Take care. That heartfelt plea was still echoing in my head later, as I stood in a dimly-lit chamber, studying the battered behemoth huddled in the shadows before me, scarcely moving save for the slight rise and fall of a shallow breathing. For long minutes I studied the living ruin, private thoughts, occasional regrets running through my mind. Finally, in a whisper, I spoke.
"Niata."
There was no response; not so much of a twitch of recognition. I waited a minute more, then moved forward to study the slack face of the ex-magus, finally placed an all-too human hand upon the creature's powerful jaws and gazed deeply into huge, half-lidded eyes that stared apathetically at nothing.
"Niata, I need your help."
Silence.
"Niata, I must know. What was that place you brought us to? What does it signify, and what in the name of the Ancestors were those . . . things?"
Nothing but the faint sound of breathing.
"Niata, please; it's important. To all of us. I can feel that it is."
More time dragged by in silence. Finally I sighed, gave the dragon's scarred features a regretful caress, then turned and walked away.
<. . . .>
A touch, light as the brush of a moth's wing across my thoughts. I froze in mid-step and spun about to stare at Ksstha's renegade, but nothing had changed. Finally I began to wonder if perhaps wishful thinking was making me imagine things. Whatever it was, there was no further response whether fanciful or otherwise, and finally I gave up and left.
The morning of the second day, I didn't drive out to Schmoo's old barn; partly because I didn't feel like it. Partly because I didn't want my car seen leaving my house, nor seen anywhere near the place on that particular day should things go bad. Instead, I used the sphere to transport myself to the stretch of deep forest and scrub that lay perhaps a hundred meters behind the building. Banishing the sphere and shifting to my human form, I settled my icy jacket across my shoulders and began trudging towards the barn, my stomach queasy with dread.
As I cleared the edge of the woods I could hear the sounds of men and materials moving and being moved about within the rickety old structure, and once the unmistakable sound of a bolt going forward. All that ended when there was a quiet, carrying whistle and everything suddenly went still.
A pause, then there was movement to my right. I glanced that way to see Fields slowly stand up within a clump of brush, a G3 cradled in his arms. He looked at me for a moment, then smiled and touched one finger to the bill of his woodland BDU cap in mock-salute before turning to whistle twice more. I nodded to him in return as I continued towards the barn, where the previous sounds were slowly resuming.
There were two older cars, a civilian Jeep and an ancient-looking pickup truck sitting out in front of the barn, one of which had the radio on and was playing a disturbingly appropriate old Beatles tune. I stopped and stared at the offending vehicle for several long moments, then shook my head and headed inside.
They were all there, of course.
Lucifer set down the piece of hardware he'd been inspecting and just stood there expectantly, watching me, smiling that little Buddha-like smile as always. Wolfman looked up and waved from where he was seated upon a sheet of old tarp. The GSG-9 veteran was lovingly disassembling what appeared to be Stefan's Dragunov, though how the hell he'd managed to latch onto it was anybody's guess. Deebs and Grease paused from breaking down some crates over in the corner, and the Mad Mink slid shut the breech of an M203 before nodding to me, a ghost of a smile upon his thin, almost lipless mouth, his eyes just as penetrating as ever.
For several long moments we just stood there and looked at each other, nobody saying a word. Nobody needing to. Then I turned to Deebs, one corner of my mouth curling up into a smile. "Looks like we got our two-oh-three."
"Yup," Deebs replied cheerfully "came in air freight, can you believe it?" He chuckled. "Man, you really must've put the fear of God into those asswipes."
"Fear, yeah," I replied, smile fading somewhat "but not of God." For God would have mercy. I paused for a long moment as I looked over them all once more, then sighed. "Let's take a walk, Luce." At that, I pivoted on my heel and walked out the door.
I nodded once more to Fields as I walked past, heading back into the forest. About a hundred meters in, I intersected the path I was looking for, leading in from the left. I turned right along it, heading deeper into the woods until the trail ended in a small clearing dominated by a huge beech tree.
Though I hadn't heard the slightest sound behind me during the entire trip, I was unsurprised to find Lucifer standing right behind me when I turned around. The man was a ghost. He was surveying the clearing and the surrounding brush, his small smile growing fractionally wider as he doubtlessly came to the correct conclusion as to why we had come all the way out there.
At last he looked at me. "So, Max?" What's the big secret?
I looked at him for a moment more, wondering if we'd ever look at each other the same again. Or look at each other at all. Finally I nodded, stepped away about ten meters, and shifted.
I think it was the very first time I ever saw Luce at a loss for words. He took it all in, the steely scales, the wings, the serpentine form, with a visage that had gone completely blank. Finally he spoke; the words so soft only a dragon's hearing could have detected them.
"Shen Lung."
Abruptly he straightened into a more formal posture, his right hand clenching into a fist to be grasped by his left, then he bowed to me. Deeply.
I had to close my stinging eyes for a moment as I curved my long neck in response, then curled the corner of my hard mouth into a wry smile. "Not quite finished yet, Luce," I told him, then released the hold on my size.
He almost took a step back, but not quite as his head looked up. Way Up. He opened his mouth, closed it, licked his lips. "Now I know why you wanted the G3s," he managed at last.
I chuckled grimly, then nodded. "Need the punch," I replied, then grew serious. "Do you understand the secrecy, now? Do you understand what would happen if the existence of my kind becomes public knowledge? Do you understand why I didn't want you and the others to become involved?" I snarled as I put my snout right up to him. He did step back that time.
Lucifer is one of the deadliest people I have ever known. He is also one of the smartest people I have ever known, plus he'd been in the spook business at least as long as I had. It took less than five seconds for him to go over all the ramifications in his mind, and for his face to settle into a somber expression. "What happens to us after the job?" He asked at last, as usual cutting to the heart of the matter.
"Nothing, as long as I'm alive."
He blinked at that, so I elaborated. "Luce, I've trusted you with my life. Now, I have to trust you with not only my life, but the lives of an entire race, most of whom would be all-too glad to see you and the others converted into fertilizer. But that will not happen, because I trust your word. Do I have it?"
Lucifer gazed up into my armored face for a long moment, his lips curving into a brief, genuine smile as he contemplated the complement, I had just paid him. "You have it," he replied at last.
I released a breath I didn't know I was holding, then bowed my head to him in thanks.
"And the others?"
I lifted my head again. "Each will get his chance," I replied. Neither of us elected to discuss the consequences of failure. "Why don't you go get one of the others? I trust your judgment on who should be next."
He nodded contemplatively, that Buddha-like smile returning to his face. "Thank you," he replied, then paused, his smile growing wider. "This should be interesting."
Interesting was an extreme understatement, to say the least. Deebs fell on his ass. Fields ran through his complete and vast inventory of swear-words. Poor little Wolfman almost fainted. The Mad Mink actually said something. "Now I've seen everything," he remarked, his razor-thin smile growing fractionally wider.
Only Grease came close to losing it, and it was fortunate he wasn't carrying a weapon, else I would have had yet another scar on my scales to add to my growing collection. I wasn't all-that surprised; Grease was the closest in my little Dirty Half-Dozen to actually being religious. Fortunately, Lucifer was there to bolster him, and things slowly settled down.
Eventually I had them all sitting on the ground in a semi-circle before me while I coiled comfortably and told them the whole long, sad, sordid story. ". . . .So, what we have right now is a stalemate, with both sides trying to get what the other side has. If our opponents get what they want, the result will be war. A long, vicious war to the death that I don't think that either side can win without a cost I really don't care to think about."
"And if you win?" This from Fields.
"If we win, we follow the strategy of the one we call Dithra, in which we carefully introduce ourselves to the human race, and, hopefully, find a way to co-exist with them."
"You mean with us, right?"
I paused at the small challenge, then chuckled gently. "No, with them," I replied, then continued "I don't class you guys with the rest of the humans." Pause. "That's a complement, by the way. At least I think it is."
Another pause, than Wolfman spoke up. "So. We go in, get your kids, get out. What are the chances of meeting any of . . . your people?"
"Slim, I hope," I replied. "Those we do come across, we'll try to handle. Failing that, well, that's why I insisted on the G3s. Anything less would be like spitting on a forest fire, and I don't want anyone going in naked."
There was a bit more of the question-and-answer; it was amazing at how quickly the guys adapted to the idea of talking shop with a huge steel-plated lizard, but finally Lucifer decided to get down to business. "Okay, Max, when and where?"
My mane jangled softly as I turned to look at him. "Chicago, within the next several days."
He frowned at that. "Not much time for training. You've verified the address, right? Got plans? We need to drill on. . . ."
He trailed off as I shook my head. "No plans, Luce. Sorry, but we go in guessing."
"Well, swell," groused Grease. "This is going to be real fun."
I frowned at Grease, momentarily forgetting what such an expression looked like on a mug like mine. He paled slightly. "Plans would have been great, but we can make do without them. We have photos of the outside of the place, and can extrapolate the floor plan from those."
"You hope."
I hissed. "It's a little late to think about backing out, Grease," I rumbled. "But if you want out, feel free to HOP IN!!" and I opened my mouth.
The wiry little man was very still for a moment as he looked up into my face, but then placed his hand on his chest and put on an exaggeratedly offended expression. "Back out? Me? Hey, you know me, headlong into everything! I was just wondering if everybody else was picking up my bad habits," he grinned.
I stared at him for a moment more, then closed my mouth & snorted a chuckle, accepting his roundabout apology. "All right, get settled in at the motel, then familiarize yourselves with the equipment here at the barn. Feel free to burn off a few rounds, except for the forty-mil; we don't have very many of those. Luce, you're running the show until I get back. I'm going to try to dredge up more info on this place we're going to hit."