Chapter 23: Sixteen Tons
50 miles outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi
November 22nd, 1999
3:03 am
Sometimes Max wondered if he ever really left that jungle in Vietnam.
The pull of the mud at his boots sure felt the same. The forest around him didn't have a single plant in common with that one, but that was just a detail. There were still branches trying to grab him and roots trying to trip him even with the faceplate of his suit giving him the sight he only wished for back then.
A sight he could have done without as it flickered from normal to unearthly every time he blinked. Flickered between colors and sights that he'd only heard about back in the sixties from people who tried things that they shouldn't have, and that the Plumbers found on purpose because there were things out there that people couldn't see, but the world was so much bigger than that. Bigger even than the shades of red and green that were infrared and the blue glows of ultraviolet. Even starlight just made the world look haunted instead of real with its ghostly white light and shadows as dark as space.
Max saw more of the world than he could have imagined that first night. He saw it and he still focused on the mud at his feet and the weight of the rifle in his hands instead as he kept moving. He kept following the glowing red dot in the corner of his eye that glowed like a star and the numbers under it that were getting smaller with each step.
The rifle was different. It was everything he could have wished for back during those three days. It was sleek in all the ways that Earth guns weren't. The weight was different, too, but the sound it made when pulled the trigger was all too familiar.
As familiar as the distant rumble of jet engines he heard overhead. A part of him still ached to fly even if those days were long behind him. He was a ground pounder now. The sky and stars were other people's playgrounds now and there were things that mattered more now. People who mattered more.
But he couldn't help tossing a prayer to the man upstairs. "Overhead, do you have eyes on targets?"
"Negative, Whiskey Tango," a man's voice crackled in his headset. Crackled like it always did when the suit had to connect to human tech. "There's no sign of the - "
"Rogue drones," Max offered. It was a lie, but he'd told bigger.
"Yes sir," the pilot said and, even with the static, there wasn't any hiding his relief. "No sign that the targets have left the kill zone. Radar is picking up a clearing and a structure - a large structure - where they went down, but - " the man's voice caught. "We have no visual. Repeat, no visual. All we see are more trees."
"Roger," Max murmured, still moving forward through all of that, even as a downed tree reminded him that some things changed after all as he climbed over it. Mostly his back and his knees, which ached as he climbed over it even with all that the alien tech that the Plumbers had begged, borrowed and stolen had done for him. The ache made him focus on the red dot in the corner of his visor that was only a football field and half away now. The red dot and the twenty-two green dots that were closing in on it from every direction. Four full teams of Plumbers and there were two more waiting in reserve not a mile away. It was almost every Plumber in this hemisphere and more than he had when he faced Vilgax for what he thought was the last time. It was almost as many as he'd had the night that Nimue walked into a Sludgepuppy base because of a mission gone wrong.
That mission and the mission that was supposed to pull her out again. The one he led...
His visor picked that moment and flickered to a view of the world he didn't even have a name for then and the word melted into a psychotic mix of colors that were almost as garish and horrifying as what he'd seen back then. Colors that made the world bleed as he led the rescue team in with his heart in his throat and his hands shaking even before he heard the 'Puppies howl all around him before they went quiet forever.
As quiet as the forest was around him right now...
That made him shudder. "It better not be a sign," Max muttered to himself.
Or he thought that's what he did. Then he heard a voice that came through his headset as clear as if the man had been standing at his shoulder and not clear across the ring. "Repeat, Whiskey Tango?" Wes Green's voice rumbled as he said that, and that still didn't hide the worry hiding under it. A worry that had been there since long before today.
And one that Max waved off like he always did. "Roger. Contact in five, Echo Tango. I want everyone frosty."
The words were easy to say. They would have been easier to do if he could see any of the others he knew were around on anything but lights on his HUD. Lights that swore that there were two other Plumbers not twenty feet away from him. Not two that he knew, those were all over by Wes, but that didn't matter. Not when the blue-gray of their suits blended in too well with the night that only luck would let him see a shadow of an outline even if he'd been looking right at them.
Not that he would have seen much more even if they were all in their birthday suits. They were everything that Max wished for during those hours in the jungle and every day last summer. Mainly because there wasn't a single one of them that would attack their equipment with rocks and screwdrivers or just turn things on willy-nilly as they flipped through a book. There wasn't a word on the radio. Not a single complaint about the mud or the bugs or being bored or anyone arguing at the top of their lungs as the world turned into a horror. There wasn't anyone racing away and dashing ahead even as he told them to wait. No flashes of blue and green or red. No moments of terror or pride. This was just a job done by trained professionals and not a game played by two kids who didn't have a clue about anything except that they should do the right thing.
Max sucked in a breath and closed his eyes because he missed his Grandkids so much that it hurt.
He only did it for a second as he took another step, but that was all it took in this line of work. Everything was different when he opened his eyes again. Every tree, every root, every leaf, even the hill he was about to climb all vanished like they never were, and in their place…
Max stared at the stately old manor that was standing in the middle of a huge lawn with flower beds scattered around. A house that might have been a castle if it was made out of stone instead of brick and didn't have even half as many doors and windows as it did. None of it looked like anything that belonged in this time, which was a thought that made him scramble for the radio even as he hit the dirt behind the wood beams that lined the bed next to him hard enough that the ache in his knees turned into a fire. One that he ignored as he barked out, "All units, halt! Repeat, all units halt! Cloaking device confirmed!"
The clicks of acknowledgment were a relief as the field itself. At least he wasn't cut off from the outside world. That had happened before, and he had the scars on his back that proved it. Not that he was worried about a few more scars as his hand flew for the controls on the left forearm of his suit and he turned on every sensor he had as he hit the dirt. Not when the universe was a big place and full of all sorts of creatures that could survive things that humans couldn't.
And the people he was hunting now didn't care that much about the difference if the dry, dead grass that he heard crunch under his knees were any sign. Neither were the dead flowers that he saw as he scurried as fast as he could over to the nearest bed and the thick timbers that surrounded it. The suit would protect him some, but he still held his breath the readouts all flashed green. All of them, just like they did in the woods. Far more normal than they should be considering how big an area was hidden and the ache he felt in his molars.
One that felt so familiar that he felt sweat trickle down his back even as he told himself that it wasn't so. He was almost ready to blame his suit until he called the others up and they all said the same thing as he studied the manor closer for any sign of life inside those walls.
His suit picked up the homing beacon as it screamed away on the other side of the building, but nothing else moved in that dark house besides that. Nothing but them as they closed the circle tight and nothing about that sat right. It was the only reason that Max ordered the obvious, "I want all eyes on that building," even as his every instinct warned him off like they had been since Vicksburg.
No, since that day over the jungle. He should have listened then and he'd give anything to listen to it now, but this was still their best lead.
And his Grandkids' best chance.
"Got something, Whiskey," Wes said. The worry was gone now as he got the edge that only came when you could say, "Eyes on target."
"Roger, Echo Foxtrot," Max went still again as he clicked his visor and saw through the man's 'eyes.' The mansion must have looked just as nice on that side once, but the giant hole in the wall took away some of the glamour. It was big enough that they could have driven the Rustbucket right through it, and the things must have made it on their way out based on the mess of bricks and glass that were scattered all over the lawn.
Bricks he forgot all about when he saw the thing pace by again on the other side. The thing his eyes slid off of now just like they had when he saw it in the sky over Vicksburg. It and its brother, and he couldn't get his eyes to focus on either of them. Neither would their cameras.
They weren't black. Max knew that much. They weren't anything. They just were. Sometimes he thought he saw wings when he made himself look. Sometimes he thought they had fangs. Sometimes he thought they weren't even there, that they were just a hole in the world the size of vans as they slipped through the air in a way that wasn't flying any more than nothing was a color.
But for all of that, it was pacing back and forth on the other side of the hole like the world's ugliest lion and - for some reason - that was what sent a chill down Max's spine. That and not the way it got right back up after one of the rookies blew a hole the size of a basketball right through one just as it dove down on a school bus. It should have died. A shot like that would have killed anything else, but it took ten shots just like that just to drive it off. He would have wondered if they'd even hurt it if he didn't hear the things keening wail as it took to the sky again and its brother joined it.
A wail that his suit didn't detect, but it was there. He still heard echoes of it now, but only one. Its brother was finally silent. Silent enough that Max wondered if it was even there. It might have been. The room on the other side looked huge and what light there was didn't cut that deep into the house through the hole. Not that it mattered. They both needed containing.
He just wished that they were the real targets.
"Does anyone have eyes on Black Sun?" Max asked even as he wondered again just what his grandson would call the one-eyed things that they found in Bosnia. Whatever it was, it would be a lot catchier than what the eggheads did. Xenocites. Honestly.
He waited for a single yes, a single sign that this was over. That he'd done it. He waited and waited until Wes finally came back. "Negative, Whiskey Tango."
Three little words. Three little words that made Max slam his hand into the wall. The next weren't any better.
"This doesn't…" Another voice broke in. One that wasn't part of the old guard, but Max knew it anyway. He didn't know the hesitation, though. Usually Luthor Albright's voice rang with the command that he'd earned years ago as he led his Rangers into the worst parts of the world. That was what brought him into the Plumbers. There weren't many who could save their team when they stumbled into a ghoul pack as big as his had, but he'd done more than that. He'd gotten his mission completed even with half his team down. That was why Max picked him for this and a dozen other missions besides. That and the fact that he didn't hesitate for more than a moment before he pressed on with the worst part of being a soldier.
Telling his superiors something that they don't want to hear. "This doesn't look like a staging ground for an interdimensional invasion, sir."
"They never do," Max bit out. He could keep himself from saying the words he wanted, but he couldn't keep them from twisting his face because he still remembered the bitter taste that his mother made sure came with them. A memory that made him focus. "Foxtrot, take the target. Contain and neutralize if possible. Sierra, back them up and then assist in securing the house. Lima, secure the perimeter. Papa, you're with me."
The clicks of acknowledgment came the second after Max started moving, his mind racing as he realized how little cover any of them had. He waited for the trap or the ambush he was sure was coming as they leapfrogged across the yard in short bursts, his knees reminding him of his age every time he knelt and got up and ran. He waited for the plasma fire, the boobytraps, for all the thousand and one nightmares that they'd found in Bosnia and Sudan and Indonesia.
None came.
The rough brick was a relief when he finally shoved his back against it. A relief that was broken when he heard the high pitched howl the target made as Wes and Albright's teams opened fire. The house shook as it fought and Max watched the thing try to escape, to attack, but it looked so lost in that huge, empty room as it clawed at the floor and walls until the stun blasts finally brought it down.
But the shrieks it made before then…
Thankfully, Max didn't hear them for long. Not over the bang and the crash of the blasting charges that shattered the windows on either side of him. Windows that were so big that not even he had any trouble jumping through them when it was his turn. He was a third of the way through the hole and already sweeping his section of the room, and it was as familiar as breathing.
The grunt he made as he swept his rifle over empty bookcases was less so. "Verdona's going to kill me..."
"Whiskey?"
"At ease, Foxtrot. I think I just blew up Masterpiece Theater." It sure looked like it. Everything near him was covered in dust now, but that hid the black and red leather upholstered chairs and couches only a little. The delicate reading tables didn't fare as well, neither did the lamps that seemed to be on every one. Lamps with candles like the chandeliers that were swinging wildly overhead. None of them were lit, but the dark didn't hide how big the room was. It seemed even bigger than the first house he shared with his wife, and he couldn't even begin to imagine the horror on her face if she was here now.
His wife's or his granddaughter's. And he could just imagine his grandson's glee right now.
Their horror would have been so much worse if any bookcases that stretched from the floor to the ceiling had a single book on them. They did, once, and not that long ago. He could see the line in the dust that shows where books used to be. Books of all different sizes. He wondered where they were now.
Max wondered a lot of things as the reports came in and he let them wash over him.
"Entry hall secure."
"Kitchen secure."
"Basement secure."
"Workshop secure."
"Target secure."
"Target?" Max asked as the last caught his attention. "There were two."
"There's only one here now, Whiskey Tango," Albright said as Max looked through his visor again, his voice a hum of tension as he scanned the high ceilings before he looked to the rest of the room. A ballroom. The house had an honest to God ballroom that was empty except for the slumbering thing and the Plumbers around it. Three stood guard while another four spread out. Max flickered through all their suits as he studied the room with them with the headlamps that cut into the dark.
Not that he saw much. Just the way that the light flickered in the puddle around the hole in the wall as they trampled through it and the red and black curtain that got knocked off the window that used to be there. The colors were splashed all over the room. They were even around the doors on the far end. The ones that were closed tight until Sierra Two and Three opened them and moved into the house so they could join the sweep there. Max shook his head at the sight. They were such a mismatched pair, but they worked together as well as anyone he'd ever seen, and the ivory-colored wallpaper that had seen better centuries even before someone… "Wait," Max said as a lamp swept across the wall by the hole and he saw what looked like scorch marks. "Take a closer look at that. I think that someone - "
The light bobbed as the man turned his head and moved towards the wall. A light that burned so bright as it curved - "Foxtrot Four, freeze!" Wes's voice boomed in the room in a warning that almost came too late. The bruised purple light flared bright as Four let out a shout and jumped backward.
If the portal was any bigger, there wouldn't have been a reflex fast enough in the whole universe that could have saved the man. Not as the air rushed through the hole in the world. Max read the reports of a house that disappeared inside one once and Xylene told him about whole worlds that just disappeared. Stories that flitted through his head as he stared at the little marble-sized light and remembered Niagara, remembered the alien machine that was tearing itself apart under his hands even as it held open a portal just like this. A portal his whole world disappeared into. One taken, one jumping in…
And he wasn't the only one.
"If there is a null void projector in that timezone, I want it. Whiskey Tango," Jim's voice suddenly snapped in his ear, his voice as much gravel as ever. "It'll make up for the one you lost."
"Negative, Merlin," Max answered when he remembered how. For once he let go of the rage that he'd felt since the man brought him back. He'd be angry later. For now he just focused on keeping his hands steady around his rifle and remembering how that day ended, how his grandkids came exploding out of that portal before the projector blew itself up even as he watched for any sign that something had the same idea with this one. "That wasn't made by alien tech."
Max's shock kept the anger from his voice, but it only made Jim's harsher. "How do you know - "
"Because I watched Nimue close one that looked just like this once," Max answered, still staring. Back when he started, back when he was on her protection detail. It had been years and years, but he still remembered how tired she was as she weaved her magic around it, the blue sigils burning bright against the violet until they both blinked out.
It took an age before her temper did the same thing, though, and he remembered every word. 'Damned fools, Max. The whole lot of them, opening a hole like this in the world and then not closing it? There are things out there, things between dimensions looking for a way in. Hungry things. Jim let them off easy. Grandfather would have skinned their hides for this first just like he almost did when - '
Max shook off the rest of her words as he added his own as the violet spark grew dimmer. Nimue always said the universe heals itself and this one should be shut in another few minutes, but the things had enough of a head start that - "I think I know where the second target went."
"Through?" Jim hummed in thought. "Then it's not our problem. Put a watch up and prepare the target for transport to Dulce. I want the rest of you in the air as - "
"We haven't finished securing the house, Command," Max cut in. "We might still find something."
"This is a wild goose chase, Whiskey Tango. You aren't going home today," Jim muttered and he could feel the man's glare even a thousand miles away, but he didn't live this long by being a damned fool. "Finish up fast. Merlin out."
For once, Max didn't hear any relief at those last two words. He had the worrying suspicion that if he looked in a mirror now he'd see the same face there that he usually did when he picked Ben up from school, but he was a professional so he didn't mutter any of the words he was thinking like his grandson would have.
The world was too quiet without them. Quiet even as Albright started his search again, his light cutting through the dark. Slow and steady as he looked for another portal in the empty room.
Almost empty. "What's that at your 10?"
Albright didn't say a word, but he was always more a man of actions than words. His steps were slow and cautious and he never stopped scanning the room. Not until he got close to the thing in the corner of the room, and when he did it got his full attention - more even than the monster behind him - and finally got a word out of him that wasn't an order or a response to one. "What the - ?"
Max sucked in a breath as he stared at the heavy stone slab that was sitting there in the corner of the room. A slab covered in carvings, some of which were still stained red. The thick leather straps that were hooked into each corner should have looked out of place, and they were all the more horrible because they didn't.
It looked just like the one Max had seen before at the end of another nightmare, but it was Wes who spoke. "Aztec," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
Max just nodded even though he was alone now. "Someone found a sacrificial altar."
"That doesn't look like any altar I've ever seen," Albright said, "How do you know?"
"Because we've seen one before," Wes answered for him, his voice calm in the way it had to be for this.
Calmer than Max's as he added. "We pulled a little boy off of an altar just like this once in the jungle south of Jalapa." The mad dash up those stone steps as the cultists threw magic and bullets at them. All for a boy whose face Max didn't remember.
Not that it mattered. Not when he saw his sons back then in a boy that didn't look like either of them, and his grandson's now. Saw him crying and screaming as a man stood over him with an obsidian blade. One that Max shattered with a single shot back then. One that he missed every night for months after every time he closed his eyes…
Max turned away from that thought as quick as he could. He had to, or else he'd be running home just like he had back then. Albright helped and he didn't even know it.
"Then you know what it does?"
"Whoever did this didn't have the power to open this portal. So they took more. A lot more."
"This is why the world is dead outside," Wes intoned when Max stopped. "They drained the spirit from the grass and flowers, too."
"Spirit?"
Max shook his head and pictured Nimue here now. He could just see her spitting at all the things that the rookies didn't even know that they didn't know. "It has a lot of names. Spirit. Soul. Mana…"
Hers burning as she stood in the middle of the base even as the Sludgepuppies' own forms shifted around as they turned everything they had loose on her and it wasn't enough. Not after what they took from her. Not after what they unleashed.
"Soul. Whoever did this stole a soul?" Albright muttered.
"There is more under the heavens than you could imagine, Captain." Max didn't have to remember the look on his friend's face now. His voice said everything. "But your disbelief is odd coming from a man who fought the walking dead."
"That was…" Albright said before he took a breath. "The only thing I know about the Aztecs is what I learned in school. The Spanish beat them and - " His eyes went to the puddle and he took a deep breath even as he looked at the altar again. "But, they sacrificed thousands of people. Not one."
"That's because everyone can do some magic. You should see me in the kitchen," Max said in a very weak joke as he stared. "Take enough energy from enough people, and one person can do miracles like making sure that the rains come and the sun rises." One was true and one wasn't, but sometimes he thought the lab boys still sweated over it. He knew Jim did.
He knew Jim did.
"And take one person who could do miracles and... Damn. Any idea who it could be?"
Max started at the question. One that almost sent him scrambling for the phone that was tucked away in a pouch at his side even though he was sure it wasn't. Not when he'd talked to both his grandkids while he was still in the air and the blood was older than that. They were home safe from this. He was sure, but he couldn't help the gnawing worry in his gut even as he gave the man an answer he knew his granddaughter would have killed for. "Magic isn't rare, son. There are so many people who have the gift and don't know it. They're just luckier than most, more intuitive." Until something like this happened.
But actually saying those words was too much.
"Sir?" Foxtrot two asked, his voice low as his lights found the table. "What about the body? If they…" Max watched the man tap his heart through Albright's visor. "Shouldn't there be a body?"
They went quiet after that. Quiet as Wes turned and his light found the portal and the creature lying beside it. "Portals - portals go both ways, Son."
"Find out," Max muttered as he closed his eyes. "We owe them that much."
He turned off his visor then and stared at the warm whitewashed wall in front of him. He'd had enough of that room.
He didn't know many of these new Plumbers, but they were as professional as the ones he did, so the search went fast. There was food in the pantry, still fresh even if mold was just starting to touch the apples that were waiting, The candles and candelabras that were everywhere were all of them showing signs that they'd been used recently and the trashcan there was full. Someone lived here. Maybe a couple of someones, but no more than that. There weren't any bodies or aliens. Albright was right, if the xenocites were extradimensional, they didn't come through here.
But something still happened here. Something that itched at him even as he moved through the kitchen and saw the black plates with the red rims that were just waiting on the counter. Waiting like the glasses in the corner and a box that was somehow cold even though it wasn't plugged into anything. He was brushing his fingers over the symbols cut into the surface when his radio clicked again. "Colonel?"
It wasn't hard picking out Sierra Thre - No. Wheel's voice. Max knew why they needed code names, but he felt too old right then to keep it up here any more than he could when the team was in the Rustbucker with him and the woman sat in Gwen's spot at the table. They weren't anything alike until the woman pulled out a picture of her daughter and smiled as she showed it off
Then all Max saw was Gwen.
But Joan wasn't smiling now, the quaver in her voice told him that much and made him stand all the taller because it didn't sound a thing like her. "Show me."
He waited, but his visor didn't change. "No sir," Wheels said, her voice cracking. "I - I think you should see this for yourself. Second floor, end of the hall on the west wing."
Nothing good ever came from those words and he took the stairs two at a time, aching knees be damned. The second floor was even fancier than the first, with a fine red carpet and art like nothing he'd ever seen. Art that almost seemed like it moved as he went by, art that showed violet skies instead of blue and a city made of crystal, but instead of aliens there were people. Normal men and women as far as Max could tell except for the robes they wore. Max saw them and filed them away when he saw Sierra Two waiting at the end by an open door. The big man couldn't seem to stand still as he paced back and forth in the hall with his rifle slung over his back and his boots leaving muddy footprints on the fine rug. Not even when Max asked, "Armstrong? Where's Wheels?"
"She's in here, Colonel," Armstrong said in a voice as low and deep as a foghorn even with his helmet on as he waved at a door that was half-hidden behind a tapestry. It probably would have disappeared entirely when the door was closed if someone hadn't put a bolt lock there.
One that Max brushed his fingers over as he ducked into the room. If Wheels was any bigger than her five foot four they never would have fit in there together. If there'd been a single shelf in here he would have sworn it was a linen closet, but there wasn't. There wasn't even a lightbulb except for the one built into Wheels' helmet. One that shined on the bare wall as she just stood there with her arms around her middle and her fingers twitching like she wanted her rifle back in her hands.
"Lieutenant?" Max asked as he slung his away even as he followed her gaze and bit off another curse. He'd thought the plain wood wall was bare of everything except some varnish until he saw the shadows her light cast. Shadows that played in the runes carved there. Dozens and dozens that were everywhere Max looked. Even on the ceiling and the floor under his feet. Runes that were so different than the ones he'd seen in the stone. Runes he didn't even recognize and maybe that was why he felt a chill. One he ignored even as Wheels ignored him.
She had her helmet off and he saw her short cut blond hair sweat-slicked to her scalp as she crouched in that small room with her head down. "Wheels? Joan? What - ?" Then he saw it, the mark that was burned into the cracked wood beams of the back wall, with the worst of it focused on a spot just over her head. A mark too big and unfocused for anything alien, or anything alien that would have left the building standing anyway.
And Max shivered because he'd seen marks just like that before and because the woman wasn't looking at it at all. She was just brushing her gloved hand over a stain on the floor under it that was almost as big as the handkerchief he had in his pocket. A spot stained the wood and the runes there the same shade of reddish-brown he'd seen so, so many times in his life. Max stared even as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and pulled off his helmet. The air was thick and stale and tasted like iron, but seeing this through his faceplate just seemed wrong.
"Neil was the one who saw the spots in the carpet on the stairs. Spots that led us here," Wheels murmured as she turned her head. Max thought she was looking at him for a moment. Then he moved aside and she almost smiled as she hugged herself. I think - I think that they were still alive when they… But none of the hospitals around here have any record..."
Max didn't say a word because he knew. No one made it to any hospital and he was getting too old for this. Too old and too tired.
Armstrong wasn't. His dark skin was ashen as he yanked his helmet off, but there wasn't any hesitation in the move. "And Wheels found that." He almost spat the words out until she jumped. Then he sucked in a breath, but he didn't say anything more.
Max closed his eyes and he almost heard his voice instead of the one he used on duty as he reached out and put his hand on the woman's shoulder. "This is always the worst part of the job - " He'd said those words just like his first colonel said them to him all those years ago. She just nodded like most people do, and Armstrong didn't even do that much. He just glared ahead.
Or he did until Wheels broke down giggling. A wild, painful giggle that shook her so hard that Max felt it through her suit. A giggle that hadn't even stopped when she whispered, "Show him the door, Neil."
Armstrong sucked in a breath, and Max knew at once it wasn't over his first name. "Hot Wheels..." The big man took a half step toward her as he reached out, the move gentle enough that it gave everything away. Like everyone didn't know anyway, but as long as they kept it between themselves no one cared. This job was hard enough and everyone found comfort where they could.
"Show him," Wheels told her man again as she just sagged into his touch. She was so small next to him, her head barely brushing his neck, but it seemed like she was the only thing holding the big man up when she said that.
Max felt sick even before Armstrong pushed the door closed and the room went dark. The dark only lasted until Max found the flashlight in his gauntlet, and then he wished he hadn't. There were more runes carved into the door, but Max barely even looked at those as he stared down at the doorknob and the marks all around it.
Scratches.
There were so many cutting into the wood, some just across the surface, some cutting deep into the runes. Those had brown stains of their own in them, but that wasn't the worst thing, the thing that Max knew he would never forget.
No, that was the fact that none of the scratches were even as big as his pinkie finger.
"Helen," Wheels started, her back still to the door as she hugged herself. "My baby had a sandbox a few years ago because she loved building castles on the beach and I loved helping her whenever I was home and her father wasn't being a…" she stopped and shoved the heel of her hand against her eyes then, but her voice stayed steady as she kept going. "We never got to go more than a few times a year and - and when she dug into it… The marks her fingernails left looked just like that."
"Joan," Max's voice cracked as memories of his own came flooding up. Memories he shoved right back down because they were the last thing anyone needed. He tried to find the good in this, something that could make them both stop staring, but he'd never been one for words. The best he got was, "The scratches aren't new."
It was the best he had and it didn't help at all.
"The blood is, Colonel." Armstrong's words were short and clipped. "And there's a lot of it. I haven't seen that much since Manny broke his nose at basketball."
Max knew he was right, and it was enough that he put a hand on the wall before the thought staggered him. "Whoever was in here…" A name came to him, just like it had before, and he swallowed it down. Mostly. "She must have put up a fight."
"Sir?" Armstrong asked, his voice shaken just a little even as he reached for his rifle before he caught himself.
Max shook his head and looked around the closet. He kept her in a closet. "Whoever was here, they must have known what was coming, and they tried to fight, but…" He brushed his hand over the burn in the wood and the dried blood. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe it was a surprise and she didn't know what was coming.
He closed his eyes and hoped not.
"How - ?" Helen asked as she dropped her helmet. "How could anyone - "
Max didn't have an answer. Not for that. He'd never figured it out and he hoped that never changed, but they were parents. He'd seen their kids' pictures, just like he shared ones of his grandkids in a moment of weakness, and this wasn't any job for parents. "We'll report it. Close this up and go back to the transports. You two are done for today."
"No, sir!" Helen snapped as she spun around and stood up straight. Her face was wet with tears now, but she didn't seem to notice them as she glared.
"That blood's only a couple days old, Colonel! We're stayin' and gettin' the bastards," Armstrong snarled, his words curling like the fists at his side as his accent got thick. "After this? We're gettin' 'em."
Max gave them both a look before he gave in with a nod. "Scan everything." They didn't say a word of acknowledgment and Max didn't ask for one. He just watched them get started before he left them to it. The hall went on forever as he got out of that slaughterhouse and he felt greedy as he sucked in a lungful of air that was stale and still wonderful. He stood there with his hand on the wall as he blocked out as much as he could of what he just saw. All the things he should have been doing ran through his head should have helped. It did, a little. It got him moving, but something made him look in the door closest to the stairs instead of going down them.
The bedroom inside looked like the rooms that Lili had in her home and garden magazines with the tapestry on the wall and oak dressers that looked as old as the house. There was even a four-poster bed. One covered in the same black and red as everything else in the house.
The kicked-in door only ruined the effect a little, and Max felt his feet carry him across the room to the closet door that was hanging off its hinges. His hands shook when he reached inside, and he was still holding the black cloak that was lined with blood-red leather when Wes found him twenty minutes later. If he thought it was odd that Max was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and his helmet and rifle sitting on the floor next to him he didn't say so. He just sank down on his haunches and asked. "What's that?"
Max stared down at the cloak and when he spoke it felt like he was hearing someone else. "Last summer, the kids went up against a couple of low-level sorcerers named Hex and Charmcaster." They were dangerous. He'd watched Hex attack both a museum and a convention hall full of tourists without a care, but they weren't worth the Plumbers' time. Not when they could both be held by the police the second his grandchildren got them away from their knickknacks. "This is the cloak he always wore."
He should have known.
"Low level?" Wes said, his own voice just a low as wrinkles marred his leather skin.
"They used a lot of charms and artifacts. Hex was bottom of the barrel, a red aura. He wasn't much without them. His niece was a violet and should have been dangerous all on her own, but she always held herself back and used them, too." Max never wondered why. It happened before, though, people who learned as they went and never knew their real strength. He was grateful for that back then. "They gave the kids so much trouble, but nothing that they couldn't handle."
Trouble. He could have strangled the sorceress after the mess when she switched her mind with Gwen's. Not for the trouble she caused or the fact that his Pumpkin ended up in juvie. No, he could have strangled the girl for showing him just how little he knew his granddaughter if a stranger could take her place and he didn't even notice. Not for a whole day.
Unless he was wrong. Unless she never switched back and it was his Pumpkin who ended up -
"Our best lead in months and it's a dead end," Max said as he shoved that away because he knew the worry wasn't real and he needed to focus on what was. And those words were as real as the sweat and stubble he felt as he pulled off a glove and ran a hand over his face. "The first time we ran into Charmcaster, Gwen said that she was terrified of her uncle. That she said that she was just trying to get away. Gwen even tried to help her, and then she stabbed my Pumpkin in the back and - " And that was enough. He never even wondered how much of the sob story was true.
Now he knew, in the worst possible way.
Max tried to hold onto the anger he felt last summer, but all he saw was a scared little girl. He should have seen one with silver hair, but he just saw red. "She was just fifteen or maybe sixteen and…" And she should have had her whole life in front of her. "Hex was arrested in New Orleans. He has to be in the records somewhere and I want his picture up everywhere. I want - " He wanted the last year back, the last however many years it was since the first time that little girl got locked in all alone in the dark. He could have done something. If he'd been where he belonged. If he'd…
He could have…
Wes moved so fast then, and his grip on Max's shoulder was as firm as his voice. "It wasn't your fault, Max. This world has been unbalanced since before either of us were born. That is why the Holy Ones sent us here, so we can restore it, but you can't save everyone."
"I know." And Max did, but it didn't help. He was always too late, and he couldn't be. Not anymore. That thought made him look up at his friend and he saw the tension in the tight lines around his friend's eyes. "What did you find?"
Wes chewed on that before he finally sighed and answered. "Tracks."
Max couldn't face putting his helmet back on, so his eyes went to the screen in the arm of his suit. "Show me."
There was a flash and then he saw dead grass scattered around a gray gloved hand. A hand that was dwarfed by the mark that was gouged into the mud next to it. Max knew he was getting old because it took him forever to work out what he was looking at, but he hadn't tracked many things that had feet that big and only two toes. "A footprint?"
"More than one," Wes said as he watched Max and not the screen as the view shifted. More of the ground appeared, and more footprints and marks in between them that almost looked like something dragged a tail through the mud. The next few footprints dug into the dirt just as deep, but it looked almost angular and it led right from the hole in the side of the manor to the woods. Tracks that changed with each step as the video followed them. They seemed to gain and lose toes at random. None of it made sense.
And then it did because he'd seen tracks like that before. The thought hit Max like a baseball bat. "Avalon, I need eyes on Animo now." Of course, the madman got out - that's what he did - and when he found out how…
"The Wizard of Oz is secure, Whiskey Tango," Control said, her voice hiding all but the hint of her shock.
"Double check!" Max shook his head and felt his voice grow cold because they didn't know the madman or the number of times he was sure that they'd dealt with him. "And give me visual, I want - "
"The Wizard of Oz is off the board, Whiskey Tango," Jim cut in, his voice flat and cold. "Finish up or you'll be walking the yellow brick road, too."
The radio in his forearm went dead again at that and stayed that way for a long time. Long enough that Wes coughed. "Max?" One word, but it was sharper than the knife that Max knew his friend had in his boot.
"Another old problem," Max whispered. One he almost dealt with. One he should have dealt with. If he had… If he had, he'd still have more problems then he knew what to do with. "Where was it going?"
"I don't know." The words cost his friend something. Cost him enough that the wrinkles in Wes's face cut deeper even as he turned around and sat down next to Max with a grunt. It was the same noise Max made a few minutes ago, which was impossible because only old men sounded like that. "The prints shrank as we followed them. Shrank until they disappeared in the grass. Whatever it was couldn't have been much bigger than Kai by the time it was done. Or as big as the alien that left this."
Wes reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a plastic bag. One that held half a dozen things that looked like nothing so much as porcupine quills. Only the markings on them gave away what they were really from.
"An Erethizonite?" The aliens were as much vermin as the rats that they so closely resembled, and were almost as common out there. Max could almost see the Xenocites taking one just because of that, but Hex? "What's a Erethizonite doing here?"
"Putting up a fight," Wes said as he put the quills back. "I found almost a hundred of these things in the walls. Between that and the tracks, it looks like this Hex hunted bigger game than he could catch."
"Good." Max hoped it hurt. "Any idea - ?"
"I found a spot in the mud where someone hit hard. A spot with glass mixed in. I think that the monster threw the man through a window before it followed after. " Wes said with a deep sigh as he let his head fall back. "And some boot prints. Light ones. Prints that backed away from the house at first before they turned and ran as the monster and the alien followed. They almost made it to the trees before all three sets just vanished."
"Of course they did," Max said with a chuckle as he let his head fall back and his eyes close. "Magic. It's a good thing that today can't get any worse." The words were just a joke.
The man next to him just hummed in agreement, or that's what Max thought until the other man closed his eyes and sighed. "Kai had to get a physical this morning."
"Wes…" Magic and aliens and everything else disappeared at those words. So did all of Max's years as his eyes flew open and his head spun around. "Wes, I'm sorry."
Not that his friend noticed. Not when his dark eyes stared out into the distance as he sank into himself. "I promised her I'd always be there when she had to go. After…" The words disappeared as Wes swallowed, but he didn't need them. Max knew what his friend was seeing.
What Wes always saw after the call that ended with his granddaughter living with him and his wife. A call and the car accident that left far more scars on the inside than out on all three of them, but Kai was the one who spent weeks in the hospital when she was only six. A vision that the man shook off even if he couldn't the guilt or Max's hand on his shoulder. "Aswee said she could handle it, but they had some new blood test and - "
"Kai, too?" Max asked and the surprise made him cut in. Surprise and the hope that he could distract Wes for even a second. "Ben swore that he'd never go to the doctor again after his." And even Gwen had glared as she pulled up her sleeve. He didn't blame them either, not after he saw the pockmarked scar that marred their upper arms the last time he was home. "If you want, we can go hunt down the bureaucrat who ordered it and leave a scar or two on them when this is all done."
"Done." Wes said as he closed his eyes for a long, long time. Then he shook it off and stood up. "Come. My granddaughter needs me and I want to go home, but there are still buffalo that need hunting."
"I said that once," Max sighed at the reminder he didn't need. Not when he could still taste his boot even after all these years. And maybe, just maybe he put a little more into it than the old joke deserved as he added, "You're never going to let it go, are you?"
"Never." Wes didn't smile but didn't need to. The wrinkles that deepened in the corners of his eyes was almost as good. Especially when the man held out his hand.
A hand Max almost took before he remembered the cloak he was holding. "I'll be right there."
Wes gave him one more look before he nodded once and walked out of the room without a sound except for the hiss his helmet made as he put it on. Max let the cloak drop away as he picked up his helmet and put it back on. He could think of a thousand reasons why he shouldn't do this, but it didn't stop him. "Avalon, put me through to Zeta X-Ray One."
Control didn't answer right away, which was unusual. When she did, her voice was hesitant, which was unprecedented. "Merlin left us orders that we weren't - "
That should have been that. If today was any better it would have been. "It's almost Thanksgiving, Avalon." And he wasn't going home. Not today.
The line went quiet again for a heartbeat, then two, then twenty. "Roger, Whiskey. Connecting now."
Then a new voice came on. One he'd recognize anywhere. He was old, but he hadn't forgotten his nephew's yet. "This is a surprise, Whiskey Tango," Joel said, but he didn't sound it. If anything, he sounded like he was fighting back a laugh.
"I just wanted to know how you and Zeta X-Ray Two were doing," Max said, his chest suddenly tight.
"Two is adapting. She's good at that, and this is a nicer house than she expected even on our pay. She's out in the yard right now being this and that." The joke was a small one, but Max let himself smile anyway. Like Camille would be anywhere but at her husband's side. Some part of him couldn't believe that Jim allowed it, even though he knew why the man did. Need-to-know was the only religion he had, and the woman already did. The rest of him was just a little jealous even if he was grateful that his grandchildren still had family looking out for them when he couldn't. "Do you want me to go get her?"
"No," Max took a breath even as worry choked him. For all his denials… "Give her my best, but I just wanted a sitrep on the subjects."
It hurt calling them that. It hurt almost as much as Joel going quiet. No doubt he had orders from Merlin, too, but he was a Tennyson before that and no one in their family took orders well. "Subjects stopped an armored car robbery in progress approximately twenty minutes ago. They arrived three minutes before the police, incapacitated the robbers and left." Those words were crisp and professional enough that Max knew they were from the log. He also knew that they wouldn't last long, and they didn't. A laugh crept with the next. "They were arguing the whole time, and the lip-reading program in our surveillance system just finally figured out over what."
"What?"
This time Joel didn't fight the laugh. "They're at each other's throats over whether or not 'Young Frankenstein' is a good movie."
Max was sure that every Plumber around jumped as he let out a roar at that, even with his helmet on. He wished he could have wiped his eyes when he was done a minute later. The air circulator would dry his face in a second, but it wasn't the same. "Sorry, Pumpkin. You're not going to win that one."
Joel let out a bark of his own and he could almost see his nephew sitting back in his chair. "So, it isn't a code? Merlin's been pulling his hair out for the last few minutes over it."
Max snorted at that. "No. They've been fighting over that ever since I found a theater playing it last summer." God, that seemed so long ago. Max closed his eyes and leaned back and tried to remember what it was like when he was just worried about making sure that his grandkids had fun as he showed them the world.
"Subject two was rather adamant that it wasn't."
"Her grandmother said the same thing," Max said, and his voice shook just a little as he remembered his Starshine's face when they left the theater for the first time. It took two more before she softened at all. He wondered if Ben would ever get to see the same thing. Probably not, even if she did change her mind. It wasn't like either of them to ever let an argument go. Not that it mattered. He'd let them fight all day for just a…
There were so many reasons he shouldn't have said what he did next. Enough that he'd be awake the rest of the week thinking about them, Max was sure, but he couldn't help himself. "X-Ray could - could you give me eyes on?"
There wasn't any hesitation this time. "Roger."
Max's visor flashed one more time and the mansion went away. Some part of him hoped that they were home and he'd just see the outside of their houses, but he knew better even before he saw the little smoothie shack and the picnic tables under him. Tables that were almost all empty, all except for the one at the very edge of the lights that held back the night. Max could see the shapes moving there. One was tiny and almost lost in the dark, but the other was too big and too white as they sat at the very edge of the camera's focus.
Then the world zoomed in on them and it was all Max could do to keep breathing.
He was sure that his Pumpkin had grown another foot in the weeks he was away as she sat on top of the table in her Lucky Girl costume with a smoothie in her hands. Her mask hid her face, but nothing could hide the fact that she was all riled up. Not with the smoothie in her hand flying this way and that as she argued with the huge alien that was sitting on the ground in front of her because there wasn't a table big enough on this world for Cannonbolt.
Ben's smoothie was so much bigger than hers, but it was still almost lost in this alien's hands. It took Max years before he could read most alien's expressions, but Ben's? It didn't matter what body his grandson wore, he knew that smirk as the boy lifted his smoothie with stubby arms and tossed it at the trash can twenty feet away.
"Whiskey?"
Even with the sound off, Max could have sworn he heard his granddaughter's laugh when Ben missed. A laugh he knew she was going to pay for even before Cannonbolt curled up in a ball and raced away before he made a 180 so tight it kicked up a cloud of gravel and charged right back at her. Max saw her mouth drop as she shoved herself up.
Her scream was just as silent as Gwen bolted off the table, her smoothie forgotten as her hands shot up with mana already burning around her fingers.
But all those years of karate didn't help her this time when Cannonbolt bounced, unblurred in the air, wrapped around her and curled back up before gravity even touched him. Then the giant rolly polly alien spent the next minute racing this way and that around the tables until he uncurled again and sent her spilling out as wobbly as any roller coaster ever left her. Max remembered his one and only ride inside the thing and he didn't blame her one bit.
"You know, I never believed your stories until I got this assignment," Joel said with a laugh as Gwen weaved this way and that on her way to the nearest table as Cannonbolt stood there behind her, his hands on his stomach as he cracked up. "But I swear, these two are better than anything on TV."
"Whiskey Tango?"
"So much better," Max breathed as he just stood there and stared at the screen on his arm as Gwen reached for and missed a table just as her knees gave out. He'd caught her a thousand times since she was born, and it killed him that he couldn't now even as he tried.
He couldn't, but Ben did. The white and orange alien moved faster than Max would have imagined as a new and oddly worried look filled the alien's face. Cannonbolt darted forward and caught her with time to spare. It was a worry that Joel didn't feel as he let out a whistle. "And I thought he moved fast at my wedding."
"He'll always surprise you," Max murmured. So will she, and the worry on his grandson's face turned into horror as Gwen forgot all about being dizzy as she spun in his arms and pressed a kiss against the alien's cheek. "You'd think you'd learn, Ben…" Max laughed along with his granddaughter as his grandson pushed her away and stumbled over his own feet. He was sure Joel would too, until he heard his nephew make a sound like he was choking as Ben fell over and he just had to show the young man some mercy. More than Gwen showed her cousin, anyway. "It's her secret weapon."
"Secret?" Joel's sounding just as strangled as it was before Max explained. "Unc - Whiskey Tango, She does it almost every - !"
"There's been a sighting down in Brazil, Whiskey Tango," Albright broke in before Joel could finish. "Avalon wants us wheels up in five. Merlin says that Lima can finish up here. Do you read me?"
The words echoed in Max's head even as he watched Gwen dash away from her cousin. A dash that ended as she jumped on a glowing pink flying carpet that appeared at her feet and flew just as Ben got up. Then he threw himself forward, curled in tight, and raced right after her as the cameras did their best to keep up. One last look before he whispered, "Take care of them, X-ray," before they vanished from his sight and the manor came back.
The manor and the cloak he gave one more look at as he pushed himself up and made for the door. "Roger, Sierra. On my way."
And jungle mud pulled at his boots with every step.