Invasion from Uranus (18 page)

Slipping inside, I spoke a Word of Power at the ignition, and the engine started with a soft purr. Pulling away from the curb, I raced across town towards my one chance, the last hope of the world.

Breaking a hundred traffic laws, I made it to the lodge in record time, my brakes squealing as I illegally parked alongside a fire hydrant directly in front of the Chicago Freemason Lodge.

At this ungodly hour, the door to the building was locked. Pulling a dollar bill from my wallet, I carefully rolled my thumb across the All Seeing Eye on the back of the American currency, then slid it into a crack along the jamb. There came a low hum, a series of clicks, and then a hydraulic sigh as the armored portal swung aside.

Rushing across the foyer and dinning hall, I heard the front door close and lock as I burst into the temple. Dodging around the BTK in the center of the room, I dashed up the stairs to the chair of the lodge president, plopped down, and shoved my ring into a small recess. With an electric hum, the chair rotated around, and moved through the curtained alcove, the brick wall sliding back into place behind. The chair was still moving when I hopped off and dove for the alarm button on the Master Mason communications panel. Instantly, fifteen million Freemasons across the world suddenly got an electric jolt from their signet rings and rushed to the rest computer. We owned the Internet, as well as most other forms of mass communications. As the good book says, Know Thy Enemy. Or was that Sun Tzu?

Slowly, lights came on in the control room and in tagged stages hundreds of small video screens lining the four walls of the room pulsed alive. A wide assortment of faces stared at me in curiosity and wary annoyance.

"The Key has been stolen," I announced bluntly.

"Which key?" an elderly man demanded sleepily. The label on his monitor read New Zealand. "The key of knowledge, or the key of power?"

"The Key," I replied succinctly.

Everybody gasped, and half of them went pale.

"You mean, the Key to That-Which-Never-Is-To-Be-Opened?" Russia gasped in horror, tightening the towel about his waist.

"Yes. And it is probably being opened right at this very moment," I added, glancing at the rooftop monitor. But there was sign of a rain of fire, or crack of doom. Which meant that Satan didn't have the weapons yet. But when he did...

"Activate the homing beacon!" New York commanded. A soft knocking in the background was probably his knees banging together, or else a mariachi band warming up to perform.

"There's a tracking device?" Tokyo asked in stunned disbelief before I could.

"There has always been a tracking device on the Key," Paris declared, brushing back her wild crop of uncombed hair. "But the Guardian didn't need to know. It would have made him lazy."

"Oh yeah, good thinking," Mecca sneered, and Brazil agreed.

"Tracking beacon is alive," London said, doing something off screen. "All right, our satellites place the belt on a plane to Australia..."

"What flight?" Canberra asked, lifting a telephone into view.

"Shoot it down!" Rome demanded, shaking a fist.

Both were ignored. "...however, the Key is still in the United States," London continued unabated. "Central states...Illinois...Chicago..." His face lifted and he looked directly at me. "Brother, the Key is in the parking lot of your lodge!"

"Impossible!" the Apache Nation cried out.

"The demons have the Key, but don't know where the Lock is," India cried out, slapping a palm to his forehead. "And so they assume..."

"...that the Guardian..."

"...would know the location..."

"...of both?"

Curses were snarled in every language on Earth.

"Run!" Beijing, Boston and Bora-Bora shouted in unison.

"Never," I growled, pulling the HK 9mm and working the slide. "I'll keep them busy here while the rest of you send troops and gunships to protect the Door-of-Doors. If my death can..."

"But you're at the Armory!" Paris screamed, grabbing at his hair. "That lodge holds the Weapons of Heaven!"

Everything reeled for a moment, I had to swallow twice before words came out of my mouth. "What the freaking Hell is it doing in the same town as me?" I demanded furiously. "The door should be..."

"On the other side of the world?" Iraq scoffed. "Then, if the clarion call sounds, the Guardian would have to fight half way across the world through the amassed armies of Hell before we could get the swords?"

Fury boiled within me, but then eased. The argument was sound, and there was a dull slam on the front door of the lodge. The demons were trying to get in. Well, hopefully it was them. Satan had made his demons damn tough, but if the Dark One sent any of the Fangels, the fallen angels that had stood by his side and declared war on God....

The pounding got louder. The entire building shook. A couple of the monitors wavered and went dark.

Muttering a prayer, I pressed the cold barrel of the police gun to my forehead. Maybe if the demons found me dead on the floor they might go away. Reluctantly, I eased down the weapon. No, they'd only tear the place apart in frustration, and find the Door.
Think, man, think
!

"Are there any weapons here?" I demanded hopefully; sweat trickling down the back of my neck. "Anything I can use to hold back the demons while the rest of you send troops?"

"There are already a thousand Brothers surrounding the lodge you're in," Chicago replied proudly. "Mostly police, firefighters, and doctors." Then the man frowned. "Although I am not in radio contact with anybody at the moment," he muttered unhappily.
Then if the demons had reached the front door, my Brothers were no more.
A thousand Freemasons dead
, I realized coldly.
That was just the beginning of the slaughter to come
.

"All right, F-22 Raptor jet fighters are on route from Edwards Air Force base in California," Los Angeles replied, placing down a red telephone. "They're armed with holy Sidewinder missiles, and blessed tactical nukes. ETA, sixty minutes."

"There's nothing closer?" Poland demanded.

Hunching her shoulders Los Angeles scowled. "Nothing that will stop a Fangel."

"Brothers, we have no choice," London stated. "The Guardian needs weapons, and the request can not be denied. Insert your signet rings into your control panels, and turn on my command. Ready...set...mark!"

A dozen of the men and woman on the screens turned their arms, and there came a deep metallic sigh from behind me.

Spinning around fast, I saw the southern wall of the lodge iris open and there were granite racks of weapons, swords, shields, lances, halberds, bolos, katanas, and war hammers.

"Send more Masons!" I shouted over a shoulder, dashing out of the control room.

Sprinting through the temple, I raced past the pretty antiques, and thankfully found some modern weapons. Stacks and crates of revolvers, automatic pistols, assault rifles, combat shotgun, machine pistols, land mines, rocket launchers, and grenades.

A shadow filled the doorway of the armory, casting me into darkness, and there came the stink of a burning sewage plant.

Grabbing a couple of revolvers off the wall pegs, I turned and pulled the triggers. Automatic weapons could not be stored away fully loaded, or else the springs inside would get weak and they'd jam. But revolvers could be loaded, and safely placed aside for a hundred years, always ready for instant use. I was gambling everything that my Brothers had a couple of wheelguns ready for action, just in case of an emergency.

The twin S&W .357 Magnums roared in booming thunder, stilettos of flame extending from the big bore muzzles towards the hulking demon tromping closer. The hellspawn screamed as the silver bullets hit, but I kept firing until the hammers clicked on empty shells.

Lowering the guns, I could see that the demon was still standing. Then it sighed, dropped the bloody mace in its gnarled fist, and fell over to shatter into a million pieces on the concrete floor.
Ah ha! Silver bullets save the day again
. That masked Ranger down in Texas and his faithful Apache companion had shown us the way to kill demons lo these many years ago. Why else would they have carried silver bullets?

Tossing away the revolvers, I grabbed a brand-new, US Army M60 machine gun from a rack, ripped off the plastic protective coating, and flipped open the breech to lay in a long belt of silver-tipped .308 ammunition. Each cartridge was marked with an Egyptian hieroglyph, Buddhist pictograph, Christian cross, Mogan David, Moslem Moon, pink stars and lucky clovers.
Perfect
. That was when I noticed on the nearby wall a red box closed off with a pane on glass. Break in case of emergency?
Yeah, well the downtown fire department wouldn't be of too much help at the present moment, letmetellyou
.

"Look out, Brother!" Chicago shouted dimly from across the lodge. "I have a report of a..."

Just then, the entire left panel of monitors went dark, and a clawed hand punched through the glass and electronics, clawing the opening wide and a Fangel crawled into the building, the eyes glowing red from the hellfires burning inside his veins and heart. Obscenely fat, the nude Fangel stepped to the litter covered floor and spread his wings wide. Every feather was adorned with a different sin, and the overall effect was like a LSD trip in Los Vegas.

"You there, Guardian!" the Fangel growled, reaching out a plump, pink, hand the size of a Buick. "Come to me, mortal fool!"

Yeah, right
. Yanking back the arming bolt, I rode the bucking machine gun and stitched the Fangel from knees to nose. Sagging into non-existence, it puffed into vapor and disappeared.

But then another Fangel appeared at the hole in the wall. I killed it before the Fallen One could get inside the lodge. But another was right behind, and another...and a fifth... tenth... twenty... The hammering sound of non-stop machine gun fire and unholy screaming seemed last forever. The assorted brothers on the few remaining monitors shouted advice, but I couldn't hear a word over the deafening fusillade of the yammering machine gun.

As the last Fangel vanished in a puff of smoke, I dropped the hot M60 and flexed my aching hands. Okay, that bought me some time. Now all I had to do was...

Suddenly, a policeman walked out of the swirling clouds of pungent smoke. Incredibly, it was the old cop from the street!

"What in Hades is going on here?" the officer demanded, looking about in shocked confusion.

I started to reply, but that was when I saw he wasn't wearing his Masonic ring anymore.
So how did he get past the automatic defenses of the lodge
? In a surge of cold adrenaline, I pulled the HK 9mm from inside my coat and shot him twice in the face.

Staggering backwards, the cop hit the cracked wall and his outer layer of chitin, or whatever it was, broke off revealing the most amazingly beautiful woman I had ever seen. Er, no, she was a man. No, a woman...

"May the Great Architect of the Universe protect us!" Luxembourg called from the smoky ruin of the control room. "That's the Dark Lord!"

That caught me by surprise. This was The Morning Star, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Big 'S' his-own-damn-unholy-hair-ass self?
Oh crap
.

Holding a tiny golden Key in his pearlescent hands, Satan turned towards the flickering bank of video monitors, smiling with indescribable beauty.

"Guardian!" London screamed hysterically. "Use the Emergency-"

"Be still," Satan interrupted, rising a hand. All of the monitors exploded, throwing the entire lodge into a stygian gloom.

Knowing who was next on the hit parade, I turned on a heel and pelted back into the arsenal to ram my fist through the glass of the Emergency Alarm. I sure hope this was what the Brother had meant to do, because if not I was about to have a close encounter of the 666th kind.

I tried not to hold my breath, but did anyway. However, nothing seemed to happen for a very long second. Then the concrete floor broke apart and a smooth jade obelisk lifted into view. Lying on top was a tiny crystal dagger. That made my stomach lurch. I knew this blade. It was shown prominently in our most secret book. This was one of the Weapons of Heaven.

When Satan and his angels had rebelled, they used crystalline weapons to attack the guardians of Heaven. Special weapons designed to kill angels. Maybe even God. Who knows? As the thousands of Fangels and Angels died in combat, their weapons fell gently upon the Earth. A rain of flaming swords.

Famous for not being a moron, King Solomon quickly figured out what was happening and sent out his army to gather the weapons, and hide them away from Satan and his minions. Then he built a temple to protect the weapons, a really mucking huge temple that took every skilled mason in the world to complete. And thus, the Freemasons were born, guardians of the Key to the Door of the Arsenal of Heaven and Hell.

Just then, a magnificent golden light flooded the armory and Satan glided into view, his/her face taking the breath away from me. I started to weep with joy at the sheer magnificence of his smile, and get an erection at the same time from the womanly curves. His beauty was indescribable! Yet there was something sinister about the Dark One that gave me the impression of absolute insanity.
Bed bugs had nothing on this guy!

"Henry, please take me to the Door," Satan asked sweetly, the words hitting me like velvet fists.

He knew my name
? I wanted to tell him to get stuffed. But incredibly, I started to obey. With a sheer effort of will, I managed to shake off the compulsion, snatch the dagger and whip it towards the Dark One with all of my strength!

The knife turned over twice and slammed into His shoulder like an avenging thunderbolt. Gushing a torrent of golden blood, Satan screamed in pain as he was driven backwards to crash into the wall, the impact shattering the resilient stonework for yards in every direction.

As the Great Traitor weakly tried to claw at the crystal blade embedded in his perfect flesh, I stumbled closer to grab the handle, ready to pull it out and strike again.

"Wait," Satan whispered, his breath sweet as a spring breeze on my face.