Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (35 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
Jytte slumped against the building's wall, and I knelt beside her. She gave me a weak smile, but I saw it wax and wane with the siren. I nodded to let her know I felt it, too, as Crowley used his lockpicks on the front door. I heard a click, then he slipped into the building. I wanted to get up to follow, but my resolve c rashed head on into the rising tone of the siren, and 1 could not move.
Suddenly, the emotional siren stopped. Crowley reappeared at the door and waved the two of us in. I helped Jytte up, and we followed the occultist into the house. He shut the door behind us, then led us over to a small cloakroom. He twisted a coathook built into the wall and caused a panel to withdraw.
At first glance, I knew 1 was looking at an alarm system. Bright little lights on a crude schematic of the grounds defined different areas of the estate. Around the house, the pool and a portion of the fence, an angry red light pulsed repeatedly. Green lights marked the rest of the compound, ft all looked almost normal.
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The r
eason it was not normal was because the components built into the alarm panel were not mechanical
or
electronic. The panel had not so much been assembled as it had been grown. Wormlike creatures glowed red
and green. Wet lines of mucus traced the connections from the circuitry and detection devices outside the building into this panel. Down below the light display, I saw a number of small creatures that looked like horseshoe crabs in miniature. One of them had a hole in its carapace that leaked a thick, green fluid on the ground.
Crowley kept his voice a low whisper. "This is the place. Dark Lord equipment. The alarm sent a message of unease out. It was a distress signal, and 1 would wager it did not make it through the armored shell of
Pygmalion's dimension."
I pointed to the red alarm lights around the pool house and fence. "You neutralized the alarm for the main house by killing it. Why weren't these two working?"
The occultist flicked a lockpick against one of the other crabs. Its brittle shell cracked and fell to dust on the floor. "Those alarms went off a while ago and died from their exertions, 1 would assume."
"Since the alarm was going off when we arrived, we have to assume others were here recently." Jytte worked the charging lever on her Ml 77. "Or are still here."
1 nodded. "Let's do it like we planned. We start at the top and work our way down."
I led the way from the front door back into the house. From the floorplan, we determined two likely spots for Pygmalion to maintain an office. The first was where the former vice president had put his office. The
advantage to it was, according to the floorplan, a number of built-in shelves, a built-in safe, hidden bar and an external door to the pool. 1 did not think those practicalities would matter as much to Pygmalion as his desire to set himself up in a place that once belonged to the second most powerful man on Earth.
Stalking through the house, I began to assemble a picture of Pygmalion that surprised and revolted me.
The original Santa Fe decor, which we had seen in numerous magazine layouts on the estate, had been
stripped out and replaced with something much more European. Heavy dark woods predominated both in
fixtures and furnishings, as if their bulk and age could give the owner a legitimacy he could not otherwise possess.
Just looking at the items, I knewthey were antiques that had been lovingly restored. I admired the
workmanship and, as we moved deeper into the house, 1 saw that the restorer's skill had gotten much
better. I got the sincere impression that the house itself was a work of art, or a retrospective display of work that had filled a career.
1 had not doubt Pygmalion was the artisan and that by looking back over my shoulder at Jytte, I would
see one of his finest creations.
The leftmost of the double-doors to the office stood open. 1 peered quickly through the crack, then
slipped into the room. 1 crouched immediately and swept the room with my MP-7, but 1 saw no targets
so I did not shoot. Reaching back, I opened the door more fully and waved my two companions on in.
Crowley crossed immediately to the huge portrait on the south wall and swung it away from the wall to
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expose
the safe. Jytte entered the room, then stopped in the center of it. She looked up and around at
the
vaulted ceiling, then slowly s
tarted to spin around as if in a daze. She made one complete circuit, then started another before she shivered and blinked her eyes.
I walked over to the huge, hardwood desk near the bank of windows in the west wall and dropped myself
into the chair behind it. "It's Pygmalion. This chair is cranked high enough that I'll smash my knees on the desk if I pull myself up to it," I whispered.
The occultist grinned. "This safe is very good. It will take explosive to open."
Jytte said nothing, but drifted toward the bookcase built-in beside the door. She reached up and tugged on one book, bringing it halfway out of the neat row. Nothing happened, so she shifted to a lower shelf and
tugged two or three books out of place. When that produced no results, she went to a third shelf, her
pulling becoming more frenzied.
Suddenly, a rumble sounded through the room. Jytte jumped back as the shelving unit slowly slid
forward, then to the side to block the door. Where it had stood, I saw a gray rectangle sunk into the floor.
Light came up from below, giving Jytte's face a granite hue.
Crowley ran over beside her, then knelt near the hole in the floor. 1 came around the desk on the other
side and tried to squeeze past Jytte and the moved bookshelf. She remained in place, and one of the
pulled-out books stopped me.
"Coyote, we may have hit pay-dirt." Crowley looked up at me. "I can't see much more than a stairwell, but it goes far enough down that it's safe to suggest the whole mesa is hollow."
"Could be," I mumbled as 1 pulled the book that had stopped me from the shelf. With it in my hands, I corrected my earlier impression and saw it for what it was: a leather-bound binder. In the darkness, I
could not tell if the cover was blue, but the dim light reflected beautifully from the gold foil stamp of the Build-more logo on the cover. As I realized what I had in my hands, I also remembered the last thing I'd
seen before the grenade went off.
I drifted back over to the desk and laid the folder down in the muted puddle of moonlight making it
through the wispy drapes. "I don't know what's down there, Damon, but we may have our staging area
right here." Page by
page, I flipped through the proposal, skipping the standard boilerplate stuff that had been in the one
Darius MacNeal had sent to me, and concentrated on the diagrams in the back.
The plan was brilliant. It consisted of the equivalent of sinking an aircraft carrier in the ground so only the superstructure remained visible. The base, which would be powered by a set of seven geothermal
generators, would have the facilities for outfitting, maintaining and manufacturing the things needed for a full-scale military assault.
I closed the binder. "This is it. Build-more is putting it together for Pygmalion. Sin said something about a secret project in Nevada using up a lot of Build-more resources. This thing is dated two years ago, with an estimated 30 months for completion."
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The occu
ltist straightened up. "We have what we came for. We will have to get location informat
ion out
of Bu
ild-more."
The image of the Build-more grenade flashed before my mind's eye once again. "That will be a distinct pleasure. Let's go."
"No!" Jytte looked at the two of us. "We have to go down there. We have to see what is there."
"Jytte, we have the information we sought. It is time to leave."
"You cannot! We, /have to know what is down there." Jytte descended a couple of steps. "I need you to come with me. I've never asked before. 1 need you now."
I acknowledged the plea in her voice with a nod. "We'll take a look."
A flash of rainbow light from outside filled the library with a second of brilliance. All three of us
hunkered down reflexively, but heard and felt no alarms. "What the hell was that?" I asked.
Crowley shifted his shoulders. "That sort of light display usually only comes when something comes through
a
dimensional gate. With the direction it came from, I'd guess the pool or helipad. Now we know why other alarms had been going off."
Jytte's eyes narrowed to blue slivers. "So we are not alone?"
Crowley shook his head. "No. I'd guess some extra-dimensional creatures have recently discovered this place and have started looting it."
I rechecked the clip in the MP-7. "And, in this case, I'd suggest that enemies of our enemy are not our friends at all."
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I shivered as I worked my way past Jytte and on down, step by step, along the stone stairway. Harsh, bright lights set at the base of the stairs leeched color from the red rock nearest them, leaving it a baby-flesh pink. I held my left arm up to block the direct light and kept the MP-7 pointed downward. 1 kept it trained on the dark square 20 feet below me, ready to blast anything that appeared in the corridor leading deeper on into the mesa.
I realized, as 1 descended, that my shiver had come from more than fright. The air around me grew cold. I could not see my breath, but this did not surprise me because dry desert air does not allow breathmist to form except at more frigid temperatures. Even so, the chill reminded me of a refrigerator and made me mindful of ice caverns located amidthe extinct volcanoes in the north of Arizona. Part of me wondered if the complex was natural, while the even sides of the corridor and the edges on the stairs told rne it was not.