Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 02 (20 page)

smiled at his estimate of two bullets per creature.

Then the wounded gorfash got up and charged at him.

It raised its four arms and rushed him, making itself a perfect target. The third bullet caught it right at the bridge of the nose, snapping its head back. The monster stumbled forward, dead before it hit the ground, with its brains sprayed back behind it. Coyote kept the gun on it for a second in case it rose again, then brought it around as the rest of the troop roared in at him.

This is not good. I started with 21 bullets. If each one takes me three, I’ll be dessert.He triggered off two more shots and succeeded in knocking one back into the gorfash behind it. The trailing gorfash’s chest smashed into the lead one’s back, then he sailed up and over his wounded fellow. He brought his smaller arms into cover his bullet head, then his larger arms flailed through the air before they hit the ground and broke his fall.

Two shots kept him down, then Coyote dropped the clip and slammed a new one home. He let the slide snap shut, then he rapid-fired the Wolf. Starting low, he let the recoil track his aimpoint up. He knew what he was doing would have been foolish under normal circumstances, but with the thick knot of gorfash bodies racing at him, there was no way he could miss.

Another new clip went into the gun, and he screwed one eye shut. The loss of depth perception made the gorfash seem even closer as they ran up the slight incline to where he stood.
It’s
overunlessIthinkofsomething.He dropped into a crouch and popped the bullets off as fast as he could.

I’m in too deep.

Suddenly it hit him.
They’re cyclopses!

As the rushing gorfash wall descended on him, he tucked himself into a ball and rolled back off the hill. He dropped through the air, then hit on his shoulders and continued to roll down the hill. He immediately splayed his arms out and grabbed on to whatever he could find to stop his tumble. Razor-edge grass filled his left hand and somehow held strongly enough to slew him around to the left and a resting place

Above him, the gorfash’s momentum carried them out into the air. Their battle roars shifted tenor to screams of terror as they spun out of control through the air. Two of
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them collided in mid-air, then whirled apart. Crashes, crunches and whimpered shrieks filled the night as the creatures hit the ground.

Only one of the gorfash seemed unpanicked by the surprise, and he flew through the darkness like a creature born to it. He held his arms and legs wide, both to cut his speed and prepare for landing. He let his body begin to rotate forward, and Coyote saw him orient himself to absorb the shock of the landing on his strong arms and smaller set of muscular legs.

The gorfash hit solidly off to Coyote’s right and a little below his position on the hill. He heard scrambling through the brush, then saw the four-armed silhouette rise up at the edge of the grassy circle where he’d landed. The gorfash bellowed out a challenge and Coyote chuckled as he raised the Wildey.

The gorfash charged at the same instant Coyote saw the Wildey’s slide was locked back in the open position.

Empty!
He pulled his feet up and rolled away from the line of the creature’s attack, but he knew it was too late.

Turning back around to face the monster, his left hand clawing for the Kraft holstered on that hip, Coyote steeled himself for death.

Something intervened. Two hands grasped him around the ribs from behind and tossed him to the right. Flying through the darkness, Coyote heard the dry whisper of something moving very fast through the air, then a thick, wet, hollow
thunk.
The gorfash’s bellowing died in a gurgle, then Coyote heard a heavy crunch as the monster hit the ground.

Coyote tucked himself into a ball to roll off the energy of his fall. He set himself into a crouch and returned the Wildey to its holster. Pulling one Krait, he trained it on the dark outline of the gorfash that had almost killed him, then slowly closed with it. The musky scent mixed with the sweet odor of blood turned his stomach, but he kept moving in closer.

He stepped over the lower end of its body and saw it was lying face down. Halfway up on its right side, beneath the lower armpit, a ragged wound ran from spine to flank.

Dropping to one knee beside the dead creature, Coyote shifted the Krait to his left hand and probed the wound with his right.
That’s clean through. Cut the spine and splintered some ribs. Got lung and probably heart
—
this thing
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had to have a huge heart, maybe more than one.

He ran his fingers through the thick pelt. With this fur to absorb some of the impact and the size of the creature, it would take something like a poleax to do this much damage. Coyote’s eyes narrowed. A poleaxoranaginata.

Who—or what—was out here?

Coyote’s pistol came up as Mong broke through the brush. “Kyi-can, are you hurt?”

“Marei.I escaped injury. You?”

“I am fine. Come, we must go.” Mong waved him forward urgently. “There are things that may track us from this place. Much power was used here tonight.”

Coyote dimly recalled Crowley having made a similar statement after another dimensional encounter. “Too much power or too much violence?”

“Both. And there are things that are attracted by both.

Come.” Mong reached out and grabbed his left wrist. A searing yellow line split the landscape like a tear in a movie screen. Mong yanked him through it, and Coyote caught a brief glimpse of the gray proto-dimension a second before both of them dropped to their feet on the floor of his monastery chamber.

Mong released him. “For what you did today, I thank you. Two monks will live.”

Coyote nodded his head. “There was no real option for me.”

“Yes there was.” Mong’s face tightened. “You could have, should have, obeyed me. You are good at traveling through dimensions and could be, in fact, good enough to mount an assault on Fiddleback’s home, but not yet. Here you knowthe rules, so your impulses are often correct and even meritorious. Away from here, though, they can get you killed.”

Coyote waited five minutes after Mong left, then headed straight for the training room. He found it empty, but this did not surprise him at all. Employing the pocket flashlight that he had brought with him to Tibet, he descended the stairs, then swept it along the weapons’ walls. As he got to the pole weapons section he smiled when he saw a
naginata
with a new haft.

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Above it hung an older weapon of a similar design. He pulled it down and inspected the long, sharp blade.

Despite its obvious antiquity, it had no nicks in it. It looked clean, and he wished he had access to the equipment in the secret room of his home in Phoenix. “A little chemical spray and a blacklight and we’d see if you’ve been blooded.”

He played the light over the blade again, then paid special attention to the guard on it. There, deep in where the blade had been joined to the haft, he saw a piece of a thick fiber. Again he wished for equipment he didn’t have with him, but this time he wanted it just to confirm what he already knew.

That’s fromthegorfash’shide. He returned the naginata to its place on the wall and turned out his light. The Yidam I fought in here tried to kill me and it used a naginata.

Something, using a naginata, saved me tonight in gorfashland. Why thesudden reversal?Coyote shrugged at his own question. And what will it do next time?

Straightening his tie, Sinclair MacNeal approached the secretary. He tugged atthe left sleeve of his jacketto make sure it hid the wrist recorder Lilith had finally gotten to him.

Smiling, he stopped in front of the desk. “Sinclair MacNeal to see Ken Martin.”

The brown-haired secretary looked up and pursed his lips. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No. Just tell Mr. Martin I’m here. This will only take a minute.”

The slender man shook his head. “No appointment, no visit. Sorry. That’s policy.”

Sin sighed. “Mr. Martin will vary his policy for me. Trust me.”

“I have scars from the last time I trusted someone, Mr.

MacNeal.” The secretary glanced down at his appointment book. “Besides, the policy is Dutch Allied Chemicals’ policy, not Mr. Martin’s. I can get you in a week from
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Tuesday.”

Great Ihaveamissionfortheemperorandwillsavethe world and some secretary is going to keep me from step one. Sin reinforced the smile on his face. “Look, tell Mr.

Martin...”

“Is this going to be some sort of pseudo-spy code word thing?” The secretary covered his feigned yawn with a long-fingered hand. “I’m afraid we don’t do James Bond here.”

Sin’s nostrils flared. “You know, the last time Kip and I went deep-sea fishing, we used a guy just like you for bait.

He was shorter, so we only got mako sharks. With you, I figure a great white.”

The secretary blanched quickly. With a pencil, he scratched a line through a name in the book. “Looks like the 8:15 just canceled.” He hit an intercom button. “A Mr.

Sinclair MacNeal to see you, sir.”

“Sinclair MacNeal?” blasted back a tinny voice. “Well, I’ll be. Send him in.”

Sin opened the doortothe office beyond the secretary’s station and smiled as Kip Martin stood behind his walnut desk. The stocky man rolled the sleeves down on his white shirt, then came around the edge of the desk and offered Sin his hand. “Good to see you, Sin.” The man smiled and shook his head. “Never figured it would be this side of the Hawaiian lake, but you’re looking good.”

Sin pumped the man’s hand. “So are you, Kip. Nice office.”

Kip smiled proudly and opened his arms to take it all in.

”Long way from where I started with you.”

Walnut paneling covered three of the walls and, in turn, was covered by several lithographs of sailing ships and a huge mounted sailfish directly across from the desk.

Beneath the fish Sin saw a number of framed photographs that showed Kip with celebrities and fish they’d harvested from the ocean. Sin couldn’t recognize a couple of the types offish, but he knew Kip would tell him all about them if he got the chance.

The fourth wall, which stood behind the desk, had a panoramic view of Tokyo from Kimpunshima. The city
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looked largely like a land of gray stalagmites and smoky haze, but there was some variation there. From between several buildings, Sin saw hints of the green preserve surrounding the emperor’s palace. Likewise, some blue ocean peeked up from the bay and the cloudy haze occasionally parted to let other glimpses of blue through.

“Hey, buddy, you studied hard to get ahead. When we brought you on as a security accountant, I knew you were destined for better things.” Sin broke their grip and dropped himself into the chair in front of Kip’s desk. “They working you hard?”

Kip shrugged somewhat wearily. “Usual 7 to 7 drag.”

“They have you working Japanese hours?”

“Sort of. I get an hour for lunch, and I don’t have to come in on Saturday.” Kip smiled. “Other guys head out to the links, I take a fishing charter out.”

Sin frowned. “I’d a thought you’d own your own boat now.”

“You know what they say: A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money.” Kip’s mood downshifted from jovial to neutral. “Had one for a while, actually, it was a steal, but I lost it.”

“What happened?”

The man’s eyes focused on where his hands rested in his lap. “I don’t know. I was out and hooked something. It was big, really big.” He looked up but didn’t focus his eyes on Sin. “I guess it was also pissed. I woke up about a week later when they wheeled me out of an intensive-care unit.

Don’t fish outside the harbor much now.”

“That’s bad news. How’s Susan?”

Kip’s face fell a bit further. “She ran off with the intern who treated me.”

“That’s bad.” Resting his elbows on his knees, Sin leaned forward. “You should have let me know, bud.”

“What could you have done about it, Sin? Besides, it wasn’t her fault. When she married me, I was a 10 to 2

American accountant making decent bucks. The move
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here allowed her to see a lot of the world, but not much of me. We grew apart”

I
never guessed his life was such a mess.
“I don’t think I’m going to ask anything more because I’ve got one last strike before I’m out.”

Kip’s smile returned and his mood lightened. “Hey, no blood, no foul, my friend. I met my present wife, Miko, through an executive matching service here. She’s native-born and grew up in a traditional family. She loves my ass and doesn’t mind the long hours I put in. Every night it’s a good meal, hot tub, massage and lights out.” He patted his belly. “The living don’t get much better than this.”