Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (12 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
which he has been imprisoned."
Sinclair nodded. He recalled Coyote having told him of that dimension, and Crowley's apparent physical
youth stood as proof of its effectiveness. (Jntil he had seen creatures from other dimensions, like Vetha, the Yidam and the things Fiddleback had created, Sin had not believed the story he had been told. Now
he found himself desperately hoping, for Coyote's sake, that the place existed and worked even better
than imagined.
"I will get Coyote from the hospital, and take him there. The time differential between there and here is such that he could heal very quickly, but foreign fragments in his body could complicate things."
Crowley shrugged. "And I do not know how his being in a coma will affect or be affected by Tityus'
dimension."
Sin frowned. "Can the nerve damage be regenerated?"
Crowley nodded. "That dimension regenerated a full brain, so the holes he has there and his severed
spinal cord should not be a problem."
Crowley's green-eyed gaze shifted to Bat. "And after I have done that, I will kill the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance."
"No!"
"Yes." Crowley's voice dropped into an icy whisper that sent a shudder through Sin's gut. "They are
my
problem, and /will deal with them. If you want a piece of me here and now, Mr. Kabat, I'll take you and
still have enough left over to do them."
Bat shot to his feet, but Crowley did not even seem to notice. "They killed Natch."
"Indeed they did and, for that reason, at least one of them deserves to die. That is not the reason they
all
deserve to die." Crowley tugged at the cuff of his gray gloves. "They are a bomb just waiting to explode.
I will defuse them. Permanently."
"1 demand the right..."
Crowley shook his head. "No, Bat, you have no rights in this case. In fact, there is only one other person here who could do the job the way it has to be done. That's MacNeal."
"MacNeal?!" Bat barked out a harsh, derisive laugh. "MacNeal?"
Sin felt a jolt run through him at the mention of his name. "Why me?"
Crowley met Bat's disbelieving stare openly. "What would the Aryans say if you attacked them, Bat?
They'd point out you're a Pole. You're not one of them. You're a subhuman that rose up against the
A B B YY.c
superio
r race. They will point to you as a precursor of the great race war in which the unworthy will
attem
pt to destroy God's chosen people. Hal would be denigrated because of his race, Rajani and the Yidam as well. Jytte would lose because her name is the Danish variation of Judith, a Jewish name."
Crowley pointed at Sin and then himself. "MacNeal and I are just like the Aryans. We are part and parcel of the superior race. We can exterminate them, and it's just pest control, not Gotterdamerrung or the
overture to Apocalypse."
The pit fighter shook his head. "They will say you were duped. They will say you were a traitor to your race."
"Sure, but that means that those who try to organize another group are always going to have to be looking inside for the traitor. They're going to have to direct their suspicion on their own members, and that leads to paranoia and anarchy. It makes them feed on themselves."
Crowley smiled wolfishly as his eyes narrowed. "None of us can ever wipe out the sort of fear and
ignorance that breeds hate groups. All we can do is confront them to make sure people find the flaws in
their logic. We educate people so their membership does not grow, it stagnates. And then we trim them
back and force them to remain dormant."
Bat's nostrils flared. "1 don't like it..."
"But you will abide by it," Jytte finished for him.
"Crowley can have them. I can wait."
"Good." Jytte smiled tentatively, then let her expression retreat to blankness. "We all know what Coyote asked us to do. We will continue doing our jobs. Hal and Tadd will need help at Sunburst to process
applications. Nero Loring has adapted one of his early scanning devices to serve as a window into
another dimension. It will be incorporated into a vision-testing device and will let us determine if a
candidate will be sighted or blind outside this dimension. We cannot afford to have those who will go on
the expedition be blind, but we do have some positions here for people who cannot see in other
dimensions."
Jytte blinked twice. "1 believe that is enough for now. We need to accomplish our work as quickly as possible. While a delay might give Coyote time to heal, we cannot afford to give Pygmalion time to train
Ryuhito."
Sin smiled. "Don't worry, we've got the construction plan under way, Nero is scouting for any sign of Ryuhito, and the Japanese are putting together the equipment we'll need. If hiring goes well and we can
pick out a site, we'll be on Pygmalion before he has any clue we're
hunting him."
"My master hopes you are correct, Mr. MacNeal." Vetha bowed her head. "Surprise is an advantage we do not want to surrender, for any Dark Lord, no matter how insignificant, is not a foe you want lying in
wait for you."
Dark Conspiracy 3-11.jpg
Will was three hours waiting in the line at the Sunburst Foundation. The first hour had been the worst
because he had been standing outside the Sunburst building. For someone who was bom and raised on the
Reservation east of Phoenix, having the sky made out of black panels and only a hundred feet overhead
was intolerable. He wanted to run away from the artificial and dark world the white man had created, but
he kept to his place in line.
Each time the urge to bolt came to him, two sharp memories pinned his feet in place. The first was ot two Aryans being poised to kill a man lying in a hospital bed. Will, though he would have thought he could
have remained apart from the white man's conflicts, had intervened to save their target. Whether or not he wanted it, he was part of the world in which such problems lived and died.
The second memory, the one that brought a smile to the Native American's lips, was of his grandfather
dandling Will's infant son on his knee. "Will, if you want the world to be a place where your son can flourish, you must do this. Iwouldgo.butl am an old man. You have the skills, you have the heart. The
responsibility is yours."
Up to two months ago, Will had considered those
"skills" a bunch of superstitions that were an artifact of a lost time. He had learned what his grandfather had taught out of respect for the old man, yet every time he saw something that hinted at a reality beyond that accepted by consent of the population at large, he pulled back. He had enough schooling to know that the laws of science dictated all that was real and true.
That had all changed when he met the man he now knew was Michael Loring. Loring had hinted to him
that there might indeed be things that existed outside reality. Will realized that if a man who ran a
multinational corporation could succeed while functioning in a world containing dark comers of
unreason, acknowledging the limits of his own experience could not hurt.
As his perspective shifted, a number of things began to flow together for him. In devoting himself more
seriously to the things his grandfathertaught him, Will found himself less at odds with the world. He still had difficulty accepting his grandfather's assurances that a hitchhiker they picked up outside Flagstaff
was a visitor from another planet, but she had been yet another data point he could plot well outside two standard deviations from reality.
Now others of the Aryan group he had fought had crippled Michael Loring and killed his associate, but
only after Loring had announced a hiring campaign through the Sunburst Foundation. The man he had
saved from the Aryans was the man who ran the Sunburst Foundation, and in that coincidence both Will
and his grandfather found a sinister significance. With his grandfather promising to take care of his son, Will set out to offer his services to Hal Garrett and Lorica Industries.
Once inside, he found himself in a large, brightly lit room that had the back third cut off by a low wooden wall. Behind it sat a number of desks with individuals locked in deep conversation with applicants. In
front of the half-wall
some long tables had been set up. The Sunburst people there worked one-on-one with applicants, helping
them fill out the necessary forms before they were passed back to the desks. A large number of orange plastic chairs had been set up in the center of the room, but by silent and mutual agreement, they had been reserved forthe spouses and children of applicants standing around the periphery of the big room.
He waited patiently, number in hand, while the staff processed volunteers. He even saw Hal Garrett directing things from behind the scenes, but Will did nothing to call attention to himself. He realized that if he had any doubts about his being accepted by Sunburst and Lorica, he might have tried to do something special. Because he did not have doubts, because he knew they would hire him, he waited contentedly.
Someone called his number, and he started to move in the direction of the voice, but Hal Garrett's strong voice intervened. "I'll take number 1337 over here." As Will turned toward him, he saw the tall African-American man smile and open a small gateway to the rear area of the room. "Good to see you again, Will."
Will took the hand Hal offered and shook it. "And you, sir." He followed Hal to his desk and sat down in the chair facing it. "You are looking much better than when I last saw you."
Hal nodded as he pulled a form from a desk drawer. "I feel much better, thanks to you." Hal smiled as he started writing. "You saved my life, and I don't even know your last name."
The Native American laughed lightly. "Raven. It's the shortened form of my grandfather's tribal name." Will gave Hal his address and the other information needed to fill in the first portion of the form. "No allergies, no medications, no drugs, no outstanding warrants, no arrest
record."
Hal checked things off and turned the form over. "This work is going to be a long way from here. You don't have any problem with travel?"
Will shivered. "No, none." He hesitated, then met Hal's steady gaze. "My grandfather suggested I tell you that 1 have special talents that will allow me to go where most cannot."
The big black man laid his pen down and clasped his hands together. "Your grandfather struck me as a very interesting man. I think, given what you told me just now, we can dispense with the rest of this