A unique look at all forms of expression. Unencumbered by logic, credentials or ego, this is ImageChaos. Just like the Twilight Zone… but smarter.

This story can also be found here.

There was a smell to New York. A sort of all-pervasive scent that Michelle only realized was there after she left the city for Crowton and returned for Christmas with her family. Old houses, she found, also had the same olfactory presence. It was as if she could smell time itself and experience it through smell alone.

The Sheldon house was unremarkable. Similar furnishings as all the other homes she’d had the opportunity to visit. Creaky floorboards. Ridiculous lace doilies. And the sort of figurines that truly ancient people found fascinating but which frightened Michelle on some internal, primal level.

What was remarkable about the house was the lack of scent. There was no lingering odor from prepared meals. She could not smell the musty scent of old cloth and decaying wood. The house, for all its decoration felt empty because it -smelled- empty.

It was the most disconcerting thing about the place she noted as she made her way through the entryway after a minute of knocking. “Miss Sheldon?” she called. “It’s Officer Williams. Just checking in?”

She waited. She couldn’t even smell the pine and earth from outside.

“Odd, isn’t it?” came a voice from behind her. She spun around to see the flaring nostrils of Johnny as he took in a deep breath. “No molecular particulates at all.”

“How the hell did you get in here?” Michelle asked as her hand dropped to her waist with ease. She snapped the gun free, clearing it, ready to draw if necessary.

“Same as you. Door’s unlocked. My are you folks trusting,” the man replied, then he smiled brightly. “Notice anything else strange about this place?” Michelle paused and wondered if she wasn’t having a stroke or brain aneurysm. “Not a speck of dirt in the place.”

Michelle glanced about, eyes scanning over the figurines and picture frames. For a woman who lived alone and spent most of her time in town gossiping, the place was remarkably… Sterile. Yes, that was the word. “Look, sir, you are trespassing. You need to leav-”

An enormous thud shook the ceiling above her, then a low keening sound echoed through the house. “Miss Sheldon?” she turned to rush up the stairs but froze, feeling a hand on her shoulder.

“It would be best if you stayed down here – hey!” Michelle shifted her shoulders violently and in one fluid motion had him handcuffed to the stair banister. “What…”

“Stay here. I’ll deal with you later,” she said, barely turning back to glance at him. She took the stairs two at a time then paused when she arrived on the second floor. All of the doors were closed but light shone beneath the foot of each door from the late morning sun.

The low keening continued. It sounded like a wounded, struggling animal. She swore silently, why didn’t Miss Sheldon wear one of those medical alert necklaces? If she was hurt, could have been that way for nearly an entire day. The thought made her stomach clench with trepidation. She strode across the narrow hall.

“Don’t go in there!” Johnny’s voice called from below.

“You shut the hell up!” Michelle replied as she opened the door. She turned back to the sunlit room and blinked several times, unable to comprehend what it was she was seeing.

Miss Sheldon lie in bed, her salon-dyed hair wrapped beneath a blue and green scarf. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully had there not been five, pale fleshy things devouring the lower half of her body. Michelle found it difficult to summon forth any rational thoughts. Nothing in her life had prepared her for his. So she did what years of training had drilled into her.

“NYPD, freeze!” She shouted as she raised her weapon.

“Really, Officer Williams.” Johnny said as he stepped up behind her. He rubbed at his wrist but there was no sign of the handcuff. “It’s doubtful they will surrender. They are far too hungry.”

Michelle wiped at her eyes with her free hand in an attempt to clear it of whatever insanity she was experiencing. Maybe she was having a stroke. That would explain the lack of smell. Johnny loomed in her vision as he stared into her eyes, the writhing pale forms blocked. Temporarily.

“You haven’t lost consciousness. Good,” he said. “I don’t want to have to carry you around.” His pale brown eyes seemed to widen slowly, gently… Soothing… Calming… “Good,” he said softly. “If you’re going to be here I need you alert and focused.”

Then he turned away and Michelle felt as if she’d been dunked in ice water. A haze of slowly rising panic dissipated leaving her feeling a little shaky, but aware. She glared at Johnny. Why today? Why did this sort of strangeness happen to her? “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Johnny stared at the writhing, pale creatures. They looked much like elongated plucked frozen chickens. Muscle and tendon flexed and stretched beneath clammy pink skin. Pointed beak-like mouths tore at flesh and gore as sightless eyes stared into nothingness. Large pointed ears twitched in the direction of the doors but their presence didn’t seem to interfere with their feeding.

“With your eyes.” While the urge to vomit was still there, it was far less intense than it had been just a moment before.

“A trick I picked up in Shanghai.” Johnny shrugged as he knelt down to peer at the pale forms. “This is definitely a problem. How did it get so bad?”

There was something that she was forgetting. Something that was very important that she hadn’t done…

“Not particularly possible unless…” Johnny frowned to himself and glanced back at Michelle. “Is this house weatherproofed?”

Very important she needed to…

“Officer Williams, was this house weatherproofed? Doors and windows replaced?”

To scream…

She took in a deep breath and opened her mouth, but Johnny slapped her. Hard. She, in turn, introduced him to the ground by way of her fist. But the moment had passed. Things were clear now. Things made sense in as much as could be expected when faced with the strangeness of the situation. Only a modicum of regret breached this clarity.

“What the hell is your problem, slapping a policewoman?” she snapped.

Johnny picked himself up and rubbed at his jaw. Again, he looked amused more than annoyed. “Nice right hook.”

“You know what those things are?” Michelle demanded. What she did know was clicking into place. These things were strange and this man was strange. It would be a pretty twisted coincidence if they weren’t somehow connected.

“They’re infant bats.” Johnny replied, then paused. He rocked his head from side to side. “Sort of. The amazing thing about life is that in similar environmental circumstances in places completely different, it will come up with similar solutions.”

“What?” Michelle asked, growing confused.

“They are bats not of this world. I wonder, though, why they came here.”

“And they are dangerous?”

“Oh, definitely. A fully grown one of these can snatch up a Clydesdale and – what are you doing?”

Michelle held her weapon level at one of the creatures. “If they’re dangerous they either need to be contained or destroyed. Seeing as we don’t have any cages around here, we might as well get rid of these things here.”

“I appreciate how calm you are in your conviction, Officer, but if you kill one of these things now, you’ll end up doing much more harm than good.”

“Why is that, Johnny?”

“Because we don’t know where the parents are.”

“You mean there are more of these things?”

“Babies come from somewhere.”

This story can also be found here.

Michelle Williams grinned as she took the cup of coffee from the young barister’s hands. “How is it that you always know when I’m going to come in here?”

Sunlight glinted through the wide coffee-shop windows as another customer entered. Joey, the barister, shrugged. “Truth is, I don’t. I make your coffee a couple of times a day hopin’ you’ll be comin’ through that door.”

Michelle shook her head, then moved out of the way as another patron began their order. “You’re too much, Joey. I got to get going. You going to be here this afternoon?”

“Got nowhere else to be,” he replied, giving her a broad smile.

She settled into her patrol car, set the coffee down and let out a long, slow breath.  She watched Joey puttering around the small coffee shop — the only one in town if no one counted the diner. Joey was a young man, apparently inheireted some money and decided to open up a coffee place in the middle of nowhere. Claimed there would be no competition. Honestly, there was, from the diner, but the young man was gorgeous.

She wondered how long it would take for that novelty to wear off.

“Michelle I swear if you’re at that damned coffee place chatting up that boy –” Michelle snatched up the radio.

“What do you want, Darlene?” Michelle snapped.

“So you were–”

“Darlene.”

“Couple people called in this mornin’. Want you to go out to check on Miss Sheldon. There was a dinner party yesterday and she didn’t show up.”

Michelle frowned as she sipped at her coffee. Sheldon never missed an opportunity to party. Despite her very very old age, she could drink most of the town under the table, and then call for another round just out of spite. “Alright, I’ll go check it out.”

“So how is the hot coffee this morning?”

“I’ll radio back when I get there, Darlene.”

“Oh come on, darlin’. I’m stuck here in this office. The least you can do is tell me about that wide world out there.”

“I’ll tell you when I get back, Darlene.”

The road along the Mainstreet of Crowton was paved and only displayed a few of the cracks and potholes cause by the winter, road issues that would come to a vote in town council. Soon after passing the last structure of the town proper, one of two gas stations that capped both ends of the town, the road turned to gravel. A few miles later, it became dirt.

Michelle was still getting acclimated to the strange sensibilities of Crowton. It seems at once quiet and tame but even so, she was busy every day with nearly as many calls as in New York when she left. Domestic disputes, calls about break-ins.

Or perhaps it only seemed as if there were the same amount of calls. She had to drive about with only miles of tree line to keep her company. And the radio — which would have been fine if she’d been able to get anything other than old school Appalachian bluegrass and manic talk radio on the dial. There wasn’t even a soft rock or top twenty countdown to be hear for nearly one hundred fifty miles.

She did, however, have the Internet and all the benefits that that supplied her at home. Despite how slow the damned thing was. Michelle had no idea that America online was still in business and that it still provided 56k service, but half of the homes in Crowton had it. The other half unwilling to brew pots of coffee between webpages, herself included, sprung for satellite uplink. But that was as fun as a 56k connection for how reliable it was.

She reached over and pushed the cassette adapter into the dashboard. With one hand she pulled her mp3 player from her bag on the passenger seat and plugged the trailing end of the adapter into it.

Reggae swung from the old speakers with as much carefree, general love as Bob Marley could muster. she’d originally started listening to it to piss off her parents, but then it sort of grew on her. She let out a long breath and sighed as she sped down the golden-brown dirt road, the patrol car, kicking up dust behind.

The winding road leading up to the Sheldon house slowly revealed an ever widening swath of broad old green forest. The type of dusty green only capable from older, ancient forest. The enormity of it, of the amount of life, living in the forest always surprised her. Often, New York had been called a concrete jungle, implying that the tall skyscrapers were like trees and their inhabitants like animals.

No, she’d decided in her first few weeks out on patrol, there was only a cursory correlation between a forest and the city. The city walls were built, were crafted by human hands and intellect. The forest was created and crafted by the natural influence of nature. Sure, skyscrapers were impressive, immense, but when she lie on the ground and stared up at the sky from a bed of needles and soft earth, the trunks of the old trees seemed like pillars holding up the sky.

She pulled into the small drive off of Sheldon road — the Sheldons had lived in that house for over one-hundred fifty years and had apparently earned the right to name their own road. That was another thing to get used to. In the city, only streets that were odd or ran off at odd angles got names. And even then, the names were of famous historical figures. Or those that academics deemed famous enough, but the general public could give a rats ass about.

“Alright,” Michelle called into the radio. “Darlene, I’m here.”

“Okay. Give me a call back when you’re done. Oh and let me know if she’s got any of those oatmeal cookies-”

“Joey has oatmeal cookies,” Michelle interjected.

“Of course he does.” Darlene replied. “but he wouldn’t look at an old bat like me twice. Now you…” Darlene continued going on. Michelle had stopped paying attention.

The old house was, well, old. Badly in need of painting. Porch rotting in places, but it still looked solid. Fortunately the place was clear enough from cobwebs. But it wasn’t the house that caught her attention. It was the trees behind it that attracted her eye. It seemed a trick of the light, but the trunks looked as if they were quivering. After a moment, it passed.

“…need to take that boy over my knee and-”

“Darlene, I’ll call you back.” Michelle sat the radio down and stared into the tree line, opening her eyes wide to try to see if that would help bring the aberration back. But no. The strangeness did not return but after a moment an eyelash caught in her eye and she swore silently.

Then there was a man. In the half-minute it took for her to clear her eyes, a man appeared in the floundering yards of grass between her patrol car and the old Sheldon house. He was somewhat tall, of apparent average guild with dark, olive skin and pale brown hair.

He turned towards her as she opened the door to step out, seeming surprised, as if he hadn’t seen her when he walked up. “Hello,” he offered with a bright, warm smile.

Michelle gave the man a quick looking over and frowned to discover that other than his clothing, he was carrying nothing else. “Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

“Oh, ah, no. I am just visiting my…” the man glanced back at the old house. “Dear… Old… Relative.”

“You staying a while?” Michelle asked, making a show of checking her gear. Instead of intimidating the man, he seemed to find the action amusing.

“Not long, no. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”

“What shouldn’t take more than an hour?” the man was strange. And where the hell was his car?

“My… Relative has a pest problem. Something that I can handle no problem.”

“Why not call an exterminator. You don’t look like the sort to get his hands dirty.” Michelle watched the man warily. No one had spoken the Miss Sheldon in the past 24 hours and there was a possibility that this man was somehow involved.

“Too right, but oftentimes it simply cannot be helped.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ah… It is Johnny Devon.”

“Well, Mr. Devon, I was sent to check up on your… Relative. Though his name escapes me…”

“Oh, you mean good ole pa?” the man asked, smiling. If she hadn’t known he was lying through his teeth, she could have easily believed him. When he saw her expression, however, the smile faded. “Pa doesn’t live here, does he?”

“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I was serious about the pest problem, officer…”

“Williams. If I find that there is a problem, I’ll call in the appropriate, licensed persons to do the job. In the meantime you need to leave or I can escort you out in the back of my car with a complimentary pair of silver bracelets.”

The man sighed and held up his hands, defeated. “Very well. Just be careful in there.” He walked past Michelle in the car and onto the dirt road.

Michelle watched the man for several moments until he disappeared around a bend of the road. She sighed softly, then turned back to the house. This wasn’t the first strange thing she’d encountered in Crowton, but it was probably the strangest so far. She shut the patrol-car door and headed towards the old house.

“George Washington?” the Writer asked, stylus hovering over the tablet interface. The cityscape outside had grown darker, red and orange hues of dwindling sunlight shading the mirrored facades of skyscrapers into shards of molten steel. An attendant stepped into the large room and replaced his empty glass.

“Well, yes,” valentine said, nearly surprised. “I would have thought that you’d done some research before coming here.” He sounded disappointed.

“Much of the information surrounding you is still classified. Williams may have that sort of clearance, but I don’t.”

Valentine considered this and nodded, “Very well, it seems as if I’ll have to explain more than I had originally intended. George Washington had an extensive spy network reaching well into the nobility of England and Spain and France. Unfortunately, England and all of Europe has an unhealthy reliance on demon abilities. I’d decided to intercede on the young county’s behalf.”

“Why?” the Writer asked, curious.

“It is better for those types of breaks and conflicts to occur sooner rather than later. History shows us this. Had the crown held control of these lands for several more decades, the economic carnage would have destroyed an over-extended Europe.”

“I see,” the Writer replied slowly.

“In my days I’ve learned that, in addition to each small incident and battle, there is always the bigger picture to consider. I helped young America in that spirit.”

“You didn’t care about the cause of the Revolutionary War? About the determination of the colonists?”

“As much as any man with a measure of self-determination and pride.”

The Writer brought the stylus down to the tablet, then paused. “What did the letter say?”

“Oh, this and that. Some intelligence. Something about tea as I recall. It wasn’t particularly a memorable letter.”

“To you.”

“I suppose Michelle was more impressed with it than I was.”

“Where was it?”

“Where else? The Library of Congress.”

I did meet her team, ultimately. I hadn’t decided on if I was going to help her; I had no idea what she needed my help with but I began to get a sense of what it was remotely about from some of the papers I was able to see. Something about demonic possession and how it intersected with politics.

Don’t worry. We haven’t had a demon in an upper level official position since the sixties, that’s when they realized that the true enjoyment was not in the political game, but in football.

Williams’ team was made up of four other members: A young woman who claimed herself a sensitive by the name of Delores Fletcher. A white haired boy named Aiden Harken. And, as strange as it might sound, Aiden’s parents, Henry and Jenna.

Of course, I didn’t know at the time but Aiden’s mother and father were ex military. Though when you’re in black ops you never really retire, do you? In any event, the two of them had been a part of a pilot program to develop super soldiers. Serums, gene manipulations, the whole shebang. Problem is, they only ended up with severe cases of acne. Their son, though. That kid can lift a semi just as easily as you’re holding than stylus.

“This is probably the saddest collection of guardians I’ve ever seen,” I told them as we crammed into a small conference room. Williams shot me a glance but I continued. “Every one of the empires does it. And you know whom does it best? The Swiss. Strange, that.”

“Mr. Valentine if you’ll let me?” Williams stood and gestured to the wall. I was mortified to see a screen descend from the ceiling and the whirring click of a projector.

“With all the taxes we pay you couldn’t even get a proper PowerPoint presentation in here?” Aiden’s father, Henry, said.

“What we have,” Williams pressed on, obviously annoyed. I’m sure she had time enough to work out how cheap the government was. “Is an incident involving the tomb of king Rihennon the third.”

There are three things I despise: the French – they’ve been haughty ever since they discovered instant coffee, the bags of pretzels on airliners – one is never enough, and water-slides. Perhaps four… No, there are definitely a great deal more than that. But one I can definitely tell you is a tomb of old kings. Especially thirds. They always have some sort of chip on their shoulder. As if they have to prove something.

I glanced around the room, then to the screen. It was clear that no one else knew what was going on and I only had a vague idea of what was going on. “Let me guess: some well-meaning anthropologist or geologist or some other -ologist dug up the tomb and now there’s some sort of curse or undead creature running loose.”

“I saw that movie,” Strathmore said, arms folded and generally disinterested. “It was utter sh-”

“No,” Williams said. “It looks at though whatever was inside the tomb took it upon itself to crawl out.” on the screen appeared a large stone slab covered in markings and symbols. It was built into the side of a mound of earth, a barrow. In the center of the slab, a hole marred the smooth, even flow of the symbols, as if something had dug its way through the stone itself to the world outside.

“That,” I admitted, “is unsettling.”

“We don’t know what it is — we don’t have any information or artifacts that speak specifically about this area and time for us to get a good picture. Which is why I brought in Mr. Valentine.”

I could understand why she was so mistaken. In fact, that’s what I told her. “I can understand why you could mistakenly believe that I might know something about this. But… Look, where is this?”

“New Mexico. In a small town along the Rio Grande river.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh?” Williams prompted.

“Well, that’s surprising. That,” I gestured at the broken tomb on the screen, “is Sumerian.”

“And?” Henry asked, glancing between the slide and me.

“Well Sumer was in the cradle of life, wasn’t it. In south Mesopotamia. This is in new Mexico.”

“How did it get there.” Williams stated. She’d already known that the markings were Sumerian, but the mystery of how the tomb itself got there was perplexing. But I still had no clue as to why she needed me of all people to help her.

“Someone brought it over, obviously,” Aiden said. He hadn’t looked up from his portable gaming device since walking in and confirming that this would not be the sort of meeting that offered tea and cookies to its attendees. I must admit that I’d done the same thing — looked about, not the portable game thing. The bleeps and sounds of death coming from the boys game were only a minor distraction.

“He’s right. Someone must have brought it over.”

“That was our first thought, of course. So we investigated.”

“You didn’t send someone in, did you?”

“No, we sent in a remote camera,” Williams responded coldly. She clicked the wired remote to the projector and the device whirred and shuttered as it shifted to the next slide. What it displayed was a computer-generated graphic of a large structure. Besides the surprising fact that whatever it was was large and honeycombed and contained a multitude of branching corridors and rooms surrounding a large hall was a very real and important question:

“How did you get that onto a slide?” I asked, peering over at the projector.

“After we sent in the first remote camera, we discovered that the job would be much larger than we expected. So we enlisted the help of several Universities and private mapping companies. What this is is a mapping of the entire structure or at least as much of it as the devices were able to find. This very nearly rules out the possibility that someone brought the tomb over on some sort of boat.”

“How large is that?” Jenna asked. She was taking notes, which was frankly odd considering no one else was.

“About nine-hundred yards from surface to the lowest corridor and approximately six-hundred yards across.”

“So, you’ve got markings and carvings all over that tomb presumably. Why do you need me, specifically?” I asked.

Williams hesitated. “It is not so much the Tomb. All of the text on the slab indicates that who is buried there is indeed Rihannen the Third. But everything inside the structure is no text that we’ve ever encountered before.”

“And?”

“And, there are strange events occurring in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.”

“There’s actually a town called Truth or Consequences?” Aiden asked, again not glancing up from his videogame. “That’s stupid.”

“I’m sure someone thought it was clever,” Henry said, leaning back in his chair.

“What is happening in Truth or Consequences?” I pressed.

Williams paused, then clicked the button again, shifting to the next slide. Aiden dropped his game and Jenna stopped taking notes. Strathmore frowned and Denna stared on, bored. Apparently she’d seen this in her second sight. But it also surprised me. It looked as if someone had taken an enormous bite out of the side of one of a quaint little single family home. In the picture, firemen and police officers stared on in puzzlement.

“What the hell is that?” Jenna asked, her pen moving across her paper again, apparently now trying to sketch the image.

“We don’t know. Things like this are happening all over the town. It had only happening to structures until this morning when a horse… was…” she gestured. We grimaced.

“And you think that this will pose a risk to people?” I said, finally understanding. The bats… that’s why she’d called me. The Tomb was an introduction… this was the main event.

“Yes.”

“So, when do we leave?”

“George Washington?” the Writer asked, stylus hovering over the tablet interface. The cityscape outside had grown darker, red and orange hues of dwindling sunlight shading the mirrored facades of skyscrapers into shards of molten steel. An attendant stepped into the large room and replaced his empty glass.

“Well, yes,” valentine said, nearly surprised. “I would have thought that you’d done some research before coming here.” He sounded disappointed.

“Much of the information surrounding you is still classified. Williams may have that sort of clearance, but I don’t.”

Valentine considered this and nodded, “Very well, it seems as if I’ll have to explain more than I had originally intended. George Washington had an extensive spy network reaching well into the nobility of England and Spain and France. Unfortunately, England and all of Europe has an unhealthy reliance on demon abilities. I’d decided to intercede on the young county’s behalf.”

“Why?” the Writer asked, curious.

“It is better for those types of breaks and conflicts to occur sooner rather than later. History shows us this. Had the crown held control of these lands for several more decades, the economic carnage would have destroyed an over-extended Europe.”

“I see,” the Writer replied slowly.

“In my days I’ve learned that, in addition to each small incident and battle, there is always the bigger picture to consider. I helped young America in that spirit.”

“You didn’t care about the cause of the Revolutionary War? About the determination of the colonists?”

“As much as any man with a measure of self-determination and pride.”

The Writer brought the stylus down to the tablet, then paused. “What did the letter say?”

“Oh, this and that. Some intelligence. Something about tea as I recall. It wasn’t particularly a memorable letter.”

“To you.”

“I suppose Michelle was more impressed with it than I was.”

“Where was it?”

“Where else? The Library of Congress.”

“Homeland security wants to talk to you.”

As you will no doubt find, I have many pet peeves. One of which is appearance. Especially in my place of occupation. I have human resources send out a notice every third Thursday informing my employees of my meticulously crafted dress code. I enjoy jeans and a t-shirt as much as the next fellow, but I try to cultivate a professional culture in my offices. If things appear professional, people tend to act in a professional manner.

The demon, regardless of its startling appearance, irked me in that it wore a tie-dye t-shirt and jeans frayed just below the knee. The red, orange and blue shirt clashed horribly with the demon’s pale, near-white skin. It regarded me with over-large solid blue eyes and gave me what was, approximately, a smile. I returned the  expression. “Charles, I must stress the importance that you arrive as all my other appointments do.”

Charles shrugged with bony shoulders. While his head was about that of a human’s its limbs were longer, slimmer. “They said it was important.”

Charles, of course, is not his real name. His true name is unpronounceable by human inflection. Charles’ native language utilized echo and two sets of vocal chords. Charles was the best approximation that we could achieve. “Then why didn’t they call me?”

Again, Charles shrugged. “Dunno, they don’t tell me very much.”

“That is because you have no concept of secrecy or tact,” I explained. Which is true. It took three months for us to impart the concept that clothing was not an option, but necessary. “Do you at least know what they want?”

“No, but they seemed fearful. I think you should hurry,” Charles said.

I reached over and pressed a button on my phone – It had far too many buttons – and called Charlene. “Please cancel my appointments for the remainder of the day. I have to deal with an urgent matter.”

“Yes, Mr. Valentine.”

Homeland Security. I understand it’s purpose but I do wish it was a little more organized. I pay taxes as well, a goodly amount, and I like to know that my funds are being utilized properly. Properly is not the ridiculous tower that the government commissioned just outside of Washington D.C. to house the umbrella organization of the Department of Homeland Security. Unfortunately, whomever they hired to design the interior of Victory Tower – and that name also leaves much to be desired – did not have the sense of mind and taste to distance themselves from the old, fifties sensibility of decoration.

Still, though, the place was and still is impressive. Charles, of course, did not accompany me, he does not enjoy our methods of transportation. After clearing security I waited in the lobby for several minutes before someone met me. ‘A hurry’ indeed.

The woman who met me was someone I recognized only vaguely. She offered her hand as I stood and I shook it, trying to figure out just who she was. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, it came to me. “Officer Williams! How pleasant to see you again. I do hope you were able to sort out the details in your report on those Deva-bats.” Michelle Williams, clad in the female equivalent of the Fed Look, offered me only a slight smile. Her eyes, though, tightened. She had been frightened, but determined during that ordeal in the Catskills. To see that she was here, obviously promoted and not insane, gave me heart.

At least they knew how to pick them.

“Yes, Mr. Devon, Johnny Devon,” Williams replied easily. Her words gave me pause.

“Outstanding,” I said finally, “You remembered my false name.”

Williams smiled again gesturing towards the bank of elevators. As we walked across the large marble floored hall, she glanced at me. “I remembered you when I was handed this assignment. I’m now Director of the Office of Special Investigations.”

“Special, meaning internal affairs?” I asked.

Williams fixed me with an even look, I’d forgotten how beautiful her eyes were, but she waited until the elevators doors were closed. The car did not move. “Special meaning magical or supernatural. Anything extra-dimensional. The President decided it was time that the agencies worked together rather than separately.” She leaned over and touched the badge around her neck to a sensor, then pressed a button.

“And you thought of me, why?” I asked. Well, of course they’d call me. Who else would they have called? But I wanted her answer.

“You were seventh on our list. The others are either dead or we determined to be frauds.”

“Seventh?” I am a prideful man, Hageson. To be cast as seventh amongst those individuals the government would call upon for aid truly wounded me. I was on the cover of Time even before The Event. “Why did you find yourselves needing to go down a list?”

“We need someone of your apparent ability to aid us,” she explained. The elevator moved downward, which surprised me. The tower was over fifty stories tall, surely plenty of space for whatever it was they needed to do. Williams turned away from the door and set her hands to her sides. “This will be uncomfortable.”

The lights in the elevator flickered a bit, then they became hot. The sort of hot you get when you stand under studio lights in front of a camera. Then the elevator stopped. The red numbers read fifty-five. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Well, that’s what I intended to say. Instead I froze as the elevator walls began to simmer and sizzle with heat.

I’d been cooked once. A great many years ago in Greece and I was not keen to have it done to me again. I was preparing to remove myself and Williams from the elevator when the sizzling abruptly stopped. “What was that?”

“Scanner. It’s to detect extra-dimensional beings to prevent them from entering the offices,” she explained easily as the back wall of the elevator slide open to reveal a, disappointingly, fifties decorated lobby area.

“I’d expected something more…”

“Yes, we all had the same reaction, but this place has been here for a little over seventy years and we don’t have the budget to hire someone to make it look imposing. There’s no point – here,” she gestured for me to sign in at the unmanned front desk.

“This is truly disappointing, Williams.”

“What’s more disappointing is that we only have four offices down here.”

“Four? What are the others for?”

“Black ops, CIA, covert things. Obviously you won’t be able to access those areas.”

“Why am I even able to access this at all?” I asked. I noted that there weren’t very many people around in the hallways. I heard none of the usual bustle and conversation that other similarly organized offices possessed. From the open floorplan and low cubicle walls I saw that there were others in the office and even some on phones, but I could hear none of their voices.

“Like I said, we need your help.” she led me to a group of flimsily built cubicle offices, the sort with wooden paneling walling that rose a foot short of the actual ceiling. Williams pushed open a door to reveal a riot of papers and files and office equipment. In the midst of it a young man spoke on a telephone. By his expression he was not pleased. He ignored us as we entered.

The office was larger on the inside than it was on the out, but only barely. I sensed the discrepency with many of the empty cubicles we passed, but I wondered at why the difference was so small. If they had the ability to do so, why only a few inches? Why not turn every cubicle into a palace for all the effort it would have taken. Michelle and I waited in the door for the man to finish, which he did moments later by slamming the receiver several times into its cradle.

“This is Lorenzo Green, he’s the field ordinator. Lorenzo, this is Elijah Valentine the-”

“Contractor, yeah,” Lorenzo said. His voice was far lower than I expected it to be. He held out his hand over a stack of brown folders and I shook it. Lorenzo was the sort where you weren’t too sure if he was genius or insane. Many people talk about walking that fine line between genius and insanity and, I must admit, I’ve toed it a few times, but this man perhaps straddled it. His green eyes barely focused on me, instead the were fixed on a point past me and even the wall behind.

“He uses that term loosely,” Williams replied, leading me out of the cramped, but too large, office. “Consultant is probably a better explaination.”

“Contractor, consultant, it doesn’t matter. I would be delighted to meet the rest of your team,” I stopped her just as we approached the next office. “What do you need my help for? And why are you showing me all of this? Don’t you need clearance and the like?”

Williams fixed me with a solid, even gaze. “You wrote a letter a long time ago to the President pledging your help whenever this country needed it. Whenever this world needed it. Have you since changed your mind?”

I blinked and shook my head slowly. “Michelle, George Washington never got back to me on the matter.”

She was good. They really did know how to pick them.