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Chapter 9
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Once they felt they were safe, Myka rounded on Artie. "Artie, out with it. I really think it's time you tell us what you think is going on. Is this like some book that let's imaginary animals walk through, sort of like the reverse of the Narnia stories?"
Artie shocked her by placing both hands on her shoulders and squeezing them reassuringly. "It not like I don't want to tell you. At the moment I only have suspicions. We can't act until we have more facts." He made a cursory scan of the sky before giving her body a gentle shake. "I just need a bit more information before I voice my theories. As soon as I'm sure, you'll be the first to know. Okay?" He released his hold on her.
Mollified, Myka responded with a quick dip of her chin.
Together, they entered an all-night fast food joint, ordered a light repast and drinks then settled into a booth in a corner, away from the employees' ears and from windows in case they got any rude surprises from outside.
"So what are you proposing we do?" queried Myka.
"Let me think about this a second." He took a long and somewhat noisy drink of the sweet tea. "Ideally, I'm hoping the authorities will catch one of the animals, cage it for the evening, and check it out when it's no longer a threat. But I'm suspecting manpower is spread pretty thin right now. It'll be a 'right time, right place' kind of situation.
"Like the 'situation' that almost ate us?" Pete inquired, biting down hard on a fry.
Artie sighed around a mouthful of his burger. "All of these 'situations' present a danger. Dragons are just the meanest and biggest of the lot. Your run-in with the bison is a perfect example."
Pete snorted. "Not really. It tried to gore me and trample me but at least it didn't try to eat me!"
A quick grin flashed across Artie's lips. "Be grateful for small favors."
"Yeah, right!" Pete responded sarcastically.
Once back out on the street, they took up the patrol again, only this time they were far more wary and vigilant. Pete's mind was closely tuned to the sensations in the pit of his stomach, hoping they'd give him warnings about advancing danger.
The answer to Artie's unspoken hypothesis presented itself suddenly with a keening cry, the rustle of enormous wings and the ripping of needle sharp talons. Pete yowled as bloody furrows were laid down across his scalp. He felt a warm trickle of something slide around his ear and down his neck. He cursed loudly. Reflexively, his hand flew to the warmth and came away dark. He had no doubt it was his own blood and that fueled his anger.
Artie and Myka, who had both crouched as soon as the attack had begun, were struggling to keep their attacker in view. Unaware of Pete's injury, they ignored him.
As the eagle began disappearing into the darkness, Pete pulled his Tesla. He didn't want it dead, at least not yet. First he planned on bringing it down so he could pluck it bald like a Thanksgiving turkey, one feather at a time.
Scalp burning, crimson rivers still streaming under his collar, he aimed the Tesla at the sky. "Here birdie, birdie, birdie," he sang in falsetto, sounding like Seann William Scott in the movie "Evolution".
Myka, not a huge movie fan, didn't get the reference, but Artie did. He gave Pete an "Oh please" look but said nothing. Seeing the Tesla materialize, he patted his coat pocket and froze. Somewhere, out on a city street lay his Tesla, dumped no doubt as he ran from the dragon. Fortunately, he still had his Sig Sauer .40 caliber holstered against his waist but he didn't draw it. If his suspicions were correct, he wanted the eagle down, not dead.
As if responding to the challenge, there was a high pitched cry and the huge wingspan of the bald eagle materialized into the lights. Pete calmly aimed and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
"Oh no, not again!" Lattimer scowled at the gun but only for a second. He was forced to duck the talons. Myka and Artie mimicked him, their knees hitting the pavement. As Myka drew her semi-automatic, Artie rose and snatched the Tesla out of Pete's hand. He gave it a forceful dose of Claudia's brand of percussive maintenance and fired just as the raptor swooping down, head height, for another attack.
Lightning tendrils flew straight out, enveloping the bird. It screeched once, tried to turn, and lost consciousness. To everyone's dismay, the magnificent symbol of their country had pivoted just enough to plummet head first into a wall. It was followed by the sound of rustling feathers and the muted breaking of fragile bones.
"No, no!" Artie cried. It wasn't supposed to happen that way, he berated himself. He ran toward the downed raptor, kneeling slowly by the body which still twitched slightly.
The ubiquitous purple gloves appeared on Artie's hands as if by magic. He hesitantly stretched his fingers toward the downed creature whose trembling had finally ceased. Just as he was about to connect with it, the body writhed. It seemed to bubble and expand, spreading outward before their very eyes. The feathers shrank, withdrawing into the pale flesh beneath. The body elongated, wings narrowing and reaching out toward Nielsen who reacted with a hoarse yell. He fell over backward, instantly crab walking away from the morphing creature. Both agents with him reacted in much the same way, stepping back quickly.
As Artie's rump finally landed on the sidewalk, Pete grabbed a fistful of his coat and hauled him to his feet. Neither man took their eyes off the body during its transformation. Myka, eyes rounding in shock, grabbed Artie's sleeve.
"What's happening?" she asked the obvious question although they could quite clearly see it for themselves.
"Almost over," Artie replied, sounding more knowledgeable than he should have. "Damn! I'd hoped—" His lips pressed into a tense line but he said nothing else.
"Hoped what, Artie?" Myka hissed, definitely upset at what she was seeing.
"Hoped it would be something other than this." He gestured weakly to what was left behind by the transformation. In what seemed like slow motion, he knelt one more by the body and felt for a pulse. His head and shoulders visibly slumped. "It's my fault," his rasping voice stated after a few moments. He closed the eyes of the youth lying there at his feet. "I should have been more careful."
Bending over, Pete gripped Artie's shoulder and held on. "Man, there was no way you could have avoided this. The bird was dive bombing us. Look at how cut up I am. No one would blame you."
Instead of answering, Artie parked his behind on the cement, sitting Indian style, gazing at the still body of the teenager. Given the poor lighting, it was hard to be specific about his hair color, some dark shade of blonde perhaps. Light eyes. A small dark mole on his neck just below the chiseled jaw line. All in all it was a handsome face, turned innocent in death.
"I'm still not sure what is going on here aside from the obvious," Myka knelt down next to him.
"Look at his body."
It was hard not to, Myka thought. The physique of the kid was muscular, compact, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted. The kind of kid that would probably make the girls daydream in whatever local high school was nearby. He appeared to be about eighteen years old, which was old enough to go out and get tattoos. He had several of them already. Artie pointed to the one on his upper pectoral area. It was of an eagle in flight. Myka stared wordlessly. Her skin crawled.
"Are you beginning to understand now? The dead man we found first had a tiger tattoo on his arm. It looked fresh, shiny from Bacitracin, just starting to heal. This…young man…has the eagle, also very recently done." He turned slightly to look her full in the eyes. "The big picture is that we were wrong about an artifact for summoning animals. There were no animals…technically. We need to look for an artifact that is turning people into the animals…or mythical creatures…they have tattooed on their bodies."
He stood up with a loud groan, part muscle stiffness and part grief. He pulled out a cell phone and called 9-1-1, reporting the body to the authorities. When the police did show up, it was only one car and the same officer who had spoken to them earlier.
"You three again" he muttered wearily. He glanced at Pete for a second and barked. "What the hell got to you?"
"Eagle," replied Lattimer, gingerly touching his scalp where the scratches still burned.
"Somehow you have a knack for running into trouble, don't you? Speaking of which, why am I not surprised by you being here?"
In answer, Artie simply turned sideways and pointed at the body.
The cop leaned in for a better look then fixed Nielsen with an aggressive and suspicious stare. "So how do you explain this one?"
Artie extended his fingers in lieu of a shrug. "I can't. We found him like this. I can tell you his neck is broken. From the irregular lumps in the limbs, probably broken bones there also."
"Uh-huh. Anything to do with your case?" He pulled out a pad and was jotting down notes.
"No. None. But I feel it fair to warn you that there are some…unusual…creatures roaming the streets tonight and you'd do well to keep your eyes open and on the skies."
"Uh-huh," the guy repeated, not hiding his skepticism. "Care to elaborate?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I did. This is something you'll definitely have to see for yourself. But my advice is get heavily armed and don't stay out in the open for too long."
The cop snorted. "Right. You sound like you're expecting Godzilla to come marching down the streets."
"Close enough," Artie muttered so softly the man didn't really catch it.
"What was that?"
"Um…nothing. Nothing." He waved the monster movie scenario into oblivion. "Oh hey, yeah, I forgot. How is your wild game hunt progressing? Finally catch anything?
The officer froze. Clearly he was debating on whether or not to divulge any information but figured it wouldn't matter. "We did manage to catch a wolf. Tranq-ed it. Nasty bugger. Kept trying to rip off any appendage that got too close. We caged it at the SPCA." He smiled then and looked Artie full in the eye. "Then some bad-ass butt-neked idiot decided to set it free, which he did successfully by the way, damn him. And then he got accidentally locked in the cage. Later, when we went in there to look at the wolf, all we found was him, out cold."
"Guy have any distinguishing marks, tattoos, that sort of thing?"
"Lots of tats. The guy was an ex-con."
"Any of them…recent?"
"What does it matter?"
"Just curious.
Pete caught Artie's eye and waggled his eyebrows. He was definitely seeing the pattern. Artie had been right.
The cop ran his own mental recorder, his eyes rolling skyward as he did so. "Well, Yeah, I guess. He did have a recent wolf tat. But between you and me, I thought he went after the wolf because he was some weird animal activist who flipped out, decided to go streaking--" He stopped abruptly and glanced down at the naked corpse of the teen. "Third one," he observed introspectively. "Now that I think about it, the first guy had no clothes either." He looked back at Artie. "This whole thing wouldn't be cult related, would it?"
In reply, Artie merely shook his head. Rather than give the cop an opportunity to question him further, he turned to Pete and Myka and gave a subtle gesture for them to withdraw from the crime scene, which they all did as expeditiously as possible. Artie felt the guy's eyes boring like lasers into his back but he refused to look back until they had rounded a corner. Then he did give in to the impulse if only to make sure they weren't followed.
As a single entity, the trio walked abreast of each other toward the direction of their vehicle. Pete and Myka kept their mouth shut, lost in their own thoughts, reserving questions for when they returned to the motel. As soon as they crossed the threshold, however, they bombarded him with several queries.
Artie put up both hands, palms out. "Wait. Wait. All I did was guess right about this. That's it. Only thing I can say with any assurance is that it is somehow connected to the tattoos."
"The tattoo gun maybe?' Myka inquired. She rubbed the skin between her brows as it was aching.
"My thoughts exactly. Probably find someone in this town is using something old, handed down through the family. Finding it should be easy. Flash the badges, claim we are inspecting for 'whatever' we think is reasonable, let them show us the machine, and confiscate it after the shop closes."
"Coeburn is a big city. How many tattoo parlors are there?" Pete asked already eyeing the laptop.
Artie's response was to open it and start googling the information. "Eight of them," he answered after thirty seconds. "Spaced more or less evenly about the city, as if they were trying to avoid treading on each other's territories, though I'm fairly sure it wasn't intentional."
"Divide and conquer?" Myka asked with a hint of a smile.
Artie returned it. "Good idea. But for now, I think we've all earned some sleep." He gave Pete the once over. "After we clean out that head wound."