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CHAPTER 21


The warehouse was very large and crowded.

In the center was the drill rig. I’d seen drill rigs around, who hasn’t, in the news and TV shows and even just driving through Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas. They were big scaffold-looking things reaching up to the sky. Everybody knew that was what drill rigs looked like.

This wasn’t that drill rig. The rig was laid sideways on a trailer. They’d just driven it into the warehouse that way. The pipe, called a string, was held at an angle of about ten degrees and went into an already cut hole in the thick floor of the warehouse. The rig was laid in about fifty feet from the south wall and the full string and entry stretched halfway across the four-hundred-foot-long warehouse.

To both sides we had installed giant water tanks. They looked like aboveground swimming pools and even had ladders to climb in. Usually these would refill from the “mud” pumped out by the drill. But holy water needed “pure” water. So the diluted mud was being dumped into a storm drain and, at least in part illegally, then dumped into the nearby Mississippi. What would happen when the mava goop started being pumped out was anyone’s guess. Hopefully just a fish kill. A repeat of Mardi Gras or worse would be unpleasant.

North of the tanks were six fire trucks manned by volunteers from the New Orleans Fire Department. There hadn’t been a lot of takers on this one. NOFD liked hoodoo about as much as NOPD. But they’d previously lost some men to a kifo worm, so we’d managed to get enough volunteers.

There were lines from the trucks leading up to the roof of the warehouse as well as more inside. We were planning on throwing around a lot of fire. Having a way to put it out was a good idea. NOFD was willing to run the trucks, which was a specialized job. They weren’t willing to run the lines. The lines were going to be in harm’s way of hoodoo. Couldn’t say I blamed them.

In addition to the big tanks, the fire trucks, the drill rig and its peripheral equipment, there was our equipment. MHI had brought in every piece of lethal hardware in its inventory. We’d had to build in an ammo bunker for all the ammo. There were tanks of prepared napalm to refill the flamethrowers and Hunters to run it up to the flamethrower teams. Prestocked ammo supplies and preloaded magazines. Cases and cases of grenades, LAWs, RPGs, and Carl Gustavs. We’d put in extra orders for all the firepower we were planning on throwing. If this wasn’t a mava, we were going to lose a lot of money on this deal.

If it was, then the lowest estimate we’d gotten from the PUFF adjustor was astronomical. Even with all the costs of the operation, we’d make bank.

Our building was part of a regular block of identical prefab concrete warehouses. Each was four hundred feet long, a hundred and fifty feet wide, with a broad boulevard between them running north and south and narrower streets, still big enough to take two tractor trailers, running east-west. The doors were heavily reinforced to prevent burglary and the only windows were near the high roofs. Counting the thick precast concrete walls, they were virtually impregnable.

But virtually wasn’t good enough. Milo had been given a construction crew, the company checkbook, and told to make this place into a fortress. We still didn’t know what the mava was going to throw at us, but Milo had reinforced everything just in case. The already thick floors had been built up with rebar-reinforced concrete everywhere but our drill hole. It would take kifo worms a while to batter their way through that.

We’d set up double-height Jersey wall blockades on the broad boulevards, angled to push anything that couldn’t climb them into the narrower streets. That was where we’d also set up most of our firepower. The premise was that any attackers would be pushed into the kill zone. The kill zone was littered with claymores and other explosives. It was going to get hot in there. We’d ensured that the other warehouses didn’t have anything that would detonate from the heat and the concrete walls were pretty resistant.

The walls were high enough that even a shoggoth would need some time to slither over them, and they were back-stopped by more stacked Jersey walls to prevent pressure pushing them over. Hopefully, they’d hold.

But the mava would probably summon some ghouls, wights, vampires, what have you. They could climb right over the things. They could climb the walls of the freaking warehouse. Vampires and wights could climb the other warehouses and make the jump across the narrower sections.

Earl promised that he had some special secret weapon which would take care of any undead, but we’d see.

At six points up along the “long” sides of the warehouse we had belt-fed guns mounted. Two M2 .50 caliber Ma Deuces and four M-60 Pigs in .308. They were going to be putting plunging fire onto anything that got onto the boulevards. Two of the M2s were mounted at each end of the building and could swivel to cover the narrow “streets.” If the claymores, napalm bombs and other explosives didn’t do the trick, Ma Deuce was the gift that just kept giving.

Getting in and out of the warehouse was the tough part. We’d seriously bunkered up. The fastest way out was from the roof. Which was why LifeLift was also on standby. We were going to take casualties and would be carrying them out by helicopter.

Nearly every MHI employee in the country was here. I saw people I had not seen since training. Either the MCB did not know what we were up to, or if some figured it out they were smart enough not to alert their superiors. We hadn’t been shut down yet. Everything was ready.

Earl got on the warehouse intercom.

“Start the drill.”

* * *

For hours the priests had taken turns blessing the water. We needed the holy water not only for the drill mud but for mixing with the “stuff” coming out of the drill. We’d already noticed effects just from the mava’s shell. Get near the discharge and you were immediately assaulted by the presence of evil. How the last drill crew had managed was the real question—it probably hadn’t been as bad when the creature was asleep. This was bad, but the mava’s internal essence was supposed to be worse. Of course, we were mixing it with holy water which was unquestionably dropping the “pure evil” level. When it was fully diluted, you didn’t get any “feel” off of it at all. Just the initial stuff coming out of the hole.

“Father Coglin,” I said, walking over to my old confessor who was standing by the edge of one of the tanks. “Bit easier with help?”

“Do you know who that is?” Father Coglin asked quietly, gesturing with his chin at Father Madruga.

“That priest?” I said. “He’s one of the people my boss called—Father Madruga.”

“Monsignor Madruga. He’s Cuban,” Father Coglin said. “He was a priest when Castro took over. He had a way out but stayed behind to minister to his flock. He was horribly tortured by Castro’s people but refused to renounce his faith. Led an underground railroad to get people out until there was a definite kill order sent down against him. His junior priests and the surviving nuns had to more or less drag him to the boat. He literally had to be tied up to keep from returning. The scars are from where some of Castro’s torturers tossed gas in his face and set it on fire.”

“Jesus.” It’s worth noting that humans can be as bad as the things Hunters fight.

“Watch your tongue, Chad,” Father Coglin said. “Only in places and times where one is truly tested can you be sure of a person’s faith. For the rest it’s just words, to be believed or not. Only God knows the human heart. Monsignor Madruga is what every priest should aspire to be. As strong in faith as any human being on earth. Assured of sainthood. Except he’s apparently disappeared from the face of the Earth for the last few years and no one has known where he’s been.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. “In that case, very glad he’s here.”

“Time to suit up.” Earl radioed. “They’re through the shell and in the mava’s guts.”

We’d been told that it would be about several minutes before anything that they were drilling through reached the surface. So they had time to suit up before the mava gunk reached the drill site.

“Now we find out if this is what we think it is,” I said. “See you when we’re done, Father.”

“God will prevail this night, Chad,” Father Coglin said, making the sign of the cross. “Have faith.”

I headed for the drill rig. Since this was my brilliant idea, I was in charge of the crew and the Hunters around the hole. I wanted to be close when we broke through the shell to see just how bad this stuff was. And be in the circuit when we figured out what the Tibetans meant by “servants.”

“We’re through,” Frandsen said. Our geologist was all duded-up in a silver suit. “And we’re getting some really weird effects already. Stuff that wasn’t in the last drill.”

“Define weird,” I said.

“Drill head is in soft material but heating up way more than it should,” Al Gordon said. “And we’re getting spurious movement. Like there’s something hitting the string from the side.”

He pointed at the pipe that was the drill “string” and you could see it was jumping like something was hitting it.

“Is it going to break?” I asked.

“Don’t know. A thousand holes and I’ve never seen anything like that. Could crimp, yeah. But so far it’s holding. Just weird. Not sure what’s causing it. Could be something in the material we’re drilling has movement. Could be something in between.”

“What the hell?” one of the drillers yelled. “We got foam coming out!”

The mud, a mixture of various nontoxic chemicals, bentonite, and holy water, was now foaming. It smelled like…

“Kifo worm! Get your respirators on!” I shouted. Then I got on my radio. “This is Iron Hand at the drill. That’s kifo juice coming up. I can smell it. Incoming kifo!”

“It’s not going to be able to fit through the bore, is it?” Al asked.

“Hell if I know.” The borehole was about fourteen inches in diameter. The string took up six inches of that more or less in the middle. I wasn’t sure a kifo could get up the whole borehole much less past the string.

“We can’t keep it on track,” Frandsen said, looking at his readouts. “We’re getting a lot of anomalous movement. Something, and I’d say it’s your kifo worm, is banging the hell out of the string. Couple of hits. Stops. Couple more. From what I’m reading, it looks like they’re getting closer.”

“It’s sending up a pseudopod to find out who’s hurting it. Can you tell how far away?”

“Hang on,” Al said, starting to strip out of his suit.

“Careful,” I said. The stuff was foaming up even more when it hit the holy water being mixed into it, and giving off horrible smelling steam. The holy water was literally burning when it came in contact with evil. That explained the heat at the drill head. “Don’t touch the foam.”

“Ain’t gonna.” The upper part of Al’s silver suit was around his waist. He backed up onto the string and held up a hand to keep the driller from pushing forward. The string was still spinning but he put his hand on the string, carefully, and felt it. “Couple thousand feet at least. I can feel the impacts. They’re not hard. More like occasional soft pushes. I’d say you’re right. It’s trying to follow the string back to here. So what’re you gonna do about it? We can’t keep drilling if you’re shooting around my hole.”

I keyed my radio. “Boss, this is Hand. Kifo worm is working its way up the string to find the source of the attack. Two thousand feet and closing. May be a partial breakthrough at the string.”

“Got that,” Old Man Shackleford radioed back. Oh yeah. I said almost everybody had turned out for this. MHI had brought in the big guns. “So far there ain’t no reports of activity outside. Teams Two and Four, peel off and reinforce on the hole.”

The Hunters confirmed. If that kifo showed itself, it was in for a surprise.

“I can perhaps help,” a voice said over my shoulder.

It was another of the priests from the Secret Guard—Father Ferguson.

“The pseudopod will have to push its bulk up through the bore while being burned by holy water. Given the effect we are already seeing, I don’t see it doing so. However, if I am wrong, I can probably hold it at the bore opening.”

“With what, Father?” Gordon asked as he put his suit back on.

“The power of faith, young man,” Father Ferguson said. “This creature is ultimate evil. It burns from the mere touch of holy water. It cannot face the full holy power of God.”

“Well, Father, as you say.” Gordon hefted a .45-70 lever action. “You use the power of God. I’ll just shoot it, if you don’t mind.”

“As long as you pay mind to ricochets,” Father Ferguson said, smiling faintly. “I’m averse to friendly fire.”

“And I think we got mava juice,” I said, turning my face away with my hand over my nose.

The…stuff coming out of the borehole was now beyond foul. If the holy water had had any effect on it, the power had been spent in the long lift from the depths. Generally a gray-green to black, it was coming out in vile-smelling chunks and you could feel the evil coming off it in waves. I shook my head as my mind was assaulted by unclean images. It was like it was reaching into my brain and pulling out every sin I’d ever committed or thought about committing. If this was the remnant, post-cleansing essence of an Old One, I could see why a breakthrough would be bad on toast. Forget the “servants,” the zombies and wights and ghouls and vampires that would be called to it and wreak havoc in its unholy Name. Every human being in the range of its effect would act out every evil fantasy they’d ever had to the best of their ability. Total chaos would reign in seconds.

“That is quite unpleasant,” Father Ferguson said, apparently unperturbed.

I looked over at Al who was looking at the weapon in his hand.

“Al,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Just put it down.”

I didn’t know who he had enough of a problem with to want to kill. But I’d found myself fingering my silver-loaded .45 and contemplating that Earl, who I still blamed for the loss of my last team, was nearby and possibly wouldn’t see it coming. I knew what was going on, though. I’d faced something similar with a vampire one time. I knew how to fight it. It was hitting Gordon bad, though. The silver suits and respirators were useless against this stuff.

“Shit, shit, shit…” the driller was saying.

“Give me the weapon, Mr. Gordon,” Father Ferguson said calmly. He laid his hand on Al’s shoulder and placed the other hand on the weapon. “Don’t let this power take you. You are a good person, Mr. Gordon. This thing’s power is not greater than God’s. Feel the power of God upon you, Mr. Gordon. Feel the sin fall from your mind.”

Gordon blinked at that and slowly handed the priest the .45-70.

“That’s better,” Father Ferguson said, setting the rifle on the desk. “We are here on behalf of God, against which no evil can prevail. All of you! Fight the evil! Push it from your hearts and trust in God!”

This thing had to be put to bed permanently. Forget “strange aeons” and shit. It had to die now. That was the one dark part of me that I was willing to let loose at that moment. The sheer desire to rend this evil thing to permanent, unquestionable death.

The main thing that I noticed, immediately, was that the open tank where additional holy water was being admixed with the foul ichor from the borehole was boiling with power and foaming up. It was about to overflow.

I ran over and grabbed one of the spare pipe sections and put it across the top, just like putting a wooden spoon on a pot that was boiling over. The mess settled down but I wasn’t sure we were getting all the “evil” out of it. The outflow was still nasty as shit. And the smell…

I finally just went over to the side and retched. I wasn’t the only one.

“We need to increase the ratio of holy water being mixed, Mr. Gordon,” Father Ferguson said. “Can we do that?”

“Yes,” Gordon said, still holding his head. “Yes, we can. Dan, increase the pump rate on the mix water. Triple it.”

“Got it.” Dan was just as clearly feeling the effects from the stuff but he started adjusting dials.

“I would recommend holding the drill for now,” Father Ferguson said. “Just let the holy water pump into the body of the beast. When we start to get less horror coming up, then push downward. Do that over and over again to clear out one section. Then perhaps adjust the drilling or withdraw and drill another portion.”

“You’ve done this before?” I asked the mysterious priest.

“Nothing even close. Call it divine inspiration.”

“Sounds like a plan, Father,” Gordon said, then made a face. “Father…sorry about that back there.”

“Everyone holds some sin in their heart, son.” Father Ferguson patted him on his silver shoulder. “Everyone. It is like fear in combat. Everyone has some. It is what you do about it that matters. After this battle we’ll talk. But for now, we do battle against one of the worst evils mankind has ever seen in its history. That gets you some solid points with the Almighty.”

“Where are we with the worm?” I asked.

“Stop the spin. Just hold in place and pump mud.” Al put his hand back on the string and felt it for a second. “I can feel it moving up. Different now. I think now that there’s more ‘bad’ in the mud and less ‘good’ it can just run right up the bore.”

I put my hand on the string and felt what he was talking about. The string was mostly still on our end, slight vibration from the idling drill rig, but you could feel a bumping against it. How he could tell how far I had no idea. There was an art to it.

“Can you switch to pure water, no admix, in the mud?” I asked.

“It’ll tend to break down the walls of the bore,” Gordon said. “Which, come to think of it, would be good. Dan! Cut the mix on the mud. Pure holy water!”

All the mud, now pure holy water, came out at the bottom of the drill at the bit. The new mix had to first go down thousands of feet then back up. I keyed my radio.

“Sam, Milo, get down here on the drill rig,” I radioed. “We have a situation.” Then I switched frequencies. “Boss, this is Hand at the rig. The mava mix was overwhelming the holy water. We’ve stopped progressing the drill and are just flowing holy water to it. Be about thirty minutes until that has effect and we see what that does. The stuff coming up is almost pure mava essence. The mud isn’t burning the kifo worm anymore and it’s coming straight up the bore. We may have a kifo outbreak here shortly. Called down my backup. Copy all that.”

“Copy, Hand,” Ray III said, not over the radio but from right over my shoulder. “That stuff isn’t half horrible, is it? Kinda claws at your mind.”

I should have known the old man would show up right wherever the trouble was. If he was having any issues with whatever was clawing at his mind, it wasn’t obvious. I suddenly had to wonder what sort of sins lay in the heart of MHI’s CEO.

“I’m starting to think Earl needs to stay as far away from this as possible,” I said carefully.

“Good point, young man.” The Boss touched his radio. “Earl. Do not approach the drill site. Say again, do not come near the drill site.”

“Feeling it from clear up here,” Earl replied. He was on the roof with the gun teams waiting for the “servants” to show up. We’d expected some mental effects, but nothing like this. “Wondered what that was. I’m heading for the far end of the warehouse.”

“Father Madruga could possibly assist him,” Father Ferguson said. “If he is having troubles…”

The Boss and I looked at each other at that one. “With respect, Father, probably not,” he said carefully. “Earl has…particular issues in regards to rage.”

“Ah…” Father Ferguson thought about that for a moment. “Yes, I was briefed. A most unfortunate curse, and one of the rare wills able to constrain it. Will he be able to maintain control…given the circumstances?”

“I’ve never seen him lose it, Father,” I said.

“I have,” the Boss said sadly.

“Harbinger will be under a particularly harsh assault,” Father Ferguson said. Gordon had gone off to adjust something else on the rig so no one else was close enough to hear him over the machinery. “If he is driven to change because of the influence of this evil—”

“If Earl is taken over by this foulness, I will take appropriate action myself. It’s my duty, my responsibility.” Boss Shackleford thought about that for a long time. Then he said something that came as a complete surprise to me. “He’s my father.”

I’d never seen that particular expression on the old man’s face. I could swear to God he was damned near crying. I put it down to the effect of that evil goop. Only thing that could have been causing it. That and I’d just noticed this fucking warehouse was dusty as hell.

What the fuck was it like growing up with a father who was…Earl? Because they kind of looked the same, I’d kind of always figured Earl was the Boss’s illegitimate son. I’d had that completely backwards. The PUFF adjuster had used “Shackleford” as one of Earl’s names. How old was Earl when he got to being…Earl? Come to think of it, how old was Earl? The Boss had to be in his sixties and Earl couldn’t have been…normal when he’d…How old was Earl?

“We got anything from SIU yet?” was what I asked, because there were questions you don’t ask. Especially not at a time like that.

“Not so far,” Boss said, the unburned half of his face hardening. “I’d guess this thing’s going to start the party when that worm gets up here and finds out where ‘here’ is.”

“What the fuck is…?” Sam Haven said as he and Milo arrived. They both had their hands over their noses and mouths and Sam seemed to be having some issues as well. His hands kept gripping the M-203 he was carrying. Hard.

“That’s the mava juice.”

Sam and I had both opted for M-203s. Most of what we expected to fight wasn’t susceptible to silver and the 5.56 worked well enough at zombie shots. For that matter it would tend to slow down some vamps as well as wights and ghouls if you got a head shot. Last, the 40mm grenade worked on everything. Milo was rocking a flamethrower and sidearms. He clearly didn’t like the smell coming from the hole but if the mystical effects were bugging him, Milo didn’t let it show. He still seemed as perpetually cheerful as ever.

“Don’t allow the evil to touch you, son,” Father Ferguson said, laying his hand on Sam’s arm. “It tries to find your sins, those you have committed and those you have contemplated, to use those against you. Fight it. Find God.”

“I’m trying, Father,” Sam said, working the tobacco in his cheek. He spit to the side and shook his head. “Ain’t gonna let no boogieman bring up nothing I’ve fought most of my life.”

“How are you doing, my son?” Father Ferguson asked Milo.

“I’m good. My sins aren’t comparatively interesting in this crowd.”

“You are strong in faith,” Father Ferguson replied, smiling. “It pours off you like the evil from this monstrosity.”

“I just pray a lot,” Milo said humbly.

“And he refuses to do anything bad, like, ever,” I said, grinning. “Most boring friend I’ve got.”

We had about a dozen Hunters gathered around the rig. I put my hand on the string again and shook my head. Now I could tell it was close.

“This is it. Any suggestions?”

“Fire?” Milo said, holding up the nozzle to his flamethrower.

“That’s your answer to everything!”

“Don’t damage the equipment. The mud comes back out and is pumped to that tank,” Gordon said, muffled by the silver suit. “Your napalm is going to burn the sh…” He glanced at the priest. “Sugar out of all that.”

“I should be able to hold it, here,” Father Ferguson insisted.

“Not disagreeing with you, Padre. But a backup plan is always useful,” the Boss said.

“If you bless the tank on that fire truck, we’ll get one of the fire hoses.” Sam suggested. “Kill the worm with more holy water. Direct application.”

“I like it,” the Boss said.

* * *

“I get the nozzle, you get the hose,” I said as we unrolled one of the fire hoses. The NOFD guys had not been happy to hear one of the kifo worms was headed up the bore. They’d turn on the pump for us, but they weren’t going anywhere near the hole that was spewing mind-altering evil.

“Hell with that,” Sam said. “It was my idea!”

“You’re the new guy. You get the hose.”

“You can’t even handle one of those things,” Sam protested. “They whip around like nobody’s business. You’re scrawny! You’re going to get picked up and thrown around the room.”

“Not if you’re doing your job on the hose,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Fire it up!” I yelled. I had the gate mostly closed on the nozzle. But we’d want pressure right away if we needed it.

The hose started to writhe as the water pressed forward and, as instructed, I had enough of an opening for the air to come out. There wasn’t much since the hose was flat but it came out with a nasty shriek; then we had water. I closed the nozzle all the way.

“This thing tries to get away from you,” Sam said, holding on tight. “You’d better hope I don’t lose my grip.”

“Always said SEALs were wimps,” I said.

“You did not go there! You pick the one time we’re getting murderous thoughts blasted right into our brains to piss me off. Just tempt me to kick your ass, why don’t you?”

“You’re the one complaining about something the most-junior firemen can figure out,” I pointed out.

“It’s here,” Father Ferguson shouted.

The kifo worm erupted through the borehole in a mass of eyes and teeth and pustulant pseudopods. The drillers ran screaming. They weren’t really doing anything at the moment, anyway.

It was having to press its bulk around the mass of the string and up through the narrow bore. So it was much smaller than normal. And it was causing the muck from the mava to squirt everywhere, which was vile. Some of it splashed on me and the wave of evil thoughts got worse.

I started to open up the valve but Father Ferguson just stepped forward, fearlessly.

“Begone, spawn of evil!” he shouted, holding his cross out. “This place is sealed against you!”

The kifo worm shrieked in agony and sucked back down the bore and out of sight.

There were a bunch of Hunters ready to attack, but we really didn’t want to accidentally damage the equipment. “Kifo worm really didn’t like the padre,” I radioed. “It’s back in the hole. Hold your fire.”

Gordon overcame his fear, went back, put his hand on the string, and shook it. “I don’t feel anything!” he shouted.

“Stand back, everyone,” I said.

I put the valve on spray and hosed down the entire area. Wherever the blessed water hit the mava ichor, the two reacted like a couple of combustible chemicals.

In the process I got myself and Sam nice and wet. The “burn” from the holy water hitting the mava juice didn’t even feel like burning. More of a tingling sensation. The unholy thoughts it caused faded a bit. They didn’t go away entirely but I’m no saint.



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