The Keys of Solomon (30 page)

“What do you mean?”

“He's been lying to you from the moment you began talking. First off, he told you only rabbits and wolves came around at night. There aren't any wolves in this part of the state—haven't been for years and years. I was born and raised within fifty miles of here, and I should know.”

Ronni sighed, “Is that all you got, kid?”

“Not hardly. I heard him say you could use his phone. You need a telephone pole and phone lines to make that work unless you really believe they laid fiber optic cable out to this shack. Now look over at the northeast corner of the building at the telephone pole and tell me what you see.”

Ronnie did as Kat suggested. All the lines were disconnected from the building and tied in a tight bundle near the top of the pole.
No phone, no radio
.

“What else, Kat?”

“His flashlight. No batteries in it. I noticed when he made a show of shining his light on us. And just now, he dropped it when he took the cigarettes from his pocket. The flashlight hit the pavement and bounced. Flashlights with batteries in them don't bounce six inches off the ground. What kind of security guard has a flashlight with no batteries?”

Ronni stared at Kat for a couple of seconds, then eased her gun from its holster. Lexis already held her gun in a shooter's grip. “Are you sure you're a kid and not some forty-year-old little person?”

“My name is Kat.”

Acting nonchalantly, Ronni looked back toward Duke. Elliott was lighting another pilfered cigarette.
Keep smoking 'em, big guy
.

“Okay, Kat. Anything else I need to know?”

The girl nodded. “Yeah. If you had gone into that building with Mr. Duke, you'd be dead right now too. I probably should have let you go considering the way you and your friends have treated me and my mom. But the way I see it, you're the lesser of two evils. Keep your distance from Duke. If Mr. Snickers isn't careful, Duke will hurt him real bad. And I'm not too sure I really care.”

Despite her growing anxiety, Ronni smiled at the thought of the diminutive security guard giving any of the Watcher operators any trouble. “Don't worry about Duke, kid. We can handle Duke and a dozen more just like him.”

“Sorry, Ms. Weiss, but you can't. He's one of the Enemy. You
do
know what that means, don't you? They wear human disguises sometimes to trick people. My brother can spot them a mile away. I'm not that good, but I know one when I see one. Duke knows I'm in here and he'll eat you and a dozen more just like you just to get to me. His kind hates my kind, you know.” Once again, there was that matter-of-fact directness.

“This place is full of them. The Enemy, I mean. I don't know as much about them as my brother does, but I can feel them when they get this close, and I know this place is crawling with them. Unless my brother finds us very soon, we're all going to die. I don't want to die; do you, Ms. Weiss?”

Before Ronnie could answer, a shrill scream was answered by the sharp report of gunfire.

CHAPTER 19

The airfield

Enrique, Falco, and Sam approached the building just as the first shot rang out from somewhere near the front of the Quonset hut. As they rounded the rear end of the Escalade, they saw a pair of men locked in physical combat near the front door of the building. Actually, only one, the larger of the two combatants, was a man. He wore the black battle dress uniform and gear of a Watcher tactical operator. His opponent, smaller by several inches and nearly a hundred pounds, was both more and less than any man. A particularly cunning species of demon, the Zaxt straddled the prone Watcher and rained blow after heavy blow down upon the man's head.

The man in black thrust the muzzle of his handgun into the creature's face and pulled the trigger several times in rapid succession. Instead of reacting as though he'd just been shot through an eye at point-blank range, the monster stood and pulled the Watcher from the ground. A punch to the chest propelled the Watcher across the lot and through the wooden door of the Quonset hut.

To the left of this one-sided battle, two women, one dressed in similar blacks-ops gear, took up firing positions near the front tire well of the SUV. The woman in black lay across the hood and fired several rounds at the demon in human clothing as it shrugged off the heavy slugs and moved forward.

“That's Lexis!” said Falco.

“Do something fast or your friends and my family are dead!” cried Sam.

There was no moment of hesitation on Enrique's part. The Boston-born-and-bred Ivy League lawyer responded by stomping on the accelerator, turning the Lexus into a two-ton guided missile aimed straight at the greater demon in human disguise.

As the car sped toward the demon, Sam held his breath. Would the demon see the car coming and avoid the collision? Would it rush the women inside the Escalade and kill them all before Enrique and Falco could effect a rescue?

Within the short span of a few seconds, Sam had most of his answers. The demon was tunnel-visioned, its attention focused solely on the prey inside the Escalade. It never saw the Lexus until the moment of impact.

The front bumper struck the demon at the knees and pitched it up and over the car. Enrique came to a tire-squealing halt. Muttering something beneath his breath, Falco kicked open the door and slid from the seat to the pavement like some great jungle cat. Sam marveled at the big man's grace and agility. When Sam opened his door, he heard the steady
pop
of small-arms fire and the shouts of a man calling for help.

The demon arose from the pavement, oozing blood and green pus from a dozen wounds. One of its legs, broken in at least two places, bent in the opposite direction, giving the creature a birdlike gait as it moved toward the Escalade again. A second woman exited the Escalade with a smoking pistol in her hand. She dropped an empty magazine, inserted a spare, and kept firing.

Sam started for the Escalade, then staggered to the side as Falco pushed past him, firing at the wounded demon with measured control and deadly accuracy. From the other side of the Lexus, Enrique came at the monster with a shotgun held high. He fired, and a great gout of flame erupted from the shotgun's muzzle. The slug took the demon high in the chest, just left of center, and spun it around.

From the corner of his eye Sam saw a winged figure leap from the roof of the metal building and slam into Enrique, knocking the shotgun from his hands. The weapon skittered across the pavement and came to rest underneath the Lexus. Sam ducked beneath another swooping creature and started for the gun.

As he bent down to retrieve the riot gun, Sam realized another vehicle had pulled into the parking lot, and a dual set of high beams was bearing down on him.
Deer in the headlights.
Feet rooted to the asphalt, unable to think or move, the tired old cliché echoed in Sam's mind. For the first time, he understood its meaning with perfect clarity as the oncoming station wagon closed the gap. It wasn't fear. Not exactly. Sam thought it was more like dread coupled with simple resignation, the knowledge that there was no place to run, no place to hide.

As the car bore down on him, an alien voice invaded his head with overwhelming force.
Move, Sam! Now!

Jarred from his temporary paralysis, Sam leaped back, tripped, and fell hard to the pavement. The oncoming station wagon swerved in a final effort to hit him, but the front bumper missed Sam by inches. A shrill scream of pain erupted from Duke as the car's left front tire crushed the greater demon's remaining good leg. As the station wagon roared past him, Sam had a good look at the driver. Little Stevie had made good on his promise. He had come back, and this time he brought friends.

The station wagon never slowed as it struck the rear end of the Lexus, driving the smaller, lighter car across the parking lot and into the side of the fuel truck. The resulting explosion sucked the oxygen from the air and sent a swirling fireball hundreds of feet into the night sky. A split second later, chunks of metal, tires, and other burning debris rained down on the parking lot, casting a hellish glow over the barren landscape.

“Sam! Sam, over here!”

Sam stood and shielded his eyes from the intense flames with an arm. Through a dense, oily cloud he saw the outline of a small girl waving to him from behind the now smoldering Escalade. She stood dangerously close to the burning wreckage.

“Kat, move back! You're too close to the fire!”
Where's Mom? Why isn't she with Kat?

Kat yelled again, but most of her words were drowned out by random gunshots, and the screams of men and monsters. Sam broke into a run, then fell hard to the pavement as his left leg buckled. Acute pain knifed through his knee, and for the first time, he noticed the bright crimson stain that surrounded the jagged tear in his jeans. He struggled up onto his good leg and was limping toward his sister when he noticed a thick plume of smoke rising out of the Escalade's broken windshield. Kat screamed and motioned toward the burning SUV. And Sam understood.

He willed his injured leg to bear his weight as he limped forward. He traveled a single step before falling a second time. From the pavement he watched helplessly as long, slender fingers of flame now sprang up in a dozen places throughout the battered vehicle. Within seconds the interior of the SUV was ablaze from dashboard to the rear cargo area.

Great sobs wracked Sam's body as he grieved for his mother. Kat had called out, begging him to save their mother. And he had failed. Just as he had failed Michael Collier.

“I'm sorry, Kat. I'm so sorry!” he cried. He reached out a hand to her, yelling her name, when something exploded underneath the Escalade. Kat crouched low to the ground, both arms shielding her head. A hulking silhouette appeared at the girl's side and snatched her from the ground. Tucking her beneath a massive arm, the figure retreated behind a curtain of noxious smoke.

“NO! You can't have her!”

Strong arms surrounded his chest and lifted him effortlessly. He heard his name called from some far distant place, but he wasn't interested. His only thoughts were of his younger sister. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. Crazed by grief, he fought the man or monster that held him, almost breaking free until something clipped him hard on the chin, turning his legs to jelly and sending his mind spinning in dizzy circles.

As he felt himself being dragged along, he recognized Falco's familiar voice.

“Sam, we've got enough trouble. Quit fighting me! We've got to find shelter, now!”

“Little Stevie … he has Kat!”

“First things first, kid. We regroup, then we get your sister! C'mon.”

It wasn't as if Sam had any choice. Falco lifted him with one arm and jogged the short distance to the Quonset hut.

The demons had retreated beyond the glow of the burning wreckage and the security lights. Enrique had somehow reclaimed the shotgun and stood with his back to the front door, covering the debris-littered lot. To his left, a man and woman, both wearing black commando gear, were reloading their handguns. The man, nearly as tall as Falco but thicker through the chest and shoulders, was having trouble feeding ammunition into a magazine. Long, bloody furrows crisscrossed his face and scalp. He hugged his left arm close to his side, an indication of a chest or rib injury.

The black-clad woman wasn't in any better condition, bleeding from at least a dozen places. However, the expression on her face gave no hint that she either knew or cared. The other woman, the one who had exited the now destroyed Escalade with Kat, was nowhere in sight. Maybe they got her, too.
God, I hope so. Serves the bitch right for killing my mother!

Enrique looked as if he had been run down by a bulldozer, but his eyes were alight with defiance. As Falco and Sam reached the group, Enrique held the door open with his foot and motioned them inside. “Hurry up. I'll hold the door until everyone is inside. Move!” No one argued.

*   *   *

The metal building, easily the length of a football field, was actually a line of connected airplane hangars and smaller room. The office just inside the front door was lit by a single lamp, sans the shade. The rear wall of the room had a doorway but no door. Sam stared into the dimly lit hangar area, as shadows shifted and danced along high, vaulted ceilings and corrugated walls. He was acutely aware of the Enemy's presence. Of all the evil places Sam had ever seen, this building ranked second only to the cavern beneath the well house in Abbotsville.
Why so many? Why here?

“We have to find my sister, Thomas. Little Stevie took her. We can't stay in here anyway. There's too many of them.”

Falco looked out onto the parking lot from the room's single window. He held his pistol as if he expected an assault at any moment. Enrique had taken a position near the door and looked equally alert.

“Did you hear me? I said—”

“Easy, Sam. We'll find her, I promise, but first we've got to regroup. We can't go stumbling around in the dark, kid. Hell, I don't think you can make it to the front door on your own two feet at the moment. When the plane arrives, we'll have some extra hands to search the place, so just sit tight.”

“Let him go. Hell's gonna freeze over before I go after him,” said Elliott. He sat on the floor against the east wall, well away from any of the room's three openings, counting his ammunition. It didn't take him long.

The woman in black said, “Our mission is to put that girl and her … to put her on the plane. I'll be damned if I let those monsters have her.”

Elliott laughed. “Weiss, you crack me up. I've got one full magazine and six rounds in another. That's twenty rounds, and I'm betting you and Falco don't have that many combined. I figure there're six, maybe seven rounds in that shotgun. That gives us a grand total of fifty rounds of ammunition between us.”