"The Rasputniks"
May. 23rd, 2022 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Rasputniks"
2/1-2/2/2002
I.
In the tiny bathroom adjoining his office, Jeremy Bane watched a bullet work its way out of his leg. He had gotten used to this. Almost thirty-six years of a tagra diet from Tel Shai had boosted his recuperative powers way past what medical science could explain. It was a major reason why acceptance to the Order was so prized, because only Tel Shai could offer the secret of tagra. Bane was not indestructible by any means, he felt his share of pain and there were limits to how much damage his body could survive. All of his colleagues who had died in action were proof of that.
With his foot up on the sink, Bane studied the tiny, almost imperceptible movement as the misshapen slug stuck a little bit further out from his calf. There was the same feeling of relief of a splinter coming free. With a pair of tweezers, he gripped the bullet, wiggled it a bit and finally got the damn thing out. It had been in there for two days, since Colonel Schoeber had fired a last gift while making his escape. Bane had felt the satisfaction of seeing the man captured by State Troopers before his car got a half mile away, but he had wanted to keep secret his involvement in the chase that drove Schoeber out of hiding.
Dropping the bullet in the wastepaper basket, the Dire Wolf looked for any signs of infection but didn't expect to find any. That was a Tagra benefit. He dressed the wound snugly, wrapped gauze around the calf and put his foot down. Barely a wince. In a few days, hopefully there might be nothing more than a pale circle on the skin. Bane washed his hands, pulled on a pair of black socks, and walked out to his office with no perceptible limp. Dropping down in his chair behind the desk, he yanked on his boots and let out a sigh. There was a bottle of water on the desk and he drained most of it. It was a relief to get that over with.
After a few minutes, his matter-of-fact mind got back to work. There was a stack of bills in the stand to his left and they weren't going to pay themselves. From the center drawer of his desk, he took out the big red leather ledger, his checkbook and a pen, and sourly got to work. There was really no reason he couldn't employ a secretary to handle the paperwork except for his deep-seated secretive nature. He had always wanted to keep everything to himself, it came from his childhood as a street orphan. Half an hour of writing checks and making entries went by slowly. At forty minutes, he couldn't take it and got up to pace. He pulled the opaque curtains aside to peer out at a drab rainy 3rd Avenue. Bane circled the office. The same enhanced metabolism that gave him his speed also kept him restless. He decided the office needed a big clock that clients could see. Right on the empty wall behind him where only his PI license hung. And a coatrack...
The doorbell rang. Quick as if he had gotten an electric shock, Bane swerved through the open door to the tiny reception room. High on one wall was the closed-circuit TV showing the hall outside. A middle-aged man and a woman in her early twenties. Bane studied them thoughtfully, with his training in body language and in observing concealed weapons. They were tense and worried but no threat, he thought.
Almost instantly, he took in that they were close relations, father and daughter most likely. German descent, good-looking pair with thick black hair and good grooming. The man was wearing a topcoat over a suit, the woman had a modest dark dress with a short jacket. As he watched, the man leaned forward and pressed the bell again. Bane decided. He opened the door inward and said, "Can I help you?"
"Hello? Oh I hope so. You are Jeremy Bane, the Dire Wolf, aren't you?"
"That's me. Come in and tell me your problems." Bane gestured for them to cross the reception room, just big enough to hold a coffee table and two chairs. As they went into the office itself, he closed the outdoor door after a quick suspicious glance across the lobby of the building. The door locked automatically as he followed his visitors. To the right as they entered was a big desk with three plain straightback chairs facing it and he motioned for them to seat themselves. This was why he should have thought to buy a coatrack, he reminded himself. The Dire Wolf went around and lowered himself behind his desk, unhurriedly scooping all the loose papers into a drawer.
"I don't know either of you," he said. "Let's get some introductions out of the way."
"Certainly." The man looked to be his late forties, developing a moonface and some grey in the bushy mustache. "I'm Henry Fischler, a respiratory therapist at Mount Sinai. This is my daughter Holly. She's a student at Columbia." He hesitated. "I must apologize for not setting up an appointment, sir, this is rather an urgent situation..."
"Oh, that's all right," Bane answered. "I can be hard to locate. What brings you here?"
Fischler looked down and Holly also sat with her eyes lowered. Finally, he said, "My daughter complained of a throat infection a week ago. My first thought that it was thrush. She uses an inhaler and as you may know, if you don't rinse your mouth every time, thrush is a possibility. I took a culture, prescribed a standard antibiotic and after an unusually long period the infection went away. But something about the culture disturbed me. I could not put my finger on it. I asked a colleague to do some further tests."
Bane said nothing. Actually, he had never heard of thrush and was taking this in faith for the moment.
"It was then my daughter confessed she had had a romantic weekend with a young man she had just met. This leaves me less than jubiliant, as you can imagine, but she is an adult and her sex life is really her own concern. Until my colleague returned the culture to me in an agitated state. It was something that people only develop who have been in close and prolonged contact with corpses!"
Now a bright predatory gleam sparked in Bane's grey eyes. "Holly, you want to add something?"
Holly Fischler straightened up and looked him right in the eye. "Mr Bane, the man I met told me he worked in a law office downtown. The way he dressed and the quality of his apartment, I had no reason to doubt him. I don't see how he could have any contact with bodies, it just seems impossible."
"Life is full of surprises," Bane remarked without sarcasm. "I don't suppose this guy could get this way working at a morgue or medical school, doctor?"
"No. Absolutely not. The infection indicates prolonged contact with cadavers while not wearing protection. I can't imagine any law-abiding professional who might develop it."
The Dire Wolf leaned forward, resting his folded arms on the desk. "The next question is why you don't report it to the police? I am sure they'd be interested."
"We discussed that. But maybe there was some mistake in the lab, maybe there is a similar infection we don't know of that could be contracted quite innocently." The doctor cleared his throat as if the topic of infections bothered him. "And to be honest, if there was some criminal activity, seeing my daughter's name in the papers and how she contracted it... well, we both would rather avoid that."
"I see. So, you want to hire me to investigate this man and find out if he's up to anything shady, how he contracted this infection, and keep it all quiet. Is that it?"
"Yes. Exactly." Dr Fischler exhaled sharply as if relieved to finally get to the point. "I must say I know of your work, Mr Bane. I personally knew the family you rescued from Samhain back in the 90s, and I have been following various reports since. Your record is amazing. Maybe the average person has no idea what horrors come out into the city at night, but some of us do and we feel safer knowing you are here."
Bane gave a faint smile. "Well, I enjoy compliments as much as the next guy, but we have work to do. Holly, I need a name, address and detailed description. Don't worry, nothing will be written down."
For the next ten minutes, Bane got details from her, memorizing everything. He started on hints of an accent, any signs of a limp or bad vision or hearing, any tiny item that might be useful. When it was over, Holly was giving him a quizical look. "Now, the question of my fee. I suppose a flat one thousand dollars would not be a burden on you?"
"Oh, no, certainly," Fischler took out his checkbook. "In fact, it seems quite low from what I understand."
Bane pulled out a seperate leather ledger, entered the date and the client's name and the fee. He wrote out a receipt and traded it for the check with Fischler. "I found if I didn't charge for my services, I couldn't claim I was acting for a client with certain protections. Now, if questioned by the police, I can claim confidentiality. It's useful." The Dire Wolf pushed back his chair and started to rise. "I think I have enough to go on. Hopefully there's an innocent explanation, and I'll let you know." Fischler held out a hand, Bane shook it and they headed for the door.
II.
After seeing them walk away across the lobby, the Dire Wolf returned to his office. From its net on the side of the desk, he pulled up his laptop and logged in. Checking out these clients was not as easy as it seemed, since he could not find a photo of Dr Henry Fischler on line. The man's background seemed solid enough. And there was a tiny head shot of Holly Fischler announcing her acceptance to Columbia; that picture matched the girl who had been in his office. Bane had to trust his instincts in this case. The body language and interactions between his visitors had been so natural and appropriate that it would have been a real project to train imposters. And for what? A goofy case of a young woman getting a sore throat from a one-night stand? Where was the payoff?
Next, the Dire Wolf did some searching on the suspect. Trom Girl had made many refinements to his laptop so it could sneak between the layers of firewalls (as she explained it) and could accesss highly classified information without being detected. Her Race's knowledge was way in advance of Human skill. But as a drawback, the computer got slower and slower as he used these functions. He was tempted to go for a walk and come back by the time the information came through.
Finally. Lewis James Hallenbeck. Specialist in copyright traps and research for the Ingster Group, 2155 Wall Street. 36. Never married, no children. Bane found an ID photo and it matched the description he had been given, Rather good-looking, brown curly hair, snub nose. wide jawline. Bane studied the face for a second and found he had an irrational dislike of it just on instinct. He erased his search record, started a security scan of his laptop and put it away. It was not even two o'clock in the afternoon, plenty of time to get going.
The Dire Wolf did not think he would need the full field suit for this case as it stood. He was already wearing his uniform of black slacks, long-sleeved turtleneck and sportjacket; beneath the clothing was a layer of the flexible Trom-metal armor and the two silver daggers were as always strapped to his forearms under the sleeves. From a drawer in his desk he took a holster and threaded it through his belt, then took out the dart pistol to examine it. Trom Girl had been modifying it as well, making it sleeker and less clunky. The barrel was still needle thin and long, but that could not be helped. These weapons had been through many upgrades and refinements since the Sting had first devised them back in the 1930s. Bane clicked in a clip of eight fresh anesthetic darts, snapped the mechanism shut and holstered it just behind his left hip.
The Dire Wolf made a quick bathroom stop, turned off the lights and left his office. In a second, he was locking the door to the reception room behind him and striding quickly across the lobby, past Emergency One, through the sliding glass doors out onto Third Avenue. It was a raw, windy day and people were rushing to get inside. Bane swung left and almost ran four blocks south to Imperial Garage on 40th Street. He liked cold wet weather; Cindy had told him he was a Halloween baby. Rushing down the wide concrete ramp, he exchanged glances with Vito, the attendant who nodded assuringly. The Dire Wolf approached the 2011 Dodge Avenger he had bought a few weeks earlier. He wasn't happy with the car for some reason. His practice was to get a new vehicle every few months, ostensibly to confuse his enemies but mostly because he enjoyed the variety. He kept going back to Subaru Outbacks and Ford Mustangs, he might as well stick with them. Seeing the tiny green and blue lights blinking behind the driver's visor, he unlocked the car and jumped in. With a slight frown, still not feeling at home behind the wheel, he gunned the Avenger and headed out onto 40th Street.
The compensation about bad weather was that it made parking easier. A light cold drizzle had started and Bane found a convenient spot on 23rd and Lexington, right across the street from where he wanted to go. It was a brickfront building painted silver gray, with little evergreens in window boxes and an aluminum doorframe with the enigmatic word FOREGONE at its top. Each floor had two tenants, judging by the rows of nametags. Bane was a bit surprised, he would have expected something more flashy and luxurious from the suspect but maybe Hallenbeck was just tight with his money. Using a Trom device to overrride the electronic lock (he was spoiled by these gadgets, his lockpicking skills were rusty by now), the Dire Wolf walked into the foyer as if he owned the building and trotted up the stairs to the third floor. A very nice wooden bench stood at the top of the landing, with a real potted plant next to it. An ornate wooden door had the nameplate 3A HALLENBECK. Bane stood next to that door, held his breath and focussed. Thirty seconds. One minute. His mind eliminated other normal noises, leaving him satisfied there was no one in there. Again, the Trom device reshaped its tendrils within the lock and the door opened as freely as if it had been left ajar.
He was standing in an open, airy apartment decorated in quiet good taste. Lots of dark wood and rich carpeting and solid unobtrusive furniture. There were posters for French films on the walls, hanging plants. The place was as spotless as if it were intended for a showing that very day. Yet the moment he stepped in there, Jeremy Bane felt the presence of death.
III.
Pulling thin rubber gloves on, he began searching. It was easier than if he had been trying to find a tiny piece of paper or a stray hair as he sometimes had to try. The obvious paid off. A spacious walk-in closet big enough to rent as an apartment itself was in the bedroom. The clothes on their hangers slid to one side, revealing a blank wall. Now it was just a question of finding the switch. Nothing seemed evident. He tapped and slid his fingers around the edges and tried pressing in different areas. All his instincts told him he was on the right track and it was infuriating to be stalled like this, Bane almost growled, strongly tempted to just kick a hole in the panel and see what was inside. He sniffed but got nothing. One area where his Tel Shai training had failed was in developing an enhanced sense of smell. Evidently he didn't have the gene for it. Bane kept probing and getting annoyed when he heard the click of the apartment door opening.
Whipping the clothes back evenly along their overhanging bar, the Dire Wolf concealed himself in the corner and drew the dart gun. This was a surprise. He would have bet that someone like Hallenbeck kept long hours and often had a social drink after work with colleagues. Wrong again. Bane got in a comfortable pose he could hold for an extended period and started slow deep breaths not audible from an inch away. The bedroom door was wide open and he could hear someone come in and drop a burden on a chair, probably a briefcase.
"I am not happy about this," said a smooth baritone voice.
And the answer came in a chilling rasp that made Bane's hair stand up. "You are wise to meet me, Hallenbeck. Or should I use your real name... Chelenkov?"
"No, that's not necessary. Listen, I need a stiff drink. Will you join me?"
"No drink for me," sounded that hollow voice. It had a theatrical air that was still gruesome. "The Monk still has much work to do tonight. I warned your Elders not to dabble in the black arts. Let the dead remain dead."
Bane felt he had to creep out and try to get a glimpse. With infinite slowness, he edged forward within the closet. There was the clink of glasses, something being poured, a gulp. A man sighed and said, "Be fair. We don't really raise the dead."
"Creating a Preincarnated form is still hellish work," snarled the Monk. "As I know well. You have led me as far as you can, Chelenkov. I thank you for that." With that final word came the unmistakable cough of a silenced pistol. A man grunted in pain and there was the thud of a body hitting the floor but Bane was already out into the apartment. He plunged from the bedroom, his own dart gun in hand, and caught only a split-second glimpse of a white featureless mask on a man in black robes. Then three savage blows struck him right over the heart and he was thrown back to tumble over an easy chair.
He didn't think he passed out completely, but was dazed for maybe twenty seconds. The Trom armor under his clothing was good but it wasn't perfect and some of the impact of three bullets to the heart got through to him. His chest ached and it took a minute before he could draw a deep breath. Damn, that guy had been fast. Bane had been counting on his own superior speed but it look like he was dealing with an equal this time. The Dire Wolf realized he was still holding his gun and, since the Monk had disappeared, he holstered it. With a shudder as his body snapped off the impact, he bent over the body of what had been his suspect. Hallenbeck (or Chelenkov) was dead, no doubt about it considering the neat blue bullet hole between the two staring eyes. Moving quickly, still wearing the rubber gloves, Bane searched the man and found nothing of interest. Jumping up, he moved out into the hall, closing the door behind him and got around a corner just as the elevator door dinged.
Standing out of sight, the Dire Wolf listened but heard only footsteps go in the opposite direction. Just as well. He had been half expecting the new arrival to be the cops. Once or twice, he had been forced to solve a case while on the run and he had no desire to try it again. Too complicated. Tugging off the blue gloves and stowing them in an inner pocket, he opened an exit door and trotted down the stairs to the ground level. waiting until he heard no one in the foyer, he stepped out and was back on 23rd Street. The only people on the sidewalk were walking away from him. He went directly to his car and eased out into traffic.
Well. Despite his decades of experience against bad guys of every type, Bane felt unreasonably shaken. The Monk! Of all people. He needed a few minutes to think things over. Bane headed north, went to 47th Street and found a parking spot rather than go back to the Imperial Garage. He was right near his apartment. For once Mrs Choi was not sitting by her window. Bane went in the entrance, up the worn wooden stairs to the second floor and checked the security devices he had installed himself behind a sliding panel before unlocking his door. The apartment was dim and cool, and he left it that way. Dropping down on the couch, he stretched out with his arms behind his head and tried to collect his thoughts.
The Monk should not be alive in the world today. He had been a vigilante crimefighter of great ruthlessness from the 1920s into early 1940s. Bringing criminals to court never seemed to enter his head, he saw himself as an ordained executioner. No one knew who he really was. The best Bane had ever found was a suspicion that the Monk was originally a Texas gunfighter and pilot who had been badly burned during the Great War. But that was just conjecture. in 1944, the Monk's vicious crusade stopped so abruptly and permanently that it was concluded he he had to be dead. And in fact, there was no reason to think otherwise. So for more than fifty years, the Monk had been just a fading legend in the whispers of crime.
Feeling a bit more collected, Bane jumped off the couch and went to the refrigerator. A 12" ham and swiss cheese sub sat in its wrapper, where he had not gotten to it the day before. Grabbing it and a bottle of seltzer, he went back to the couch and sat up, with his feet on a small hassock. As he worked through the sub, he remembered how the Monk had been brought back just a few years earlier.
June of 2000. His then-new KDF team tackled the Preincarnators, who had the secret of a Darthan spell which transformed a volunteer into a physical and mental replica of an ancestor. It was like ancestral memory made flesh. Members of the Preincarnators could turn into genuine Vikings, Samurai, Zulu, almost any warrior from history. Because the replicas retained many memories of the earlier lives, they were also useful for retrieving buried loot. In that last encounter, Warren Vidimar had used his spell to resurrect four long-dead heroes... Pilgrim, the Brimstone kid, Tommy Moon, the Monk. But none of them cooperated. They all rebelled and wanted to start their lives over. Bane smiled to himself at the irony. Pilgrim still ran a detective agency in Los Angeles and the Kid worked occasionally with the KDF. He did not know what had happened to Tommy Moon, and the Monk had simply disappeared.
Finishing the sub, Bane crumbled the wrapper up tightly. It seemed as if the Monk had indeed resumed his vigilante ways, only more covertly. Apparently he did not want his return to be general knowledge. Bane frowned and realized he needed to confer vwith Lt Montez about this. Were there an unusual number of criminals turning up dead or disappearing for no reason? Could the Monk be the reason? Come to think of it, Cobalt Jack had been found dead down by Battery Park just a few weeks ago...
IV.
Time to get to work. Tugging off his jacket, Bane yanked his turtleneck up over his head and inspected the front. There was one large ragged hole on the left side of the chest where three bullets had hit so closely together that the edges touched. Nice shooting at a moving target that appeared without warning. Going into his bedroom, he tossed the ruined shirt in the hamper and got a fresh one from the closet. Despite what friends said, Bane did have a few different outfits, including some jeans, flannel shirts, one business suit and a tailored dinner jacket. But the black outfit was practical for sneaking around in the dark and he found it had a nice psychological edge. People recognized it like a uniform.
Going back to the couch, he got his Link and started making phone calls. Over the years, he had developed a network of more than a hundred people who kept an eye out for weird sightings for him. Rather than accept rewards, he asked the people he had helped if they would report to him anything strange or bizarre. Most were glad to do so and felt they were part of a loose team protecting humanity from little-known dangers. He started with Bleak.
As always, the bitter old man who called himself Bleak had some good information and pointers where to go for more. The Monk was indeed back, keeping a low profile. Most New York area mobsters figured this was someone new using the old name and costume, no one suspected it was the original vigilante. The Monk had been strangely restrained since his resurrection. Instead of wiping out whole crime families and drug rings in mass slaughters, he had been picking off specific criminals one at a time... mostly murderers and druglords and human traffickers. It was as if he wanted to remain secret as long as possible.
As far as the Preincarnators went, Bleak knew nothing but promised to call if he found anything. Bane thanked him and promised he would mail him a bonus. Hanging up, the Dire Wolf rubbed his chest thoughtfully. It wasn't even sore. The twinge in his leg had gone away, too. Sometimes he wondered if the healing effects of tagra would hit diminishing returns and he would end up all crippled from the various damages he had taken over the years. Tugging on his sports jacket, he went back out to the street. A faint cold haze was in the air, not quite a drizzle yet. He got in his car, rubbed his jaw for a second and then went to his office on 44th Street and 3rd Avenue. He pulled into the small parking lot of the yellow brick building, something he seldom did. He could have a permanent spot of his own but preferred to keep his cars in the Imperial Garage for security. Striding through the lobby, he went past the stairwell and down the short dead-end hallway beside it to his office door.
Turning on the lights, he crossed over to his desk and dropped down. It was getting dark outside. Only a few hours ago, he had been surprised by the unscheduled visit of Dr Fischler and his daughter with her throat infection. Well, he had certainly found out a few things in those hours. Clicking on his office phone, he started listening to his messages. They were the usual, requests to meet to discuss a possible case, reminders of appointments, a chipper call from Unicorn over at the KDF building inviting him to come over for Pizza Night, one or two three mild threats from people he had offended. Nothing from Lt Montez, which pleased him. Montez was his police liaison and he had half expected that the man would instinctively connect him with the killing of Hallenbeck. But who knew, maybe the man's body had not been discovered yet. Possibly it wouldn't be until he failed to show up for work the next morning that anyone would even suspect something was wrong.
A real danger would come when the death was announced and the Fischlers read about it. They might think he, Bane, had killed the man and they might call the police. He wasn't seriously concerned about that for the moment. He had left no traces of being in that apartment, no one had seen him come or go. Because of his protective Eldar talisman, he left only a vague blur on any security cameras. And the weapon used would match the one used by the Monk, which the NYPD had to be aware of by now.
Finishing his messages, Bane returned a few. His next step was to try and find what had happened to the Preincarnators. That cult had been smashed four or five times now and kept coming back a few years later. The creator of the Preincarnation spell, Leopold Vidimar, was long dead and the secret had been kept in his family. Three years ago, it had been son Warren Vidimar who had mastered the spell which had revived the Monk. Vidimar had taken a beating by the revived Red Blade, and he had sworn off gralic sorcery after that. The man had not been arrested. Bane could not figure out a way to charge someone with resurrecting bad guys from the past. Although in theory Vidimar could have been charged as an accessory to all the crimes his Preincarnated monsters had committed, Bane knew no court would ever entertain so wild a situation. Prosasic explanations would be found to explain it all away. Instead, Cindy Brunner had carefully burned out the specific part of the man's memory that help the Preincarnation spell and they had let him go. He was a broken man anyway, from the abuse the Red Blade had given him.
He wondered why the Monk had called Hallenbeck "Chelenkov." The name had not come up in Bane's research on the man. Who were the Elders that the Monk was looking for? He had an annoying feeling that he did not even had half the picture yet.
Before leaving, he wanted to suit up. Bane knelt and unlatched hidden catches under the bookcase, then slid it aside to reveal a shallow pit he had dug himself in the concrete. Inside were a number of interesting items, including a large black trunk he hauled up on to the rug. Stripping down to the Trom armor, which looked like a bodysuit of dark wet silk, he placed his clothes to one side. From inside the trunk, he drew on tough pants of a leatherlike material, a black long-sleeved jersey and a waist-length jacket fitted with several pockets and pouches. All these items of the field suit had their own inner layer of Trom armor. The various weapons and gadgets were already stowed but he checked them anyway. A different pair of boots, heavier, with steel caps on the toes, went on last. Bane took a black helmet and put it on his desk, then lowered the trunk back into the pit and wheeled the bookcase over it again, locking it in place. His street clothes he folded and placed on the couch for when he came back.
Picking up the helmet, the Dire Wolf thumbed its power source and its heads-up display lit on the inside of the visor. He ran through the functions, all were nominal. Good. Tucking the helmet under one arm, he felt more alive than a few minutes ago. The field suit had so many memories for him. He headed out of the office, turning off the lights as he left. As he passed Emergency One in the lobby, one of the doctors nodded at him and he gave a friendly wave. Bane stepped out into a dark drizzly night just above freezing. The Dodge Avenger sat where he had left it and he circled it suspiciously, still feeling the vague unease that had gripped him since he had learned that the Monk was active. Everything seemed okay. The proximity lights Megan had attached to the driver's sunvisor blinked blue, meaning no one had physically touched the car. Bane got in, started it up and pulled out into the night. He wasn't sure why dealing with the Monk had him so uneasy; normally he was sure of himself without hesitation.
The Vidimar family had always lived in a large three-story house on the northern outskirts of the city. At one point, the family had enjoyed some social status and mingled with the upper crust of society but they had declined as first Leopold, then the sons Jonas and Warren had put all their energies into the Preincarnation cult. The house looked shabby now, it had not been painted for too long and the yard was scruffy and ill-tended. Lights were on upstairs. A white Hyundai Sonata stood by the front door, it was showing some rust by the rear fenders. Bane drove around the block, scanning the area and seeing nothing more than a seedy neighborhood in the rain. He came around to park behind the Hyundai and got out. Putting on the helmet, but leaving the visor up, he strode quickly to the front door and rang the bell.
It took forever for the door to be answered but finally it creaked open and a bent figure peered out. "Yes?"
Bane was unsettled how much Warren Vidimar had aged in a few years. He knew the Red Blade had tortured and intimidated him, but the warlock looked like he was seventy instead of fifty-two. He was wearing pajamas and dressing-gown, and he peeked out at Bane fearfully. "Yes? What do you want?"
"Dr Vidimar. It's me, Jeremy Bane. Don't you remember me?"
"Eh? Oh yes, of course. Do come in." The warlock stepped back and ushered him inside. Bane noticed the man was keeping a hand on a wall or chair at all times for support. The Dire Wolf removed his helmet and held it in the crook of one arm as he followed. The house smelled musty. One light came from an open doorway at the top of the stairs, but Vidimar hobbled into the living room and clicked on a standing lamp by a huge overstuffed chair that sat in front of a TV.
"Bane.. yes, yes, of course. Come to check up on me, I suppose."
"Actually, I think you may be in danger," Bane said. He felt intensely uneasy. Something was wrong here, but every move that the warlock made was consistent with a middle-aged man in bad condition. He could not sense any one else in the building. What was bothering him? "Someone may be after your knowledge."
Vidimar slowly bent over the chair and dusted its cushion with one hand. "Eh? oh, good luck with that. My mind is not what it used to be. Please, have a seat." He straightened up and something bright glittered in his hand. Even as Vidimar had started to rise, Bane realized what was wrong. The throwing blade was in the air when the Dire Wolf spun his arm in a reverse circular block. The hiltless knife glanced off the stiff cuff on his field suit and clattered to a far wall. In the next tiny fraction of a second, Bane's left hand blurred up with his dart gun as Vidimar hopped nimbly to one side and he was aiming a silenced automatic at the Dire Wolf.
For a long moment, neither moved. Their extended arms stood rigid without the slightest trembling. Then Vidimar sighed, and spoke in a hollow, sepulchral voice. "We are too evenly matched. I think neither of us would survive."
"If you say so," Bane answered angrily. "Nice disguise, Monk. You had me fooled until you shifted your weight to throw that knife... that's a martial arts prep Vidimar wouldn't know."
"Let us both lower our weapons," The Monk said and they did.
Bane still kept a wary eye on the man. "What was on that knife anyway? Poison?"
"Anesthetic. Not unlike what you use in your dart gun. I worked with the Sting, you know."
Bane finally holstered his weapon. "What's the deal, Monk? You must know we're on the same side."
"Are we?" said the menacing voice. "I have heard stories about you, the Dire Wolf. But stories can be just that."
"All right. Watch closely. I am going to show you two signs that you can trust me. I'm going to move slowly." Bane crossed his arms in front of him and gradually drew the two silver daggers from their sheaths under his sleeves. He held them hilt forward and turned them slowly to return to their holding places.
"Kenneth Dred," said the Monk. "Those were his. Blessed by the immortal Eldarin, no creature of the night can bear their touch."
"I am the heir to Kenneth Dred. I worked for him the final years before his death. He left him his fortune and his estate, with the condition that I use them to carry on his work. He gave me these daggers the first month I met him to show his faith in me."
The Monk had straightened up to stand six feet tall, straight as a young man again. He suddenly turned his back on Bane, hands lowered at his sides, and exhaled deeply. "Let this show that I trust you. Against someone with your speed and skill, even I could not defend myself facing away."
"Good to know," Bane said. He went over and plopped down in a smaller chair facing the overstuffed one. "I propose we do some talking and figure out where we stand."
V.
Twenty minutes went by as they discussed how the Monk had been resurrected by the Preincarnation spell- as far as he was concerned, he might as well be the original, there was no measurable difference- and how he had started his vigilante crusade more cautiously as the world had changed in sixty years. Bane filled him in on much of what had happened in the Midnight War, none of which was public knowledge. They did not exactly warm to each other but did start to show a little trust as their stories matched.
"So, Wu Lung is finally dead? Karl Eldritch, too. Good work, son, those two were a plague back in my day." Still seated, the Monk took a bundle from behind the chair and placed it in his lap. Lowering his head forward, he peeled off a thin rubber mask and instantly tugged on a white cloth sack that fit snugly over his face, tying it in the back. When he straightened up again, it was the familiar blank white visage of the Monk showing, with only bright blue eyes gleaming coldly through narrow openings. "Kenneth Dred would be proud of you."
"I'd like to think so. Anyway. This morning I took on a client to investigate what that Hallenbeck guy was up to. There was evidence he had had close exposure to corpses. I got in his apartment and was looking for clues when he entered... and you came in with him."
The Monk stood. unfolded a heavy wool garment like a judge's robe and got into it, then sat down again. He pulled the cowl up over his head. "It is not easy for me to confide in anyone, Mr Bane. I have always worked alone."
"Up to you," the Dire Wolf said lightly. "I just think we'll get more done if we don't get in each other's line of fire."
"Yes. Very well. I executed Hallenbeck because of his murders. The bodies of two girls are hidden in that apartment, wrapped airtight behind a fake wall. He killed them as sacrifices to his Black Magick cult in an attempt to gain some mystic power to work with."
"I knew something was funky about that closet," Bane said. "And that explains why he had an infection that can only be contracted by proximity to corpses." He glanced up. "What cult did he belong to?'
"The Rasputniks!" spat the Monk angrily. "There are only a few of them left, and none can work the Preincarnation spell itself. Hallenbeck was trying to piece the spell together from hints and clues."
Bane nodded slowly. "Warren Vidimar is dead, isn't he?"
"Very good. You're piecing it together. He passed away of natural causes. When I came into this house a month ago, I found him lying upstairs. Not a pretty sight. He had evidently been trying to reach a phone when his heart gave out."
"So you impersonated him to lure Hallenbeck into your reach?"
The Monk suddenly gave a low, sinister chuckle. "You are not without perception, Dire Wolf. Yes. I disposed of the body and used my skills at disguise. It was not difficult. Vidimar was nearly a hermit already and did everything through the mail or over the phone." He slipped thin black gloves onto his bony hands. "When Hallenbeck contacted me, I stalled him, said I needed time to reconstruct the spell. I found out where his Elders dwell. And then I needed him no longer. It was time for him to pay for the two poor souls walled in his apartment."
"I see." Bane looked down at the helmet in his lap as if it were returning his gaze. "But wait. Why are you hanging around here then? Why aren't you out after these Rasputniks?"
It took so long for the Monk to answer that Bane thought he was not going to. Finally, the masked man said, "My ways are my own. I need not explain."
"You were waiting for me."
The Monk did not reply directly. Finally, he said, "What do you know of Rasputin?"
"Not much. He was around during World War I, I guess, some sort of fake holy man who took advantage of the Czar or something. I remember he was hard to kill."
"Ah. He was long before your time, I realize. What history records is but the tip of a dark iceberg. Gregry Yefimovich was one of the most wicked masters of forbidden arts of his day. The debauched orgies and incoherent sermonizing covered a man who practiced Black Magick of the worst kind. He had plans for Europe, plans of which the Great War would be just the beginning. His death came none too soon."
"He's been dead almost a hundred years, though. So... the Preincarnators?"
"Yes. The Rasputniks are a band of Russian mystics, grandchildren of the original followers of Rasputin. They intend to revive him and follow him to start a new World War, toppling the order of Europe and looting the continent as millions die. It will be the greatest massacre since history began."
Bane was getting impatient, his biggest flaw. "Aw, hold on. You just told me that the Rasputniks don't have the Preincarnation spell. That's what Hallenbeck was trying to figure out. So where's the danger?"
"The danger," said the Monk, "is that they might be too close in any case. They have been meeting with surviving Preincarnators, searching through forbidden books, doing research. I fear they might come close enough to revive Rasputin even without the help of the late Warren Vidimar."
Bane suddenly stood up. "Time to roll, then."
As the Monk rose also, he folded his hands within the loose sleeves of his robes and suddenly did indeed look like a monk. "My aide will be here with my vehicle. I assume you will wish to drive yourself in your own car?"
"I guess that would be best. If we attack seperately, we will distract and confuse. I'm sure you're better at getting in without being detected- you ARE the Monk- but I'll try to sneak up on them as best I can."
Again that low deadly chuckle from within the cowl. "They are not far from here. You know White Plains? Good? Look for Sycamore Lane, just off the main drive..."
VI.
Five minutes later, Bane pulled into a gas station under a streetlight, and opened the glove compartment. Inside was a thick bundle of maps. Not that he didn't trust the Monk, but...! He found the location the Monk had given was a real address where he had said it would be. Okay. Bane pulled out again and headed north. It was still early, not even ten o'clock yet but dark and rainy enough that traffic was sparse. As he headed out of the city, the Dire Wolf felt the tension that had been gripping him all day easing up. Maybe he had just heard too many spooky stories about the Monk over the years.
As he drove, the Dire Wolf turned the situation over in his mind. It was possible the Monk was sending him on a wild goose chase just to get him out of the way, but he didn't think so. Nor did he think that he was being set up to be the fall guy for some killing... both the Mandate and the FBI department 21 Black had tried that on him in the past. No. He had to trust his instincts in this case and he felt sure the Monk was counting on him to provide a distraction and some firepower.
Sycamore Lane turned out to be a long winding side road, with plenty of space between houses. It looked posh enough. As he approached the area where the address would be, Bane pulled over and cut his lights. It was as dark as he could ask, with the cold rain helping. Putting on his helmet, he adjusted its light amplifying system and could see nearly as well as in daylight although objects seemed flat. Bane stepped out. In his black field suit, with the visor down on his helmet, he was nearly invisible in the gloom but he could see fine. Far ahead was another parked car. The Dire Wolf strode silently up to it and saw it was an old-fashioned Lincoln Continental. He could see the back of someone's head in the driver's seat. Stepping closer, moving slowly, Bane saw no one was in the back seat. The driver's head was tilted down, as if adjusting dials on the radio. As a car drove by from the other direction, Bane dropped next to the car and was out of its line of sight but he saw the driver's face clearly. Old, thin, white hair, prominent beaky nose.
Turning away from the parked car, Bane leaped up into the grounds of the estate and trotted silently up the slope. To one side, he could see a long paved driveway heading down to two stone posts, where the parked car waited. He was certain that car belonged the Monk and that driver was an aide waiting to provide a quick getaway. The Dire Wolf moved through the darkness with a quick step, and he saw a guard standing under a cluster of trees just twenty yards ahead. Taking his time and moving in close to absolute silence, Bane studied the man. Big enough, wrapped in a white raincoat with the collar up. Between that coat and the hat pulled low, no much skin showed. The anesthetic darts could not be counted on then. Too bad for him. Bane came up behind the guy, gripped him under the chin with one hand and slammed his other fist just behind the man's ear. With a strange quiet grunt, the guard dropped to the ground, not quite unconscious and Bane struck him again. This time the man was out. The Dire Wolf propped him up against a tree, frisked him and found a revolver and a combat knife. The gun he broke and the knife he tossed far off into some bushes.
Bane was about to move on when he decided to secure the man. Ejecting a dart from a spare clip, he jabbed it into the man's neck. Now the guard would be unconscious for close to an hour and woozy for a while after awakening. THe Dire Wolf adjusted the fedora on the sleeping man to keep the light rain off his face and spun around to race up the hill toward the house where lights showed. He moved silently through the wet grass, circling around. It was a big three-story building, not quite a mansion. Parked in the gravel semi-circle driveway were five expensive cars. A man stood just inside the portico, arms folded, staring off into the gloom. Only two windows on the ground floor seemed to show a light. Bane slid around to the rear of the house, where a large flagged stone pation held redwood tables and chairs. Another guard huddled miserably in what shelter he could get under an eave. As he stood there, the guard wiped his face with a big hand and he twitched violently as a sharp metal dart stabbed into the back of that hand. Before he could cry out, he was dazed by the drug and his knees sagged. Bane whipped in, caught the thug and lowered him to the ground.
This was one thing he liked about mystic sects, Bane reflected. They were amateurs at security. Any meeting of spies or gangsters would have its sentries set up to watch each other and react to intruders. But occult groups from Red Sect to Those Who Remember usually just posted a few armed men at obvious points and left it at that. The Dire Wolf opened the screen door and found the inner door was unlocked. He slipped inside and found himself in a gleaming, dark wood and chrome kitchen that still smelled pleasantly of roast beef. Dart gun in hand, he stepped into a hallway and start creeping along. With his light-amplifying visor, he could see well enough. Ahead were swinging door with small windows at head level and he peered cautiously through. The back of someone's head was right in his way, and judging by the thick neck and that a chunk was missing from the left ear, the head belonged to still another strongarm guard.
Peeking past the guard, Bane saw a long polished dining table under a cut crystal chandelier, with bottles of vodka and wine scattered and most of the glasses nearly empty. Sitting around that table were a dozen elderly men in loose pale yellow robes. it was quite a sight, all the gnarled hands and withered faces and bushy white eyebrows. None of them could be under seventy except for their leader.
Standing straight at the head of the table was a very tall, thin man all in black, with long oily hair parted in the middle and bristling black beard. He wore some phallic medallion on a gold chain and he was making a speech. Even from the glimpse he caught, the Dire wolf felt the overwhelming charismatic force of this man. Rasputin. They had brought him back. The spirit of the dark magician had returned to shape the body of a volunteer into a semblance of his original self. Preincarnation again.
Where was the Monk, Bane wondered, but he decided not to wait. With his right hand,he pulled half of the swinging door inward behind the guard and the edge of his left hand
came down like an axe right where the neck joined the shoulder. The crunching noise got everyone's attention. Every head turned as Bane threw the limp body to the floor and walked calmly into the room.
"No, don't get up because of me," he said as he slid the visor up on his helmet. "You old guys take it easy. I'm just here to talk to the Holy Devil there."
Rasputin glared at him, dark eyes under lowered brows and Bane felt a wave of loathing slap against him like hot wind. The protective Eldarin talisman in his collar flared warmly as it diverted some of that gralic force but even so, he was driven back a step. "That'll be enough of that!" the Dire Wolf yelled. With one hand he seized a chair and flung it the length of the table. Rasputin slapped it aside to crash through a window. In that instant, Bane had leaped forward and yanked the medallion away, breaking the chain and throwing the obscene pendant far behind him. Rasputin roared and tried to choke the Dire Wolf with both huge hands but against a trained fighter that was a huge mistake. Bane threw a barrage of alternating short blows to the torso that broke a rib and drove the breath from the man's body. Rasputin staggered back and Bane swung sidways to blast a high side kick to the chest that ruptured the Preincarnator's heart within his chest.
As the magician flopped ungracefully to the floor,a heavy oppressive weight seemed to leave the air. The Dire Wolf whirled to face the dozen cultists. The Rasputniks had gotten to their feet, each pulling a ceremonial wavy-bladed dagger from within the yellow robes. It would have been comical, these frail old men threatening Jeremy Bane but the hatred in their eyes was very real.
"Hold it right there, fellows," the Dire Wolf said in disbelief. "You just saw me take on your leader. What do you think you geezers can do against me?"
"It is not for you to slay them," hissed a cold voice behind him. Bane jumped and almost yelled in surprise. He would have sworn no one, not even Teacher Chael, could sneak up behind him like that. He stepped to one side and the Monk came forward to loom over the form of Rasputin.
"We studied together in Moscow," the Monk said in a low voice. "We trained together in the forbidden arts under the Czar's warlock and even though I have forsworn that magick, there was still a pact between us. I could not take his life."
"Oh, but I could! That's why you waited for me to turn up. You used me as a weapon," Bane snarled.
"Exactly! Why do you think I shot you in the chest and not the head? I knew you wear body armor. I wanted you to find me and help me end this menace." From the white cloth mask, cold blue eyes glittered with amusement.
"I don't like it. But," the Dire Wolf grudgingly went on, "I would have killed Rasputin even on my own. He was a real threat."
"And now, these poor souls?" the Monk gestured at the old men around the table, who still held the daggers but who seemed too fearful to move. All the anger seemed to have drained from them as the saw the Monk.
"Can they bring Rasputin back from another volunteer?" Bane asked.
"Only one of them has the knowledge," said the Monk and, involuntarily, some of the Rasputniks turned their eyes toward the shortest one among them, who looked alarmed. That gave it away. The Monk's arm swung up and the silenced pistol coughed twice to plow holes in the forehead of that cultist. He fell over backwards and was still, and two of his brethren sagged weakly back into their chairs.
"In my earlier career, I would have slain all of you to end your presence." The Monk lowered his gun slowly. "Perhaps I have grown soft. But I will let you all leave. Go now and pray that none of you cross my line of vision again."
As the old men struggled out of their robes in silence, revealing neat business suits, Bane watched with uncertain emotions. No one said a word. Slowly, the Rasputniks filed out the door and got into their cars to ease down the driveway. It seemed to take forever. As the last car pulled out onto the highway, Bane finally broke the silence.
"If we ever work together again, you need to be straight with me," he said.
The Monk nodded. "It is hard for me to admit error. My ways are my own and I seldom explain myself." He actually looked away. "But I say we will meet again as peers."
"Fair enough. What about this mess?" he gestured at the two bodies where they had fallen.
"I have brought supplies," the Monk said without elaboration. "Best you should leave now, Mr Bane. You have my thanks and the world owes you a debt it will never know."
There seemed nothing more to say. The Monk did not offer to shake hands and Bane was not sure he would have accepted the gesture. Turning, he strode back the way he had come, out the back door past the still unconscious guard lying near the outer wall. The rain had stopped. Suddenly, Bane broke into a run and hurtled through the woods down to the road. He got to his car and started it up, and just as he pulled out onto the main road, a glint of red against the sky behind him caught his eye. The house was burning.
8/14/2013
2/1-2/2/2002
I.
In the tiny bathroom adjoining his office, Jeremy Bane watched a bullet work its way out of his leg. He had gotten used to this. Almost thirty-six years of a tagra diet from Tel Shai had boosted his recuperative powers way past what medical science could explain. It was a major reason why acceptance to the Order was so prized, because only Tel Shai could offer the secret of tagra. Bane was not indestructible by any means, he felt his share of pain and there were limits to how much damage his body could survive. All of his colleagues who had died in action were proof of that.
With his foot up on the sink, Bane studied the tiny, almost imperceptible movement as the misshapen slug stuck a little bit further out from his calf. There was the same feeling of relief of a splinter coming free. With a pair of tweezers, he gripped the bullet, wiggled it a bit and finally got the damn thing out. It had been in there for two days, since Colonel Schoeber had fired a last gift while making his escape. Bane had felt the satisfaction of seeing the man captured by State Troopers before his car got a half mile away, but he had wanted to keep secret his involvement in the chase that drove Schoeber out of hiding.
Dropping the bullet in the wastepaper basket, the Dire Wolf looked for any signs of infection but didn't expect to find any. That was a Tagra benefit. He dressed the wound snugly, wrapped gauze around the calf and put his foot down. Barely a wince. In a few days, hopefully there might be nothing more than a pale circle on the skin. Bane washed his hands, pulled on a pair of black socks, and walked out to his office with no perceptible limp. Dropping down in his chair behind the desk, he yanked on his boots and let out a sigh. There was a bottle of water on the desk and he drained most of it. It was a relief to get that over with.
After a few minutes, his matter-of-fact mind got back to work. There was a stack of bills in the stand to his left and they weren't going to pay themselves. From the center drawer of his desk, he took out the big red leather ledger, his checkbook and a pen, and sourly got to work. There was really no reason he couldn't employ a secretary to handle the paperwork except for his deep-seated secretive nature. He had always wanted to keep everything to himself, it came from his childhood as a street orphan. Half an hour of writing checks and making entries went by slowly. At forty minutes, he couldn't take it and got up to pace. He pulled the opaque curtains aside to peer out at a drab rainy 3rd Avenue. Bane circled the office. The same enhanced metabolism that gave him his speed also kept him restless. He decided the office needed a big clock that clients could see. Right on the empty wall behind him where only his PI license hung. And a coatrack...
The doorbell rang. Quick as if he had gotten an electric shock, Bane swerved through the open door to the tiny reception room. High on one wall was the closed-circuit TV showing the hall outside. A middle-aged man and a woman in her early twenties. Bane studied them thoughtfully, with his training in body language and in observing concealed weapons. They were tense and worried but no threat, he thought.
Almost instantly, he took in that they were close relations, father and daughter most likely. German descent, good-looking pair with thick black hair and good grooming. The man was wearing a topcoat over a suit, the woman had a modest dark dress with a short jacket. As he watched, the man leaned forward and pressed the bell again. Bane decided. He opened the door inward and said, "Can I help you?"
"Hello? Oh I hope so. You are Jeremy Bane, the Dire Wolf, aren't you?"
"That's me. Come in and tell me your problems." Bane gestured for them to cross the reception room, just big enough to hold a coffee table and two chairs. As they went into the office itself, he closed the outdoor door after a quick suspicious glance across the lobby of the building. The door locked automatically as he followed his visitors. To the right as they entered was a big desk with three plain straightback chairs facing it and he motioned for them to seat themselves. This was why he should have thought to buy a coatrack, he reminded himself. The Dire Wolf went around and lowered himself behind his desk, unhurriedly scooping all the loose papers into a drawer.
"I don't know either of you," he said. "Let's get some introductions out of the way."
"Certainly." The man looked to be his late forties, developing a moonface and some grey in the bushy mustache. "I'm Henry Fischler, a respiratory therapist at Mount Sinai. This is my daughter Holly. She's a student at Columbia." He hesitated. "I must apologize for not setting up an appointment, sir, this is rather an urgent situation..."
"Oh, that's all right," Bane answered. "I can be hard to locate. What brings you here?"
Fischler looked down and Holly also sat with her eyes lowered. Finally, he said, "My daughter complained of a throat infection a week ago. My first thought that it was thrush. She uses an inhaler and as you may know, if you don't rinse your mouth every time, thrush is a possibility. I took a culture, prescribed a standard antibiotic and after an unusually long period the infection went away. But something about the culture disturbed me. I could not put my finger on it. I asked a colleague to do some further tests."
Bane said nothing. Actually, he had never heard of thrush and was taking this in faith for the moment.
"It was then my daughter confessed she had had a romantic weekend with a young man she had just met. This leaves me less than jubiliant, as you can imagine, but she is an adult and her sex life is really her own concern. Until my colleague returned the culture to me in an agitated state. It was something that people only develop who have been in close and prolonged contact with corpses!"
Now a bright predatory gleam sparked in Bane's grey eyes. "Holly, you want to add something?"
Holly Fischler straightened up and looked him right in the eye. "Mr Bane, the man I met told me he worked in a law office downtown. The way he dressed and the quality of his apartment, I had no reason to doubt him. I don't see how he could have any contact with bodies, it just seems impossible."
"Life is full of surprises," Bane remarked without sarcasm. "I don't suppose this guy could get this way working at a morgue or medical school, doctor?"
"No. Absolutely not. The infection indicates prolonged contact with cadavers while not wearing protection. I can't imagine any law-abiding professional who might develop it."
The Dire Wolf leaned forward, resting his folded arms on the desk. "The next question is why you don't report it to the police? I am sure they'd be interested."
"We discussed that. But maybe there was some mistake in the lab, maybe there is a similar infection we don't know of that could be contracted quite innocently." The doctor cleared his throat as if the topic of infections bothered him. "And to be honest, if there was some criminal activity, seeing my daughter's name in the papers and how she contracted it... well, we both would rather avoid that."
"I see. So, you want to hire me to investigate this man and find out if he's up to anything shady, how he contracted this infection, and keep it all quiet. Is that it?"
"Yes. Exactly." Dr Fischler exhaled sharply as if relieved to finally get to the point. "I must say I know of your work, Mr Bane. I personally knew the family you rescued from Samhain back in the 90s, and I have been following various reports since. Your record is amazing. Maybe the average person has no idea what horrors come out into the city at night, but some of us do and we feel safer knowing you are here."
Bane gave a faint smile. "Well, I enjoy compliments as much as the next guy, but we have work to do. Holly, I need a name, address and detailed description. Don't worry, nothing will be written down."
For the next ten minutes, Bane got details from her, memorizing everything. He started on hints of an accent, any signs of a limp or bad vision or hearing, any tiny item that might be useful. When it was over, Holly was giving him a quizical look. "Now, the question of my fee. I suppose a flat one thousand dollars would not be a burden on you?"
"Oh, no, certainly," Fischler took out his checkbook. "In fact, it seems quite low from what I understand."
Bane pulled out a seperate leather ledger, entered the date and the client's name and the fee. He wrote out a receipt and traded it for the check with Fischler. "I found if I didn't charge for my services, I couldn't claim I was acting for a client with certain protections. Now, if questioned by the police, I can claim confidentiality. It's useful." The Dire Wolf pushed back his chair and started to rise. "I think I have enough to go on. Hopefully there's an innocent explanation, and I'll let you know." Fischler held out a hand, Bane shook it and they headed for the door.
II.
After seeing them walk away across the lobby, the Dire Wolf returned to his office. From its net on the side of the desk, he pulled up his laptop and logged in. Checking out these clients was not as easy as it seemed, since he could not find a photo of Dr Henry Fischler on line. The man's background seemed solid enough. And there was a tiny head shot of Holly Fischler announcing her acceptance to Columbia; that picture matched the girl who had been in his office. Bane had to trust his instincts in this case. The body language and interactions between his visitors had been so natural and appropriate that it would have been a real project to train imposters. And for what? A goofy case of a young woman getting a sore throat from a one-night stand? Where was the payoff?
Next, the Dire Wolf did some searching on the suspect. Trom Girl had made many refinements to his laptop so it could sneak between the layers of firewalls (as she explained it) and could accesss highly classified information without being detected. Her Race's knowledge was way in advance of Human skill. But as a drawback, the computer got slower and slower as he used these functions. He was tempted to go for a walk and come back by the time the information came through.
Finally. Lewis James Hallenbeck. Specialist in copyright traps and research for the Ingster Group, 2155 Wall Street. 36. Never married, no children. Bane found an ID photo and it matched the description he had been given, Rather good-looking, brown curly hair, snub nose. wide jawline. Bane studied the face for a second and found he had an irrational dislike of it just on instinct. He erased his search record, started a security scan of his laptop and put it away. It was not even two o'clock in the afternoon, plenty of time to get going.
The Dire Wolf did not think he would need the full field suit for this case as it stood. He was already wearing his uniform of black slacks, long-sleeved turtleneck and sportjacket; beneath the clothing was a layer of the flexible Trom-metal armor and the two silver daggers were as always strapped to his forearms under the sleeves. From a drawer in his desk he took a holster and threaded it through his belt, then took out the dart pistol to examine it. Trom Girl had been modifying it as well, making it sleeker and less clunky. The barrel was still needle thin and long, but that could not be helped. These weapons had been through many upgrades and refinements since the Sting had first devised them back in the 1930s. Bane clicked in a clip of eight fresh anesthetic darts, snapped the mechanism shut and holstered it just behind his left hip.
The Dire Wolf made a quick bathroom stop, turned off the lights and left his office. In a second, he was locking the door to the reception room behind him and striding quickly across the lobby, past Emergency One, through the sliding glass doors out onto Third Avenue. It was a raw, windy day and people were rushing to get inside. Bane swung left and almost ran four blocks south to Imperial Garage on 40th Street. He liked cold wet weather; Cindy had told him he was a Halloween baby. Rushing down the wide concrete ramp, he exchanged glances with Vito, the attendant who nodded assuringly. The Dire Wolf approached the 2011 Dodge Avenger he had bought a few weeks earlier. He wasn't happy with the car for some reason. His practice was to get a new vehicle every few months, ostensibly to confuse his enemies but mostly because he enjoyed the variety. He kept going back to Subaru Outbacks and Ford Mustangs, he might as well stick with them. Seeing the tiny green and blue lights blinking behind the driver's visor, he unlocked the car and jumped in. With a slight frown, still not feeling at home behind the wheel, he gunned the Avenger and headed out onto 40th Street.
The compensation about bad weather was that it made parking easier. A light cold drizzle had started and Bane found a convenient spot on 23rd and Lexington, right across the street from where he wanted to go. It was a brickfront building painted silver gray, with little evergreens in window boxes and an aluminum doorframe with the enigmatic word FOREGONE at its top. Each floor had two tenants, judging by the rows of nametags. Bane was a bit surprised, he would have expected something more flashy and luxurious from the suspect but maybe Hallenbeck was just tight with his money. Using a Trom device to overrride the electronic lock (he was spoiled by these gadgets, his lockpicking skills were rusty by now), the Dire Wolf walked into the foyer as if he owned the building and trotted up the stairs to the third floor. A very nice wooden bench stood at the top of the landing, with a real potted plant next to it. An ornate wooden door had the nameplate 3A HALLENBECK. Bane stood next to that door, held his breath and focussed. Thirty seconds. One minute. His mind eliminated other normal noises, leaving him satisfied there was no one in there. Again, the Trom device reshaped its tendrils within the lock and the door opened as freely as if it had been left ajar.
He was standing in an open, airy apartment decorated in quiet good taste. Lots of dark wood and rich carpeting and solid unobtrusive furniture. There were posters for French films on the walls, hanging plants. The place was as spotless as if it were intended for a showing that very day. Yet the moment he stepped in there, Jeremy Bane felt the presence of death.
III.
Pulling thin rubber gloves on, he began searching. It was easier than if he had been trying to find a tiny piece of paper or a stray hair as he sometimes had to try. The obvious paid off. A spacious walk-in closet big enough to rent as an apartment itself was in the bedroom. The clothes on their hangers slid to one side, revealing a blank wall. Now it was just a question of finding the switch. Nothing seemed evident. He tapped and slid his fingers around the edges and tried pressing in different areas. All his instincts told him he was on the right track and it was infuriating to be stalled like this, Bane almost growled, strongly tempted to just kick a hole in the panel and see what was inside. He sniffed but got nothing. One area where his Tel Shai training had failed was in developing an enhanced sense of smell. Evidently he didn't have the gene for it. Bane kept probing and getting annoyed when he heard the click of the apartment door opening.
Whipping the clothes back evenly along their overhanging bar, the Dire Wolf concealed himself in the corner and drew the dart gun. This was a surprise. He would have bet that someone like Hallenbeck kept long hours and often had a social drink after work with colleagues. Wrong again. Bane got in a comfortable pose he could hold for an extended period and started slow deep breaths not audible from an inch away. The bedroom door was wide open and he could hear someone come in and drop a burden on a chair, probably a briefcase.
"I am not happy about this," said a smooth baritone voice.
And the answer came in a chilling rasp that made Bane's hair stand up. "You are wise to meet me, Hallenbeck. Or should I use your real name... Chelenkov?"
"No, that's not necessary. Listen, I need a stiff drink. Will you join me?"
"No drink for me," sounded that hollow voice. It had a theatrical air that was still gruesome. "The Monk still has much work to do tonight. I warned your Elders not to dabble in the black arts. Let the dead remain dead."
Bane felt he had to creep out and try to get a glimpse. With infinite slowness, he edged forward within the closet. There was the clink of glasses, something being poured, a gulp. A man sighed and said, "Be fair. We don't really raise the dead."
"Creating a Preincarnated form is still hellish work," snarled the Monk. "As I know well. You have led me as far as you can, Chelenkov. I thank you for that." With that final word came the unmistakable cough of a silenced pistol. A man grunted in pain and there was the thud of a body hitting the floor but Bane was already out into the apartment. He plunged from the bedroom, his own dart gun in hand, and caught only a split-second glimpse of a white featureless mask on a man in black robes. Then three savage blows struck him right over the heart and he was thrown back to tumble over an easy chair.
He didn't think he passed out completely, but was dazed for maybe twenty seconds. The Trom armor under his clothing was good but it wasn't perfect and some of the impact of three bullets to the heart got through to him. His chest ached and it took a minute before he could draw a deep breath. Damn, that guy had been fast. Bane had been counting on his own superior speed but it look like he was dealing with an equal this time. The Dire Wolf realized he was still holding his gun and, since the Monk had disappeared, he holstered it. With a shudder as his body snapped off the impact, he bent over the body of what had been his suspect. Hallenbeck (or Chelenkov) was dead, no doubt about it considering the neat blue bullet hole between the two staring eyes. Moving quickly, still wearing the rubber gloves, Bane searched the man and found nothing of interest. Jumping up, he moved out into the hall, closing the door behind him and got around a corner just as the elevator door dinged.
Standing out of sight, the Dire Wolf listened but heard only footsteps go in the opposite direction. Just as well. He had been half expecting the new arrival to be the cops. Once or twice, he had been forced to solve a case while on the run and he had no desire to try it again. Too complicated. Tugging off the blue gloves and stowing them in an inner pocket, he opened an exit door and trotted down the stairs to the ground level. waiting until he heard no one in the foyer, he stepped out and was back on 23rd Street. The only people on the sidewalk were walking away from him. He went directly to his car and eased out into traffic.
Well. Despite his decades of experience against bad guys of every type, Bane felt unreasonably shaken. The Monk! Of all people. He needed a few minutes to think things over. Bane headed north, went to 47th Street and found a parking spot rather than go back to the Imperial Garage. He was right near his apartment. For once Mrs Choi was not sitting by her window. Bane went in the entrance, up the worn wooden stairs to the second floor and checked the security devices he had installed himself behind a sliding panel before unlocking his door. The apartment was dim and cool, and he left it that way. Dropping down on the couch, he stretched out with his arms behind his head and tried to collect his thoughts.
The Monk should not be alive in the world today. He had been a vigilante crimefighter of great ruthlessness from the 1920s into early 1940s. Bringing criminals to court never seemed to enter his head, he saw himself as an ordained executioner. No one knew who he really was. The best Bane had ever found was a suspicion that the Monk was originally a Texas gunfighter and pilot who had been badly burned during the Great War. But that was just conjecture. in 1944, the Monk's vicious crusade stopped so abruptly and permanently that it was concluded he he had to be dead. And in fact, there was no reason to think otherwise. So for more than fifty years, the Monk had been just a fading legend in the whispers of crime.
Feeling a bit more collected, Bane jumped off the couch and went to the refrigerator. A 12" ham and swiss cheese sub sat in its wrapper, where he had not gotten to it the day before. Grabbing it and a bottle of seltzer, he went back to the couch and sat up, with his feet on a small hassock. As he worked through the sub, he remembered how the Monk had been brought back just a few years earlier.
June of 2000. His then-new KDF team tackled the Preincarnators, who had the secret of a Darthan spell which transformed a volunteer into a physical and mental replica of an ancestor. It was like ancestral memory made flesh. Members of the Preincarnators could turn into genuine Vikings, Samurai, Zulu, almost any warrior from history. Because the replicas retained many memories of the earlier lives, they were also useful for retrieving buried loot. In that last encounter, Warren Vidimar had used his spell to resurrect four long-dead heroes... Pilgrim, the Brimstone kid, Tommy Moon, the Monk. But none of them cooperated. They all rebelled and wanted to start their lives over. Bane smiled to himself at the irony. Pilgrim still ran a detective agency in Los Angeles and the Kid worked occasionally with the KDF. He did not know what had happened to Tommy Moon, and the Monk had simply disappeared.
Finishing the sub, Bane crumbled the wrapper up tightly. It seemed as if the Monk had indeed resumed his vigilante ways, only more covertly. Apparently he did not want his return to be general knowledge. Bane frowned and realized he needed to confer vwith Lt Montez about this. Were there an unusual number of criminals turning up dead or disappearing for no reason? Could the Monk be the reason? Come to think of it, Cobalt Jack had been found dead down by Battery Park just a few weeks ago...
IV.
Time to get to work. Tugging off his jacket, Bane yanked his turtleneck up over his head and inspected the front. There was one large ragged hole on the left side of the chest where three bullets had hit so closely together that the edges touched. Nice shooting at a moving target that appeared without warning. Going into his bedroom, he tossed the ruined shirt in the hamper and got a fresh one from the closet. Despite what friends said, Bane did have a few different outfits, including some jeans, flannel shirts, one business suit and a tailored dinner jacket. But the black outfit was practical for sneaking around in the dark and he found it had a nice psychological edge. People recognized it like a uniform.
Going back to the couch, he got his Link and started making phone calls. Over the years, he had developed a network of more than a hundred people who kept an eye out for weird sightings for him. Rather than accept rewards, he asked the people he had helped if they would report to him anything strange or bizarre. Most were glad to do so and felt they were part of a loose team protecting humanity from little-known dangers. He started with Bleak.
As always, the bitter old man who called himself Bleak had some good information and pointers where to go for more. The Monk was indeed back, keeping a low profile. Most New York area mobsters figured this was someone new using the old name and costume, no one suspected it was the original vigilante. The Monk had been strangely restrained since his resurrection. Instead of wiping out whole crime families and drug rings in mass slaughters, he had been picking off specific criminals one at a time... mostly murderers and druglords and human traffickers. It was as if he wanted to remain secret as long as possible.
As far as the Preincarnators went, Bleak knew nothing but promised to call if he found anything. Bane thanked him and promised he would mail him a bonus. Hanging up, the Dire Wolf rubbed his chest thoughtfully. It wasn't even sore. The twinge in his leg had gone away, too. Sometimes he wondered if the healing effects of tagra would hit diminishing returns and he would end up all crippled from the various damages he had taken over the years. Tugging on his sports jacket, he went back out to the street. A faint cold haze was in the air, not quite a drizzle yet. He got in his car, rubbed his jaw for a second and then went to his office on 44th Street and 3rd Avenue. He pulled into the small parking lot of the yellow brick building, something he seldom did. He could have a permanent spot of his own but preferred to keep his cars in the Imperial Garage for security. Striding through the lobby, he went past the stairwell and down the short dead-end hallway beside it to his office door.
Turning on the lights, he crossed over to his desk and dropped down. It was getting dark outside. Only a few hours ago, he had been surprised by the unscheduled visit of Dr Fischler and his daughter with her throat infection. Well, he had certainly found out a few things in those hours. Clicking on his office phone, he started listening to his messages. They were the usual, requests to meet to discuss a possible case, reminders of appointments, a chipper call from Unicorn over at the KDF building inviting him to come over for Pizza Night, one or two three mild threats from people he had offended. Nothing from Lt Montez, which pleased him. Montez was his police liaison and he had half expected that the man would instinctively connect him with the killing of Hallenbeck. But who knew, maybe the man's body had not been discovered yet. Possibly it wouldn't be until he failed to show up for work the next morning that anyone would even suspect something was wrong.
A real danger would come when the death was announced and the Fischlers read about it. They might think he, Bane, had killed the man and they might call the police. He wasn't seriously concerned about that for the moment. He had left no traces of being in that apartment, no one had seen him come or go. Because of his protective Eldar talisman, he left only a vague blur on any security cameras. And the weapon used would match the one used by the Monk, which the NYPD had to be aware of by now.
Finishing his messages, Bane returned a few. His next step was to try and find what had happened to the Preincarnators. That cult had been smashed four or five times now and kept coming back a few years later. The creator of the Preincarnation spell, Leopold Vidimar, was long dead and the secret had been kept in his family. Three years ago, it had been son Warren Vidimar who had mastered the spell which had revived the Monk. Vidimar had taken a beating by the revived Red Blade, and he had sworn off gralic sorcery after that. The man had not been arrested. Bane could not figure out a way to charge someone with resurrecting bad guys from the past. Although in theory Vidimar could have been charged as an accessory to all the crimes his Preincarnated monsters had committed, Bane knew no court would ever entertain so wild a situation. Prosasic explanations would be found to explain it all away. Instead, Cindy Brunner had carefully burned out the specific part of the man's memory that help the Preincarnation spell and they had let him go. He was a broken man anyway, from the abuse the Red Blade had given him.
He wondered why the Monk had called Hallenbeck "Chelenkov." The name had not come up in Bane's research on the man. Who were the Elders that the Monk was looking for? He had an annoying feeling that he did not even had half the picture yet.
Before leaving, he wanted to suit up. Bane knelt and unlatched hidden catches under the bookcase, then slid it aside to reveal a shallow pit he had dug himself in the concrete. Inside were a number of interesting items, including a large black trunk he hauled up on to the rug. Stripping down to the Trom armor, which looked like a bodysuit of dark wet silk, he placed his clothes to one side. From inside the trunk, he drew on tough pants of a leatherlike material, a black long-sleeved jersey and a waist-length jacket fitted with several pockets and pouches. All these items of the field suit had their own inner layer of Trom armor. The various weapons and gadgets were already stowed but he checked them anyway. A different pair of boots, heavier, with steel caps on the toes, went on last. Bane took a black helmet and put it on his desk, then lowered the trunk back into the pit and wheeled the bookcase over it again, locking it in place. His street clothes he folded and placed on the couch for when he came back.
Picking up the helmet, the Dire Wolf thumbed its power source and its heads-up display lit on the inside of the visor. He ran through the functions, all were nominal. Good. Tucking the helmet under one arm, he felt more alive than a few minutes ago. The field suit had so many memories for him. He headed out of the office, turning off the lights as he left. As he passed Emergency One in the lobby, one of the doctors nodded at him and he gave a friendly wave. Bane stepped out into a dark drizzly night just above freezing. The Dodge Avenger sat where he had left it and he circled it suspiciously, still feeling the vague unease that had gripped him since he had learned that the Monk was active. Everything seemed okay. The proximity lights Megan had attached to the driver's sunvisor blinked blue, meaning no one had physically touched the car. Bane got in, started it up and pulled out into the night. He wasn't sure why dealing with the Monk had him so uneasy; normally he was sure of himself without hesitation.
The Vidimar family had always lived in a large three-story house on the northern outskirts of the city. At one point, the family had enjoyed some social status and mingled with the upper crust of society but they had declined as first Leopold, then the sons Jonas and Warren had put all their energies into the Preincarnation cult. The house looked shabby now, it had not been painted for too long and the yard was scruffy and ill-tended. Lights were on upstairs. A white Hyundai Sonata stood by the front door, it was showing some rust by the rear fenders. Bane drove around the block, scanning the area and seeing nothing more than a seedy neighborhood in the rain. He came around to park behind the Hyundai and got out. Putting on the helmet, but leaving the visor up, he strode quickly to the front door and rang the bell.
It took forever for the door to be answered but finally it creaked open and a bent figure peered out. "Yes?"
Bane was unsettled how much Warren Vidimar had aged in a few years. He knew the Red Blade had tortured and intimidated him, but the warlock looked like he was seventy instead of fifty-two. He was wearing pajamas and dressing-gown, and he peeked out at Bane fearfully. "Yes? What do you want?"
"Dr Vidimar. It's me, Jeremy Bane. Don't you remember me?"
"Eh? Oh yes, of course. Do come in." The warlock stepped back and ushered him inside. Bane noticed the man was keeping a hand on a wall or chair at all times for support. The Dire Wolf removed his helmet and held it in the crook of one arm as he followed. The house smelled musty. One light came from an open doorway at the top of the stairs, but Vidimar hobbled into the living room and clicked on a standing lamp by a huge overstuffed chair that sat in front of a TV.
"Bane.. yes, yes, of course. Come to check up on me, I suppose."
"Actually, I think you may be in danger," Bane said. He felt intensely uneasy. Something was wrong here, but every move that the warlock made was consistent with a middle-aged man in bad condition. He could not sense any one else in the building. What was bothering him? "Someone may be after your knowledge."
Vidimar slowly bent over the chair and dusted its cushion with one hand. "Eh? oh, good luck with that. My mind is not what it used to be. Please, have a seat." He straightened up and something bright glittered in his hand. Even as Vidimar had started to rise, Bane realized what was wrong. The throwing blade was in the air when the Dire Wolf spun his arm in a reverse circular block. The hiltless knife glanced off the stiff cuff on his field suit and clattered to a far wall. In the next tiny fraction of a second, Bane's left hand blurred up with his dart gun as Vidimar hopped nimbly to one side and he was aiming a silenced automatic at the Dire Wolf.
For a long moment, neither moved. Their extended arms stood rigid without the slightest trembling. Then Vidimar sighed, and spoke in a hollow, sepulchral voice. "We are too evenly matched. I think neither of us would survive."
"If you say so," Bane answered angrily. "Nice disguise, Monk. You had me fooled until you shifted your weight to throw that knife... that's a martial arts prep Vidimar wouldn't know."
"Let us both lower our weapons," The Monk said and they did.
Bane still kept a wary eye on the man. "What was on that knife anyway? Poison?"
"Anesthetic. Not unlike what you use in your dart gun. I worked with the Sting, you know."
Bane finally holstered his weapon. "What's the deal, Monk? You must know we're on the same side."
"Are we?" said the menacing voice. "I have heard stories about you, the Dire Wolf. But stories can be just that."
"All right. Watch closely. I am going to show you two signs that you can trust me. I'm going to move slowly." Bane crossed his arms in front of him and gradually drew the two silver daggers from their sheaths under his sleeves. He held them hilt forward and turned them slowly to return to their holding places.
"Kenneth Dred," said the Monk. "Those were his. Blessed by the immortal Eldarin, no creature of the night can bear their touch."
"I am the heir to Kenneth Dred. I worked for him the final years before his death. He left him his fortune and his estate, with the condition that I use them to carry on his work. He gave me these daggers the first month I met him to show his faith in me."
The Monk had straightened up to stand six feet tall, straight as a young man again. He suddenly turned his back on Bane, hands lowered at his sides, and exhaled deeply. "Let this show that I trust you. Against someone with your speed and skill, even I could not defend myself facing away."
"Good to know," Bane said. He went over and plopped down in a smaller chair facing the overstuffed one. "I propose we do some talking and figure out where we stand."
V.
Twenty minutes went by as they discussed how the Monk had been resurrected by the Preincarnation spell- as far as he was concerned, he might as well be the original, there was no measurable difference- and how he had started his vigilante crusade more cautiously as the world had changed in sixty years. Bane filled him in on much of what had happened in the Midnight War, none of which was public knowledge. They did not exactly warm to each other but did start to show a little trust as their stories matched.
"So, Wu Lung is finally dead? Karl Eldritch, too. Good work, son, those two were a plague back in my day." Still seated, the Monk took a bundle from behind the chair and placed it in his lap. Lowering his head forward, he peeled off a thin rubber mask and instantly tugged on a white cloth sack that fit snugly over his face, tying it in the back. When he straightened up again, it was the familiar blank white visage of the Monk showing, with only bright blue eyes gleaming coldly through narrow openings. "Kenneth Dred would be proud of you."
"I'd like to think so. Anyway. This morning I took on a client to investigate what that Hallenbeck guy was up to. There was evidence he had had close exposure to corpses. I got in his apartment and was looking for clues when he entered... and you came in with him."
The Monk stood. unfolded a heavy wool garment like a judge's robe and got into it, then sat down again. He pulled the cowl up over his head. "It is not easy for me to confide in anyone, Mr Bane. I have always worked alone."
"Up to you," the Dire Wolf said lightly. "I just think we'll get more done if we don't get in each other's line of fire."
"Yes. Very well. I executed Hallenbeck because of his murders. The bodies of two girls are hidden in that apartment, wrapped airtight behind a fake wall. He killed them as sacrifices to his Black Magick cult in an attempt to gain some mystic power to work with."
"I knew something was funky about that closet," Bane said. "And that explains why he had an infection that can only be contracted by proximity to corpses." He glanced up. "What cult did he belong to?'
"The Rasputniks!" spat the Monk angrily. "There are only a few of them left, and none can work the Preincarnation spell itself. Hallenbeck was trying to piece the spell together from hints and clues."
Bane nodded slowly. "Warren Vidimar is dead, isn't he?"
"Very good. You're piecing it together. He passed away of natural causes. When I came into this house a month ago, I found him lying upstairs. Not a pretty sight. He had evidently been trying to reach a phone when his heart gave out."
"So you impersonated him to lure Hallenbeck into your reach?"
The Monk suddenly gave a low, sinister chuckle. "You are not without perception, Dire Wolf. Yes. I disposed of the body and used my skills at disguise. It was not difficult. Vidimar was nearly a hermit already and did everything through the mail or over the phone." He slipped thin black gloves onto his bony hands. "When Hallenbeck contacted me, I stalled him, said I needed time to reconstruct the spell. I found out where his Elders dwell. And then I needed him no longer. It was time for him to pay for the two poor souls walled in his apartment."
"I see." Bane looked down at the helmet in his lap as if it were returning his gaze. "But wait. Why are you hanging around here then? Why aren't you out after these Rasputniks?"
It took so long for the Monk to answer that Bane thought he was not going to. Finally, the masked man said, "My ways are my own. I need not explain."
"You were waiting for me."
The Monk did not reply directly. Finally, he said, "What do you know of Rasputin?"
"Not much. He was around during World War I, I guess, some sort of fake holy man who took advantage of the Czar or something. I remember he was hard to kill."
"Ah. He was long before your time, I realize. What history records is but the tip of a dark iceberg. Gregry Yefimovich was one of the most wicked masters of forbidden arts of his day. The debauched orgies and incoherent sermonizing covered a man who practiced Black Magick of the worst kind. He had plans for Europe, plans of which the Great War would be just the beginning. His death came none too soon."
"He's been dead almost a hundred years, though. So... the Preincarnators?"
"Yes. The Rasputniks are a band of Russian mystics, grandchildren of the original followers of Rasputin. They intend to revive him and follow him to start a new World War, toppling the order of Europe and looting the continent as millions die. It will be the greatest massacre since history began."
Bane was getting impatient, his biggest flaw. "Aw, hold on. You just told me that the Rasputniks don't have the Preincarnation spell. That's what Hallenbeck was trying to figure out. So where's the danger?"
"The danger," said the Monk, "is that they might be too close in any case. They have been meeting with surviving Preincarnators, searching through forbidden books, doing research. I fear they might come close enough to revive Rasputin even without the help of the late Warren Vidimar."
Bane suddenly stood up. "Time to roll, then."
As the Monk rose also, he folded his hands within the loose sleeves of his robes and suddenly did indeed look like a monk. "My aide will be here with my vehicle. I assume you will wish to drive yourself in your own car?"
"I guess that would be best. If we attack seperately, we will distract and confuse. I'm sure you're better at getting in without being detected- you ARE the Monk- but I'll try to sneak up on them as best I can."
Again that low deadly chuckle from within the cowl. "They are not far from here. You know White Plains? Good? Look for Sycamore Lane, just off the main drive..."
VI.
Five minutes later, Bane pulled into a gas station under a streetlight, and opened the glove compartment. Inside was a thick bundle of maps. Not that he didn't trust the Monk, but...! He found the location the Monk had given was a real address where he had said it would be. Okay. Bane pulled out again and headed north. It was still early, not even ten o'clock yet but dark and rainy enough that traffic was sparse. As he headed out of the city, the Dire Wolf felt the tension that had been gripping him all day easing up. Maybe he had just heard too many spooky stories about the Monk over the years.
As he drove, the Dire Wolf turned the situation over in his mind. It was possible the Monk was sending him on a wild goose chase just to get him out of the way, but he didn't think so. Nor did he think that he was being set up to be the fall guy for some killing... both the Mandate and the FBI department 21 Black had tried that on him in the past. No. He had to trust his instincts in this case and he felt sure the Monk was counting on him to provide a distraction and some firepower.
Sycamore Lane turned out to be a long winding side road, with plenty of space between houses. It looked posh enough. As he approached the area where the address would be, Bane pulled over and cut his lights. It was as dark as he could ask, with the cold rain helping. Putting on his helmet, he adjusted its light amplifying system and could see nearly as well as in daylight although objects seemed flat. Bane stepped out. In his black field suit, with the visor down on his helmet, he was nearly invisible in the gloom but he could see fine. Far ahead was another parked car. The Dire Wolf strode silently up to it and saw it was an old-fashioned Lincoln Continental. He could see the back of someone's head in the driver's seat. Stepping closer, moving slowly, Bane saw no one was in the back seat. The driver's head was tilted down, as if adjusting dials on the radio. As a car drove by from the other direction, Bane dropped next to the car and was out of its line of sight but he saw the driver's face clearly. Old, thin, white hair, prominent beaky nose.
Turning away from the parked car, Bane leaped up into the grounds of the estate and trotted silently up the slope. To one side, he could see a long paved driveway heading down to two stone posts, where the parked car waited. He was certain that car belonged the Monk and that driver was an aide waiting to provide a quick getaway. The Dire Wolf moved through the darkness with a quick step, and he saw a guard standing under a cluster of trees just twenty yards ahead. Taking his time and moving in close to absolute silence, Bane studied the man. Big enough, wrapped in a white raincoat with the collar up. Between that coat and the hat pulled low, no much skin showed. The anesthetic darts could not be counted on then. Too bad for him. Bane came up behind the guy, gripped him under the chin with one hand and slammed his other fist just behind the man's ear. With a strange quiet grunt, the guard dropped to the ground, not quite unconscious and Bane struck him again. This time the man was out. The Dire Wolf propped him up against a tree, frisked him and found a revolver and a combat knife. The gun he broke and the knife he tossed far off into some bushes.
Bane was about to move on when he decided to secure the man. Ejecting a dart from a spare clip, he jabbed it into the man's neck. Now the guard would be unconscious for close to an hour and woozy for a while after awakening. THe Dire Wolf adjusted the fedora on the sleeping man to keep the light rain off his face and spun around to race up the hill toward the house where lights showed. He moved silently through the wet grass, circling around. It was a big three-story building, not quite a mansion. Parked in the gravel semi-circle driveway were five expensive cars. A man stood just inside the portico, arms folded, staring off into the gloom. Only two windows on the ground floor seemed to show a light. Bane slid around to the rear of the house, where a large flagged stone pation held redwood tables and chairs. Another guard huddled miserably in what shelter he could get under an eave. As he stood there, the guard wiped his face with a big hand and he twitched violently as a sharp metal dart stabbed into the back of that hand. Before he could cry out, he was dazed by the drug and his knees sagged. Bane whipped in, caught the thug and lowered him to the ground.
This was one thing he liked about mystic sects, Bane reflected. They were amateurs at security. Any meeting of spies or gangsters would have its sentries set up to watch each other and react to intruders. But occult groups from Red Sect to Those Who Remember usually just posted a few armed men at obvious points and left it at that. The Dire Wolf opened the screen door and found the inner door was unlocked. He slipped inside and found himself in a gleaming, dark wood and chrome kitchen that still smelled pleasantly of roast beef. Dart gun in hand, he stepped into a hallway and start creeping along. With his light-amplifying visor, he could see well enough. Ahead were swinging door with small windows at head level and he peered cautiously through. The back of someone's head was right in his way, and judging by the thick neck and that a chunk was missing from the left ear, the head belonged to still another strongarm guard.
Peeking past the guard, Bane saw a long polished dining table under a cut crystal chandelier, with bottles of vodka and wine scattered and most of the glasses nearly empty. Sitting around that table were a dozen elderly men in loose pale yellow robes. it was quite a sight, all the gnarled hands and withered faces and bushy white eyebrows. None of them could be under seventy except for their leader.
Standing straight at the head of the table was a very tall, thin man all in black, with long oily hair parted in the middle and bristling black beard. He wore some phallic medallion on a gold chain and he was making a speech. Even from the glimpse he caught, the Dire wolf felt the overwhelming charismatic force of this man. Rasputin. They had brought him back. The spirit of the dark magician had returned to shape the body of a volunteer into a semblance of his original self. Preincarnation again.
Where was the Monk, Bane wondered, but he decided not to wait. With his right hand,he pulled half of the swinging door inward behind the guard and the edge of his left hand
came down like an axe right where the neck joined the shoulder. The crunching noise got everyone's attention. Every head turned as Bane threw the limp body to the floor and walked calmly into the room.
"No, don't get up because of me," he said as he slid the visor up on his helmet. "You old guys take it easy. I'm just here to talk to the Holy Devil there."
Rasputin glared at him, dark eyes under lowered brows and Bane felt a wave of loathing slap against him like hot wind. The protective Eldarin talisman in his collar flared warmly as it diverted some of that gralic force but even so, he was driven back a step. "That'll be enough of that!" the Dire Wolf yelled. With one hand he seized a chair and flung it the length of the table. Rasputin slapped it aside to crash through a window. In that instant, Bane had leaped forward and yanked the medallion away, breaking the chain and throwing the obscene pendant far behind him. Rasputin roared and tried to choke the Dire Wolf with both huge hands but against a trained fighter that was a huge mistake. Bane threw a barrage of alternating short blows to the torso that broke a rib and drove the breath from the man's body. Rasputin staggered back and Bane swung sidways to blast a high side kick to the chest that ruptured the Preincarnator's heart within his chest.
As the magician flopped ungracefully to the floor,a heavy oppressive weight seemed to leave the air. The Dire Wolf whirled to face the dozen cultists. The Rasputniks had gotten to their feet, each pulling a ceremonial wavy-bladed dagger from within the yellow robes. It would have been comical, these frail old men threatening Jeremy Bane but the hatred in their eyes was very real.
"Hold it right there, fellows," the Dire Wolf said in disbelief. "You just saw me take on your leader. What do you think you geezers can do against me?"
"It is not for you to slay them," hissed a cold voice behind him. Bane jumped and almost yelled in surprise. He would have sworn no one, not even Teacher Chael, could sneak up behind him like that. He stepped to one side and the Monk came forward to loom over the form of Rasputin.
"We studied together in Moscow," the Monk said in a low voice. "We trained together in the forbidden arts under the Czar's warlock and even though I have forsworn that magick, there was still a pact between us. I could not take his life."
"Oh, but I could! That's why you waited for me to turn up. You used me as a weapon," Bane snarled.
"Exactly! Why do you think I shot you in the chest and not the head? I knew you wear body armor. I wanted you to find me and help me end this menace." From the white cloth mask, cold blue eyes glittered with amusement.
"I don't like it. But," the Dire Wolf grudgingly went on, "I would have killed Rasputin even on my own. He was a real threat."
"And now, these poor souls?" the Monk gestured at the old men around the table, who still held the daggers but who seemed too fearful to move. All the anger seemed to have drained from them as the saw the Monk.
"Can they bring Rasputin back from another volunteer?" Bane asked.
"Only one of them has the knowledge," said the Monk and, involuntarily, some of the Rasputniks turned their eyes toward the shortest one among them, who looked alarmed. That gave it away. The Monk's arm swung up and the silenced pistol coughed twice to plow holes in the forehead of that cultist. He fell over backwards and was still, and two of his brethren sagged weakly back into their chairs.
"In my earlier career, I would have slain all of you to end your presence." The Monk lowered his gun slowly. "Perhaps I have grown soft. But I will let you all leave. Go now and pray that none of you cross my line of vision again."
As the old men struggled out of their robes in silence, revealing neat business suits, Bane watched with uncertain emotions. No one said a word. Slowly, the Rasputniks filed out the door and got into their cars to ease down the driveway. It seemed to take forever. As the last car pulled out onto the highway, Bane finally broke the silence.
"If we ever work together again, you need to be straight with me," he said.
The Monk nodded. "It is hard for me to admit error. My ways are my own and I seldom explain myself." He actually looked away. "But I say we will meet again as peers."
"Fair enough. What about this mess?" he gestured at the two bodies where they had fallen.
"I have brought supplies," the Monk said without elaboration. "Best you should leave now, Mr Bane. You have my thanks and the world owes you a debt it will never know."
There seemed nothing more to say. The Monk did not offer to shake hands and Bane was not sure he would have accepted the gesture. Turning, he strode back the way he had come, out the back door past the still unconscious guard lying near the outer wall. The rain had stopped. Suddenly, Bane broke into a run and hurtled through the woods down to the road. He got to his car and started it up, and just as he pulled out onto the main road, a glint of red against the sky behind him caught his eye. The house was burning.
8/14/2013
