In the last major stop before we made it to Vegas, I was ambushed by Ravyn, the Frau and Cerrydwen and dragged in to the psychedelic van for my own personal 'ambush makeover'.
The wenches must have been planning the event for quite some time, as I saw that Ravyn was carrying a couple of bags from that Outlet Mall we hit sometime a ways back. Inside I could see the tendrils from what I hoped was only a black haired wig. The Frau appeared to be holding a large make-up bag with a set of industrial sized application brushes. Cerrydwen was smiling for I believe the first time since I had met her. She appeared to be holding some folded up clothes that almost seemed ridiculous to have ever been folded, a set of jeans that already looked ragged and frayed, a black T-shirt of some sort, and a set of very large, very brutish looking studded leather bracers all piled on top of a long black trenchcoat.
I was helpless under their relentless onslaught, as they pulled me into the van, kicked out the young couple who had taken this moment to grab a little nookie, and stripped me down to my skivvies faster than a lone Chippendales dancer at a bachelorette party, giggling (even cackling!) like schoolgirls over their first crushes.
In less time than it would have taken that horny young man to reach for the sky, so to speak, I was transformed from a pale, bald, but semi-respectable looking zombie with a few scars, to a passing fair impersonation of a trenchcoat wearing throwback to an 80's rock band, with hair-sprayed, spikey bangs sticking up from my head and hair cascading around my shoulders.
Looking in the mirror when they had finally exhausted themselves into a giggling pile of breathless women turned to schoolgirls, I saw a stranger who could have easily been a member of that quintessential hard rock band, Kiss. Everything from a silver sword earring dangling from my right ear to the several silver chains now dangling from neck simply screamed white trash. The Ozzie Ozbourne concert T-shirt and the huge bracers that covered most of my forearms just seemed to finish the ensemble. I threw my shades back onto my face, put down the mirror, and held up my left hand in that Heavy Metal, 'devil's horns' sign and said "Dudes, let's rock!"
The shrieking laughter that erupted from my attackers sent them into asthmatic fits of coughing, tears flowing down their cheeks.
Somehow, these three women had transformed my image and hid my true nature from casual observation better than all of the Dr. Geeks' lab techs could manage in a half a day, and probably for a fraction of the cost! Little did I know just how valuable my makeover would become in the coming days...but that is for the next couple of posts....
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Slow Road to Vegas
This road trip was a heck of lot different from my last road trip out west. Before, I travelled alone, so the only stops I had to make were for gasoline for the car, or to break up the monotony of the drive.
Now with with five vehicles of varying fuel efficiencies, two large animals, fourteen living people, and myself, we simply couldn’t make the kind of time that I had become used to making when I travelled alone. So, the drive out to Vegas lasted almost a full week.
This week long odyssey provided ample opportunities to get to know these strange people who had taken me in so quickly, some of whom had risked their lives for an undead man that they themselves knew so little about. I alternated driving and riding in just about every vehicle, so that I could get to know these people even better.
I will spare you the details of the journey for now, since much of what I came to learn about these folks in the course of that journey will come out in future posts anyway, but this will also be an opportunity to catch the blog up closer to my more recent experiences.
As an example, all of the entries from ‘On the Warpath, Part 1’ until the last post related the events of Saturday, February 26, 2005 when we rescued John and then were in turn rescued by Ravyn. We left for Las Vegas in the afternoon of Sunday, February 27. The events of that day were truly remarkable, so I felt the need to take the time to detail exactly what happened.
After what seemed an eternity, we arrived in Las Vegas on the evening of Friday, March 4. That is, of course, when the shit hit the fan again...
Now with with five vehicles of varying fuel efficiencies, two large animals, fourteen living people, and myself, we simply couldn’t make the kind of time that I had become used to making when I travelled alone. So, the drive out to Vegas lasted almost a full week.
This week long odyssey provided ample opportunities to get to know these strange people who had taken me in so quickly, some of whom had risked their lives for an undead man that they themselves knew so little about. I alternated driving and riding in just about every vehicle, so that I could get to know these people even better.
I will spare you the details of the journey for now, since much of what I came to learn about these folks in the course of that journey will come out in future posts anyway, but this will also be an opportunity to catch the blog up closer to my more recent experiences.
As an example, all of the entries from ‘On the Warpath, Part 1’ until the last post related the events of Saturday, February 26, 2005 when we rescued John and then were in turn rescued by Ravyn. We left for Las Vegas in the afternoon of Sunday, February 27. The events of that day were truly remarkable, so I felt the need to take the time to detail exactly what happened.
After what seemed an eternity, we arrived in Las Vegas on the evening of Friday, March 4. That is, of course, when the shit hit the fan again...
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Preparing to Leave
The clock was ticking on the next surprise that Drake might pull, so affairs in Chicago had to be wrapped up pretty damn quick. While Herne and I caravaned our van load of (soon to be former) bounty hunters to the nearest Saintly Sisters of Mother Mary’s Mercy Hospital, the others were preparing for our newest journey westward.
Jim, the Professor, had suggested four possible locations for an organized-on-the-fly, semi-covert Convocation of the Clans--all in places that are normally warm and sunny this time of year, since Ravyn insisted--Disneyworld in Orlando, Disneyland in Anaheim, New Orleans, or the original Sin City, Las Vegas. The choices were limited not only in terms of climate, but in places that handled large amounts of tourists, usually had plenty of meeting places and hotel rooms, and where up to a few hundred Casters of various types ranging from Native American shamans to Jedi-like New Age sorcerors could come together in a fairly inconspicuous manner, and yet still be public enough to provide a modicum of safety in numbers.
His reasoning was solid, any gatherings made in places similar to the co-op offered Drake and his followers too many opportunities to drum up some local goons and buy off the local police force. He was obviously willing to set those types on us with the possibility that people would be killed or seriously hurt. But, Jim argued, in a place like the four locations he pointed out, the sheer size of the gathering places and the publicity that any possible attack would draw on the attackers made them the safest and most convenient choices for this improvised gathering.
I had no idea how large this group was, or how much financial support they had until Jim started this discussion. I was further amazed to learn that he had helped to establish all of this while he was still a graduate student nearly fifteen years ago. In that time, I later learned, he had helped turn a fairly modest endowment from the estate of a modestly wealthy benefactor of a couple hundred thousand dollars into a private corporation with a net value in the low eight figures.
Everyone I spoke to about the Professor marvelled at how he was a financial wizard, that eventhough he disavowed any magickal talents of his own, he seemed to have a true knack to know how and when to invest in various market instruments, diving into the stock market with seemingly reckless abandon just before stocks exploded, while also pulling out just before major crashes. He would just shrug when I asked him about such things and say it really, really paid to know how to research and recognize the small little signs that signalled big changes to come.
Amazingly though, he had a deep disdain for personal wealth and for those who sought such riches for their own sake. He presented himself as a man who lived modestly and who helped others out of a genuine interest in seeing good done in the world.
So it seemed to make a perverse kind of perfect sense that his final recommendation for the convocation was Las Vegas, a place that represented the antithesis of everything he stood for.
The preparations for the trip were done before dawn. I, of course, travelled light. I still didn’t have my own vehicle and equipment back from the my first southwest trip, since there just hadn’t been time for John’s students to make it to Chicago yet. Ravyn called them and had them redirect towards Vegas, asking them to start making arrangements for lodging for as many of the 80 or so Casters and as many of their several hundred students as would be able to make it.
Ravyn spent much of her time on the phone calling other Casters and sending them towards Vegas instead of Chicago. The Frau and Cerrydwen though, seemed to communicate with others through less conventional means, spending their time in a trance-like state that I recognized from my own Spirit Walking.
That left most of the packing and other physical work to the half-dozen or so students of Ravyn that were coming with us on this trip.
By the time everything was packed and ready to roll, there was a small caravan comprised of Jim’s truck, one of the appropriated SUV’s from the bounty hunters, an older van decked out in the psychedelic colors of someone who spent too much time smoking dope and wathcing old Scooby-Doo cartoons, and a couple of smaller econobox cars.
Luckily, John did come awake during the time spent getting ready and was able to recognize everyone and thank each of us for the rescue before drifting back into a healing sleep.
Shortly after noon, the Professor led the motley group of vehicles onto the Interstate and we headed west. For me, it was the second time in less than a week that I making this trip. Thius time however, I went forward with hope and friends at my side.
There was no way to know what dangers may lie ahead for us at that point, but for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I had to face those dangers alone.
Jim, the Professor, had suggested four possible locations for an organized-on-the-fly, semi-covert Convocation of the Clans--all in places that are normally warm and sunny this time of year, since Ravyn insisted--Disneyworld in Orlando, Disneyland in Anaheim, New Orleans, or the original Sin City, Las Vegas. The choices were limited not only in terms of climate, but in places that handled large amounts of tourists, usually had plenty of meeting places and hotel rooms, and where up to a few hundred Casters of various types ranging from Native American shamans to Jedi-like New Age sorcerors could come together in a fairly inconspicuous manner, and yet still be public enough to provide a modicum of safety in numbers.
His reasoning was solid, any gatherings made in places similar to the co-op offered Drake and his followers too many opportunities to drum up some local goons and buy off the local police force. He was obviously willing to set those types on us with the possibility that people would be killed or seriously hurt. But, Jim argued, in a place like the four locations he pointed out, the sheer size of the gathering places and the publicity that any possible attack would draw on the attackers made them the safest and most convenient choices for this improvised gathering.
I had no idea how large this group was, or how much financial support they had until Jim started this discussion. I was further amazed to learn that he had helped to establish all of this while he was still a graduate student nearly fifteen years ago. In that time, I later learned, he had helped turn a fairly modest endowment from the estate of a modestly wealthy benefactor of a couple hundred thousand dollars into a private corporation with a net value in the low eight figures.
Everyone I spoke to about the Professor marvelled at how he was a financial wizard, that eventhough he disavowed any magickal talents of his own, he seemed to have a true knack to know how and when to invest in various market instruments, diving into the stock market with seemingly reckless abandon just before stocks exploded, while also pulling out just before major crashes. He would just shrug when I asked him about such things and say it really, really paid to know how to research and recognize the small little signs that signalled big changes to come.
Amazingly though, he had a deep disdain for personal wealth and for those who sought such riches for their own sake. He presented himself as a man who lived modestly and who helped others out of a genuine interest in seeing good done in the world.
So it seemed to make a perverse kind of perfect sense that his final recommendation for the convocation was Las Vegas, a place that represented the antithesis of everything he stood for.
The preparations for the trip were done before dawn. I, of course, travelled light. I still didn’t have my own vehicle and equipment back from the my first southwest trip, since there just hadn’t been time for John’s students to make it to Chicago yet. Ravyn called them and had them redirect towards Vegas, asking them to start making arrangements for lodging for as many of the 80 or so Casters and as many of their several hundred students as would be able to make it.
Ravyn spent much of her time on the phone calling other Casters and sending them towards Vegas instead of Chicago. The Frau and Cerrydwen though, seemed to communicate with others through less conventional means, spending their time in a trance-like state that I recognized from my own Spirit Walking.
That left most of the packing and other physical work to the half-dozen or so students of Ravyn that were coming with us on this trip.
By the time everything was packed and ready to roll, there was a small caravan comprised of Jim’s truck, one of the appropriated SUV’s from the bounty hunters, an older van decked out in the psychedelic colors of someone who spent too much time smoking dope and wathcing old Scooby-Doo cartoons, and a couple of smaller econobox cars.
Luckily, John did come awake during the time spent getting ready and was able to recognize everyone and thank each of us for the rescue before drifting back into a healing sleep.
Shortly after noon, the Professor led the motley group of vehicles onto the Interstate and we headed west. For me, it was the second time in less than a week that I making this trip. Thius time however, I went forward with hope and friends at my side.
There was no way to know what dangers may lie ahead for us at that point, but for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I had to face those dangers alone.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Setting Things Right...Part 3
I took off at a run, knowing the damage that an assault team like this one could do against people who weren’t expecting it.
I slowed down as a I reached the driveway, not wanting to run into an ambush in case they had guys out front as well. I wasn’t sure how effective those stunners would be, but I certainly didn’t want to find out the hard way and see any of my new-found friends pay any more of a price than they already had.
The front door was still closed, and all looked quiet at the moment.
Instead of barging in and perhaps setting off some trigger happy bounty hunters by surprise, I started around the side of the house, towards the window into the library on the far side. As I approached the curtained plate glass window, I could make out the sounds of shouting and some very aggressive barking. I was about to bust in through the window when someone beat me to it, by flying through it from the inside, curtains wrapping up whoever it was, he or she crashed through the glass and landed on the snowy grass with a thud, flailing and kicking like they were on fire.
I looked into the room to see a scene of pure chaos.
Ravyn Fyre was standing facing the window, hands coated in orange flame, an angry glare in her eyes.
The professor was pounding on one poor goon with his bat, the solid wood thundering and splintering on the poor bastards’ kevlar helmet, thumped into body armor and finally stopping with a loud crack as the bat broke in two on the goons shoulder, causing him to collapse in a heap.
Herne had somehow wrestled a stunner from another goon who lay apparently senseless at his feet, while he was using the gun to its best effect on another poor soul who had apparently attacked the Frau. Now besides being electrocuted, he was being savaged by Rowan and beaten about the head and shoulders by the Frau with her staff.
The fifth and (hopefully) final bounty hunter was kneeling and begging at Cerrydwen’s feet, his face, hands and neck bleeding from obvious claw marks from her giant cat, who was sitting nearby licking the blood from her paws and face. The bounty hunter though seemed oblivious to the wounds as he stared up into Cerrydwens dark visage, seeing some sort of horror that can only be imagined. She stared down into his eyes muttering something under her breath, seeming to impose her will on his broken spirit.
John lay in the center of room, apparently still unconscious.
I looked down at the struggling form on the ground, who was now rolling back and forth in the snow, smoke rising from inside that mess of curtains. I flipped the edge of the curtain enough to see the burned face of a bounty hunter, his combat gear melted onto parts of his skin. He didn’t even notice me as I reached down and knocked him out. The fire was out, he would feel less pain unconscious.
“Is everyone OK?” I asked, looking back into the room.
The Frau’s assailant now lay stunned and bleeding, the man in front of Cerrydwen seemed to be in some sort of catatonic state, sitting and rocking back and forth muttering gibberish of some sort.
“Yeah,” said Herne. “I think maybe a couple of bruises, maybe a scrape here or there. I am getting too old for this kind of stuff.” He shook his right hand. “My knuckles can’t keep up with this kind of use.”
Ravyn’s eyes seemed to cool, the flames in her hands dying down to small tendrils of smoke. “I didn’t like those curtains much anyway. What happened to you Rusty? Where did you go?”
I explained what I went to go check out and then about the other assault team laying in the van out front. I also told them what I had learned from the guy inside the van and how Drake was behind this assault. I finished with, “I don’t know how that bastard could find out so quick how we ended up here, but it’s clear he isn’t going to be giving up anytime soon. Look I am really sorry to have endangered all of you in this mess. I think it would be best if I left John in your care and took off. If I am not around, maybe Drake and his goons will leave you guys in peace.”
“Oh stop with that nonsense!” The Frau exclaimed. “We are involved as much as you are now, I don’t think this Drake fellow is going to forget about us just because you take off now, is he?”
“No, probably not.” I said, sighing. “But I really don’t want to see you good people in such danger.”
Herne grinned. “Hey, I haven’t had this much fun in quite some time. Besides, it sounds like they have a pretty serious bounty on my head now, and if I heard you right, they still want John here.”
“You’re not going anywhere Rusty,” said Ravyn. “Not, that is, unless you take us with you. I don’t think we can stay here safely, so I will have to make some calls and make new arrangements for the Convocation anyway. This might be a good chance to go someplace warm and sunny!” She smiled at that thought.
Cerrydwen looked up from her victim, “Yes, I think a road trip is defintiely in order, don’t you Professor?”
Jim was inspecting his broken bat, picking up splinters that lay all around his victim. “Yeah, I can take some time off as well. I’m gonna miss this bat though, maybe we can stop in Louisville and get another one.” He grinned.
I looked over at John, “Did you guys finish what you needed to do to help John? Or did these guys interrupt that?”
“Luckily for John,” said the Frau. “We had just finished up when these fellows showed up. Cerry gave us the warning here. John should be coming around in the morning, if all went well.”
“Actually, it was just some of my own spirit friends who warned me, I just passed it along to you guys.”
“Look,” I said. “I have the other team laying in that van. We should take these guys out to join them, and get them to a hospital. these guys aren’t truly evil like Drake and his ilk, they were just stooges looking for a quick buck. Once we get them loaded up, I’ll take the van to the nearest hospital and if someone else will follow behind me, we can let these guys explain things to the police about their injuries and such. By the time anyone makes any sense out of what they are saying, we can be long gone.”
“I can follow you in one of their SUV’s, they won’t be needing it anymore.” Herne grinned as he said that. “Besides, we’re gonna need another SUV for a crew this big!”
“What about the window here at the co-op?” Ravyn looked at the broken window. “I don’t want to leave this like this.”
“I’ll make some calls,” said Jim. “It’ll be taken care of in the morning.”
“Let’s get this wrapped up then.”
With that, I went back to the van and brought it to the house, after checking to make sure no one inside was able to make any further trouble.
Once the van was at the house, I added the unconscious forms of the knocked out and stunned bounty hunters to the back, being a little more careful not to cause further damage, or to suffocate anyone. Last, I brought the gibbering fool in a catatonic state to join the rest, he moved wherever I guided him to without much fuss. He sat quietly in one of the chairs inside the back of the van.
After locking the back of the van back up, I went to Cerrydwen and asked, “Is that guy going to be able to make any trouble?”
She looked at me evenly, eyes narrowing just a little, “No, I don’t think so.”
“What did you do to him anyway?”
“Oh, I just made him take a look at everything mean he had done to anyone else in his own past, and made him experience all of that pain and hurt those people felt, only I amplified it a little bit. He wasn’t a very nice man, so he’s got an awful lot of karmic healing to do.”
“Damn, I’m glad you are on my side.” I shook my head as I watched Herne gather up weapons. “You need me to destroy those?”
“Nah, there’s some good stuff here, if nothing else, we can give them to John’s people to help defray some of their expenses. Might keep one or two myself. I kinda like these stun guns.”
“Yeah, that reminds me, they were carrying those things to try to stop me. Save one of those for us to experiment on later. I need to know if something like that can affect me.”
“Gotcha, good idea. Well, I can finish this up later, let’s go do our good deed for those poor bastards.”
I slowed down as a I reached the driveway, not wanting to run into an ambush in case they had guys out front as well. I wasn’t sure how effective those stunners would be, but I certainly didn’t want to find out the hard way and see any of my new-found friends pay any more of a price than they already had.
The front door was still closed, and all looked quiet at the moment.
Instead of barging in and perhaps setting off some trigger happy bounty hunters by surprise, I started around the side of the house, towards the window into the library on the far side. As I approached the curtained plate glass window, I could make out the sounds of shouting and some very aggressive barking. I was about to bust in through the window when someone beat me to it, by flying through it from the inside, curtains wrapping up whoever it was, he or she crashed through the glass and landed on the snowy grass with a thud, flailing and kicking like they were on fire.
I looked into the room to see a scene of pure chaos.
Ravyn Fyre was standing facing the window, hands coated in orange flame, an angry glare in her eyes.
The professor was pounding on one poor goon with his bat, the solid wood thundering and splintering on the poor bastards’ kevlar helmet, thumped into body armor and finally stopping with a loud crack as the bat broke in two on the goons shoulder, causing him to collapse in a heap.
Herne had somehow wrestled a stunner from another goon who lay apparently senseless at his feet, while he was using the gun to its best effect on another poor soul who had apparently attacked the Frau. Now besides being electrocuted, he was being savaged by Rowan and beaten about the head and shoulders by the Frau with her staff.
The fifth and (hopefully) final bounty hunter was kneeling and begging at Cerrydwen’s feet, his face, hands and neck bleeding from obvious claw marks from her giant cat, who was sitting nearby licking the blood from her paws and face. The bounty hunter though seemed oblivious to the wounds as he stared up into Cerrydwens dark visage, seeing some sort of horror that can only be imagined. She stared down into his eyes muttering something under her breath, seeming to impose her will on his broken spirit.
John lay in the center of room, apparently still unconscious.
I looked down at the struggling form on the ground, who was now rolling back and forth in the snow, smoke rising from inside that mess of curtains. I flipped the edge of the curtain enough to see the burned face of a bounty hunter, his combat gear melted onto parts of his skin. He didn’t even notice me as I reached down and knocked him out. The fire was out, he would feel less pain unconscious.
“Is everyone OK?” I asked, looking back into the room.
The Frau’s assailant now lay stunned and bleeding, the man in front of Cerrydwen seemed to be in some sort of catatonic state, sitting and rocking back and forth muttering gibberish of some sort.
“Yeah,” said Herne. “I think maybe a couple of bruises, maybe a scrape here or there. I am getting too old for this kind of stuff.” He shook his right hand. “My knuckles can’t keep up with this kind of use.”
Ravyn’s eyes seemed to cool, the flames in her hands dying down to small tendrils of smoke. “I didn’t like those curtains much anyway. What happened to you Rusty? Where did you go?”
I explained what I went to go check out and then about the other assault team laying in the van out front. I also told them what I had learned from the guy inside the van and how Drake was behind this assault. I finished with, “I don’t know how that bastard could find out so quick how we ended up here, but it’s clear he isn’t going to be giving up anytime soon. Look I am really sorry to have endangered all of you in this mess. I think it would be best if I left John in your care and took off. If I am not around, maybe Drake and his goons will leave you guys in peace.”
“Oh stop with that nonsense!” The Frau exclaimed. “We are involved as much as you are now, I don’t think this Drake fellow is going to forget about us just because you take off now, is he?”
“No, probably not.” I said, sighing. “But I really don’t want to see you good people in such danger.”
Herne grinned. “Hey, I haven’t had this much fun in quite some time. Besides, it sounds like they have a pretty serious bounty on my head now, and if I heard you right, they still want John here.”
“You’re not going anywhere Rusty,” said Ravyn. “Not, that is, unless you take us with you. I don’t think we can stay here safely, so I will have to make some calls and make new arrangements for the Convocation anyway. This might be a good chance to go someplace warm and sunny!” She smiled at that thought.
Cerrydwen looked up from her victim, “Yes, I think a road trip is defintiely in order, don’t you Professor?”
Jim was inspecting his broken bat, picking up splinters that lay all around his victim. “Yeah, I can take some time off as well. I’m gonna miss this bat though, maybe we can stop in Louisville and get another one.” He grinned.
I looked over at John, “Did you guys finish what you needed to do to help John? Or did these guys interrupt that?”
“Luckily for John,” said the Frau. “We had just finished up when these fellows showed up. Cerry gave us the warning here. John should be coming around in the morning, if all went well.”
“Actually, it was just some of my own spirit friends who warned me, I just passed it along to you guys.”
“Look,” I said. “I have the other team laying in that van. We should take these guys out to join them, and get them to a hospital. these guys aren’t truly evil like Drake and his ilk, they were just stooges looking for a quick buck. Once we get them loaded up, I’ll take the van to the nearest hospital and if someone else will follow behind me, we can let these guys explain things to the police about their injuries and such. By the time anyone makes any sense out of what they are saying, we can be long gone.”
“I can follow you in one of their SUV’s, they won’t be needing it anymore.” Herne grinned as he said that. “Besides, we’re gonna need another SUV for a crew this big!”
“What about the window here at the co-op?” Ravyn looked at the broken window. “I don’t want to leave this like this.”
“I’ll make some calls,” said Jim. “It’ll be taken care of in the morning.”
“Let’s get this wrapped up then.”
With that, I went back to the van and brought it to the house, after checking to make sure no one inside was able to make any further trouble.
Once the van was at the house, I added the unconscious forms of the knocked out and stunned bounty hunters to the back, being a little more careful not to cause further damage, or to suffocate anyone. Last, I brought the gibbering fool in a catatonic state to join the rest, he moved wherever I guided him to without much fuss. He sat quietly in one of the chairs inside the back of the van.
After locking the back of the van back up, I went to Cerrydwen and asked, “Is that guy going to be able to make any trouble?”
She looked at me evenly, eyes narrowing just a little, “No, I don’t think so.”
“What did you do to him anyway?”
“Oh, I just made him take a look at everything mean he had done to anyone else in his own past, and made him experience all of that pain and hurt those people felt, only I amplified it a little bit. He wasn’t a very nice man, so he’s got an awful lot of karmic healing to do.”
“Damn, I’m glad you are on my side.” I shook my head as I watched Herne gather up weapons. “You need me to destroy those?”
“Nah, there’s some good stuff here, if nothing else, we can give them to John’s people to help defray some of their expenses. Might keep one or two myself. I kinda like these stun guns.”
“Yeah, that reminds me, they were carrying those things to try to stop me. Save one of those for us to experiment on later. I need to know if something like that can affect me.”
“Gotcha, good idea. Well, I can finish this up later, let’s go do our good deed for those poor bastards.”
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Setting Things Right...Part 2
It was very dark when I stepped out into the cold of the night. Clouds were very thick from yet another winter storm rolling through, but the snow had not yet started.
I allowed my lenses to adjust to the reduced light as I slipped from the sidewalk into the shadows of the driveway, moving between vehicles. I flicked my right wrist in order to let my collapsible baton drop into my palm. Another quick flick of the wrist and the baton extended with a satisfying ‘snick’.
Moving quickly over the salted pavement, I scanned the street for anyone walking. I could just make out the shape of the van on the far side of the street, to my left. I crossed the street quickly and made my way to the row of tall evergreens that lined that side of the street. I was able to use the cover of those trees to make my way to the corner where the van was sitting facing the co-op house and the SUV was sitting just around the bend, out of casual sight. The large tree that obscured vision of the SUV from the co-op was the perfect cover for me to observe both vehicles unnoticed.
No one could be seen inside the van, but then again it could easily hold several men in the back, out of sight because of the lack of windows. The SUV, however, was a different matter. Even through the tinted windows, I could make out 5 figures. Shortly after I began observing them, the doors openned and men started getting out. These guys were either government agents or mercenary goons for hire. They were wearing the black garb and harnesses of an assault team alright, loaded to bear with weapons. They began to gather near the back of the white van, their nightvision equipment on their heads, but not snapped down into place. They were getting ready for a briefing of some sort.
I shifted to get a better view of the gathering, carefull not to step on any twigs. I was at the advantage right now, didn’t need to spoil it until I found out who these guys were and what they were doing here. The back door of the van cracked open, one of the men inside leaned out to say something to the gathered assault team. I listened...
Van man: “Alright, you know the assignment, you have your briefing photos. We need the Indian alive if possible, take Clarksson dead or alive, the boss doesn’t care which, and if you value your lives at all, keep your stun guns handy. They are the only way to stop this Bones character from making meat of you.”
Team member: “Why the stunners for Bones? My magnum should be able to drop his ass.”
Van man: “Look dipshit, didn’t you read your briefing material? Bones isn’t a normal man, he’s some freak government experiment gone wrong, the bosses say he’s gone psycho and that’s why they hired us to capture him. The stunners will disrupt his motor functions, but won’t kill him. Once you got the place secured and Bones stunned, let us know and we’ll arrange transport of the captives and Bones.”
Team member: “What happens if the cops show up? This is a pretty quiet neighborhood.”
Van man: “Don’t worry about it, the bosses have taken care of that shit, you just do your job, and everyone else will take care theirs.”
That was enough for me, these guys weren’t feds, if they’d been ‘hired’ and they weren’t the locals, but they did seem to think they had local support for their activity. Very disturbing shit.
The van man was giving some other last minute instructions, still attracting all of their attention as they listened to him, ruining their own natural night sight by looking into the lighted interior of the van. I stepped out of the cover of the tree by the SUV and walked out quietly, but quickly until I came up behind the gathered assault team.
The van man’s eyes grew wide in fear as he noticed me, just as I dropped the nearest goon with a solid thwack across the back of his neck, dropping him like a stone.
Van man was able to manage a quick, “Son of a bitch...” as I dropped the next asshole with a quick flick of my wrist as he turned to face me, causing his nose to shatter and erupt into a fountain of blood and curses.
In such close quarters, and as unprepared as they were for action, they were unable to bring to bear their automatic weapons. The poor bastards never had much of a chance anyway, as a few quick flashes of my baton quickly shattered hands, kneecaps and noses. The last stalwart of the assault team was still fumbling with a holster to try to draw some unwieldy thing that might have been a ‘stunner’ when I shattered his forearm with the baton and kicked him hard enough in the ‘nads to give his children headaches. He crumpled to the ground whimpering in pain.
The van man sat there openmouthed as I finished off his assault team. He took too long to gather his wits though, just as he was trying to close the door, muttering, I grabbed the door and yanked it all the way open, spilling onto the whimpering body of one of his goons. A quick crack to the back of his head, careful not to crack the skull, and he was out as I stepped inside to deal with the other two.
These two were wearing the blue jumpsuits I had seen earlier and were scrambling to take off headphones and find weapons of some sort. I grabbed the first one, the skinny one, by the scruff of his neck with my left hand and smashed his face into the console he was trying to back away from. I lunged with my baton tip to hit the fat guy in the solar plexus as he was turning to face me, stun gun in hand. Without thinking, I snatched the skinny guy back just in time to take the barbs of the electrified stun, letting go of his body as it started twitching and jerking in response to the charge of the gun. A second, short swing of the baton smashed the gun and his fingers as I stepped over his still twitching buddy to grab him by the front of his jumpsuit. I lifted him easily with one hand, smashing back against the cabin wall. He was still squirming, crying in pain,
“Wait...don’t hurt me anymore!”
I brought my ugly mug closer to his wide eyes, “Why should I let you live asshole? You were going to disable me and kill or capture my friends. Give me one reason I shouldn’t fuck you up real bad!”
“Please, Mr Bones...I have a family...” he muttered.
“Who hired you?”
“I...don’t know, please...just let me go!”
“If you don’t give me something quick, I’ll move on to someone else.” I said, my voice very quiet and calm.
“It was some guy named Kampmann...said he was with the FBI.”
“Why would the FBI need to hire the likes of you?”
“I really don’t know Mister...he just contacted us earlier today, said it was a special rush job. He offered us...damn my fingers are broken...he offered us a big bonus to do it quick-like.”
“What kind of outfit are you guys?”
“Please man, just put me down ok? We’re bounty hunters, but this ain’t worth no damn bonuses!”
I grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the console he had been sitting at and handcuffed his good hand to a sturdy bar set in the ceiling, a solid punch to the face was enough to knock him out, he slumped down, hanging from the ceiling rail by one hand. I hopped out of the van and started piling the semi-conscious, wounded bounty hunters into the back of the van. All of them save the one guy in a white shirt that I had pulled from the van were too wounded to be of any danger, but I still pulled all of their stun guns from their holsters and grabbed their automatic weapons. He was still out cold, so I took the time to disable the weapons. I broke the trigger mechanism on the stunners and bent the barrels of the assault weapons before putting them in the van with the wounded men.
The guy in the white shirt was just coming awake when I had finished that. He still had a cordless headphone on his ears. I was just about to start interrogating him when I heard the faint crackle of a voice come out of his earpiece. “Team 1 in place. Assault to begin as planned. Out.”
As quickly as his eyes snapped open with the voice in his ears, they closed again as I broke his nose, putting him back to sleep. I threw him in on top of the heap of wounded men, ignoring the groans of pain emanating from the pile, and slammed the door shut.
I had to get back to the house!
I allowed my lenses to adjust to the reduced light as I slipped from the sidewalk into the shadows of the driveway, moving between vehicles. I flicked my right wrist in order to let my collapsible baton drop into my palm. Another quick flick of the wrist and the baton extended with a satisfying ‘snick’.
Moving quickly over the salted pavement, I scanned the street for anyone walking. I could just make out the shape of the van on the far side of the street, to my left. I crossed the street quickly and made my way to the row of tall evergreens that lined that side of the street. I was able to use the cover of those trees to make my way to the corner where the van was sitting facing the co-op house and the SUV was sitting just around the bend, out of casual sight. The large tree that obscured vision of the SUV from the co-op was the perfect cover for me to observe both vehicles unnoticed.
No one could be seen inside the van, but then again it could easily hold several men in the back, out of sight because of the lack of windows. The SUV, however, was a different matter. Even through the tinted windows, I could make out 5 figures. Shortly after I began observing them, the doors openned and men started getting out. These guys were either government agents or mercenary goons for hire. They were wearing the black garb and harnesses of an assault team alright, loaded to bear with weapons. They began to gather near the back of the white van, their nightvision equipment on their heads, but not snapped down into place. They were getting ready for a briefing of some sort.
I shifted to get a better view of the gathering, carefull not to step on any twigs. I was at the advantage right now, didn’t need to spoil it until I found out who these guys were and what they were doing here. The back door of the van cracked open, one of the men inside leaned out to say something to the gathered assault team. I listened...
Van man: “Alright, you know the assignment, you have your briefing photos. We need the Indian alive if possible, take Clarksson dead or alive, the boss doesn’t care which, and if you value your lives at all, keep your stun guns handy. They are the only way to stop this Bones character from making meat of you.”
Team member: “Why the stunners for Bones? My magnum should be able to drop his ass.”
Van man: “Look dipshit, didn’t you read your briefing material? Bones isn’t a normal man, he’s some freak government experiment gone wrong, the bosses say he’s gone psycho and that’s why they hired us to capture him. The stunners will disrupt his motor functions, but won’t kill him. Once you got the place secured and Bones stunned, let us know and we’ll arrange transport of the captives and Bones.”
Team member: “What happens if the cops show up? This is a pretty quiet neighborhood.”
Van man: “Don’t worry about it, the bosses have taken care of that shit, you just do your job, and everyone else will take care theirs.”
That was enough for me, these guys weren’t feds, if they’d been ‘hired’ and they weren’t the locals, but they did seem to think they had local support for their activity. Very disturbing shit.
The van man was giving some other last minute instructions, still attracting all of their attention as they listened to him, ruining their own natural night sight by looking into the lighted interior of the van. I stepped out of the cover of the tree by the SUV and walked out quietly, but quickly until I came up behind the gathered assault team.
The van man’s eyes grew wide in fear as he noticed me, just as I dropped the nearest goon with a solid thwack across the back of his neck, dropping him like a stone.
Van man was able to manage a quick, “Son of a bitch...” as I dropped the next asshole with a quick flick of my wrist as he turned to face me, causing his nose to shatter and erupt into a fountain of blood and curses.
In such close quarters, and as unprepared as they were for action, they were unable to bring to bear their automatic weapons. The poor bastards never had much of a chance anyway, as a few quick flashes of my baton quickly shattered hands, kneecaps and noses. The last stalwart of the assault team was still fumbling with a holster to try to draw some unwieldy thing that might have been a ‘stunner’ when I shattered his forearm with the baton and kicked him hard enough in the ‘nads to give his children headaches. He crumpled to the ground whimpering in pain.
The van man sat there openmouthed as I finished off his assault team. He took too long to gather his wits though, just as he was trying to close the door, muttering, I grabbed the door and yanked it all the way open, spilling onto the whimpering body of one of his goons. A quick crack to the back of his head, careful not to crack the skull, and he was out as I stepped inside to deal with the other two.
These two were wearing the blue jumpsuits I had seen earlier and were scrambling to take off headphones and find weapons of some sort. I grabbed the first one, the skinny one, by the scruff of his neck with my left hand and smashed his face into the console he was trying to back away from. I lunged with my baton tip to hit the fat guy in the solar plexus as he was turning to face me, stun gun in hand. Without thinking, I snatched the skinny guy back just in time to take the barbs of the electrified stun, letting go of his body as it started twitching and jerking in response to the charge of the gun. A second, short swing of the baton smashed the gun and his fingers as I stepped over his still twitching buddy to grab him by the front of his jumpsuit. I lifted him easily with one hand, smashing back against the cabin wall. He was still squirming, crying in pain,
“Wait...don’t hurt me anymore!”
I brought my ugly mug closer to his wide eyes, “Why should I let you live asshole? You were going to disable me and kill or capture my friends. Give me one reason I shouldn’t fuck you up real bad!”
“Please, Mr Bones...I have a family...” he muttered.
“Who hired you?”
“I...don’t know, please...just let me go!”
“If you don’t give me something quick, I’ll move on to someone else.” I said, my voice very quiet and calm.
“It was some guy named Kampmann...said he was with the FBI.”
“Why would the FBI need to hire the likes of you?”
“I really don’t know Mister...he just contacted us earlier today, said it was a special rush job. He offered us...damn my fingers are broken...he offered us a big bonus to do it quick-like.”
“What kind of outfit are you guys?”
“Please man, just put me down ok? We’re bounty hunters, but this ain’t worth no damn bonuses!”
I grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the console he had been sitting at and handcuffed his good hand to a sturdy bar set in the ceiling, a solid punch to the face was enough to knock him out, he slumped down, hanging from the ceiling rail by one hand. I hopped out of the van and started piling the semi-conscious, wounded bounty hunters into the back of the van. All of them save the one guy in a white shirt that I had pulled from the van were too wounded to be of any danger, but I still pulled all of their stun guns from their holsters and grabbed their automatic weapons. He was still out cold, so I took the time to disable the weapons. I broke the trigger mechanism on the stunners and bent the barrels of the assault weapons before putting them in the van with the wounded men.
The guy in the white shirt was just coming awake when I had finished that. He still had a cordless headphone on his ears. I was just about to start interrogating him when I heard the faint crackle of a voice come out of his earpiece. “Team 1 in place. Assault to begin as planned. Out.”
As quickly as his eyes snapped open with the voice in his ears, they closed again as I broke his nose, putting him back to sleep. I threw him in on top of the heap of wounded men, ignoring the groans of pain emanating from the pile, and slammed the door shut.
I had to get back to the house!
Friday, March 18, 2005
Setting Things Right...Part 1
There was something about the set of her jaw, the concern in her eyes, and the matronly bustle of the shorter, rounder, older woman who entered the room first. Virtually ignoring my presence she approached John’s bed quickly and deliberately, clucking under her breath. The Frau, I assumed.
The second woman was slightly taller, dressed in the dark leathers and boots of a biker, with an intense, dark look in her eyes and a furrowed brow. She had the hard look and dark moods of the goddess she was named after. She glanced at me, challenging why I was there, before coming to some sort of quick decision that I could stay, for now.
Behind the women, two rather large animals followed. The first animal was the biggest damn German Shepherd I had ever seen, who also stared in my direction before following the Frau to John’s bed. The second animal was even more curious, especially given the proximity to the dog, since it appeared to be wild cat of some sort, easily coming up to half the dog’s shoulder, but longer in proportion, and all black in coloration. While the dog almost bounded into the room and followed the older woman without much hesitation, the cat stopped at the doorway, examining things with great care, before slinking in behind Cerrydwen. The cat stayed as far away from me as was possible given the confines of the room.
The Frau dismissed me without looking back, saying only, “You can go for now. I will send Rowan for you if I have need of you.”
“Who’s Rowan?” I asked. “Oh, I see,” I said when I noticed the dogs monstrous head turn in my direction at calling out his name. “I’ll be upstairs.”
I left the room and headed upstairs to the Solarium, hoping to find Ravyn or Herne. Instead I came across another person I had not seen yet. He was very tall, probably 6’3”, had the wide shoulders of an athletic life, but the hefty gut of what must be a desk job of some sort. He was wearing a very large T-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap for a team I did not recognize. He had the look of someone who did a lot of reading, with a kind, open face.
When I came into the room, he offered his large hand in greeting, “Hi, you must be this Rusty Bones everyone is talking about, I’m James Karlton, you can call me Jim.”
I shook his hand, looked up at him, “Yeah, I guess it’s obvious who I am nowadays. So did you come with the two ladies who just kicked me out downstairs?”
“Yep, it’s best not to argue with them.”
“Oh, I didn’t plan on it. Anyway, they are going to help my friend.”
“Well, John’s not just your friend, he’s a friend of everyone here, including me. We all want to help out, if we can.” He took of his cap, mopped his forehead of sweat and hair, and put the old thing back on his head.
“So are you ‘caster’ then as well?” I asked, looking around for a seat and then sitting on the steel folding chair backwards.
“No, my skills lay more in the academic fields, I’m an econ professor. I also help out with the books of the corporation, to keep things funded properly.” He sat down in another chair, easing his large frame into it carefully.
“You know, its nice to meet someone around here that isn’t a magicker of some kind. I was beginning to wonder if there were any normal people left anymore.”
He laughed at that, “Well, I guess that depends on what you consider normal. Most of my students would have their doubts about whether I would qualify for that monicker.” He reached into a nearby backpack, pulled out a 2-liter of diet soda and took a swig.
“You know, that reminds me,” I said. “I need to get some more pop at store, I used up the last two-liter earlier. Do you mind taking me to a store nearby?”
“No problem, I could use some more spares as well. This is gonna be a long night, I’m afraid. C’mon.” He got up out of the chair and led me out into the dark of the driveway and his waiting truck, a fairly newer model crew cab pick-up truck.
On the way to the store, I noted a large white van without any rear windows parked down the block from the co-op. A couple of men in blue jumpsuits and oddly new tool boxes were getting out the front and making their way to the rear of the van. I happened to glance through the rear-view mirror as we passed and noted an unusual array of computer equipment and lights coming from inside the van. There was also at least one other man sitting in the back of the van with some sort of earphones on. That was all I could see before the two men with the tool boxes climbed into the van, pulling the doors shut behind them.
This odd situation peaked my interest, but I didn’t mention it to James, yet.
Coming back from the store, we were discussing the prospects of the Detroit Tigers for the coming season, debating how much Magglio Ordonez would help the outfield, when I noted that the van still sitting in the same spot, but I also noted a large, dark SUV with several more figures sitting in it was parked just around the corner.
After we passed them and pulled down the block and into the co-op driveway, I turned to Jim, “Do you guys have any security teams out on the perimeter?”
He looked at me like I was speaking Greek all of a sudden. “Security teams? No, I don’t think we have any need for that. Why?”
“Well, back around the corner is a surveillance van with some sort of electronics team inside, and I saw a car load of likely goons as well. Might be something that we need to address.”
He shrugged, reached down behind the seat and pulled out a very large, wooden baseball bat. “Just in case, you know.”
I grinned at him, grabbed my bags and headed inside the co-op house.
We were met by Herne in the entry hall, who had apparently been waiting for us. “Rusty, I need your help moving John, we’re going to be starting the ritual soon.”
I followed him dwon into the basement where we carefully picked up John and transported him up to the first floor where space had been cleared for him in the library. Waiting for us there were Ravyn Fyre, the Frau, Cerrydwen, the big dog, Rowan, and Morrigan, the freakishly large, wild black cat.
The Frau directed us where to put him, which happened to be in the middle of a large circle that
was inscribed in the wood of the floor that must normally be hidden by carpets, since I hadn’t noticed it before. We placed him as ordered, waiting for further instruction.
“Now you, Rusty is it? I don’t really have a place for you in this ritual, nor you Professor. But I do want to make sure that we aren’t disturbed. Herne, I need you to take the North Quarter, for Earth, of course. Face inwards.” The Frau looked at Ravyn, “Honey, I’ll need you in the South Quarter. Cerrydwen, I’ll need you in the West for Water, and I will take the East and Air.” She looked back in the direction of James and I. “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask that you run interference for us, make sure no one breaks the Circle that we are about to create.”
“What exactly are you going to do?” I asked.
She looked back at me, looking over her small glasses, “We are going to try some very powerful rituals to call John back into his body. We may also be required to travel into the Underworld, since it appears that his Spirit is being kept away by some means. This could take awhile, but do not, under any circumstances break the circle until one of us indicates that the ritual is over, even if one of us falls over or seems to be hurt, do you understand?”
I nodded. Each of the casters took their assigned positions, while the large dog, Rowan, took up a spot just outside the circle behind the Frau. The cat looked around before taking acouple of bounding leaps, first onto a large table top, and then to the top of a tall bookcase before blending into the shadow above, onlyu the occasional flick of a long black tail hinted at the danger above.
Jim, or the Professor as the Frau called him, took up a position near the main doors into the hall, dropping his backpack and leaning the bat up against the wall nearby. I moved around the circle, closing the curtains to the large windows that looked out into the wooded side yard, and then closed the secondary doors to the room.
Finally, as the casters seemed about to begin, I approached Jim, “I’m gonna take a quick look outside, just to make sure those guys we saw aren’t gonna cause any trouble. I’ll be back soon.”
He nodded, fingered the shaft of the bat. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.”
The second woman was slightly taller, dressed in the dark leathers and boots of a biker, with an intense, dark look in her eyes and a furrowed brow. She had the hard look and dark moods of the goddess she was named after. She glanced at me, challenging why I was there, before coming to some sort of quick decision that I could stay, for now.
Behind the women, two rather large animals followed. The first animal was the biggest damn German Shepherd I had ever seen, who also stared in my direction before following the Frau to John’s bed. The second animal was even more curious, especially given the proximity to the dog, since it appeared to be wild cat of some sort, easily coming up to half the dog’s shoulder, but longer in proportion, and all black in coloration. While the dog almost bounded into the room and followed the older woman without much hesitation, the cat stopped at the doorway, examining things with great care, before slinking in behind Cerrydwen. The cat stayed as far away from me as was possible given the confines of the room.
The Frau dismissed me without looking back, saying only, “You can go for now. I will send Rowan for you if I have need of you.”
“Who’s Rowan?” I asked. “Oh, I see,” I said when I noticed the dogs monstrous head turn in my direction at calling out his name. “I’ll be upstairs.”
I left the room and headed upstairs to the Solarium, hoping to find Ravyn or Herne. Instead I came across another person I had not seen yet. He was very tall, probably 6’3”, had the wide shoulders of an athletic life, but the hefty gut of what must be a desk job of some sort. He was wearing a very large T-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap for a team I did not recognize. He had the look of someone who did a lot of reading, with a kind, open face.
When I came into the room, he offered his large hand in greeting, “Hi, you must be this Rusty Bones everyone is talking about, I’m James Karlton, you can call me Jim.”
I shook his hand, looked up at him, “Yeah, I guess it’s obvious who I am nowadays. So did you come with the two ladies who just kicked me out downstairs?”
“Yep, it’s best not to argue with them.”
“Oh, I didn’t plan on it. Anyway, they are going to help my friend.”
“Well, John’s not just your friend, he’s a friend of everyone here, including me. We all want to help out, if we can.” He took of his cap, mopped his forehead of sweat and hair, and put the old thing back on his head.
“So are you ‘caster’ then as well?” I asked, looking around for a seat and then sitting on the steel folding chair backwards.
“No, my skills lay more in the academic fields, I’m an econ professor. I also help out with the books of the corporation, to keep things funded properly.” He sat down in another chair, easing his large frame into it carefully.
“You know, its nice to meet someone around here that isn’t a magicker of some kind. I was beginning to wonder if there were any normal people left anymore.”
He laughed at that, “Well, I guess that depends on what you consider normal. Most of my students would have their doubts about whether I would qualify for that monicker.” He reached into a nearby backpack, pulled out a 2-liter of diet soda and took a swig.
“You know, that reminds me,” I said. “I need to get some more pop at store, I used up the last two-liter earlier. Do you mind taking me to a store nearby?”
“No problem, I could use some more spares as well. This is gonna be a long night, I’m afraid. C’mon.” He got up out of the chair and led me out into the dark of the driveway and his waiting truck, a fairly newer model crew cab pick-up truck.
On the way to the store, I noted a large white van without any rear windows parked down the block from the co-op. A couple of men in blue jumpsuits and oddly new tool boxes were getting out the front and making their way to the rear of the van. I happened to glance through the rear-view mirror as we passed and noted an unusual array of computer equipment and lights coming from inside the van. There was also at least one other man sitting in the back of the van with some sort of earphones on. That was all I could see before the two men with the tool boxes climbed into the van, pulling the doors shut behind them.
This odd situation peaked my interest, but I didn’t mention it to James, yet.
Coming back from the store, we were discussing the prospects of the Detroit Tigers for the coming season, debating how much Magglio Ordonez would help the outfield, when I noted that the van still sitting in the same spot, but I also noted a large, dark SUV with several more figures sitting in it was parked just around the corner.
After we passed them and pulled down the block and into the co-op driveway, I turned to Jim, “Do you guys have any security teams out on the perimeter?”
He looked at me like I was speaking Greek all of a sudden. “Security teams? No, I don’t think we have any need for that. Why?”
“Well, back around the corner is a surveillance van with some sort of electronics team inside, and I saw a car load of likely goons as well. Might be something that we need to address.”
He shrugged, reached down behind the seat and pulled out a very large, wooden baseball bat. “Just in case, you know.”
I grinned at him, grabbed my bags and headed inside the co-op house.
We were met by Herne in the entry hall, who had apparently been waiting for us. “Rusty, I need your help moving John, we’re going to be starting the ritual soon.”
I followed him dwon into the basement where we carefully picked up John and transported him up to the first floor where space had been cleared for him in the library. Waiting for us there were Ravyn Fyre, the Frau, Cerrydwen, the big dog, Rowan, and Morrigan, the freakishly large, wild black cat.
The Frau directed us where to put him, which happened to be in the middle of a large circle that
was inscribed in the wood of the floor that must normally be hidden by carpets, since I hadn’t noticed it before. We placed him as ordered, waiting for further instruction.
“Now you, Rusty is it? I don’t really have a place for you in this ritual, nor you Professor. But I do want to make sure that we aren’t disturbed. Herne, I need you to take the North Quarter, for Earth, of course. Face inwards.” The Frau looked at Ravyn, “Honey, I’ll need you in the South Quarter. Cerrydwen, I’ll need you in the West for Water, and I will take the East and Air.” She looked back in the direction of James and I. “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask that you run interference for us, make sure no one breaks the Circle that we are about to create.”
“What exactly are you going to do?” I asked.
She looked back at me, looking over her small glasses, “We are going to try some very powerful rituals to call John back into his body. We may also be required to travel into the Underworld, since it appears that his Spirit is being kept away by some means. This could take awhile, but do not, under any circumstances break the circle until one of us indicates that the ritual is over, even if one of us falls over or seems to be hurt, do you understand?”
I nodded. Each of the casters took their assigned positions, while the large dog, Rowan, took up a spot just outside the circle behind the Frau. The cat looked around before taking acouple of bounding leaps, first onto a large table top, and then to the top of a tall bookcase before blending into the shadow above, onlyu the occasional flick of a long black tail hinted at the danger above.
Jim, or the Professor as the Frau called him, took up a position near the main doors into the hall, dropping his backpack and leaning the bat up against the wall nearby. I moved around the circle, closing the curtains to the large windows that looked out into the wooded side yard, and then closed the secondary doors to the room.
Finally, as the casters seemed about to begin, I approached Jim, “I’m gonna take a quick look outside, just to make sure those guys we saw aren’t gonna cause any trouble. I’ll be back soon.”
He nodded, fingered the shaft of the bat. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.”
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Remembrances
Unfortuantely, none of the three of us could discern what had been done to poor John. It was pretty clear that whatever Papa Locks had intended to do with the chakra, he hadn’t yet completed it.
John was quite obviously still alive, as evidenced by his twitching muscles and the occasional gasp or garbled shout that escaped his lips, but it also obvious that something had been done to prevent him from rising to consciousness. He had no serious wounds visible, despite a fat lip from where Papa Locks had clocked him.
I thought that with him physically near me, that it might be easier to reach him in the Spirit Worlds, but I was unable to locate him in any of our usual meeting places.
We decided to wait for help to arrive before trying anything more susbtantive. Herne was shown to a room of his own, where he locked away most of his weapons and the dusty jacket he had been wearing before heading upstairs to make some calls of his own and grab some food.
Ravyn Fyre took her own leave, saying she had to make some arrangements for the convocation thing that they had discussed earlier, and to get rooms ready for the people she was expecting later that night, a woman by the name of Cerrydwen-who she seemed to regard as almost a sister, and another woman she didn’t know who apparetnly went by the name of the Frau, even though she supposedly wasn’t German by descent. Strange people, these ORCs.
I grabbed a two liter of Mountain Dew from the fridge upstairs and was able to scavenge some tubing and a small funnel to take care of my own energy needs with an improvised ‘flush and gush’. Once that was finished, I returned to John’s room to meditate.
For the first time in quite a while, I had a moment to sit and think about things since there was no crisis that I could throw myself into. It’s pretty damn amazing to think of all the stuff that has happened to me in less than 18 months. It’s only been a little over two months since I had stated this blog, which I now see as a sort of rebirth, since it marks the beginning of what independence of action and thought I really had after Drake, Dr. Geek and the crew of the NecroLab were done with getting me ‘online’.
Re-reading the early entries of this blog, I am reminded of how much I have changed and grown in the experience. When I started posting, I was raving mad at how wrong I had been all of my life in terms of spirituality and at finding myself cast in the role of being an experiment, a modern day Frankenstein.
Somehow in all of the turmoil and struggle of these last couple of months, I have found my humanity again, something that I had no idea could be lost so easily, and then to be so hard to find again. I really have to thank John Red Bear for his starting me on that path again. It was his pulling me aside before that first mission we went on together in the Colorado Rockies that led me to taking those first, halting steps back into becoming fully human again.
I can clearly see now, how much effort Drake and his various flunkies put into trying to mold me into becoming the emotionless machine that they were really trying to create. They never had any intention of offering a second chance at life for dedicated police officers. I can see now how they chose candidates who fit into some kind of profile that led them to believe that they would get hard-assed types who lacked religion and spirituality, and then set about changing our lives so that we would be cut off even from family and loved ones. They wanted to create a cadre of trained killing machines for some unknown reason. It is pretty scary stuff really. Especially when I consider how close they came to succeeding with me.
Looking down at the suffering and pain in John’s face, I am reminded again of just how much I have lost, but finally, I am also reminded of just how much I am getting back. I will never again feel physical pain or pleasure, but I am learning to find joy in the things I can do to help others.
The fact that there are other people out here able and willing to help others when there is no obvious benefit for them to do so is also inspiring. I truly don’t know much about these people, Ravyn Fyre, Herne Clarksson, even John Re\d Bear yet, but I do know that they reached out to help me in my time of need and asked for nothing in return.
In return for his help, John was attacked, taken prisoner, and apparently hurt in some way that we have yet to figure out. I owe it to him, and to these others, to help them in any way that I can. Without them, I would still be a raging monster trapped in a nearly indestructable body-who knows what harm I could have been manipulated into doing.
I was apparently lost in thought for several hours as I contemplated all of this. I was brought back to the present moment when two new faces entereds the room, the Frau and Cerrydwen were finally here to see what they could to do help John.
John was quite obviously still alive, as evidenced by his twitching muscles and the occasional gasp or garbled shout that escaped his lips, but it also obvious that something had been done to prevent him from rising to consciousness. He had no serious wounds visible, despite a fat lip from where Papa Locks had clocked him.
I thought that with him physically near me, that it might be easier to reach him in the Spirit Worlds, but I was unable to locate him in any of our usual meeting places.
We decided to wait for help to arrive before trying anything more susbtantive. Herne was shown to a room of his own, where he locked away most of his weapons and the dusty jacket he had been wearing before heading upstairs to make some calls of his own and grab some food.
Ravyn Fyre took her own leave, saying she had to make some arrangements for the convocation thing that they had discussed earlier, and to get rooms ready for the people she was expecting later that night, a woman by the name of Cerrydwen-who she seemed to regard as almost a sister, and another woman she didn’t know who apparetnly went by the name of the Frau, even though she supposedly wasn’t German by descent. Strange people, these ORCs.
I grabbed a two liter of Mountain Dew from the fridge upstairs and was able to scavenge some tubing and a small funnel to take care of my own energy needs with an improvised ‘flush and gush’. Once that was finished, I returned to John’s room to meditate.
For the first time in quite a while, I had a moment to sit and think about things since there was no crisis that I could throw myself into. It’s pretty damn amazing to think of all the stuff that has happened to me in less than 18 months. It’s only been a little over two months since I had stated this blog, which I now see as a sort of rebirth, since it marks the beginning of what independence of action and thought I really had after Drake, Dr. Geek and the crew of the NecroLab were done with getting me ‘online’.
Re-reading the early entries of this blog, I am reminded of how much I have changed and grown in the experience. When I started posting, I was raving mad at how wrong I had been all of my life in terms of spirituality and at finding myself cast in the role of being an experiment, a modern day Frankenstein.
Somehow in all of the turmoil and struggle of these last couple of months, I have found my humanity again, something that I had no idea could be lost so easily, and then to be so hard to find again. I really have to thank John Red Bear for his starting me on that path again. It was his pulling me aside before that first mission we went on together in the Colorado Rockies that led me to taking those first, halting steps back into becoming fully human again.
I can clearly see now, how much effort Drake and his various flunkies put into trying to mold me into becoming the emotionless machine that they were really trying to create. They never had any intention of offering a second chance at life for dedicated police officers. I can see now how they chose candidates who fit into some kind of profile that led them to believe that they would get hard-assed types who lacked religion and spirituality, and then set about changing our lives so that we would be cut off even from family and loved ones. They wanted to create a cadre of trained killing machines for some unknown reason. It is pretty scary stuff really. Especially when I consider how close they came to succeeding with me.
Looking down at the suffering and pain in John’s face, I am reminded again of just how much I have lost, but finally, I am also reminded of just how much I am getting back. I will never again feel physical pain or pleasure, but I am learning to find joy in the things I can do to help others.
The fact that there are other people out here able and willing to help others when there is no obvious benefit for them to do so is also inspiring. I truly don’t know much about these people, Ravyn Fyre, Herne Clarksson, even John Re\d Bear yet, but I do know that they reached out to help me in my time of need and asked for nothing in return.
In return for his help, John was attacked, taken prisoner, and apparently hurt in some way that we have yet to figure out. I owe it to him, and to these others, to help them in any way that I can. Without them, I would still be a raging monster trapped in a nearly indestructable body-who knows what harm I could have been manipulated into doing.
I was apparently lost in thought for several hours as I contemplated all of this. I was brought back to the present moment when two new faces entereds the room, the Frau and Cerrydwen were finally here to see what they could to do help John.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
ORC, Inc.
We got up out of the snow, brushed more of the wet stuff off of our dusty jackets, picked the still twitching John up gingerly and transported him into the co-op house. There was a pretty, tall young woman with more piercings and tattoos visible than I could count waiting for us at the door. Without comment she led us downstairs into the basement of the house and into a small but cozy bedroom just off the main hallway. It was easy to see that this place could hold a lot more people than currently lived there. There were several other unoccupied, but sparsely furnished rooms that we passed on the way to this one.
When John was set up on the twin-sized bed, the young woman turned to Herne and said, “Mistress Fyre will see you in the Solarium, upstairs.”
Herne shrugged, “OK doll, after you.”
She nodded back the way we came, “Up those stairs, turn left and head for the back of the house, once you are through the dinning room, you can’t miss it.” She wandered off in the opposite direction.
We followed her directions, passing a half dozen other residents of the house without a second glance at our rather ragged appearances. Finally, we arrived in the sun-soaked solarium to see Ravyn Fyre standing with her back to us as she seemed lost in thought. This time, she was dressed in jeans and sweatshirt. Although her hair was still wet, it was pulled back into a long red ponytail.
Without turning to face us she stated, “I have made some calls--Herne, your wife knows that you are here now, she wants you to call her as soon as you get the chance. An Officer Jacks contacted me on his cellphone worried that you all had been killed in the explosion, but he knows now that you are safe and that you saved John. He is going to have a couple of John’s proteges bring your vehicles and other equipment back to Chicago for you, they should be here in a couple of days.”
Herne spoke up, “Is everyone else alright?”
“Yes, one young man was shot in the shoulder and someone else twisted an ankle, but according to Officer Jacks, everyone of our people is going to be OK. None of the men who took John survived.”
I interjected, “Well, the main asshole survived, Papa Locks opened some sort of doorway and escaped when he set of the timer.”
“Yes, I am going to want to hear all about this encounter.” She turned to face us now, her jaw clenched in anger, her eyes glowing. “I want to know everything about this Papa Locks and anything else you might know about his associates. I am afraid this is only the beginning.”
“He seemed to know about me,” said Herne. “He referred to me as ‘Celt’ and seemed to know a little bit about the kinds of magick I can do, although we still caught him off guard.”
“Then we have no time to waste. I have already called Cerrydwen and the Frau to come help take care of John, but we might also have to call a Convocation of the Clans.”
“A convowhat of the who?” I asked.
Herne snickered, “A Convocation of the Clans, that’s what we call it when we ORCs call a big meeting where we discuss important stuff.”
“Orcs? What is this a Tolkien novel?” I asked, only half joking.
“Our group is called the Organization for Responsible Casting, Incorporated. or ORC for short,” explained Herne. “It’s a handy way of deflecting attention, since anyone hearing the acronym just figures we are a bunch of Tolkien fans or D&D gamer geeks.”
“I see,” I said, in order to humor him. “So what does that have to do with clans?”
“A Clan is just a term of organization, it refers to any of the little groups that we set up all over the place, usually led by someone like me or Ravyn here, and any students or assistants we might have. John also led a Clan, most of those that helped us earlier today were members of his Clan. Again, it is a way of referring to ourselves without attracting too much serious attention.”
“Ah. You know, this shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
Ravyn arched her eyebrow at that, “Oh yeah, like your being a zombie is just the run of the mill, everyday sort of thing, huh?”
“Touche.”
After that conversation, we got down to the business of telling her everything that had happened in canyon, including all of the details on Papa Locks and his goons that we could recall. Herne showed her the chakra-like device that was contained in the pouch that he rescued from Papa Locks’ grasp. I shuddered inside, hoping that we would find a way to undo what had been done to poor John Red Bear.
Once we got to the part where I broke the stone and called out her name, I asked Ravyn, “How did you do that, by the way, transport all three of us back from New Mexico?”
She smiled at that, “You know, you didn’t give me much warning there. Normally, a lady doesn’t reveal her secrets. But with all of the energy of the explosion being available, I took a chance on being able to bring you back to the only place I knew well enough and that was big enough to absorb the extra energy without destroying anything, or anyone else. I had a choice of trying that, or trying to absorb and control all of that energy. I wasn’t at all sure I could do that well enough to save you.”
“So, you mean you can’t normally do that?”
“Uh no, even trying something that big would kill most Casters.” She looked to Herne, “Let’s go see what these people have done to John.”
When John was set up on the twin-sized bed, the young woman turned to Herne and said, “Mistress Fyre will see you in the Solarium, upstairs.”
Herne shrugged, “OK doll, after you.”
She nodded back the way we came, “Up those stairs, turn left and head for the back of the house, once you are through the dinning room, you can’t miss it.” She wandered off in the opposite direction.
We followed her directions, passing a half dozen other residents of the house without a second glance at our rather ragged appearances. Finally, we arrived in the sun-soaked solarium to see Ravyn Fyre standing with her back to us as she seemed lost in thought. This time, she was dressed in jeans and sweatshirt. Although her hair was still wet, it was pulled back into a long red ponytail.
Without turning to face us she stated, “I have made some calls--Herne, your wife knows that you are here now, she wants you to call her as soon as you get the chance. An Officer Jacks contacted me on his cellphone worried that you all had been killed in the explosion, but he knows now that you are safe and that you saved John. He is going to have a couple of John’s proteges bring your vehicles and other equipment back to Chicago for you, they should be here in a couple of days.”
Herne spoke up, “Is everyone else alright?”
“Yes, one young man was shot in the shoulder and someone else twisted an ankle, but according to Officer Jacks, everyone of our people is going to be OK. None of the men who took John survived.”
I interjected, “Well, the main asshole survived, Papa Locks opened some sort of doorway and escaped when he set of the timer.”
“Yes, I am going to want to hear all about this encounter.” She turned to face us now, her jaw clenched in anger, her eyes glowing. “I want to know everything about this Papa Locks and anything else you might know about his associates. I am afraid this is only the beginning.”
“He seemed to know about me,” said Herne. “He referred to me as ‘Celt’ and seemed to know a little bit about the kinds of magick I can do, although we still caught him off guard.”
“Then we have no time to waste. I have already called Cerrydwen and the Frau to come help take care of John, but we might also have to call a Convocation of the Clans.”
“A convowhat of the who?” I asked.
Herne snickered, “A Convocation of the Clans, that’s what we call it when we ORCs call a big meeting where we discuss important stuff.”
“Orcs? What is this a Tolkien novel?” I asked, only half joking.
“Our group is called the Organization for Responsible Casting, Incorporated. or ORC for short,” explained Herne. “It’s a handy way of deflecting attention, since anyone hearing the acronym just figures we are a bunch of Tolkien fans or D&D gamer geeks.”
“I see,” I said, in order to humor him. “So what does that have to do with clans?”
“A Clan is just a term of organization, it refers to any of the little groups that we set up all over the place, usually led by someone like me or Ravyn here, and any students or assistants we might have. John also led a Clan, most of those that helped us earlier today were members of his Clan. Again, it is a way of referring to ourselves without attracting too much serious attention.”
“Ah. You know, this shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
Ravyn arched her eyebrow at that, “Oh yeah, like your being a zombie is just the run of the mill, everyday sort of thing, huh?”
“Touche.”
After that conversation, we got down to the business of telling her everything that had happened in canyon, including all of the details on Papa Locks and his goons that we could recall. Herne showed her the chakra-like device that was contained in the pouch that he rescued from Papa Locks’ grasp. I shuddered inside, hoping that we would find a way to undo what had been done to poor John Red Bear.
Once we got to the part where I broke the stone and called out her name, I asked Ravyn, “How did you do that, by the way, transport all three of us back from New Mexico?”
She smiled at that, “You know, you didn’t give me much warning there. Normally, a lady doesn’t reveal her secrets. But with all of the energy of the explosion being available, I took a chance on being able to bring you back to the only place I knew well enough and that was big enough to absorb the extra energy without destroying anything, or anyone else. I had a choice of trying that, or trying to absorb and control all of that energy. I wasn’t at all sure I could do that well enough to save you.”
“So, you mean you can’t normally do that?”
“Uh no, even trying something that big would kill most Casters.” She looked to Herne, “Let’s go see what these people have done to John.”
Friday, March 11, 2005
On the Warpath...Part 4
I jumped up from behind the rock I had been hiding behind, dusted off, and got moving again. This needed to end, now.
When I was alive, I wouldn‘t have been able to keep this pace up for very damn long, but I surely didn’t need to worry about getting tired anymore. I wasn’t at all sure that Mr. Clarksson and his helpers could keep pace for very long either, but I felt an urgent need to get up the valley.
At a near jog, I came around the final bend in this crooked little crack in the mountains. I could make out the dilapidated building that must have once been a house or office of some sort at the end of the half-mile long straight away that was left. The sides of the canyon narrowed in ever so slightly, coming together in a jagged V at the end. The sliver of a riverbed split the area nearly in half, but it was pretty shallow at this point, and almost narrow enough to be able to jump. Slightly behind the house, there were several tin roof shacks in various states of disrepair. Finally, I could make out the three vehicles parked just past the sheds, between them and the opening to a large, squarish mine shaft that sunk into the mountain behind it. There were old piles of debris scattered around the mouth, but a clear path could be seen between the house and the mouth of the shaft.
My quick scan didn’t reveal any more goons laying in wait, so I resumed my march, heading towards the house.
I slowed down slightly as I approached the house, looking for any sign of recent occupation. All of the windows appeared to have long ago been broken, the grey of very old, weathered wooden boards showed through in most places, with only a hint of the antique white paint that once covered the place showing through. There were no tracks in the dust heading to the house, so I walked past it towards the area where the vehicles were parked.
Each of the trucks was sitting with its back to the end of the canyon, parked to facilitate a rapid exit should they be needed for it. I glanced into the windows of each of the Hummers, noting that they were unlocked, and that the keys were in the ignition. Confident bastards, I thought to myself. What’s to stop me from messing with them then? Just the kind of mind games that Drake would play.
There were a number of footprints leading from the vehicles towards the mine shaft, so I turned my attention to the that goal, about a hundred yards away and maybe 40 feet above the main floor of the canyon. The slag piles formed an almost symbolic honor guard as I made my way towards the gaping black maw of the shaft.
When I was perhaps thirty yards from the entrance itself, I heard that familiar deep, rumbling laugh of Papa Locks. I could see just a hint of movement up there as he called out in that gravelly Creole of his, “Sac passe, Monsieur Bones?”
He emerged from the inky blackness of the shaft, flanked by two dark suited men. The man on his left was carrying what looked to be a grenade launcher of some sort that was leveled squarely in my direction, while the guy on the right had what appeared to be a hi-powered sniper’s rifle with a massive scope on it. He was busy scanning the canyon walls beyond me. Perhaps they knew about my helpers. I hoped those boys had the sense to keep their heads down.
“Eat shit, you bastard, where’s John?”
He threw his head back in laughter, showing off his fangs, and then composed himself. “I see you have not grown any more mannered in your second life, Bones. Don’t worry, I have taken good care of your little Indian friend.” He held out his left hand, which I now noticed was holding something that sent my heart sinking--a chakra-like talisman dangled from his outstretched fingers, attached to a leather thong. “Here is part of his essence.”
I started forward, hands clenched in anger, but stopped short when the grenade bearing goon shifted his stance and seemed to take better aim.
“What have you done to him?!”
“He is a stubborn man, like yourself. He yet lives within,” he nodded towards the shaft behind him, chuckling. “He continues to resist my spiritual friends. But you can end his suffering, you know.”
“Why did you do this to him? Why did you want me so badly?”
“It is not me who wants you so much, it is your friend Drake. He has invested much in you. He doesn’t give up his investments so easily, you know.”
“He is the one who tried to kill me again. What more does that bastard want from me?”
“That, you will have to ask him yourself. Come with me peacefully and your friend John can be made whole again, ya.”
“Is Drake here?”
“No,” he smiled, his eyes almost twinkling in glee. “But I can take you to him.”
“Look, I’m not playing with you here, asshole. You have about 30 seconds before I come over there and rip your fucking head off.”
He stopped smiling. “Threatrs will not get you what you want, boy. You may have been taught something of how spirits work, but you are a mere child in that world. Even if you succeeded in getting close to me, I have any number of spiritual servants at my command who would be glad to have your very sturdy, very usable body.”
“It’s a good thing he isn’t here alone then,” said Herne as he stepped out from behind a nearby slag pile, rifle slung casually over his back. “So, why don’t you give us our friend back, and maybe you’ll be allowed to leave alive.”
Papa Locks sneered in Herne’s direction, “You think I am afraid of your animal magicks, Celt? You and your little group of do-gooders have interfered for the last time. Bones is our property, he always will be.”
“That’s it.” I lurched into action, moving towards the mineshaft. “No one owns me, asshole. I’m coming to get John and anyone who gets in my way is gonna b...”
A loud crack issued from the nearby canyon wall, interrupting both my voice and the grenade goon as he was getting ready to shoot. Unfortunately for him, the interruption was fatal as his forehead erupted in a shower of blood and brains. A second crack from the other wall caused an explosion of shards as the sniper to dodged to the side, pushing Papa Locks back into the darkness of the shaft.
The sniper was able to recover and get off one shot at a young man who was coming out from behind one of the Hummers, dropping him with a shoulder wound before falling dead from three nearly simultaneous shots from above. Herne and I reached the mineshaft about the same time, but I pulled him behind me, saying, “Use me for cover.”
A flick of my wrist dropped the collapsible baton in my hand, a quick snapping motion extending it with a solid click. I noticed that Herne was motioning for the other advancing young man to attend to the wounded one by the Hummer with his big hunting knife in the other hand.
It took only a moment for my eye lenses to adjust to the near total darkness of the shaft while I also found myself opening my spiritual eyes, looking for any magickal beings or traps that might have been laid for us.
The inside of the shaft was surprisingly wide and flat, sloping down gently into the mountain. Papa Locks was nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t worry about me Rusty,” Herne said, whispering into my ear before moving to the righthand side of the shaft. “I have ways of seeing in this setting as well.”
“Very well, let’s get John.”
I started walking in the only direction that was possible, heading deeper into the mountain. We moved forward in silence, ready to face whatever came.
We both stopped momentarily when the shaft came to a fork. The sounds of a hoarse chant and a faint flicker of light led us to take the left passage, Herne hugging the right wall, me moving forward on the left wall.
The passageway was not straight, but curved slightly to the right, gradually opening into a small chamber. In the center of the chamber lay John’s body, bound in chains that were held fast into the stone beneath by large iron spikes. The far side of the room seemed to disappear in a deep shaft, but Papa Locks stood in front of that dark hole, his back to it fearlessly. He stood with his feet set wide apart, his arms held high, a soft chant emanating from his lips. His eyes shone white, creating the only visible light in the room. In his left hand, the chakra that he said held some of John’s essence still dangled from its leather thong . In his right hand, he held a small metallic box with a single large button protruding. His finger lay against the button, ready to push it.
As we moved into the room, his eyes dimmed slightly, his chanting stopped. “If you are thinking of rushing me, look around carefully. There is enough dynamite in this room to bring the mountain down on top of you and your friends.”
I glanced about the room and noticed the there were indeed bundles of dynamite strung out along the walls, piles of the stuff, all seemingly connected by cords. The cords seemed to gather in niche in the wall to the far right of Papa Locks where a digital clock blinked steadily at what looked a lot like fifteen seconds.
I heard Herne muttering under his breath in that same, rolling language I had heard him use before, so I decided to stall for time.
“OK, you got us asshole. What do we do now? If you push that button, we all die, you, me, John and everybody else down here. Is that what you really want?”
“Come with me now, and I will leave the Indian’s chakra with the Celt here for him to deal with. I am sure his do-gooder friends can eventually free him from his tortures.”
“Go where man? I don’t see any damn doors here, just a fucking hole in the ground.”
He laughed at this. “Fool, you know so little about what is possible. I can open a path of shadows between this place and where Drake is. He is waiting for you. Our patience is wearing thin with you boy.”
Herne’s spell seemed to have ended, so I took a step forward. “OK, you open that door, and I will go with you.”
I could hear the faintest sounds of chittering coming from behind Papa Locks, so I took another step forward, moving between him and John’s body until only a few feet separated us. I could sense Herne moving behind me and kneeling at John’s still twitching body.
A sudden whoosh of wind and wings erupted from the shaft behind Papa Locks as first hundreds, then thousands of bats rushed up from below. Chaos reigned as the bats quickly filled the room. Shouts of men who had, unknown to us, snuck up from behind only added to the chaos.
Grunts of pain and thuds of fist and hilt hitting flesh told me that Herne was addressing the new threat from behind, as I pushed forward to get to Papa Locks. His now empty left hand lunged forward at me, grabbing me by the neck as I lunged for his right hand and the box with the damn button.
In a rush I was thrown back as hundreds of spirits rushed through his hand and into my body as they pushed for control, their tortured voices crying out in pain and freedom simultaneously as they strove to force me from my own body.Never before had I felt such strange pressures as these spiritual entities assaulted me. I let go of his right arm, falling back against the onslaught.
Papa Locks stood upright, laughing triumphantly as he pushed the button. He then fell backwards into the shaft below, cackling out some sort of spell. A flash of spiritual power told me that he had probably made his doorway.
Meanwhile, in the haze of flying bats, assaulting spirits, and tumbling bodies behind me, I fell to the floor next to John. I could barely see the digital numbers counting down in that far niche. 12, 11 , 10...
I had just enough control over my body to reach in and grab the crystal in my jacket pocket, call out, “Ravyn Fyre!” and crush the stone.
9, 8, 7...
The fiery form of Ravyn’s Phoneix erupted from the floor in front of me, beuatiful wings of fire filling the room with bright orange light....Bats scattered or were incinerated...men fled or lay bleeding...
6, 5, 4....
Her angelic voice called out, “Herne, Rusty, come to John!”
3, 2, 1...
Herne dove to cover John’s body, yelling, “Son of a bitch...”
I rolled over, trying to shield both of them from the coming explosion...
A flash of unbelievably bright light and intense heat rolled over us as Ravyn covered us with her fiery wings just as the explosion ripped through the room in deafening roar that shook me to my very bones. There was a weird, wrenching feeling of space and time twisting which I assumed meant that I was being blown to smithereens.
When the flash ended, my face lay half-buried in quickly melting snow. My lenses fogged up from the sudden change in termperature. I could see trees, and stones, and sky!
“Men!” Ravyn said, standing over us momentarily, “The next time you need help, I’d appreciate it if you could do it when I’m not taking a bath!”
I had just enough sense to catch a glimpse of her shapely, naked backside as she stormed out of the circle of stones I now recognized from the Chicago co-op she had taken me too when we had met, her bare feet causing the snow underfoot to evaporate in steam as she stormed off to the house.
Blinking, I looked back to the equally stunned Herne, and the still twitching body of John, still in chains, but no longer bound to any stone floor. “How did she...?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I think I would give her chance to get dressed before I would go asking.” He grinned. “You couldn’t ask for prettier rescue than that though.”
I noticed that he held in his right hand the chakra that Papa Locks had been holding.
“Yeah, that was what I called on the bats for.” He looked around again at the setting, shivered. “Let’s get him inside and out of this snow. We can ask our questions later.”
When I was alive, I wouldn‘t have been able to keep this pace up for very damn long, but I surely didn’t need to worry about getting tired anymore. I wasn’t at all sure that Mr. Clarksson and his helpers could keep pace for very long either, but I felt an urgent need to get up the valley.
At a near jog, I came around the final bend in this crooked little crack in the mountains. I could make out the dilapidated building that must have once been a house or office of some sort at the end of the half-mile long straight away that was left. The sides of the canyon narrowed in ever so slightly, coming together in a jagged V at the end. The sliver of a riverbed split the area nearly in half, but it was pretty shallow at this point, and almost narrow enough to be able to jump. Slightly behind the house, there were several tin roof shacks in various states of disrepair. Finally, I could make out the three vehicles parked just past the sheds, between them and the opening to a large, squarish mine shaft that sunk into the mountain behind it. There were old piles of debris scattered around the mouth, but a clear path could be seen between the house and the mouth of the shaft.
My quick scan didn’t reveal any more goons laying in wait, so I resumed my march, heading towards the house.
I slowed down slightly as I approached the house, looking for any sign of recent occupation. All of the windows appeared to have long ago been broken, the grey of very old, weathered wooden boards showed through in most places, with only a hint of the antique white paint that once covered the place showing through. There were no tracks in the dust heading to the house, so I walked past it towards the area where the vehicles were parked.
Each of the trucks was sitting with its back to the end of the canyon, parked to facilitate a rapid exit should they be needed for it. I glanced into the windows of each of the Hummers, noting that they were unlocked, and that the keys were in the ignition. Confident bastards, I thought to myself. What’s to stop me from messing with them then? Just the kind of mind games that Drake would play.
There were a number of footprints leading from the vehicles towards the mine shaft, so I turned my attention to the that goal, about a hundred yards away and maybe 40 feet above the main floor of the canyon. The slag piles formed an almost symbolic honor guard as I made my way towards the gaping black maw of the shaft.
When I was perhaps thirty yards from the entrance itself, I heard that familiar deep, rumbling laugh of Papa Locks. I could see just a hint of movement up there as he called out in that gravelly Creole of his, “Sac passe, Monsieur Bones?”
He emerged from the inky blackness of the shaft, flanked by two dark suited men. The man on his left was carrying what looked to be a grenade launcher of some sort that was leveled squarely in my direction, while the guy on the right had what appeared to be a hi-powered sniper’s rifle with a massive scope on it. He was busy scanning the canyon walls beyond me. Perhaps they knew about my helpers. I hoped those boys had the sense to keep their heads down.
“Eat shit, you bastard, where’s John?”
He threw his head back in laughter, showing off his fangs, and then composed himself. “I see you have not grown any more mannered in your second life, Bones. Don’t worry, I have taken good care of your little Indian friend.” He held out his left hand, which I now noticed was holding something that sent my heart sinking--a chakra-like talisman dangled from his outstretched fingers, attached to a leather thong. “Here is part of his essence.”
I started forward, hands clenched in anger, but stopped short when the grenade bearing goon shifted his stance and seemed to take better aim.
“What have you done to him?!”
“He is a stubborn man, like yourself. He yet lives within,” he nodded towards the shaft behind him, chuckling. “He continues to resist my spiritual friends. But you can end his suffering, you know.”
“Why did you do this to him? Why did you want me so badly?”
“It is not me who wants you so much, it is your friend Drake. He has invested much in you. He doesn’t give up his investments so easily, you know.”
“He is the one who tried to kill me again. What more does that bastard want from me?”
“That, you will have to ask him yourself. Come with me peacefully and your friend John can be made whole again, ya.”
“Is Drake here?”
“No,” he smiled, his eyes almost twinkling in glee. “But I can take you to him.”
“Look, I’m not playing with you here, asshole. You have about 30 seconds before I come over there and rip your fucking head off.”
He stopped smiling. “Threatrs will not get you what you want, boy. You may have been taught something of how spirits work, but you are a mere child in that world. Even if you succeeded in getting close to me, I have any number of spiritual servants at my command who would be glad to have your very sturdy, very usable body.”
“It’s a good thing he isn’t here alone then,” said Herne as he stepped out from behind a nearby slag pile, rifle slung casually over his back. “So, why don’t you give us our friend back, and maybe you’ll be allowed to leave alive.”
Papa Locks sneered in Herne’s direction, “You think I am afraid of your animal magicks, Celt? You and your little group of do-gooders have interfered for the last time. Bones is our property, he always will be.”
“That’s it.” I lurched into action, moving towards the mineshaft. “No one owns me, asshole. I’m coming to get John and anyone who gets in my way is gonna b...”
A loud crack issued from the nearby canyon wall, interrupting both my voice and the grenade goon as he was getting ready to shoot. Unfortunately for him, the interruption was fatal as his forehead erupted in a shower of blood and brains. A second crack from the other wall caused an explosion of shards as the sniper to dodged to the side, pushing Papa Locks back into the darkness of the shaft.
The sniper was able to recover and get off one shot at a young man who was coming out from behind one of the Hummers, dropping him with a shoulder wound before falling dead from three nearly simultaneous shots from above. Herne and I reached the mineshaft about the same time, but I pulled him behind me, saying, “Use me for cover.”
A flick of my wrist dropped the collapsible baton in my hand, a quick snapping motion extending it with a solid click. I noticed that Herne was motioning for the other advancing young man to attend to the wounded one by the Hummer with his big hunting knife in the other hand.
It took only a moment for my eye lenses to adjust to the near total darkness of the shaft while I also found myself opening my spiritual eyes, looking for any magickal beings or traps that might have been laid for us.
The inside of the shaft was surprisingly wide and flat, sloping down gently into the mountain. Papa Locks was nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t worry about me Rusty,” Herne said, whispering into my ear before moving to the righthand side of the shaft. “I have ways of seeing in this setting as well.”
“Very well, let’s get John.”
I started walking in the only direction that was possible, heading deeper into the mountain. We moved forward in silence, ready to face whatever came.
We both stopped momentarily when the shaft came to a fork. The sounds of a hoarse chant and a faint flicker of light led us to take the left passage, Herne hugging the right wall, me moving forward on the left wall.
The passageway was not straight, but curved slightly to the right, gradually opening into a small chamber. In the center of the chamber lay John’s body, bound in chains that were held fast into the stone beneath by large iron spikes. The far side of the room seemed to disappear in a deep shaft, but Papa Locks stood in front of that dark hole, his back to it fearlessly. He stood with his feet set wide apart, his arms held high, a soft chant emanating from his lips. His eyes shone white, creating the only visible light in the room. In his left hand, the chakra that he said held some of John’s essence still dangled from its leather thong . In his right hand, he held a small metallic box with a single large button protruding. His finger lay against the button, ready to push it.
As we moved into the room, his eyes dimmed slightly, his chanting stopped. “If you are thinking of rushing me, look around carefully. There is enough dynamite in this room to bring the mountain down on top of you and your friends.”
I glanced about the room and noticed the there were indeed bundles of dynamite strung out along the walls, piles of the stuff, all seemingly connected by cords. The cords seemed to gather in niche in the wall to the far right of Papa Locks where a digital clock blinked steadily at what looked a lot like fifteen seconds.
I heard Herne muttering under his breath in that same, rolling language I had heard him use before, so I decided to stall for time.
“OK, you got us asshole. What do we do now? If you push that button, we all die, you, me, John and everybody else down here. Is that what you really want?”
“Come with me now, and I will leave the Indian’s chakra with the Celt here for him to deal with. I am sure his do-gooder friends can eventually free him from his tortures.”
“Go where man? I don’t see any damn doors here, just a fucking hole in the ground.”
He laughed at this. “Fool, you know so little about what is possible. I can open a path of shadows between this place and where Drake is. He is waiting for you. Our patience is wearing thin with you boy.”
Herne’s spell seemed to have ended, so I took a step forward. “OK, you open that door, and I will go with you.”
I could hear the faintest sounds of chittering coming from behind Papa Locks, so I took another step forward, moving between him and John’s body until only a few feet separated us. I could sense Herne moving behind me and kneeling at John’s still twitching body.
A sudden whoosh of wind and wings erupted from the shaft behind Papa Locks as first hundreds, then thousands of bats rushed up from below. Chaos reigned as the bats quickly filled the room. Shouts of men who had, unknown to us, snuck up from behind only added to the chaos.
Grunts of pain and thuds of fist and hilt hitting flesh told me that Herne was addressing the new threat from behind, as I pushed forward to get to Papa Locks. His now empty left hand lunged forward at me, grabbing me by the neck as I lunged for his right hand and the box with the damn button.
In a rush I was thrown back as hundreds of spirits rushed through his hand and into my body as they pushed for control, their tortured voices crying out in pain and freedom simultaneously as they strove to force me from my own body.Never before had I felt such strange pressures as these spiritual entities assaulted me. I let go of his right arm, falling back against the onslaught.
Papa Locks stood upright, laughing triumphantly as he pushed the button. He then fell backwards into the shaft below, cackling out some sort of spell. A flash of spiritual power told me that he had probably made his doorway.
Meanwhile, in the haze of flying bats, assaulting spirits, and tumbling bodies behind me, I fell to the floor next to John. I could barely see the digital numbers counting down in that far niche. 12, 11 , 10...
I had just enough control over my body to reach in and grab the crystal in my jacket pocket, call out, “Ravyn Fyre!” and crush the stone.
9, 8, 7...
The fiery form of Ravyn’s Phoneix erupted from the floor in front of me, beuatiful wings of fire filling the room with bright orange light....Bats scattered or were incinerated...men fled or lay bleeding...
6, 5, 4....
Her angelic voice called out, “Herne, Rusty, come to John!”
3, 2, 1...
Herne dove to cover John’s body, yelling, “Son of a bitch...”
I rolled over, trying to shield both of them from the coming explosion...
A flash of unbelievably bright light and intense heat rolled over us as Ravyn covered us with her fiery wings just as the explosion ripped through the room in deafening roar that shook me to my very bones. There was a weird, wrenching feeling of space and time twisting which I assumed meant that I was being blown to smithereens.
When the flash ended, my face lay half-buried in quickly melting snow. My lenses fogged up from the sudden change in termperature. I could see trees, and stones, and sky!
“Men!” Ravyn said, standing over us momentarily, “The next time you need help, I’d appreciate it if you could do it when I’m not taking a bath!”
I had just enough sense to catch a glimpse of her shapely, naked backside as she stormed out of the circle of stones I now recognized from the Chicago co-op she had taken me too when we had met, her bare feet causing the snow underfoot to evaporate in steam as she stormed off to the house.
Blinking, I looked back to the equally stunned Herne, and the still twitching body of John, still in chains, but no longer bound to any stone floor. “How did she...?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I think I would give her chance to get dressed before I would go asking.” He grinned. “You couldn’t ask for prettier rescue than that though.”
I noticed that he held in his right hand the chakra that Papa Locks had been holding.
“Yeah, that was what I called on the bats for.” He looked around again at the setting, shivered. “Let’s get him inside and out of this snow. We can ask our questions later.”
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
On the Warpath...Part 3
I watched as the young men began ascending at various points. Some took paths that allowed them to walk mostly upright, while a couple took to climbing at certain points, slinging their well-used rifles over their shoulders before they did so.
It took a good ten minutes before they were all up onto paths and ledges that were not obvious from down below. Soon, each of the six took out their tokens and began pushing through the previously invisible wards. Shifting my attention just slightly into the Spirit World, I could see the shimmering of the wards as each man approached, small flashes of brighter light as the wards were penetrated, probably alerting the owner to the passage of some creature through them. Hopefully, Mr. Clarksson’s tokens would serve their primary purpose and give off the false signals that would prevent him or her from knowing how many of us there were today.
As soon as the last man was out of sight, I started to get ready. I saw Herne pulling close the two men he was taking with him, probably giving some last minute instructions on how close they would follow behind me. I didn’t want to know the details myself, since there was a chance I could tip off any observers if I looked back at the wrong time. Better to be surprised with the bad guys, than to give away the surprise inadvertantly. Besides, what was there for me to worry about, other than whether John was OK? It’s not like they could kill me, or even cause me any pain. There were still certain advantages to being dead after all.
I avoided the temptation to send my spirit forward to recon the route ahead, I could tell from my brief look into the Spirit World that those wards were primarily spiritual in nature, which only makes sense if Papa Locks was involved.
I shuddered at my memories of that foul man. Of all the many weirdos that I have met through Drake, Papa Locks and El Diablito were the worst, besides Drake himself. What made El Diablito so scary was the fact that he looked most of the time like the wrinkled old grandfather you’d visit around the holidays and who would make sure to have all of your favorite treats when you visited, but when he put on his magickal personna, he transformed into this diabolical little maniac with a hideous cackling laugh and strange, prancing mannerisms.
Papa Locks on the other hand, always looked scary and enjoyed the fact that his appearance would bring people up short. His face was horribly scarred from some sort of ritual disfigurement, his normally dark complexion was mottled in places from where the scars were not allowed to fully heal. His teeth had been extensively worked on, with a pronounced enhancment of his ‘fangs’, giving him a feral look, matched apparently by his smell. I recall on a number of occasions members of the NecroLab crinkling their noses after he passed and making near gagging sounds, but no one did it where he could see that reaction. His long, heavily matted dreadlocks were a signature look that he enhanced with beadwork and various tokens tangled in the locks themselves, many of which had the weathered ivory look of old bones. Papa Locks also had the advantage of being very tall, probably over 6’6”, and of being built like an athlete, with large, strong hands and corded muscles that could be seen through his loose sleeved shirts.
I can remember a number of times early after I was brought back to awareness that Papa Locks would be meeting with Drake. One time I heard him begging for one of the previous officer’s bodies, he seemed to be claiming that he had some spirits he would love to give a chance at having a new body. I didn’t hear Drake’s response to that, but by Papa Lock’s reaction, it was probably not a yes.
My reverie was interrupted by Herne Clarksson approaching me, “OK Rusty, I think the others are far enough down that you can get going. Remember, we will be following behind you, but you likely won’t be able to see us, even if you do look back, but don’t worry, we’ll be within easy range of our wepons, should we need to use them.”
“Oh, I’m not to worried about that. I’ll keep pushing forward at a steady rate, if they start shooting, I might get off the ATV and advance on foot. I’m going to get to the house up there, and nothing they have will be able to stop me.”
“I figured as much,” he said. “They are holed up back there for a reason and you are that reason, I think, so be careful, I am sure they are well aware of your abilities and have something planned to deal with them.”
“Let’s not keep the bastards waiting then, eh?”
“Right, oh and one more thing. Take this with you.” He handed me a red looking gemstone of some sort. “If you find yourself in deep trouble, crush it in your hand, or on a hard surface and call out Ravyn Fyre’s name. It contains a very powerful spell that will reach out to her and enable her to help in some way.”
I took the small, translucent stone in my hand, admiring the bright, fiery spark seemingly aliv e inside the stone. “Thank you. Do you really think it will work this far away? She’s still in Chicago isn’t she?”
He grinned. “If you doubt her, you don’t know Ravyn very well yet. Don’t worry, it’ll reach her, and I am positive that she’ll be able to help in some meaningful way. Hopefully we don’t need to use that just yet, but you have it in case you do.”
I put the stone in the inside pocket of my leather jacket, hoping that it would be safe from any accidental breakage.
I mounted the ATV, started the engine and started towards the entrance to the ravine. Without looking back, I plunged through the warded area, feeling a slight, spiritual tingling as I did so. I could almost feel the virtual alarm going off into the direction I was already heading, warning the owner of my intrusion into his sacred space.
I started at a slow but steady pace up the dry riverbed. I could see in some of the sandier places that other vehicles had passed through here recently, but other than the fact that they looked like the tracks of bigger vehicles like SUV’s, I couldn’t tell much. The going was rough, even on an ATV, so I could only imagine that the SUV’s had to take it pretty slow as well. The riverbed was fairly wide at this point, but full of rocks and dips in the sand between the rocks.
The twisting riverbed soon took me beyond the sight of the reservation officers and the young men we left behind with them. I didn’t bother to look back for Herne and his helpers, or to look up in search of the snipers for either side above. I concentrated instead on finding the smoothest route up the riverbed that I could and on what I planned to do to Papa Locks in exchange for the beating I had seen him adminster to John.
It took about ten minutes of steady driving, with only the occasional backtracking to get through the first kilometer. I could see the riverbed starting to get deeper and narrower ahead, but there was a sandy bank riddled with tracks on the left hand side. It was obvious that this was the last best place to get up out of the riverbed onto the lefthand bank. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to gun the engine and get up on the bank when I saw the first bullets spray up dirt in front of me, apparently a burst of automatic gunfire in a salvo that was warning against continuing.
I looked up and to my right, hoping to spot the origin of the shooting. As I was doing that, the second burst of bullets started tinging off the ATV, one of which hit a tire, from the loud popping sound I heard and the shudder I felt. I leaped off the vehicle ducking towards a large rock that might offer some cover as I kept looking for the source. Finally I spotted a man in a dark suit, wearing reflective sunglasses (which glinted in the light, revealing his position). He was kneeling on a ledge about halfway up the right side of the ravine wall, he had moved from behind a large rock, apparently in order to get a better shot at me. Just as he was sighting down on me for the third burst, I heard a single, loud crack echo across the ravine from above and behind me just as he seemed to double over on himself and slump to the ground on his ledge. He didn’t move again.
I got out from behind my covering rock and went back over to my ATV. I could see fluid pooling beneath the thing, the front right tire was also useless. I pulled the little vehicle away from the embankment, since it would be in the way of any vehicle we might use to come back down the ravine and shoved it to the side. It was useless as far as I was concerned.
Checking out the ravine above and ahead of me for any further surprises, I started out again at a fast walk, following the obvious trail of the vehicles that had gone through here before me.
Another half a kilometer up the ravine I spotted another ledge, this time on the left side of the ravine. I could see two guys sitting up there making little attempt to hide themselves. They had what looked to be a very large caliber weapon sitting on a tripod in front of the closest guy. The other guys was using binoculars to get a bead on me. He spotted me about the same time I saw them, I could see the second guy pointing in my direction, and the first one bringing the weopon to bear on me.
I didn’t wait around to see how much damage a gun of that caliber could do, I dove behind a nearby rock that looked just big enough to give me some decent cover. I heard the thunderous discharge just as I hit the dirt, careful not to lay too much on the pocket containing Ms. Fyre’s gem in it. A spray of rock fragments and loud cracking sound told me that the rock I was hiding behind wasn’t going to survive too many rounds from that sucker.
I peeked my head up for a quick look to see how long it would take them to reolad that bad boy, and quickly ducked down again as I saw the muzzle flash before the booming bark of the discharge echoed througout the ravine again.
Again the rock I was hiding behind served its purpose, but I could feel that fragments blasting against the skin of my head, which meant that I wasn’t getting any prettier. I could see some carmelized fluid oozing off my forehead and onto my right eye lense, which I brushed off quickly.
I heard three smaller cracks from the opposite of the ravine. I looked up to see the shooter of the big gun fall back into his partner, his head exploding in red gush. His partner didn’t seem to mind too much however, as he was already splayed back against the ravine wall, binoculars dangling from his limp hand. Gotta give those kids credit, they are damn fine shots with those rifles.
I only hoped that this killing wouldn’t affect those young too much later on. Who knew if these goons would be missed, and whether or not there would be legal consequences to all of this mess. I had my doubts that this incident would ever make any news broadcast, let alone be the subject of an investigation. Who was actually behind all of this? Was it Drake? Or was Papa Locks striking out on his own here? Well, whoever was behind this, was gonna have to pay a price. And I was just about ready to exact that price on these bastards.
(To be concluded in On the Warpath...Part 4 tomorrow.)
It took a good ten minutes before they were all up onto paths and ledges that were not obvious from down below. Soon, each of the six took out their tokens and began pushing through the previously invisible wards. Shifting my attention just slightly into the Spirit World, I could see the shimmering of the wards as each man approached, small flashes of brighter light as the wards were penetrated, probably alerting the owner to the passage of some creature through them. Hopefully, Mr. Clarksson’s tokens would serve their primary purpose and give off the false signals that would prevent him or her from knowing how many of us there were today.
As soon as the last man was out of sight, I started to get ready. I saw Herne pulling close the two men he was taking with him, probably giving some last minute instructions on how close they would follow behind me. I didn’t want to know the details myself, since there was a chance I could tip off any observers if I looked back at the wrong time. Better to be surprised with the bad guys, than to give away the surprise inadvertantly. Besides, what was there for me to worry about, other than whether John was OK? It’s not like they could kill me, or even cause me any pain. There were still certain advantages to being dead after all.
I avoided the temptation to send my spirit forward to recon the route ahead, I could tell from my brief look into the Spirit World that those wards were primarily spiritual in nature, which only makes sense if Papa Locks was involved.
I shuddered at my memories of that foul man. Of all the many weirdos that I have met through Drake, Papa Locks and El Diablito were the worst, besides Drake himself. What made El Diablito so scary was the fact that he looked most of the time like the wrinkled old grandfather you’d visit around the holidays and who would make sure to have all of your favorite treats when you visited, but when he put on his magickal personna, he transformed into this diabolical little maniac with a hideous cackling laugh and strange, prancing mannerisms.
Papa Locks on the other hand, always looked scary and enjoyed the fact that his appearance would bring people up short. His face was horribly scarred from some sort of ritual disfigurement, his normally dark complexion was mottled in places from where the scars were not allowed to fully heal. His teeth had been extensively worked on, with a pronounced enhancment of his ‘fangs’, giving him a feral look, matched apparently by his smell. I recall on a number of occasions members of the NecroLab crinkling their noses after he passed and making near gagging sounds, but no one did it where he could see that reaction. His long, heavily matted dreadlocks were a signature look that he enhanced with beadwork and various tokens tangled in the locks themselves, many of which had the weathered ivory look of old bones. Papa Locks also had the advantage of being very tall, probably over 6’6”, and of being built like an athlete, with large, strong hands and corded muscles that could be seen through his loose sleeved shirts.
I can remember a number of times early after I was brought back to awareness that Papa Locks would be meeting with Drake. One time I heard him begging for one of the previous officer’s bodies, he seemed to be claiming that he had some spirits he would love to give a chance at having a new body. I didn’t hear Drake’s response to that, but by Papa Lock’s reaction, it was probably not a yes.
My reverie was interrupted by Herne Clarksson approaching me, “OK Rusty, I think the others are far enough down that you can get going. Remember, we will be following behind you, but you likely won’t be able to see us, even if you do look back, but don’t worry, we’ll be within easy range of our wepons, should we need to use them.”
“Oh, I’m not to worried about that. I’ll keep pushing forward at a steady rate, if they start shooting, I might get off the ATV and advance on foot. I’m going to get to the house up there, and nothing they have will be able to stop me.”
“I figured as much,” he said. “They are holed up back there for a reason and you are that reason, I think, so be careful, I am sure they are well aware of your abilities and have something planned to deal with them.”
“Let’s not keep the bastards waiting then, eh?”
“Right, oh and one more thing. Take this with you.” He handed me a red looking gemstone of some sort. “If you find yourself in deep trouble, crush it in your hand, or on a hard surface and call out Ravyn Fyre’s name. It contains a very powerful spell that will reach out to her and enable her to help in some way.”
I took the small, translucent stone in my hand, admiring the bright, fiery spark seemingly aliv e inside the stone. “Thank you. Do you really think it will work this far away? She’s still in Chicago isn’t she?”
He grinned. “If you doubt her, you don’t know Ravyn very well yet. Don’t worry, it’ll reach her, and I am positive that she’ll be able to help in some meaningful way. Hopefully we don’t need to use that just yet, but you have it in case you do.”
I put the stone in the inside pocket of my leather jacket, hoping that it would be safe from any accidental breakage.
I mounted the ATV, started the engine and started towards the entrance to the ravine. Without looking back, I plunged through the warded area, feeling a slight, spiritual tingling as I did so. I could almost feel the virtual alarm going off into the direction I was already heading, warning the owner of my intrusion into his sacred space.
I started at a slow but steady pace up the dry riverbed. I could see in some of the sandier places that other vehicles had passed through here recently, but other than the fact that they looked like the tracks of bigger vehicles like SUV’s, I couldn’t tell much. The going was rough, even on an ATV, so I could only imagine that the SUV’s had to take it pretty slow as well. The riverbed was fairly wide at this point, but full of rocks and dips in the sand between the rocks.
The twisting riverbed soon took me beyond the sight of the reservation officers and the young men we left behind with them. I didn’t bother to look back for Herne and his helpers, or to look up in search of the snipers for either side above. I concentrated instead on finding the smoothest route up the riverbed that I could and on what I planned to do to Papa Locks in exchange for the beating I had seen him adminster to John.
It took about ten minutes of steady driving, with only the occasional backtracking to get through the first kilometer. I could see the riverbed starting to get deeper and narrower ahead, but there was a sandy bank riddled with tracks on the left hand side. It was obvious that this was the last best place to get up out of the riverbed onto the lefthand bank. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to gun the engine and get up on the bank when I saw the first bullets spray up dirt in front of me, apparently a burst of automatic gunfire in a salvo that was warning against continuing.
I looked up and to my right, hoping to spot the origin of the shooting. As I was doing that, the second burst of bullets started tinging off the ATV, one of which hit a tire, from the loud popping sound I heard and the shudder I felt. I leaped off the vehicle ducking towards a large rock that might offer some cover as I kept looking for the source. Finally I spotted a man in a dark suit, wearing reflective sunglasses (which glinted in the light, revealing his position). He was kneeling on a ledge about halfway up the right side of the ravine wall, he had moved from behind a large rock, apparently in order to get a better shot at me. Just as he was sighting down on me for the third burst, I heard a single, loud crack echo across the ravine from above and behind me just as he seemed to double over on himself and slump to the ground on his ledge. He didn’t move again.
I got out from behind my covering rock and went back over to my ATV. I could see fluid pooling beneath the thing, the front right tire was also useless. I pulled the little vehicle away from the embankment, since it would be in the way of any vehicle we might use to come back down the ravine and shoved it to the side. It was useless as far as I was concerned.
Checking out the ravine above and ahead of me for any further surprises, I started out again at a fast walk, following the obvious trail of the vehicles that had gone through here before me.
Another half a kilometer up the ravine I spotted another ledge, this time on the left side of the ravine. I could see two guys sitting up there making little attempt to hide themselves. They had what looked to be a very large caliber weapon sitting on a tripod in front of the closest guy. The other guys was using binoculars to get a bead on me. He spotted me about the same time I saw them, I could see the second guy pointing in my direction, and the first one bringing the weopon to bear on me.
I didn’t wait around to see how much damage a gun of that caliber could do, I dove behind a nearby rock that looked just big enough to give me some decent cover. I heard the thunderous discharge just as I hit the dirt, careful not to lay too much on the pocket containing Ms. Fyre’s gem in it. A spray of rock fragments and loud cracking sound told me that the rock I was hiding behind wasn’t going to survive too many rounds from that sucker.
I peeked my head up for a quick look to see how long it would take them to reolad that bad boy, and quickly ducked down again as I saw the muzzle flash before the booming bark of the discharge echoed througout the ravine again.
Again the rock I was hiding behind served its purpose, but I could feel that fragments blasting against the skin of my head, which meant that I wasn’t getting any prettier. I could see some carmelized fluid oozing off my forehead and onto my right eye lense, which I brushed off quickly.
I heard three smaller cracks from the opposite of the ravine. I looked up to see the shooter of the big gun fall back into his partner, his head exploding in red gush. His partner didn’t seem to mind too much however, as he was already splayed back against the ravine wall, binoculars dangling from his limp hand. Gotta give those kids credit, they are damn fine shots with those rifles.
I only hoped that this killing wouldn’t affect those young too much later on. Who knew if these goons would be missed, and whether or not there would be legal consequences to all of this mess. I had my doubts that this incident would ever make any news broadcast, let alone be the subject of an investigation. Who was actually behind all of this? Was it Drake? Or was Papa Locks striking out on his own here? Well, whoever was behind this, was gonna have to pay a price. And I was just about ready to exact that price on these bastards.
(To be concluded in On the Warpath...Part 4 tomorrow.)
Sunday, March 06, 2005
On the Warpath...Part 2
We got back on our vehicles and continued in a northerly direction, following the all-too-clear trail left by the caravan of vehicles that had taken John.
It took ten minutes of hard driving in the steadily rougher terrain, maxing out at speeds around 30 MPH, but usually closer to 15, as we wound through the rough foothills to the west of a small mountain I didn’t know the name of.
Officer Jacks signalled a halt as we approached a point where the trail we were following crossed a wide, shallow patch that resembled a dry riverbed. The tracks of the vehicles veered to the right, heading east up the riverbed, into the heart of the foothills. A couple more young men that I hadn’t seen before emerged from the shadows on either side of the riverbed, rifles in hand. They were clearly scouts who had been left behind.
Herne leaped off of his vehicle as soon as the engine stopped and began asking questions of Officer Jacks and the scouts. He quickly determined that this was the only place that vehicles like the ones the bad guys were using could come back out and that none had returned this way since. He also found out that the riverbed was wide enough and flat enough for quite some time for those vehicles to able to go at least a couple of miles back. One of the scouts offered that they knew of an old abandoned mining facility near the back of the canyon that included an old house that had doubled as an office and several old storage sheds.
The sides of the canyon were fairly shallow here, but they quickly got much steeper, until only the riverbed and a small strip above it on either side were navigable by any kind of vehicles. There were a number of small pine trees and bushes clinging to the sides of the canyon, but the bottom was pretty much plucked clean by the miners and the occasional flash flood when it rained hard.
Herne took control of the situation quietly, but firmly, directing the young warriors to stow their bikes and the ATV’s on either side of the mouth of the canyon, half to a side, and all facing outward, for an easy escape, should it be necessary. He then starting picking men for various assignments.
“I want you Officer Jacks, and your partner, to remain out here with a couple of men who have the largest caliber weapons. I want some big rocks and debris thrown into the riverbed, not enough to block it completely, but enough to force any vehicles coming back down it to run a gauntlet that involves a lot of swerving from side to side. If you can’t see who is driving the lead vehicle, and the headlights don’t flash from brights to dims three times, I want you to take out the engine block, aim for the radiator, in this heat, no vehicle will last long losing water. Also, take out the tires if they keep coming at you. Don’t shoot to kill unless absolutely necessary, we don’t know who these guys really are, and we are no longer on reservation lands, so your tribal authority is rather limited here.
“I need six really good shooters to climb the sides of the canyon, three to a side. Your jobs will be to spot and stop any snipers they have in place up high, and also to take out the tires of any unknown vehicle that tries to head this way. When you shoot at snipers though, you need to make damn sure you are taking out a bad guy. Don’t play around with those guys either. If they are raising a weapon, aim to kill. We’ll sort out the legal mess later. I can assure you that you will have the full assistance of my organization if there are any legal consequences to our actions today.
“Agent Bones here will take the lead down the canyon, driving his ATV at a slow, steady pace until the shooting begins. He is our decoy. I expect that they know he is coming for sure, and will try be looking to lure him in. What they won’t expect, is me and couple of you to follow with me. It’s gonna be our job to take out anyone trying to trap Rusty and to help find and extricate John once we get inside. That’s about as much of a plan as I can put together at this point.”
One of the young warriors spoke up, concern in his voice. “Won’t they be shooting at Agent Bones?”
“They might,” replied Herne, “but I am guessing that this whole thing was set up to get him here, for whatever reason they want that. If they do start shooting, that’s when our snipers will take them out. Don’t worry about Agent Bones here though, from what I have read, he’s taken a few bullets recently, and he’s only a little uglier for it. I don’t know if they have a weapon that can really hurt him. Do you Agent Bones?”
I nodded. “Well, if they have any RPG’s, it could cause a problem for me, but somehow I think you are right, this whole taking of John probably happened in order to get me here. They wanted me to come to his rescue. I know that the Haitian man, Papa Locks is a powerful priest, he might be the only person stronger in the Spirit Worlds than John, so be careful using any magick here, especially if it involves leaving your body. He is an expert in capturing and torturing souls.”
Herne’s face turned grim, “We’ll see about that, he might be strong in the Spirit Worlds, but he’s in my element now. Speaking of that, I can tell he, or someone else, has set up some wards to warn against intruders into this canyon, but the wards are weak, and are permeable by non-human animals, which gives me an idea.”
With that he went back to his ATV and pulled out a battered leather sack from his field backpack. He pulled out a number of pieces of what looked like bones and pieces of horn or antlers. Taking out his knife, he began carving runes of some sort into each piece, muttering in a strange language that rolled from his tongue in seemingly endless waves. As he finished each piece, he called over a specific young warrior, or one of the reservartion officers and handed it to them, telling them what the donor animal was, ranging from an elk to bighorn sheep and even a mountain lion. When he finished giving out all of the pieces, retaining one for himself (excluding only myself), he explained.
“I have given each of you a token from an animal native to this area. Keep it in your hand as enter the canyon, when you feel it warm up, you are passing through the wards. These tokens should mask your human nature, as long you are not speaking when you are crossing thorugh and you make some attempt to move in the less direct, less purposeful nature of your token animal. I doubt that whoever set up these wards is sensitive enough to really examine each animal crossing through them. Once the piece cools down, stick it in a pocket until you need to cross through them again. Of course if the shit hits the fan like I think it will, we won’t be worrying about the wards on the way out.
“Rusty, there’s no way I can mask you when you cross through the wards, but then again, we want them to know you are coming. Once we get ahold of John, we need to get the hell out of there.
“Snipers, I want you to shadow us up the canyon, and back out again. We’re gonna give you a head start to get into position about a click down each side, once Rusty passes you, try to keep pace, but primarily watch out for their snipers. You should be higher than they are, and they should be watching the canyon floor, but be careful.
“If anyone is injured, or goes down for any reason, take out the token I have given you and either touch it to your wound, or whisper my name into the token. I will make sure we get you some help. If you are killed, I will be able to find your body.”
One of the young warriors spoke up, looking unsure as he held the token in his hand, “Mr. Clarksson, what if you are killed or hurt, how we gonna get help then?”
Herne grinned, “Son, you don’t need to worry about that. There isn’t a man who’s ever put on a suit who can see me in these kind of settings unless I want him to see me. From the sounds of it, these guys are city goons, guns for hire more used to dealing with traffic than Nature. I am confident that we have the advantage in both skills and surprise. You boys have been hunting and tracking in this land since you were old enough to walk. These city slickers don’t stand a chance.
“Now, I want the sniper teams to start up into the hills. Remeber your token animals.”
It took ten minutes of hard driving in the steadily rougher terrain, maxing out at speeds around 30 MPH, but usually closer to 15, as we wound through the rough foothills to the west of a small mountain I didn’t know the name of.
Officer Jacks signalled a halt as we approached a point where the trail we were following crossed a wide, shallow patch that resembled a dry riverbed. The tracks of the vehicles veered to the right, heading east up the riverbed, into the heart of the foothills. A couple more young men that I hadn’t seen before emerged from the shadows on either side of the riverbed, rifles in hand. They were clearly scouts who had been left behind.
Herne leaped off of his vehicle as soon as the engine stopped and began asking questions of Officer Jacks and the scouts. He quickly determined that this was the only place that vehicles like the ones the bad guys were using could come back out and that none had returned this way since. He also found out that the riverbed was wide enough and flat enough for quite some time for those vehicles to able to go at least a couple of miles back. One of the scouts offered that they knew of an old abandoned mining facility near the back of the canyon that included an old house that had doubled as an office and several old storage sheds.
The sides of the canyon were fairly shallow here, but they quickly got much steeper, until only the riverbed and a small strip above it on either side were navigable by any kind of vehicles. There were a number of small pine trees and bushes clinging to the sides of the canyon, but the bottom was pretty much plucked clean by the miners and the occasional flash flood when it rained hard.
Herne took control of the situation quietly, but firmly, directing the young warriors to stow their bikes and the ATV’s on either side of the mouth of the canyon, half to a side, and all facing outward, for an easy escape, should it be necessary. He then starting picking men for various assignments.
“I want you Officer Jacks, and your partner, to remain out here with a couple of men who have the largest caliber weapons. I want some big rocks and debris thrown into the riverbed, not enough to block it completely, but enough to force any vehicles coming back down it to run a gauntlet that involves a lot of swerving from side to side. If you can’t see who is driving the lead vehicle, and the headlights don’t flash from brights to dims three times, I want you to take out the engine block, aim for the radiator, in this heat, no vehicle will last long losing water. Also, take out the tires if they keep coming at you. Don’t shoot to kill unless absolutely necessary, we don’t know who these guys really are, and we are no longer on reservation lands, so your tribal authority is rather limited here.
“I need six really good shooters to climb the sides of the canyon, three to a side. Your jobs will be to spot and stop any snipers they have in place up high, and also to take out the tires of any unknown vehicle that tries to head this way. When you shoot at snipers though, you need to make damn sure you are taking out a bad guy. Don’t play around with those guys either. If they are raising a weapon, aim to kill. We’ll sort out the legal mess later. I can assure you that you will have the full assistance of my organization if there are any legal consequences to our actions today.
“Agent Bones here will take the lead down the canyon, driving his ATV at a slow, steady pace until the shooting begins. He is our decoy. I expect that they know he is coming for sure, and will try be looking to lure him in. What they won’t expect, is me and couple of you to follow with me. It’s gonna be our job to take out anyone trying to trap Rusty and to help find and extricate John once we get inside. That’s about as much of a plan as I can put together at this point.”
One of the young warriors spoke up, concern in his voice. “Won’t they be shooting at Agent Bones?”
“They might,” replied Herne, “but I am guessing that this whole thing was set up to get him here, for whatever reason they want that. If they do start shooting, that’s when our snipers will take them out. Don’t worry about Agent Bones here though, from what I have read, he’s taken a few bullets recently, and he’s only a little uglier for it. I don’t know if they have a weapon that can really hurt him. Do you Agent Bones?”
I nodded. “Well, if they have any RPG’s, it could cause a problem for me, but somehow I think you are right, this whole taking of John probably happened in order to get me here. They wanted me to come to his rescue. I know that the Haitian man, Papa Locks is a powerful priest, he might be the only person stronger in the Spirit Worlds than John, so be careful using any magick here, especially if it involves leaving your body. He is an expert in capturing and torturing souls.”
Herne’s face turned grim, “We’ll see about that, he might be strong in the Spirit Worlds, but he’s in my element now. Speaking of that, I can tell he, or someone else, has set up some wards to warn against intruders into this canyon, but the wards are weak, and are permeable by non-human animals, which gives me an idea.”
With that he went back to his ATV and pulled out a battered leather sack from his field backpack. He pulled out a number of pieces of what looked like bones and pieces of horn or antlers. Taking out his knife, he began carving runes of some sort into each piece, muttering in a strange language that rolled from his tongue in seemingly endless waves. As he finished each piece, he called over a specific young warrior, or one of the reservartion officers and handed it to them, telling them what the donor animal was, ranging from an elk to bighorn sheep and even a mountain lion. When he finished giving out all of the pieces, retaining one for himself (excluding only myself), he explained.
“I have given each of you a token from an animal native to this area. Keep it in your hand as enter the canyon, when you feel it warm up, you are passing through the wards. These tokens should mask your human nature, as long you are not speaking when you are crossing thorugh and you make some attempt to move in the less direct, less purposeful nature of your token animal. I doubt that whoever set up these wards is sensitive enough to really examine each animal crossing through them. Once the piece cools down, stick it in a pocket until you need to cross through them again. Of course if the shit hits the fan like I think it will, we won’t be worrying about the wards on the way out.
“Rusty, there’s no way I can mask you when you cross through the wards, but then again, we want them to know you are coming. Once we get ahold of John, we need to get the hell out of there.
“Snipers, I want you to shadow us up the canyon, and back out again. We’re gonna give you a head start to get into position about a click down each side, once Rusty passes you, try to keep pace, but primarily watch out for their snipers. You should be higher than they are, and they should be watching the canyon floor, but be careful.
“If anyone is injured, or goes down for any reason, take out the token I have given you and either touch it to your wound, or whisper my name into the token. I will make sure we get you some help. If you are killed, I will be able to find your body.”
One of the young warriors spoke up, looking unsure as he held the token in his hand, “Mr. Clarksson, what if you are killed or hurt, how we gonna get help then?”
Herne grinned, “Son, you don’t need to worry about that. There isn’t a man who’s ever put on a suit who can see me in these kind of settings unless I want him to see me. From the sounds of it, these guys are city goons, guns for hire more used to dealing with traffic than Nature. I am confident that we have the advantage in both skills and surprise. You boys have been hunting and tracking in this land since you were old enough to walk. These city slickers don’t stand a chance.
“Now, I want the sniper teams to start up into the hills. Remeber your token animals.”
On the Warpath...Part 1
The excitement among the young men grew tangibly as we made our way on foot across the two-lane highway and into the broken scrub of the nearby hillside. What would have been a brisk five minute walk was over in less than three as the men bounded up the hill, each breaking his own path through the loose dirt, slippery stone and tough little bushes that tried in vain to stop our progress. The youngest looking warrior reached the top of the hill first, held up his rifle in triumph and let loose a bloodcurdling yelp that was echoed by another seven eager voices as they themselves topped the hill.
Down at the bottom of the other side of the hill, a small collection of ATV’s and crosscountry motorbikes waited. The young men swarmed down the hill in a rush, yelping and shouting as they did, in a way that must have sent shivers down the spines of many ancient foes.
Soon, the excited voices of the men were joined by the alternating roar and sputters of the many bikes and ATV’s. Dust began to fly as tires spun, the sputters of idling engines were replaced with sounds of gunned motors.
There were four ATV’s altogether, two for Officer Jacks and his partner, and one each for Clarksson and myself. The motorbikes were apparently for the young, which only seemed appropriate.
Officer Jacks stood up from his seated position once his ATV was running, and made a circling motion with his right arm, finishing in a sweeping motion towards the north. The other officer led the way with the first ATV up the clearly marked dirt trail, with Mr. Clarksson and myself following closely behind, Jacks taking the rear. The bikes didn’t bother to stick to the trail, each roaring off in his own unique direction.
After about a mile of tedious climbing and following the switchbacks of the trail, we broke into a flat area that allowed us to spread out from the trail and truly open up the engines for maximum speed.
It was an awesome sight, as we formed up into a ragged flying V formation, zipping through the light scrub of the high desert. Long hair and beaded necklaces trailed in the dry wind. Even I could feel the pressure of the wind blowing in my face, a feeling that brought back a rush of memories from my own youth of riding snowmobiles in the winter and waterskiing on the lakes of Michigan.
It took us another 15 minutes of hard riding to get to the place where John’s truck was sitting. The four ATV’s pulled up to the battered, but newer looking truck, as we dismounted to examine the vehicle. Most of the young men contiinued past the vehicle and gathered in an excited huddle about a hundred feet down the trail. Many were pulling out cigarettes, while a couple seemed more interested in checking their weapons for ammo and any dust that might have gotten caked in them from the ride.
Jacks was pointing out various things to Mr. Clarksson, but my attention was drawn to a small leather pouch that lay half-buried in the dirt near the ruined front driver’s side tire. There were clear signs of a struggle, blood could be seen spattered on the white paint above the tire, like John had been dragged from the vehicle and placed against the side of the truck. I bent down and picked up the pouch, recognizing that it was his medicine bag.
Ignoring the activity around me, I focused on the bag in my hand, trying to picture it around John’s neck, as I had last seen it. I found myself flowing into the Spirit World, but instead of heading for the Underworld as I usually would, I found myself int he Middle World, looking down at the scene of the truck, but apparently at sometime in the recent past. I could see the three other vehicles clustered about the truck, two late model civillian Hummers and a battered Suburban that had swerved in front of John, causing the accident. There were at least six men in the dark suits, sunglasses and clean shaven faces that signalled hired guns who thought of themselves as more than mere mercenaries.
John sat on the ground with his back to the vehicle, near the same tire I was physically standing near, as another man towered above him, a man I recognized from the my earliest memories after I was brought back. He was a tall, extremely dark skinned Haitian Voudoun Priest I knew by the name of Papa Locks for his long, nasty smelling (according to Dr. Geek anyway) dreadlocks. I couldn’t hear anything that was being said, but it was clear he was confronting John about something or another. I remembered his deep, accented voice, and the pleasure he seemed to get out of how he intimidated those around him with his appearance and manner. The only person I ever saw him give any deference to was Drake himself, but even Drake didn’t push and demand from Papa Locks the way he would from his other servants.
I saw Papa Locks strike John across the face with a powerful fist and rip off the medicine pouch from John’s neck, casting it into the place where I came to find it. Standing up, Papa Locks jerked the much smaller John to his feet, despite John’s obvious injuries, and threw him into the arms of one of the dark-suited men. All of them piled into the Hummers and the Suburban and continued down the main dirt trail to the north.
Officer Jack’s voice brought me back down into my body, “Agent Bones, are you OK? What have you found there?”
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, a meaningless jesture now that I didn’t have brains to shake loose. “I found John’s pouch. I was able to look back into some of the incident and see those who took John.”
Mr. Clarksson looked up at that from the bloodstains on the fender, “What did you see?”
I described the scene to them and expanded a little more on what I remembered of Papa Locks.
The other officer asked, “So, you saw at least six men besides this priest?”
“Yeah, my guess is that there were two or three more still in the vehicles, I didn’t see anyone get into the driver’s door of any of them when they loaded back up.”
“How were they armed?”
“I didn’t focus on weapons, but I would presume that they all had at least sidearms. I didn’t see
any rifles, but they may have stayed in the vehicles as well.”
Jacks piped in, “Well, we know they have at least one automatic weapon, they used it to deter our pursuit into the canyon.”
“Alright,” said Mr. Clarksson, “We know approximately how many men they have, the kind of vehicles they are driving, and that they have taken themselves into a canyon with no easy exit. They’ve had John for at least three days now, maybe longer, so we need to bust some ass and see if we can’t get him out of there. I don’t want to jump anyone’s command here, but we need someone to take command of the situation and get a plan worked out and put into action. Any suggestions?” He looked at the two officers and myself.
Officer Jacks was the first to defer, “Mr. Clarksson, I’ve heard plenty about your experience, I think you’d be the perfect one to lead the situation.”
They looked at me, I raised my hands in surrender, “Look, I’m in no position to lead anyone else. I trust you, Herne, and it appears that these officers do as well. You have also read about the kind of things I am capable of, so by all means, take charge.”
He nodded, “Very well. First thing is, we need to get closer to the canyon, and we need to do so quickly. Since they have off road vehicles, we need to take our bikes and ATV’s much closer than planned, in case they try to break through, we want to be able to have wheels available. Once we get closer, we can come up with an assault plan that fully maximizes the armor that we have here.”
He said this last while rapping my chest plate with the hilt of a rather large, very sharp looking knife that had appeared in his hand almost magically. The metallic thunking sound drove home the point to the two reservation officers.
(part 2 to follow in the evening)
Down at the bottom of the other side of the hill, a small collection of ATV’s and crosscountry motorbikes waited. The young men swarmed down the hill in a rush, yelping and shouting as they did, in a way that must have sent shivers down the spines of many ancient foes.
Soon, the excited voices of the men were joined by the alternating roar and sputters of the many bikes and ATV’s. Dust began to fly as tires spun, the sputters of idling engines were replaced with sounds of gunned motors.
There were four ATV’s altogether, two for Officer Jacks and his partner, and one each for Clarksson and myself. The motorbikes were apparently for the young, which only seemed appropriate.
Officer Jacks stood up from his seated position once his ATV was running, and made a circling motion with his right arm, finishing in a sweeping motion towards the north. The other officer led the way with the first ATV up the clearly marked dirt trail, with Mr. Clarksson and myself following closely behind, Jacks taking the rear. The bikes didn’t bother to stick to the trail, each roaring off in his own unique direction.
After about a mile of tedious climbing and following the switchbacks of the trail, we broke into a flat area that allowed us to spread out from the trail and truly open up the engines for maximum speed.
It was an awesome sight, as we formed up into a ragged flying V formation, zipping through the light scrub of the high desert. Long hair and beaded necklaces trailed in the dry wind. Even I could feel the pressure of the wind blowing in my face, a feeling that brought back a rush of memories from my own youth of riding snowmobiles in the winter and waterskiing on the lakes of Michigan.
It took us another 15 minutes of hard riding to get to the place where John’s truck was sitting. The four ATV’s pulled up to the battered, but newer looking truck, as we dismounted to examine the vehicle. Most of the young men contiinued past the vehicle and gathered in an excited huddle about a hundred feet down the trail. Many were pulling out cigarettes, while a couple seemed more interested in checking their weapons for ammo and any dust that might have gotten caked in them from the ride.
Jacks was pointing out various things to Mr. Clarksson, but my attention was drawn to a small leather pouch that lay half-buried in the dirt near the ruined front driver’s side tire. There were clear signs of a struggle, blood could be seen spattered on the white paint above the tire, like John had been dragged from the vehicle and placed against the side of the truck. I bent down and picked up the pouch, recognizing that it was his medicine bag.
Ignoring the activity around me, I focused on the bag in my hand, trying to picture it around John’s neck, as I had last seen it. I found myself flowing into the Spirit World, but instead of heading for the Underworld as I usually would, I found myself int he Middle World, looking down at the scene of the truck, but apparently at sometime in the recent past. I could see the three other vehicles clustered about the truck, two late model civillian Hummers and a battered Suburban that had swerved in front of John, causing the accident. There were at least six men in the dark suits, sunglasses and clean shaven faces that signalled hired guns who thought of themselves as more than mere mercenaries.
John sat on the ground with his back to the vehicle, near the same tire I was physically standing near, as another man towered above him, a man I recognized from the my earliest memories after I was brought back. He was a tall, extremely dark skinned Haitian Voudoun Priest I knew by the name of Papa Locks for his long, nasty smelling (according to Dr. Geek anyway) dreadlocks. I couldn’t hear anything that was being said, but it was clear he was confronting John about something or another. I remembered his deep, accented voice, and the pleasure he seemed to get out of how he intimidated those around him with his appearance and manner. The only person I ever saw him give any deference to was Drake himself, but even Drake didn’t push and demand from Papa Locks the way he would from his other servants.
I saw Papa Locks strike John across the face with a powerful fist and rip off the medicine pouch from John’s neck, casting it into the place where I came to find it. Standing up, Papa Locks jerked the much smaller John to his feet, despite John’s obvious injuries, and threw him into the arms of one of the dark-suited men. All of them piled into the Hummers and the Suburban and continued down the main dirt trail to the north.
Officer Jack’s voice brought me back down into my body, “Agent Bones, are you OK? What have you found there?”
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, a meaningless jesture now that I didn’t have brains to shake loose. “I found John’s pouch. I was able to look back into some of the incident and see those who took John.”
Mr. Clarksson looked up at that from the bloodstains on the fender, “What did you see?”
I described the scene to them and expanded a little more on what I remembered of Papa Locks.
The other officer asked, “So, you saw at least six men besides this priest?”
“Yeah, my guess is that there were two or three more still in the vehicles, I didn’t see anyone get into the driver’s door of any of them when they loaded back up.”
“How were they armed?”
“I didn’t focus on weapons, but I would presume that they all had at least sidearms. I didn’t see
any rifles, but they may have stayed in the vehicles as well.”
Jacks piped in, “Well, we know they have at least one automatic weapon, they used it to deter our pursuit into the canyon.”
“Alright,” said Mr. Clarksson, “We know approximately how many men they have, the kind of vehicles they are driving, and that they have taken themselves into a canyon with no easy exit. They’ve had John for at least three days now, maybe longer, so we need to bust some ass and see if we can’t get him out of there. I don’t want to jump anyone’s command here, but we need someone to take command of the situation and get a plan worked out and put into action. Any suggestions?” He looked at the two officers and myself.
Officer Jacks was the first to defer, “Mr. Clarksson, I’ve heard plenty about your experience, I think you’d be the perfect one to lead the situation.”
They looked at me, I raised my hands in surrender, “Look, I’m in no position to lead anyone else. I trust you, Herne, and it appears that these officers do as well. You have also read about the kind of things I am capable of, so by all means, take charge.”
He nodded, “Very well. First thing is, we need to get closer to the canyon, and we need to do so quickly. Since they have off road vehicles, we need to take our bikes and ATV’s much closer than planned, in case they try to break through, we want to be able to have wheels available. Once we get closer, we can come up with an assault plan that fully maximizes the armor that we have here.”
He said this last while rapping my chest plate with the hilt of a rather large, very sharp looking knife that had appeared in his hand almost magically. The metallic thunking sound drove home the point to the two reservation officers.
(part 2 to follow in the evening)
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Westward Ho!
I was just crossing the Mississippi when my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Rusty, it’s Ravyn. Look, I’ve been doing some scrying and I really think you are going to need some help to find and rescue John.”
“Scrying, what’s that?”
“It’s a form of magick that involves looking into things you can’t normally see. Anyway, I just called another member of our group who I think will be able to help you in this. He’s going to meet you at the reservatrion.”
“Who is this guy?”
“He goes by the magickal name of Herne Clarksson, he’s a former military grunt and later an officer and he’s also the best hunter and tracker I know. His abilities are legendary. He should be a great help. He’s also a great friend.”
“Well, if you trust him, then so will I. What does he know about me?”
“I told him some, but I also sent him a link to your blog. He’s in the Denver area, so he’ll have plenty of time to get caught up on events before he heads out. He’s also a friend of John and I knew that he would want to help if he could.”
“Great. I’m no tracker that’s for sure. Well, I will look forward to meeting him out there. Hey, one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“Will you remind him that I don’t need to sleep, so I will be out there much sooner than most people going this far. I’m not sure how far it is from Denver to the reservation, but I don’t want to wait around once I get there.”
“I’ll remind him. I don’t think he sleeps much either, but I’ll make sure he knows how fast and far you can travel. Rusty...?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Good luck. Find John and bring him home safe. I was able to get a glimpse of him during my scrying. As far as I can tell, he is being held against his will. I think he is hurt as well.”
“I’ll do my best. Thanks for the help again.”
I pushed through St. Louis and continued on my journey, bumping up my speed up to 75 once the traffic cleared enough to do so.
The long miles passed uneventfully as I pushed through the now empty fields and sleepy towns of the Great Plains into the mountains and high deserts of the True West.
Less than 24 hours later, I was met just outside of one of the entrances to the reservation by a group of beat up, older looking SUV’s and pick-up trucks, most of which were filled by young Indians who were quite obviously students of John. In the fifth vehicle, a nearly black old Ford Bronco, sat a single, middle-aged man sporting a mustache and long brown hair. All of these folks got out of their vehicles as I parked next to them.
There were 12 of us altogether, eight local boys, two reservation officers, and the tall, burly and intense looking man who introduced himself as Herne Clarksson. I could see by his eyes that he had read the blog and was assessing the truth of things with his own eyes.
Everyone except me was armed with at least one firearm. A couple of the local kids held long hunting rifles easily in their hands, while most of the rest had sidearms holstered at their waists, or in other conspicuous places. I could see several more guns sitting in cases or in gun racks in the various vehicles.
It was easy to tell from some of the looks that I got, that someone had briefed the young men that I wouldn’t be the typical FBI agent by appearance.
“Agent Bones,” one of the reservation officers stepped forward, “I’m Officer Jay Jacks, we can take you to the location where we’ve found John’s truck. We’ve followed the trail of his captors a bit, but were turned back at a canyon entrance about 4 miles later when we started taking fire. One of the boys here says that the canyon where they holed up is a dead end, so we left a couple of scouts to make sure no one left it and came back here for reinforcements. We are certainly glad to get the assistance of the Bureau. How soon do you expect the others?”
“Well,” I replied, shaking his hand, “I am not really here as an official with the Bureau. This is personal. There won’t be anyone else coming, that I know of, but rest assured, I think I can be of a great deal of assistance.”
“Do you have your own weapons, or do we need to get some for you?”
I flicked my right hand, dropping the collapsable baton into my hand and snapped it out to its full extension with an audible snap that caused a couple of younger boys to flinch. “This is all I need.”
“We’re going up against several well armed men by our best estimates. These guys probably have automatic weapons. Are you sure you don’t want some sort of firearm, a sidearm at least?”
“Don’t worry about me Officer Jacks, I can take care of myself.”
I could see by Mr. Clarksson’s quiet smile and knowing nod that he was reassured as to the validitiy of at least some of what I had written.
“So where is this canyon and how do we get there?”
The other officer spooke up, “Just the other side of that hill over there, we have some dirt bikes that we will use to get to where the truck is, from there, we will go on foot. You can run in this heat, can’t you?”
“What heat?” I asked , grinning. “I’m ready to roll gentleman.”
At those words, the area became a whirl of activity as a number of the young men went back into their vehicles to pull out bandoliers and bags full of ammunition as well as the remaining rifles, some of which clearly violated various bans on automatic weapons.
Clarksson, came up next to me with his own expesnive looking hunting rifle in hand, slung it over his shoulder and grinned in amazement at the sheer number and variety of weapons the young men were pulling out, “Damn, I’ll bet these parts haven’t seen so many well armed young warriors since the days of Geronimo. I almost feel sorry for the guys we’re hunting.”
I marvelled as well, but mostly at the youthful appearance of the kids from the reservartion. “Well, I only hope we can get to and save John without any of these kids getting hurt.”
He looked over at me, “Don’t worry, these people are warriors, they know and accept the risks of the mission.”
“Yes, but I dislike the idea of putting so many of them at risk.”
His eyes narrowed, “Any life worth living, is also worth losing for the right reasons. John is a teacher and a hero to these young men. He has brought back some of the old ways while showing these young people how to keep those ways and thrive in this modern world. They wouldn’t be going along if they weren’t capable of helping.”
“Looks like they are waiting on us.”
“Hello?”
“Rusty, it’s Ravyn. Look, I’ve been doing some scrying and I really think you are going to need some help to find and rescue John.”
“Scrying, what’s that?”
“It’s a form of magick that involves looking into things you can’t normally see. Anyway, I just called another member of our group who I think will be able to help you in this. He’s going to meet you at the reservatrion.”
“Who is this guy?”
“He goes by the magickal name of Herne Clarksson, he’s a former military grunt and later an officer and he’s also the best hunter and tracker I know. His abilities are legendary. He should be a great help. He’s also a great friend.”
“Well, if you trust him, then so will I. What does he know about me?”
“I told him some, but I also sent him a link to your blog. He’s in the Denver area, so he’ll have plenty of time to get caught up on events before he heads out. He’s also a friend of John and I knew that he would want to help if he could.”
“Great. I’m no tracker that’s for sure. Well, I will look forward to meeting him out there. Hey, one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“Will you remind him that I don’t need to sleep, so I will be out there much sooner than most people going this far. I’m not sure how far it is from Denver to the reservation, but I don’t want to wait around once I get there.”
“I’ll remind him. I don’t think he sleeps much either, but I’ll make sure he knows how fast and far you can travel. Rusty...?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Good luck. Find John and bring him home safe. I was able to get a glimpse of him during my scrying. As far as I can tell, he is being held against his will. I think he is hurt as well.”
“I’ll do my best. Thanks for the help again.”
I pushed through St. Louis and continued on my journey, bumping up my speed up to 75 once the traffic cleared enough to do so.
The long miles passed uneventfully as I pushed through the now empty fields and sleepy towns of the Great Plains into the mountains and high deserts of the True West.
Less than 24 hours later, I was met just outside of one of the entrances to the reservation by a group of beat up, older looking SUV’s and pick-up trucks, most of which were filled by young Indians who were quite obviously students of John. In the fifth vehicle, a nearly black old Ford Bronco, sat a single, middle-aged man sporting a mustache and long brown hair. All of these folks got out of their vehicles as I parked next to them.
There were 12 of us altogether, eight local boys, two reservation officers, and the tall, burly and intense looking man who introduced himself as Herne Clarksson. I could see by his eyes that he had read the blog and was assessing the truth of things with his own eyes.
Everyone except me was armed with at least one firearm. A couple of the local kids held long hunting rifles easily in their hands, while most of the rest had sidearms holstered at their waists, or in other conspicuous places. I could see several more guns sitting in cases or in gun racks in the various vehicles.
It was easy to tell from some of the looks that I got, that someone had briefed the young men that I wouldn’t be the typical FBI agent by appearance.
“Agent Bones,” one of the reservation officers stepped forward, “I’m Officer Jay Jacks, we can take you to the location where we’ve found John’s truck. We’ve followed the trail of his captors a bit, but were turned back at a canyon entrance about 4 miles later when we started taking fire. One of the boys here says that the canyon where they holed up is a dead end, so we left a couple of scouts to make sure no one left it and came back here for reinforcements. We are certainly glad to get the assistance of the Bureau. How soon do you expect the others?”
“Well,” I replied, shaking his hand, “I am not really here as an official with the Bureau. This is personal. There won’t be anyone else coming, that I know of, but rest assured, I think I can be of a great deal of assistance.”
“Do you have your own weapons, or do we need to get some for you?”
I flicked my right hand, dropping the collapsable baton into my hand and snapped it out to its full extension with an audible snap that caused a couple of younger boys to flinch. “This is all I need.”
“We’re going up against several well armed men by our best estimates. These guys probably have automatic weapons. Are you sure you don’t want some sort of firearm, a sidearm at least?”
“Don’t worry about me Officer Jacks, I can take care of myself.”
I could see by Mr. Clarksson’s quiet smile and knowing nod that he was reassured as to the validitiy of at least some of what I had written.
“So where is this canyon and how do we get there?”
The other officer spooke up, “Just the other side of that hill over there, we have some dirt bikes that we will use to get to where the truck is, from there, we will go on foot. You can run in this heat, can’t you?”
“What heat?” I asked , grinning. “I’m ready to roll gentleman.”
At those words, the area became a whirl of activity as a number of the young men went back into their vehicles to pull out bandoliers and bags full of ammunition as well as the remaining rifles, some of which clearly violated various bans on automatic weapons.
Clarksson, came up next to me with his own expesnive looking hunting rifle in hand, slung it over his shoulder and grinned in amazement at the sheer number and variety of weapons the young men were pulling out, “Damn, I’ll bet these parts haven’t seen so many well armed young warriors since the days of Geronimo. I almost feel sorry for the guys we’re hunting.”
I marvelled as well, but mostly at the youthful appearance of the kids from the reservartion. “Well, I only hope we can get to and save John without any of these kids getting hurt.”
He looked over at me, “Don’t worry, these people are warriors, they know and accept the risks of the mission.”
“Yes, but I dislike the idea of putting so many of them at risk.”
His eyes narrowed, “Any life worth living, is also worth losing for the right reasons. John is a teacher and a hero to these young men. He has brought back some of the old ways while showing these young people how to keep those ways and thrive in this modern world. They wouldn’t be going along if they weren’t capable of helping.”
“Looks like they are waiting on us.”
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Phoenix Fyre
Ms. Fyre found me in the back when she was finished with her reading, but I did not immediately notice when she came to find me. I was in my meditative state in the snow-covered back yard of the co-op house, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the rudimentary, but effective, stone circle the residents had erected some years back.
I had entered into this state in order to slip into the Spirit World in order to look for John Red Bear. I first went to our usual meeting place in the Lower World, the only sign of John that I found there was a ragged patch of bloody fur that lay in the clearing, surrounded by paw prints of more than one animal type. My skills at animal tracking are sorely lacking, but I I could make out what appeared to be the larger paw prints of John’s bear form, and what appeared to be a number of different sets of large dog or wolf prints. So, either John was chased or captured by someone who could also enter into the Spirit World, or there was some sort of danger to this stuff that he didn’t tell me about. I sort of hoped it was the former, since I would not know how to face such danger myself in this form.
Coming back to my body, I noticed Ms. Fyre standing just outside of the cirle of stones, but what caught me off guard was the fiery spiritual phoenix that burned brightly behind her. This being seemed to be both part of her, and yet distinctly different, maybe like an alter ego. While Ms Fyre’s physical body seemed to be looking only at my motionless body, the spirit phoenix fixed its baleful glare squarely onto my returning spirit, seemingly evaluating whether or not I was a threat. It seemed to flash briefly brighter as I merged back into my body, and completely disappeared from view as I locked into place and turned my head to see her standing behind and to my left. Only a surreal afterglow and an aura of power remained, alternating between red and orange.
“How long have you been waiting for me?”
“Not too long.”
“So, will you be able to help us out?”
“Us?” She asked.
“Yeah, John and myself, I found signs of a struggle in our usual meeting place in the Loswer World. I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but I think he is in some serious trouble.”
She remained silent for a moment as I unfolded my legs and got up.
“If your blog is accurate, than this Drake Kampmann must be stopped. We need to find John, if possible, and help him if he needs it. I don’t know how much John has told you about me and our group, but it is vitally important to find him before they, whoever they are, can find out more about us than I fear they may already know.
“I am going to turn the tables on your Rusty, and ask you to help us. I can’t tell you all of the details of who we are, but I can you that John and I are members of a secret order who have pledged to assist each other in times of trouble and who are charged with the protection of of those who cannot protect themselves.
“From what I have seen and read about you, you are a noble soul who has been trapped in a terrible experiment. I know that John was hoping to help you extricate yourself from this situation, if you wished to be released. But I think you also know now that you are free to continue on your spiritual journey.”
‘Yes, he had been helping me. And yes, I know I can leave this world behind at any time. I am no longer trapped here in this body, thanks to John. But I am not ready to go right now, I want to help John before it is too late, and I want to find out more about your group and what your work is.” I smiled. “I am not ready to move on just yet. You might think I have some noble soul, but I am going to track that bastard Kampmann down and bring him and his cronies down before I go anydamnwhere.”
She reached out, touched my arm. “We share some goals there Rusty. I think your Mr. Kampmann may be invovled with what has happened to John.”
After that, we moved back inside the co-op house. I was busy shutting down my computer and putting that away, while she left to another part of the house to make some phone calls. She returned shortly, with a concerned look on her face.
“I just got off the phone with one of John’s students on the reservation where he lived. It looks like he went out on a distress call into the desert nearby. He never made it back, so a search party went out. They found his truck about twenty miles away, it had been in some sort of accident, but there was no sign of John, or anyone else, other than some bloody pieces of his uniform. There were tracks leaving the scene, but they got obscured after a few miles.”
“I want to get out there and help.”
“I’m glad, because I want to go desperately too, but am unable to leave my other duties here. If you can go, I will make sure you have some additional contacts of those who might be able to help, as well as get you some other resources. While you help find John, I am going to spend some time doing research on this Kampmann fellow, see what others in our group might know about him and his goals.”
“Good, that’ll work. I will head out west and help find John. And when he is safe, I am going to come collect anything you find on that bastard. I have some serious scores to settle.”
We parted that afternoon, after exchanging some other numbers. She gave me a firm hug as we parted, and somehow I felt a little hope bloom as I got in my car and headed into the sunset.
My last image of her as I drove off was of her standing waving, with the afterimage of a phoenix rising up behind her, its glare a little less dark as it nodded in my direction.
I had entered into this state in order to slip into the Spirit World in order to look for John Red Bear. I first went to our usual meeting place in the Lower World, the only sign of John that I found there was a ragged patch of bloody fur that lay in the clearing, surrounded by paw prints of more than one animal type. My skills at animal tracking are sorely lacking, but I I could make out what appeared to be the larger paw prints of John’s bear form, and what appeared to be a number of different sets of large dog or wolf prints. So, either John was chased or captured by someone who could also enter into the Spirit World, or there was some sort of danger to this stuff that he didn’t tell me about. I sort of hoped it was the former, since I would not know how to face such danger myself in this form.
Coming back to my body, I noticed Ms. Fyre standing just outside of the cirle of stones, but what caught me off guard was the fiery spiritual phoenix that burned brightly behind her. This being seemed to be both part of her, and yet distinctly different, maybe like an alter ego. While Ms Fyre’s physical body seemed to be looking only at my motionless body, the spirit phoenix fixed its baleful glare squarely onto my returning spirit, seemingly evaluating whether or not I was a threat. It seemed to flash briefly brighter as I merged back into my body, and completely disappeared from view as I locked into place and turned my head to see her standing behind and to my left. Only a surreal afterglow and an aura of power remained, alternating between red and orange.
“How long have you been waiting for me?”
“Not too long.”
“So, will you be able to help us out?”
“Us?” She asked.
“Yeah, John and myself, I found signs of a struggle in our usual meeting place in the Loswer World. I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but I think he is in some serious trouble.”
She remained silent for a moment as I unfolded my legs and got up.
“If your blog is accurate, than this Drake Kampmann must be stopped. We need to find John, if possible, and help him if he needs it. I don’t know how much John has told you about me and our group, but it is vitally important to find him before they, whoever they are, can find out more about us than I fear they may already know.
“I am going to turn the tables on your Rusty, and ask you to help us. I can’t tell you all of the details of who we are, but I can you that John and I are members of a secret order who have pledged to assist each other in times of trouble and who are charged with the protection of of those who cannot protect themselves.
“From what I have seen and read about you, you are a noble soul who has been trapped in a terrible experiment. I know that John was hoping to help you extricate yourself from this situation, if you wished to be released. But I think you also know now that you are free to continue on your spiritual journey.”
‘Yes, he had been helping me. And yes, I know I can leave this world behind at any time. I am no longer trapped here in this body, thanks to John. But I am not ready to go right now, I want to help John before it is too late, and I want to find out more about your group and what your work is.” I smiled. “I am not ready to move on just yet. You might think I have some noble soul, but I am going to track that bastard Kampmann down and bring him and his cronies down before I go anydamnwhere.”
She reached out, touched my arm. “We share some goals there Rusty. I think your Mr. Kampmann may be invovled with what has happened to John.”
After that, we moved back inside the co-op house. I was busy shutting down my computer and putting that away, while she left to another part of the house to make some phone calls. She returned shortly, with a concerned look on her face.
“I just got off the phone with one of John’s students on the reservation where he lived. It looks like he went out on a distress call into the desert nearby. He never made it back, so a search party went out. They found his truck about twenty miles away, it had been in some sort of accident, but there was no sign of John, or anyone else, other than some bloody pieces of his uniform. There were tracks leaving the scene, but they got obscured after a few miles.”
“I want to get out there and help.”
“I’m glad, because I want to go desperately too, but am unable to leave my other duties here. If you can go, I will make sure you have some additional contacts of those who might be able to help, as well as get you some other resources. While you help find John, I am going to spend some time doing research on this Kampmann fellow, see what others in our group might know about him and his goals.”
“Good, that’ll work. I will head out west and help find John. And when he is safe, I am going to come collect anything you find on that bastard. I have some serious scores to settle.”
We parted that afternoon, after exchanging some other numbers. She gave me a firm hug as we parted, and somehow I felt a little hope bloom as I got in my car and headed into the sunset.
My last image of her as I drove off was of her standing waving, with the afterimage of a phoenix rising up behind her, its glare a little less dark as it nodded in my direction.
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