CRESCENT OF STEEL AND DARKNESS
Chapter 12
Once al-Ghul and the other two had left, the staring contest began at once. Ghani and the younger man, Mansour, turned on each other, eyes smoldering. "You heard the malik. Get a mop and clean up the mess." Mansour's tone was cool and almost threatening.
"I did hear the malik," Ghani snapped back. "I clearly heard him tell you to do that, not me."
Mansour's eyes went to slits. "The prisoners need extra watching now. And I have the gun."
"Oh, so you have a gun. Unless you intend to use it on me, I suggest you obey orders and get the mop. The malik designated me to act as guard from the first, and I did not hear him countermand his own order." Ghani put on an unaccustomed sneer. "Of course, you can use your gun and make me do your duty…and once I get upstairs, I can inform the malik of your attitude toward his commands."
The other was about to reply, but thought better of it. He just stared at Ghani for a moment, then muttered, "I'll be right back."
After Mansour left to fetch the mop, Ghani stood up, pausing until the door had safely closed, then swooped over to Martin. "Who do I call?" he whispered.
With the first rush of hope he'd felt since the ordeal had begun, Martin whispered back, "Jack Malone at the FBI." Hastily he recited the number twice, then nodded as Ghani repeated it back perfectly.
Ghani returned the nod. "As soon as I can get away." He heard Taylor sigh with relief behind him, and turned. "I'm so sorry, Detective Taylor."
The criminalist smiled raggedly. "Make that call in time and you won't have to apologize for anything."
"I'd ask you what changed your mind," Martin said gently, "but I don't really need to, do I?"
"Not really," Ghani agreed with a rueful smile of his own as he slipped back onto his stool and composed himself, putting on his glowering guard face.
Only seconds later, the door clicked back open; Mansour had returned with a bucket, a mop, and an annoyed yet resigned expression. Without a word he set to sopping up the small wet slick which was all that remained of Derek Shaftoe. The three other men could not watch; Lexi Duhaine, seemingly catatonic, could not look away.
It didn't take long. Mansour wrung out the mop for the last time, picked up the bucket, and turned to leave. That was when Ghani stood and said, "I'm sorry we argued before, Mansour. Here, let me bring that back to the kitchen and dispose of it for you."
Mansour looked suspicious for a moment, then decided to smile. "Thanks, Iftikhar. Here." He handed bucket and mop to the other, then took over the stool as Ghani went upstairs. With a smirk he drew the gun, holding it casually in his lap, and waited for the other to return. Nothing he saw on the captive's faces gave him any reason to be concerned.
XXXX
Danny had to ease up a little on the throttle as he negotiated the exit and merge from Interstate 87 to the Saw Mill River Parkway; in the car behind, Don Flack was on the point of passing him. Fortunately, traffic was sparse so late at night; they were making good time – just not good enough for them. And right now, no one wanted to discuss how they could possibly narrow the search once they made it to the town.
From the back seat behind the driver, Agent Johnson asked, "Shouldn't we have called for backup, Jack?"
Malone turned in the front passenger seat to look at her. "I wish, Viv, but we can't have them getting a look at Hellboy. It's just the four of us, and the four in the car behind us."
"Sounds like decent odds to me," said Danny with a grin.
"I wish we all had your confidence," Sam muttered from behind him.
A ringtone intervened. "Malone." The team leader listened for a moment; his eyes went wide and he demanded, "Who is this?... You're with Jibril Khalid al-Ghul?... Yes, I understand…Thank you, Mr. Ghani; we're on our way."
All attention was upon him; Danny could barely keep his eyes on the road. "Jack?" Sam probed.
Malone's broad, satisfied grin lit up the car. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have an address." It seemed impossible, but the grin widened. "And Mr. al-Ghul has a turncoat in his group."
"Which equals us having a chance." Johnson's voice was too cool, as if she was forcing down a surge of excitement. But Malone wasn't responding; he was already too busy passing the word on to the next car.
XXXX
"Sorry we couldn't take the van, Red," John apologized from the front passenger seat, where he rode beside Flack. "Are you okay back there?"
From where he lay across the back seat, Hellboy rumbled agreeably, "Way better than okay. This beats the van six ways to Sunday." Beatifically he looked up into the tolerantly smiling face of Stella Bonasera from her lap, where his head lay. "You come here often, Detective?" he teased.
"First time," she teased back, "and as long as you stay below window level, I'm happy."
"I guess I owe it to you to say this, Stella," said Flack; "thanks for letting me drive."
That was when her cellphone rang. "That's mine. Hellboy, could you just roll forward a bit?" He obliged, and she excavated it from her pocket. "Detective Bonasera… What! …Oh God, Agent Malone, please tell me you're not kidding…Got it. We're right behind you." Hanging up, she addressed them all: "Someone's sold out al-Ghul, and we know where to go!" Quickly she passed on the address to the driver.
"Well, all right!" Flack quickly pawed for the emergency dome light. "Now that we're finally going to dance, the guy with the siren gets to lead!"
As the emergency shriek ripped across the night, John cautioned, "Remember to kill that thing when we get within ten miles of the target."
"Yeah, yeah, but let me have my fun now." Flack quickly pulled ahead of Malone's car, the siren screaming the road ahead clear, and the two vehicles roared on.
XXXX
It hadn't been long at all – it seemed like mere minutes – before al-Ghul returned to the cellar. In his immaculate white robes, with the magnificent sword at his side and the ancient book under one arm, he contrasted strongly with Samir and Abdelaziz, who were sweat-wet and almost as dirty as the shovels they carried. They had been quite pleased to drop those shovels and take out their guns. It was the work of minutes to release both men from the pipe they were locked to and secure their hands behind their backs; only Martin had been able to put up much resistance, and three to one made for impossible odds.
Eventually the three prisoners were taken upstairs without much trouble. Martin was kept quiet by Samir's gun at the back of his head, and Taylor had to be half-dragged by Mansour on one side and a sweaty, furtive-looking Ghani on the other. As for the stunned, almost entranced Lexi Duhaine, this time she made not a whisper of protest against al-Ghul's orders, but stood up and walked out beside him like a trained pet.
As they were hustled up the steps and through the house, federal agent and NYPD criminalist could take little note of the place except to see that it probably hadn't been cleaned or tidied since al-Ghul had moved his cell into Shaftoe's property. Once they were out the back door, it was clear that the groundskeepers, as well as the household staff, hadn't been at their jobs either. The wide lawn was uncut, the bushes burgeoning with spring had not been trimmed, and the decorative pond gleamed green with scum. They saw it all by the light of a far more alarming, obviously brand-new feature at the center of the garden: a shallow pit about three feet wide by six feet long, a bonfire blazing high all along its length. It was impossible not to notice it was of a size to accommodate easily an adult human body – still alive after being slashed open with a sword.
At first sight of the sacrificial pit, Lexi collapsed, her legs giving way and a muffled moan escaping from behind the gag. With a grunt of annoyance, al-Ghul signaled Abdelaziz to haul her up and keep her going. The captives were finally made to sit on the turf a few yards from the fire, beside a large, once elegant Chinese ornamental boulder, now defaced with symbolic writing that might have been an exotic variant of Arabic – and then again, might not.
Once everything was arranged to his satisfaction, al-Ghul crossed a few feet away to another similarly inscribed ornamental boulder, near a pile of rubble that had once been a garden statue. Carefully he set the Al-Azif book atop the high rock, found his page, and with his right hand drew the sword. It had begun.
XXXX
Don Flack had cut the siren and the flashing blue beam soon after leaving the parkway, but both cars maintained almost the same dangerous speed. "They're not going to be inside," Malone was saying. "Our informant, one Iftikhar Ghani – and you can imagine how anxious I am to look him up in the databases – says that they'll probably be somewhere on the grounds, doing what he referred to as 'some act of idol worship,' no further explanation."
"This case is making less sense by the minute," Danny muttered. "What was that street again?"
Both cars were cruising through a quiet, poorly lit, and obviously very expensive residential area of northern Westchester County. The houses were huge – at least those that could be seen from the road; the neighborhood was dense with trees, the homes set far back, sidewalks nonexistent. Right before they turned the corner onto the correct street, Danny and Flack both slowed down and killed their headlights. They would approach as silently and invisibly as possible.
The house, last one on the dead-end lane, could barely be seen. The night was moonless, thick foliage screened the nearly farm-sized lot from view, and there was not a single light on in the place. The cars opened, spilling eight riders into the night; they gathered at the foot of a brooding maple to improvise their approach.
Standing head and shoulders above the seven humans around him, Hellboy naturally took command. "No flashlights," he declared in a whisper more commanding than any shout could be.
"But it's dark as a coal mine, and we've never been here before," Sam protested. "How do we find our way?"
"Link up in a chain, hand on the shoulder of the one in front of you. I'm on point."
"Why you?" asked Johnson.
"Because no one else here can see in the dark worth a damn. The first in the chain takes hold of my tail."
"After you, Detective Bonasera." Flack was only half joking.
XXXX
The only light was that of the fire-pit; the only voice was that of Jibril Khalid al-Ghul, chanting his summons to the beings on the other side, the fire gleaming off the inscribed blade. Soon enough the cool spring night grew hot and close, as if the sprawling gardens had become a tiny locked room, and the sorcerer's voice was joined by two others: a dry dusty scraping and a sticky, bubbly slurp. The three young Arabs were shaking, and tightened their grip on their weapons; Ghani carefully maneuvered himself until the prisoners and the Chinese boulder lay between him and his master. Lexi had sunk to the ground and was only a deeper, smaller darkness within the night. Mac Taylor, too much strength bled away, let out a sigh of bitterness and lingering pain and sank against the rock; Martin Fitzgerald forced himself to watch al-Ghul, looking for approaching rescuers, a possible opening for resistance, any cause for hope. Failing that, he had one tactic left to buy the others some time…
Suddenly the incantation stopped – not finished, but as if suspended for a moment. Lowering the book, al-Ghul nodded to his men. They exchanged nervous glances, but could not pretend that they didn't know what to do next. Leaving Ghani and Samir to watch the two male captives, Abdelaziz and Mansour took the first steps toward the inert black heap that was Lexi Duhaine. Those first steps were reluctant, very shaky, but soon enough they recovered their confidence and were able to advance boldly on a bound and gagged woman. Grabbing at the black folds of her abaya, they hauled her up to her feet and held her there, in spite of her boneless, limp surrender.
Knowing what was about to happen, Martin had to make his move. Taking the guards by surprise, he stood up, straight and resolute in spite of his shackled hands, and declared, "Take me first."
All eyes were instantly on him; he could even feel the hot, repulsive presence of Chaarmarouch and Taranoushi growing stronger and more focused. As Lexi realized what he had said, her strength flooded back, she stood under her own power, and a strangled moan forced its way from behind the gag. But Martin smiled gently at her, remembering a drawing of himself in an aspect he could not have imagined until she had shown it to him. "Take me first," he repeated. "You can get around to her later."
The two young men looked to their master for his cue; al-Ghul considered for a long moment, then nodded curtly again. They obediently let go of Lexi, leaving her swaying precariously on her feet, and went to grip the FBI agent. He let them, and let them slowly lead him over beside the second inscribed boulder where the sorcerer waited, his book placed carefully aside atop the rock, both hands locked on the hilt of the sword.
As they passed the remaining prisoner, Martin looked down at the sound of a quiet voice. "You're good."
"Thank you." Blue gazes met in the firelit night, resigned and admiring, then Martin was pushed onward to his fate. His last challenge remained: to accept a cruel death without dishonoring himself, his team, or his country, and to pray silently that rescue arrived before all three of them were murdered…and the way to this world opened wide to unspeakable invasion.
TO BE CONTINUED