robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain Read online

  Gravel snapped out from under the tires aS the Patroller shifted to bring its headlights to bear on her position. The patrol vehicle was small enough but its computer wouldn't allow it entry into the alley; its motion controllers weren't sophisticated enough, another economy. Still, the car could sit at the entrance and block it while giving her some support. The Patroller's lights blinked onto high and flooded the alley with daylight, throwing stark shadows against the building and casting deep pools of dark deeper into the alley. Halfway down the alley something scurried out of the sudden illumination. The filters on her visor were still adjusting and she didn't get a good look.

  Too big to be rats.

  Somebody was still around. A witness, maybe. She ought to find out. Skirting the fire, she entered the alley.

  She found the first body twenty feet into the alley. He wore a shredded synthleather Beasts jacket. The Beasts were a powerful gang in the district. Whoever had messed with them was asking for trouble. She hoped this wasn't the start of a gang war.

  The second body was a Beast too. So was the third. She counted half a dozen and no sign of any other casualties. Shirley recognized one of the corpses as Mag Quidellia, one of the Beasts' toughest warriors. There'd be a war for sure.

  But who could have taken on this squad of Beasts and come away clean?

  "Hey, hey, the lights are itchy making," said a voice from the darkness.

  She turned, searching for the speaker. Even with her enhanced vision, spotting him wasn't easy. He was a shadow within the shadow of a dumpster.

  "Come out where I can see you," she ordered. She didn't reach for her weapon; that would be premature.

  The guy who emerged was a dark-skinned, lanky sort, who moved with surprising, catlike grace. Shirley slipped the restraining strap off her weapon. The guy wore a sleeveless Beasts jacket; by the fit, it wasn't his.

  As he stepped forward he raised a long-fingered hand with pointed nails that glistened in the light. Implants? He turned that raised hand back and forth in the beams from the Pa-troller. "It kinda burns, you know. Makes me feel nasty. Like somebody ought to be hurt for making night into day. Ain't right, you know. The world's got a proper order. Ain't right to mess with the order. We don't like it when people mess with the proper order. Do we?"

  Gravelly voices mumbled agreement as more lanky forms emerged from the shadows around Shirley. There were eight or nine of them. She wasn't sure what they were wearing; somehow they were hard to see. This was trouble. She hoped Freer hadn't been blowing air when he'd said backup was on the way. She needed help. She needed time for the help to get to her.

  "Proper Order? That what you guys call yourselves?"

  Their laughs were metal-on-metal screeches. They grinned at her and light reflected from their teeth, teeth filed to sharp points. They all wore red wool caps as their colors and they all had mutilated themselves; these were hard-core types, but they weren't a gang she'd heard about.

  "We're new in town," one of the gangers said. "Just out for a good time. You gonna show us a good time?"

  She unholstered her weapon. "I think maybe you better go looking elsewhere."

  They laughed at her.

  Without warning one of them launched himself at her, hurtling toward her with his clawed hands outstretched. She reacted. The Arisaka Enforcer™ bucked in her hand. Her helmet filters cut the sound of the gun's report. She knew she hit him. She also knew the 10mm slug wouldn't stop his flight. She threw herself back, barely avoiding him. She felt his claws rake against her Arm-R-Plast™ vest.

  The others stood and watched as he landed in an awkward heap.

  "You don't want the same," she told them. They laughed at her again. Lord Above, she was dealing with wonkheads.

  The one that had jumped her was getting to his feet. Definitely wonkheads. Snarling, he stalked toward her. She shot him again. He spun around and landed facedown on the pavement, but only for a moment. He got to his feet, laughing.

  She was in deep shit.

  Twirling around, he capered in front of her. "Too much strength for you just now. Too much! Too, too much," he crowed.

  Then they were on her and she was fighting for her life.

  "You are assaulting an officer of the law," boomed the loudspeaker aboard her Patroller. "Cease and desist at once. Your actions are being recorded and will be used against you at your trial. Cease and desist. You are assaulting ..." The car droned on. It was all the Patroller could do; NEC hadn't authorized the more expensive, armed versions.

  Claws shredded her uniform and dug into her flesh. They tore off her helmet and took part of her ear with it. That was when she got her first good look at their faces. Lord Above, they weren't human! Teeth sank into her throat.

  "Officer down," reported the Patroller. It was the last thing Shirley heard.

  CHAPTER

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  3

  Chardonneville was a tiny hamlet just north of Metz. No one had lived on the site for over seven hundred years until an eccentric billionaire by the name of Gourgaud decided to make it his own. He had wanted to build himself a bucolic village as a rustic getaway, a haven from the twenty-first century, but the ground breaking had uncovered a medieval village and an even more ancient settlement beneath that. The excavations had been a sensation in archaeological circles twelve years ago; there had been conferences and exhibitions. There had even been some talk of an in situ museum, but Gourgaud had wanted nothing of that. He made sure that the whole area was excavated down to the Neolithic layers until nothing was left in the ground; everything was mapped and cataloged and preserved. Some of the stuff went to Aachen, but most of it was shipped off to Cluny. Gourgaud had financed the digging and the cataloging and the publishing, setting up an endowment which specified that all work on the Chardonneville material was to take place anywhere but Chardonneville, and that no further excavations were to be allowed. He wanted no museum, no tourists; so he made sure there was nothing left to interest them. He wanted his tiny fiefdom to be left alone.

  But Gourgaud died before getting a chance to move into his little village. The people he'd hired to populate his fiefdom had already moved in, and when the word came that the dreamer had died, a lot of them packed up and left, but some stayed, taking to the bucolic rural life. Chardonneville had become just an ordinary, sleepy little village, too small to be of interest to anyone but the inhabitants. The media coverage of the excavations was forgotten now. Chardonneville remained a revered name among a tiny circle of archaeological cognoscenti, but they cared little for the kitschy little faux-medieval hamlet the billionaire had built. They had the finds, the site plans, the dating data, and the maps—what interest did they have for a billionaire's fantasy village?

  Chardonneville's history was an entertaining story, a fine tale of the eccentricities of the rich.

  It was also a lie.

  Chardonneville might look like an ordinary village, but, as had been planned from the beginning, every person who lived there was part of the European Community Secret Service or of an ECSS agent's family. The sleepy-looking village was a cover for the underground complex that was the European headquarters of Department M, a clandestine operation dedicated to unraveling and controlling the mysteries of magic and the ancient heroes whose awakening seemed to herald a new age.

  Elizabeth Spae worked for Department M; a situation that she was considering changing, and not for the first time.

  The lights were harsh and hurt her eyes. She knew that her discomfort was intended because she had complained after each of the previous sessions. The lights, the sort used in prisoner interrogations, remained, glaring and unpleasant. Though she was no prisoner, this certainly was an interrogation, the third in as many weeks since she and Holger Kun had returned to Chardonneville.

  Spae didn't like being interrogated. She didn't like the glare of the lights, or their baking heat. She didn't l
ike the harsh echoes from the room's hard walls, or the cold floor underfoot. She didn't like not being able to see her questioners, hiding behind the wall of dazzle.

  She knew that all of Magnus's team was assembled in the shadows behind those lights; she'd seen them before they switched on the blinding lamps. Reinholt Gere, Doctor Essen-bach, L'Hereaux, the insufferable Dagastino, and Magnus himself. Because he was present, she stayed. Of all of them, only he commanded her respect. But there were limits, and she wasn't sure her sufferance would last much longer. Still, she listened when Magnus interrupted his colleagues' questions and spoke to her for the first time.

  "Dr. Spae, your continued insistence that the American sleeper is King Arthur puts the Department in a very difficult position."

  Sitting in the glare and heat, Elizabeth Spae wasn't impressed by the Department's difficult position. How difficult was it to accept reality and admit that they had been wrong about Arthur? The Department was supposed to find sleepers and help them adjust to the twenty-first century, not pretend they weren't who they were because it was embarrassing to admit to a mistake. "I said all I had to say in my report. And his name is Artos, by the way."

  "What he calls himself is not really important. Is he or is he not the man known to legend as King Arthur?"

  "I believe he is."

  "We do not deal in beliefs," Dagastino said. "We deal in facts. Your beliefs are not admissible. We need proof."

  "If only you could offer us some solid evidence." Spae could almost see the concerned look on Essenbach's face. Es-senbach was a mage, and a decent one; of all them, she should understand the best. The others only observed the magic rising in the world; she, like Spae, could feel it. Spae had difficulty understanding how Essenbach could go along with this outrageous and pointless questioning when there was important work to be done harnessing the magic. Wasn't that as much a part of the Department's mandate as the searching out of sleepers?

  "You know our resources are stretched, Doctor." Gere spoke with a deliberate slowness that put Spae in mind of one of her college professors. That professor had been overly fond

  of lecturing, too. "We can't afford to chase phantoms. If this sleeper is Arthur, we need him."

  "We need all the sleepers," L'Hereaux said. His brusque voice came from her left; he'd moved since he'd last spoken. "If this man is Arthur, the Department must have him in its corner."

  Spae didn't like the security man much. She didn't trust his reasons for wanting access to the sleepers. "For the propaganda value, or do you have something else in mind?"

  "We do this for the world's sake. The threat we're facing—"

  "Is largely undefined," Spae pointed out. Everyone felt certain that the sleepers were being woken to face a great peril, and so the Department collected every sleeper they could locate. The problem was that no one—including the sleepers— knew what peril they were supposed to face.

  "All the more reason to find this sleeper. If he is Arthur—"

  "Which remains to be proved," Dagastino insisted.

  "Holger Kun will corroborate that he is the real Artos," Spae said.

  "Even were he a reliable judge, Agent Kun is in no condition to corroborate anything."

  Spae turned to face Dagastino's disembodied voice. Where was Kun, anyway? Why wasn't he here? For that matter, why hadn't he been at any of these sessions? "What do you mean, in no condition?"

  "He's had a breakdown," Gere answered.

  Spae was aghast. "A what? He's a damned bullyboy. Bullyboys don't have nervous breakdowns."

  "The trip to the otherworld—-"

  "Or whatever actually happened," Dagastino cut in.

  "—unsettled him," Gere finished.

  That wasn't surprising; she'd been unsettled herself. Kun hated magic and magical things, but he dealt with them, and dealt with them well—because he was a complete professional. She admired him for that. A breakdown? "He was fine the last time I saw him." Before her first interrogation. Before his as well?

  "Mr. Kun is in good hands, Doctor," Magnus assured her. That was something she'd like to know for herself, but rather than making an issue of it now, she let Magnus continue. "Mr. Kun is not why we are here. You are, Doctor. Or rather, the sleeper with whom you have had contact. By all indications, his was an important awakening."

  "He's not Arthur," Dagastino interrupted.

  "I do not wish to debate his identity at this time," Magnus said, although he didn't sound as if the issue was unimportant to him. "Whoever he is, one thing is clear. Since his awakening, the incidence of supernatural occurrences has risen. There is more magic loose upon the world now, and we must concern ourselves with that. We must concern ourselves with recovering this sleeper."

  "If that's your real concern, why do you keep interrupting my work? Let me finish my rituals. I think I can locate him."

  "Your rituals are untried," Dagastino pronounced. "And on shaky theoretical ground."

  "What would you know about it, Dagastino? You can't even keep your conjurations separate from your abjurations."

  "This is intolerable," Dagastino sputtered. Dagastino had been a thorn in her side since she'd been recruited by the Department; they had taken an instant dislike to each other. But it was only after she'd had time to observe Dagastino in action that she had come to truly despise the man. Spae could imagine him red-faced and wide-eyed behind the glare, sputtering from her insult and on the verge of a fit of indignation; it was a small consolation. "I don't have to sit here and be insulted by this woman. Even before this American affair, she was a proven troublemaker. She is unreliable, inept,—"

  "That's enough, Dr. Dagastino," Magnus said. "Dr. Spae, I am informed that there are certain techniques that might enhance your memories. Perhaps you will be able to recall additional details under such a controlled questioning."

  Dagastino's voice emerged from behind the shield of the lights like a striking weapon. "Pentatell™ will give us the truth."

  Pentatell! "Is that what you did to Kun?" She'd read about what the truth drug could do and about its side effects. It wasn't supposed to be dangerous to a stable personality, but none of the articles had defined "stable."

  "We did nothing to Mr. Kun," Magnus said.

  Could she believe that? "He was fine before we got back here."

  "That did seem to be the case," Gere said. "However, Agent Kun does seem to be suffering from delayed trauma derived, at least in part, from his sojourn in the otherworld. Given his history, I am told that such a reaction is understandable."

  She knew Kun's history, too, and she'd seen how he'd taken facing it in the otherworld. These bastards had done something to him. They must have. Given him Pentatell, at least. He'd have taken it if they'd asked him to; he was a good soldier. Her respect for Magnus's leadership was faltering.

  Well, Kun might be a good little soldier, but Spae wasn't any kind of soldier, good or otherwise.

  "I'm not taking any drugs."

  "Consider our position, Doctor." Magnus sounded reasonable. Spae wasn't interested in being reasonable if it meant having chemicals pumped into her system. "We can't force you—"

  "Damned right!"

  "—but I wish you would consider the bigger picture. We need corroboration and have limited sources to rely upon. Mr. Kun offered his full cooperation, but his condition was a problem. You yourself admit to experiencing unusual and surreal phenomena. Consider the possibility that you may be a victim of delayed trauma yourself. The effects of transport to the otherworld are unknown. Even setting aside the possible effects of the concussion you received during the firefight with the Mitsutomo operatives, your memories are suspect. We need verification."

  "We need facts," Dagastino cut in.

  "Consider our situation, Dr. Spae. Only you and Mr. Kun seem to have survived your trip—"

  "Alleged trip," Dagastino interrupted.

  Magnus resumed his speech after the barest of hesitations. "You are one of two visitors to the otherworld to w
hom we have access. Mr. Kun's unfortunate condition has rendered him nearly useless as a source of information. As to the rest of your traveling party, they are all dead or missing. This Bennett, the elf-—"

  "Alleged elf." Dagastino again.

  Magnus cleared his throat. "Bennett remained in the other-world. Harold Black is dead. We have no information on the whereabouts of the sleeper. John Reddy, who you say accompanied you to the otherworld and survived, is listed as dead, killed in the awakening of the sleeper."

  All old news. "I explained that. It was even in the prelim report. The body wasn't his."

  "Then whose body was it, Dr. Spae?" L'Hereaux asked. "Computer records map the physical characteristics of the corpse exactly to those listed in John Reddy's profile."

  "The body was a mundane," Dr. Essenbach said. "There was no indication of any connection with the supernatural other than the cause of death. Didn't you say that Reddy claimed to be the son of an elf lord?"

  "Bennett claimed that," she corrected.

  "Bennett? The elf?" L'Hereaux's suspicious tone all but accused her of lying.

  "Yes, the damn elf!"

  "Reddy did not claim such a heritage, then?"

  "He believed what Bennett said."

  "But you do not?"

  Did she believe it? Reddy hadn't looked like an elf, but there had been an aura of magic around him. "I don't know. It's a possibility."

  "Couldn't you read his aura?" Dagastino asked maliciously.

  L'Hereaux didn't let her get a word in. "Do you consider yourself on good terms with this Mr. Bennett?"

  "After what happened? I don't think so."

  "Then you have lost the Department a contact with a lord of the otherworld."

  "I didn't lose anything." "Oh, no? Who else was there? You were our specialist on the spot, Doctor. Who else had responsibility? Where is the sleeper? Where is Reddy?"

  Why was L'Hereaux being such a badger? She had answered all these questions before. "I don't know."

  "Don't know or are not willing to tell?"