In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition (44 page)

I drove into the lobby, leaped out and entered the vault. Hooking an attachment onto one of the shock rods, I punched the locks on my other safety deposit box–the big one–and pulled two smaller cases from it. I shoved one toward Redhawk, but he raised his hands.

“I really don’t want to be an accomplice.”

“It’s a first aid kit. You’re cut.”

He took it. “What’s the other one?”

“Last-aid kit. Let’s roll.”

I’d visited the Mausoleum once, which is to say I’d awakened there with Ethelred assuring me that Earl Gray Tea was great for concussion. I’d been helping Nighthaunt clean up a human smuggling operation down on the docks. A bullet had clipped one of the concussion grenades in my belt.

Nighthaunt had appeared a bit later, bringing me street clothes from Tim Robinson’s apartment, then led me out through the Manor. That ride included two pneumatic tubes that traveled very quickly, so I had no good idea how far or in what direction the Mausoleum had been located.

Redhawk directed me to the Mausoleum’s external entrance. Its location should have come as no surprise. We rolled into to an aging and poorly maintained graveyard beside a dilapidated chapel. The Highgate cemetery had hit the news a couple times as a place where Satanists were supposed to summon unholy spirits. Viewed from atop the chapel hill, the Haste Manor fire would have been spectacular.

We stopped just shy of a row of family vaults below the hill. One had been sunk deep into a mound, with a doorway wide enough to let the Haunted Hummer get in and out. I made a comment to that effect.

“It’s one of three vehicle entrances. He alternates to let the grass grow. He even brought in dirt from other parts of the state. You know, in case someone took a sample from the tires and used analysis to pinpoint the Mausoleum’s location.”

“He’s clever. I’ll give him that.”

“And he’s watching us right now.”

“I figured.” I got out and opened the last-aid kit on the hood. “My father made these. I use concussion charges, he added shrapnel. I have a cutting torch, he made it a compact laser. Everything stepped up a notch. Thumb-flick a lever and throw.”

Redhawk shook his head. “I’m good.”

“But he knows everything you’re carrying. Hell, he made it all.”

Greg jerked a thumb at a smaller mausoleum. “You think we’re getting in if he doesn’t want us in? That place was built to withstand a nuclear strike. The passages are booby-trapped. He can drop a tunnel on us.”

“Sobering thought.” I loaded my pouches. “Knowing that, you’re still going?”

“I am.” He turned and opened his arms. “You hear that, Nick? I’m coming in. You know it’s over. Let’s just finish this and no one will get hurt.”

When someone says something like that, it either falls into the category of “prophetic pronouncement” or “famous last words.” Maybe wishful thinking.

Me, I was hoping to get out of there with most of my parts intact.

And the second I thought that, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Redhawk ran over to the small Kane family vault and pushed a stone fleur d’lis on the lintel. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, but the cast iron door remained closed.

“Nick, don’t do this.”

“Greg, get out of the way.” I leaned into the Chaser, called up my last armor-piercing missile.

“Wait.” He pushed the ornament a third time.

The door clicked and screeched open on rusty hinges, trailing cobweb tendrils.

I shivered.

Redhawk produced a small flashlight. I followed him in and figured the door would close behind us. I inserted a small wedge above a hinge.

A sepulchral whisper came from hidden speakers. “The way for your retreat will remain open. Run, while you still can.”

Redhawk shook his head. “I wasn’t taught to run.” He pulled aside a sarcophagus lid. Stone scraped and the floor panel withdrew. A tunnel extended into darkness. He climbed down the rusty ladder affixed to the wall.

I joined him at the bottom. His light didn’t penetrate very far. It flashed over two bronze statues, a man and a woman, flanking a dark corridor. They were dressed normally for a night out, and looked happy. In fact, were it not for bullet-holes which looked to have been burned into them with a blowtorch, Thomas and Helen Haste would have been a perfect couple.

“They weren’t like that when last I saw them.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Ten years, at least.” Greg’s shoulders sagged. “Before his comeback attempt.”

Further along, red spotlights flicked, illuminating another statue. This one was half again as large as the ones we stood before. It had been cast in iron and was of Nighthaunt, but Nighthaunt as a Stalinist State champion. Spookstar in one hand, grapnel and line in the other, tall, feet spread, heroic. Inhumanly heroic, transformed by a sculptor into something greater than a mere man with a bag of tricks.

Nighthaunt’s voice echoed through his sanctuary. “Leave now.”

We came on.

Ten yards into the corridor a hologram of Ten-pin, one of his greatest enemies, materialized, accompanied by the soft
thoob
of a compressed-air cannon from the left. A small bowling ball–eight or nine pounds tops–whistled past. Another one clipped me in the shoulder, spinning me to the ground.

Redhawk crouched, tugging at my arm. “Don’t stay down.”

“But they’re flying up there.”

“That’s what he wants. That’s what Ten-pin wanted!”

A rumble sounded from within shadowed walls. Plates slid open. A bowling ball tidal-wave flooded the corridor. I pushed off as they hit me, passing beneath Redhawk. He’d leaped up, somersaulting above the roiling mass. Bowling balls smashed into me. The armor helped a little, but I really could have used a helmet.

Worse yet, the balls drained into gutters. Nighthaunt recycled them in a never-ending river.

I fished a small grenade from my utility belt, flipped the switch, and rolled it off to the right. Five seconds later fire vomited back out a small hole. Half the wave stopped.

Redhawk came down in the other half. He stumbled. Maybe I heard something pop. I grabbed him and pulled him deeper into the Mausoleum.

“Move it.”

He hissed in pain. “Right ankle, not good.” He flashed his light on it, then groaned as if the light alone hurt. The ankle was already beginning to swell.

“You can go back.”

He shook his head. “Nope. That trap, twenty-seven years ago. Nick stuffed a broomstick into a bowling ball’s holes, jamming the intake. After we captured Ten Pin, Nick had it dismantled and brought here as a trophy. We worked for months to install it.”

I looked at the statue again. “That bodes ill.”

Another twenty yards in and Jackal Lantern burned to life. Flaming pumpkins arced low back and forth across the corridor.

“How acrobatic are you?”

“Both ankles are working.”

“Those pumpkins, they’re decorations on blackened, razor-sharp pendulums. Lantern had a thing for Poe. They’ll sheer through steel.”

“And you walk across them?”

“That’s how I did it.”

“Worth a try.” I timed the first one. As it came back, I leaped up and caught the shaft. I passed from one pendulum to the next, timing my leaps carefully.

Toward the end of the run, as I rode the blade high to the right, a smaller pendulum swung through, traveling perpendicular to the larger ones. It caught me square in the back. The armor held, but the impact pitched me toward the last two pumpkins.

I reached out and caught a larger pendulum’s shaft. My momentum carried me around it, above the cutting blade, then I released and twisted through the air. I landed in a three-point crouch, beyond the furthest one, steadying myself with my left hand.

“Damn!”

Redhawk, landing beside me on one foot, squatted. “What?”

“Spike, on the ground.”

“How bad?”

I held up my left hand and was grateful his light didn’t shine all the way through. Blood glistened on the stigmata.

“So much for my piano recital.”

“Sorry, first aid kit is still in the car.” He glanced back at the slowing pendulums. “I can get it.”

“Nope.” I pulled a bandage from my utility belt and wound it around the hole. “Let’s go.”

Another step further and the corridor lit up in a giant, nine by nine grid. Glowing numbers appeared in some of the boxes, but the rest were empty.

Redhawk grinned. “Belle Geste and her Sudoku trap. Nines are safe.” He limped onto the first one and waved me after him.

Then the floor flashed. The nine evaporated into nothingness. Another nine appeared three squares in front of him, and four to the right–each unreachable given his condition. Electricity climbed Redhawk’s leg like ivy growing up a tower. Every muscle in his body contracted, bowing his spine. Redhawk collapsed, convulsing once.

I dragged him from the puzzle. He was still breathing and had a pulse.

“He’s not dead.”

“The lifts. More insulation.” Deep laughter filled the darkness. “How good are you at Sudoku?”

“Not my cuppa....” I pulled a grapnel from my belt and sank it into the nearest pendulum’s wooden shaft, right up at the top. I tugged to make sure it was secure, then timed the pendulum. I tossed a small grenade at the pivot-point, then yanked hard on the line.

The grenade exploded, destroying the joint. The blade kissed stone. Sparks ignited. The pendulum tottered for a moment. Another yank and it fell forward. It crashed over the Sudoku grid, shorting out a couple of panels.

I mounted the shaft like a balance beam and crossed quickly. I reached the other side safely, twenty yards separating Nighthawk and me. “I didn’t bring a bottle.”

Other red lights came up, revealing Nighthaunt seated in a massive granite throne. A gravestone formed the back. A chiseled cherub smiled down. Capital City had been inscribed on the headstone, founded in 1655, dead as of today.

Nighthaunt removed the video monitor glasses and set them aside. He applauded mockingly, then stood. “It had to come down to just us. I’ve known that for years.”

“Because we’re so alike, or because I’m Sinisterion’s son?”

Another voice, a familiar one–
an impossible one
–answered. “It’s both, actually, isn’t it, Nicholas?”

I spun.

Sinisterion stepped off the balance beam. “The two of you are
exactly
alike, and that, my son, is why
you
must die.”
 

Chapter Forty

Nighthaunt clapped slowly and loudly. “Very good, Leonidas. I’d not wholly accepted your death.”

“A necessary ruse, Nicholas.” Sinisterion stroked his chin. “But you have yet to answer my question. Will you tell him the secret, or shall I?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Doctor.”

My father’s sinister laughter filled the Mausoleum. “As you wish, but I do have to know, did you figure it out, or were you told? Oh, wait, you protest that don’t
know
. That means Puma must have told you. One of his little notes, was it?”

Nighthaunt’s fist slammed the arm of his throne. “Yes, it was Puma. A damnable note, an
infernal
note.”

“And you chose not to believe.”

“He was wrong.”

I looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?”

Nighthaunt brooded, so my father filled the silence. “Nicholas and I both share a fate. Our parents were murdered in front of our eyes. He had a kindly butler who took care of him and raised him to be an upstanding young man and hero. I had an uncle who was a thief and worse. He raised me. Nicholas saw crime as a plague upon this city. I realized it was a consequence of the powerless wishing to assume some modicum of control over their lives. He approached crime his way, and I, mine.”

“You made it worse, Doctor. You organized bumbling fools.”

“Much as you’ve done now.”

“No, this was different, completely different.” Nighthaunt sat forward, his cold laughter chilling my marrow. “People had lost track of what crime meant. Yes, it is a plague, but one they’d lived with for so long they forgot how deadly it could be. I had to remind them.”

“Oh, but Nicholas, you remained willfully blind to reality.” Sinisterion paced before a giant replica of a Mercury Dime standing on edge. “I saw it coming. The backlash. There’s always a backlash. This is why I went international.”

“You never saw
this
coming.”

“Not the final direction, no, but it
is
delicious. Had I seen it, I never would have gone away.” My father looked at me. “He’s lied to you, my son. It’s not that crime has become low-grade and chronic, to torture that medical analogy, but because it has become
entertainment
. People no longer feared crime, they looked forward to it. They profited from it. Twenty percent of the jobs in Capital City can be traced directly to the industries that deal with the aftermath of crime, and there is no job that isn’t touched by it somehow. And it has become such a popular entertainment that someone like me can author a packet of lies, and have it rocket to the top of the bestseller lists. And you, Nicholas, you couldn’t even get a publisher for your memoirs, could you?”