Brooklyn Knight (33 page)

Deciding the entity within Bakur was not going to speak again without further prompting, Knight decided on the direct approach. Summoning all of his diminished courage into one lump, he squeezed it as tightly as he could, praying his voice would not crack as he asked;

“So, this dimension of yours, where is it exactly? Why have you come here? What is it you want?”

“You question me?”

Knight froze slightly. For the first time, the Bakur thing managed to throw tone into its communication. Darker, angry, the words crackled with warning within the professor’s mind. Straining to remain jovial, the curator answered;

“Again, my fine new friend, I can’t help you if I don’t know where you’re from, or what you want. I mean, are you something that’s come this way before? What we might think of as, oh, I don’t know … the Christian Devil? An Iblis, Ahriman, or Shaitan from the Middle East? Maybe the Teutonic Nixie, the Huldrefolk of Norway, Australia’s Bunyip … we’ve had so many extradimensional visitors here. If you would just—”

Silence!

The single word rang within Knight’s mind, shattering his concentration, forcing his mounting fear once more to the surface. His nerve endings tingling, teeth close to chattering, the professor searched desperately for a next move when suddenly the Bakur thing obliged him by revealing all he had wanted to know.

“I am none of the petty mites your tiny monkey brain can comprehend. But do not know fear, Piers Knight. I will reveal to you all you wish to know, and then you will do all that I command!”

The professor heard the horror’s words in his mind, and for a moment his soul sparked with hope. Once he understood, once he had a handle on what was happening, he prayed, then he might plan a strategy; then he might be able to cobble together some
kind of defense. For one brief split second, optimism flooded the curator’s brain with assurance.

Then, the Bakur thing seared his mind with all the information he desired, and Piers Knight responded by falling to his knees and screaming into the night.

“Get those men out of there,” shouted Harris. Waving his arms at his subordinates in the command center, he told them, “Do it. Get everyone out of the field. Pull them back—
now, goddamn it
!”

The major general did not fault those around him for being stunned—for momentarily freezing in helpless silence. The fantastic horrors they all had witnessed, the screaming terror they had heard, it had shocked him into immobility for a moment as well. Scores of his men dead, hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment destroyed, in only a matter of minutes. He had never before experienced such losses, never had a command so utterly routed—so completely destroyed. Worse than all that had happened so far, however, was the fact that none of them still had even the slightest idea what they were up against.

What in all the hells is that thing,
wondered Harris, his mind swirling, grasping at straws. It was one thing to dutifully trot off to services every Sunday, to drone
prayers along with the rest of the congregation, mouthing homilies as he had done since childhood. Where he was at that instant in time was something completely different—something for which he was not prepared. Now he was faced with what appeared to be exactly what he had been praying about all that time, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Dear Jesus in Heaven
, he thought.
Is this it?
Staring at the one monitor someone in the room had managed to get working once more, the major general studied the moving images they had chosen to replay. Once more watching the shambling monstrosity blaze its way across his domain with impunity, he wondered;

Is it … that
thing …
is it a demon, some kind of devil—the Devil?

And then the absurdity of what Harris had just said reminded the commander of an old
Weekly World News
cover. It had featured a diabolical face superimposed over a cloud above the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. The headline had read:
Satan Escapes from Hell
.

It couldn’t be
, he thought to himself, worked hard to believe.
But if it’s not, then what? What is it?

A blazing, silent beast striding the earth, destroying the faithful, obliterating his men with ease, wiping all he had been charged to keep whole from the face of the planet. Merciless, monstrous—evil incarnate.

Is it?
the major general continued to wonder.
Could it be? Could it actually
be
?

A second series of tremendous quakes rattled the command post at that moment, overturning tables and chairs, throwing people to the ground, disrupting the ever so recently reestablished power. Lights flickered once more; computer screens phased in and out of operation. The new, major tremors were followed by a series of lesser ones, then another massive blast that rattled the
entire building, violently shaking the roof and showering the interior with the dust of decades. As he staggered back to his feet, Harris demanded;

“What in the name of God is going on?”

“I’m on the line with Charlie command, sir!” shouted an officer who had already managed to regain his footing. “That, that thing—whatever it is—it’s blasting the ground. It’s not even trying to hit anything. They say it’s just firing randomly, into the sky, burning the hills. It’s throwing energy in every direction… . It’snot even looking for targets anymore.”

The soldier seemed ready to say more, then stopped suddenly. Realizing the officer was receiving further updates through his com link, Harris held his mounting questions, giving his subordinate a moment to not only finish listening to whatever message was coming in but to compose himself. Listening to the nervous edge in the man’s voice a moment earlier, the major general had been afraid the officer was about to lose control.

“Sir,” Harris let go a silent sigh of relief at the renewed vigor in the officer’s tone. The commander could tell from the single word that somehow the soldier had pulled himself together even though what he had to report was worse news. “The … the thing …”

The major general understood the officer’s hesitation. It had dawned on Harris suddenly that by using the word “thing” that he was describing the force they were struggling against as some sort of actual, possibly even
living
being. The major general nodded to the man, a motion giving the officer silent approval to continue. Swallowing hard, the soldier added;

“It’s moving again, sir. It appears the moment the objective was delivered to Post Baker, the thing started on a direct path toward that post.”

“Sir,” interrupted Klein, dusting himself off. “If I might make a suggestion?”

“Right now I’m open to even civilian opinions.”

The FBI man took an extra second to make certain of his footing, then hurried across the room, saying, “We’re out of the city, out in the country. They worry about fires everywhere, but out here, where there isn’t a fire hydrant every forty feet, they have to have different options—right?” Not being slow on the uptake, Harris saw instantly where Klein was trying to lead him;

“You’re talking forest-fire equipment, helicopters outfitted with water-drop bags, chemical foam bombs—that kind of thing. Right?”

“That was my thought, sir.”

Immediately the major general sprang into action. Signaling his communications officer, he ordered the man to mobilize the fort’s own firefighting teams. Then, as soon as that was accomplished, he was to pull together a team as quickly as possible and to get them working on finding any additional firefighting equipment that might be available in the area.

“Put no more than five minutes into each call,” Harris ordered. “And if they don’t volunteer their services, send a detachment at top speed to confiscate everything they have.” As the soldier snapped off a salute, then turned to start putting those he picked to work, the major general called out to another of his aides;

“Captain, I’m willing to gamble that damn Hell thing is in tune with our Dream Stone. That it somehow knows where it is at all times.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get in touch with Post Baker. Grab a Jeep and get out there in person if the phones are out. That damned monster thing, whatever it is, it’s obviously attracted to Mr. Klein’s Dream Stone. All right, fine, if that’s the case, then I want that thing stuffed into something light and fast, and I want it in motion.”

“Sir … ?”

“Get it in a truck and get it moving. We want to keep that thing in the area and we want to keep it busy.”

And, with those words, all across the command center the faces of men and women began to light up as they regained their confidence. Their leader had a plan. Something for them to focus upon, to work toward. Brushing at the dust covering his head, Harris stared into the face of the FBI man standing next to him and said;

“We’ll knock this thing down a peg yet, what do you think, Mr. Klein?”

“Goddamn it, sir,” responded the agent, crossing his fingers as the entire command center suddenly shook once more, “but you just might be right.”

Then, Klein closed his eyes for a moment and offered up a prayer in the Hebrew that he had not used for a very long time.

“Foolish mortal …”

Professor Piers Knight lay on the ground, panting, steam rising from his pain-wracked body. The part of his brain that had managed to regain control over at least some of its functions was desperately struggling to get him moving once more with little success.

“Your pitiful resistance …”

With a Homeric effort the professor managed to flip himself over, his back coming away from the ground, his hands bracing for the inevitable impact. Catching himself a split second before the action would have driven his face into the cemetery lawn, Knight fought the urge to simply collapse.

“Do you understand now, human, how useless such actions are?”

The professor nodded weakly, struggling to give off an outward appearance of weak compliance while his brain raced to make use of the information it had acquired.

He now understood that the man known as Hamid Bakur was long gone, that he had been completely replaced by the horror sneering within Knight’s own mind. The thing living within the terrorist’s former shell was burning it away at a rapid pace, using its life force at a tremendous rate. The professor had also learned that the thing was indeed from another dimension. And that within its home plane of existence it was known as the A’ademir.

“You’ve been here before,” gasped Knight, stalling for time. Releasing his words as slowly as possible, using each of them as a desperate bid to regain his strength, he said, “Thousands of years ago. You came to this world. You devoured Memak’tori.”

In his mind, during the burning moment of agony in which he and the A’ademir had shared consciousness, the professor had witnessed the entire affair. Nearly ten thousand years in the past, the world’s first great metropolis had grown too fast, become too cosmopolitan too quickly. Within its boundaries, possessed by the arrogance of the naive, its citizens believed all truly intelligent beings had to be benevolent.

“Its inhabitants … their minds, their souls,” Knight gasped audibly, more for dramatic purposes than to capture breath. Forcing his knees to bend, his arms to slowly push his body upward, he continued to stall, asking, “The freshness of their ideas, the purity of the ideals … that’s what attracted you here. That … that’s why you’re here again—isn’t it?”

“You are a wonderfully clever little bug, Piers Knight. I am certain you will prove to be one of the tastiest morsels to be found when I return.”

“Yes, that’s the key, isn’t it?” Lifting his hands from the ground, his feet finally planted firmly beneath himself once more, the professor stood slowly, then turned to face the horror from beyond. Coughing, not surprised to taste blood as he did so, Knight wiped at his mouth as he asked;

“That’s why you haven’t been able to simply reach out and suck away my life essence, or anyone else’s. You’re not actually here yet, are you?”

The Bakur thing stood unmoving for a moment, then raised its hands until they were at the level of the puppet’s waist. The horror paused for another few seconds and then, with mocking slowness, applauded Knight’s answer. Forcing a smile onto its face, the shambler said;

“So exceptionally clever. You are correct, Piers Knight. I do not touch at this moment, in any sense in which you understand the physical planes of existence, touch your world—no. Not yet. But I shall soon. As soon as the mite which I have dispatched to retrieve the beacon completes its task.”

“The Dream Stone,” gasped Knight. Finally standing erect once more, honestly swaying slightly from the exertion, the professor took a moment to steady himself before he ended up falling back to the ground. Then, panting, he wiped at his mouth, again, telling the thing before him, “Its form, its carvings, that’s got nothing to do with its value to you. You simply need it returned to Memak’tori. You can’t find your way back here without it being there—can you?”

“Immensely correct you are,” answered the A’ademir smugly. “But that idea shall be fact in but a handful of breaths. And then I shall flash across the face of your world consuming all in my path.”

The professor did not bother himself with trying to understand the insane geometry of it all. Why the horror could not find a location in which, in at least one sense, at least some part of it already existed was an academic puzzle that could be solved later. Right now, it gave Knight the answer he needed. Pointing at the Bakur thing, he spat;

“You, you were invited by the Memak’torians. They thought
you some manner of great benefactor, some all-knowing Godhead. They imagined that interaction with you would make them gods themselves, didn’t they?”

“Always so very true. I have devoured trillions of such helplessly infantile races. Their minds, so childishly foolish, believing all advancement leads to the same destination. Last time I passed by close enough to taste your universe, it was but one small patch of you that had cluttered their minds with such gibberish—”