Sleeping Late On Judgement Day (29 page)

I was heading us toward the nearest exits through a minefield of squirming swastika-monsters and quivering Jell-O bits trying to reform even as they smoldered. Keeping our break-in secret was now a lost cause, but I was still hoping to get out without setting off any alarms, just to improve our chances of escape. That said, there was no way I was going to fight all the way back up to the top floor. I still had bullets in my automatic: if worse came to worse, we'd blast our way out through a ground-floor window.

Sam's Glock began clicking on empty chambers when we were only halfway across the room. Several bugbears were following us, hunching along the floor like elephant seals or waddling on distorted legs like mutant turtles, wide and low to the ground. The remaining Nightmare Children were also massing again, this time at the far end of the hall, spread between us and the exits. I was hoping that Halyna's flamethrower would be enough to get us through the whole mess, but there was still another short hallway to cross before we would reach the door, and I didn't think we'd make it past all those obstacles even if we had enough diesel fuel to set the entire museum on fire. I was using my own gun to try to clear some space in front of us, but the silver-tipped bullets weren't very effective against so many enemies. I wished I'd thought of incendiaries like Sam had.

Swastikids began to drop down on us from the ceiling. Halyna screamed that one of them had got between her tank and her back.

In other words, things were really looking shitty.

Then three human-shaped figures stepped out of the shadows of the hall beyond, right in our path, but on the far side of the bugbears and the way-too-many Nightmare Children. These newcomers had guns—big ones, military assault rifles—and they were pointing them right at us. I put Oxana down so I would have my arms free.

“Drop your weapon,” said the tall one, pointing that wicked barrel not at me but at Halyna. It was my neo-Nazi Norwegian friend Baldur von Uruk von Dickhead, of course, dressed in some kind of formal black commando wear, wearing a massive medallion that, with his high collar, made him look a little like a Nehru-jacketed swinger in some old movie. So, all the time the creatures Sitri had taught him to control did his dirty work, the bastard had been waiting to step in when things were safe. I wished I'd killed him back at his little racist storefront.

“Drop it now, Robert Dollar, and do not try your disappearing trick again or I kill your girlfriend.” His two chums Timon and Pumbaa were with him, done up in some kind of homemade stormtrooper drag. They looked excited enough to piss themselves, but their barrels were steady, and I didn't doubt they could take us out pretty easily. Four or five more Black Sun stormtroopers stepped up from the shadows, all armed with automatic weapons. That made more than half a dozen of them all together, and with much better guns than we had.

I didn't want to risk Halyna getting killed just so this cheapjack, would-be Hitler could make a point. I held my Glock out carefully so he could see it, then tossed it away.

“And your sword, too. All of you. Throw away the weapons.”

I dropped my machete, then kicked it away. Sam and Clarence and Halyna followed suit. I was hoping von Reinmann would forget Halyna's flamethrower, admittedly a long shot, but he made her take it off. Timon carried it back out of range, then he and Pumbaa looked it over like a couple of kids inspecting a video game they'd heard of but never seen.

“Now, Mr. Dollar,” said BvR, “the horn.”

“I told you, I don't have it.”

“We are going to search you, anyway.” He nodded to Pumbaa. Instead of coming to me, the blond one grabbed Halyna and shoved her stumbling toward von Reinmann, who put the muzzle of his weapon against her head. “And do not be cute, Mr. Dollar.”

“You know, I just can't help it,” I said as Pumbaa returned to frisk me. “Cute is part of my nature.”

He made me take off my backpack and kick it over to Timon to inspect. Timon found my backup gun immediately and slipped it into his own pocket, the little fucker. I'd had that.38 revolver for a long time, and the idea that some fascist punk was going to walk off with it burned me almost as much as anything else that was happening. Then Timon patted me down and removed a couple of more blades, some mags, and once again the cosh sewed into my sleeve lining. He slit the jacket and squeezed it out, waving the little cylinder for his friend to see, like he'd found gold.

“Man!” Timon announced as he found my last sharp thing, the razor blade in my boot heel. “This guy thinks ahead.” They'd clearly decided not to skip my shoes this time.

“Too bad you don't,” I said, “or you wouldn't be knee deep in felonies and probably selling your immortal souls in the bargain, just to push some tired old Nazi bullshit.”

“The Nazis were well-meaning amateurs,” declared Baldur. “We have bigger goals. But I am not bothering to explain to you. Where have you hidden the horn?”

“We didn't hide it. We don't have it.”

“Really? We did not give you time to find it? You are disappointingly slow, Mr. Dollar.” He looked at me for a long moment. Our Boy Baldur had very shrewd, very intense eyes. If you'd passed him on the street you wouldn't have given him a second look, except for his height, but I'd seen enough of him now to recognize the gleam of real madness. “Then you will find it for me now, because I know that is what you came for.” He looked across the room to the hidden stairwell beneath the mosaic, now visible to all. “What is down there? That is not on the floor plans.”

I was disgusted. The bastard knew almost as much about what we were doing as we did. “Nothing,” I said. “It's an office. We didn't find anything.”

“Well, then,” he said, “you will not mind searching again, Mr. Dollar. Because we are very keen—that is the word, yes?—to find that particular item. We have a buyer who will pay us with something much better than money.”

“And what if we won't help?”

“Then you will watch your companions killed one by one—starting with the young women. You see, I know something about you, Mr. Dollar. I know what you are. But I wonder, do all your companions have the same unusual background you do? I think not. And I think you will find it painful to watch them being shot to death, one at a time. So I suggest you get to work.”

I hesitated, trying desperately to think of a way to stall them, to confuse them, or just distract them long enough for us to try and get away. But I came up with exactly nothing. Zero. Which seemed like a pretty good indicator of our chances.

“All right,” I said. “You're the boss. For now.”

“Oh, for much longer than that.” He laughed as if he was really enjoying himself, but the gun never wavered from where he held it against Halyna's head.

V
ON REINMANN
and his cronies herded us toward the stairwell that led to Donya Sepanta's secret office. These fuckers had been watching us for awhile, it was clear, or more likely their demon minions had done it for them. It was an object lesson in the power of selling your soul. They'd reached out to Prince Sitri, Eligor's rival, and from the depths of Hell he'd sent them what they needed. Just as any jumped-up punk with a gun instantly becomes a threat, anybody with infernal backup becomes a monster.

“How is getting hold of this horn going to do you any good?” I asked von Reinmann. I already knew what his plan was, of course, I was just stalling. Half a dozen guys were pointing serious guns at us, but assholes love to talk about themselves.

“You wouldn't understand,” he said. “You think only of small things—your woman, your boss, your job.”

“I haven't thought about my job in years, von Rhinemaiden. Only a dick thinks everyone else is a dick.”

“And the small-minded always think they are the measure of all things. They cannot understand those who have bigger thoughts, larger aspirations . . .”

I let him blab, hoping he'd work himself up into a mighty we-will-rule-the-world froth. I was close enough to Sam now to whisper and trust to my old buddy's angel ears.

“Do you still have that glove thing?”
I asked in my quietest back-of-the-classroom voice.
“The one you wear to do shiny stuff?”

“The God Glove?”
That was Sam's nickname for a very powerful object Anaita had given to him to help him perform his Third Way job.
“Yes, but I don't think it's a good idea.”

“I'm not really interested in good or bad ideas, right now,”
I whispered.
“Because as soon as we're in that little room down there, it'll be a kill zone. The moment they're done with us—rat-a-tat-tat.”

“No, I'm telling you, B, it's a really bad idea!” Sam wasn't whispering any more.

“I don't care! Do something!”

“. . . But I see you are not even listening,” said von Reinmann. “You think you will distract me until you think of some plan. Go down the stairs now, Mr. Dollar. By yourself. If you are not back with the horn in two minutes, one of your companions will die.” He chuckled. “My choice. Probably one of your girls.”

“Fuck it yourself, you Norwegian bitch!” said Halyna, which I didn't think helped the tenor of the conversation. “We are not
girls
, we are fucking Scythians!”

Clarence reached out and grabbed her arm to try to shut her up. At their feet, Oxana was finally stirring.

Von Reinmann smiled and looked at Halyna, then his watch. “So. If Dollar is not back in . . . one minute and forty-four seconds, you will be the first to be shot, whore.”

“One thing I don't think you boys from the Black Sun understand,” I said, stepping in front of Sam to block their view of him. (I prayed he was doing something worth blocking.) “You are only children with guns. But we . . . we are angels of the Lord!”

Von Reinmann looked at me with zero fear or concern. Apparently he'd figured that out already. “So? You have bodies full of blood and organs. We have guns. We win.” He looked at his watch. “One minute and twenty-two seconds, now.”

“No, I said,” and I made my voice louder, “we are
angels of the Lord!
” Still nothing happened, except me looking like an idiot shouting at men with AR-16s, so I screamed, “
Sam! For fuck's sake, don't leave me hanging here!
”

A great white light burst up and outward from where we stood, bright as a Saturn rocket lifting off, a blinding radiance that made the neo-Nazis stumble back. A second later the light faded to a fierce glow that only burned at the end of Sam's uplifted arm. Timon and Pumbaa found their courage and stepped back toward us.

“Aren't the bad guys supposed to die or something, Sam?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he said. “I'm working.”

“I have grown tired of your silly shit.” B von R looked a little shiny—in fact, everything in the museum hall suddenly looked a little shiny—but he sure as hell didn't look blasted by angelic fire, or even mildly singed by angelic lukewarming. “Shoot all of them,” he told his men. “Except Dollar and the red-haired girl.”

I didn't even have time to dive for the floor. The guns roared, coughing flame. Bullets that would rip us to pieces rushed toward us at twice the speed of sound, far too fast for even an angel to see . . . except that I
could
see them. And they were slowing down rapidly. In fact, the closer they got to us, the slower they went, until they stopped and then fell to the ground like tiny, exhausted lead birds
. Ping, pingety-ping-ping, ping.
Dozens of them, rattling to the museum's tile floor.

“Wow,” I said. I could see the astonished faces of the neo-Nazis only yards away, but except for the sort of prism-like glow around the edges of them and everything else, all looked normal. “Nice one, Sammy boy.”

“Just . . . hurry up . . . and figure out the next part,” Sam gasped, face dripping sweat, arm radiating light like a live-action Statue of Liberty. “Because I can't do this . . . too long . . . and we're going to have . . .
real
trouble soon.”

The neo-Nazis were trying to shove their way through our God-Glove barrier, but having the same problem as the bullets. They would shove forward a little way, but then the emptiness seemed to thicken before them. Veins bulged on their necks as they tried to force their way toward us, but they couldn't get closer than a seven- or eight-foot radius, and when they fired again, the bullets didn't make it any closer to us than before, sometimes barely getting out of the barrel before slowing and falling.

Still, we had no guns inside the Glove's hemisphere of light, and I was having a difficult time thinking of what we'd do when Sam couldn't manage it any longer. Oxana had finally recovered enough to get onto her hands and knees. Halyna was kneeling beside her, and Clarence was trying to help her stand. I hoped they were also explaining about the bad men trying to kill us, and that Oxana wasn't too badly hurt, because whatever happened, I was pretty sure some strategy on the order of
run like motherfuckers
would be in order very soon.

In the middle of this intense five or ten seconds of panicked thought, a memory wafted up. I threw myself down next to Oxana and began to pat her clothing up and down.

“She is okay!” Halyna protested.

“Good,” I said. “But that's not what I'm doing.”

I looked out past Black Sun commandos trying to pierce our ring of protection. Von Reinmann had withdrawn to a display area at the top of a couple of steps, like a cat seeking out the highest place in a room, but it didn't look like a retreat. He took off his gaudy medallion and held it in his hand. As I frantically scoured Oxana's jumpsuit pockets for a weapon, since she was the only one who hadn't been searched, I saw him hold the medal out before him, swinging it on its length of chain like a prop in a bad hypnotism act. Then he began to chant.

I'd say my heart sank, but my second-favorite organ (just in front of brain, just after you-know-what) was already huddled down at the bottom of my rib cage, and had been there ever since the Nazis-with-guns element had been introduced. Because I recognized the chant, if not the language von Reinmann used. It was a summoning, like the one we'd seen on the flash drive footage. I could only pray—and I mean that literally, because I am a goddamn angel, and sometimes I have to do it—that he wasn't calling Sitri.

Please, God, I know I've been a pretty bad servant, but there are people here who are actually almost entirely innocent . . .

“Angel! You think you are clever!” von Reinmann shouted. He had apparently finished his invocation. A cloud of mist was now rising before him, making the already prismatic light shift and writhe like tendrils of transparent kelp. “You liked my goblins, my
marrerit
? Then you will truly love the Nøkken!”

I wanted to say something, if only to keep my own spirits up, but so far Oxana's pockets were a dry well, and every time I looked over my shoulder, the horrible mess coiling at Baldur von Reinmann's feet was getting bigger and more real. Things I thought might be tentacles lifted and swayed, except one of them had a glassy flower at the end that swung toward me, displaying a mouth like the biggest, ugliest lamprey you ever saw, surrounded by fringes and tendrils that seemed to move in some unfelt current. The tentacles grew and spread and lifted high, wreathing von Reinmann's triumphant figure. He held the medallion up like the prize for a grueling race. The Nøkken was both substantial and insubstantial—transparent and watery, but its massive, growing coils now smashed the nearest display cases into powder. The head-tentacle rose up ten, twelve feet in the air, questing for prey, and when it saw us it seemed to swell even larger, the central limb, or neck, as big as a redwood trunk. The mouth gaped so wide I could have pushed a wheelbarrow down it and never touched the sides.

I darted a look at Sam. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and his face was as pale as death. I only knew he was still alive by the movement of his lips as he silently mumbled what looked like the same phrase, over and over.

I thought it might be time to start mumbling myself, and I had just started, “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” when Oxana finally caught hold of my hand—apparently she'd been trying to get my attention while I was staring at the hydra-thing—and pushed it into her shirtfront.

She had a sheath strapped between her breasts, with the handle of a knife right against her sternum. As my hand closed on the weapon, I cried out in relief and then shouted, “Let it go now, Sam! Let it go!”

He hesitated for a second or two. The Nøkken began to draw its coils together to slither toward us. Something that strong, that nasty, would chew through Sam's fading defense like a kid's pup tent. Sam opened his eyes, saw it coming, saw me, and then suddenly the strange rainbow edges on everything just vanished. Sam's barrier gone, the gunmen who had been pushing against it now tumbled forward at our feet. Sam collapsed too, dropping exhausted to the floor like a pile of damp laundry.

I had the blade properly now. It was a tactical knife and not the best for throwing, but I wasn't shopping, I was doing my best not to die. The nearest of the fallen Black Sun commandos was crawling after his gun with the obvious intent of shooting me in the near future, so I pulled the knife back behind my head and then flung it, end over end, hard as I could.

By the way, throwing a knife hardly ever works. I'm also not very good at it. Leo, my old top-kicker in the
Lyrae
, used to tell me, “Boy, I hope you always carry a big gun, because you're useless with sharp stuff and you're even worse at hand-to-hand.” And you know what? He was right.

I didn't hit what I was aiming at, which had been the best and biggest target, von Reinmann's torso. The tactical knife flew wide, and if he hadn't turned to watch his hideous water-beast do whatever it was going to do to us, it would have flown right past him and probably skidded all the way to South Korean Textiles. Instead it hit him in the forearm, blade first. It didn't hit straight enough to stick, but it gouged his arm deeply just below the wrist. The medallion flew from his hand and landed on the ground several yards away. He grabbed his bleeding arm and looked at me with such hatred that if Norwegian Death Stares really worked, I'd be playing banjo in the backwoods of Hell right now. Then he realized that he didn't have the medallion anymore. And so did the Nøkken.

The translucent thing was on him like a snake taking a mouse, so quickly that I barely saw it happen. One moment Baldur was standing there looking like I'd butted ahead of him in the Express Check-Out lane, the next moment a giant column of pulsating transparent muscle and goo curled down and swallowed him from head to chest. I could see von Reinmann's eyes bulge, his mouth open helplessly, but then the swirling interior of the thing made it hard to see as it gulped more of him inside. The Nøkken began to change, growing less clear, more smoky and obscure, so that within moments I could only make out a dark shape spasming at the center of it, still fighting for a breath it would never get to take.

I was snapped out of my mesmerized stare by the sound of a gun firing right beside me. Clarence had picked up an AR-16 a Nazi had dropped after falling through the vanished barrier, and he was proceeding to blow the shit out of everything within reach, including (nearly) me. I retreated a few yards to get out of the kid's line of fire. The Nøkken had now almost disappeared, and finished doing so as I watched, leaving behind only a greasy residue and one of Baldur von Reinmann's expensive black Oxfords.