Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 28

They’d been in place for three hours and Yank’s boredom meter was already pegged. They were on radio silence and no amount of imagination was going to help him pass the time. He hated waiting, which was one of the reasons he’d become a SEAL. Too many nights aboard ship pulling watch, staring at a display or out to sea, had been such a mind-numbingly brutal existence that he seriously had considered quitting the military and returning to Los Angeles.

And now, here he was waiting once more, pulling a sort of watch. The only thing good about it was that at the end of this he’d have a chance to shoot people. Maybe even kick them in the head a few times. He took a deep breath and reminded himself why they were here. It was like Holmes had said: We don’t really give a fuck about someone else’s problems. We were formed to protect our country, to deal with her problems. But when someone else’s problems become one of our problems, then we’re all-in.

All-in. Yank liked that.

Just as his adopted father, Uncle Joe, had been all-in for Yank.

Petty Officer Second Class Shonn Yankowski. That name really told his entire story. He could have chosen the name of his father, who’d ended doing life in Chino. Yank had never met the man but knew he was a thug for the 22nd Street Hustlers and part of the Bloods. His last name had been Johnson, but Yank had refused to take the name of a man he’d never met. He could have kept the name of his mother, who after spending his first six years clean and sober had broken down into the sorry caricature of an L.A. crack whore. Named Rennie Sabathia, his mother had called him Shonny, which went well with her last name. And he’d owned that name, right up until the day she’d died in the fire and he’d earned the burns on the side of his face trying to save her. At thirteen, he’d met Joseph Yankowski, recently transferred from Chicago to Los Angeles as part of the longshoremen’s union. Uncle Joe, as Shonn learned to call him, ran a foster home in San Pedro, and Shonn soon found the first stable and safe place he’d ever known. Fostering turned to adoption, and by the time Shonn turned eighteen and made his desire known that he wanted to join the U.S. Navy he also had changed his name to Yankowski, out of respect and love for Uncle Joe—not really an uncle, not even a relative, but more of a father than he’d ever imagined having.

Holmes reminded him of Uncle Joe. They were both hard-ass, no-nonsense types, but you could tell that underneath it all they cared immensely about what they were doing.

Nothing at all like Laws. There were times that he loved working for the brainiac. But others, like when Laws made fun of him back in the hangar, he wanted nothing more than to haul off and slug the guy. Laws seemed to always be yanking his chain about something. While Yank appreciated humor as much as the next sailor, he didn’t like it done at his expense.

He sighed.

He’d figure out how to handle Laws. The key was to keep his cool until he did so.

Yank checked the monitors through a toggle on his QUADEYE. They’d set up four cameras. Either they’d show when someone was coming or else the image would become distorted. Either way, they’d have some warning.

Holmes had sat him up in an alcove in the main hall. The gargantuan interior was like being in a domed football stadium, that is, if the stadium had marble steps, polished wood rails, wainscoting, and elevated ceilings with tray case paintings and skylights. It was beyond elegant. It was what the British called posh.

The night security lights created pools of luminosity through which a security guard moved along his normal route. He’d been told to ignore the SEALs and Section 9 members. Ian had shown the man a badge and said something about national security and it was all over. The guard had been relieved. He had thought they were there to pick him up because of his wife’s overdrafts. That Triple Six didn’t care made his day.

Yank shouldered his HK416 and plugged his QUADEYE into the rifle’s scope. He zoomed in on the areas of the roof outside the skylights but couldn’t detect any movement. If he had to bet, they’d come from that direction. It’s where he would come from if he was infiltrating.

His MBITR crackled. “Ghost Four, this is Ghost One. Status? Over.”

“Ghost One, this is Ghost Four. Nothing here.”

Of course this all could be a crap shoot. The Red Grove might never show. No sooner did he think that then a shadow twisted on his periphery. He turned toward it but saw nothing. Just a wall with a bronze bust in front of it. Then he saw another shadow, this time to his left. But just as before, when he turned it was gone.

They called it ghosting. Seeing things that weren’t there. He thought about calling Holmes but didn’t want to be the one to sound a false alarm. He was literally just chasing shadows now and would only call if he had anything besides his own tired and inventive imagination.

Shadows twisted twice more in his peripheral vision. Both times nothing was there when he looked. He altered strategy and began staring straight ahead, counting on his peripheral vision to sort itself out. Then he saw them… actually saw them… shadows, crawling across the walls. Roughly humanoid in shape, they moved fast across the surface, like lizards.

He toggled his mike and was prepared to tell his team, when he felt cold.

Everything went black.

Then he was falling.

Holmes and Sassy Moore were in the sub-basement room called the cauldron. The head sat in the middle of a metal table, upon which a pentacle had been drawn in white chalk. A gag had been placed over the golem’s mouth, but the eyes remained fixed on Sassy, as if she’d been chosen as the target of the monster’s enmity. Other strange symbols adorned the points of the inverted star. Sassy had her eyes closed and was humming slightly off-key.

Holmes called for another report. All SEALs answered except Ghost Four. Holmes tried again, but still no response. He called the team net. “Ghost Four may be down. Prepare.”

“Ghost One, this is Ghost Two,” Laws said, keeping radio discipline despite the sudden jolt of concern in his voice. “I’m in the best position to check on Ghost Four.”

“Negative, Ghost Two. We’ll wait and see if it’s not just radio issue.”

“And if it’s not?” Walker asked, unconcerned with net discipline.

“Then we’ll know soon enough, Ghost Three.”

Holmes was about to call for Yank again but stared at the head instead, which was now floating five inches above the table.

“Um, Miss Moore? Should the head be doing that?”

Her eyes snapped open. “Oh, hell.” She closed her eyes again. This time her hum was louder but equally off-tune as the one before.

The head began to gently lower. But it never did get all the way back to the table. It hovered a mere inch above the surface for a moment, then began to rise again.

“Better try something different.”

She opened her eyes, reached out, and grabbed the head. She pressed it firmly back on the table in the center of the pentacle, then removed her hands. It stayed where it was this time.

“I thought that design meant other witches couldn’t touch it.”

“I thought so too. But there are so many arrayed against me.”

“Will you be able to keep it down?”

“With any luck.”

Holmes stared at the head as it stared at him. He called for Yank once more. Nothing.

“Are they close?” he asked the witch.

“Yes and no. I feel someone, somewhere near. But they’re also all over the astral plane. I’m having trouble hiding.”

“What happens if they find you?”

“If I can’t get away or take them down, then I’m stuck there.”

“Stuck as in—”

“Forever. Now hush, you big old SEAL, and let me concentrate.”

Holmes keyed his mike. “Ghost Two, move out and track down Ghost Four. Report everything, over.”

Laws keyed his mike twice, signaling affirmative.

Holmes leaned back against a file cabinet. He fought the feeling of helplessness that crawled on little monster feet into his thoughts. The head stared at him with laughing eyes.

Laws was three rooms over from the central hall. They’d placed him in the Ecology exhibit hall because of its proximity to the only two elevators and two sets of stairs capable of reaching the lower levels where the others were. The idea was not for him to engage any targets but to allow them to descend to where Walker, YaYa, Ian, and Trevor awaited.

But that was before Yank went silent.

Laws moved swiftly through the exhibit, keeping out of the center of the room. He left his QUADEYE off, using the ambient security light, which was enough for him to do pretty much anything but read. When he reached the doorway to the central hall, he took a quick look inside, then brought his head back. He didn’t see anything.

He looked again, this time concentrating on the area where Yank was stationed.

Gone.

Where could he have gone?

Then Laws heard scuffling.

He spun around the corner, his sound-suppressed HK416 sunk into his shoulder and ready to fire. There, at the far end of the gallery, was a man being dragged by two immense dogs. Not just any man, but one clad in black with body armor.

Laws sprinted toward them. The immense dogs were the same he’d seen in the still photos the girl had provided to the media. On the screen they had looked strange, but in person they were truly disturbing, especially the reverse bending elbow of the too-human arms each beast had for its front legs.

Of more immediate concern was that Yank wasn’t moving.

Laws opened fire, catching each hound with half a dozen rounds. He’d taken down chupacabra bigger than these things with less. For good measure, he unloaded the rest of the magazine into them.

They blinked at him, then dropped Yank and sprang toward him. He did the only thing he could think of—he ran. He took a dozen steps and leaped into the air, grabbing the rear right leg of the Apatosaurus skeleton that dominated the center of this part of the central hall. He pulled himself up frantically and found his perch on the skeleton’s back before the creatures were able to follow.

One leaped and failed to find purchase, sliding back to the floor, falling on its back, then twisting to its feet.

The other, however, was able to hang on using the fingers of the human arms. It pulled itself up, where it found its balance on the Apatosaurus’s back.

Laws backed away and began to climb the giant dinosaur’s neck, using the vertebrae as stepping-stones. The display wasn’t meant to hold a man, much less a mythical monster. It creaked and shifted. A low tremble went through the entire skeleton, but it seemed to hold. He climbed as high as the head; then there was nowhere else to climb.

The hound climbed unsteadily after him, using its fingers to pull and hold itself. It snapped twice at him, almost ripping through the fabric of his pants.

Laws let go of the neck and hung from the jawbone of the extinct herbivore. He glanced beneath him and saw the other hound pacing there, occasionally glancing up. Less than six feet away from him stood the other hound on the neck of the dinosaur. It appeared to be getting ready to leap. Or was it just balancing? Laws wasn’t sure, but he was sure he’d ended up in the worst possible position.

Check that.

The creaking increased. Suddenly there was a great crack. One of the backbones fell to the floor.

Both Laws and the hound stared at it.

“Fetch the bone,” he whispered. “Come on, doggy. Fetch.”

Instead of complying, the hound growled.

“Ghost One, this is Ghost Two.” Laws’s words came between grunts of effort as he adjusted his slipping grip on the jaw. “We have two of the hounds here.”

“What’s the status of Ghost Four?”

Laws twisted his head to see where Yank was still lying in a heap. “Unclear.”

“Why is it unclear?” Holmes paused. “What are you doing?”

Laws thought of saying something like just hanging out, but he wasn’t feeling his inner Bruce Willis. Before Laws could respond a series of cracks shot through the great space. The neck of the dinosaur collapsed under his and the hound’s combined weight, sending them crashing to the floor. He fell hard on the other hound.

He lay stunned for a moment, trying to get the Earth, moon, and stars from revolving around his head.

The hound he’d landed on stirred.

The other jumped toward him, snapping.

Laws grabbed his rifle, which had been dangling by its sling, and brought the butt around to intersect with the head of the leaping hound.

It made a strangling noise and tumbled past.

Laws didn’t even look to see how it was doing. He scrambled off the other hound and broken skeleton, found his footing, then took off for Yank. He was more than halfway there before a hound behind him let out a howl. He approached Yank at a dead run, then made a controlled skid as he reached down and grabbed the downed man’s collar. Laws hauled the deadweight down a hall and through a side door. He was just able to pull it closed when a weight slammed against it, slamming it shut.

Finally, out of breath, but safe behind the door, he was able to answer Holmes and check on Yank.

Walker and YaYa exchanged glances through the darkness. Both of them wished they were upstairs. They were close enough to hear the sound of battle and the cataclysmic crash of the Apatosaurus skeleton in real time. Then came the telltale howl of the hound.

So many questions ran through Walker’s mind, especially ones regarding the fate of his fellow SEALs, but his mission was to secure the stairwell.

The two SEALs were in charge of securing one of the two sets of stairs that could be used to enter the basement. Ian and Trevor held the other.

When Walker heard Laws’s hurried report to Holmes, he was pleased that the lanky second in command had made it, but was concerned for Yank. It took a moment for Laws to ascertain his status, but it appeared as if the newest member of the team was unconscious and there was nothing Laws could do to change that.

Walker was so engrossed listening to the play-by-play that he almost missed the attack, foreshadowed only by the sound of metal on granite. One glance at the grenade bouncing down the stairs made him switch his QUADEYE off.

“Flash bang!”

He closed his eyes and a moment later the universe exploded into white. As it faded, he switched his night vision back on. He could see YaYa shaking his head, clearly having missed or been unable to heed the warning. But that was the least of his concerns.

Boots rattled against marble as five men charged down the stairs.

Walker pegged three of them in the chest and one in the leg before he had to swing back around the corner. Return fire exploded wood and stone from the doorway he’d left. Unable to fire back, he tossed his own flash-bang grenade. When it went off, he slung himself back around the corner and to the floor, changing levels. He fired. Two men went down, but two others were pulling a wounded man back up the stairs.

YaYa jerked his QUADEYE free. He’d felt blind with it. At least now, he could operate in the gloom.

“Ghost One, this is Ghost Three. Five beegees tried to infil west staircase. One down. Four retreated.”

Walker was about to check on the downed man when he heard gunfire from the east staircase.

Ian and Trevor weren’t fucking around. They’d dangled a grenade from the upper stairwell, tied it off to the railing, and trailed a filament-thin line so they could quickly pull the greased pin… which they did as three men stormed down the stairs. Ian and Trevor twisted around the wall, putting several feet of marble between them and the blast.

One thousand one.

One thousand two.

One thousand three.

Kaboom!

One of the attackers was about to breach the doorway but was flung to the wall like a broken-backed toy by the explosion. When it came, it was like a dragon’s roar. Flame, pieces of meat and muscle, and thousands of granite and marble chips shot through the doorway. Whoever they were, they didn’t have time to scream or react, and the grenade had been too high to notice.

When the pieces stopped falling, both men stood and surveyed the stairs.

Trevor wiped soot from his face. “Bloody fucking hell.”

“Takes care of that.” Ian turned to the one who’d been slung free of the blast, intent on a quick interrogation. But one look at the exposed spine and the head spun halfway around told Ian there’d be no words coming from this gent.

“Demon One, this is Ghost One; report.”

Ian tapped Trevor on the shoulder and gestured toward the stairs. “Moving to flank.”

They stacked up the stairs, slipping a little on the pieces of the would-be attackers. When they hit the top, they got down and turned toward the Fossil Marine Reptile exhibit. Ian peered around the corner and spied five men in black, night-vision goggles, body armor, and black skullcaps preparing to descend. He raised his rifle, sighted in through the fixed optics, and put two rounds into the side of the nearest man’s head.

The reaction was instantaneous as the remaining four knelt and returned fire.

Ian ducked around the corner as rounds slammed into the concrete and granite. He pointed behind them where the restaurant was, indicating Trevor should move in that direction. Once he was moving, Ian pulled another grenade, made a silent apology to the Queen for blowing up even more of her museum, pulled the pin, then tossed it around the corner.

He barreled after Trevor, only to come up short as he watched what could only be one of those hounds making its way across the tops of the tables directly toward them.

“Back down!” Ian commanded.

They turned and crashed down the stairs, taking them three at a time. Halfway down they slipped on gore, falling hard to the marble-edged stairs. Their body armor took the brunt of the damage, but the air left them. Still, they were all that was left of Section 9 and by god Ian wasn’t going to allow them to go out as supernatural dog food.

He got to his feet first, then reached down for Trevor. He pushed the kid in front of him just as an immense weight plowed into his back, throwing him face-first to the ground.

Walker had made the stairs and was firing upwards, sending ricochets into the hall above. Ian and Trevor had countered the attack. He had no doubt they were going to stack down and take advantage of the second flash bang. That the Section 9 guys had drawn their fire had been a godsend. Now it was time to repay their effort.

He’d grabbed YaYa and they were about to move up the stairs when they heard Trevor’s scream over the net.

“It followed us down the stairs!”

One glance said Walker and YaYa were in tune. As one, they left the stairs and ran back into the basement. They peeled left and after several turns came upon the scene of the beast-like hound trying to chew through the back of Ian’s body armor.

Both Walker and YaYa opened fire. The momentum from the bullets punched the creature from Ian’s back but had no other effect.

“Fucking kidding me.” YaYa fired full auto until his HK was empty. He’d knocked the beast down, but even as he watched, it climbed to its feet and let free an arcane howl.

Another beast climbed down the stairs. The sight of its human arms as forelegs and hands gripping the marble sent chills down Walker’s back. He shook his head and backed away.

“One, this is Three; we have two hounds down here. The other staircase is open. Time to bug out, over.”

He heard two clicks and reached down slowly to haul Ian to his feet.

“Back away, gents. Let these critters do what they need to.”

While the new hound snarled at them, it made no move to attack.

The other hound turned and padded toward the other set of stairs. If they’d planned this right, it would turn left and head down to the lower level where they had the golem head. Walker’s and the rest of their jobs were over. They found a utility closet they’d prepared earlier, and backed inside.

Once the door was secure, he called the net. “All Ghosts, this is Ghost Three and Five and Demon One and Two. All secure.”

“All Ghosts, this is Ghost Two with Four. All secure.”

Walker was gratified to hear that Laws and Yank were okay. He waited for what seemed like a full minute before Holmes called in.

“All Ghosts, this is Ghost One and the Crone. All secure. Wait until you get the all clear, then rendezvous to site one.”

Walker let out a sigh of relief. They might be a little beat up, but their mission was a success. Now to see if they could track the head.