan glanced up from his supper. Silver platters and white china were laid out for a dozen places but only his plate held gourmet food. A bottle of cognac was at hand.
Papa Louis was old, thin and wiry. He had a thick bushy head of white hair over a narrow foxlike face. Against his dark skin, a pair of hazel eyes stared out dramatically. The sorceror wore a tailored white linen suit and a silk shirt open at the throat. "I did not expect company," he said pleasantly, with just a trace of a French accent. "Please don't bother to knock, just walk in."
"My name is Bane. This is my partner, the Unicorn. We intend to have words with you, Mr Caruso."
"Ah, the notorious Dire Wolf. There is much blood on your hands, young man." Papa Louis glanced at the woman seated to his right. She was a gorgeous redhead in a strapless black evening gown, and her beauty was spoiled only by the way her eyes were rolled up in her head to show the whites. The plate and wine glass in front of her were both empty. "Go upstairs, Collette," he said. The woman clumsily got to her feet and walked stiffly from the room.
Turning back to the intruders, Papa Louis leered at Ashley. "How charming you look. It has been too long since I enjoyed a living woman with warm flesh."
"In your dreams," spat the Unicorn, "you sick freak!"
The hungan leaned back and took a sip of the cognac. "You do realize that I have more than twenty slaves at my command? That I need not even call to them, they will respond to my thoughts? Speak with a bit more prudence, child."
Bane moved closer so the sorceror had to look up. "Your chef was Ross montfort of the Rusterman Arms hotel?"
"Why, yes. A fine artist. Even now, he has lost none of his skill."
The Dire Wolf frowned. "I spent some time checking missing persons reports for the past few years. You've been busy. You are wealthy because you have murdered rich men and made their zombies bring you the money. You have murdered at least five women and used their corpses to satisfy your lust. Your chef, your servants, all enslaved victims to black magick."
Papa Louis put down the cognac and followed it with a sip of ice water. "Perhaps the two of you would like to join my staff? I could use you as a bodyguard and of course the young lady offers her own possibilities."
Unicorn glanced around and saw zombies in rags starting to enter the room. She watched them sadly.
The hungan was still smiling. "Any last words, Dire Wolf?"
//////////
"Oh, sure. Just not tonight." Bane thumbed two buttons on the control cuff. A few seconds later, as the undead neared them, a blast of blindingly bright white light shone in through the windows. Disoriented, ill-adapted to deal with that brilliance, the zombies reeled in confusion.
Papa Louis covered his eyes with both hands and screamed. "What the hell? What is that? Make it stop!"
With a faint smile, the Dire Wolf answered, "That is the searchlight of my helicopter outside. Remote control. It's much brighter than the sun. Your poor slaves can't handle it, I'm afraid."
Getting to his feet, the hungan rushed past the two intruders, staggered through the reception area and made it to the front doors, which were still open. Outside, a dozen hideous forms were gathering, some with farm tools like hoes and shovels still in their decaying hands. "Come quickly!" he yelled. "Kill my enemies. Kill them now!"
Hovering just above treetop level, a silent black helicopter shone its spotlight down on the house. The zombies were having trouble moving in that glare, which creatures of the night were not meant to endure. Still, they drew closer as Papa Louis summoned them. Coming up behind the enraged sorceror, Bane and Ashley watched the scene.
"That worked well," the Dire Wolf said to his partner. "I hadn't used the remote control for the CORBY in years."
"Captain... those things are getting a little too close," Unicorn said. "I'm going to blow the satchels." As she said this, she pressed a button on her own cuff and the two satchels by the front door exploded with deep thumping detonations. There was only a little smoke, but pounds of coarse rock salt were sprayed violently in all directions. Not a single zombie escaped being hit by that strange fine shrapnel, and they all fell straight down where they stood.
"Dead at last," Unicorn said. "Buying up all the rock salt in that supermarket was worth it."
Papa Louis was speechless. A bit of coarse salt had grazed his cheek, drawing blood. He swung around and stared wildly at the Tel Shai knights. "You... how could you? Your lives are forfeit. You will rise as my slaves and serve me for years."
Looking back over his shoulder, Bane saw six of the house zombies, better dressed and in fresher condition than the field workers, coming up behind him. Even the redheaded woman was lurching down the staircase to join them. He glanced at Unicorn and said, "Only a few left, Ashley."
"My servants will kill you!"
"They can try," Bane replied casually. The nearest zombie was a big man with one eye missing and a gash down that side of the face. As he grabbed the Dire Wolf by the shoulder, the undead thing stiffened and dropped to the floor. The same thing happened as the redhead seized Ashley by one arm, and she fell face down and did not move.
"What? How?" Papa Louis was shaking with rage.
"I don't usually give away my tricks," Bane said, "But we are not going to be meeting again, Caruso. It's common salt. We soaked our field suit jackets in salt water this afternoon. We're untouchable as far as your slaves are concerned." He turned toward the sorceror. "And now, 'Papa Louis,' I think your own time has come."
"Wait. Listen to me. I have millions in cash in this house. Rare paintings. Vintage cars. Surely we can make a deal."
The Dire Wolf shook his head. "You don't know us very well. You're worse than a mass murderer, Caruso. I can't think of a punishment severe enough for you. Unicorn?"
The little blonde had shrugged off the sheath she wore across her back and slid out a three-foot length of ivory, capped with silver at its base and tapering to a sharp point. This was her sigil of power, the horn that gave her her name. She held it up at eye level with both hands.
"Don't think I've forgot what you intended to do to me," she said in a voice very different from her usual tone. "You twisted old creep. With this horn, I remove thy power!" Unseen force swirled in the air and the ancient sorceror sagged back against the doorway as his magick left him, dropping to his knees.
"Quick, Ashley," Bane said as he tugged his partner outside. "We won't want to watch this."
Still holding her horn, Unicorn looked up at him and then suddenly understood. Despite herself, Ashley glanced back and saw something that would haunt her memories for a long time. Freed of Papa Louis' spell, the four remaining zombies in that room suddenly and horribly smiled. They encircled the kneeling hungan and moved in.
The Dire Wolf slammed the doors shut to that nightmare manor. "Come on, Ashley. Let's bring the CORBY down and get out of here." He began walking quickly to where the copter still hovered.
Unicorn put her hands over her ears as the first scream of Papa Louis reached her, and she hurried after her captain.
11/27/2013