"The Light That Brings Darkness"
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dochermes"The Light That Brings Darkness"
4/19-4/20/2010
I.
There was not much left of the church after the fire. Charred beams, piles of blackened plaster and glass fragments were all that showed where Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow had stood for nearly a hundred years. Off to one side, in the shadow of an ancient oak tree, the statue of Mary in its protective shell had survived. The body of Father Paul Sabino had been taken away hours ago.
Standing with shoulders slumped and head lowered, Archie McAllister felt numb. He had been gazing out at the remains of the church for more than an hour while Megan took readings. A big amiable man several inches over six feet tall and heavily built, Archie had gentle blue eyes that gave away his true character. Right now, those eyes were withdrawn. He looked around vaguely, spotted a round boulder near the trees and went over to sit down on it.
From where she had been kneeling just outside the yellow police tape, Megan Salenger rose and brushed off the knees of her jeans with one hand while studying the screen on her Link. The instrument she held was Trom-made and much more versatile than the simpler models she had crafted for her KDF teammates. The faintest frown showed on her inquisitive foxlike face as she snapped the Link off and returned it to its clip on her belt. At thirty-one, with her slight build and her huge dark eyes under a tousled mop of black hair, she still looked enough like a teenager that people treated her as one at first. The Trom Girl tugged down her light denim jacket and came back to her immediate surroundings.
"Archie?" she asked. "Dear, are you okay?"
"I guess," he said as he rose. "For some reason, this is hitting me hard."
"Did you know the victim?"
"No. No, I've never even been this far west in New York State. Binghamton was as far as I ever got." He stepped closer to tower over her, and she slipped an arm through his to press up against him from the side.
"Perhaps it's time to stop accepting these missions," Megan said. "After all, I have stepped down to reserve duty with the KDF so we can concentrate on fixing up our new house. Maybe the so-called 'Trom Girl Mysteries' have run their course."
Archie swung her around and hugged her in a bearlike embrace that she always found immensely comforting. "Aw, you love solving puzzles and figuring things out. It's a big part of how your mind works. I enjoy coming along and hearing the little wheels turn in your head."
The Trom Girl glanced over his shoulder at what was left of the church. "Spectroscopic analysis shows no trace of any accelerants. From my reconstruction, I believe intense heat was somehow produced in a one-meter radius near the altar. The police have reached the same conclusion."
Releasing her, Archie said, "Poor old Father Sabino. Seventy-one and still conducting services. I read an article on him not too long ago. He was here back when the town was just a few farmhouses and barns. To be killed at that age, after a life of service..."
"We should meet with Pastor Mertzluft. He was the one who called us in on this. By that, actually, I should say that he phoned the KDF, and Sable asked if I wanted to investigate. Mertzluft seems to think there is something unnatural about this crime and some other incidents that have happened here recently." She started heading to where her beloved red Jeep Cherokee sat just off the road. "Are you ready to go?"
"Sure, glad to get away from here. You finished looking around?"
"Yes. I was told not to enter the actual crime scene by the sheriff and I should comply with his request. We may need his Copelyeration. After the autopsy is completed, I expect there will be significant information available." Megan opened the driver side door, seized a handle set up near the roof interior and swung lightly up into the seat. "It is counter-productive to begin theorizing without sufficient data."
Archie climbed up into the passenger seat and tugged down the restraint strap across his thick chest. "Yeah, well, it was a long drive here and I looked up 'Police Beat' in the local paper on the way. For a few months now, the city of Milford's seen an upswing in hate crimes. A rabbi visiting his family was beaten half dead in a parking lot... he wasn't released from the hospital for three weeks. There have been anti-Semitic slogans spray-painted on buildings and tombstones vandalized in the town cemetery. Now this church is burned to the ground and the body of the old priest is found in the ashes."
"We should see what Pastor Mertzluft can tell us," Megan said as she reached an intersection where the country backroad met Route 229. Turning right at the stop sign, the Trom Girl reached up to the visor and pulled down a pair of steel-rimmed aviator sunglasses. "I estimate less than nine minutes before we arrive at his house."
"I found something else while I was Googling on the ride," Archie offered. "Considering that religion seems to a big factor in this, you might be interested in hearing that Harry Copely lives around here."
"That fact does not mean anything to me."
"Ah, you see, Harry Copely publishes these nasty little pamphlets called THE DAWNING LIGHT. People leave them in bus stations and hotel rooms and diners and places like that to spread their message. They're really horrible propaganda pieces against any belief other than Evangelical Protestants."
"Are these publications legal?"
"Seem to be. Copely's been putting out this hate literature for decades now. I found one by a pay phone when I was a good little Catholic boy. The book was completely serious that the Catholic Church was the secret force behind Hitler's rise to power so that all the Jews in Germany would be killed. The Church also supposedly helped Stalin get to the top so that Russian Jews would be wiped out. But Communism was started by the Church to get rid of the Czar! Sheesh," Archie shook his head and shuddered. "That scared me as a kid. I showed it to my parents and they just told me to throw the pamphlet away and forget it."
Megan considered. "From what I know of history, those claims by the pamphlet are extremely dubious."
"Yeah, tell me about it. Of course it's nonsense. THE DAWNING LIGHT treats Muslims and Mormons and Hindus the same way. They're all described as false religions created by the Devil himself to lead people astray. The books are so crude in the writing and art that you think they'd be ridiculed but I guess a lot of people believe every word."
It was her turn to shake her head and sigh. "The Trom warned me that I would never understand the way my fellow Humans think and this is more proof they were right."
II.
They were still ten miles from Milford itself and had seen nothing but residential houses with stretches of open fields and woods between. Up by the road was a red metal mailbox with the name MERTZLUFT painted on it. Slowing as they approached, Megan turned up a long gravel driveway to where a two-story house with tan aluminum siding sat. Already parked there was a white Ford XX and a gleaming red Alfa Romeo.
Unexpectedly, the Trom Girl stopped her Jeep well before reaching the house. She reached into a pocket of her denim jacket and took out a flat grey metal device with a shallow slot on its top. As Archie watched, she unclipped an unmarked cartridge of the same metal and clicked it into place in the slot.
"Uh-oh, that's like seeing you thumb back the hammer on a gun," Archie said.
"I am adjusting the neural shock to be effective but harmless on most Humans." Megan thumbed two dials on the beam projector and held it in her right hand like a flashlight. She swung open her door and hopped down to the gravel, head tilted as if listening. Archie came around to stand beside her.
In his best whisper, the big mechanic asked, "What's the problem, hon?"
"My Kumundu training is warning me," she replied in an equally low voice. "I can't define it but my subconscious related visual and auditory clues of danger. It's what you might call a sixth sense if you like that term." She held the projector up at chest level and began walking up the driveway. Archie followed with some concern. Her instincts were almost always accurate but he couldn't see anything to worry about.
As they approached the house, a remarkably good-looking man and woman emerged from the front door and watched them near. The couple were both young, in their early twenties, and well-dressed in a formal way. He had on a dark blue conservative suit with a white shirt and black necktie while she was wearing a simple black dress with a skirt that reached just to her knees. Both were about five feet ten and slender, with sandy blonde hair and pleasant if undistinctive faces.
"Something off-kilter about these two," muttered Archie into Megan's ear while they were still out of hearing distance.
"Yes. Their body language shows repressed aggression and extreme anger." The Trom Girl kept moving forward with her longtime lover and partner looming up over her protectively.
As they came within conversational range, the man smiled warmly. "Greetings, friends, have you invited the Lord Christ into your hearts?"
"No," said Megan bluntly. "We are here to meet Pastor Mertzluft. I see his car."
"The girl has a weapon!" snapped the blonde woman, grabbing at the man's arm. "She's a tool of the Devil."
Before Megan or Archie could react, the entire world seemed to turn a blinding yellow-white and heat rushed over them as if someone had opened the door to a blast furnace from an inch away. It seemed like hours before their full awareness returned. Archie found himself lying full-length with the gravel digging painfully into his back. Megan was sprawled limply on top of him. She seemed still dazed and unresponsive as he tentatively tried to get up without moving her.
The couple were gone, as was their car. Archie carefully held the Trom Girl as he sat up, supporting her in one thick arm and cradling her head gently with his free hand. Her sunglasses had been knocked off and her face was flushed pink as if with first-degree burns. Archie's heart skipped a beat or two as he saw that the front of her white pullover shirt had been seared completely away to reveal the silklike sheen of the flexible armor underneath. He tapped the armor with an index finger and found it was hot enough to sting his skin.
Megan's dark eyes blinked open, instantly alert. "Archie! Have you been hurt?"
"Me? Let's worry about you. It looks like you got hit by a flamethrower." He turned her so she was sitting in his lap with his arm supporting her. "Hon, your shirt got burned right off. Look at it. Are you okay?"
"Yes. I felt sore and uncomfortable, but I am not injured." The Trom Girl stirred and glanced around at their surroundings. "I can get up now. My armor disperses most of an energy attack and my enhanced healing is working. Are you sure you are all right?"
"Don't worry about me. Whatever they used, you took the full blast and got slammed into me so hard we both lost it for a few minutes. Oww. I feel like I picked up a bad sunburn."
They both rose to their feet and inspected each other before doing anything else. Archie spotted the beam projector on the ground nearby, bent to pick it up and handed the device to her. "My skin stings but otherwise I feel good to go," he said.
"Oh, no," the Trom Girl said as she snatched up her aviator glasses to find one lense missing and an earpiece bent almost double. "I loved these. You bought them for me last summer."
"We can get another pair. All that matters is that you're not hurt, hon."
Megan swung around and took off at a full run toward the house. After taking only a second to react, Archie followed. He was used to her suddenly acting without explanation. The Trom Girl yanked open the screen door of the house and plunged inside. The big man was right behind her. They passed through a modest kitchen with canary yellow wallpaper and a breakfast table that held a bowl of assorted bananas and tangerines before rushing into the living room to find the pastor lying face down on the rug.
III.
Alex Mertluft was a heavyset man in his forties, wearing regular slacks and a plaid shirt, stretched out in front of an easy chair. Megan pounced down next to him to take his pulse and check his breathing.
"He's alive," she said as she saw Archie crouch down next to her. "Vitals check as normal. He appears to be dazed by some sort of shock but I expect him to recover immediately."
Archie easily lifted the minister up and placed him in the chair. Even as he did this, Mertzluft grumbled and moved his arms vaguely. In another minute, the man regained awareness. His deepset brown eyes moved around the room. "Where- where did they go?"
"That man and woman are gone," Megan told him. She hurried back to the kitchen and filled a tumbler with cold water from the tap, bringing him back to the pastor. The man sipped at it and thanked her. Then he noticed how her shirt had been charred away, the smell of burnt cotton lingering around her. "What did they do to you?" he asked in a horrified tone.
"Pastor Mertzluft," she said, "We are from the Kenneth Dred Foundation in Manhattan. You called us and asked for help. My name is Megan Salenger and this is Archie McAllister. Who were those two people who were here?"
Once Pastor Mertzluft was settled in his easy chair and had finished the water, his head seemed to clear. His biggest concern was for Megan's safety. The sight of her charred-away shirt distressed him, but she showed him the silk-thin Trom armor she wore and explained that it was an advanced design that had protected her. Neither she nor Archie had suffered any lasting damage, although their exposed skin was skill tender and stung as if sunburned.
"I don't know who that man and woman are that came here," Mertzluft admitted. "They introduced themselves as Mr and Mrs John Smith, which struck me as unlikely but then I often have people in trouble come to me. Many do not reveal their real names right away."
Megan and Archie had seated themselves on the slightly worn couch adjacent to the clergyman's chair. The living room was unremarkable, a bit untidy but clean. A large TV faced them, there were bookshelves absolutely crammed full of thick hardcovers, and an end table held a clock-radio, glass of water and a large bottle of Tylenol. Two standing lamps at either end of the couch were both lit. Archie glanced around briefly, then turned his full attention to how Megan was asking Mertzluft for details.
She established that the couple had arrived here unannounced less than twenty minutes earlier in their Alfa Romeo. They had immediately begun haranguing the pastor about Church doctrine and seemed quite belligerent in a superficially polite way. As he defended himself politely, their questions turned to the manuscript he had been working on with a local blogger, Calvin Calvert.
"This is getting interesting," Megan said in her usual blunt way. "What is this manuscript?"
"Oh, it's based on notes I have been collecting for years now," Mertzluft told them. "Mr Calvert has a way with words. He has been a newspaper journalist for decades and he knows how to write clearly and colorfully. We were collaborating on something called THE LIGHT THAT BRINGS DARKNESS. It's an expose of those DAWNING LIGHT booklets." He got awkwardly to his feet and went over to a corner of the room to come back with a cardboard box full of small black-and-white illustrated pamphlets. "Here, these give you an idea what we're dealing with..."
Archie began skimming through the booklets. "Yeah, I remember these from when I was a kid. VATICAN NIGHTMARE. RED RATS AT OUR THROATS. WHY JOANIE WOULDN'T LISTEN. THE MOON GOD SURVIVES IN HALLOWEEN... Man, these bring back memories and not good ones."
Seated next to him, the Trom Girl started glancing through the DAWNING LIGHT pamphlets so quickly she hardly seemed to be noticing them. Archie knew that actually she was memorizing every word and image and could described each page in great detail at a later point. After about a dozen, though, she put them aside.
"These are difficult to assimilate," she admitted. "There are so many logical fallacies, examples of circular reasoning and unprovable premises that I find them annoying."
Mertzluft did not quite laugh but he did seem wryly amused. "That is exactly how many leaders in the religious community feel, young lady. Rabbi Weiss over at the Wall Street synagogue had been helping us with some detailed rebuttals of the ideas in the tracts. And poor old Father Sabino... he added many notes explaining how these booklets got Catholic dogma wrong. We all disagree on doctrine but we can work together for the greater good of the public. I was comforted to find out how well we got along."
"Father," Archie interrupted, 'How you been contacted by the publisher of these DAWNING LIGHT things? Any threats?"
"No. Not at all. As I understand it, Mr Copely himself is quite elderly, in his eighties at least, and he never appears in public or makes public statements. Calvin has been trying to arrange an interview for years now." The pastor leaned back and seemed to be getting more at ease with his visitors. "So, you are members of the Kenneth Dred Foundation?"
"Megan is," said Archie. "I'm just a helper."
"Archie is the one partner I can rely on without doubts. He is half of our team," the Trom Girl corrected. A sudden grin lit her foxlike face and made her seem to be in her early teens. "I think he understands Human psychology better than I ever will. Father, if that's how we should adress you, where is the manuscript to this book you are working on?"
"Oh, that. Well. To be honest, there's only one hard copy. Calvin printed it out on paper and bound it together for his own reference but that's already way outdated. The book itself is stored on the hard drives of his laptop and mine, constantly being revised and polished as we work on it."
Megan shot to her feet as if she had been stung by a hornet, startling everyone. Archie dropped one of the pamphlets and dug at his feet to retrieve it. "Father," she said in a quite different voice, "Did they take your laptop?"
"Oh, no, no. Calvin actually has it at the moment."
The Trom Girl had changed dramatically. The polite demure reserve had vanished. She demanded, "Where can we find Calvin Calvert?"
"Calvin? Why, he lives in the Valkenburgh boarding house. About fifteen miles down this road, opposite the post office.. why, gracious." He was facing an empty room. Megan Salenger had raced out of the house at full tilt, dragging Archie by one arm.
IV.
Outside, the Trom Girl plunged across the yard and dove up into the driver seat of her Jeep as nimbly as a chipmunk leaping for cover. Archie was right behind her. He slammed his door shut after the vehicle was already in gear and accelerating down the driveway. As he pulled down his restraint straps, he saw Megan was doing the same with her free hand.
"Let me see if I can find a phone number for this Calvert guy," Archie said, struggling to find his smartphone in his back jeans pocket.
"Excellent. Warning him is a good idea." Megan began wriggling out of her ruined shirt as she drove, wadding it up and tossing it into the back seat. The Trom armor looked like dark silk with a sheen to it, covering her upper body up to her neck and to her wrists. It dispersed kinetic impact efficiently that even a high-powered rifle bullet left only a bruise and it protected against sharp blades or flame or electrical current. The Trom armor had kept her torso from being burned open by that blast of energy from Mr and Mrs John Smith just now.
"I have a spare shirt in my travel bag," she told Archie, "But that is not important right now."
"No number listed for Calvin Calvert, I'm afraid. He has a blog called 'What Really Happened,' but its contact information is only an e-mail. AOL at that. I can send him a warning, what do you think?"
"Yes, please do so. He might not be at home." Megan took a curve in the back country road a bit too sharply and the right fender whipped against some brush by the side of the road. She grumbled in exasperation but didn't slow down. At the top of a hill, a US Post Office sat to their left, with a flagpole and a sign that read, CLOSING EARLY TODAY. On the opposite side of the road was a three story wooden house with a porch that ran its width. Three cars were parked in an area of crushed shale, and the yard had an above-ground swimming pool that was still covered over in late June. Megan swerved hard into that yard, slammed on the brakes and hurtled out of the Jeep all in one motion.
Standing just off the road, smiling with intolerable smugness next to their red Alfa Romeo, were Mr and Mrs Smith. As soon as her feet hit the ground, the Trom Girl extended her arm and pressed the contact patch on the beam projector. Unexpectedy, a gorgeous swirl of varied colors swept out and over the couple with a noise like a rushing river. As the rainbow flare faded, not only were Mr and Mrs Smith gone from sight, so was their car.
"Whoa, Megan...!" Archie clapped a hand over his mouth and fell back a step. "You disintegrated them! I never thought you'd do something cold-blooded like that."
"Oh, no," the Trom Girl answered blandly as she adjusted the controls on the device before clipping it back on her belt. "I dispersed the constructs with a wide-sprectrum exposure. My hypothesis is that feedback startled the mind behind the manifestation enough that their contact was broken."
"And now you've gone off the deep end? Oh, honey, try to speak English, for my sake."
Megan turned her head back over her shoulder and gave him a relieved grin. "Archie! Seriously. Those people were never really here and neither was their car. They were constructs of gralic energy controlled by a Human mind. We encountered something similar in Florida last year if you remember."
"Oh? Oh yeah. The Woman in White apparition that was scaring people on back roads. Okay, I get it now. They were like semi-solid images?" Archie walked over to where the Smiths had seemed to stand. "The car didn't even leave any tire treads in the dirt."
"Those constructs are still a threat," Megan called over to him as she went back to the Jeep. From her travel bag in the back, she tugged out a green polo shirt and pulled it down over her head to replace the shirt that had been seared away. The sleeves of the Trom armor retracted back up to bicep level as she adjusted them. "They can channel gralic force into light and heat such as the blast which struck us."
Archie moved toward her, glancing back suspiciously where Mr and Mrs John Smith had apparently stood. "Is this what killed Father Sabino? What burned down the church?"
"Further investigation is needed," Megan said as if her thoughts were far away. "Archie, none of my explanation is really established at this point. I do not recall ever hearing of two gralic constructs at the same time. We are facing something unprecented and quite dangerous."
"I knew it!" yelled a voice from the house. "I absolutely KNEW it!"
Megan and Archie spun to see a man in a lightweight white suit with a battered matching fedora standing on the porch, taking one photo after another of them with a digital camera. He seemed about 40 years old, with dark auburn hair that was receding quickly up at the temples, blue eyes under shaggy brows and a weathered face that matched his wrinkled suit. The hat was shoved back so far on his head that it seemed in immediate peril of falling off.
Watching the stranger clicking away with the camera, Megan allowed a very faint expression of amusement to cross her face. As a KDF member, she always wore a tiny Eldar talisman. The small ornate wheel of white gold which hung around her neck provided protection against malevolent gralic force but it had a secondary effect of blurring her image on film or on video screens. Those photos which the man was so determined to take would only be useless foggy smears.
"That's Calvin Calvert all right," Archie told her under his breath. "His picture is at the top of his blog."
"Mr Calvert!" she called over to him. "We've come to speak with you. You are in personal danger."
The redheaded man lowered his camera and came loping over hastily toward them. He had a slight limp in one leg. "I was a witness. I saw the whole thing. Who do you work for? CIA? NSA? British Intelligence? Wait, I know... you're from the Mandate, am I right?"
The Trom Girl gave him a polite smile as she extended her right hand. Calvert shook it vigorously, then did the same for Archie.
"Say, that's quite a grip you got there, fella," he said to Archie.
"I'm a mechanic, worked on Harleys most of my life," the big man answered. "I've been reading your blog, 'What Really Happened,' Mr Calvert--"
"Oh, so you're the one HA HA just kidding, I actually have a daily readership in the thousands. Listen, those two people and their car, they vanished when the little lady here did her light show. Were they just like I don't know, a hologram you were creating--?"
Megan interrupted him firmly. "You know about the death of Father Paul Sabino."
That brought Calvert to a sober halt. "Yes. Yes I do. He was a fine man. I thought the world of him."
"We understand he added some corrections to a manuscript that you and Pastor Mertzluft are working on," the Trom Girl said. "I suspect he was murdered because of his connection with you."
"Really..." Calvert accepted the the idea quickly. "Huh. You know, I expected Harry Copely to try to stop us. That miserable old bigot. But I was figuring he would try legal action, a libel suit or something. Poor old Father Sabino. You think that Copely is behind his death, eh?"
Megan nodded. "I understand you've been investigating the paranormal and the unknown for years, Mr Calvert. Can you deal with finding out that the Midnight War is both real and deadly?"
"Yeah. Sure." The journalist took off his hat and crumpled it in one hand, a gesture which helped explain the hat's condition. "Until last year, I worked for the SUN-MIRROR out in Las Vegas, where the Bloodless Corpse murders took place. What I found out...! Believe me, the powers that be in city governments don't want the public to find out HALF of what's really going on..."
Again, the Trom Girl quietly interrupted him. "Your life is in danger now, Mr Calvert. That couple you saw attacked Pastor Mertzluft but didn't kill him because he does not have the manuscript. You possess what they want."
Calvert scoffed. "They're dealing with a wily old reporter, sweetheart. I printed out two copies of THE LIGHT WHICH BRINGS DARKNESS and put them in the mail. One copy is on its way to an editor of mine in San Diego, he'll stick it in his filing cabinet. The other is going to my PO Box in Milford. In a few days, I'll pick it up and mail it to myself again!"
Listening off to one side, Archie McAlister grinnned. "Not bad. You've done this before."
"Oh hell yes," said Calvert. "Ten years ago, I broke a human trafficking organization wide open but it never made the papers because the governor of New Jersey stepped in, he said that public exposure would ruin police undercover work. See, that's when I started keeping multiple copies of everything-"
Megan broke in once more. "We want to keep you alive, Mr Calvert. Will you come with us?"
"I don't know. Let me see some ID, darling," the journalist said.
She took out a leather billfold and showed him her membership in the Kenneth Dred Foundation and her PI license for the State of New York, being carefull not to open the compartment which also held cards identifying her as a civilian consultant for Department 21 Black of the FBI. Calvin Calvert examined the ID carefully, not just giving it a quick glance, comparing her face to the photo on her driver's license as well.
"All right. I've heard a lot of good things about the KDF. Never met a member before, but any knight of Tel Shai is jake with me," Calvert said. "What about you, big boy?"
"Me?" Archie answered. "I'm just her friend and trusty assistant. I work for a Harley shop doing detail work and restoration."
Tucking away the billfold, Megan gently took Calvert's arm. "Those people will be coming back, probably when we will not be here to disperse them... that is, drive them away. I want you to come with us, sir. We will go to the publishing firm of THE DAWNING LIGHT and resolve this."
"Oh come on. Honey, you won't be able to get in to see Copely himself. No one can."
Megan started urging him quickly toward her Jeep. "We'll find out." Watching, Archie could not helping chuckling. Only a few minutes earlier, she had been dragging him the same way.
V.
On the forty-minute drive to the DAWNING LIGHT offices, Calvert sat in the back seat of the Jeep. Megan had quietly moved her travel bag and other gear into the rear compartment with the thought that this chatty journalist would be sure to snoop around and find the advanced Trom equipment.
As it was, he began the trip with a solid barrage of questions about the KDF and its members.
"The Kenneth Dred Foundation is a non-profit organization that conducts research into the paranormal," Megan said rather stiffly. "That's really all I am prepared to state."
"Fine, but what's your connection to that Dire Wolf character? Jeremy Bane? He's been linked to the capture of a dozen of the worst serial killers of the century. Samhain, Golgora, Seth Petrov, the Slaughterman... Why, my contacts in the NYPD have told me off the record that he leaves a trail of dead crooks and kidnapers and assorted riff-raff wherever he goes."
The Trom Girl seemed to be concentrating on her driving and made no comment.
"Look, dear," Calvert persisted, "It's well known that this Bane started the KDF decades ago. What is he doing now? Whatever happened to that mysterious silver man that was reported with him? Or Michael Hawk? A source I know in Manhattan tells me that one of the Blind Archers is currently in this country. What connection does an assassin like that have with your KDF?"
"I will arrange an interview with our director," Megan offered. "Either by phone or in person if you go to our headquarters in Manhattan. I'm sure Sable will be able to answer all your questions."
Turning around in the passenger seat to look back at their guest, Archie broke in. "What's bothering me is the DAWNING LIGHT business. Copely has been distributing his hate literature for fifty years. Why are religious leaders only now making a stand against them?"
"Ah, you're a sharp lad," said Calvert. "The late Father Sabino was the leader of our project. He was so troubled and hurt by the doctrine in those little pamphlets that he discussed correcting it to a Lutheran pastor... that would be Mertzluft, you've met him, and with a local Rabbi with a good reputation. He wanted to get a wide base to back up his book attacking Copely's beliefs."
"Unless I'm mistaken, you're Catholic yourself, aren't you?"
"Right on target, Archie," Calvert said. "Yeah, I'm Irish on both sides and Mother Church was very important to my family growing up. I remember enough Scripture to spot where Copely is just plain wrong in his use of quotes to back up his ideas!"
Archie said, "My parents were pretty tolerant, though. Dad in particular used to say that God knew what was in a person's heart and if you tried to live a good life, that was in your favor."
"Hah!" Calvert exploded. "Not according to Harry Copely. Have you read some of his booklets? He has convicted murderers and rapists going to straight to Heaven because they accepted Jesus at the last possible second. But then he has these wonderful humanitarian workers who have volunteered to provide free medical care in Third World nations.. he has THEM go straight to Hell when they die because they never explicitly gave themselves to Jesus. It's kinda shocking, to be honest."
"What bothers me is all the stuff about hating other religions," said Archie. "Muslims are outright Devil Worshippers. Buddhists are just as bad. The Catholic Church has been behind both Hitler and Stalin if you believe Copely... and some of his pamphlets urge true believers to commit violence against anyone not an Evangelical Protestant. I get upset just remembering some of those stories."
"That's the sort of thing that united Father Sabino and the other leaders," Calvert added, warming up to the topic. "They disagreed on their beliefs of course, but they all strongly objected to stirring up hatred like that. And these recent deaths.... Say, young lady, you haven't commented on this. What are your beliefs?"
Megan seemed taken off-guard by the question. "Me?"
"Yeah. What do you believe in?"
"I could be described as a secular humanist, I think. People should be free to believe whatever they want but their actions are limited and restricted by law. That seems like a workable premise for a society."
"Fair enough," Calvert shrugged. "But you're not religious yourself?"
"No." Just the single word. Megan Salenger had always been more blunt in her speech than most people found comfortable with.
"She was raised by atheists," Archie put in, turning attention back to himself. "So, Mr Calvert, from what I've seen of your blog, you're not intimidated easily?"
"I should say not!" the redheaded journalist snorted. "Seriously. I've had my mail opened and my phone stolen to get its records. I've been followed down side streets at night by men in dark suits. Why, not two weeks ago a beautiful woman in a bar tried to get me drunk so she could weasel information from me."
That seemed to alarm Megan for some reason. "How do you know she wasn't just interested in you?"
"Oh, bless you sweetie," Calvert said. "Life still has to crush all your illusions."
After a long stretch of empty fields, they came upon a waist-high stone wall running parallel to the road and an opening between two posts into a paved parking lot. A dark blue sign read THE REDEEMING LIGHT on gold script, with an emblem of a sunburst just clearing a horizon.
"Yeah, right," grumbled Calvin Calvert from the back seat of the Jeep. "'The Light That Brings Darkness' is what Father Sabino called it..."
The headquarters of the organization that had distributed millions of pamphlets for fifty years was surprisingly modest. A long one-story red brick structure, it had a rear loading dock with one white panel truck parked by its steps. Two cars were parked by the front entrance, both dark Hyundai Sonatas. An American flag hung from a pole topped with a plaster eagle.
Megan swung her Jeep into an empty parking slot and unclipped the Link from the back of her belt. As she adjusted its controls, she said quietly, "If your life was not in imminent danger, Mr Calvert, I would not allow you to accompany us."
"Well, thanks, sweetie," said the journalist. He pushed the white fedora back on his head until it seemed ready to fall off. "What's that, a new type of smart phone?"
The Trom Girl did not answer as she hopped down from her seat to the parking lot. She took readings, made one more tweak and pressed a button with a click. "We can go in now. The security cameras have their images frozen."
Archie got out and walked alongside her, with Calvert close behind. The front door had an electronic lock with a pad for sliding an ID card in, but Megan simply opened that door and walked into the white-tiled lobby.
"Hey," Calvert asked, "How'd you do that? With that gadget?"
"Shh," she said.
"You were raised by the Trom, right? Are the Trom really aliens from outer space?"
"No. Be quiet, please." Megan had attached the Link to her belt as she had entered and taken the beam projector from her jacket pocket. The device made no sound and showed no visible flash as she swung it in a wide arc to cover the lobby.
Facing them at the other side of the room, a middle-aged woman in a dark red dress slumped back in her chair and began to slide off it. Megan stepped forward quickly and caught her, propping her up with her head supported by the chair. She made sure that the woman was securely in place before moving back.
"I'm not supposed to be asking any more questions-" Calvert began.
"She is unharmed," the Trom Girl said. "Within an hour, given a variable error of ten minutes either way, I expect her to awaken with a slight headache and drowsiness. The brief glimpse she caught of us as we entered will not be enough for her to provide any sort of identification."
Calvert started to say something further, but Archie pressed a big hand over the journalist's mouth while holding a single finger up to his own lips. They both watched in silence as Megan boldly walked up to a elegant mahogany door to one side of the secretary's desk. She turned the unlocked knob and entered an overheated, dimly lit room.
VI.
The Trom Girl thumbed a switch on the wall next to her and overhead fluorescent lights flickered on. The office was so hot and stuffy that she felt difficulty breathing for a few seconds. Megan gave the cluttered room one quick glance, taking in the shelves crammed with books and loose papers, the table covered with mail and magazines, the jumble of tacky nick-nacks and souvenirs from various cities, before settling on the small figure in a wheelchair by the desk.
She had not expected Harry Copley to be so feeble. At eighty-seven, the evangelist had withered into a bent little shape wrapped in a blanket up to his chest. Seated next to his desk, Copely had an oxygen tank and apparatus behind the chair but he was not hooked up to it at the moment. As the overhead lights came on, the bald head swung slowly up and watery blue eyes blinked uncertainly.
"Eh? Lucille? You're not Lucille," he said.
"No." Megan stepped up to him and held out her billfold open to show its PI license and consultant card for the FBI Department 21 Black. Those old eyes obviously could not focus sharply enough to read but the IDs looked official and that seemed to be enough to satisfy Copely.
"So. Feds, eh? I don't care if you're from Hoover himself, you don't have an appointment. I can't believe Lucille let you in here..."
"You know about the death of Father Sabino." The tone in her voice made it clear that the sentence was not a question.
"Yes, yes, very sad. I tried many times to get him to abandon his Papist delusions but he would not listen. Poor soul is being tormented in Hell by now, I expect." Copely noticed the two men in the doorway and recognized Calvin Calvert. "You again! I warned you never to show your face here again."
"I stand on the First Amendment and all that," Calvert said with a laugh. "I don't suppose you'd agree to an interview, maybe some photos for my blog?"
Before the old man could sputter an outraged answer, the Trom Girl moved to block Copely's view of the journalist. "Mr Copely, I believe you are responsible for Father Sabino's death."
"Are you joking? Young lady, look at me! Do you seriously think I am in any condition to murder anyone? You must leave now. It's time for my breathing treatment." He managed to get one arm to a panel on his desk where he pressed a large white button. "Lucille?"
"Your secretary will not be responding," Megan said. "Can I assume you've heard of something called a Tulpa?"
"Tulpa? Tulpa? Of course I know them. I have studied all the lies of the Devil, miss. Know your enemy, I say. The Tulpa is a heathen supersitition from the Buddhist fools of Tibet. They believe their thoughts can materialize into solid beings that exist as long as they will it. Rot, of course. Anything like that must actually be demonic forces from the Pit itself!"
The Trom Girl had been half crouching in front of the withered man in the wheelchair. Now she straightened up and folded her arms across her chest. "We three have encountered two Tulpas today. We were attacked by them. They can project visible light and intense heat. I conclude that Father Sabino was murdered by them... and that they originated in your mind, Mr Copely."
"Eh? What? This is foolishness. It's still not too late for you to save yourself, young lady. Will you accept the love gift of the Lord into your life with all your heart?"
Megan hesitated. For once, she was at a loss how to proceed. Her rigorous education under the Trom councils had centered almost entirely on hard sciences like engineering, physics, chemistry and geology. She had been taught no more about the different religions than minimal definitions. She had no idea how to respond to Copely's statements. "I... well..."
"There is no other way," the elderly man insisted. He thrust his vulture face forward. "I am guiding you toward the Light that brings redemption to the world."
From the doorway, Archie McAllister unexpectedly spoke up. "The Light That Brings Darkness!" he boomed in a stern voice he seldom used. "Killing a poor old priest after a lifetime of service to his community because YOU don't agree with his doctrine is... it's indefensible. You have to see that."
Harry Copely stirred in his chair. He seemed to be struggling to supress his anger. As his breathing rasped louder and deeper, the evangelist tried to rise from the chair but his feeble body could not muster the neeeded strength. He sank back down. On either side of him, appearing from a swirl of lurid red light, the forms of Mr and Mrs John Smith were suddenly in the room. The woman placed a comforting hand on Copely's bony shoulder while her mate swung up his own hand toward the three intruders in a accusing gesture.
In the split-second left to her, Megan Salenger launched herself bodily back across the room to thump up against the solid bulk of her lover and partner, not even budging him as her back hit his chest. She took the full impact of that gralic blast as the dim office flared up in intolerable white light that no eye could handle.
VII.
The pain in her chest made every breath an agony. Megan Salenger had not completely lost consciousness but she was dazed. For once, that disciplined mind was confused. The Trom Girl vaguely realized she was lying on her back, sprawled out on top of Archie with Calvert next to them. In a panic, she twisted her head around to see if they were okay. Both were still breathing. She had protected them from John Smith's gralic sunburst.
Megan sat up, fell over on her side and struggled to prop herself up on one elbow. This shirt had been seared away as well, and the silk-thin armor felt painfully hot against her skin. Thin tendrils of smoke still rose off her. Megan tried but could not rise. Given time, probably her enhanced healing would take effect but judging by the cold glare that the Tulpas were fixing on her, she doubted that she would have that time. Another blast would certainly kill her.
She could not focus her efforts enough to reach for the beam projector or any of the gadgets hidden in her clothing. The Trom Girl endured a coughing jag that left her gasping as her ribs ached from the movement. "Mr Copely..." she managed to plead. "Please, listen to me. This is wrong. It's so wrong, you must realize it..."
The ancient evangelist had been grinning at the sight of these heretics being punished but the smile slipped away. His wrinkled face sagged. Possibly it was merely the sight of a helpless young woman suffering that triggered his remaining vestiges of compassion. He lifted his head to the two unnatural manifestations that stood on either side of him. "Wait. Wait, my friends. Don't slay her. I uh, I think she should have one last chance for salvation. Well, miss? What words do you have to say in these final moments? Will you accept redemption?"
Megan's clouded mind worked furiously. She knew almost nothing of Christian dogma. She could not remember any formal phrases that might help her. There was something called the 23rd Psalm but she had never heard its words. Digging through her memory, the Trom Girl desperately came up with a song she had once heard on a long drive and which Archie had sung himself to her after it was over. It was his voice that she could hear in her memory. She weakly sang,
"Jesus loves the little children
All the little children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world"
She did not expect this pititful little effort to have any effect. It was literally all she could think to come up with. But, as she finished, she heard Harry Copely cry out, "I remember!" Then his head fell down on his chest and the two apparitions blinked out of existence.
Beneath her, Megan felt Archie groan and stir. She rolled off him, onto her hands and knees, but that was as far as she could get. Her head was clearing. As the healing factor kicked in, her thoughts became sharper and she said, "Archie, it's okay. It's over."
"Uh. Ow," the big mechanic grunted as he sat up. He held his face in both hands, took deep breaths and looked around. "Meg, are you hurt?"
"I'm sore and aching but no serious damage has been done," she told him reassuringly. "How about you?"
"I'm fine," Archie said as he turned over and pulled himself up with one hand on the door frame behind him. "Had hangovers worse than this. Whew. Where are those two weirdos?"
"They are gone, dear. I do not think they will be coming back." Megan rose to her feet, steadying herself with hands out at her sides. "Harry Copely is dead. I can see from here that he is not breathing."
"Don't anyone worry about ME," complained Calvin Calvert from the doorway. The redheaded journalist was sitting up, bracing his weight against the jamb. "Just because I had a brute built like a pro linebacker land on top of me....."
"You sound like your normal self," said Archie. "Be grateful Megan thought quickly enough to get between us and that blast. Her armor under her clothes took most of the energy, otherwise we would have been fried and Copely would be arranging how to dispose of our bodies."
"All right, fine, you're right. Thanks, sweetheart."
"Please do not call me by those nicknames," the Trom Girl said. She tugged off what remained of her green polo shirt, just the back of the garment and part of one short sleeve. The front of the armor was stained black and still warm. Megan touched herself gingerly, her breasts were tender from both blasts that day. "Ouch. I do not enjoy this sort of case."
Calvert had plopped down into a chair and was staring around the office. "Last I remember, those two Mr and Mrs Whitebread popped up again. Then I guess lightning hit us. Maybe you guys care to explain things a little?"
"I will try," Megan said as she went over and examined the stiff figure in the wheelchair. After a second, she unclipped her Link and took some readings. "He is beyond any attempts at resucitation."
"You sure?" Calvert insisted. "Maybe some CPR until the ambulance comes?"
"You would only break ribs on the corpse for no reason," she said. "The bones are brittle." She clipped the Link back to her belt and went over to join the two men in the doorway. Around her, the stink of burned cotton lingered. "We should go now, Archie."
"Honey, I seem to have heard you singing a minute ago. Was that real or was I dreaming?" asked the big mechanic as he put a massive arm across her shoulders. Megan cuddled up against him wearily and sighed.
"Let's leave," she said. "The secretary will be reviving at some point. I think it would be best if she reports Copely's death to the police and the conclusion is that he died of natural causes. Mr Calvert, I can't prevent you from reporting this on your blog but let me strongly caution you to avoid doing so."
"I can't promise anything. The public has a right to know just what weirdness is going on in the world," he mumbled as they painfully left the scene.
___________
For the next few weeks, Megan and Archie checked Calvert's blog FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE daily but they found no mention of Harry Copely's death or anything about the mysterious couple in the red Alfa Romeo who had been seen in the area that day. Instead, Calvert had become preoccupied with the alleged tampering of local officials with reports about contaminants in the town's water supply. After that, he moved on to the disappearance of an oil company executive who had promised to reveal skullduggery about government graft. It seemed that Calvert had decided to let the whole incident go untold.
Two months later, the book THE LIGHT THAT BRINGS DARKNESS was published by a vanity pres with a foreword about Copely's passing. The book sold well enough that it stayed in print for years. Unfortunately, the Copely pamphlets also kept being turned out as other writers and artists were brought in to continue the series. The lurid tone and libel only slightly eased up over time.
Archie mentioned that the booklets were still coming out, still being left all over to poison new minds who found them, and Megan dutifully added all these details to her file on the case in the KDF records. But she herself had promptly moved on to be intrigued by new mysteries. Five dead cats had been found on someone's patio in Phoenix, Arizona, all of them marked with a black X painted on their sides....
7/7/2017
4/19-4/20/2010
I.
There was not much left of the church after the fire. Charred beams, piles of blackened plaster and glass fragments were all that showed where Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow had stood for nearly a hundred years. Off to one side, in the shadow of an ancient oak tree, the statue of Mary in its protective shell had survived. The body of Father Paul Sabino had been taken away hours ago.
Standing with shoulders slumped and head lowered, Archie McAllister felt numb. He had been gazing out at the remains of the church for more than an hour while Megan took readings. A big amiable man several inches over six feet tall and heavily built, Archie had gentle blue eyes that gave away his true character. Right now, those eyes were withdrawn. He looked around vaguely, spotted a round boulder near the trees and went over to sit down on it.
From where she had been kneeling just outside the yellow police tape, Megan Salenger rose and brushed off the knees of her jeans with one hand while studying the screen on her Link. The instrument she held was Trom-made and much more versatile than the simpler models she had crafted for her KDF teammates. The faintest frown showed on her inquisitive foxlike face as she snapped the Link off and returned it to its clip on her belt. At thirty-one, with her slight build and her huge dark eyes under a tousled mop of black hair, she still looked enough like a teenager that people treated her as one at first. The Trom Girl tugged down her light denim jacket and came back to her immediate surroundings.
"Archie?" she asked. "Dear, are you okay?"
"I guess," he said as he rose. "For some reason, this is hitting me hard."
"Did you know the victim?"
"No. No, I've never even been this far west in New York State. Binghamton was as far as I ever got." He stepped closer to tower over her, and she slipped an arm through his to press up against him from the side.
"Perhaps it's time to stop accepting these missions," Megan said. "After all, I have stepped down to reserve duty with the KDF so we can concentrate on fixing up our new house. Maybe the so-called 'Trom Girl Mysteries' have run their course."
Archie swung her around and hugged her in a bearlike embrace that she always found immensely comforting. "Aw, you love solving puzzles and figuring things out. It's a big part of how your mind works. I enjoy coming along and hearing the little wheels turn in your head."
The Trom Girl glanced over his shoulder at what was left of the church. "Spectroscopic analysis shows no trace of any accelerants. From my reconstruction, I believe intense heat was somehow produced in a one-meter radius near the altar. The police have reached the same conclusion."
Releasing her, Archie said, "Poor old Father Sabino. Seventy-one and still conducting services. I read an article on him not too long ago. He was here back when the town was just a few farmhouses and barns. To be killed at that age, after a life of service..."
"We should meet with Pastor Mertzluft. He was the one who called us in on this. By that, actually, I should say that he phoned the KDF, and Sable asked if I wanted to investigate. Mertzluft seems to think there is something unnatural about this crime and some other incidents that have happened here recently." She started heading to where her beloved red Jeep Cherokee sat just off the road. "Are you ready to go?"
"Sure, glad to get away from here. You finished looking around?"
"Yes. I was told not to enter the actual crime scene by the sheriff and I should comply with his request. We may need his Copelyeration. After the autopsy is completed, I expect there will be significant information available." Megan opened the driver side door, seized a handle set up near the roof interior and swung lightly up into the seat. "It is counter-productive to begin theorizing without sufficient data."
Archie climbed up into the passenger seat and tugged down the restraint strap across his thick chest. "Yeah, well, it was a long drive here and I looked up 'Police Beat' in the local paper on the way. For a few months now, the city of Milford's seen an upswing in hate crimes. A rabbi visiting his family was beaten half dead in a parking lot... he wasn't released from the hospital for three weeks. There have been anti-Semitic slogans spray-painted on buildings and tombstones vandalized in the town cemetery. Now this church is burned to the ground and the body of the old priest is found in the ashes."
"We should see what Pastor Mertzluft can tell us," Megan said as she reached an intersection where the country backroad met Route 229. Turning right at the stop sign, the Trom Girl reached up to the visor and pulled down a pair of steel-rimmed aviator sunglasses. "I estimate less than nine minutes before we arrive at his house."
"I found something else while I was Googling on the ride," Archie offered. "Considering that religion seems to a big factor in this, you might be interested in hearing that Harry Copely lives around here."
"That fact does not mean anything to me."
"Ah, you see, Harry Copely publishes these nasty little pamphlets called THE DAWNING LIGHT. People leave them in bus stations and hotel rooms and diners and places like that to spread their message. They're really horrible propaganda pieces against any belief other than Evangelical Protestants."
"Are these publications legal?"
"Seem to be. Copely's been putting out this hate literature for decades now. I found one by a pay phone when I was a good little Catholic boy. The book was completely serious that the Catholic Church was the secret force behind Hitler's rise to power so that all the Jews in Germany would be killed. The Church also supposedly helped Stalin get to the top so that Russian Jews would be wiped out. But Communism was started by the Church to get rid of the Czar! Sheesh," Archie shook his head and shuddered. "That scared me as a kid. I showed it to my parents and they just told me to throw the pamphlet away and forget it."
Megan considered. "From what I know of history, those claims by the pamphlet are extremely dubious."
"Yeah, tell me about it. Of course it's nonsense. THE DAWNING LIGHT treats Muslims and Mormons and Hindus the same way. They're all described as false religions created by the Devil himself to lead people astray. The books are so crude in the writing and art that you think they'd be ridiculed but I guess a lot of people believe every word."
It was her turn to shake her head and sigh. "The Trom warned me that I would never understand the way my fellow Humans think and this is more proof they were right."
II.
They were still ten miles from Milford itself and had seen nothing but residential houses with stretches of open fields and woods between. Up by the road was a red metal mailbox with the name MERTZLUFT painted on it. Slowing as they approached, Megan turned up a long gravel driveway to where a two-story house with tan aluminum siding sat. Already parked there was a white Ford XX and a gleaming red Alfa Romeo.
Unexpectedly, the Trom Girl stopped her Jeep well before reaching the house. She reached into a pocket of her denim jacket and took out a flat grey metal device with a shallow slot on its top. As Archie watched, she unclipped an unmarked cartridge of the same metal and clicked it into place in the slot.
"Uh-oh, that's like seeing you thumb back the hammer on a gun," Archie said.
"I am adjusting the neural shock to be effective but harmless on most Humans." Megan thumbed two dials on the beam projector and held it in her right hand like a flashlight. She swung open her door and hopped down to the gravel, head tilted as if listening. Archie came around to stand beside her.
In his best whisper, the big mechanic asked, "What's the problem, hon?"
"My Kumundu training is warning me," she replied in an equally low voice. "I can't define it but my subconscious related visual and auditory clues of danger. It's what you might call a sixth sense if you like that term." She held the projector up at chest level and began walking up the driveway. Archie followed with some concern. Her instincts were almost always accurate but he couldn't see anything to worry about.
As they approached the house, a remarkably good-looking man and woman emerged from the front door and watched them near. The couple were both young, in their early twenties, and well-dressed in a formal way. He had on a dark blue conservative suit with a white shirt and black necktie while she was wearing a simple black dress with a skirt that reached just to her knees. Both were about five feet ten and slender, with sandy blonde hair and pleasant if undistinctive faces.
"Something off-kilter about these two," muttered Archie into Megan's ear while they were still out of hearing distance.
"Yes. Their body language shows repressed aggression and extreme anger." The Trom Girl kept moving forward with her longtime lover and partner looming up over her protectively.
As they came within conversational range, the man smiled warmly. "Greetings, friends, have you invited the Lord Christ into your hearts?"
"No," said Megan bluntly. "We are here to meet Pastor Mertzluft. I see his car."
"The girl has a weapon!" snapped the blonde woman, grabbing at the man's arm. "She's a tool of the Devil."
Before Megan or Archie could react, the entire world seemed to turn a blinding yellow-white and heat rushed over them as if someone had opened the door to a blast furnace from an inch away. It seemed like hours before their full awareness returned. Archie found himself lying full-length with the gravel digging painfully into his back. Megan was sprawled limply on top of him. She seemed still dazed and unresponsive as he tentatively tried to get up without moving her.
The couple were gone, as was their car. Archie carefully held the Trom Girl as he sat up, supporting her in one thick arm and cradling her head gently with his free hand. Her sunglasses had been knocked off and her face was flushed pink as if with first-degree burns. Archie's heart skipped a beat or two as he saw that the front of her white pullover shirt had been seared completely away to reveal the silklike sheen of the flexible armor underneath. He tapped the armor with an index finger and found it was hot enough to sting his skin.
Megan's dark eyes blinked open, instantly alert. "Archie! Have you been hurt?"
"Me? Let's worry about you. It looks like you got hit by a flamethrower." He turned her so she was sitting in his lap with his arm supporting her. "Hon, your shirt got burned right off. Look at it. Are you okay?"
"Yes. I felt sore and uncomfortable, but I am not injured." The Trom Girl stirred and glanced around at their surroundings. "I can get up now. My armor disperses most of an energy attack and my enhanced healing is working. Are you sure you are all right?"
"Don't worry about me. Whatever they used, you took the full blast and got slammed into me so hard we both lost it for a few minutes. Oww. I feel like I picked up a bad sunburn."
They both rose to their feet and inspected each other before doing anything else. Archie spotted the beam projector on the ground nearby, bent to pick it up and handed the device to her. "My skin stings but otherwise I feel good to go," he said.
"Oh, no," the Trom Girl said as she snatched up her aviator glasses to find one lense missing and an earpiece bent almost double. "I loved these. You bought them for me last summer."
"We can get another pair. All that matters is that you're not hurt, hon."
Megan swung around and took off at a full run toward the house. After taking only a second to react, Archie followed. He was used to her suddenly acting without explanation. The Trom Girl yanked open the screen door of the house and plunged inside. The big man was right behind her. They passed through a modest kitchen with canary yellow wallpaper and a breakfast table that held a bowl of assorted bananas and tangerines before rushing into the living room to find the pastor lying face down on the rug.
III.
Alex Mertluft was a heavyset man in his forties, wearing regular slacks and a plaid shirt, stretched out in front of an easy chair. Megan pounced down next to him to take his pulse and check his breathing.
"He's alive," she said as she saw Archie crouch down next to her. "Vitals check as normal. He appears to be dazed by some sort of shock but I expect him to recover immediately."
Archie easily lifted the minister up and placed him in the chair. Even as he did this, Mertzluft grumbled and moved his arms vaguely. In another minute, the man regained awareness. His deepset brown eyes moved around the room. "Where- where did they go?"
"That man and woman are gone," Megan told him. She hurried back to the kitchen and filled a tumbler with cold water from the tap, bringing him back to the pastor. The man sipped at it and thanked her. Then he noticed how her shirt had been charred away, the smell of burnt cotton lingering around her. "What did they do to you?" he asked in a horrified tone.
"Pastor Mertzluft," she said, "We are from the Kenneth Dred Foundation in Manhattan. You called us and asked for help. My name is Megan Salenger and this is Archie McAllister. Who were those two people who were here?"
Once Pastor Mertzluft was settled in his easy chair and had finished the water, his head seemed to clear. His biggest concern was for Megan's safety. The sight of her charred-away shirt distressed him, but she showed him the silk-thin Trom armor she wore and explained that it was an advanced design that had protected her. Neither she nor Archie had suffered any lasting damage, although their exposed skin was skill tender and stung as if sunburned.
"I don't know who that man and woman are that came here," Mertzluft admitted. "They introduced themselves as Mr and Mrs John Smith, which struck me as unlikely but then I often have people in trouble come to me. Many do not reveal their real names right away."
Megan and Archie had seated themselves on the slightly worn couch adjacent to the clergyman's chair. The living room was unremarkable, a bit untidy but clean. A large TV faced them, there were bookshelves absolutely crammed full of thick hardcovers, and an end table held a clock-radio, glass of water and a large bottle of Tylenol. Two standing lamps at either end of the couch were both lit. Archie glanced around briefly, then turned his full attention to how Megan was asking Mertzluft for details.
She established that the couple had arrived here unannounced less than twenty minutes earlier in their Alfa Romeo. They had immediately begun haranguing the pastor about Church doctrine and seemed quite belligerent in a superficially polite way. As he defended himself politely, their questions turned to the manuscript he had been working on with a local blogger, Calvin Calvert.
"This is getting interesting," Megan said in her usual blunt way. "What is this manuscript?"
"Oh, it's based on notes I have been collecting for years now," Mertzluft told them. "Mr Calvert has a way with words. He has been a newspaper journalist for decades and he knows how to write clearly and colorfully. We were collaborating on something called THE LIGHT THAT BRINGS DARKNESS. It's an expose of those DAWNING LIGHT booklets." He got awkwardly to his feet and went over to a corner of the room to come back with a cardboard box full of small black-and-white illustrated pamphlets. "Here, these give you an idea what we're dealing with..."
Archie began skimming through the booklets. "Yeah, I remember these from when I was a kid. VATICAN NIGHTMARE. RED RATS AT OUR THROATS. WHY JOANIE WOULDN'T LISTEN. THE MOON GOD SURVIVES IN HALLOWEEN... Man, these bring back memories and not good ones."
Seated next to him, the Trom Girl started glancing through the DAWNING LIGHT pamphlets so quickly she hardly seemed to be noticing them. Archie knew that actually she was memorizing every word and image and could described each page in great detail at a later point. After about a dozen, though, she put them aside.
"These are difficult to assimilate," she admitted. "There are so many logical fallacies, examples of circular reasoning and unprovable premises that I find them annoying."
Mertzluft did not quite laugh but he did seem wryly amused. "That is exactly how many leaders in the religious community feel, young lady. Rabbi Weiss over at the Wall Street synagogue had been helping us with some detailed rebuttals of the ideas in the tracts. And poor old Father Sabino... he added many notes explaining how these booklets got Catholic dogma wrong. We all disagree on doctrine but we can work together for the greater good of the public. I was comforted to find out how well we got along."
"Father," Archie interrupted, 'How you been contacted by the publisher of these DAWNING LIGHT things? Any threats?"
"No. Not at all. As I understand it, Mr Copely himself is quite elderly, in his eighties at least, and he never appears in public or makes public statements. Calvin has been trying to arrange an interview for years now." The pastor leaned back and seemed to be getting more at ease with his visitors. "So, you are members of the Kenneth Dred Foundation?"
"Megan is," said Archie. "I'm just a helper."
"Archie is the one partner I can rely on without doubts. He is half of our team," the Trom Girl corrected. A sudden grin lit her foxlike face and made her seem to be in her early teens. "I think he understands Human psychology better than I ever will. Father, if that's how we should adress you, where is the manuscript to this book you are working on?"
"Oh, that. Well. To be honest, there's only one hard copy. Calvin printed it out on paper and bound it together for his own reference but that's already way outdated. The book itself is stored on the hard drives of his laptop and mine, constantly being revised and polished as we work on it."
Megan shot to her feet as if she had been stung by a hornet, startling everyone. Archie dropped one of the pamphlets and dug at his feet to retrieve it. "Father," she said in a quite different voice, "Did they take your laptop?"
"Oh, no, no. Calvin actually has it at the moment."
The Trom Girl had changed dramatically. The polite demure reserve had vanished. She demanded, "Where can we find Calvin Calvert?"
"Calvin? Why, he lives in the Valkenburgh boarding house. About fifteen miles down this road, opposite the post office.. why, gracious." He was facing an empty room. Megan Salenger had raced out of the house at full tilt, dragging Archie by one arm.
IV.
Outside, the Trom Girl plunged across the yard and dove up into the driver seat of her Jeep as nimbly as a chipmunk leaping for cover. Archie was right behind her. He slammed his door shut after the vehicle was already in gear and accelerating down the driveway. As he pulled down his restraint straps, he saw Megan was doing the same with her free hand.
"Let me see if I can find a phone number for this Calvert guy," Archie said, struggling to find his smartphone in his back jeans pocket.
"Excellent. Warning him is a good idea." Megan began wriggling out of her ruined shirt as she drove, wadding it up and tossing it into the back seat. The Trom armor looked like dark silk with a sheen to it, covering her upper body up to her neck and to her wrists. It dispersed kinetic impact efficiently that even a high-powered rifle bullet left only a bruise and it protected against sharp blades or flame or electrical current. The Trom armor had kept her torso from being burned open by that blast of energy from Mr and Mrs John Smith just now.
"I have a spare shirt in my travel bag," she told Archie, "But that is not important right now."
"No number listed for Calvin Calvert, I'm afraid. He has a blog called 'What Really Happened,' but its contact information is only an e-mail. AOL at that. I can send him a warning, what do you think?"
"Yes, please do so. He might not be at home." Megan took a curve in the back country road a bit too sharply and the right fender whipped against some brush by the side of the road. She grumbled in exasperation but didn't slow down. At the top of a hill, a US Post Office sat to their left, with a flagpole and a sign that read, CLOSING EARLY TODAY. On the opposite side of the road was a three story wooden house with a porch that ran its width. Three cars were parked in an area of crushed shale, and the yard had an above-ground swimming pool that was still covered over in late June. Megan swerved hard into that yard, slammed on the brakes and hurtled out of the Jeep all in one motion.
Standing just off the road, smiling with intolerable smugness next to their red Alfa Romeo, were Mr and Mrs Smith. As soon as her feet hit the ground, the Trom Girl extended her arm and pressed the contact patch on the beam projector. Unexpectedy, a gorgeous swirl of varied colors swept out and over the couple with a noise like a rushing river. As the rainbow flare faded, not only were Mr and Mrs Smith gone from sight, so was their car.
"Whoa, Megan...!" Archie clapped a hand over his mouth and fell back a step. "You disintegrated them! I never thought you'd do something cold-blooded like that."
"Oh, no," the Trom Girl answered blandly as she adjusted the controls on the device before clipping it back on her belt. "I dispersed the constructs with a wide-sprectrum exposure. My hypothesis is that feedback startled the mind behind the manifestation enough that their contact was broken."
"And now you've gone off the deep end? Oh, honey, try to speak English, for my sake."
Megan turned her head back over her shoulder and gave him a relieved grin. "Archie! Seriously. Those people were never really here and neither was their car. They were constructs of gralic energy controlled by a Human mind. We encountered something similar in Florida last year if you remember."
"Oh? Oh yeah. The Woman in White apparition that was scaring people on back roads. Okay, I get it now. They were like semi-solid images?" Archie walked over to where the Smiths had seemed to stand. "The car didn't even leave any tire treads in the dirt."
"Those constructs are still a threat," Megan called over to him as she went back to the Jeep. From her travel bag in the back, she tugged out a green polo shirt and pulled it down over her head to replace the shirt that had been seared away. The sleeves of the Trom armor retracted back up to bicep level as she adjusted them. "They can channel gralic force into light and heat such as the blast which struck us."
Archie moved toward her, glancing back suspiciously where Mr and Mrs John Smith had apparently stood. "Is this what killed Father Sabino? What burned down the church?"
"Further investigation is needed," Megan said as if her thoughts were far away. "Archie, none of my explanation is really established at this point. I do not recall ever hearing of two gralic constructs at the same time. We are facing something unprecented and quite dangerous."
"I knew it!" yelled a voice from the house. "I absolutely KNEW it!"
Megan and Archie spun to see a man in a lightweight white suit with a battered matching fedora standing on the porch, taking one photo after another of them with a digital camera. He seemed about 40 years old, with dark auburn hair that was receding quickly up at the temples, blue eyes under shaggy brows and a weathered face that matched his wrinkled suit. The hat was shoved back so far on his head that it seemed in immediate peril of falling off.
Watching the stranger clicking away with the camera, Megan allowed a very faint expression of amusement to cross her face. As a KDF member, she always wore a tiny Eldar talisman. The small ornate wheel of white gold which hung around her neck provided protection against malevolent gralic force but it had a secondary effect of blurring her image on film or on video screens. Those photos which the man was so determined to take would only be useless foggy smears.
"That's Calvin Calvert all right," Archie told her under his breath. "His picture is at the top of his blog."
"Mr Calvert!" she called over to him. "We've come to speak with you. You are in personal danger."
The redheaded man lowered his camera and came loping over hastily toward them. He had a slight limp in one leg. "I was a witness. I saw the whole thing. Who do you work for? CIA? NSA? British Intelligence? Wait, I know... you're from the Mandate, am I right?"
The Trom Girl gave him a polite smile as she extended her right hand. Calvert shook it vigorously, then did the same for Archie.
"Say, that's quite a grip you got there, fella," he said to Archie.
"I'm a mechanic, worked on Harleys most of my life," the big man answered. "I've been reading your blog, 'What Really Happened,' Mr Calvert--"
"Oh, so you're the one HA HA just kidding, I actually have a daily readership in the thousands. Listen, those two people and their car, they vanished when the little lady here did her light show. Were they just like I don't know, a hologram you were creating--?"
Megan interrupted him firmly. "You know about the death of Father Paul Sabino."
That brought Calvert to a sober halt. "Yes. Yes I do. He was a fine man. I thought the world of him."
"We understand he added some corrections to a manuscript that you and Pastor Mertzluft are working on," the Trom Girl said. "I suspect he was murdered because of his connection with you."
"Really..." Calvert accepted the the idea quickly. "Huh. You know, I expected Harry Copely to try to stop us. That miserable old bigot. But I was figuring he would try legal action, a libel suit or something. Poor old Father Sabino. You think that Copely is behind his death, eh?"
Megan nodded. "I understand you've been investigating the paranormal and the unknown for years, Mr Calvert. Can you deal with finding out that the Midnight War is both real and deadly?"
"Yeah. Sure." The journalist took off his hat and crumpled it in one hand, a gesture which helped explain the hat's condition. "Until last year, I worked for the SUN-MIRROR out in Las Vegas, where the Bloodless Corpse murders took place. What I found out...! Believe me, the powers that be in city governments don't want the public to find out HALF of what's really going on..."
Again, the Trom Girl quietly interrupted him. "Your life is in danger now, Mr Calvert. That couple you saw attacked Pastor Mertzluft but didn't kill him because he does not have the manuscript. You possess what they want."
Calvert scoffed. "They're dealing with a wily old reporter, sweetheart. I printed out two copies of THE LIGHT WHICH BRINGS DARKNESS and put them in the mail. One copy is on its way to an editor of mine in San Diego, he'll stick it in his filing cabinet. The other is going to my PO Box in Milford. In a few days, I'll pick it up and mail it to myself again!"
Listening off to one side, Archie McAlister grinnned. "Not bad. You've done this before."
"Oh hell yes," said Calvert. "Ten years ago, I broke a human trafficking organization wide open but it never made the papers because the governor of New Jersey stepped in, he said that public exposure would ruin police undercover work. See, that's when I started keeping multiple copies of everything-"
Megan broke in once more. "We want to keep you alive, Mr Calvert. Will you come with us?"
"I don't know. Let me see some ID, darling," the journalist said.
She took out a leather billfold and showed him her membership in the Kenneth Dred Foundation and her PI license for the State of New York, being carefull not to open the compartment which also held cards identifying her as a civilian consultant for Department 21 Black of the FBI. Calvin Calvert examined the ID carefully, not just giving it a quick glance, comparing her face to the photo on her driver's license as well.
"All right. I've heard a lot of good things about the KDF. Never met a member before, but any knight of Tel Shai is jake with me," Calvert said. "What about you, big boy?"
"Me?" Archie answered. "I'm just her friend and trusty assistant. I work for a Harley shop doing detail work and restoration."
Tucking away the billfold, Megan gently took Calvert's arm. "Those people will be coming back, probably when we will not be here to disperse them... that is, drive them away. I want you to come with us, sir. We will go to the publishing firm of THE DAWNING LIGHT and resolve this."
"Oh come on. Honey, you won't be able to get in to see Copely himself. No one can."
Megan started urging him quickly toward her Jeep. "We'll find out." Watching, Archie could not helping chuckling. Only a few minutes earlier, she had been dragging him the same way.
V.
On the forty-minute drive to the DAWNING LIGHT offices, Calvert sat in the back seat of the Jeep. Megan had quietly moved her travel bag and other gear into the rear compartment with the thought that this chatty journalist would be sure to snoop around and find the advanced Trom equipment.
As it was, he began the trip with a solid barrage of questions about the KDF and its members.
"The Kenneth Dred Foundation is a non-profit organization that conducts research into the paranormal," Megan said rather stiffly. "That's really all I am prepared to state."
"Fine, but what's your connection to that Dire Wolf character? Jeremy Bane? He's been linked to the capture of a dozen of the worst serial killers of the century. Samhain, Golgora, Seth Petrov, the Slaughterman... Why, my contacts in the NYPD have told me off the record that he leaves a trail of dead crooks and kidnapers and assorted riff-raff wherever he goes."
The Trom Girl seemed to be concentrating on her driving and made no comment.
"Look, dear," Calvert persisted, "It's well known that this Bane started the KDF decades ago. What is he doing now? Whatever happened to that mysterious silver man that was reported with him? Or Michael Hawk? A source I know in Manhattan tells me that one of the Blind Archers is currently in this country. What connection does an assassin like that have with your KDF?"
"I will arrange an interview with our director," Megan offered. "Either by phone or in person if you go to our headquarters in Manhattan. I'm sure Sable will be able to answer all your questions."
Turning around in the passenger seat to look back at their guest, Archie broke in. "What's bothering me is the DAWNING LIGHT business. Copely has been distributing his hate literature for fifty years. Why are religious leaders only now making a stand against them?"
"Ah, you're a sharp lad," said Calvert. "The late Father Sabino was the leader of our project. He was so troubled and hurt by the doctrine in those little pamphlets that he discussed correcting it to a Lutheran pastor... that would be Mertzluft, you've met him, and with a local Rabbi with a good reputation. He wanted to get a wide base to back up his book attacking Copely's beliefs."
"Unless I'm mistaken, you're Catholic yourself, aren't you?"
"Right on target, Archie," Calvert said. "Yeah, I'm Irish on both sides and Mother Church was very important to my family growing up. I remember enough Scripture to spot where Copely is just plain wrong in his use of quotes to back up his ideas!"
Archie said, "My parents were pretty tolerant, though. Dad in particular used to say that God knew what was in a person's heart and if you tried to live a good life, that was in your favor."
"Hah!" Calvert exploded. "Not according to Harry Copely. Have you read some of his booklets? He has convicted murderers and rapists going to straight to Heaven because they accepted Jesus at the last possible second. But then he has these wonderful humanitarian workers who have volunteered to provide free medical care in Third World nations.. he has THEM go straight to Hell when they die because they never explicitly gave themselves to Jesus. It's kinda shocking, to be honest."
"What bothers me is all the stuff about hating other religions," said Archie. "Muslims are outright Devil Worshippers. Buddhists are just as bad. The Catholic Church has been behind both Hitler and Stalin if you believe Copely... and some of his pamphlets urge true believers to commit violence against anyone not an Evangelical Protestant. I get upset just remembering some of those stories."
"That's the sort of thing that united Father Sabino and the other leaders," Calvert added, warming up to the topic. "They disagreed on their beliefs of course, but they all strongly objected to stirring up hatred like that. And these recent deaths.... Say, young lady, you haven't commented on this. What are your beliefs?"
Megan seemed taken off-guard by the question. "Me?"
"Yeah. What do you believe in?"
"I could be described as a secular humanist, I think. People should be free to believe whatever they want but their actions are limited and restricted by law. That seems like a workable premise for a society."
"Fair enough," Calvert shrugged. "But you're not religious yourself?"
"No." Just the single word. Megan Salenger had always been more blunt in her speech than most people found comfortable with.
"She was raised by atheists," Archie put in, turning attention back to himself. "So, Mr Calvert, from what I've seen of your blog, you're not intimidated easily?"
"I should say not!" the redheaded journalist snorted. "Seriously. I've had my mail opened and my phone stolen to get its records. I've been followed down side streets at night by men in dark suits. Why, not two weeks ago a beautiful woman in a bar tried to get me drunk so she could weasel information from me."
That seemed to alarm Megan for some reason. "How do you know she wasn't just interested in you?"
"Oh, bless you sweetie," Calvert said. "Life still has to crush all your illusions."
After a long stretch of empty fields, they came upon a waist-high stone wall running parallel to the road and an opening between two posts into a paved parking lot. A dark blue sign read THE REDEEMING LIGHT on gold script, with an emblem of a sunburst just clearing a horizon.
"Yeah, right," grumbled Calvin Calvert from the back seat of the Jeep. "'The Light That Brings Darkness' is what Father Sabino called it..."
The headquarters of the organization that had distributed millions of pamphlets for fifty years was surprisingly modest. A long one-story red brick structure, it had a rear loading dock with one white panel truck parked by its steps. Two cars were parked by the front entrance, both dark Hyundai Sonatas. An American flag hung from a pole topped with a plaster eagle.
Megan swung her Jeep into an empty parking slot and unclipped the Link from the back of her belt. As she adjusted its controls, she said quietly, "If your life was not in imminent danger, Mr Calvert, I would not allow you to accompany us."
"Well, thanks, sweetie," said the journalist. He pushed the white fedora back on his head until it seemed ready to fall off. "What's that, a new type of smart phone?"
The Trom Girl did not answer as she hopped down from her seat to the parking lot. She took readings, made one more tweak and pressed a button with a click. "We can go in now. The security cameras have their images frozen."
Archie got out and walked alongside her, with Calvert close behind. The front door had an electronic lock with a pad for sliding an ID card in, but Megan simply opened that door and walked into the white-tiled lobby.
"Hey," Calvert asked, "How'd you do that? With that gadget?"
"Shh," she said.
"You were raised by the Trom, right? Are the Trom really aliens from outer space?"
"No. Be quiet, please." Megan had attached the Link to her belt as she had entered and taken the beam projector from her jacket pocket. The device made no sound and showed no visible flash as she swung it in a wide arc to cover the lobby.
Facing them at the other side of the room, a middle-aged woman in a dark red dress slumped back in her chair and began to slide off it. Megan stepped forward quickly and caught her, propping her up with her head supported by the chair. She made sure that the woman was securely in place before moving back.
"I'm not supposed to be asking any more questions-" Calvert began.
"She is unharmed," the Trom Girl said. "Within an hour, given a variable error of ten minutes either way, I expect her to awaken with a slight headache and drowsiness. The brief glimpse she caught of us as we entered will not be enough for her to provide any sort of identification."
Calvert started to say something further, but Archie pressed a big hand over the journalist's mouth while holding a single finger up to his own lips. They both watched in silence as Megan boldly walked up to a elegant mahogany door to one side of the secretary's desk. She turned the unlocked knob and entered an overheated, dimly lit room.
VI.
The Trom Girl thumbed a switch on the wall next to her and overhead fluorescent lights flickered on. The office was so hot and stuffy that she felt difficulty breathing for a few seconds. Megan gave the cluttered room one quick glance, taking in the shelves crammed with books and loose papers, the table covered with mail and magazines, the jumble of tacky nick-nacks and souvenirs from various cities, before settling on the small figure in a wheelchair by the desk.
She had not expected Harry Copley to be so feeble. At eighty-seven, the evangelist had withered into a bent little shape wrapped in a blanket up to his chest. Seated next to his desk, Copely had an oxygen tank and apparatus behind the chair but he was not hooked up to it at the moment. As the overhead lights came on, the bald head swung slowly up and watery blue eyes blinked uncertainly.
"Eh? Lucille? You're not Lucille," he said.
"No." Megan stepped up to him and held out her billfold open to show its PI license and consultant card for the FBI Department 21 Black. Those old eyes obviously could not focus sharply enough to read but the IDs looked official and that seemed to be enough to satisfy Copely.
"So. Feds, eh? I don't care if you're from Hoover himself, you don't have an appointment. I can't believe Lucille let you in here..."
"You know about the death of Father Sabino." The tone in her voice made it clear that the sentence was not a question.
"Yes, yes, very sad. I tried many times to get him to abandon his Papist delusions but he would not listen. Poor soul is being tormented in Hell by now, I expect." Copely noticed the two men in the doorway and recognized Calvin Calvert. "You again! I warned you never to show your face here again."
"I stand on the First Amendment and all that," Calvert said with a laugh. "I don't suppose you'd agree to an interview, maybe some photos for my blog?"
Before the old man could sputter an outraged answer, the Trom Girl moved to block Copely's view of the journalist. "Mr Copely, I believe you are responsible for Father Sabino's death."
"Are you joking? Young lady, look at me! Do you seriously think I am in any condition to murder anyone? You must leave now. It's time for my breathing treatment." He managed to get one arm to a panel on his desk where he pressed a large white button. "Lucille?"
"Your secretary will not be responding," Megan said. "Can I assume you've heard of something called a Tulpa?"
"Tulpa? Tulpa? Of course I know them. I have studied all the lies of the Devil, miss. Know your enemy, I say. The Tulpa is a heathen supersitition from the Buddhist fools of Tibet. They believe their thoughts can materialize into solid beings that exist as long as they will it. Rot, of course. Anything like that must actually be demonic forces from the Pit itself!"
The Trom Girl had been half crouching in front of the withered man in the wheelchair. Now she straightened up and folded her arms across her chest. "We three have encountered two Tulpas today. We were attacked by them. They can project visible light and intense heat. I conclude that Father Sabino was murdered by them... and that they originated in your mind, Mr Copely."
"Eh? What? This is foolishness. It's still not too late for you to save yourself, young lady. Will you accept the love gift of the Lord into your life with all your heart?"
Megan hesitated. For once, she was at a loss how to proceed. Her rigorous education under the Trom councils had centered almost entirely on hard sciences like engineering, physics, chemistry and geology. She had been taught no more about the different religions than minimal definitions. She had no idea how to respond to Copely's statements. "I... well..."
"There is no other way," the elderly man insisted. He thrust his vulture face forward. "I am guiding you toward the Light that brings redemption to the world."
From the doorway, Archie McAllister unexpectedly spoke up. "The Light That Brings Darkness!" he boomed in a stern voice he seldom used. "Killing a poor old priest after a lifetime of service to his community because YOU don't agree with his doctrine is... it's indefensible. You have to see that."
Harry Copely stirred in his chair. He seemed to be struggling to supress his anger. As his breathing rasped louder and deeper, the evangelist tried to rise from the chair but his feeble body could not muster the neeeded strength. He sank back down. On either side of him, appearing from a swirl of lurid red light, the forms of Mr and Mrs John Smith were suddenly in the room. The woman placed a comforting hand on Copely's bony shoulder while her mate swung up his own hand toward the three intruders in a accusing gesture.
In the split-second left to her, Megan Salenger launched herself bodily back across the room to thump up against the solid bulk of her lover and partner, not even budging him as her back hit his chest. She took the full impact of that gralic blast as the dim office flared up in intolerable white light that no eye could handle.
VII.
The pain in her chest made every breath an agony. Megan Salenger had not completely lost consciousness but she was dazed. For once, that disciplined mind was confused. The Trom Girl vaguely realized she was lying on her back, sprawled out on top of Archie with Calvert next to them. In a panic, she twisted her head around to see if they were okay. Both were still breathing. She had protected them from John Smith's gralic sunburst.
Megan sat up, fell over on her side and struggled to prop herself up on one elbow. This shirt had been seared away as well, and the silk-thin armor felt painfully hot against her skin. Thin tendrils of smoke still rose off her. Megan tried but could not rise. Given time, probably her enhanced healing would take effect but judging by the cold glare that the Tulpas were fixing on her, she doubted that she would have that time. Another blast would certainly kill her.
She could not focus her efforts enough to reach for the beam projector or any of the gadgets hidden in her clothing. The Trom Girl endured a coughing jag that left her gasping as her ribs ached from the movement. "Mr Copely..." she managed to plead. "Please, listen to me. This is wrong. It's so wrong, you must realize it..."
The ancient evangelist had been grinning at the sight of these heretics being punished but the smile slipped away. His wrinkled face sagged. Possibly it was merely the sight of a helpless young woman suffering that triggered his remaining vestiges of compassion. He lifted his head to the two unnatural manifestations that stood on either side of him. "Wait. Wait, my friends. Don't slay her. I uh, I think she should have one last chance for salvation. Well, miss? What words do you have to say in these final moments? Will you accept redemption?"
Megan's clouded mind worked furiously. She knew almost nothing of Christian dogma. She could not remember any formal phrases that might help her. There was something called the 23rd Psalm but she had never heard its words. Digging through her memory, the Trom Girl desperately came up with a song she had once heard on a long drive and which Archie had sung himself to her after it was over. It was his voice that she could hear in her memory. She weakly sang,
"Jesus loves the little children
All the little children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world"
She did not expect this pititful little effort to have any effect. It was literally all she could think to come up with. But, as she finished, she heard Harry Copely cry out, "I remember!" Then his head fell down on his chest and the two apparitions blinked out of existence.
Beneath her, Megan felt Archie groan and stir. She rolled off him, onto her hands and knees, but that was as far as she could get. Her head was clearing. As the healing factor kicked in, her thoughts became sharper and she said, "Archie, it's okay. It's over."
"Uh. Ow," the big mechanic grunted as he sat up. He held his face in both hands, took deep breaths and looked around. "Meg, are you hurt?"
"I'm sore and aching but no serious damage has been done," she told him reassuringly. "How about you?"
"I'm fine," Archie said as he turned over and pulled himself up with one hand on the door frame behind him. "Had hangovers worse than this. Whew. Where are those two weirdos?"
"They are gone, dear. I do not think they will be coming back." Megan rose to her feet, steadying herself with hands out at her sides. "Harry Copely is dead. I can see from here that he is not breathing."
"Don't anyone worry about ME," complained Calvin Calvert from the doorway. The redheaded journalist was sitting up, bracing his weight against the jamb. "Just because I had a brute built like a pro linebacker land on top of me....."
"You sound like your normal self," said Archie. "Be grateful Megan thought quickly enough to get between us and that blast. Her armor under her clothes took most of the energy, otherwise we would have been fried and Copely would be arranging how to dispose of our bodies."
"All right, fine, you're right. Thanks, sweetheart."
"Please do not call me by those nicknames," the Trom Girl said. She tugged off what remained of her green polo shirt, just the back of the garment and part of one short sleeve. The front of the armor was stained black and still warm. Megan touched herself gingerly, her breasts were tender from both blasts that day. "Ouch. I do not enjoy this sort of case."
Calvert had plopped down into a chair and was staring around the office. "Last I remember, those two Mr and Mrs Whitebread popped up again. Then I guess lightning hit us. Maybe you guys care to explain things a little?"
"I will try," Megan said as she went over and examined the stiff figure in the wheelchair. After a second, she unclipped her Link and took some readings. "He is beyond any attempts at resucitation."
"You sure?" Calvert insisted. "Maybe some CPR until the ambulance comes?"
"You would only break ribs on the corpse for no reason," she said. "The bones are brittle." She clipped the Link back to her belt and went over to join the two men in the doorway. Around her, the stink of burned cotton lingered. "We should go now, Archie."
"Honey, I seem to have heard you singing a minute ago. Was that real or was I dreaming?" asked the big mechanic as he put a massive arm across her shoulders. Megan cuddled up against him wearily and sighed.
"Let's leave," she said. "The secretary will be reviving at some point. I think it would be best if she reports Copely's death to the police and the conclusion is that he died of natural causes. Mr Calvert, I can't prevent you from reporting this on your blog but let me strongly caution you to avoid doing so."
"I can't promise anything. The public has a right to know just what weirdness is going on in the world," he mumbled as they painfully left the scene.
___________
For the next few weeks, Megan and Archie checked Calvert's blog FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE daily but they found no mention of Harry Copely's death or anything about the mysterious couple in the red Alfa Romeo who had been seen in the area that day. Instead, Calvert had become preoccupied with the alleged tampering of local officials with reports about contaminants in the town's water supply. After that, he moved on to the disappearance of an oil company executive who had promised to reveal skullduggery about government graft. It seemed that Calvert had decided to let the whole incident go untold.
Two months later, the book THE LIGHT THAT BRINGS DARKNESS was published by a vanity pres with a foreword about Copely's passing. The book sold well enough that it stayed in print for years. Unfortunately, the Copely pamphlets also kept being turned out as other writers and artists were brought in to continue the series. The lurid tone and libel only slightly eased up over time.
Archie mentioned that the booklets were still coming out, still being left all over to poison new minds who found them, and Megan dutifully added all these details to her file on the case in the KDF records. But she herself had promptly moved on to be intrigued by new mysteries. Five dead cats had been found on someone's patio in Phoenix, Arizona, all of them marked with a black X painted on their sides....
7/7/2017
