Part Seven

The Middleman had his jacket and gun belt ready to hand in the car. He was in full uniform again in seconds, before they pulled out of the restaurant parking lot. Wendy just belted in and stared straight ahead. "Roxy Wasserman is at our headquarters now," he said. "She's never done that in all the years she's worked with Middlemen. Ida didn't give many details, but the situation is building to a crisis. We nip this in the bud before noon tomorrow or it will be beyond our capacity." Wendy nodded without moving her gaze.

He kept watching her. "Your mother loves you."

"I've never had a second's doubt of that my whole life. But she doesn't know me, not any more. Mom blames you for that. She's only partly right. I'm not some airhead following you around with a crush. If she thinks she can make me choose ... she's months too late."

"Give her time to come to terms. She's walked this road before, when your father went into harm's way for a living. She'll be proud of you too."

Her call. "If we need to kick massive amounts of undersea alien butt, I'm in just the right mood."

-------

A high-pitched sound echoing down the corridor from the headquarters garage to the main control room. Wendy needed a second to identify it as harsh laughter. The Middleman raised a hand for silence and went ahead cautiously in case of a trap.

"... so exactly what a human male of a certain age would look for." Roxy's cultured voice. "I'm not saying her figure is overblown -- not yet -- but it all bounces. You can see her in a cheerleader uniform and pigtails."

"Watch it," Ida warned, a snicker under her tone. "He may be an idiot half stoned on his own hormones, but he's my idiot. Does the job a lot better than most of the guys that come through here. I'm really gonna miss him when she gets him killed."

They came around the last corner. Roxy Wasserman had perched herself on the corner of Ida's desk in a fashion-model pose. The android was pouring her a drink from a martini shaker. "I'm shocked," the Middleman said with reproach both personal and professional.

Wendy raised her hand. "I'm not."

"... at a time when the world is in imminent danger, indulging in petty vindictiveness that could undermine the stability of the team..."

"He's way too polite to say get over yourselves." Wendy added. "Is this a real mission or just bonding? Because I know it's hard on you two. Finding girlfriends within three hundred years of your age that you can really talk to."

Roxy showed fangs. Wendy grinned. "Hug and make up?" She held out her arms.

The incubus pointedly turned her back on the girl. "Teasing aside, MM. We know where the artifact is. We know how long you have to deal with it, which isn't long. And we know why your humans couldn't find the Dagon artifact in that airplane, not until they removed the bodies from the wreckage. More soul magic."

Wendy's snark deserted her. "My dad was in love with a Middleman?"

Roxy smiled unkindly. "So adorable. No, more of the brothers-in-arms aspect."

"Glomar Explorer!" the Middleman said quietly. "Of course. Their last thoughts must have been a shared resolve to keep the artifact out of hostile hands at any cost. Even in death. Was that enough to keep it hidden and harmless?"

"Apparently it was, until your people took the bodies away," Roxy said. "Once they were gone, the artifact was able to destroy technological toys around it again, and the divers had to give up. The Deep Ones, or their hybrids, must have been waiting."

"I could start to like magic if it's going to make sense like that," Ida said. "Rox, I want to hear more about hemlock. Friday good for you?"

"You said we're short on time," the Middleman broke in. "Give us the location, give us the deadline."

"Of course, darling." Roxy turned serious. "Dear Ida said she'd been looking for a place along the coast that was suddenly showing chronic power outages and failures of technology. But mystical beings who do that kind of damage are accustomed to doing without modern conveniences. I cast a finding spell that was more successful." She looked smug. "A New Age commune about fifty miles to the north, the Children of Mother Ocean. They offer back-to-nature spa treatments, meditation retreats, that sort of thing, which keeps them more or less in touch with the outside world. But most of the commune is off limits to outsiders. Deep One hybrids lose their human appearance as they get older. They're hiding in those closed areas, I'm sure of it."

"She's not the only one with hard data, once we were looking in the right place," Ida said with faint irritation. Wendy grinned. She hadn't expected the best-buddy status to last long without a common target to slander. "Got some more satellite images. I did a map of the commune layout; judging by the living quarters there could be up to two hundred individuals in residence. That's not a hippie campsite, that's a town. No electric lines running to it, no treated water supply. Hardly any grocery supplies going in, although there seems to be some kind of local store. The written materials we've been able to find about the commune, they talk about living off the ocean bounty and that kind of crap. I guess they mean it."

Roxy took over the story. "During the Innsmouth Incident on the east cost, the hybrids infiltrated an isolated fishing village. From the 1800's to 1928; isolation really meant something back then. This new cover story gives them the same access to land without raising questions about their lack of power and wi-fi access. That group was detected by some locals and stopped by a US government agency -- you aren't the only ones who can handle esoteric problems, MM. But this group seems to be playing smarter."

"What are they going to do if we don't slap them down and take their whammy?" Wendy asked.

"Everything they were bred to do," Roxy said. "Without it they were ... well, like fish out of water. Unable to breed more hybrids, unable to complete the transformation to full Deep One form, unable to live underwater for more than a day. Now that they have it back, they can make a solid beachhead. A permanent sore on dry land where your technology can't work, only magic. And that zone will spread like a cancer. They won't make your world their own in a day, or a year, but their influence will grow. It was stopped and hushed up at Innsmouth. This time, even if some human power overwhelms them -- it would take an army by then -- there'd be no keeping it quiet."

"Ordinary people are worried enough when they suspect there might be a few aliens from space visiting," the Middleman said. "Certain knowledge of a whole species permanently sharing the planet with us, invulnerable to our best weapons ... the culture isn't ready. May never be ready."

"I wouldn't have to care, but you get so upset." Something real lurked behind Roxy's cool tones. Wendy couldn't dismiss the incubus as unfeeling, as much as she'd like to. "There's still time -- barely -- for you to handle this yourselves. The hybrids will have to re-consecrate the Dagon statue before they can use it again. Being Deep Ones they're naturally ruled by the element of Water, which in turn defines their astrological planet. Do you know what tonight is, from a magical standpoint?"

"The night of the full moon," Wendy said.

Everyone stared at her. "What? I can't know things? Lacey did the neo-Pagan thing for nearly a year. She was always having esbats at the sublet, which meant I had to go someplace else until after midnight. I kept track of phases of the moon because nobody in the coven was organized enough to give me advance warning. So it goes down tonight?"

Roxy looked a bit impressed in spite of herself. "Close. The Deep Ones are tuned to the tidal cycle rather than directly to the phases of the moon. The two things track each other but rarely match exactly. She had the sense to give me exact dates," Roxy gestured toward Ida. "It's a bit less than a lunar month since the artifact went back to its original owners. Three of the four points of the cycle -- midpoint of neap tide, lowest point of spring tide, midpoint of neap tide again -- have already passed. The highest point of spring tides will complete the tidal month."

Wendy opened her mouth. Roxy waved sharply. "Get the sailor to explain the details. Later. The point is, their ritual will have to be completed at high tide..."

The Middleman glanced at Ida. "Eleven forty-eight local time tomorrow morning," she said.

"Thank you. Tactical details?"

"I have that protective shielding you asked for." Roxy went to a table across the room. "You're lucky I had the kiln-dried rowan wood on hand." She brought them a finely made wooden box, a bit more than a foot long and octagonal in cross-section. A woven strap was attached to each end; the over-all shape something like a small duffel bag. The top opened on copper hinges. "I hope those measurements were reasonably accurate," Roxy said. "The box only shields when it's closed and locked. Electrum alloy lining, bronze sigils of binding at either end."

Wendy leaned in. "Smells like sweat socks."

"Smoke-dried valerian. I mixed Earth and Fire symbols wherever I could."

"You told us once that water is a stronger element than earth," the Middleman said.

"It is, by itself. But your personal Element is Earth," Roxy pronounced the capital letters, "and that one is Fire. We've got to work with that, not against it, to draw on your personal bindings."

"You make that sound really dirty," Wendy complained.

Roxy looked smug. "I play to my strengths, darling." She looked across at the Middleman, more serious now "I suggest you do the same. Your super-scientific toys won't work inside the hybrid village until the artifact is safely encased. Don't even try. Treat it like a war, not a hero's quest. They'll fight to the last ... entity ... because otherwise their settlement is dead. You won't get through this on sneaky and clever."

He looked troubled. "You can't be sure of that."

"I can. I am. This is a place for your old skill set. Kill them. On sight. In large groups, with military weapons. Don't pretend you can avoid it, not this time. Or you won't survive." She nodded toward Wendy. "And your little friend won't be even that lucky."

They exchanged a look. Past missions, even fighting humans, Wendy's sex had only meant the advantage of getting underestimated. Being captured hadn't put her in any more danger than her boss.

Wendy had been a girl all her life. Background dread of men Doing Things wasn't new. The novelty was the Sensei-Ping-born belief that she could fight and win. But the Middleman ... had been keeping different fears in watertight compartments, she could see. I keep thinking I've got a grip ... then something new whips around and hits me.

"Who says your butt is safe, anyway? They've got girl hybrids, I guess, with no better manners." A look dared Roxy to contradict her. "Objectively, you're a whole lot hotter than I am."

He didn't believe her, not the words and not the tone. But the war between chivalry and partnership was long over. The Middleman nodded stiffly, hiding as much emotion as he could.

"How does that saying go?" Roxy said lightly. "Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

The incubus knew him well. Wendy gave her credit for being really worried, not trying to subvert his Middle-principles for fun. A muscle moved in his jaw, clenched tight, but his expression didn't change. "We'll look at all the tactical options," he said. "This doesn't have to be war. I hope. I'm not comfortable killing sentient beings."

Roxy's eyes moved. "You?"

"I don't like it either. I've done it. I can do it again." The girl and the demon looked at each other. Shared a feral, female awareness that nobility to the conquered foe was a privilege of people who were impressive threats. Absent that advantage, sometimes survival meant hitting without warning, again and again until the twitching stopped. "We'll be fine." A promise.