Nimravid (The MacFade Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Svetlana and her entire security detail had disappeared. The tracking crystal I had given Kolann was missing also, that’s how they found me. Through no fault of his own, Kolann agreed we had a mutual problem. We set a rendezvous for 10:30 pm at the warehouse and I disconnected the call.

  “We are being watched, Alex.”

  “I know. Where are they?”

  “The trees right across the street.”

  “Good, we can use that to our advantage.” I raced into the house, leaving Claire in the kitchen and headed straight for the living room. I left the lights off because I can see in the dark anyway and I didn’t want my little buddies outside to be able to determine what we were doing. I calmed Lucy and told her I had to go back out and that I would return soon. She asked if Shelly was coming over. I didn’t know how to answer her. She can tell if I lie to her so I left the question hanging.

  I stuffed a few energy bars, assorted weapons and a case of Walker’s kills-all into a duffle bag and waited for Casey to show up. He dropped through the ceiling of the living room shortly after. “What do you need me to do?” were the first words out of his mouth. I clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s my boy!” I told him the plan and his part of it and he set right to work.

  “What happens if you get in there and this woman IS some sort of Otherworld terminator? Or worse there’s more than one?” Claire asked as I walked out the kitchen door. “What else, Babe? We’ll wing it.”

  “That’s not enough of an answer and you know it!” I stopped and pulled her to me. I kissed her passionately and had Mai push a generous dose of calm and relaxation into it. “We are not going to have this argument right now.” Claire looked dreamy and a little dazed. “We’re not?” I carried her into the bedroom as her head lay against my chest. Laying her down on the bed I caressed her cheek with the palm of my huge hand. “No my love, we are not.” I smiled to myself, as the light snoring began, wondering if I would ever see her again. Wondering if I would even WANT to after she realized what I’d just done. I’ll admit it; I was on the fence.

  Quietly, pulling the door closed behind me, I picked up my duffle. Mai appeared in front of me. “Alex, you realize when she wakes up she’s going to be—”

  “I know.”

  “And if you think I am going to take—”

  “I don’t.”

  “You’re going to need to do some major—”

  “I will.”

  “Well—fine, as long as we understand each other.”

  I chuckled to myself as I activated the protective wards around my house. “When don’t we?” Walking around to the rear of the garage, I Shrouded myself. There was at least one of those watchers keeping a rear guard. Focusing on the back wall, I released some built up power. A perfect replica of the rear of the garage sprang to life in the form of a Shroud wall. Popping out a special section, I had Mai seal the garage for sound, and started the Hummer again. As the engine roared to life I flipped on the silencer and extended my Shroud over the big truck. I slowly made my way through the missing panel and out the back just as Casey flipped on the light to do his part. I had helped him tap into the power of the Ley Line to alter his appearance to a perfect replica of me. It would only last as long as he was in contact with the house.

  When I was far enough away, I flipped off the stealth and raced up the street and on to I-44. I’m coming Shelly, hang on.

  Chapter 27

  I arrived at the warehouse a little before 10:30 pm. and coasted the Hummer, in all electric mode, into a shadowy section of an alley between two buildings. It was full of dumpsters and the usual detritus, a good hiding place and defendable position, if necessary. I wasn’t anticipating having to make a break for it but it’s always a good idea to have a retreat in mind if you have to. The warehouse building was typical, painted gray, broken windows here and there, and a few large rolling doors on the front, as well as a multi-bay loading dock in back. It spanned most of the length of the block. There were rusting iron fire escapes on either side. I took a closer Look. In the shadows of every other landing was a sentry. They appeared human, because they were sweating in anticipation.

  “Are you sure this is going to work, Alex?”

  “You tell me. If we play by their rules, Kolann and I walk in there unarmed and they have complete control, most likely gunning us down and they’ll kill Shelly anyway. This is her best chance for survival.”

  “Yes, but it’s not YOUR best chance for survival.”

  “Mai, I understand your concern but if I let that girl die, it’ll kill me, guaranteed. This is the only way. This IS the best case scenario. You tend to be a little overprotective when it comes to me.” My Senses picked up. I could smell the guys, approaching from the North. I got out my tactical flash light and signaled them. Focusing my vision in their general direction, my Sight revealed three expertly Shrouded figures heading toward me. Kolann must have helped the boys with theirs. They dropped their Shrouds as they entered the alley; all dressed in black BDUs.

  Kolann was armed with a Danish Two Hander strapped to his back. It’s a Viking style sword with a handle about 1/3 the length of the entire weapon. A dubious close quarters choice for most people but we are talking about a being with approximately the strength of 10 men and corresponding speed. He had two Viking style throwing axes tucked through his belt and an AA-12 assault shotgun across his chest. The boys were similarly armed. Archie had opted for a long curved katana and a pair of large Kukris (a knife bent at a 15 degree angle, ideal for beheading) in place of the throwing axes. Reggie who was somewhat less of an individual opted to mirror his father with the substitution of a long barrel sniper rifle. I gave Reggie and Kolann an appraising look. “What? No iron helmets with horns.” Kolann gave me a wry smile. “They are at the dry cleaners.” I took a peak around the corner to scout out the front of the target. “You guys stay here and keep an eye on that front door. I want to know if anything comes or goes.”

  “Right,” said Kolann. “And you?” I nodded to the building. “I’m going to scout ahead. Stay out of sight; sentries posted on the fire escapes.” I activated my Shroud and broadcast Concealment (ignore me vibe) just in case any of the sentries were more than they appeared. I crossed the street avoiding any standing water, so as not to leave tracks and got up next to the east side wall near the rear of the building. I held up my left hand and a thin cable of Spirit Stone sailed up and over the edge of the roof to sprout a thin grappling hook and attach itself to something. I gave it a tug to test it.

  “Mai, give me a heads up the second you sense we are being noticed. I don’t care who or what it is. Just let me know.”

  “Got it.”

  I willed the cable to start retracting at a controlled rate and I rose into the air gently bumping along the wall with finger tips and toes to control the noise on the other side. I stopped just at the point where my eyes could peer over the edge. There were three bikers toting automatic weapons, patrolling the roof. There were skylights everywhere. That was going to come in handy.

  I waited until the nearest waste of skin passed by. Silently I hoisted myself to the roof and crept up behind him. A quick strike to the base of the skull and he slumped to the roof, stone dead. I rolled the body over into the shadows. One down, two to go. As I started to overtake the second one, he stopped. I froze. I wasn’t close enough to take him down quietly and I couldn’t risk the third raising the alarm. Slipping would expose us to magical detection charms. I was stuck.

  He raised a short wave radio to his face. “Does anyone know what time this son-bitch is ‘sposed to show up?” He had a thick Mississippi accent, no huge surprise there. Good work people, now we are IMPORTING garbage? He was the only one with a radio. The AK-47 I found on the first guy was old and showed signs of poor maintenance. This one didn’t look any better. Seemed like a low budget operation. Good, that meant we weren’t dealing with pros.

  “Just shut the fuck up and do your job, asshole! Heal git here when he gits here.
You bitchin bout it ain’t gonna make him come no sooner. Na stay off the god damned radio,” the radio squawked back. “I was just sayin’. You don’t have ta cuss at me,” the biker whined. Oh yeah, world class operators here. This was going be easier than I thought.

  “You’re going to regret that, you always do. Never underestimate your enemy, Alex. These are just pawns, expendable. Their whole purpose up here in the open is probably to make enough noise as they die, to raise the alarm. The REAL killers are inside Listening.”

  “Good point, Mai. They’ll be paying a certain amount of attention to these guys, probably a regular check-in schedule.” I pulled back into the shadows and waited. It was 11:43. Sure enough at the quarter hour, a call came over the radio. “Roof top what’s your status?”

  “Bored as hail, hot as hail. How bout you, Ron?”

  “Keep it professional Derrick. Our employer has one of these too.”

  “Suit yer self, nothin’ to report cept’ Billy’s farting up a storm.”

  “I am not!” Came the reply from behind me. I needed to move fast. They were going to notice the third one, missing, anytime now. Good thing I hadn’t taken Billy out first. I lunged at Derrick from out of the shadows. Grabbing the base of his skull and his chin, giving his head a quick powerful twist. His neck broke with a sickening dull pop. It was a nauseating sound. I hate killing. These guys are ignorant and stupid which is most likely not their fault, but they are too much of a liability to leave alive. Their deaths will prevent countless others and I suspect pay for lives they have already taken. “Focus, Alex! They were the willing tools of misery and hate. They made their choice and this was the consequence. You can’t allow this to affect you. If you do, you’ll hesitate at some point and that will cost someone’s life, maybe even Shelly’s.” At the mention of Shelly’s name I snapped back to full clarity.

  Billy was headed back around, straight for me. He had just begun a strut. “I’ll tell you what. I hope he do come up here. I’ll kick his ass and then watch him burn like all the other’s. Mr. High and mighty with his fancy truck and high yella’ whore, I don’t care if he’s partners with this Mr. Smith dude, his ass is gonna sizzle. Yeah! Ain’t that right, Jesse? Jesse?” I had positioned Jesse up against an exhaust vent, head down arms folded across his chest, so that at first glance, it appeared he was napping. “Git up! You need to pull yer weight round here like everybody else. Come on, now! I said git up!” Billy kicked at Jesse, the body fell over, face illuminated by the full moon. A look of pure astonishment, frozen on his face. Billy whirled to confront an unseen attacker and I was glad to oblige him. I reached over, ripped the firing mechanism out of his gun with one hand and throttled him with the other. The gun, I twisted viciously, breaking Billy’s finger and allowing the rifle slide down my leg to the roof. Billy tried to scream but all that came out was a gurgle. My gauntleted hand had all but crushed his wind pipe. I hoisted him into the air and held him over the roof’s edge, a six story drop. It’s survivable but would hurt like hell even if you did land correctly. Pulling him up to eye level, I dropped my Glamour. He gawked at the yellow eyes blazing from the darkness. “Now Billy, tell me about this, BURNING.”

  Chapter 28

  It hit me without warning; I was immersed in a vision, watching everything from Billy’s point of view. We were beating a man savagely, the last police officer to disappear. When he was almost dead, one of the biker vamps from earlier tonight, at the theatre, bit him and drained him almost dry. Just before the moment of death, he grinned wickedly. “Nah, a beatin’ death’s too good fer ya. We gonna watch you suffa.” We hamstrung the cop and then feed him Dale’s blood, to turn him. As the poor man convulsed and spasmed, we drug him out into a construction site and staked him to the ground. Stepping back into the shelter of the building , we watched from the shadows as the sun came up, laughing as the disoriented police officer screamed and writhed, begging for help. I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I said “Even after 12 times, it never gets old, do it? Ha ha ha!”

  The pure evil and utter lack of humanity hit me like a sledge hammer. Coming out of it, I accidentally dropped Billy, sending him plummeting to the alley below. He hit like a ton of bricks landing on a pile of what seemed to be scrap metal, a pipe, clearly visible sticking out of his chest. He wasn’t moving. I could see him from my angle, but from street level, it would still appear like nothing more than a pile of scrap.

  “We’ve drawn attention!”

  Indeed we had, an urgent check-in call went out. I picked up the radio, “Ma bad. We was horsin' around and Billy knocked one of them swirly metal vent things off the roof,” a flawless impersonation of Derrick.

  “God damn it, Derrick! I said, be quiet! Do you need me to come up there and beat the message into you or do you think you, Larry and Curly can shut the Hell up!”

  “Christ, Ron! I said we was sorry. No need to get all bent out a shape ‘bout it.”

  “SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET OFF THE RADIO! Billy! Take the radio from Derrick. He ain’t grown enough ta handle the responsibility ‘parently.” I pushed the talk switch again. “He said to give it to me! Let go ya hillbilly sack of shit!” in Billy’s voice. “I don’t kay ere whut he sade, I ain’t gonna cotton to no man treatin’ me like a chald,” in Derrick’s voice. I waited a few seconds. “Billy here, the radio has been received, over.”

  “GET OFF THE DAMN RADIO YA IDIOT!” screamed Ron. “That was a stroke of pure genius!” I had to agree. Turning the radio down to a volume only I could here, I pocketed it and crept along, looking in skylights until I found the right one. Everything from the midsection back, appeared to be make shift living quarters. There were tents everywhere and RVs with confederate flags as far as the eye could see. There were several tour buses with heavily tinted windows parked just inside the rear of the building, hijacked, no doubt. Sprinkled all throughout were Meth labs. The whole place reeked of the stuff. The main event was in the front of the building, right in front of the rolling door. It was definitely amateur hour. Looking down I spotted Shelly. Bound hand and foot, in the middle of an enormous circle of power, but she seemed OK. I thought it was a circle of power, at least. It was segmented with several large elaborate patterns drawn within each section. Shelly was a little haggard but appeared unhurt. That only meant the parties responsible would die in excruciating, instead of unbearable pain. Generous on my part, don’t you think?

  I mentally indicated the unfamiliar patterns and diagrams to Mai. “Mai, what are those? I’ve never seen them before.”

  “They look like Veves. They are Vodoun beacon spells, used to guide astral spirits to Earth, but I’ve never seen these before and they are NEVER this large. I should be able to decipher them once I can see the detail. I can’t magnify your sight enough to zoom in without the use of magic and we are holding off on that right now. What I CAN tell you, is they are trying to call something from the Otherworld, down to Earth, something very powerful and very old.

  I looked around some more, trying to formulate an infiltration plan, when I spied Svetlana. “I knew she was right in the middle of this!” And in the middle of it she was. Walking around the center of the circle, checking the lines and symbols for flaws, I reckon. Shelly tried to scoot away from her, but her feet were bound to a large ring in the floor. To complete the look, Svetlana was stark naked.

  Well, I say naked; she was covered head to toe in glyphs, sigils and a Veve on her back. And if I hadn’t missed my guess I’d say they were all drawn in blood. In fact, it looked like everything had been drawn in blood. Anything requiring that much blood is bound to be something fashioned of purest malevolence. This kind of magic feeds on your soul and leaves a taint behind. “If this is the kind of thing Svetlana is into, it was no wonder the guys noticed a change in her.”

  She began to chant and dance. I could feel power starting to move. “What’s the big mirror for, then? Feng Shui?”

  “What mirror?”

  “That one, right there.” I zoomed in on
what looked like the top of the diagram. It was full length to say the least, around four to five feet wide, ten high. We could just see the edge of it from where I was crouching. The frame was covered in glyphs and charging up like a Taser.

  “That’s bad Alex, really bad.”

  “What can they do with a setup like this? He asked, knowing he was hating the answer already.”

  “A mirror used in magic like this is only for one thing, a portal. With something of this magnitude, they could send anyone anywhere, a bank vault, the UN, The White House...”

  “Mai? Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “I didn’t want to say it until I was sure, but yes.”

  “They could BRING anyone or anything from anywhere?”

  “Right.”

  “Shit!”

  “We can’t be sure of anything from this height. We have to get down there and get a better look. Alex, we are running out of time. In a short while the moon will be at its full zenith.”

  “And then?”

  “They’ll probably use Shelly as a sacrifice,”

  “That is NOT going to happen on MY watch.”

  “We still have time. Nothing can happen until the incantation is complete and she just started the dance. Look to the right, see them?”

  “I see ‘em.” Svetlana’s security detail was spreading out to surround the circle, with their backs to her. She was making sure she wouldn’t be interrupted. I slipped over the edge of the roof and lowered myself to the ground. Putting up my Shroud again, I made my way back to Kolann and the boys. They looked anxious, watching the building intently. Reggie jumped when I appeared in their midst. Kolann’s eyes were filled with quiet intensity. “What’s the situation, Mack?”

  “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would have sworn I was watching a bad B movie entitled ‘Larry, Dale, and Dale Meet Vampirella’.” Archie turned from watching the building. “That bad?” I nodded gravely. “The circus has definitely come to town gentlemen and we are all holding box seats. CLEARLY we are not dealing with professionals for the most part.” Reggie was changing to the special heat resistant, ceramic lined rifle barrel I brought. “For the most part, Mr. Walker?” We were about to shed blood together and face what were most likely going to be the most ghastly horrors of his short life. The mister had to go. “OK, call me Dalton or Mack. Otherwise don’t talk to me Regg, catch my meaning?” He nodded as he checked his firing mechanism. “Yes, Mack. What aren’t you telling us?”