*What your scientists would call nanobots, a variety of them, some replicated and attacked the infection directly, others were analyzers and modifiers, they sought out the agents of infection and then created normal antibodies for the infection, others were reconstructors, undoing some of the damage done by the infection. By the time they clock out and flush from his system he’ll be a reasonably healthy thug again. Hopefully you won’t end up having to kill him and waste all that work.* Cutter – Iffrit replied in the back of his head as he backed the Mustang out.
-o-
That night he got a call just as he was getting ready for bed, “Uh Elgin, it’s Duval.”
Elgin sat upright, “Something wrong Du?”
“Something weird, heard a flock of those choppers come by a while ago, and then come back and stop, in the empty lot next door. I hit the silent alarm, I think someone’s fixed it, no one ever responded, but the Bikers never appeared. I tried to call 911, neither my cell nor the land line were working, computer as well. After half an hour there was nothing, I left Willy inside and went to have a look, there are half a dozen bikes parked on the gravel next door, there is no sign of anyone. I went over and had look, one of the bikes had this electronic gear on it, all blinking blue lights, I pulled the plug and now everything’s working again.”
Elgin was already getting dressed, “I’ll be there in a while, get back inside and stay there.”
“Yes sir, figured you should know.”
“Thanks Du, just keep calm, we’ll figure it out.”
However it wasn’t Elgin the human that made the trip. The Iffrit settled to the ground in the Shadow Realm on silent wings. In the anchor world side he’d scanned the whole area coming in, there was no sign of the bikers. Here he had seen six humans, one was sprawled on the gravel in front of him, the hole in his chest still bleeding sluggishly. Then the body was gone. The corpse would be lying near one of the bikes.
There was a cold breeze here, but the air had only the faintest hint of life in it.
He leapt into the air, glided west along the road, two more figures were making their way towards the Den, one supporting the other, who was loosing blood fast from a wound in his leg. Elgin dropped out of the sky, something tipped the two off, the one supporting the other, let his companion fall, spun and fired, he would have missed a human target but the Iffrit was the size of a private jet, the huge bullets slammed into the Iffrit’s chest and belly at near point blank range with searing needle thrusts of pain. Great clawed hands closed around both and thrust them into the anchor world.
Then Elgin fell back with a roar of pain, the wounds burnt like wasp stings. After a few moments to get control of himself, he turned and leapt into the air again.
The other three bikers were walking by the beam of a flashlight, which they swung this way and that, obviously completely panicked by the distorted normality they found themselves in. He’d never sneak up on them and he didn’t feel like facing three handguns, they wouldn’t kill him but it could certainly sting, a lot.
Then things went from bad to worse, a rippling discontinuity rose out of nowhere and like a gust front rippled over the three, and Elgin.
An orange sun blazed down out of a pitiless black sky, a huge disc bulged over the horizon, great swirls of blue and brown green and yellow, even some reds. The Iffrit’s throat slammed shut and membranes sealed his eyes as he plummeted out of the suddenly airless sky. The ground was made up of gravel and dust, and he landed feet first and rolled to absorb the energy, bones tougher than airframe alloy took the shock with no problem, though muscles complained.
The three humans were down, screaming soundlessly as they found no air to pull in. Elgin reached them in three huge bounding leaps, he could see horror in their faces as he saw him coming, all they knew was that a horrible monster was coming to eat them and they couldn’t breathe. Two somehow started scrabbling for dropped guns, but he got there first.
Scooping two up in one hand and one in the other, he turned and thrust himself back into ‘his’ world. Suddenly he was standing in the middle of the highway, with a car and a semi bearing down on him. Again he leaped, straight up, his wings beating frantically. The car was swerving back and forth as it’s brakes locked up in panic, the semi’s horn was bellowing and smoke was jetting from under it’s nearly locked-up tires.
Then the scene was behind him, he arched backwards hard, twisted, then he was sliding down to the lot of parked choppers. He touched down, dropped the three humans gasping for blessed, life giving air and leapt for the sky again.
A few minutes later Elgin walked into the shop, “Hey Duval, Willy, any new trouble?”
The two men grinned in relief, shaking their heads, “Nah, but I did call in the parking lot.”
Duval pointed east, where a glow marked the spot on the road Elgin had left in a hurry a few minutes before. “Any idea what that is? Looks like some kind of wreck, probably what’s keeping a deputy from getting here.”
Then they heard the blatting roar of a V twin starting, then another, and another. Three machines screamed away, something of fear in the desperate acceleration to get as far away from there as quickly as possible.
A few minutes later a sheriff’s car pulled up, and out stepped Deputy Michaels. She looked around, with her hands on her hips, then walked to the property line and around the fence into the empty lot. She was gone a few moments then walked quickly back to her cruiser, talking into her microphone. She glanced at the garage, saw the three faces looking out at her. She pointed at them and opened her palm to indicate they were to stay there. Elgin saluted, and looked at the other two, “Something not good.”
Duval shook his head, “Just the bikes there when I looked.”
“She saw something else.”
-o-
“There weren’t any body lying out there when I went to look, just the bikes, six bikes one with a whole crapload of ee-lectrical gear tied down on it. All I did was switch the gear off then. Got. The. Hell. Out. Of. Dodge.” Duval bit the last words off, he’d said them three or four times already.
Sheriff SweetBear was looking like a bear with a sore tooth right now, her young female deputy stood behind and to one side taking notes, recordings and pictures. Three sheriff’s cruisers, the emergency trailer, and four state trooper’s cars were parked in the gas station, and the neighboring, not quite empty lot.
The sheriff glanced at Elgin, “And you just happened to arrive a few minutes before Deputy Micheals.?”
“Duval called me, I came to check up.”
She stared hard at Elgin, “You see anything on your way here?”
Elgin blinked innocently, “Such as? Sheriff.”
“Oh I don’t know, a UFO, a freaking low flying aircraft, a Chinese attack helicopter. Take your pick.”
“Uh, no, ma’am,” so the Iffrit had been seen by more than a couple of people. How much did the Sheriff remember of her experience with it?
“Huh, didn’t figure you would have.” The sheriff replied, getting ready to leave.
“What did the deputy find that turned out the barracks, sheriff?” Elgin had asked before, and been ignored.
The sheriff gave him another dark, under the eyebrows look, “It’ll be in the pap....”
There was series of bleeps from the Deputy, she tapped a button and listened, glanced at the Sheriff, “They found two more about a mile up the road, looks like they were walking when the other three came up on them.” Her face was grim.
The sheriff said a very bad word under her breath then looked back at Elgin and the others, “You three are free to go, but don’t go out of town without checking with my office for the next couple of weeks, or I tell you otherwise. And Willy, at least make an effort to hide that damn antique when I’m here or I’ll arrest you, cousin or not.” The door closed with a thump behind the two women.
Elgin sighed, “Damned Claws, damn the Piggly Wigglys for that matter. This is spinning out of con
trol.”
“I never heard anything, never saw anything, what the hell happened?” Duval frowned.
Elgin shrugged. He had a reasonable guess but he wasn’t going to tell the pair that the six thugs had been going to stage some kind of major ‘accident’ at the garage and been caught by the trap Elgin had set expecting one, or at most two, attackers. Thrown into the shadow realm the six had panicked, started shooting at shadows, then each other, then, possibly because of some pre existing schism had broken into two groups. Then when it should have been over the nearly asphyxiated threesome had still had enough rage to gun down the other two escapees when they crossed paths again.
“Who know’s, guess I’ll be heading back, I might still get a couple of hours of sleep.”
He walked away from the island of light and bustling activity and onto the edge of the road, walking on the lake side so he was facing what oncoming traffic there was, he’d never had time to go back and pick up his truck or ‘cycle and he was not going to raise more questions by asking for a ride.
Elgin was near his winter ‘camping’ spot when he saw high intensity headlights sweep over him and the hum of tires on the narrow lane. The car slowed as it approached, he felt no need to turn or to leap for cover so he just kept walking until the long silver Mercedes slid to a stop next to him, Katherine Pauls smiled from the driver’s side window. Her hair was done up and she had expensive looking jewelry on in all the normal places. “Well fancy meeting you here at this time of night Mr. Cowboy Chalmers, someone rustle your horse?” It could have been snide but the smile and tone took any sting out, making it a jibe between friends.
He smiled back, “You’re looking mighty fine tonight Mrs. Pauls, and I think it’s early morning, and not as early as I’d like. I got a lift down to the garage, left it late to get one on the way back.”
“Okay,” She waved him to the car, “I’ll give a lift the rest of the way.”
“Won’t Mr. Pauls be waiting for you?”
She made a moue, “He’s back in the city, has a meeting later this morning, we attended the opera and had dinner last evening with acquaintances.”
A lift would save him another forty five minutes, “Thanks then.”
She let him in and then smoothly accelerated away from the stop, she rubbed one of the jewels hanging from her ear, another of her charms. “I didn’t want to leave Miss Pretty Paws for a whole night, she’s very near to delivery.” She grinned, “Fess swears he’ll hunt down your cat and shoot it if they turn out to be bitzas rather than purebreds, he thinks the Siamese tom we had in was the father but he’s just a teensy bit worried.”
Elgin sighed, “Let’s hope he’s worrying for nothing then.” He glanced around, took a sniff, “Nice car ma’am never been in a Mercedes before, well other than Friar Gosslin’s old oil burner.”
She chuckled, “He ought to let you have a look at it, I hear you do good work at the garage.”
“Good to hear our reputation’s getting out there,” He kept his reservations to himself. In Beauty there was such a thing as being too good at certain things.
Her hands on the wheel, eyes front she focused on driving but still shot out another question, “You studying anything in particular at the library?”
“This and that, but a lot of business, and world events mostly, figure I’ll have some money to start a retirement account sometime, need to do it myself like most folks around here.”
He glanced at her, “I didn’t know there was an opera house in the city?”
“The university has a theater set up for symphony, ballet, opera and plays, it’s hosting a traveling opera company, out of New York some friends to Fess’ had tickets and invited us. It brought back memories.”
“You must miss that sort of thing out here in the sticks.”
“Only a little, a little goes a long way for me,” She smiled, “I grew up in LA, but spent more time in the saddle than in a tutu. Father was one of the last holdouts to sell up to the big developers.” She almost said more but the entrance to the CircleSBarS, appeared, “And here we are.” She swung in and rolled down the lane, through the gates and swung to park in front of the Air-Stream. “Must be nice to just hook up your life and roll from place to place without having to pack.”
Elgin chuckled, “And yet I’ve never been more than a hundred miles from Beauty and that on a school outing.”
Kitty leaned back, “You’re kidding!”
“No ma’am, unless it was when I was a baby, the City’s it.”
“Wow, that’s a pity.”
“Why? Never had a need or a yen to travel further ma’am, and what I want to know I can read or see on the computer. I imagine one of these days I’ll have the money and reason to travel but it don’t bother me none.”
“A content man, you’re the nearest thing to Forest Gump I’ve ever heard of.”
Having seen the movie Elgin wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but she hadn’t said it with any indication of pity or meanness. He reached for the door, “Uh, thanks for the ride Mrs Pauls.”
“Not going to invite me in for a nightcap cowboy?” she was smiling, the voice a purr.
Elgin almost froze up, hearing the invitation in her voice, but he knew it was a very bad idea, and she probably did too, “Uh, nothing to make a nightcap with ma’am, can make you some coffee if you’d like that, but it’ll keep you awake. If you want I can brew some and we can sit outside, the stars are pretty tonight.”
Kitty looked at him, “Coffee. Under the stars.” She chuckled, “It sounds good to me, I’m not going to get much sleep anyway.”
Which was how they ended up sitting watching the first hint of dawn, sipping a third or fourth coffee and talking about this and that in a lazy, slow, old friends, way. Sometime in the darkness Elgin heard a door creak, voices speak, a door close, then another one and silence.
At last she sighed and hopped down from the fence, “OK, now I have to go start the new day.”
Elgin stepped down next to her, “It was kind of you to drop me off, and I’ve enjoyed our talk ma’am.”
“So did I Elgin and call me Kitty, or Kat if you have to.”
They reached the car, Elgin took the empty coffee mug from her, reached out to shake her hand, she laughed and reached in to hug him and peck him on the cheek. “Take care of yourself Elgin. See you soon.”
She climbed in the car and drove away, leaving Elgin standing on the gravel staring into the dawn reddened dust the tires lifted. “Wow, some catch there Elgin.” Winters called out from his tent.
Elgin turned back to his trailer with a grin, “Little do you know about it youngster. Want some coffee?”