Moonheart (61 page)

"I'm just checking on the Project," Walters said. "How's the cleanup going?"

"We're almost done."

"Good, good. And no leaks?"

"No leaks."

"What about our intrepid Inspector Tucker? Any word on him?"

Williams still wasn't sure if Tucker was in Walter's employ or not. "He's still missing," he said.

"That's a shame. Tucker's a good man— a credit to the Force." Walters paused for a moment, then added: "I've got another little problem that you might be able to help me with, Mike."

"All you have to do is ask."

One day, Williams promised silently, he'd end this. He'd expose Walters no matter what it cost him. It just wasn't the right time. He wasn't sure that it would ever be the right time.

"It has to do with my business associate, Phillip Gannon." Walters asked.

"What about him?"

"I seem to have misplaced him. I sent him around to Tamson House yesterday with a few men and he hasn't been back in touch with me since."

"What would you like me to do?"

"Nothing. It's just if one of your men should get a trifle over-zealous and pick him up— well, I don't want him on any official record. It would rather spoil his usefulness to me."

"That shouldn't be any problem. As far as the Force is concerned, Tamson House is no longer a going concern."

"Good, good. Well, I've got to run, Mike. Give my love to Joan and the children."

Walters hung up and for a long moment Williams listened to the dial tone. Then he slowly cradled the phone and stared off across his office. Unlocking his desk drawer, he reached in the back and took out an envelope. It was unaddressed on the outside. But inside, on the letter's heading, the address was plain. It was to be sent to the Prime Minister's office. All it required was a date and his signature on it. The wording was simple. It stated that for personal reasons, he was resigning his post as Solicitor General. Nothing more. But it would be enough. It would end the nightmare. End a part of it at any rate. He would still have to live through Walters's retribution.

How could he face Joan and the children if Walters made the entire sordid affair public? Slowly he returned the letter to its place and relocked the drawer.

"Bingo?" Madison said.

Collins looked up from the cigarette he was lighting and glanced down Patterson Avenue. They'd been staked out for about three hours, watching the House. In the back seat of Madison's four-door Volkswagen Rabbit, the third member of their team stirred. Doug Jackson was a blond, husky man that Collins had worked with before. He was just finishing off a two-week vacation when Collins had called him in on a favor.

"Looks like an Indian," Jackson said. "Do we grab her?"

Madison shook his head. "Not yet. Let's see what she does first."

He drew the straps of the portable Sony VCR up around his shoulder. Jackson would take care of the lights.

"Doesn't have a key," Collins murmured as they watched the woman ring a doorbell. "Just some visitor, I guess."

"We're not leaving anything to chance, Dan."

"Sure. She's leaving. Do you want me to—"

"Not yet. She's on foot. She won't get far." Madison leaned closer to the windshield, watching the woman slowly walk along the House. "What's she doing?"

"Looks like she picked up a rock."

The woman threw the rock at the window, then staggered back.

"Okay," Collins said. "We've got her on a B&E."

"Hold it!" Madison said. "She just reached inside the window. How come she didn't get burned?"

They were so intent on following the woman's actions that they were unaware that she was no longer alone on the street. It wasn't until she turned that Jackson noticed the three figures further down Patterson.

"Heads up," he said. "We've got company. I wonder how they got this far up the street without our... Jesus!"

"They're wearing some kind of masks," Madison said.

Jackson shook his head slowly. "Those aren't masks."

They stared at the unnatural beings, unable to believe what they were seeing. It was one thing to be sitting in a theater and watching the wonders of modern special effects technology make the impossible real, but quite another to be confronted by these things in the middle of an Ottawa street. Madison remembered reading the statements of the witnesses in Patty's Place.

"Just like Thompson," he began.

Howls lifted from three inhuman throats, blending into one horrific wail.

"They're after the woman!" Collins cried.

Madison started up the car. They watched the woman bolt around the corner of the House, into the park, the creatures following at a deceptively quick shuffling pace. Madison stamped on the gas pedal, coming to a squealing stop as they reached the spot where the figures had disappeared into the park. Collins winced as he put pressure on his wounded hand, opening the door.

"Jesus H. Christ!" he muttered.

"Let's go!" Madison cried.

He took off at a limping run, drawing his .38 from its shoulder holster, hands damp with sweat.

"Stop!" he shouted as he turned the corner.

He paused there, waiting for the other two to catch up.

"Give me that camera," Collins said.

He took the sack that held the lights from Jackson, allowing the other men to hurry on, unburdened. He followed at a slower pace.

As Madison rounded the second corner, he saw the woman throw herself at a window. She disappeared inside the House just as the first of the creatures reached the place where she'd been. Aiming his revolver, he fired a shot. The second creature stumbled, shrieking with pain. The first hit the window and flew back in an explosion of blue fire. Madison drew bead on the last of them, while Jackson fired three shots in rapid succession. The third creature twisted as it was hit, fell in a sprawl. The second had spun back against the House where it too had dropped.

The two men approached the scene cautiously. When they reached the dead creatures, Madison looked down at them, then away. He felt sick at the reek rising from their corpses.

"Just three of them," Jackson said.

He searched the park with a careful gaze as he replaced his spent shells.

"What in God's name are they?"

As Collins came up, Madison glanced at the window. Still nothing there. Just the grey inside and the edges of the screen...

"Set up those lights," he said.

He took the camera from Collins and set it up on its tripod, focusing it on the window. In the distance he could hear sirens. He wondered how the window had come to be open in the first place. When the cold glare of the spotlights threw the regenerating screen into bold relief, he let the videotape roll.

"This place is going to be crawling with locals in another minute," Jackson remarked. "If we're still playing this one low-key, we'd better get our asses in gear."

"We don't have to pussyfoot around anymore," Madison said. "Not even with Williams."

He nodded to the corpses of the three dead creatures. The one that had tried to get in the window was still smoking.

"We've got these things now," he said. "I'd just like to see Williams say that this never happened. We're going to wait right here for the local police and cooperate with them as fully as possible. He won't be able to stop it now."

Lights were coming on throughout the neighborhood. An Ottawa Police cruiser pulled up on Bank Street, its cherry lights flashing. The wail of other sirens approached.

"Still doesn't tell us what happened to Tucker and the rest of them," Collins remarked.

"But it's more than we had a few hours ago," Madison replied. He put away his gun, motioning for Jackson to do the same. "We don't want anyone with itchy fingers to get the wrong idea about us."

A second car pulled up behind the first cruiser. Spotlights stabbed the night, weaving back and forth across the park until their lights picked out the three men while one of the policemen remained by the cars, the others started across the park, weapons in their hands. As they drew near, Madison called out:

"I'm reaching for identification."

The first officer nodded and Madison gingerly withdrew his billfold, flipped it open and let his badge glint in the light of the spotlights. Visibly relaxing, the policeman put away his sidearm and approached, wrinkling his nose at the smell that came from the bodies of the creatures.

"What the hell's going on?"

"I'm Superintendent Madison and these two men are—"

Before he had a chance to finish, an explosion rocked the air. The men turned to see a great piece of the second story's walls blow outward to rain flaming debris on the park.

"Ho-lee shit!" the first patrolman muttered.

"Well, we've got ourselves a way in," Jackson said and headed for the hole, sidestepping the debris.

"Careful!" Madison called as he followed.

Shinnying up a support, Jackson made it to the porch's roof. He reached for a handhold higher up, cursed and drew back his hand. "Jackson?"

"I'm okay. Just a little shock."

He drew a pair of gloves from the sidepocket of his windbreaker and reached up again. He had the feeling, just for a moment, of being crowded. As though he wasn't alone on this perch. He shook off the feeling. Prepared for the sting of the shock this time, he heaved himself up. Now the feeling was stronger. He stood in the opening and stared into an empty greyness. He thought he felt something brush by him and he stepped aside. There was nothing there. He could still smell the reek of the dead creatures. It was stronger somehow.

The greyness in front of him wavered. He caught a brief glimpse of a devastated room, furniture and goods thrown about as though by a whirlwind, then it was gone. Taking a step in, the grey wavered once more. A sensation like static electricity ran through him. He had a sudden feeling of vertigo, as though the building had shifted under him. He turned to go back, saw not the park with the house lights beyond it, but dark fields and forests. Then he was in the midst of a swarm of howling creatures.

"Jackson? Jackson!"

Madison turned to the policeman beside him, but before he could speak, something was flung from the gap torn in the House's wall. He followed its descent and knew, without having to look, what it was. Jackson's body, what was left of it, hit the ground with a dull slapping sound. Madison's stomach lurched.

"Oh, Christ!" he mumbled, leaning against the porch for support. He looked at the patrolman standing beside him. The man's face was as white as his own. Get a grip on yourself, Madison thought. He swallowed drily. "We... uh, we've got to cordon this place off," he said.

The patrolman started to nod, then stepped quickly to the side of the House where he lost the contents of his stomach. More patrol cars were pulling onto Patterson and Clemow. Their flashing lights crisscrossed, adding to the hellish quality of the moment. Burning debris threw smoke into the air. The place reeked with the stench of the monsters. Along the park railing that bordered Bank Street, civilians were gathering.

Someone had to take control, Madison thought. He hurried to where the others were still staring open-mouthed at the dead creatures and began to bark orders. The men, out of their depth in a situation this bizarre, were quick to follow them.

Walters sat in his den staring at the confusion on his television screen.

"Although the actual cause of the explosion has not yet been..." the commentator was saying when Walters shut off the sound with his remote control and continued to regard the picture in silence.

He had to give them this. They were fast. Like vultures. The entire area had been cordoned off. The place was swarming with reporters, television crews, RCMP, local police and spectators. He had seen the pictures of the dead creatures that had been broadcast thus far and tried to understand exactly what it was that had taken place at Tamson House.

Was still taking place, he amended. According to the TV commentator, the police had not yet entered the building. Earlier attempts had left two officers dead, a third seriously wounded. They were now waiting for reinforcements. The next assault would be on the gap high in the building's south wall, where an RCMP officer had been thrown out earlier in the evening, torn to ribbons.

He wondered what it was that they expected to find. One thing he knew— they were going about this all wrong. If he had been in charge, he would have had the tightest possible security clamped down on it from the first moment. By the time he had found out, however, it had been too late for him to do anything. He toyed with the idea of calling Williams, then shook his head. The man was beginning to feel the pressure. Perhaps dismantling the PRB had been too hasty a decision— especially with what was transpiring tonight.

Frowning, Walters brought the sound back up.

It was too late to reconsider. What was necessary now was to salvage what he could from the present. Because no matter who he had to step on, he was going to come out ahead. What was on the TV screen at the moment proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the parameters of science would have to be stretched to encompass an entire new field of knowledge.

Walters expected to be at the forefront of that pioneering. And he expected to keep it for himself if it was at all possible.

Jean-Paul Gagnon was at a friend's house in Alta Vista when the first news bulletin interrupted the regular programming. He stared aghast at the screen. That was Tamson House. When the camera panned across the three dead monsters, he shuddered, remembering his conversations with Inspector Tucker. Making his apologies, he left as soon as he could, pointing his VW down Bank Street, to the Glebe and Tamson House.

After what he'd just seen on the television, he couldn't discount any of what the Inspector had told him. And if the Inspector was only partially correct, it still meant that Kieran was in a great deal of trouble. Because somehow Jean-Paul knew that he would find Kieran there. The Inspector had been certain that Jamie Tams and his strange House were central to the problems that had been plaguing him.