Pyramid Power (ARC) Page 9

  "Well, then," said the sphinx, drawing back an enormous—and very deadly-looking—lion's paw, "I'll just swat the life out of him, then."

  As stupid as he might be, Megane at least had enough sense to finally realize the sphinx was perfectly serious and he was on the very edge of mortal existence. Naturally, though, all he could manage himself was an inchoate squawk of protest and an upraised hand that would have sheltered him about as well as a toothpick.

  "No, don't!" said Cruz. "You'll scatter his contents all over the place. Those are even more toxic than the outside."

  Blessedly, the lieutenant joined in. "He's right, Sphinx. We get trained in paratrooper school on how to dispose of them. They have to be carefully quarantined first—every part of them intact." Evans grinned. "Then we bury them alive in a special place. It's called Thule Air Base. An Air Force buddy of mine was stationed there for a few months once, on Securitus cretinii disposal duty. The temperature in the winter gets down to forty below zero and they once recorded surface winds of two hundred miles an hour."

  He was now giving Megane a look that could only be described as evil. "Yup, that's where this fellow is headed, sure enough." He jerked a thumb at the two other PSA agents who'd also managed to avoid the snatch. They were standing a little ways off, being closely watched by the paratroopers. "These two also."

  Throttler was startling to look mollified. "That's pretty good. A bit grisly, actually. It'd be a lot more merciful if you just let me—"

  Firmly, Evans raised his hand. "Can't, Throttler. Yes, I know it's a terrible fate. But those are The Rules, when a Securitus cretinii gets caught."

  The sphinx had a great respect for The Rules. "Oh, well. In that case, you have to do your duty."

  Evans nodded. Then, gave the Humvee a quick scrutiny. "Don't really have room for all three of them in the Humvee, Professor Tremolo. Not with a proper guard on them. Might I..."

  "Oh, certainly, Lieutenant. By all means use the limo." He sighed, heavily. "Lamont won't mind, wherever he is."

  "And where do you want me..."

  Tremelo tried to figure out the best place to keep Megane and his two fellow agents under detention. That was a tricky question, actually. Whatever black eyes Helen Garnett was going to come out of this with, the woman still had enormous power and influence. Not to mention an instant readiness to use bullying tactics.

  Fortunately, the problem solved itself that very moment. Two more vehicles came racing up and screeched to a stop. They both had U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service insignia.

  Best of all, Miggy recognized the man who immediately climbed out of the passenger seat of the first vehicle. The director of the service himself, no less, Mark O'Hare. Miggy had never met him personally, but he'd seen photographs of the man. Fortunately, unlike all too many of this administration's appointments, O'Hare actually had real credentials for the job.

  He also had a temper, clearly enough. When he came up, he gave Megane a look that was every bit as evil as the one Rich Evans had given—but had not a trace of the lieutenant's humor.

  He didn't have much of the lieutenant's protocol, either.

  "Is this the rotten motherfucker?"

  Megane looked very offended and started to say something, but a growl from Throttler put a stop to that. The sphinx was still not more than ten feet away.

  O'Hare gave her a very friendly look. "Hi, Throttler. Sorry about all this."

  "Oh, it's okay, Mark. I'm feeling a little sorry for them, actually. Ever since the soldier here told me they were condemned to being buried alive at Thule Air Base. Sounds horrible."

  O'Hare now glanced at Evans. "Is that what you told them?"

  "Yes, sir. The, uh, Throttler was about to... well. Eat him."

  The Director nodded. "I can believe that." He was back to giving Megane that very evil look. "And you know what, Pissant? Under the law—if you'd bothered to check—she'd not suffer any penalties, either. There's a completely different set of rules that apply to the sphinx"—he glanced at the dragons—"as well as Bitar and Smitar."

  Throttler looked very smug, at that point. So did the two dragons. Megane was obviously furious, but he still had enough sense to keep quiet. At least, as long as Throttler was within jaw range.

  "I've got a problem concerning custody, Director O'Hare," said Miggy. "Under the circumstances..."

  "Professor Tremelo, I believe?" O'Hare stuck out his hand and Miggy shook it. "Yeah, I know, it's a little tricky. However, under these circumstances—you should know that I've been in touch with both Senators Abrams and Larsen, and they've been in touch with the media—I've got quite a bit of latitude. The Fish and Wildlife Service does have police powers, and we're not restricted to federal property when endangered wildlife is involved."

  Again, he gave Megane that very hard look. "Which it certainly is, in this case—and with the nation's best known endangered species, at that. Most popular, too."

  He lowered his voice enough that the sphinx couldn't hear him and growled at the PSA agent, "You stupid, arrogant asshole. You'll be lucky if you wind up reading a thermometer and recording wind speeds at a military base seven hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Did you—or that shithead boss of yours—really think you could get away with something like this?"

  Abruptly, he waved his hand. "Never mind, don't answer that. Who cares what you think?"

  He gave Evans an appraising look. "I've got police powers, but we're not really set up to keep prisoners. Normally, we'd just take an offender to the nearest police authority and turn them over. However..."

  Evans smiled. "I'll have to check with the commander of Fort Campbell, of course. But I'm pretty sure the 101st Airborne will be willing—delighted, rather—to provide our fellow federal toilers with the wherewithal to keep these Pissants under guard for the moment."

  He transferred the smile to Megane. "You wouldn't believe how popular these fellows made themselves at Fort Campbell. And seeing as how it's officially Fish and Wildlife making the arrest—we're just lending a helping hand, so to speak—I can't see where Ms. Garnett can squawk."

  "Oh, she'll squawk," said O'Hare, who was now smiling himself. "But the thing is, right about now I think she's mostly squawking in fear, not fury. Okay, Lieutenant. Talk to your commander and ask him on my behalf if he's willing to put these bums up, so to speak, at the 101st's base. If he wants to talk to me personally"—O'Hare pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card—"this has my cell phone number on it."

  * * *

  Things were moving much more quickly than Miggy expected. So quickly, in fact, that he realized those first calls he'd had Rachel make to the senators had stirred up a firestorm. How else explain how quickly O'Hare had gotten here? He couldn't possibly have made the flight from Washington, D.C. on that short a notice—not even if he'd been flown in on a fighter plane. He had to have arrived in Chicago already.

  Like a shark, smelling blood in the water.

  It was easy to forget, sometimes, how an overly powerful agency like the PSA—especially one prone to bullying—could pile up a huge number of enemies. And how fast those enemies could move, once they saw a chance to take them down a notch.

  Or ten.

  "I've got to get back to my office, people," he said quietly. "I think everything's blowing wide open. And this area's not safe any longer, anyway. With those new absorptions, the pyramid's certain to have expanded again. We'll need to move the perimeter out another hundred yards, probably. Maybe two hundred, with that many idiot PSA agents going in."

  "But... Neoptolemeus..." protested Medea.

  "Is in a mythworld with Dr. Lukacs and the Jackson family," said Miggy, gently. "You know Jerry Lukacs and Lamont Jackson well enough, ma'am, and I know Marie Jackson. Your boy couldn't be in better, more careful hands. Now will you all get in the vehicle and get back, please? There is no guarantee that if you got snatched you'd end up in the same place or would be able to help."

  A corpse fell from the sky. It wa
s wearing a brass cuirass, and a Greek-style horse-hair-crested helmet. A ten inch by five inch piece was missing from its chest. Smoke still rose from the hole.

  One of the dragons leaned in and sniffed. "Chargrilled."

  Agent Supervisor Megane gaped in horror.

  Miggy turned to Evans. "Load that corpse up and let's get out of here, now. Some of your men may be snatchables."

  Lieutenant Evans realized that might well be true—especially with a private who'd somehow managed to get himself arrested over pizza. However, he knew the essential trick of military success. Sergeant Cruz might not be part of his squad, but he was the best NCO around. "Sergeant," he said, with a nod, which was all that was necessary to say.

  "Sir," said Cruz.

  A minute and a half later they were all heading out, the Humvee first, one SUV abandoned and the other driven by a paratrooper, the remaining agents under guard in the limo. Megane probably wished desperately that he could call in to his own authorities—but his helmet and those of his remaining "hoplites" had been left behind to talk to themselves.

  Chapter 10

  Lying in the back of the chariot in the cold Jerry could only be glad of the body—presumably still alive because it was warm—stacked against him. He wouldn't have minded if the man had not had a cuirass on. Brass seemed to transmit cold better than body-heat.

  Time passed. In the way of time when you were worried and helpless to do anything, Jerry was sure that it was passing very slowly. It was getting to be a question of whether he froze to death or worried himself to death first. He worried about the others, let alone about his own fate, at the hands of a guy with metal gauntlets and fake beard, and Odin.

  He tried to distract himself into remembering as much as he could about Odin. Not all of it was comforting. Yes, Odin was the leader of the Æsir who had hanged himself on the tree for nine days and given his one eye for a drink from the well of Mirmir. He was also—a stray scrap of information in the sea of stuff Jerry had waded through in a bibliophile's life—known by many names, or "kennings" as the Norse put it. They often gave clues to origins and nature of the god in question. This one was known variously as the Allfather, which was a delusion of grandeur from what Jerry remembered, the Wanderer from his habit of wandering about incognito, and Baelwerker—evil worker.

  There were lots more, but those were the ones that came to mind. Odin was known to be fickle with his favors and had fathered a fair number of children on women other than his wife, Frigg. About normal for a boss god, in other words. There seemed to be more of an element of sneaky cunning to him than was typical of someone like Zeus, though.

  Jerry knew less about the other Norse gods. A stray memory brought up Geirrodur the troll king and bars of white hot metal being flung around, but Jerry was almost sure that myth had been about Thor.

  A group of Norse warriors came past, and then Odin on horse-back. An eight-legged horse. Iron gauntlets came and got into the cart.

  "Well, I'm not carrying him down from there myself. He can sober up and get himself home," muttered the man sulkily. "Damned Einherjar won't do anything I tell them. But if he says it, then they jump."

  He kicked the two prisoners aside, took up his stance. "Tannagnjóst, Tannagrísnir, away!"

  Nothing happened.

  Iron gauntlets swore. "Move, damn you, goats!"

  Jerry had put two and two together now. This was Thor's goat-pulled chariot—only it lacked the ornamentation you might expect of a thunder-god's chariot. This English-speaking person was also a pretty poor stand-in for Thor.

  Odin returned with a double-clatter. "Tannagnjóst, Tannagrísnir, Bilskríner!" he snapped, walloping the goats with his spear-butt.

  The goats and the chariot took off like a rocket-ship heading for orbit on the bounces. Fake-Thor landed hard on Jerry, as the chariot leapt and bounced down the rough track at terrific speed. The goats seemed to want it airborne, and the chariot didn't have springs of any sort.

  It was a hellish journey and the charioteer's efforts to slow it down were met with no success. Neither did his efforts to stand up. To add to the joy of the journey, icy sleet showered down on them. Jerry could only be grateful, when, after an eternity, the bone-shaking slowed and then stopped.

  Iron gauntlets got out staggering, stepping on them as they lay there. They were at least out of the freezing rain. They appeared to be in a barn of rough rocks. Iron gauntlets didn't bother with unhitching the goats, just left everything.

  They lay there for a long time, as dusk gathered outside. Presently someone with a burning brand came along and unhitched the goats with a lot of grumbling. Norse was a fine grumble-language by the sound of it, with plenty of gutturals to help you sound really cross and miserable. It reminded Jerry a bit of Liz, when she started swearing at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Afrikaans.

  Eventually, the muttering grumbler noticed them. He hauled them out bodily, and dumped them on the straw. Then, pulled the chariot away and left, ignoring Jerry's yells.

  The straw seemed a better place than the back of the chariot, anyway, although that made no difference to his co-sufferer. The PSA agent had lapsed into unconsciousness. Jerry was suffering from extreme bruising and cold, and some light-headedness, but that appeared to be the worst apart from being tied up and left in a Norse stable.

  He strained at the cords, futilely. Well, maybe he could at least burrow his feet into the straw. The shoeless foot felt as if it might be about to lose toes from frostbite, and the other one didn't feel much better.

  He was just about half into the straw, and thinking that this had to be an improvement on the chariot, when it became obvious that still being in the chariot had one thing going for it. Goats—huge goats, the size of ponies—could not come and sample your clothing.

  Just when he thought nothing could get worse, Jerry got Wagnerian laughter and a kick in the ribs. The two Norse warriors examined the PSA agent, and settled for hauling Jerry to his feet.

  One said something, accompanied by a prod from fingers the size and hardness of a rifle barrel, that obviously meant "walk," seemingly oblivious of the fact that his feet were tied together. So Jerry did his best. He hopped. And fell over. The new outburst of Wagnerian laughter was worth enduring just to have his feet cut loose.

  They walked him out, and onto to a rough trail. They mounted and rode, chatting merrily, pausing their cheerful dialogue only to occasionally lean down and belt him with the flat of a sword, if they thought him to be walking too slowly. A numb foot and his giddiness didn't help.

  Coming over the ridge in the sunset Jerry could be excused for halting. The hall was huge, even by mega-mall standards. Being thatched with spears and with literally hundreds of doors also would have made it stand out.

  "Vallhöll," said one of the warriors, apparently finding justification in Jerry's halting abruptly. Not, of course, for too long. A swat with a sword-flat urged him on, towards what, from here, was already quite a racket—a very drunken party, by the sounds of it.

  Jerry blinked. He was hardly a warrior who had died in battle. And a drinking party with nubile Valkyries was not actually his idea of a good time, especially not for eternity. Once in a while, maybe.

  It soon appeared that the joy of drinking himself senseless was not for him anyway. He was led through a corner of the huge hall of roistering men. The hall was decked with shields and axes, and reeking of boiled pork, mead, and the after-effects of too much of both. The two escorts pushed in through a doorway and off towards some private chambers beyond. They came to a door at which they knocked, very respectfully.

  Jerry found himself in the presence of Odin, in Odin's own chamber. The one-eyed god sat slumped in his chair, a drinking-horn in one hand and a pair of ravens perched on the back of the chair. There were two other people in the room, a golden-haired and bored-looking blond woman and a man with a short stubbly beard and a rather weak chin.

  Jerry realized that the latter was Mr. Iron Gauntlets,
without the fake beard, gauntlets, or the broad iron girdle. He looked about twenty-five years old and with incipient jowls already developing. He also looked as surly as bull-beef right now. The blond looked ready to take him out of the mythworld and send him back home with a blow from her tambour-frame.

  Odin stared at Jerry, his one eye cold and penetrating. The stare was plainly intended to intimidate. It might have worked too, if the raven behind Odin had not chosen that moment to lift its tail over the blue cloak. Lightheaded and shivering, Jerry couldn't help a bit of puerile laughter.

  Plainly Odin had not expected that response. He said something in Norse.

  "Pardon?" said Jerry. His legs felt as if someone had taken the bones out of them, and the room seemed oddly wobbly.

  Odin's solitary eye narrowed. He raised his hand and said... something. Which became an understandable. "Answer, Thrall."

  Jerry blinked. It must be some kind of translation spell. "What was the question again?" he asked, swaying.

  "None of your insolence!" snapped the man who had been using the iron gauntlets. "Answer Allfather Odin!"

  Well, that established his pedigree. "Shut up, Thjalfi," said Odin off-handedly. "I have not yet forgotten that you left Thor behind. Now, foreign thrall, answer me. Or I'll make the blood-eagle out of you."

  Jerry's reply was to pitch forward on his face.

  He was vaguely aware of voices talking after a while. "... Sif, find me two that are not too drunk and have this one hauled to the dungeon. Put him in with the son of Laufey. He'll be keen enough to talk after he sees what happens to those who oppose us."

  The woman said something indistinct, but clearly petulant.

  "Hel take it, woman. If he hasn't staggered home by tomorrow I'll go back and look for him myself. We still need him. You know that by this time of night the Einherjar are not capable of riding to the gates of Asgard, let alone all the way to Geirrodur's castle. Now get me someone to heave this carrion away."