"Shake the Stars"
May. 22nd, 2022 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Shake the Stars"
11/22-11/24/1979
I.
A canvas sheet had been hung over the doorway that had a sign CHIMINEC ROOM, and a uniformed police officer stood in front of it with folded arms. Jeremy Bane leaped up the marble stairs and headed toward that doorway with long quick strides. He was a gaunt young man only a few years over twenty, dressed all in black, with short dark hair and intense pale grey eyes. "Wollheim's expecting me," he said.
The cop still asked to see ID and the Dire Wolf grudgingly complied. Satisfied, the man handed the card case back and said, "I was told to be careful. Go on in, the Inspector's on the scene." He pulled back a side of the canvas and Bane ducked his head as he went through.
The Arthur Somerset Museum of the Americas was a ten-story granite building on 73rd Street, overlooking Central Park. More than a century old, it had been founded by a famous explorer and treasure hunter who had spent his final years acquiring artifacts of pre-Columbian cultures. Bane walked into what the sign had said was the Chiminec Room and found himself in a high ceilinged space crammed with numerous glass-fronted cases holding everything from wooden clubs to mosaic skulls to colorful ponchos. Morning sunlight from tall narrow windows fell on the most impressive exhibit, a life-size statue of a pot-bellied man sitting cross-legged, wearing an elaborate headdress and with both hands raised, palms up.
The bloodied corpse lay on a tarp in front of this statue.
Bane came to a sudden stop. He had not known of this. The phone call to KDF headquarters had just asked him to hurry here without explanation. He stepped closer and took a good appraising look.
Turning to face the young man, Inspector Daniel Wollheim sighed. He was a year past normal retirement age and could not say why he stayed on. Wollheim's hairline had moved up to the top of his head and his glasses got thicker every year. He hitched up his belt and gestured with a thumb at the corpse. "Not a pretty sight." Standing a few feet behind the inspector, a uniformed officer nodded in agreement.
"I'll go along with that," the Dire Wolf said. "Seems like he has been skinned. Carefully, too. Have you identified him?"
"Yep. Clothes are over there, neatly folded, including his wallet. Charles Barclay, 62, deputy curator of this museum. He was here late last night, working on a new exhibit. From what the medical examiner determined, at some point around midnight, Barclay was killed by trauma to the back of the head caused by a blunt instrument at least four inches across. He was stripped, placed on this tarp and then, well, his skin was removed by someone with considerable skill. No sign of any of the skin, by the way."
Bane knelt over the corpse, careful not to touch it but getting extremely close. "Not that much blood, but then he was dead when they worked on him. What's the statue?"
"Huh? The statue? Beats me. The tag on it says, 'Xinimatul.' Why?" Wollheim asked.
"I don't know, maybe this guy was a sacrifice. I read somewhere about the Aztecs doing this sort of thing." The Dire Wolf straightened up and scrutinized the statue. "Maybe some revival of the ancient religion, it's happened before. No blood on Xinimatul here, though."
"Ah, I think you're off on that, Bane," Wollheim scoffed. "Listen. It hasn't hit the papers yet, but this is actually the second skinned body. The first was a woman, Meg Waterston. She was found two days ago in her apartment on Staten Island. Nowhere near a heathen idol. All her skin missing."
Wollheim glanced over at the cop standing nearby, but didn't lower his voice. "This is why you got called in, son. I miss Kenneth Dred. I worked with the old guy for eleven years, he always cleared up bizarre deaths like this in record time."
"I'm carrying on his work," Bane answered sharply. "He trained me for this. You should know, you've seen me on the job."
"Oh, you're good but let's be honest, you're still green." Wollheim smiled reassuringly, as if to say no offense was intended. "What's this I hear about you starting some sort of agency to investigate weird stuff like this?"
Bane came as close to smiling as he ever did. "The Kenneth Dred Foundation. Six impressive people... you'd recognize one of them. Michael Hawk."
"Wait, you got Michael Hawk working with you? I AM impressed." Wollheim raised a hand with the thumb up, then turned back to the gruesome body on the floor. "Not much to go on here. Barclay was discovered at seven-forty-five this morning when the museum secretary came in to start the day. She freaked out, almost fell down the stairs and called NYPD. Naturally, my bosses sent me. I'm stuck now with horrifying murders and supernatural phenomena because I started bringing the cases to Kenneth Dred and he solved them. So now I'm bringing them to you."
The Dire Wolf started pacing around the room, taking everything in. "How'd the killer get in, inspector?"
"Jimmied a first floor window, nothing clever. The side door was left unlocked, so they got out that way. This place had an old alarm system that anyone could cut."
Standing with hands on hips, Bane glared up at the statue of the Chiminec god with suspicion. "Hmm. This all seems familiar. Something I read in Mr Dred's files. Let me go do some research and I'll contact you later."
"If you say so," Wollheim said. "But we have two grisly murders here to be cleared up."
Bane scowled as he headed for the blocked-off door. "There are going to be more. I expect a total of six skinned victims if we can't stop the lunatic responsible." He ducked through the canvas over the doorway and was gone.
II.
Twenty minutes later, the Dire Wolf entered the front hall of the HQ building and closed the door behind him. To his left was the reception room, to his right the new medical ward which was still being equipped. Directly ahead was the wide staircase going up, and on its lowest step stood a pretty young blonde in white sneakers, old jeans and a Navy blue sweatshirt that said SUNY NEW PALTZ.
A year younger than Bane himself, Cindy Brunner was an inch over five feet tall and just under one hundred pounds, with breasts a little large for her thin frame. She had dark blonde hair which hung down her back and large blue eyes in an inquisitive, lightly freckled face. "I felt your mind approaching," she said. "Boy, you're excited. New case?"
Bane knew she could have pulled the information directly from his mind, but as policy Cindy kept her telepathic contact to just the very surface so her teammates could keep some privacy. It had been intensely annoying to him at first, he was secretive by nature, but to his own surprise, he had quickly gotten used to it. Now he found he rather liked having her mind being in light touch with his when they were both in proximity.
"Yes," he said. "Two murders so far, with the victims literally skinned. I think I read about something similar in the files. Is Larry in the building?"
"He actually is. He came in to get a workout early this morning and now he's up in his room on the third floor. You want me to give him the summons?"
He hesitated. "I'll call him on the house phone. He doesn't seem to be used to telepathy yet. Come on, we have to do some research." Going past her, Bane trotted up the stairs to the second floor. Cindy gave him a quizzical look, then followed. They entered the conference room with its long oak table surrounded by a dozen chairs. Along one wall was a row of four green metal filing cabinets, most of which were empty, and beyond that a chest-high book case packed with reference volumes.
Bane went directly to the bookcase and picked up a thick volume from its top shelf. This was a journal built so it could be unfastened and new pages inserted, or existing pages rearranged in new order. On the front cover in white ink on the black binding was FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE in neat precise handwriting and the signature beneath that, KENNETH DRED. This was the compendium written by Dred himself of what he had learned during his half-century in the Midnight War.
The Dire Wolf took the journal over to the table and pulled out his chair at the head, dropping down and starting to thumb through the pages. FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE was in more or less alphabetical order by subject but there was no index and finding something specific took time. He began searching.
Standing at his shoulder, Cindy said, "Hey, Jeremy! You have something for me to do or should I just watch you?"
"What?" he glanced up. "Oh. Call Larry to come down here, okay? Who else is here at the moment?"
"Just the three of us. Ted is supposed to come by later and Khang said he would be back tonight." She went over to the wall phone, pressed 5 and then the pound sign to get Room 5 on the floor which held the member's quarters. "Hi. Larry, it's me. Head down to the conference room, our captain is starting a new case. Seeya."
"We need to get our information organized," Bane growled as he kept going through the pages. "Thousands of old books in this building and none of them are in any kind of order."
Cindy leaned up against him, one hand across his shoulders. The gesture was wasted. Bane had not shown the slightest interest in her, sexual or romantic or just friendliness, and she was getting perplexed. She knew she was good-looking and had expected him to start pursuit by now. "I have an idea, Jeremy."
He looked up at her, snapping the book shut for the moment. "Go ahead."
"This would take years. The halls are lined with bookcases on every floor and the library room itself is packed. But we could start making lists and sorting out the books a little each day. I'm a good typist." She rubbed his shoulder. "Maybe a big clipboard to hold the lists."
"You've got lots of good ideas," he said.
"Looked like you were going to smile there for a second," Cindy told him. They both turned as Taper appeared in the doorway.
At thirty-one, Dr Lawrence Taper had been an obscure anthropology professor at a respectable but unremarkable university. He had two published books and several articles in scholarly journals and had seemed headed for a quiet if comfortable career. Then he had been chosen by the Silver Skull armor and thrown into a rollercoaster life of excitement and terror. Now, three years later, after resigning his position at the university, he was employed at the HCE Project in New Mexico under Leonard Slade. Exactly what he did there had never been made clear, nor why a medical research facility would need an anthropologist.
Taper stepped into the room and greeted Bane and Cindy with a reserved smile. He was average in height and build, with short brown hair and a pleasant face without distinction. Usually, he had the habit of wearing a black suit and tie, and today he had left the collar of the white dress shirt open. "Some agitation in the situation, compadres?"
"Oh yes," Bane answered. He launched into a summary of what had happened that morning, then added he seemed to remember something about similar practices with mystic cults but hadn't been able to find confirmation yet. "I was hoping you had information?"
"Maybe a smidgen," said Taper as he crossed over to take a seat facing Bane across the table. "My area of expertise was the European megalithic cultures, you know, but I've read a bit about indigenous Mexican and Central American peoples. Not nearly enough is known about the Chiminecs. They were a prolific tribe who flourished before the Aztecs and only two of their sites have been found. The only thing that really distinguishes them from other pre-Columbian tribes of that area was their detailed religious carvings. One monument shows a priest with the god Xinimatul standing directly behind him, one hand on the mortal's shoulder, and solar rays being emitted from both. That's about all I remember offhand, sorry."
"The statue at the museum was called Xinimatul," Bane told him. "Big fat guy with a funny hat."
Taper laughed at the description. "Xinimatul was a god of new life and renewal. He required unsavory annual rituals that seemed to involve human sacrifice and flaying of the victims."
Standing behind Bane, Cindy broke in, "Flaying? So it's no coincidence that someone was skinned right in front of the statue, then."
"I wouldn't give credence to it being coincidence. If expedient, I'd like to ambulate over to this Somerset museum and observe for myself. What's your agenda, captain?"
Bane frowned. "Right now, I'm just looking for more information. And waiting to hear from Wollheim if he turns up anything." He placed his hand on FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. "I need to make an index for this thing..."
"Well, we have our Links if you wish communication," Taper said. "I'll commandeer a taxi and report if I see anything that might lead us to the perpetrators."
"Okay, Larry. Good luck."
"Wait." Cindy came around the table abruptly. "I'll go with you. I'm not doing anything useful here. Maybe my powers can pick up something." She glanced down at Bane. "If that's okay with you, Jeremy?"
"Sure, why not? I'll phone Inspector Wollheim and ask him to have you two admitted. The museum is closed for the next few days." The Dire Wolf stood up and headed over to the wall phone. "And be careful, both of you. This might just a lone maniac or it could be something more dangerous."
"Thanks for caring," Cindy said over one shoulder as she tugged Taper through the door. She gave Bane a reproachful glare that went unnoticed.
III.
A uniformed officer let them into the Arthur Somerset Museum and locked the front door again. Wollheim was there to meet them, obviously irritated at the whole situation.
"Your leader called here and asked if you two could poke around. I suppose. As long as I'm letting one civilian poke around a homicide, why not a couple more? The body has been taken away, and tomorrow all the blood will be scrubbed out of the floor and the exhibits moved around a little. So now's the last chance to do some detective work." He studied them critically. "I don't know you kids from Adam, how about some IDs?"
Taper handed over his wallet, open to his driver's license. "Dr Lawrence Taper, formerly of Wingate University. I have my PhD in ancient cultures. Maybe I can help."
As Wollheim gave the wallet back, he turned suspiciously to the little blonde who gave him a disarming smile. "Cynthia Lee Brunner of Bearsville, New York," she said. "I'm not a professor but sometimes I'm useful."
"I bet," he muttered but with a more relaxed attitude. "Well, let's go to the scene." Wollheim led them up the marble staircase to the second floor and ushered them into the Chiminec Room. The corpse was gone and the tarp as well.
Taper went directly over to examine the huge granite statue. "Interesting. Mostly finished with sand glued to animal hide. Circa 960 BC, they think? Well, I'd say a bit later than that. Look, do you see the hollow spots in his hands?"
"Yes, so what?" Wollheim snorted.
"That was to hold the blood from a sacrifice. Xinimatul was not a pleasant deity to have to deal with. Those feathers in his headdress are odd, too. I can't place them." Taper got his face right next to the unlovely statue and started talking about water erosion on the features. Unless he consciously reined himself in, he had a tendency to start using large technical words and phrases, usually leaving everyone mildly baffled.
Cindy Brunner had drawn back a few steps, lowered her head and almost closed her eyes. Under the tutelage of Kenneth Dred, she had learned different applications for her powers. Now she was trying to pick up on psychic residue in that room. The stronger the emotions that had last been felt there, the clearer a residue was left. She let go and allowed impressions to come to her...
Wollheim turned and saw her concentrating. "You all right there, little lady?"
She raised her head and met his gaze. "This was done without anger or fear. The man was killed before he expected anything. The killers were acting not out of hatred but from, well... a sense of duty."
"And how would you know that?" demanded the inspector.
"No use explaining. Larry, they were not American. They thought in Spanish, like Mexican but with a lot of different underlying concepts. At least three of them. That's all I picked up."
"It's absolutely more useful than the meager pickings I've been able to discover," he said. "Resplendent work, Cindy. You should automatically be dispatched to all crime scenes." Taper stepped away from the statue and moved around the room, checking out the various exhibits. "Humph. I certainly don't agree with their whimsical dating system. Exemplary collection, though. Inspector. You observe this baton with the shards of rock sticking out of it?"
"Yeah?" said Wollheim, "What about it?"
"That's a deadly weapon. Those slivers of mica are sharper than mere broken glass. One friendly swipe with that would gut a man wide open. The Chiminecs did not possess any metal harder than copper but they found other ways to fight." The Silver Skull leaned over the glass-topped cabinet. "Ah, here's a basalt orb on a deerhide strap. Visualize that on a trajectory with your cranium."
"Wait, wait." The inspector lifted his open hands in dismay. "Where are you guys going with this idea? You're not going to tell me some of these... these Chiminec Indians came to Manhattan to make a sacrifice?"
Taper grinned a bit sheepishly. "Well... more likely their modern descendants, of course. All right then. Cindy, are you done?"
"Yeah. I've picked up everything I can. Inspector, you aren't taking us seriously. You think we're amateurs just getting in the way. But listen, I guarantee we will convince you." She took a deep breath and turned to Taper. "Let's report back, Larry."
The two KDF members thanked Wollheim for his co-operation and left the museum. Out on 73rd Street, it was a gloomy November day with a wind starting to pick up. "Let's walk around a little," Cindy said. "I'm picking up something."
As they strolled around the block, Larry Taper surreptitiously watched the blonde telepath. She was sure hot, with that face and that figure, but he had seen right away her only interest was in Jeremy Bane. That Bane seemed oblivious to Cindy's offers made Taper think the man was just clueless. Taper said, "Say, how come you didn't demonstrate your telepathy to the inspector so he takes you seriously?"
"Ah, I'm tired of doing tricks like a trained dog," she grumbled. "He'll see soon enough. Wait. We're being watched by one of them. He's CLOSE!"
Taper whirled around just as a short wide man in white slacks and a loud silk shirt ran right at him. The man's right hand went back up behind his own head, then plunged forward with an odd-looking knife in it straight for Taper's face. Something inexplicable happened in the next split-second. On Taper's upraised left arm, a round metal shield suddenly appeared with a shimmer of blue light and the stone knife smacked short against it. As that obsidian blade snapped and the attacker was dumbfounded, the Silver Skull cracked a hard right hook to the side of the man's face. The impact sounded crisp and satisfying. The man reeled to one side and Taper started to move toward him for the follow-up but abruptly spun back and leaped in front of Cindy Brunner, raising his shield to cover both of them.
An automatic pistol blasted five shots at close range, the slugs ricocheting away off the round shield. Taper crouched low, protecting as much of Cindy and himself as he could. A second later, they heard a car door slam and an engine roar. Taper straightened to see a white Mercury Marquis at least ten years old peel out and go up the street. Too late to make out the plates.
"You okay?" he asked the telepath. As he lowered his arm, the shield was gone.
"Fine, fine. Thanks for the save. I didn't see the guy with the gun in time, I'm afraid." Cindy exhaled sharply. "Whew. Man! Let's get back to headquarters and go after these jerks!"
IV.
Jeremy Bane slowly closed FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, got up and stretched. Sitting still and reading was difficult for him. His hyperactive metabolism usually kept him on the go, but this reading had been worth it. These murders could be the beginning of something very big and ominous. He scowled down at the priceless book that was the accumulation of sixty years of research by Kenneth Dred.
In 1927, New Orleans saw a rash of gruesome murders where the victims had been neatly skinned, as was happening now. There were six deaths before they stopped as mysteriously as they had started, and the police never did find anything of value. It was an Alchemist named Dr Vitarius who had come to New Orleans and tracked down an ancient cult made up of direct descendants of the Chiminecs... somehow the tribe had kept its elite allegedly purebreds all these hundreds of years. Vitarius had mentioned something about "suits of skin" that gave the Chiminecs godlike powers. Their goal was nothing less than bringing about "the Seventh Kingdom," a new age where Humans would be swept off the Earth and animals regained their dominance. This was to be accomplished by the Chiminecs using their abilities to unleash worldwide disasters all at once. Volcanoes, tsunami, earthquakes, blizzards and hurricanes, all on the same day. This would, in their phrase, "shake the stars loose" and bring about the new age, the Seventh Kingdom that no living person would see.
Vitarius had broken the cult at the last minute. He seemed to have been a formidable opponent, with his many potions and arcane knowledge. None of the Chiminecs involved survived and the cult had not been heard from again.
Until now.
The Dire Wolf carefully replaced FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE to its place on the shelf. As soon as there was time, he needed to photograph each page and store the negatives safely. All that information, not available anywhere else, and only this single copy existed. Then he took the Link from his belt and started making calls while pacing back and forth. He was leaving a message with Michael Hawk's partner Donna Worth when Cindy stuck her head in the door.
"Hey there!" she blurted. "The game is afoot! We got shot at and nearly stabbed and this case hasn't even really gotten underway yet!"
Bane gestured to the table as Taper entered behind the blonde telepath. "Let's all get seated and fill each other in." The next few minutes were filled with stories being exchanged and questions asked, until finally the Dire Wolf leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "So. As far as we know, only three skinnings have been done so far. According to Mr Dred's report, the Chiminecs need six, so we have time to track them down."
"That agenda about causing the apocalypse," Taper added grimly, "might not be empty hyperbole. There's reason to believe that the ancient Chiminecs had sorcerous powers. One inscription apparently claims their king caused an earthquake to swallow an enemy tribe... and archeologists found evidence of such a quake, along with hundreds of buried bodies under a hundred feet of earth. This, in an area where earthquakes are geologically extremely unlikely. Their threat to 'shake the stars' might have some validity to it."
"I'm taking it seriously. Just before you two returned, I called all our members and told them to report." Bane placed his hands flat on the table and got to his feet. "The only ones I talked to directly are Ted and Mike, and they will both be here later. Ted gets off-duty at Midtown General at six. Mike is in Connecticut, he says he'll be here by eight tonight. I couldn't reach Khang and I left a message for Len. Hopefully we can get our team assembled for this."
Cindy had been listening and drumming her fingers. "Yo, Jeremy, maybe you've already thought of this. But! Shouldn't we go check out the apartment where that woman was skinned? You know, looking for clues?"
"Yes. That will be our next move." Just as he said the last word, the phone by the door rang and Cindy, who was sitting closest, sang out, "Got it!" She hopped over and answered in an overly mellow voice, "Good afternoon, Kenneth Dred Foundation, can I help you? Oh, HI inspector? Really? Just now. I see. Well, you'll want to speak with our captain." She pressed a hand over the mouthpiece. "It's Wollheim. Another skinning."
Bane took the phone and exchanged brief words, then hung up. He turned to his partners. "Also on Staten Island. A college student. He says the area is packed with reporters. I told him we're on our way. Let's roll." With that, he simply turned and headed for the door without seeing if Cindy and Taper were following.
IV.
For some reason, Bane went to Staten Island by using the Midtown Tunnel and then driving down through Brooklyn. This seemed a little roundabout to Cindy but she hadn't asked about it yet. They were in the new Chevy Malibu with Bane behind the wheel, Cindy riding shotgun and Taper in the back. So far, Slade had not modified the car beyond adding some armor panels to the body and replacing all the windows with Trom acrylic resin more impenetrable than the best bulletproof glass.
As they went through Staten Island, Bane abruptly pulled into a small apartment complex with its own parking lot. "Here," he said. "Number 17. Cindy, I want you to check out the scene and get some mental impressions. There may still be a cop on duty. If you want, question a neighbor or two. You can read what they're really thinking."
As she got out of her door, the little blonde paused. "You're coming back for me, right?"
"As soon as we can. But you're on the KDF expense account. If you have to, you can take a taxi back to headquarters."
She seemed dubious. "All right. But you better not forget about me," she said as she turned away. Taper changed into the front passenger seat, Bane turned the car around and headed back out into traffic.
As they headed down pleasant clean streets with a tree on every sidewalk, Taper asked, "No apprehension about leaving a winsome morsel like that by herself?"
"Cindy?" Bane snorted. "She's one of the most dangerous of all KDF members. She can burn out the brain of anyone attacking her. I saw another telepath do that just a few months ago, and Katherine was nowhere near as powerful as Cindy."
"Katherine?"
Bane gave him a look. "A telepath Mr Dred was training. We worked together for a while. Listen, Larry. I understand that you can use the Skull helmet to tap into the memories of previous wearers. Have you done that?"
"Absolutely," Taper said. "But it's not a euphoric experience. There is some cognitive dissonance when sorting out the memories and deciphering which are relevant to the matter at hand. To be honest, it's too tempting to spend the whole day delving into the history of the previous avatars of the Silver Skull rather than getting anything accomplished."
"Got it. I was hoping you could use that power to dig up first hand information about enemies we don't know much about... these Chiminecs, for example." Bane stopped at a red light and turned to look at Taper. "But nothing is ever as easy as it seems."
"Indubitably not," Taper answered. "In my laughably so-called spare time, I try to exhumate memories in the helmet but it's time-consuming."
The Dire Wolf turned left, and starting peering at street signs. "I don't understand some of the words you use, Larry. I didn't have much school."
"Ah. Well, both my parents were teachers, so I suppose I grew up encouraged to develop a muscular vocabulary. I will endeavor to keep it reasonable."
"Thanks. Here we are, Franklin Avenue. This is out of my usual territory. Nice neighborhood." Three police cars with flashing lights stood in front of a two-story white frame house with a well-kept yard and a porch that held a bench hanging from metal chains. Bane parked behind the last police car and got out, with Taper beside him. "This makes three skins," he told the anthropologists. "They're working fast."
Eight reporters, three of them women, stood outside on the sidewalk, holding notepads or shouldering bulky movie cameras. As the two KDF members broke their ranks, the cameramen started filming them. Bane did not explain they had just ruined any footage already shot. The protective Eldar talisman he wore, as well as his ensorcelled silver daggers, fogged any film within reach. So far, no pictures of him had ever seen print.
An officer on the porch checked their IDs and waved them in. "Inspector Wollheim gave me a description of you guys," he explained. Bane thanked him and went through the door with the Silver Skull close behind.
"Ah, here's our experts on weirdness," Wollheim said as he saw them. "Seriously. Nobody on the force has seen anything like this. Come on upstairs and get an eyeful." With the careful tread of a man aware of middle age, Wollheim trudged up the steps to the second floor where another officer stood sentry duty in front of an open door. The inspector led them just inside and warned, "Don't go more than a step or two forward. The forensics boys are on their way."
The body was stretched out on another tarp, again neatly skinned and with little blood anywhere. It seemed to be that of a thin young man. Bane peered into the room and asked, "Who was he?"
"College student, name of Chad Myerson," said the inspector. "Rented rooms here with two other boys. Both of them got back here after morning classes and, as you might guess, did not expect to find Chad in this condition. I figure the killers must have got in here between seven, when the roommates left, and two-thirty, but that means they are fast little buggers..."
Something was bothering Larry Taper. It was almost like he could a suspicious noise in the distance or sense a storm was going to break. He had felt this before. Tapping Bane on the arm, he muttered, "I'll be right back," and took off from the room. The Dire Wolf gave him a curious look but said nothing.
Galloping down the stairs and out the front door, the Silver Skull rushed through the reporters without even hearing their questions. He was answering a summons he felt rather than heard. Taper turned right and ran down the block, and this headlong approach startled a short dark man in a bright silk shirt and white pants. The man gave a start and fled in the opposite direction. Still not knowing why, Taper pursued him. It was no contest. Even before Tel Shai membership, three years as the Silver Skull had hardened him to Olympic levels. In a few steps, Taper body-slammed the fleeing man and they both tumbled to the sidewalk.
The Skull was up first, seizing the man by the shirt to haul him up. But he stopped short and froze into position. Parked by the curb was a beat-up Mercury, and two of the dark men inside it were pointing guns at him. As he slowly raised his hands, Taper saw the man on the sidewalk tug a .22 target pistol from a pants pocket and aim it as he struggled to his feet. Now that he got a good look, Taper could see the Chiminec ancestry in the gunman. At first he might seen Mexican, but the hooked nose and prognathous jaw were from an older background. The Chiminec gestured with the gun toward the car.
Taper hesitated only a second. True, he could summon the armor and uniform of the Silver Skull to appear on his body in an instant and once armed with the sword and shield, he felt confident he could handle these three. But being taken captive often led to major revelations about an enemy. It was dangerous to the point of recklessness, true. Larry Taper smiled reassuringly and obliged them by getting into the back seat, sliding over to let the man he had tackled get in and slam the door. Gunning the motor, the Chiminecs roared off.
V.
Bane was discussing with Wollheim how the killers could have worked undisturbed during the tedious process of skinning a full-grown man when the cop from the front door allowed a reporter in. This was a flustered middle-aged man who needed a haircut, a new suit and some sleep but not in that order. "Hey mister! Your buddy just got kidnapped at gunpoint!"
The Dire Wolf stepped closer and the look in his pale eyes made the reporter cringe. "The man who came here with me?"
"Yeah. He started chasing this little Spanish guy, they hit the ground and then two more border-jumpers pulled guns on him and got him in a car. Looked like a Mercury. Away they went. I figured you might want to know."
"You figured right. Thank you." Bane turned to Wollheim, "I'll be in touch."
"Hold it. How about an APB, get a dragnet going..."
"No thanks," Bane snapped as he headed for the door. "The KDF takes care of its own." He plunged down the stairs almost in a single bound, dove through the reporters and knocked one of them down, and was in his car before they could gather their wits. The Chevy wheeled out and tore down the street as if the speed limit was just a suggestion.
At the first red light, Bane unclipped the Link from his belt and activated its screen. After a few seconds, he decided he had better pull over and went into a supermarket parking lot. He was still learning all the uses of the Link, the Trom device mostly meant for communication but with a thousand applications. After a few minutes, he pulled up a grid of thin green lines with a single red blip proceeding up one line. Taper's signal. He had managed to start sending his tracer as he was being taken. Bane smiled thinly. Now he had a trail to follow. He swung the car around and headed in the direction opposite to the one he had been going.
After a few miles, he was near the apartment building where he had left Cindy. He pulled into its parking lot and she ran full-tilt to jump into the passenger seat and slam the door behind her. "I felt your agitation a few minutes ago," she said. "It's Larry... he's not hurt. No, he's... a captive?"
"You got that right," Bane answered. "And knowing our Silver Skull, he let them take him prisoner so he can lead us to their base. This is the showdown already." He handed his Link to the telepath, "Here. Let me know how we're doing."
"Getting warmer," she said as if playing a childhood game. "The blip has stopped. It's eight streets ahead. Almost there." Cindy's head snapped up and her dark blue eyes narrowed. "I can feel them now. Larry's okay. There are... eight of the bad guys. Very determined, focused. Fanatics. The leader is a megalomaniac for sure. Right there, Jeremy, that house with aluminum siding."
The Dire Wolf saw the building she indicated, went up another block and eased up to park behind a black Dodge Ram. "Normally I would want to attack late at night, but that's not an option this time. So three in the afternoon it is. Checked your dart gun?"
"Before we left." She reached under her sweatshirt in the back and adjusted the air-propelled weapon. "I can contact Larry's mind but he's calm and confident, maybe I would just throw him off-balance by contact."
"I'm going to need you to divert attention from us," Bane told her. "Any of them hear or see us, you nudge their brains so they look the other way. At least as long as you can. Got it?"
"Sure, no problem." She opened her door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. A car went by every few minutes, but no one was standing outside. The wind was just cold enough to discourage people from being on their porches or in their yards. Cindy came around as Bane finished doing a rundown on his own weapons. Locking the car, he tugged beneath his sleeves to loosen the silver daggers on his forearms, then starting marching briskly across the street.
The house they sought was second from the end of the block. It had its own short driveway that ended with an aluminum carport beneath which sat a white Mercury Marquis and a red Chrysler, both at least a decade old and showing some wear. The three-story house had aluminum siding, a front porch and a storage shed in the backyard. Standing on the front porch with folded arms was a guard, but he was staring resolutely away from them as they approached. This was Cindy's doing. She was implanting in his awareness the strong feeling that something significant was coming from the opposite direction. Bane and Cindy got right up to the front of the house without the guard being aware of them.
Standing not twenty feet away, the Dire Wolf pulled his dartgun and snapped off a shot. The air-propelled weapon made a soft coughing noise as it fired a heavy metal dart which slid into the side of the Chiminec's neck. Those darts were painful when they hit, and that sudden jab was followed immediately by disorientation. Both effects distracted the victim until unconsciousness followed a few seconds later. As the guard collapsed in a heap on the porch, Bane turned to Cindy. "We're good," she said. "Everyone is downstairs."
Without a word, they stepped past the stunned guard, who had at least an hour of drugged slumber ahead of him, and opened the front door. Immediately the sickly-sweet odor of something dead reached them. The living room was piled with stacks of clothing and a few half-empty plates of beans sitting on chairs. To their right were narrow stairs leading upward, beyond that was a plain white-painted door left ajar. The stench was coming from that door.
Bane glanced at Cindy again to make sure she was ready. The little blonde had drawn her own dartgun and was holding it in front of her. She nodded to him and they went through the door, down wooden steps into the basement that stank of death.
VI.
Taking up the whole floor area of the house above it, the basement was not furnished but had floor and walls of bare stone, lit by two naked light bulbs in the ceiling. In one corner was a hot water heater and fuse box, but the rest had been given over to the cult. On a wooden stand sat a stone idol of Ximnimatul the size of a child's doll, smeared completely with blood that had turned dark and sticky. Two candles burned on either side of the bloodthirsty god. Tarps on the floor held the gruesome skins of two human beings, laid out to dry and be prepared. They had been painstakingly removed and even the faces would have been recognizable to anyone who had known the victims in life.
Four of the Chiminec men and one woman were standing around one of their own. Short, squat and muscular, the dark-skinned black-haired people resembled Mexicans at first but their faces were so similar they seemed like members of a single family. Away from the public eye, they had discarded American clothing and wore only cloth loincloths and high-laced sandals. The woman and one of them had coarse ponchos over their bodies.
Standing behind Larry Taper, two more of the Chiminecs still aimed their pistols at him from nearly pointblank range. He was not paying them any mind. Taper's full attention was on the grisly figure in front of him. Taller than the Chiminecs, well over six feet, this man wore the skin of one of the victims like a costume. It had been sewn in place over his body with rawhide thongs, fitting snugly. Only the man's head was still exposed. A proud leonine head with long white hair and a white handlebar mustache, the man's bright green eyes shone in the light.
"Come on now," Taper said calmly. "Maybe you're the grandson of the original Arthur Somerset. That much I could believe."
"Fool! Why do you doubt me?" came the furious reply. "I tell you I am Arthur Somerset, kept vital and strong beyond my natural span. The great god Ximnimatul rewards his faithful. I have been high priest of the god for eighty years now and you...You have come to serve our lord, whether you know it or not."
"What, with my skin?"
"Yes." Somerset yanked the gruesome skin of the victim's head down over his face and tugged it into place. Through the empty eyeholes of the dead hide, green madness gleamed. "Three more ceremonial suits and we may begin our vengeance. The world will be cleansed of unbelievers. Every volcano will erupt at the same time, earthquakes and hurricanes will lay cities to ruin, tornadoes will be thick as locusts. It will be the apocalypse you devils so richly deserve! We will shake the stars loose from the heavens to rain down like hailstones the size of mountains."
"Well, I have a better idea," Taper said. "To you, I offer what the Silver Skull has always offered... justice!" As he spoke, the air around him flickered and Taper was abruptly wearing a black leather fighting suit, with a silver helmet crafted in the semblance of a grim unsmiling human skull. On his left arm was a round shield and his right hand held a straight sword with a three-foot blade, Chalcemar.
The startling transformation took the Chiminecs completely off-guard. The Silver Skull whirled and drove his sword half its length into the nearer man's chest, tugged it free and smashed the hilt down viciously on the head of the other gunman. Both Chiminecs fell to the cellar floor, but the man who had been pierced was not dead. No wound showed on his body. Chalcemar was ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin to stun without slaying.
The Silver Skull straightened and turned back to Arthur Somerset. "How do you like.." he began but stopped in mid-sentence. Somerset was surrounded by a shimmering aura of lurid red light. The gralic force moved over his body like cold fire, casting new shadows in that cellar. Somerset held up his open hand and red flame crackled around it as if ready to strike. Taper raised his shield to cover his body just as a gralic bolt blasted against it and drove him back to stumble and fall. A second,stronger bolt detonated and played over the ancient shield but could not pierce it. The Skull doggedly got to his feet, sword still in hand.
"Is that all you have?" he asked derisively, but it was a mistake to stand there instead of attacking. All the Chiminecs piled on him from behind, two men grabbing an arm apiece and pulling them out straight, a third man seizing his feet and yanking them up behind him. The woman brought a club with a round wooden head strapped to its end and beat on his helmet with all her strength. He was not harmed but the blows did daze him enough that Somerset could pry the sword from the black-gloved hand.
"Hold him, my children," gloated Somerset. "Do not let your grip slacken. Tuitalcan! Motunazu! Put on your flesh suits, we will have a sacrifice this very night to our lord. The blood of this unbeliever will make Ximnimatul look on us with favor."
One man and one woman of the cult hastened to obey. The skins of the victims had been fitted with rawhide straps so they could be pulled on like horrible clothing. As Tuitalcan and Motunazu were almost clad, a cold voice came from the stairs to the cellar, saying, "All right, boys, the party's over!"
All heads swung to see a man in black and a small blonde woman jump down to the stone floor. Both pointed odd clunky pistols that made no noise other than a soft cough, and three members of the Chiminec clan slapped at their arms or legs where they felt the sting of metal darts. The Chiminecs were immediately confused by the anesthetic injection, and a few seconds later, they sagged to the floor.
Taper convulsed wildly and broke loose, getting on his feet. He backhanded the nearest Chiminec with a fist that had metal knuckle guards under the glove, and the native spun halfway around with blood spraying from his mouth. Even as that man dropped backwards to the floor, the Silver Skull met the other Chiminec who had been holding him with a savage left cross that connected perfectly. The man grunted and reeled backward to fall and move feebly, unable to recover. Taper held out his empty hand and the sword Chalcemar appeared in it. His voice was made hollow by the silver helmet as he said, "Never more gratified to see my friends."
Before the rout could continue, red lightning crashed in that cellar with startling brightness that left after-images on everyone's eyes. Thunder deafened them as it echoed back and forth in the enclosed space and all three KDF members were sent rolling across the floor as if hit by high-pressure fire hoses. Smoke rose from their clothing.
Arthur Somerset cackled wildly, holding up his hands over which gralic force danced. "Perfect! Perfect! The three skins we need! The Seventh Kingdom will be inaugurated by dawn. We will cleanse the earth and shake the stars."
"You can try," growled Bane. Protected to an extent by the Eldar talisman hung around his neck, he shook off the effects of that blast and leaped across the cellar too quickly to be evaded, tackling Somerset and bringing them down to the cold damp floor. Bane pinned the cult leader down with one hand, drawing a silver dagger with the other. But he did not simply stab Somerset as might be expected. Quickly, deftly, he sliced the straps and roughly tore the skin suit off the man, flinging the gruesome sections in all directions. Somerset tried to get up and received a vicious elbow to the center of the chest that drove all the wind out of him.
Finally, with Arthur Somerset stripped down to loincloth, Bane gave him a hard left cross to the jaw just to keep the man pacified. The Dire Wolf stood up and glared around the cellar to see all of the other Chiminecs lying senseless. Tuitalcan and Motunazu had not managed to get enough of the skin suits on them to gain gralic powers.
Grinning like an imp, Cindy Brunner spun the dart gun by its trigger guard around her index finger. She had obviously been practicing. As she returned it to its holster in the small of her back, tugging the sweatshirt down to conceal it, she said, "Notice I put down more of the bad guys than either of you?"
"Yep, very impressive," Bane said. "Larry, nice work letting yourself get captured. It saved us a few days or weeks trying to track these nuts down."
Taper unbuckled the Skull helmet and raised it from his head. "I don't think I'll venture that strategy again, captain. I did not exactly retain the upper hand."
The Dire Wolf drew his two knights closer and said, "I vote we turn these jokers over the NYPD. None of them are in the country legally. They can be charged with three counts of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit murder, desecration of a corpse, breaking and entry, the list goes on. Let's give Inspector Wollheim the credit for this whole affair. It'll make him appreciate us more the next time some Midnight War business comes up." Bane hesitated. "Although I don't know what they'll make of Somerset there being a hundred and sixty and looking thirty. Probably decide he's Somerset's grandson or something."
Cindy sighed. "So. Our names not in the paper? I won't be interviewed on 60 MINUTES? No best-selling book by me, SKINNED GODS? Too bad. It's like no one will ever know what we did."
"If it's any comfort," Taper told her blithely, "Ximnimatul will know."
7/1/2014
11/22-11/24/1979
I.
A canvas sheet had been hung over the doorway that had a sign CHIMINEC ROOM, and a uniformed police officer stood in front of it with folded arms. Jeremy Bane leaped up the marble stairs and headed toward that doorway with long quick strides. He was a gaunt young man only a few years over twenty, dressed all in black, with short dark hair and intense pale grey eyes. "Wollheim's expecting me," he said.
The cop still asked to see ID and the Dire Wolf grudgingly complied. Satisfied, the man handed the card case back and said, "I was told to be careful. Go on in, the Inspector's on the scene." He pulled back a side of the canvas and Bane ducked his head as he went through.
The Arthur Somerset Museum of the Americas was a ten-story granite building on 73rd Street, overlooking Central Park. More than a century old, it had been founded by a famous explorer and treasure hunter who had spent his final years acquiring artifacts of pre-Columbian cultures. Bane walked into what the sign had said was the Chiminec Room and found himself in a high ceilinged space crammed with numerous glass-fronted cases holding everything from wooden clubs to mosaic skulls to colorful ponchos. Morning sunlight from tall narrow windows fell on the most impressive exhibit, a life-size statue of a pot-bellied man sitting cross-legged, wearing an elaborate headdress and with both hands raised, palms up.
The bloodied corpse lay on a tarp in front of this statue.
Bane came to a sudden stop. He had not known of this. The phone call to KDF headquarters had just asked him to hurry here without explanation. He stepped closer and took a good appraising look.
Turning to face the young man, Inspector Daniel Wollheim sighed. He was a year past normal retirement age and could not say why he stayed on. Wollheim's hairline had moved up to the top of his head and his glasses got thicker every year. He hitched up his belt and gestured with a thumb at the corpse. "Not a pretty sight." Standing a few feet behind the inspector, a uniformed officer nodded in agreement.
"I'll go along with that," the Dire Wolf said. "Seems like he has been skinned. Carefully, too. Have you identified him?"
"Yep. Clothes are over there, neatly folded, including his wallet. Charles Barclay, 62, deputy curator of this museum. He was here late last night, working on a new exhibit. From what the medical examiner determined, at some point around midnight, Barclay was killed by trauma to the back of the head caused by a blunt instrument at least four inches across. He was stripped, placed on this tarp and then, well, his skin was removed by someone with considerable skill. No sign of any of the skin, by the way."
Bane knelt over the corpse, careful not to touch it but getting extremely close. "Not that much blood, but then he was dead when they worked on him. What's the statue?"
"Huh? The statue? Beats me. The tag on it says, 'Xinimatul.' Why?" Wollheim asked.
"I don't know, maybe this guy was a sacrifice. I read somewhere about the Aztecs doing this sort of thing." The Dire Wolf straightened up and scrutinized the statue. "Maybe some revival of the ancient religion, it's happened before. No blood on Xinimatul here, though."
"Ah, I think you're off on that, Bane," Wollheim scoffed. "Listen. It hasn't hit the papers yet, but this is actually the second skinned body. The first was a woman, Meg Waterston. She was found two days ago in her apartment on Staten Island. Nowhere near a heathen idol. All her skin missing."
Wollheim glanced over at the cop standing nearby, but didn't lower his voice. "This is why you got called in, son. I miss Kenneth Dred. I worked with the old guy for eleven years, he always cleared up bizarre deaths like this in record time."
"I'm carrying on his work," Bane answered sharply. "He trained me for this. You should know, you've seen me on the job."
"Oh, you're good but let's be honest, you're still green." Wollheim smiled reassuringly, as if to say no offense was intended. "What's this I hear about you starting some sort of agency to investigate weird stuff like this?"
Bane came as close to smiling as he ever did. "The Kenneth Dred Foundation. Six impressive people... you'd recognize one of them. Michael Hawk."
"Wait, you got Michael Hawk working with you? I AM impressed." Wollheim raised a hand with the thumb up, then turned back to the gruesome body on the floor. "Not much to go on here. Barclay was discovered at seven-forty-five this morning when the museum secretary came in to start the day. She freaked out, almost fell down the stairs and called NYPD. Naturally, my bosses sent me. I'm stuck now with horrifying murders and supernatural phenomena because I started bringing the cases to Kenneth Dred and he solved them. So now I'm bringing them to you."
The Dire Wolf started pacing around the room, taking everything in. "How'd the killer get in, inspector?"
"Jimmied a first floor window, nothing clever. The side door was left unlocked, so they got out that way. This place had an old alarm system that anyone could cut."
Standing with hands on hips, Bane glared up at the statue of the Chiminec god with suspicion. "Hmm. This all seems familiar. Something I read in Mr Dred's files. Let me go do some research and I'll contact you later."
"If you say so," Wollheim said. "But we have two grisly murders here to be cleared up."
Bane scowled as he headed for the blocked-off door. "There are going to be more. I expect a total of six skinned victims if we can't stop the lunatic responsible." He ducked through the canvas over the doorway and was gone.
II.
Twenty minutes later, the Dire Wolf entered the front hall of the HQ building and closed the door behind him. To his left was the reception room, to his right the new medical ward which was still being equipped. Directly ahead was the wide staircase going up, and on its lowest step stood a pretty young blonde in white sneakers, old jeans and a Navy blue sweatshirt that said SUNY NEW PALTZ.
A year younger than Bane himself, Cindy Brunner was an inch over five feet tall and just under one hundred pounds, with breasts a little large for her thin frame. She had dark blonde hair which hung down her back and large blue eyes in an inquisitive, lightly freckled face. "I felt your mind approaching," she said. "Boy, you're excited. New case?"
Bane knew she could have pulled the information directly from his mind, but as policy Cindy kept her telepathic contact to just the very surface so her teammates could keep some privacy. It had been intensely annoying to him at first, he was secretive by nature, but to his own surprise, he had quickly gotten used to it. Now he found he rather liked having her mind being in light touch with his when they were both in proximity.
"Yes," he said. "Two murders so far, with the victims literally skinned. I think I read about something similar in the files. Is Larry in the building?"
"He actually is. He came in to get a workout early this morning and now he's up in his room on the third floor. You want me to give him the summons?"
He hesitated. "I'll call him on the house phone. He doesn't seem to be used to telepathy yet. Come on, we have to do some research." Going past her, Bane trotted up the stairs to the second floor. Cindy gave him a quizzical look, then followed. They entered the conference room with its long oak table surrounded by a dozen chairs. Along one wall was a row of four green metal filing cabinets, most of which were empty, and beyond that a chest-high book case packed with reference volumes.
Bane went directly to the bookcase and picked up a thick volume from its top shelf. This was a journal built so it could be unfastened and new pages inserted, or existing pages rearranged in new order. On the front cover in white ink on the black binding was FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE in neat precise handwriting and the signature beneath that, KENNETH DRED. This was the compendium written by Dred himself of what he had learned during his half-century in the Midnight War.
The Dire Wolf took the journal over to the table and pulled out his chair at the head, dropping down and starting to thumb through the pages. FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE was in more or less alphabetical order by subject but there was no index and finding something specific took time. He began searching.
Standing at his shoulder, Cindy said, "Hey, Jeremy! You have something for me to do or should I just watch you?"
"What?" he glanced up. "Oh. Call Larry to come down here, okay? Who else is here at the moment?"
"Just the three of us. Ted is supposed to come by later and Khang said he would be back tonight." She went over to the wall phone, pressed 5 and then the pound sign to get Room 5 on the floor which held the member's quarters. "Hi. Larry, it's me. Head down to the conference room, our captain is starting a new case. Seeya."
"We need to get our information organized," Bane growled as he kept going through the pages. "Thousands of old books in this building and none of them are in any kind of order."
Cindy leaned up against him, one hand across his shoulders. The gesture was wasted. Bane had not shown the slightest interest in her, sexual or romantic or just friendliness, and she was getting perplexed. She knew she was good-looking and had expected him to start pursuit by now. "I have an idea, Jeremy."
He looked up at her, snapping the book shut for the moment. "Go ahead."
"This would take years. The halls are lined with bookcases on every floor and the library room itself is packed. But we could start making lists and sorting out the books a little each day. I'm a good typist." She rubbed his shoulder. "Maybe a big clipboard to hold the lists."
"You've got lots of good ideas," he said.
"Looked like you were going to smile there for a second," Cindy told him. They both turned as Taper appeared in the doorway.
At thirty-one, Dr Lawrence Taper had been an obscure anthropology professor at a respectable but unremarkable university. He had two published books and several articles in scholarly journals and had seemed headed for a quiet if comfortable career. Then he had been chosen by the Silver Skull armor and thrown into a rollercoaster life of excitement and terror. Now, three years later, after resigning his position at the university, he was employed at the HCE Project in New Mexico under Leonard Slade. Exactly what he did there had never been made clear, nor why a medical research facility would need an anthropologist.
Taper stepped into the room and greeted Bane and Cindy with a reserved smile. He was average in height and build, with short brown hair and a pleasant face without distinction. Usually, he had the habit of wearing a black suit and tie, and today he had left the collar of the white dress shirt open. "Some agitation in the situation, compadres?"
"Oh yes," Bane answered. He launched into a summary of what had happened that morning, then added he seemed to remember something about similar practices with mystic cults but hadn't been able to find confirmation yet. "I was hoping you had information?"
"Maybe a smidgen," said Taper as he crossed over to take a seat facing Bane across the table. "My area of expertise was the European megalithic cultures, you know, but I've read a bit about indigenous Mexican and Central American peoples. Not nearly enough is known about the Chiminecs. They were a prolific tribe who flourished before the Aztecs and only two of their sites have been found. The only thing that really distinguishes them from other pre-Columbian tribes of that area was their detailed religious carvings. One monument shows a priest with the god Xinimatul standing directly behind him, one hand on the mortal's shoulder, and solar rays being emitted from both. That's about all I remember offhand, sorry."
"The statue at the museum was called Xinimatul," Bane told him. "Big fat guy with a funny hat."
Taper laughed at the description. "Xinimatul was a god of new life and renewal. He required unsavory annual rituals that seemed to involve human sacrifice and flaying of the victims."
Standing behind Bane, Cindy broke in, "Flaying? So it's no coincidence that someone was skinned right in front of the statue, then."
"I wouldn't give credence to it being coincidence. If expedient, I'd like to ambulate over to this Somerset museum and observe for myself. What's your agenda, captain?"
Bane frowned. "Right now, I'm just looking for more information. And waiting to hear from Wollheim if he turns up anything." He placed his hand on FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. "I need to make an index for this thing..."
"Well, we have our Links if you wish communication," Taper said. "I'll commandeer a taxi and report if I see anything that might lead us to the perpetrators."
"Okay, Larry. Good luck."
"Wait." Cindy came around the table abruptly. "I'll go with you. I'm not doing anything useful here. Maybe my powers can pick up something." She glanced down at Bane. "If that's okay with you, Jeremy?"
"Sure, why not? I'll phone Inspector Wollheim and ask him to have you two admitted. The museum is closed for the next few days." The Dire Wolf stood up and headed over to the wall phone. "And be careful, both of you. This might just a lone maniac or it could be something more dangerous."
"Thanks for caring," Cindy said over one shoulder as she tugged Taper through the door. She gave Bane a reproachful glare that went unnoticed.
III.
A uniformed officer let them into the Arthur Somerset Museum and locked the front door again. Wollheim was there to meet them, obviously irritated at the whole situation.
"Your leader called here and asked if you two could poke around. I suppose. As long as I'm letting one civilian poke around a homicide, why not a couple more? The body has been taken away, and tomorrow all the blood will be scrubbed out of the floor and the exhibits moved around a little. So now's the last chance to do some detective work." He studied them critically. "I don't know you kids from Adam, how about some IDs?"
Taper handed over his wallet, open to his driver's license. "Dr Lawrence Taper, formerly of Wingate University. I have my PhD in ancient cultures. Maybe I can help."
As Wollheim gave the wallet back, he turned suspiciously to the little blonde who gave him a disarming smile. "Cynthia Lee Brunner of Bearsville, New York," she said. "I'm not a professor but sometimes I'm useful."
"I bet," he muttered but with a more relaxed attitude. "Well, let's go to the scene." Wollheim led them up the marble staircase to the second floor and ushered them into the Chiminec Room. The corpse was gone and the tarp as well.
Taper went directly over to examine the huge granite statue. "Interesting. Mostly finished with sand glued to animal hide. Circa 960 BC, they think? Well, I'd say a bit later than that. Look, do you see the hollow spots in his hands?"
"Yes, so what?" Wollheim snorted.
"That was to hold the blood from a sacrifice. Xinimatul was not a pleasant deity to have to deal with. Those feathers in his headdress are odd, too. I can't place them." Taper got his face right next to the unlovely statue and started talking about water erosion on the features. Unless he consciously reined himself in, he had a tendency to start using large technical words and phrases, usually leaving everyone mildly baffled.
Cindy Brunner had drawn back a few steps, lowered her head and almost closed her eyes. Under the tutelage of Kenneth Dred, she had learned different applications for her powers. Now she was trying to pick up on psychic residue in that room. The stronger the emotions that had last been felt there, the clearer a residue was left. She let go and allowed impressions to come to her...
Wollheim turned and saw her concentrating. "You all right there, little lady?"
She raised her head and met his gaze. "This was done without anger or fear. The man was killed before he expected anything. The killers were acting not out of hatred but from, well... a sense of duty."
"And how would you know that?" demanded the inspector.
"No use explaining. Larry, they were not American. They thought in Spanish, like Mexican but with a lot of different underlying concepts. At least three of them. That's all I picked up."
"It's absolutely more useful than the meager pickings I've been able to discover," he said. "Resplendent work, Cindy. You should automatically be dispatched to all crime scenes." Taper stepped away from the statue and moved around the room, checking out the various exhibits. "Humph. I certainly don't agree with their whimsical dating system. Exemplary collection, though. Inspector. You observe this baton with the shards of rock sticking out of it?"
"Yeah?" said Wollheim, "What about it?"
"That's a deadly weapon. Those slivers of mica are sharper than mere broken glass. One friendly swipe with that would gut a man wide open. The Chiminecs did not possess any metal harder than copper but they found other ways to fight." The Silver Skull leaned over the glass-topped cabinet. "Ah, here's a basalt orb on a deerhide strap. Visualize that on a trajectory with your cranium."
"Wait, wait." The inspector lifted his open hands in dismay. "Where are you guys going with this idea? You're not going to tell me some of these... these Chiminec Indians came to Manhattan to make a sacrifice?"
Taper grinned a bit sheepishly. "Well... more likely their modern descendants, of course. All right then. Cindy, are you done?"
"Yeah. I've picked up everything I can. Inspector, you aren't taking us seriously. You think we're amateurs just getting in the way. But listen, I guarantee we will convince you." She took a deep breath and turned to Taper. "Let's report back, Larry."
The two KDF members thanked Wollheim for his co-operation and left the museum. Out on 73rd Street, it was a gloomy November day with a wind starting to pick up. "Let's walk around a little," Cindy said. "I'm picking up something."
As they strolled around the block, Larry Taper surreptitiously watched the blonde telepath. She was sure hot, with that face and that figure, but he had seen right away her only interest was in Jeremy Bane. That Bane seemed oblivious to Cindy's offers made Taper think the man was just clueless. Taper said, "Say, how come you didn't demonstrate your telepathy to the inspector so he takes you seriously?"
"Ah, I'm tired of doing tricks like a trained dog," she grumbled. "He'll see soon enough. Wait. We're being watched by one of them. He's CLOSE!"
Taper whirled around just as a short wide man in white slacks and a loud silk shirt ran right at him. The man's right hand went back up behind his own head, then plunged forward with an odd-looking knife in it straight for Taper's face. Something inexplicable happened in the next split-second. On Taper's upraised left arm, a round metal shield suddenly appeared with a shimmer of blue light and the stone knife smacked short against it. As that obsidian blade snapped and the attacker was dumbfounded, the Silver Skull cracked a hard right hook to the side of the man's face. The impact sounded crisp and satisfying. The man reeled to one side and Taper started to move toward him for the follow-up but abruptly spun back and leaped in front of Cindy Brunner, raising his shield to cover both of them.
An automatic pistol blasted five shots at close range, the slugs ricocheting away off the round shield. Taper crouched low, protecting as much of Cindy and himself as he could. A second later, they heard a car door slam and an engine roar. Taper straightened to see a white Mercury Marquis at least ten years old peel out and go up the street. Too late to make out the plates.
"You okay?" he asked the telepath. As he lowered his arm, the shield was gone.
"Fine, fine. Thanks for the save. I didn't see the guy with the gun in time, I'm afraid." Cindy exhaled sharply. "Whew. Man! Let's get back to headquarters and go after these jerks!"
IV.
Jeremy Bane slowly closed FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, got up and stretched. Sitting still and reading was difficult for him. His hyperactive metabolism usually kept him on the go, but this reading had been worth it. These murders could be the beginning of something very big and ominous. He scowled down at the priceless book that was the accumulation of sixty years of research by Kenneth Dred.
In 1927, New Orleans saw a rash of gruesome murders where the victims had been neatly skinned, as was happening now. There were six deaths before they stopped as mysteriously as they had started, and the police never did find anything of value. It was an Alchemist named Dr Vitarius who had come to New Orleans and tracked down an ancient cult made up of direct descendants of the Chiminecs... somehow the tribe had kept its elite allegedly purebreds all these hundreds of years. Vitarius had mentioned something about "suits of skin" that gave the Chiminecs godlike powers. Their goal was nothing less than bringing about "the Seventh Kingdom," a new age where Humans would be swept off the Earth and animals regained their dominance. This was to be accomplished by the Chiminecs using their abilities to unleash worldwide disasters all at once. Volcanoes, tsunami, earthquakes, blizzards and hurricanes, all on the same day. This would, in their phrase, "shake the stars loose" and bring about the new age, the Seventh Kingdom that no living person would see.
Vitarius had broken the cult at the last minute. He seemed to have been a formidable opponent, with his many potions and arcane knowledge. None of the Chiminecs involved survived and the cult had not been heard from again.
Until now.
The Dire Wolf carefully replaced FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE to its place on the shelf. As soon as there was time, he needed to photograph each page and store the negatives safely. All that information, not available anywhere else, and only this single copy existed. Then he took the Link from his belt and started making calls while pacing back and forth. He was leaving a message with Michael Hawk's partner Donna Worth when Cindy stuck her head in the door.
"Hey there!" she blurted. "The game is afoot! We got shot at and nearly stabbed and this case hasn't even really gotten underway yet!"
Bane gestured to the table as Taper entered behind the blonde telepath. "Let's all get seated and fill each other in." The next few minutes were filled with stories being exchanged and questions asked, until finally the Dire Wolf leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "So. As far as we know, only three skinnings have been done so far. According to Mr Dred's report, the Chiminecs need six, so we have time to track them down."
"That agenda about causing the apocalypse," Taper added grimly, "might not be empty hyperbole. There's reason to believe that the ancient Chiminecs had sorcerous powers. One inscription apparently claims their king caused an earthquake to swallow an enemy tribe... and archeologists found evidence of such a quake, along with hundreds of buried bodies under a hundred feet of earth. This, in an area where earthquakes are geologically extremely unlikely. Their threat to 'shake the stars' might have some validity to it."
"I'm taking it seriously. Just before you two returned, I called all our members and told them to report." Bane placed his hands flat on the table and got to his feet. "The only ones I talked to directly are Ted and Mike, and they will both be here later. Ted gets off-duty at Midtown General at six. Mike is in Connecticut, he says he'll be here by eight tonight. I couldn't reach Khang and I left a message for Len. Hopefully we can get our team assembled for this."
Cindy had been listening and drumming her fingers. "Yo, Jeremy, maybe you've already thought of this. But! Shouldn't we go check out the apartment where that woman was skinned? You know, looking for clues?"
"Yes. That will be our next move." Just as he said the last word, the phone by the door rang and Cindy, who was sitting closest, sang out, "Got it!" She hopped over and answered in an overly mellow voice, "Good afternoon, Kenneth Dred Foundation, can I help you? Oh, HI inspector? Really? Just now. I see. Well, you'll want to speak with our captain." She pressed a hand over the mouthpiece. "It's Wollheim. Another skinning."
Bane took the phone and exchanged brief words, then hung up. He turned to his partners. "Also on Staten Island. A college student. He says the area is packed with reporters. I told him we're on our way. Let's roll." With that, he simply turned and headed for the door without seeing if Cindy and Taper were following.
IV.
For some reason, Bane went to Staten Island by using the Midtown Tunnel and then driving down through Brooklyn. This seemed a little roundabout to Cindy but she hadn't asked about it yet. They were in the new Chevy Malibu with Bane behind the wheel, Cindy riding shotgun and Taper in the back. So far, Slade had not modified the car beyond adding some armor panels to the body and replacing all the windows with Trom acrylic resin more impenetrable than the best bulletproof glass.
As they went through Staten Island, Bane abruptly pulled into a small apartment complex with its own parking lot. "Here," he said. "Number 17. Cindy, I want you to check out the scene and get some mental impressions. There may still be a cop on duty. If you want, question a neighbor or two. You can read what they're really thinking."
As she got out of her door, the little blonde paused. "You're coming back for me, right?"
"As soon as we can. But you're on the KDF expense account. If you have to, you can take a taxi back to headquarters."
She seemed dubious. "All right. But you better not forget about me," she said as she turned away. Taper changed into the front passenger seat, Bane turned the car around and headed back out into traffic.
As they headed down pleasant clean streets with a tree on every sidewalk, Taper asked, "No apprehension about leaving a winsome morsel like that by herself?"
"Cindy?" Bane snorted. "She's one of the most dangerous of all KDF members. She can burn out the brain of anyone attacking her. I saw another telepath do that just a few months ago, and Katherine was nowhere near as powerful as Cindy."
"Katherine?"
Bane gave him a look. "A telepath Mr Dred was training. We worked together for a while. Listen, Larry. I understand that you can use the Skull helmet to tap into the memories of previous wearers. Have you done that?"
"Absolutely," Taper said. "But it's not a euphoric experience. There is some cognitive dissonance when sorting out the memories and deciphering which are relevant to the matter at hand. To be honest, it's too tempting to spend the whole day delving into the history of the previous avatars of the Silver Skull rather than getting anything accomplished."
"Got it. I was hoping you could use that power to dig up first hand information about enemies we don't know much about... these Chiminecs, for example." Bane stopped at a red light and turned to look at Taper. "But nothing is ever as easy as it seems."
"Indubitably not," Taper answered. "In my laughably so-called spare time, I try to exhumate memories in the helmet but it's time-consuming."
The Dire Wolf turned left, and starting peering at street signs. "I don't understand some of the words you use, Larry. I didn't have much school."
"Ah. Well, both my parents were teachers, so I suppose I grew up encouraged to develop a muscular vocabulary. I will endeavor to keep it reasonable."
"Thanks. Here we are, Franklin Avenue. This is out of my usual territory. Nice neighborhood." Three police cars with flashing lights stood in front of a two-story white frame house with a well-kept yard and a porch that held a bench hanging from metal chains. Bane parked behind the last police car and got out, with Taper beside him. "This makes three skins," he told the anthropologists. "They're working fast."
Eight reporters, three of them women, stood outside on the sidewalk, holding notepads or shouldering bulky movie cameras. As the two KDF members broke their ranks, the cameramen started filming them. Bane did not explain they had just ruined any footage already shot. The protective Eldar talisman he wore, as well as his ensorcelled silver daggers, fogged any film within reach. So far, no pictures of him had ever seen print.
An officer on the porch checked their IDs and waved them in. "Inspector Wollheim gave me a description of you guys," he explained. Bane thanked him and went through the door with the Silver Skull close behind.
"Ah, here's our experts on weirdness," Wollheim said as he saw them. "Seriously. Nobody on the force has seen anything like this. Come on upstairs and get an eyeful." With the careful tread of a man aware of middle age, Wollheim trudged up the steps to the second floor where another officer stood sentry duty in front of an open door. The inspector led them just inside and warned, "Don't go more than a step or two forward. The forensics boys are on their way."
The body was stretched out on another tarp, again neatly skinned and with little blood anywhere. It seemed to be that of a thin young man. Bane peered into the room and asked, "Who was he?"
"College student, name of Chad Myerson," said the inspector. "Rented rooms here with two other boys. Both of them got back here after morning classes and, as you might guess, did not expect to find Chad in this condition. I figure the killers must have got in here between seven, when the roommates left, and two-thirty, but that means they are fast little buggers..."
Something was bothering Larry Taper. It was almost like he could a suspicious noise in the distance or sense a storm was going to break. He had felt this before. Tapping Bane on the arm, he muttered, "I'll be right back," and took off from the room. The Dire Wolf gave him a curious look but said nothing.
Galloping down the stairs and out the front door, the Silver Skull rushed through the reporters without even hearing their questions. He was answering a summons he felt rather than heard. Taper turned right and ran down the block, and this headlong approach startled a short dark man in a bright silk shirt and white pants. The man gave a start and fled in the opposite direction. Still not knowing why, Taper pursued him. It was no contest. Even before Tel Shai membership, three years as the Silver Skull had hardened him to Olympic levels. In a few steps, Taper body-slammed the fleeing man and they both tumbled to the sidewalk.
The Skull was up first, seizing the man by the shirt to haul him up. But he stopped short and froze into position. Parked by the curb was a beat-up Mercury, and two of the dark men inside it were pointing guns at him. As he slowly raised his hands, Taper saw the man on the sidewalk tug a .22 target pistol from a pants pocket and aim it as he struggled to his feet. Now that he got a good look, Taper could see the Chiminec ancestry in the gunman. At first he might seen Mexican, but the hooked nose and prognathous jaw were from an older background. The Chiminec gestured with the gun toward the car.
Taper hesitated only a second. True, he could summon the armor and uniform of the Silver Skull to appear on his body in an instant and once armed with the sword and shield, he felt confident he could handle these three. But being taken captive often led to major revelations about an enemy. It was dangerous to the point of recklessness, true. Larry Taper smiled reassuringly and obliged them by getting into the back seat, sliding over to let the man he had tackled get in and slam the door. Gunning the motor, the Chiminecs roared off.
V.
Bane was discussing with Wollheim how the killers could have worked undisturbed during the tedious process of skinning a full-grown man when the cop from the front door allowed a reporter in. This was a flustered middle-aged man who needed a haircut, a new suit and some sleep but not in that order. "Hey mister! Your buddy just got kidnapped at gunpoint!"
The Dire Wolf stepped closer and the look in his pale eyes made the reporter cringe. "The man who came here with me?"
"Yeah. He started chasing this little Spanish guy, they hit the ground and then two more border-jumpers pulled guns on him and got him in a car. Looked like a Mercury. Away they went. I figured you might want to know."
"You figured right. Thank you." Bane turned to Wollheim, "I'll be in touch."
"Hold it. How about an APB, get a dragnet going..."
"No thanks," Bane snapped as he headed for the door. "The KDF takes care of its own." He plunged down the stairs almost in a single bound, dove through the reporters and knocked one of them down, and was in his car before they could gather their wits. The Chevy wheeled out and tore down the street as if the speed limit was just a suggestion.
At the first red light, Bane unclipped the Link from his belt and activated its screen. After a few seconds, he decided he had better pull over and went into a supermarket parking lot. He was still learning all the uses of the Link, the Trom device mostly meant for communication but with a thousand applications. After a few minutes, he pulled up a grid of thin green lines with a single red blip proceeding up one line. Taper's signal. He had managed to start sending his tracer as he was being taken. Bane smiled thinly. Now he had a trail to follow. He swung the car around and headed in the direction opposite to the one he had been going.
After a few miles, he was near the apartment building where he had left Cindy. He pulled into its parking lot and she ran full-tilt to jump into the passenger seat and slam the door behind her. "I felt your agitation a few minutes ago," she said. "It's Larry... he's not hurt. No, he's... a captive?"
"You got that right," Bane answered. "And knowing our Silver Skull, he let them take him prisoner so he can lead us to their base. This is the showdown already." He handed his Link to the telepath, "Here. Let me know how we're doing."
"Getting warmer," she said as if playing a childhood game. "The blip has stopped. It's eight streets ahead. Almost there." Cindy's head snapped up and her dark blue eyes narrowed. "I can feel them now. Larry's okay. There are... eight of the bad guys. Very determined, focused. Fanatics. The leader is a megalomaniac for sure. Right there, Jeremy, that house with aluminum siding."
The Dire Wolf saw the building she indicated, went up another block and eased up to park behind a black Dodge Ram. "Normally I would want to attack late at night, but that's not an option this time. So three in the afternoon it is. Checked your dart gun?"
"Before we left." She reached under her sweatshirt in the back and adjusted the air-propelled weapon. "I can contact Larry's mind but he's calm and confident, maybe I would just throw him off-balance by contact."
"I'm going to need you to divert attention from us," Bane told her. "Any of them hear or see us, you nudge their brains so they look the other way. At least as long as you can. Got it?"
"Sure, no problem." She opened her door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. A car went by every few minutes, but no one was standing outside. The wind was just cold enough to discourage people from being on their porches or in their yards. Cindy came around as Bane finished doing a rundown on his own weapons. Locking the car, he tugged beneath his sleeves to loosen the silver daggers on his forearms, then starting marching briskly across the street.
The house they sought was second from the end of the block. It had its own short driveway that ended with an aluminum carport beneath which sat a white Mercury Marquis and a red Chrysler, both at least a decade old and showing some wear. The three-story house had aluminum siding, a front porch and a storage shed in the backyard. Standing on the front porch with folded arms was a guard, but he was staring resolutely away from them as they approached. This was Cindy's doing. She was implanting in his awareness the strong feeling that something significant was coming from the opposite direction. Bane and Cindy got right up to the front of the house without the guard being aware of them.
Standing not twenty feet away, the Dire Wolf pulled his dartgun and snapped off a shot. The air-propelled weapon made a soft coughing noise as it fired a heavy metal dart which slid into the side of the Chiminec's neck. Those darts were painful when they hit, and that sudden jab was followed immediately by disorientation. Both effects distracted the victim until unconsciousness followed a few seconds later. As the guard collapsed in a heap on the porch, Bane turned to Cindy. "We're good," she said. "Everyone is downstairs."
Without a word, they stepped past the stunned guard, who had at least an hour of drugged slumber ahead of him, and opened the front door. Immediately the sickly-sweet odor of something dead reached them. The living room was piled with stacks of clothing and a few half-empty plates of beans sitting on chairs. To their right were narrow stairs leading upward, beyond that was a plain white-painted door left ajar. The stench was coming from that door.
Bane glanced at Cindy again to make sure she was ready. The little blonde had drawn her own dartgun and was holding it in front of her. She nodded to him and they went through the door, down wooden steps into the basement that stank of death.
VI.
Taking up the whole floor area of the house above it, the basement was not furnished but had floor and walls of bare stone, lit by two naked light bulbs in the ceiling. In one corner was a hot water heater and fuse box, but the rest had been given over to the cult. On a wooden stand sat a stone idol of Ximnimatul the size of a child's doll, smeared completely with blood that had turned dark and sticky. Two candles burned on either side of the bloodthirsty god. Tarps on the floor held the gruesome skins of two human beings, laid out to dry and be prepared. They had been painstakingly removed and even the faces would have been recognizable to anyone who had known the victims in life.
Four of the Chiminec men and one woman were standing around one of their own. Short, squat and muscular, the dark-skinned black-haired people resembled Mexicans at first but their faces were so similar they seemed like members of a single family. Away from the public eye, they had discarded American clothing and wore only cloth loincloths and high-laced sandals. The woman and one of them had coarse ponchos over their bodies.
Standing behind Larry Taper, two more of the Chiminecs still aimed their pistols at him from nearly pointblank range. He was not paying them any mind. Taper's full attention was on the grisly figure in front of him. Taller than the Chiminecs, well over six feet, this man wore the skin of one of the victims like a costume. It had been sewn in place over his body with rawhide thongs, fitting snugly. Only the man's head was still exposed. A proud leonine head with long white hair and a white handlebar mustache, the man's bright green eyes shone in the light.
"Come on now," Taper said calmly. "Maybe you're the grandson of the original Arthur Somerset. That much I could believe."
"Fool! Why do you doubt me?" came the furious reply. "I tell you I am Arthur Somerset, kept vital and strong beyond my natural span. The great god Ximnimatul rewards his faithful. I have been high priest of the god for eighty years now and you...You have come to serve our lord, whether you know it or not."
"What, with my skin?"
"Yes." Somerset yanked the gruesome skin of the victim's head down over his face and tugged it into place. Through the empty eyeholes of the dead hide, green madness gleamed. "Three more ceremonial suits and we may begin our vengeance. The world will be cleansed of unbelievers. Every volcano will erupt at the same time, earthquakes and hurricanes will lay cities to ruin, tornadoes will be thick as locusts. It will be the apocalypse you devils so richly deserve! We will shake the stars loose from the heavens to rain down like hailstones the size of mountains."
"Well, I have a better idea," Taper said. "To you, I offer what the Silver Skull has always offered... justice!" As he spoke, the air around him flickered and Taper was abruptly wearing a black leather fighting suit, with a silver helmet crafted in the semblance of a grim unsmiling human skull. On his left arm was a round shield and his right hand held a straight sword with a three-foot blade, Chalcemar.
The startling transformation took the Chiminecs completely off-guard. The Silver Skull whirled and drove his sword half its length into the nearer man's chest, tugged it free and smashed the hilt down viciously on the head of the other gunman. Both Chiminecs fell to the cellar floor, but the man who had been pierced was not dead. No wound showed on his body. Chalcemar was ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin to stun without slaying.
The Silver Skull straightened and turned back to Arthur Somerset. "How do you like.." he began but stopped in mid-sentence. Somerset was surrounded by a shimmering aura of lurid red light. The gralic force moved over his body like cold fire, casting new shadows in that cellar. Somerset held up his open hand and red flame crackled around it as if ready to strike. Taper raised his shield to cover his body just as a gralic bolt blasted against it and drove him back to stumble and fall. A second,stronger bolt detonated and played over the ancient shield but could not pierce it. The Skull doggedly got to his feet, sword still in hand.
"Is that all you have?" he asked derisively, but it was a mistake to stand there instead of attacking. All the Chiminecs piled on him from behind, two men grabbing an arm apiece and pulling them out straight, a third man seizing his feet and yanking them up behind him. The woman brought a club with a round wooden head strapped to its end and beat on his helmet with all her strength. He was not harmed but the blows did daze him enough that Somerset could pry the sword from the black-gloved hand.
"Hold him, my children," gloated Somerset. "Do not let your grip slacken. Tuitalcan! Motunazu! Put on your flesh suits, we will have a sacrifice this very night to our lord. The blood of this unbeliever will make Ximnimatul look on us with favor."
One man and one woman of the cult hastened to obey. The skins of the victims had been fitted with rawhide straps so they could be pulled on like horrible clothing. As Tuitalcan and Motunazu were almost clad, a cold voice came from the stairs to the cellar, saying, "All right, boys, the party's over!"
All heads swung to see a man in black and a small blonde woman jump down to the stone floor. Both pointed odd clunky pistols that made no noise other than a soft cough, and three members of the Chiminec clan slapped at their arms or legs where they felt the sting of metal darts. The Chiminecs were immediately confused by the anesthetic injection, and a few seconds later, they sagged to the floor.
Taper convulsed wildly and broke loose, getting on his feet. He backhanded the nearest Chiminec with a fist that had metal knuckle guards under the glove, and the native spun halfway around with blood spraying from his mouth. Even as that man dropped backwards to the floor, the Silver Skull met the other Chiminec who had been holding him with a savage left cross that connected perfectly. The man grunted and reeled backward to fall and move feebly, unable to recover. Taper held out his empty hand and the sword Chalcemar appeared in it. His voice was made hollow by the silver helmet as he said, "Never more gratified to see my friends."
Before the rout could continue, red lightning crashed in that cellar with startling brightness that left after-images on everyone's eyes. Thunder deafened them as it echoed back and forth in the enclosed space and all three KDF members were sent rolling across the floor as if hit by high-pressure fire hoses. Smoke rose from their clothing.
Arthur Somerset cackled wildly, holding up his hands over which gralic force danced. "Perfect! Perfect! The three skins we need! The Seventh Kingdom will be inaugurated by dawn. We will cleanse the earth and shake the stars."
"You can try," growled Bane. Protected to an extent by the Eldar talisman hung around his neck, he shook off the effects of that blast and leaped across the cellar too quickly to be evaded, tackling Somerset and bringing them down to the cold damp floor. Bane pinned the cult leader down with one hand, drawing a silver dagger with the other. But he did not simply stab Somerset as might be expected. Quickly, deftly, he sliced the straps and roughly tore the skin suit off the man, flinging the gruesome sections in all directions. Somerset tried to get up and received a vicious elbow to the center of the chest that drove all the wind out of him.
Finally, with Arthur Somerset stripped down to loincloth, Bane gave him a hard left cross to the jaw just to keep the man pacified. The Dire Wolf stood up and glared around the cellar to see all of the other Chiminecs lying senseless. Tuitalcan and Motunazu had not managed to get enough of the skin suits on them to gain gralic powers.
Grinning like an imp, Cindy Brunner spun the dart gun by its trigger guard around her index finger. She had obviously been practicing. As she returned it to its holster in the small of her back, tugging the sweatshirt down to conceal it, she said, "Notice I put down more of the bad guys than either of you?"
"Yep, very impressive," Bane said. "Larry, nice work letting yourself get captured. It saved us a few days or weeks trying to track these nuts down."
Taper unbuckled the Skull helmet and raised it from his head. "I don't think I'll venture that strategy again, captain. I did not exactly retain the upper hand."
The Dire Wolf drew his two knights closer and said, "I vote we turn these jokers over the NYPD. None of them are in the country legally. They can be charged with three counts of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit murder, desecration of a corpse, breaking and entry, the list goes on. Let's give Inspector Wollheim the credit for this whole affair. It'll make him appreciate us more the next time some Midnight War business comes up." Bane hesitated. "Although I don't know what they'll make of Somerset there being a hundred and sixty and looking thirty. Probably decide he's Somerset's grandson or something."
Cindy sighed. "So. Our names not in the paper? I won't be interviewed on 60 MINUTES? No best-selling book by me, SKINNED GODS? Too bad. It's like no one will ever know what we did."
"If it's any comfort," Taper told her blithely, "Ximnimatul will know."
7/1/2014
