Chapter 22
The mortuary became our temporary headquarters while we regrouped and figured out what was going on. Myers had not accompanied his men through the rift from Alabama but was in contact. With Franks incapacitated, Archer was in command. The thin man was pacing back and forth in the mortuary chapel, speaking excitedly into a satellite phone.
'No, sir. I don't see any way that we can cover this up. Negative. It's like twenty stories tall.' The agent stalked back to the window. When the sun comes up, the town below us would surely see the giant alien tree. It was a secret agency's worst nightmare. Archer nodded as Myers gave him instructions. 'Yes, sir. I'm on it.' He closed the phone and started yelling orders. 'Johnson, contact British MI4. They have an office in Auckland. They'll have to evacuate the town before dawn. Have them make up something about… anthrax or plague or something… hell, I don't know, maybe an outbreak of rabid sheep.'
I was standing in the doorway, waiting. 'Auckland? We're in New Zealand?' That would explain why my watch was saying that it was afternoon in Alabama; it felt like we were getting close to sunrise. That, and it had seemed unseasonably cool.
Archer glared at me. 'What? I'm busy.'
'Yeah, Myers sure does make it look easy, doesn't he? Keeping all those lies straight and all that. The man has a gift,' I said. Archer frowned, waiting. 'I was wondering if Franks… is he okay?' We had blown up a god together, after all. Now that's male bonding.
Archer actually smiled. He really wasn't a bad sort. 'Franks will be just fine. It takes more than getting his spine pulled out to kill him. He probably won't even take sick leave. I'll tell him you asked.'
'Thanks.' I turned to leave.
'Hey, Pitt…' He stopped me, suddenly uncomfortable. 'Just so you know, man. I was just doing my job. I didn't know about Torres. I really was just trying to protect you.'
I nodded once, then left the young Fed to his damage control.
The Feds had taken the comfortable waiting room, leaving MHI the soaking wet and partially burned chapel. Our people had moved in to tend to our injuries and check our gear. The mood was chaotic and somber. Julie was sitting on one of the pews, wrapped in a wool blanket. She looked haggard, with big dark circles under her eyes. She gave me a weak smile when she saw me. I flopped down next to her.
'I just got some good news,' she said. 'Nate's going to be fine. He broke his leg when he fell down that hole and took a good whack on the head, but other than that, Gretchen's not worried about him.'
'Good thing Shacklefords are so hard-headed,' I responded.
She didn't laugh. 'I haven't told him about Dad yet.'
'Oh… okay.' That was going to be hard. This would be the second time they would have to deal with his death, only this time, it was permanent. 'Have the Feds found the artifact yet?'
Julie bit her lip. She seemed deep in thought. 'No… not that I know of.'
'Well, when they do, they better stash it someplace that nobody will ever find it. That thing's too dangerous. I hate the idea of them even having it, because eventually somebody is going to use it again. Anything else?'
She shook her head. 'Amazingly enough, we've got a ton of injuries, multiple gunshot wounds, and one Newbie lost a foot, but we only had the one fatality. The Feds lost two pilots, but the other two lived.'
'How's Skippy?'
'He's good. He managed to put the Hind down right side up. Not bad considering the tail rotor was gone. Minor injuries on the orcs running the door guns, but that's it. Skippy even thinks that we can fix it, provided we can ship it home.'
'We're in New Zealand,' I pointed out.
She nodded. 'We checked GPS as soon as we stepped through the portal. By the way'-she pointed at my armor-'your patch is upside down.' Sure enough, I had stuck it back on wrong after tearing it off Torres. I had been a little preoccupied at the time. 'Will you look at that? Upside down, it's a penguin… swimming right at you. Never noticed that before.'
Milo arrived and sat down next to me. He looked even worse than Julie. He and Sam had been friends since Milo had joined MHI as an orphaned teenager. He was holding together right now, but that was only because there was still work to do. 'I checked. The magic rope's toast. Half of it is still stuck under that stupid tree, so I don't think I can turn it back on. Don't have the ward stone to juice it up either.'
'How did you do that, anyway?'
Milo shrugged. 'Couple of clever people, a killer deadline, and a mutant that happened to be familiar with the inventor's work. Esmeralda figured out how to turn it back on, and I said, why not splice it into a couple hundred feet of climbing rope and fly some attack helicopters through it… Seemed like the reasonable thing to do with a magic teleporter thingy. Then we took volunteers to go through it, and that turned out to be just about everybody who wasn't already banged up.'
'Well, you guys saved my life. I'll never forget that.'
'Don't ever forget Sam.' Milo sniffed and blew his nose into a handkerchief. 'Darn, I must be allergic to penguins or something, making me tear up and stuff. Well, if you'll excuse me, I've got to see about arranging transport out of here. I'm assuming most of us didn't bother to bring passports.'
Milo walked away. I corrected my patch. 'Does New Zealand have penguins?' I asked.
Julie shrugged.
The British Supernatural Service, commonly known as BSS, working in conjunction with the U.S. Monster Control Bureau of the Department of Homeland Security, was gracious enough to provide lodging and transport for the forty-some-odd members of MHI stuck in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand. Mostly I think they just wanted to get us out of the rapidly disintegrating situation. The small town had not been evacuated quite in time, and many photos and even cell phone video of the massive Arbmunep had been taken and dumped on the internet. People were freaking out. The Feds were scrambling to come up with a plausible cover story.
Not my problem.
Skippy had refused to leave until Archer had agreed to have the Hind crated up and shipped back to Alabama. I didn't know if Myers would allow his subordinate to keep that promise, but if he didn't, I figured the orc would probably just hunt him down, and it wouldn't be pretty. That chopper was Skippy's baby.
I was riding business class on a transoceanic flight when I got the phone call. My phone was still sitting at the bottom of the Alabama River, so Earl had finally managed to get ahold of Julie. She woke me up with a poke to the ribs and passed the phone over, violating the hell out of the airline policy about using electronic devices in- flight.
'You did it,' Earl said. 'As soon as the link with the Dread Overlord was broken, Rocky said he was done and went home.'
'Rocky?'
'You know, Rok'hasna'wrath, devourer of worlds and all that crap. We spent a lot of quality time together, so we're on a first-name basis now. I think he was surprised to find that I was a little tougher than he initially figured. I didn't give up anything without a hell of a fight.'
'Any permanent damage?'
Earl was quiet for so long that I thought I had dropped the connection. 'Well, I lost a few things…' He didn't specify further. I remembered the terrible fate of Carlos, and was just glad that I had been able to spare one of my friends from that. 'Thanks, Owen. Thanks for everything.'
'I'm sorry about Sam.' If I hadn't freed Susan…
'Don't be. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Sam Haven was a hero and one of the best friends I've ever had. He died how he lived, brave as hell, saving lives, and getting the job done. That's exactly how he would have wanted it.'
'See you in a few, Earl.'
The day after our return, I had been summoned to a meeting at one of the miscellaneous federal buildings in Montgomery. I was to come alone. It had not been a request. Apparently the MCB had a few questions they wanted answered about the events of the last few days.
I wore my only suit, which was normally reserved for funerals and weddings. There was still a very good
