Chapter Eight
The Adversary
Pete and Myka, in a Farnsworth conference between Brooklyn, New York and their Agent counterparts in San Francisco, California, need a few seconds to absorb the implications of their now-identified artifact. Artemis' Bow and associated Quiver had been unearthed in 1749, came into the possession of the British Museum in London from whence they had been looted in 1937.
Claudia continues her report. /Rumor is all we have on Hitler's search for or possession of it./
"Okay, what's the deal with it?" Pete asks. "This thing has killed twenty-nine people; twelve in Prospect Park, seventeen in Barclay Center, and the best we have is a single eyewitness description that some guy acted like he was placing, drawing and firing nothing that killed seventeen people."
/It fired arrows?/
"Invisible arrows," Myka confirms, "that went through people, trees, metal, who knows what else?"
/I have a Search running for anything, even barely credible rumors, and when I get something I'll let you know./
"If so," Pete asks, "how do we stop it?"
/I'll… get back to you./
Her image vanishes to black at the touch of the button.
xx
Steve, standing beside the lumpy bed in a room that rents by the hour, checks his pockets and then positions his own shoulder bag on his left arm, preparatory to their leaving the motel. "If I had my druthers, I'd ruther have that case."
"Bow and arrow vs. naughty phone calls?"
"Well, it is a firearm."
"I wonder what Liam Napier would think of that?" US Marshal Napier had been his boyfriend in the days when Steve had worked at the ATF.
"Rather not know. You're sure about that location?" he says, tossing the room keys onto the bed, having no desire to deal with the cluck … err, clerk, again.
"The hub is at 37.7839552° North, 122.4834048° West, and if I could find it, the Phone Company is sure to." She pushes her laptop into her fitted shoulder bag. "This is going to be close."
xxx
With the boss on ice, the staff of West Palm Beach's Community Board Four had not felt inspired to put in a full day's work. Therefore, when Leena and Artie see Mary Stewart depart for the day, followed twenty three minutes later by Carol Estes, they give a few minutes to be certain the women are gone, whether to visit Alfred Ganze in Columbia Hospital or elsewhere, then they abandon the air conditioned car for the blast furnace.
They'd gotten indoors as quickly as they could, up to the third floor, and outside the office. Artie roots through his satchel, brings out three items, giving two of them over to Leena. One resembles a pocket watch but is in reality a closed barometer. The other is a metallic dodecahedron, a twelve-sided metal device, each face bearing the shape of a pentagon. They are, respectively, the barometer from the USS Eldridge which, when opened, will stop time for everything but the wielder for 47 seconds; and the Eclipse, a mechanical device that will halt the activity of any other device, this one for 42 minutes and 59 seconds, oddly (and thus far inexplicably) the run time of Pink Floyd's album 'Dark Side of the Moon'.
The last thing he takes out is Walter Schlage's Universal Lockpick.
As proof that Necessity is indeed the Mother of Invention, Schlage had developed the infinitely adaptable Lockpick in the 1920's after growing frustrated by his constantly locking himself out of his own inventions.
Artie inserts the key-like protuberance of the cylindrical device into the lock and, after allowing five seconds for adaptation, turns it and then takes the Eclipse from Leena. He already knows where the alarm control is from their first moments in the outer office, head high on his right.
Leena is ready with the barometer, and when he touches her arm, physical contact allowing them to share the effect, she opens the device.
He pulls the door open and attaches the dodecahedron to the control box.
As the camera mounted high in a corner is part and parcel of the Security system, that too is affected. For the next 42 minutes - 40 for a margin of safety - none of the devices in the room will take any notice of them or their activities.
Replacing the Schlage and the Barometer into the bag, they begin their search of computers and filing cabinets.
xxx
37.7839552° North, 122.4834048° West is an unassuming part of Richmond, San Francisco, specifically 6114 California Street, a black (who paints their house black?) two story private home tucked between two huge multiple dwelling houses that are so large that the black house seems a toy tucked between two giants.
It also looks, from the view of blank windows, quite unoccupied.
On the sidewalk directly in front of 6114 is a rectangular metal cover, and that is the nearest possible location of the artifact that is causing havoc for all the phone lines in the city.
Steve looks down at his partner, in particular the nice clothes she's wearing. "Let me guess; I'm going down there." He swings off from his shoulder his murse, handing it to her.
"Well, I was going to volunteer but hey, if you want to go, I won't try to stop you."
"Yeah. Well, any idea what I'm looking for?"
"Something that doesn't belong on a junction box."
"Thanks."
"And you'd better make it snappy. If the Phone Company is anywhere as good as I am in reading their own maps, they've probably got a crew on its way already."
"Well," he looks over the rectangular cover between them, "you're going to have to keep watch, because no way are we dressed as phone company employees. Give me a hand."
She examines her hands, fingers spread, front and back. "I just got my nails done."
"Bee – yachhh."
She grins; having finally managed to get him to say it. "Oh, enchanté, mon cher."
x
But despite the brief playtime, prying the cover off is an easy feat, though a very obvious one. It takes little time to get the barrier set aside, and as Steve descends the ladder, holding his breath for the descent, then upon the landing breathing through a handkerchief because the air is far from fresh – it is in fact quite rank – Claudia keeps watch. She does her best to try not to look like a woman keeping watch while her partner breaks into phone company property.
'If Artie finds out about this amateurish snag, he'll have our heads - after he kicks our butts.'
x
Down in the hole Steve is grateful for having thought to bring along a penlight, but he's determined to leave the details of this operation out of his 'After Action Report'.
The bottom of the shaft is the nexus for control boxes of every conceivable, and a few inconceivable, systems. Few are marked, likely because anyone who has a right to be here would know what he (or she, political correctness even down here) is doing, and if they should come down without knowing then they don't deserve to be here.
But when it comes to selecting the right box, it helps to apply logic. Some of these boxes have not been opened in weeks, months or even years, except this one whose seal and hinges are freshly freed of any coating that would accumulate on untouched metal.
Taking a deep breath through the cloth, he holds it (and regrets having to do so) and uses the cloth to open the door, shining the flashlight into the innards.
x
While there are all sorts of metal switches, insulated wires and an assortment of other things that belong there, a three-inch shard of black rock jammed into an apparently archaic circuit definitely does not.
It takes some effort to pry the black stone loose, and when he takes another deep breath he pulls from his pocket and shakes out a silver / purple lined bag, averts his eyes and drops the stone inside.
A hiss accompanied by flash of purple / yellow energy, like a miniature lightning storm, lights up the chamber.
He seals the bag, rolls and puts it into his pocket, closes the box and quits the stink of the tunnel even more quickly than prudence demands.
x
Claudia, having spent the time trying not to look nervous or in any way worthy of suspicion, is very grateful when she sees Steve's head pop out of the hole. She grasps his hand to boost him out to his feet and grimaces at the left-over evidence on her palm. She snatches his handkerchief before he can return it to his pocket and scrubs at the blackness.
"You get it?" she asks, only because it's unnecessary; she can see the rolled 'snag bag' sticking out of his pocket. She hands him back his murse.
When together they have pushed the cover back into place and walked a few feet along the sidewalk and back into obscurity, she feels innocent enough to ask "What is it?"
He unrolls the pack, hands it to her, she undoes the zip and looks inside. Though for the time being the stone is harmless - it will take time after it is drawn from the bag to again become a danger - she carefully examines the black shard.
Then, driven by a feeling motivated perhaps by her evolving Caretaker sensitivities, she slowly turns her head left and looks at the black house beside them.
"Come on," she says, again unnecessarily, for he accompanies her up the vacant driveway. It's not difficult to find the black cornerstone, dated 1966, and they're confident that the black stone shard will fit perfectly into the broken corner of the parent stone.
"Well, didn't take long to solve this one," he says.
"I wonder…." She tugs her tablet from her own shoulder pouch, turns it on and types quickly. It takes less than a minute for her smile of great satisfaction. "Do you know what this place is?" He answers with an eloquent shrug. "This is the Black House."
He looks up and down the black, two-story single-family home, then back to her. "No kidding?"
"In 1966 until when he died in 1997 this place was owned by Anton Szandor LaVey of 'Church of Satan' fame.
"Satan being Adversary, a title rather than a specific being, he is named in the Bible as Lucifer, but also equates to the Norse Loki, the Trickster."
"Explains the phone sabotage. Someone was having too good a time."
"The group is now headquartered in, of all places, Hell's Kitchen on the West Side of Manhattan," she concludes, "but this place was never sold."
He looks again at the black building dwarfed on each side by high rise condos, doubting the place ever sees direct sunlight. "I wonder why."
x
"Well, the police can take things from here," he says, ready to be done with this case. "We've done the snag, bag and will soon do the tag. We can send an anonymous tip to the police from SFI in case this happens again." From his shoulder bag he takes out a spray can and gives the cornerstone a liberal dosing of purple mist, which stone responds with a hiss and eminently satisfactory yellow / purple fireworks.
"So," she offers, "unless there's something at the Flea Bag that you want–"
"Let's go home."