I dove into the Lincoln.
These bastards might have unnatural speed and strength, but the physical tensile strength of flesh, wire, and bone had to have limits.
“Sorry, Reggie,” I muttered as I shifted the Lincoln into gear.
Now we were a little more evenly matched.
I fishtailed in the driveway, pointing the nose at the two zombies, and beyond, at the police car. The cops were backing away, reloading, and the zombies were almost at the patrol car itself.
I floored it.
The wheels whined and spun in the snow under me, and for a moment I thought I wouldn’t move at all. Then the tires bit through to pavement, and the Lincoln shot forward, the momentum carrying it across the snowy lawn.
At the last minute, as the zombies turned back toward me, I spun the wheel hard left. Across the snow that had the effect of turning the car sideways without any slack in its forward momentum.
I sandwiched the zombies between the passenger sides of the two vehicles. I heard screeching metal as all the glass on the passenger side shattered. And the upper half of one of the zombies flopped through the front passenger window.
As it reached for me, I shifted into reverse and floored it. The rear right tire screeched on pavement, and I could smell melting rubber as the Lincoln and the patrol car began rotating counterclockwise.
It grabbed my sleeve as I frantically shifted in and out of reverse, trying to unlock the Lincoln from the patrol car.
The rear window shattered, as Zombie Two broke through.
I floored the accelerator in reverse, shooting backward into the cul-de-sac, trailing the rear passenger side fender of the patrol car.
I slammed the brakes, and Zombie Two fell backward off the rear of the car. I hit the accelerator again, and the Lincoln bumped up twice as I rolled over the zombie with front and back tires.
The other one was pulling itself in through the passenger window. I shifted into drive and floored it, over the other zombie, side-swiping the patrol car again. This time the force of the impact tore Zombie One loose.
I pulled the Lincoln to a shuddering stop as three more patrol cars shot down the street toward us.
Fortunately, the battle was over. The zombies were still moving, but their limbs were shattered to the point that no one was in any danger unless they came within biting distance.
From behind me I heard a bullhorn fighting static.
“Step—bzzt—of the car, kee—bzzt—in sight!”
I didn’t need to hear what they were saying to understand it. I stepped out of the car and, without anyone asking, knelt on the ground, and placed my hands behind my head.
The first two cops only paid me nominal attention; they were more interested in the impossible piles of dead things that were squirming in the middle of their subdivision. As I waited, I watched cats jumping out of Dr. Pretorious’ house, running away from the carnage.
It took about four hours for the Columbus cops to process me. The guys were nice enough about it; I’d saved two of their guys from the
Night of the Living Dead
road show. However, I still was witness to a murder, and I’d committed God only knows how many moving violations in someone else’s car with no actual ID.
Thankfully, while Reggie was pissed, he wasn’t pissed enough to tell the cops I’d stolen his car. So they fingerprinted me, took a few mug shots, and took my statement.
The statement was the longest part, and I probably wasn’t quite as forthcoming as I should have been. Not that I was actively untruthful, I was just preoccupied as I began to understand Old Scratch’s motives.
Hephaestus was half right. . .
I told the cops how I borrowed the Lincoln because my own car had been stolen. By my daughter. Which was the subject of another police investigation. Yes, I’d seen those zombies, or a zombie like them, involved in another break-in at an auto shop in Cleveland. They could contact Commander Maelgwyn Caledvwlch of the Cleveland Police for more details.
I left out everything about my meeting with Hephaestus, because I didn’t know how deep Old Scratch’s lines of information went, and the more I thought about it, the more I became certain that the old dragon was the only real bargaining chip I had.
All in all, I was busy marking time until Blackstone showed up.
He didn’t disappoint me.
He marched into the squad room where a Columbus detective was interviewing me, leading a small army of Feds. He waved his ID around like a club. “Okay, Maxwell, you’re coming with us.”
My detective stood up. “Sir, we’re in the middle of an investigation here.”
“Not anymore.”
“I need some authority—” The phone on the detective’s desk began ringing.
“That would be your chief.”
The detective answered, “Yes. Yes. But—yes. Okay. I will”
Blackstone waved at me. “Good Lord, Maxwell. What the hell were you trying to do?” He turned toward the detective as the man hung up. “You’ll coordinate with Special Agent Thompson here,” Blackstone waved at one of the interchangeable Feds. “He’ll collect all your case files and arrange transport of all evidence.”
Looking beaten, the detective nodded.
“Come with me,” Blackstone said to me.
I stood up. “You really know how to make a good impression.”
Blackstone grabbed my arm. “This isn’t a game.”
“You think I don’t know that? It isn’t
your
daughter.”
Blackstone hustled me out of the police station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
B
LACKSTONE threw me in the back of one of their vans and we drove off back toward Cleveland. Blackstone sat in front.
After a while, when I had firmed up my plans in my head, I asked, “I guess it would be too much at this point to let me go under my own recognizance?”
“Maxwell, I hope that’s just your sorry attempt to be funny.”
I stared out at the freeway, where the snow was already becoming heavy. “What do you want, Blackstone?”
“I want you to go to your hotel room and
stay
there.”
I shook my head. “No. Not that, what’s your goal here? What is your ultimate mission . . . ?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you? We need to bottle up this dwarven smuggling operation, shut it down.”
“And beyond that?”
“We’re the first line of defense between the things released by the Portal, and the rest of the country.”
“Why don’t we pull over at the next rest stop?”
“Christ, Maxwell, you think—”
“We need to talk.”
Blackstone looked at me, then at his driver. After a moment of thought Blackstone told him, “Do it.”
Blackstone led me away from the idling van until we were standing next to the main building of the rest stop. The snow was heavy enough that the Interstate was invisible from where we stood, and the noise from the idling van was nearly inaudible.
“What?” Blackstone snapped, his voice coming out in a puff of fog.
“Look, I know you’ve been trying to keep a lid on the Portal for a long time. But you saw what happened in Columbus. The genie is out of the bottle.”
“If we get a handle on this type of trafficking—”
“Those things were self-powered. This goes beyond the dwarves and their magic dust. There’s a technology out there that could let
anything
walk free of the Portal and go
anywhere
. . .”
“I’m not an idiot, Maxwell,” Blackstone said. “I saw that mess. What are you getting at?”
“What if you could do more than shut down the dwarven operation? What if I could hand you the company responsible?”
Blackstone laughed. “You have an inflated sense of your investigative prowess. You think I don’t
know
where this is coming from? You think I can just walk in the lobby on your say so? Your friend Dominic Mazurich wasn’t the only politician paid off by Magetech. Unless you can give me something ironclad, I don’t think we need to go on.”
“What if you had someone inside, who would give you everything?”
“Define ‘everything.’”
“Evidence against the dwarves, testimony against Magetech, and the specs on their research.”
“Did Dr. Pretorious tell you something?”
“Are you interested?”
“What are you asking for?”
“Twenty-four hours without an escort.”
Blackstone stared at me. “How do I know you’re not bullshitting me?”
“You don’t. But am I asking too much?”
“I’ll give you . . .” Blackstone looked at his watch. “Until nine AM tomorrow morning.”
Not quite twenty-four hours, but I wasn’t about to push it. “Okay,” I said. “Now, does someone have my clothes from the hospital?”
Blackstone was as good as his word. By three, I’d gotten my own clothes, my wallet, my cell phone, and the keys to my rental car. Once I was back in my rented Solara, I scanned through my messages.
Three from Margaret, two from Reggie, one of which was mostly profanity, and one from Dr. Shafran asking if we should meet again.
Yes,
I thought,
we should.
But not before I met with someone else.
First, I called Margaret back. For the most part I let her cry on my shoulder since that meant I didn’t have to go into much detail over what was happening here. I kept it short and vague—the Feds were still waiting for some kind of contact, and I was about to call someone who might know something about Sarah’s whereabouts.
By then, I had driven around to the West Side technology park where Magetech housed its corporate headquarters. I didn’t want to actually walk into their buildings again—a blackout would be a bad thing at this point.
I pulled my Solara to a stop in the parking lot of a small windowless bar that looked as if it predated the technology park by a few decades. The place was called “Slapp-Happy’s” and looked as if it had just opened for the day.
I walked in and glanced at the television over the bar. The zombies had made the national news. I saw CNN running pictures of Dr. Pretorious’ development. The video only started going funny when they approached one of the zombie parts or the battered remains of Reggie’s Lincoln.
Great . . .
I didn’t need to hear the audio to see where the story was going to go. The idea that the weird stuff in Cleveland was no longer completely confined would burn through the national news like a California brushfire. Paranoiacs like Blackstone would suddenly seem a lot more credible . . .
I was beginning to understand the point of the zombies.
The point was what was airing right now through one of Magetech’s electronic satellite filters.
I took my cell phone, but I made a point of walking back to the pay phone nestled back by the bathrooms.
From there, I called Magetech.
Ten minutes later, Mr. Lucas slid into a booth across from me. “You look surprised to see me, Mr. Maxwell.”
I shook my head and drank my club soda. “No, it’s just your appearance is so . . .”
“What?”
“Mundane.”
“How should I look, Mr. Maxwell?”
“I think we both know what you are, Mr. Lucas. Can we skip the pretense otherwise?”
“You have me at a disadvantage.”
“I don’t think so.” I sipped my club soda. “I want my daughter.”
Mr. Lucas leaned back in the booth. “I am sure she is quite safe.”
I nodded. “I’m sure. She wouldn’t be worth anything to you otherwise.” Lucas stared at me, and I could see the hint of the Devil in his expression. Though I was probably imagining it.
“It took me a while to figure out what you wanted,” I continued. “What you were trying to do with me. Sure, use me to sacrifice the dwarves and—posthumously—Mazurich. But why threaten me to do something I would have done for you with the right information? But that’s how it works. I agree and you might let me see her, but it isn’t over then, is it? You want an advocate, someone in the media. You’ll hold her hostage as long as you think I’m useful . . .”
“Mr. Maxwell, why are we holding this conversation?”
“Your plans are coming together nicely. Spread the mana and you spread your influence. The dwarves were nickel and dime, weren’t they? You don’t need them anymore. Magetech has gone beyond the mines, hasn’t it? You have the means to create mana now, and how better to spread that as far as possible than to have it fall into the hands of the U.S. government?”
“Mr. Maxwell—”