Frenchy Ledoux leaned around Brute to take a gander at what had captured the big man’s attention. “What is it, boss?” he asked, squinting at the case.
I took a good look and all I saw was a metal ring about five inches in diameter and a half-inch thick. Made of bronze, it was heavily tarnished, so much so that the intricate scrollwork around the edges had faded into black. What made the little metal circle more interesting was the bronze Star of David attached to the inner ring by each of the six points. The star was also crusty with centuries of tarnish.
“Is it a medallion?” I asked. “If so, it’s a pretty big one.”
Brute, staring raptly at the artifact, shook his head. “This is no medallion. Intel says all these were placed here this morning from storage for the big unveiling tomorrow. If I’m not mistaken, it’s—” A roar, so loud it stunned my ears, cut him off. It sounded like King Kong was having a prostate exam.
“What the f—” Another roar drowned Waldo’s words.
Whatever it was, it sure got our attention. Six weapons were raised as we formed a circle, backs to the center. It didn’t take long to find out what was what.
It was Sue, all bones and wire, the long-dead T. rex, reanimated and hunting new game. Us. Thirteen feet tall at the hip doesn’t sound so big, but when you realize that’s only half of her, all crouched over for the hunt, then the sheer size of the skeleton is driven home like a punch in the gut when you least expect it.
Concrete broke apart, glass shattered, and displays were knocked about as Sue trundled through the exhibit store to the Yates Center, bashing through anything foolish enough to stand in her way.
What came our way wasn’t bone. When an organism’s soft tissues decay, the bones are left behind and water seeps into them. The minerals in the water replace the minerals that comprise the bones after the water dissolves them. What’s left behind are the minerals. For all intents and purposes … stone. Now a few dozen tons of rock was heading toward us, cracking stone flooring like it was balsawood.
We had about thirty seconds until it smashed us into salsa. Brute wasted no time on subtleties, barking out orders quickly and efficiently. “Team, fire at will. Waldo, do something about that thing.”
Flashes erupted as we all cut loose at once from magically silenced weapons. Sue took some damage as bullets gouged small chunks out of her with dull crackings, but she lowered her six-hundred-pound skull and the rounds shattered against it with minimal effect.
As for Waldo, he frowned around the stump of his cigar and stared at the approaching Paleolithic peril. “Uh, guys,” he began, frowning mightily, “this might take a while.”
Not good, I thought as Sue barreled toward us. My Lahti spit bullets, but the 9mm rounds simply flattened on her humongous skull. I jumped to the side as, with one mighty lunge, she was upon us.
Waldo backpedaled, eyes still locked on the ambulatory skeleton, keeping out of reach of teeth the size of bananas. Frenchy unloaded with an auto shotgun, and that had the most effect, the deer slugs tearing apart Sue’s ribcage. Unfortunately, there were no organs to shatter, no heart to stop.
Mouth ran around behind and got a gutful of dino tail that sent her flying. For a moment I feared she might be dead as she landed hard on the tile floor, but her curses put paid to that possibility. Growler used armor-piercing bullets to chip away at the T. rex, but at the rate he was going, it’d take a week before he could whittle Sue down to size. Still, the rounds did enough damage to send rock dust flying. I could feel it sticking to my teeth as I inhaled. As for Brute, he was hammering at the case holding the bronze circle with the butt of his rifle, the security glass forming starry rings under the weight of the blows.
How do you stop something that’s already dead?
An answer came to mind. Not a good one, but it might buy some time for Waldo to figure out what to do. If not, we were all destined to be road kill and Sue was the semi bearing down on us.
Before I could do anything, however, Sue lunged with such speed and such birdlike precision that it was over before I could blink. One second Frenchy Ledoux was blasting away off to the right of the beast, the next he was gone from the waist up. His legs and hips toppled to the floor as the upper half of him took an eTicket ride in Sue’s enormous jaws. His screams were mercifully brief.
And the rage hit.
It’s hard to describe—the fury that overcame me, enhancing all my physical characteristics. Safe to say it chased away all doubt, all fear, and replaced them with a singular, diamond-hard, red-tinged purpose that nothing could deter.
No thought, just action. No hesitation, just motion. Like a rhesus monkey at a jungle gym I climbed Sue’s ribcage so fast I left skin from my palms behind. Before she could react, I was perched behind her skull, holding on for dear life as the bones of her vertebrae did no good things to my kibbles and bits.
The bony monstrosity reacted pretty much like I expected.
As I mentioned earlier, when a T. rex charges, it leans far forward, lowering its torso until it is perpendicular to the ground with its tail straight out behind for balance. This makes the beast look smaller than it really is. When it rears up to its full height, then you see what’s what.
I saw Mouth’s lips move, and I was a good enough lip reader to see that the words she uttered would stand my mother’s hair on end … right before she used the soap to wash out her cussing mouth. Mom didn’t truck with foul language.
As for me, I held on for dear life while my cheeks ached from my manic grin. I was having the time of my life, a rider on the biggest damn bull in the strangest damn rodeo ever. It was more fun than I’d had in a long time, ever since that bug hunt in the Florida Everglades where I’d screwed the pooch but wound up killing a praying mantis the size of a Greyhound bus.
Sue shook herself like a dog shedding water, thrashing back and forth as I held on to holes on either side of her skull, my hands steel vises that refused to let go as she tried to buck me off.
I screamed in fury as she suddenly juked left. I would’ve flown off, but my legs were wrapped tight around her vertebrae. Still in the grip of my berserker rage, I pulled out a .45 ACP and started pounding on her huge skull with the butt, my left hand clutched in a death grip. On the third strike, bone began to crack and powder—not much, but enough to send a thrill through me. My eyes found Brute and I let out a victory scream.
Waldo’s eyes flashed a strange blue color, deep, almost black. I only noticed it because he’d stepped forward, hands in the air, palms out. I would’ve yelled at him to move it before he got his fool head bit off, but suddenly, with a sudden jerk and a groan, T. rex fell to floor, taking me with her.
An instant before the dino hit, I tried to leap free, but no dice, and I took a vertebra to the crotch. The rage blunted the pain, but my breath still left my lungs in a whoosh and my knees hit the tile with such brain-numbing force that I was sure they were broken. Not even the rage could sustain me after so much damage.
The world was a dark, hard place and I fell into it face first, my jaw cracking on the floor in the midst of a god-awful clattering of fossil bones. Before I went unconscious I saw stars.
“How is he, Waldo?”
“Ugly all day.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, boss. He’ll be fine, despite breaking his jaw and both kneecaps. If all the king’s horses and all the king’s men had me around, Humpty Dumpty would be just fine. This idiot was a piece of cake. Look, he’s coming around already.”
I knew exactly what was going on. The sensations of coming back from a major healing were unfortunately becoming all too familiar. One good thing I could say was that I did wake up. Too many Agents didn’t.
“Good job, Waldo,” I grumbled through a phlegmy throat. “Don’t feel any residual pain.” Both Brute and Waldo appeared when I opened my eyes, peering down at me. The Magician looked smug and the boss seemed irritated.
That irritation came out in his voice as he said, “That was the most boneheaded maneuver I’ve ever seen, Hakala. What were you thinking?”
Didn’t have the heart to tell him that thinking wasn’t at the top of my list at the time, but Waldo spared me a response by saying, “He was buying time, boss.” The stub of his cigar migrated from left to right, a sight so disgusting it turned my stomach. “That fool stunt bought me enough time to figure out what’s what. Turns out it was a minor possession spell, which, of course, a Magician of my caliber was able to break.”
I grabbed Brute’s hand and he hauled me to my feet. “Sure, Waldo, you’re so good, there should be two of you.” There, I was upright and feeling marvelously well, not a dent in the fender, not a scratch on the paint.
The portly Magician grinned. Not a pretty sight with that turd jetting foul wads of smoke. “World can’t handle two of me.”
It was hard, but I refrained from barfing on his combat boots.
Shouldering him aside, Mouth took my chin in hand and examined me critically. “You’re still ugly.”
“You’re still bossy and tactless.”
Her smile showed all her teeth. “Of course.” Then her face fell. “Frenchy’s gone.”
That cooled the mood. “Saw that,” I said through jaws tight with suppressed anger. “And we made a mess of Sue.”
“Boss put in a call to Special Branch. We got some egghead types and some Magicians who can put the old girl to rights. After we’re done here, the museum won’t be able to tell that ol’ bony just had her prehistoric ass kicked.”
Brute cut in, voice filled with hate. “Let’s get back on point, people. Something doesn’t want us here and I think I know what it is.”
The remains of the team swiveled toward our leader, and we waited patiently while he took his sweet time answering. “This demon that killed the guard is an old one. Very powerful. A named one.”
I felt mice with icy feet run up and down my spine. The average demon (it constantly surprised me that I was jaded enough to use asinine phrases like ‘the average demon’) don’t have names. They’re either malevolent spirits or a species of infernal creatures we’ve come to assign to categories like ‘Type One’ or ‘Type Two.’ For a demon to actually possess a name means that it is more powerful than most and was able to travel to our plane of existence as flesh and/or spirit. If it came as spirit only, it would possess an unlucky host and cause mischief that way. If it came in the flesh, it was time to pucker up, bend over, and kiss your hind parts goodbye.
“Go on, already!” hollered Waldo suddenly, scaring five years off most of us. “What is it?”
Not one to be rushed, Brute merely gave the Magician the executive stink-eye and said, “I think this is a demon called Ornias.”
We let that rattle around our noggins like a BB in a boxcar until Growler said, “Say what?”
“In an old text called ‘The Testament of Solomon,’ there’s mention of a demon named Ornias.”
“The what of what?” This came from Mouth. Her pretty face was screwed up tight in puzzlement.
“An ancient text attributed to King Solomon,” I answered. That earned me a skeptical look from our fearless leader. “What? I’ve been studying; I came across a reference.”
Brute nodded. “Good. Keep studying. It might just save your life.” He took a deep breath. It was like watching a whale surface. “In the Testament, Ornias caused all manner of trouble, mostly to young, effeminate men. He’d leave burn marks on their bodies in the shape of human hands. Solomon eventually defeated the demon using the Ring of Solomon, also called the Seal of Solomon, and forced Ornias to help build the great temple in Jerusalem.” He held up the bronze circlet in his hand. “This, I believe, is the Seal of Solomon. This is what Ornias wants. He wants to destroy it before it can be used against demonkind once again.”
Holy crap on a cracker! I’d done a lot of research on Supernaturals, especially on a certain Finnish quasi-deity, but this was breaking new ground for me. My vendetta against Iku-Turso consumed most of my free time—when I wasn’t womanizing or drinking heroic amounts of vodka—so knowledge of artifacts like the Seal fell to the wayside. Now I had come to regret such a narrow focus.
A giant finger poked me in the sternum. “You still with us, Hakala?”
I followed that finger to the hand to a wrist as thick as a Louisville Slugger to an arm large as my right leg all the way to Brute’s eyes half hidden beneath the shelf of his brow. “Yeah, I’m always here, boss.”
A small nod flew my way. “Good.” To the rest of the team, he said, “Fall back to the lobby. I think Ornias isn’t done with us yet, and we’ll need the room to maneuver. Waldo, what about that pile of bones?”
“Kal’s T. rex horsie won’t be a problem, I put a stasis on it, and if the demon tries to lift it, I’ll know. We’ll have plenty of warning and now I know how to counter the big beast.” Waldo spat a gob of phlegm and tobacco on the floor.
“Good. Now on my six.” With that our leader stomped off toward the lobby, what was left of it, the team following like good little soldiers.
“What are we doing here, boss?” asked Growler as we gathered around the Information desk.
Brute kept his gaze shifting all around. “We’re waiting,” he took a deep breath, “for a demon.”
Two hours later we were still waiting. There’s only so long a human can remain on high alert before the tension bleeds out of the air and the body relaxes. Weeks of training in Coronado put steel in our spines, but metal only lasts so long before it oxidizes. The loss of focus begins with the droopy eyelids and thirst. You take one sip of water, then two, then three, and before you know it, your canteen is empty. The problem with drinking all that water is that it eventually has to make an exit. Ten ounces of water takes anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour to reach the bladder. Then it’s time for the pee-pee dance.
At first you try to hold it in. Just a little discomfort, right? Wrong. That discomfort becomes an ache, then a leg-crossing pain that has you bent over, walking funny until you head for the nearest bathroom or most convenient bush.
By the end of the second hour we were traveling to the bathroom in pairs. As it turned out, it was I who escorted Mouth.
“Oh, god,” she moaned from her stall in the men’s room. “This is better than sex!”
Relief flooded my torso as I whizzed in the urinal. Yeah, pretty darn good, but not better than sex and I told her so.
“It’s so easy for you men,” she replied over the tinkling sounds. “You just whip it out and let go anywhere you want. You don’t have to cop a squat.”
“Is this the basis for penis envy?”
“It’s the basis for getting your [CENSORED] ass kicked for bringing up that giant doofus Freud.”
“I sense anger issues.” Shake once, twice and tuck it away. Damn my bladder felt so much better.
“I sense that you better be nice to me, Kalevi Hakala, the Ferocious Finn, lest I take you down a peg or three in front of all your dickwad male friends.”
The smile on my face froze. I crossed my arms, leaning against the cool porcelain of a sink. “You know I’ve got no friends, Mouth. None that survive the Bureau, that is.”
She paused. “What about Canton?”
“He’s no longer Bureau.” I missed Canton something terrible. Possibly the best Agent I’d ever met, he was liquid death with a knife, tough as they came, sharp as a straight razor. Losing him to civilian life hurt more than I could say, but I was happy he was out of harm’s way. “You know what it’s like, Mouth. We’re like firefighters—we eat and sleep at Warehouse—but unlike firefighters, we stay there fulltime. I only get to see Canton during vacations and he’s plenty busy working for his father’s company in New York.” I shook my head. “This isn’t a job for making friends.”
The rasp of a zipper and the heavy rustle of Bureau armor filled the bathroom. “I know, Kal. This isn’t the kind of business for anything except death.” Her pretty face was set in a frown as she exited the stall.
Really, this conversation was getting a bit morose. “You know what I can’t wrap my head around?”
Mouth lifted an eyebrow.
“What I can’t understand is why we’re sitting around waiting for something to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, this Ornias character knows we’re on to him. Demons like him, the named ones, aren’t like the usual bundles of hate and evil. Even the bigger, nastier demons aren’t that bright, but Ornias isn’t acting like that.”
She chewed on that for a moment. “Sounds right. So what?”
“So, why would he attack us his own self? Why put his precious hide in jeopardy if the Seal of Solomon can control him? He’s got to be scared, but for some reason he wants the Seal bad enough to reanimate Sue and try to kill us all.”
“Think about it,” she said. “The Seal is one of the few things he can’t fight against, and if he gets his hands on it, he becomes stronger as a result.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel right. There’s no reason for him to steal the Seal, or even come close to it. He could lounge around on another continent causing mischief and not have to worry about it. So why go to all this trouble to get it? Why didn’t he steal it yesterday when he killed that guard?”
It took her a moment. Finally she said, “Maybe he was sent to retrieve it?”
Sounded plausible. “That makes sense, but then you have to ask—” I began.
“By whom?” she finished.