Had a spare few minutes so here's the next installment!
KAIMONI (demon)
Chapter 10
Steve paced up and down the narrow sidewalk, passing Miller and McGill repeatedly. A line of camera-laden tourists meandered past, carefully looking the other way and stepping into the gutter at the side of the roadway to give him a wide berth.
"Fuck's sake McGarrett. Calm down! You're making me dizzy." barked Miller.
"Well, where the hell is she?" Steve snapped back, stopping to glare at him.
Miller shrugged, slouching back against the stone wall and looking up at the clock tower of St Magnus Cathedral, towering high into the sky opposite them.
They were standing outside the big, black wooden gateway that blocked the arched entrance into Tankerness House Museum, waiting for some council employee neighbour of Miller's to turn up with a key. The place was shut on Mondays and, naturally, the very day they needed in was a Monday.
"She said she wouldn't be long, okay? When you tell someone you need to see an artefact they have on display out of hours urgently I guess it's hard to convey that it actually is urgent. Knowing Minnie, she'll be finishing her coffee or something."
Steve shook his head curtly in annoyance and resumed his pacing.
McGill watched him apprehensively.
Steve was radiating tension. A six foot unexploded bomb with a rucksack strapped very firmly to its back.
Packing the rucksack had taken some thought. In his time, Steve had packed equipment for rescue missions all over the world. Without even applying much thought, he could pack for the Arctic, for the jungle, for six months at sea. No problem, not a challenge. But what the hell do you pack to travel back in time to rescue your best friend?
It was made no easier of course, by the little voice in the back of his head saying This is nuts, this is an elaborate set-up, Abby and McGill are in it together and they're all having a big laugh at the stupid American who thinks he's about to travel in time. Ha fecking ha.
He had settled on a first aid kit, a pack of survival blankets, a torch, photos of Danny and Selena, high energy protein bars, water and some warm clothes.
Weapons had proved problematic. He'd asked Miller if he could borrow his firearm. The Orcadian's incredulous expression had been priceless. 'You're not in the US now, mate,' he'd said, 'Do you see a holster…? Closest firearms officers are in Inverness.'
In fact, thanks to the tight Scottish gun control laws, it had looked briefly like Steve was going to go with nothing but a few cans of CS spray and a knife. Then inspiration had struck and Miller had come striding back from the Kirkwall Police Station evidence locker bearing a sawn-off shotgun and a box of cartridges. Which was awesome. At least if Steve decided to rob any jewellery stores on his way back, he'd be set. However, it was better than nothing. He took the CS and the knife too, tucking the latter into his inside jacket pocket.
Then Steve had raced round to the hotel to see Grace while Miller was busy springing McGill from the cells on some unlikely pretext.
Steve found he was unwilling and unable to explain to her what was really happening (plus convince her he hadn't had some kind of complete mental breakdown).
Instead, Steve had hugged and kissed Gracie. "I've got a few leads to chase up. I'm going to be tied up, I don't know how long for yet. Don't worry, okay? If you need anything, you can trust Inspector Miller. Completely. If I take longer than I think I will, he'll be able to tell you why, okay?" She had nodded, big brown eyes watching him as he left, knowing full well something significant was going on but trusting him enough not to ask more right then. He'd had to look away quickly.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour (but was probably more like five minutes) Minnie Walker, a five-foot nothing fifty-something woman, stout with a no-nonsense air about her, showed up at the museum gates. She looked unimpressed at having been disturbed on her day off.
She nodded a silent acknowledgement at Miller then produced a massive iron key, more befitting some medieval castle than a museum. She opened the gate, revealing a little cobbled courtyard lined with ancient grinding stones and artistically stacked piles of whale vertebrae.
They followed her through the courtyard to a small glass door on the far side. She unlocked it in turn and stepped aside to let them in.
"It's in the Neolithic Gallery. First floor, third case on the left. I'll be in the office." She bustled off, no doubt to put the kettle on.
Steve and Miller exchanged a look, then followed her directions, Steve shoving McGill along in front of him.
The gallery proved to be a long, narrow room with high ceiling and creaky floor. The blinds were all closed and Miller flicked on the light switch inside the door as they went in, illuminating the endless rows of glass-fronted display cases.
They made their way in. McGill cast his eyes around the huge array of ancient artefacts on display, but Steve and Miller were focused instantly on the case Minnie had identified as their target.
Steve reached it in three huge strides and grabbed the handle to open it. It was locked. He turned and glared at Miller again, nostrils flared.
Miller rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and roared "Minnie! We need the case open too!"
The faint reply came drifting up the stairs, stern tone unaffected by the distance. "No! Only the curators have keys. I could try to get hold of one if you ask nicely. You'll have to be patient though, I think they were going out fishing together today."
"You have to be kidding me!" Steve ran a hand down his face, patience stretched to breaking point.
Miller covered his face with his hand for a moment. "Screw this!" He mumbled, then pulled a police baton out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He extended it with a flick of his hand.
One carefully placed blow smashed the whole front of the cabinet, the glass shattering and raining down on the floor and the artefacts inside the case.
An alarm blared instantly, almost as shrill as the screech that emanated from Minnie. They heard her thundering up the stairs. Miller marched to the gallery door and slammed it shut, grabbing a chair and wedging it under the handle.
He cast his eyes up to a CCTV camera and sighed. "You are a bad influence on me, McGarrett."
Steve contemplated him for a split second before he reached into the display cabinet and plucked out a white quartzite cube- the twin to that found at Brodgar. "You know, I think you can call me Steve now," he said with a wry smile.
Miller jogged back over. He pulled a second cube from his pocket- the one McGill had stolen, recovered by the police from Kirkwall Library. He passed it to Steve, smiling back. "OK. But you just keep right on calling me 'Miller'. Nothing personal- my first name is Erland. It's a family name, traditional Orcadian. Not that cool. Don't tell my granny I said that."
Steve looked at the two identical cubes for a moment, then turned to McGill. "You sure this is going to work?"
The smaller man was sweating and shifting around with nerves. "No. But it's the only chance you'll have of getting back. The one you use gets left behind- at least that's what happened with Selena and Danny. You need to carry the second one to get back, otherwise it's a one-way ticket."
"So you said. And you think it will transport more than one person, if we all touch the symbols at once?"
McGill shrugged. "I…I don't know. It's just an idea."
Steve shook his head, sighing deeply. "This is so awesome…." He said, tone flat. "Right, let's do it."
Steve stuffed one of the cubes deep into the front pocket of his cargo pants and pulled on his rucksack straps, ensuring they were as tight as they could possibly go. He knelt down, holding the second cube.
"You remember the incantation?" ventured McGill.
"Yes!" snapped Steve, impatient. He hesitated. "What happens if I just picture Danny before this all happened and tell him not to do it? Or picture Selena and tell her not to. Surely if this actually works there's an easier way?"
McGill shrugged yet again. "You could try. I have no idea. I don't think it's that precise. I've never found any reference to more specific ways to control the effects."
"OK. OK. Never mind. Here goes." Steve shook his head in disbelief at what he was about to attempt.
Miller grasped his shoulder for a moment. "I have no idea what I'm meant to say, but, you know….good luck. I really hope this works."
"Thanks. Me too!" Steve huffed out a nervous breath, butterflies the size of fighter jets suddenly flapping in in stomach. "Right, Danny, buddy. I guess I really will go anywhere for you."
He leant forward, fixing an image of his friend in his mind's eye. Danny, smiling in the sun, blue eyes bright, blond hair shining, watching his daughter lovingly then turning to Steve to make some light-hearted smartass comment.
Steeling himself, Steve pressed his fingers onto the infinity symbols and began to recite McGill's incantation.
As the last word passed his lips, Steve's senses went crazy. The room seemed to spin, lights flashed around him, inside him. The cube began to feel hotter and, for a fraction of a second, seemed to glow. There was a blinding flash then everything went black.
….
They hadn't dared come in after him.
Now and then, the demon yelled out ferociously, reminding them it was there and it was angry.
Before reality had completely whited out, Danny had tried briefly to block out his surroundings, to picture the people he loved one last time, picture the people he was sacrificing himself for, certain this was the end for him. But the demons had leered at the images in his head, touched their faces and hissed out the hideous things they were going to do to them, so he tucked them away in his mind and let go.
With or without the artefact, he was never going home. Sick with fever, injured and bleeding, all hope had gone. On some level he knew he was losing his mind, he was losing who he was. It just didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. He let it happen.
He had given up.
Now he lay trapped in his black tomb with what had to be the very essence of evil all around him, intent on making him suffer horribly until he died.
He simply couldn't move. He suffered silently as the demons tore at him, as the blackness crushed him to dust while the world spun around him.
His own demon was angriest of all at their imprisonment, at Danny's failure and betrayal. It forced itself into every part of his body and burned him from the inside, then played around in his mind until he knew nothing but the demon. Until he was the demon.
And then, nothing else was real any more.
There was only pain, emptiness and hate-filled demon wrath.