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Chapter Twenty-One

I used every curse word, every phrase of profanity I knew before I got to the top of the mushy stairs and up to the next level. I was working on inventing new words, a whole new profane language, when the guard came around the corner.

Actually he looked more like the night watchman at a Sandals resort than the "new and improved" Schutzstaffel, upgrade 2.0. His khaki "uniform" was nothing more than a pair of pleated-front Dockers and casual shirt with faux epaulettes. On one side of a Sam Browne belt he wore a holstered sidearm with a snap-down cover, on the other, a large ring of keys—a surprise as I thought everyone had converted to hi-tech electronic pass cards by now. A small walkie-talkie was jammed in his hip pocket. A heavy, six D-cell, baton flashlight swung loosely in his right hand and he occasionally spun it in an elaborate pattern suggesting that illumination might be its secondary function.

First things first: I wasn't going to accomplish much as long as I was Mister Permeable. I had to get some solidity if I was going to do anything about the Reich-ous Brothers. And since wolves were in short supply and opposable thumbs were a marked improvement over paws, I turned and followed him, trying to figure out just when and where to pimp my ride.

The perfect opportunity came just one floor down and ten minutes later when we ducked into a bathroom. Instead of "number one" or "number two" he did "number three": smoked a cigarette while the vent fan sucked the evidence out of the air. Alone, out of sight, stationary—I had sufficient time to relax and refocus, visualizing the chakras, the energy gates, and preparing for insertion.

I dove, twisting in mid-arc, and the trajectory was perfect.

Until I bounced off instead of in.  

Had I missed? I tried again.

Bounced again!

It was like the gate was open and yet still closed. Were humans and wolves that different? I mean, obviously they were but Pauly was evidence that other spooks could hitch a ride inside a man's head. So why couldn't I?

I didn't have the time to figure this out by trial and error. The Wendigo had accelerated my learning curve by poking around in my own not-so-solid skull; maybe another adjustment was in order.

I went ripping back upstairs and shot through a blurred succession of rooms until I was out the front door.

The helipad was empty so either the copter hadn't arrived yet or it had already lifted off again. Which? The landing lights were turned on—they'd been dark when I had arrived. I looked around: no Wendigo—young Indian maiden or giant, rotting crone.

There was, however, a lone gray wolf. It was pacing about, outside the great double doors, on the "porch" as it were.

"Wendy?" I asked.

It trotted up to me and sat back on its skinny haunches.

"Are you in there?"

"The dark spirit that brought you here has moved higher up and around to the other side of the east tower."

I did a good old-fashioned double take. Vampires and demons and zombies do tend to expand one's horizons but they don't really prepare you for a conversation with a wolf. Well, okay, a werewolf fiancée does prepare you somewhat but it is still rather disconcerting to have a canine jaw drop open and have a human voice emerge.

"Really, Father, I am quite concerned about some of the company that you choose to keep," the wolf said.

The voice was disturbingly normal, not the guttural growl that Lupé produced when she tried to speak in wolf form. And I noticed that the jaw remained open: the mouth did not actually form the words; it merely got out of the way of the speech that emanated from somewhere inside.

But how? If a werewolf's vocal chords were hard pressed to approximate human speech then . . .

And that's when the other part of the riddle caught up to me.

"Father?"

The wolf inclined its head. "Do you prefer 'Dad?' Or should we keep this on a first name basis until I'm actually born?"

"You . . . I'm . . . that is . . ." The questions were rear-ending each other like a fifty-car pileup on the Long Island Expressway. "You have a name?"

"I have many names. As do you. As does nearly everyone: it doesn't begin here, you know. We have a name for every time and every place that we inhabit. And since I am still unborn and you and mother have not yet named me—unless 'Will' . . ."

I waved that idea away. "Forgive me but I haven't really had any time to think about it."

"Of course." The wolf, swear to God, actually sighed! "There is so much to do and so little time to do it in. If I should not be born, then this particular question becomes moot."

"Wait a minute! Lupé! She's okay? The last I knew she was caught between pack politics and a vengeful demon."

"Mother is safe for now. She has acquired a powerful protector. It remains to be seen, however, if she can stay safe while involved with you. It is not just a question of your enemies but, as you say, the politics of the pack. And until the current situations are resolved here and in New York, you are both at extreme risk." His head dropped again. "As am I."

"Is that why you're here? To make sure we all get the right to life?"

"For myself?" I didn't think it was possible for a wolf to shrug but the hunching of his shoulders was very eloquent. "A door closes . . . another opens. Although I would be sorry to not have the opportunity to try this particular portal. "But there are more important destinies at risk beyond my own."

"No kidding," I said. "At least now that you're here and a little more vocal, maybe I can get some answers to some questions."

"Maybe," he said. And growled. And lunged at me!

And through me!

I whirled and watched as the wolf attacked a guard who had just come through the outer doors. The man wasn't expecting a canine attacker and went down primarily due to the element of surprise. His bulky parka made maneuvering difficult so he was staying down for the moment. The wolf's body, however, was suffering from malnutrition and my son seemed rather inept as a four-legged predator.

"Dad!" he panted. "Hurry!"

"Hurry what?" I rushed to help but how could I? "I don't have a physical form!"

"Take his!"

"I can't! I can't do humans! I can't enter their chakra gates!"

"Try another way!"

"What other way?"

"I didn't use any chakra stuff to get inside this wolf. It's like it was my blood birthright."

"Courtesy of your mother's lycanthropy, no doubt."

"I'm sure that your blood had something to do with it."

"There is power in the blood," I said, quoting the old gospel hymn. This really wasn't the time or place to argue that blood or genetics seemed a non sequitur to the subject of soul transference. "The problem is he isn't a wolf and I'm not a lycanthrope."

"The blood! That's where your power lies. Use the blood!" His jaws snapped at the man's face: sharp teeth grazed a cheek and blood began to trickle down his face.

The guard shrieked and threw the wolf off. My furry ally went rolling and before he could regain his feet, the guard was on his knees, getting a grip on his HK semi.

I jumped, aiming for his cheek instead of the swirling blue gateway over his forehead. The world turned crimson and clover, over and over. A rush of physical sensations and the gravel-strewn ground was rushing up toward my face.

* * *

My mother had a cruel streak: she didn't believe in letting me sleep in past noon on school vacations. If I didn't set my alarm clock on my own recognizance, she would let King into my bedroom and the big old boxer would give my face a tongue bath until I erupted from a tangle of sheets with cries of disgust and dismay.

This time there were no sheets, no soft mattress, no summer sun casting leafy silhouettes on my bedroom wall. It was cold and the ground was hard with flinty, sharp points of stone that turned any movement into a topography of discomfort. King's woeful bus-smash face was replaced by the elongated muzzle and crafty-eyed visage of my—er—boy-to-be. The tongue, however, seemed pretty much the same.

"Okay, okay! I'm awake!" I sat up and attempted to wipe the bulk of the wolf slobber off of my face. "How did you know that blood would be the gateway?"

"It is your gift and your curse. It is the seat of your power."

"Even so, a hell of a lucky guess. Now, where were we?" I tried to climb to my feet. My newfound flesh wasn't immediately cooperative. "Oh yes, you were refusing to answer my questions. This doesn't bode well: my son isn't even born, yet, and already he's lying to his father."

"I'm not lying! I'm being moderately evasive!"

"Nevertheless, mister, consider yourself grounded."

"Look, I know a lot of things that I'm not allowed to talk about. I'm breaking all kinds of rules just by being here in the first place."

"Which brings me to my next question—"

The wolf put a paw on my chest. "No questions. Think of it like I'm Captain Picard and you're asking me to violate the Prime Directive."

"Well, I take more of a Captain Kirk approach to rules, myself."

"No kiddin'."

I struggled up to my knees. The flesh I wore felt heavy after the incredible lightness of being without. Somewhere down deep in the cellar, beneath my consciousness, the body's original occupant crouched in the darkness and shuddered with his hands over his face. With any luck he'd stay down there until it was time for me to leave. "So this place you came from before you came here, they get all the Trek editions first run? Or just in syndication?"

"Dad . . ."

* * *

I was lucky that Whozits was too stunned by the turn of events to resist my taking over his body. It was hard enough just learning how to walk all over again. All aboard the Disorient Express. By the time I got the outer door open I was able to stagger about after a fashion but I had zombies in my backyard that shuffled with more grace and speed on less flesh and bone.

Will—I couldn't keep calling him "wolf"—looked up at me as I pulled the door closed behind us. "What's the plan?"

"What do you mean, what's the plan? You're the one who's omniscient!"

"I never said I was omniscient, I only said that I know some things that I can't get all loose-lipped about. This is your gig; I'm only trying to lend a helping hand."

We both stared down at his paws.

"You'd think I'd get some credit for crossing all sorts of metaphysical barriers, chasing after you all the way to New York, watching out for your innards after you lost your outtards, hitching a ride with Witch Hazel out there all the way to the Rockies, and then pushing this poor old wolf carcass up the mountainside to help you again. Omniscient? If I'd known you were going to give me this much grief I would've stayed home and hung around haunting Mom."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm having a bad day. You've got to admit these aren't the ideal circumstances for meeting your future offspring."

"Not if they're human, anyway," he agreed, scratching at something behind his ear.

"It's not that. It's all this!" I swept the hall with my arm. "Nazis. Secret mountain fortress. Laboratories equipped with advanced genetics technology. They've cloned my dead wife and daughter and are using their fetuses as hostages! Who knows? Maybe they've cloned Adolf Hitler."

Will shook his head. "It's been done."

I stared at him, aghast. "It has?"

"Another story, not here, not your karma." He hesitated. "I don't think . . ." He shook his muzzle. "Not now, not tonight. Try to stay focused, Dad. Plenty of fascist fish to fry later if all goes well tonight."

"Swell. Even if you do learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it." I turned and staggered up the hallway toward the inner door.

"So what is the plan?" he called after me.

"I'm working on it."

I opened the inner door. Another guard met me on his way out. Cigarette-break man.

"Hans? What happened?"

"What?" I hoped my voice didn't sound strange.

He was too busy peering at my face to pay attention to the vocal inflections of a single syllable response. He wasn't one of Mengele's clones. That shouldn't be too surprising as Gretchen had counted eleven surviving adult replicants and I'd already noted at least four times that many in the barracks, alone.

"You look terrible!" the guard exclaimed. "Did you have an accident?"

"Uh," I half-coughed, half-grunted, "yeah. Fell down."

"The transport will be here soon but I think I have enough time to help you down to the infirmary if you need assistance."

Decisions, decisions . . .

"Don't move!" he whispered. His hand went down to his holster and unsnapped the cover.

Uh-oh.

"There's a wolf behind you."

Oh. Oh! 

I clenched my right hand into a fist. Then I stepped in as he drew his pistol and punched his jaw with a swift uppercut.

He stepped back and looked at me in disbelief as I shook my stinging knuckles. "What did you do that for?"

Apparently Hans was a "lefty." And I had grown overly dependant on the preternatural strength of my former body.

"Uh, Greenpeace?" I said. As Will leapt past me and knocked the man to the ground.

I pointed the Heckler & Koch at man and beast as they rolled over and over but there was no way to get a clear shot. And putting a fortress full of Nazis on red-alert was not part of any potential plan that I was still working on.

Suddenly it was over. The guard got a firm grip on the wolf's head and gave it a wrenching twist. There was an audible cracking sound and the beast went limp.

"Son of a bitch!" I hissed as I swung the automatic weapon up and at the man's head.

He threw up his hands. "Whoa, Dad; best not to invoke family lineage in the house of one's enemies."

"Will?"

The guard wiped some blood from his hand onto the fur of the dead wolf and climbed back to his feet. "In the flesh." He staggered a little. "Bipedal. Going to have to work on this balance thing a little." He felt his face. "And what happened to all of those wonderful smells?"

He staggered toward me a little and I felt tears gather at the edge of my eyes.

"Dad? What's wrong?"

I shook my head and sniffed. "I just saw my baby boy take his first steps."

* * *

We killed another ten minutes in the temperature lock before returning to the main "lobby" of Brut Adler. It took that long for Will to get his "land legs" and me to get the pass code to the inner blast doors from the gibbering consciousness that cringed in my current body's hindbrain.

"And you say it takes babies like forever to learn how to do this?" he asked as I placed "my" palm on the scanner beside the double doors and keyed in what I hoped was the correct sequence of numbers. "Man, I'm going to be a prodigy when I'm finally born."

"I wouldn't get too cocky, boy. You'll be working with a carcass that's still evolving from a quadruped to a biped with no muscle tone." There was a click and I pushed the door on the right open. "Besides, I'm betting the rules will still apply to you, as well."

"Rules?"

"Don't be surprised if you come into this world with a hefty case of amnesia, just like the rest of us." I poked my head through the opening and looked around. The lobby was still deserted. "Of course, if your memory is as wiped as the rest of ours is, there will be nothing to be surprised about."

"Seems like poor planning on God's part," Will mused as we moved across the mezzanine.

"Don't get me started on God's grand design," I griped as we paused at the foot of the staircase. "My first question, if we ever meet in the hereafter, is why do two-year-olds have so much energy with nothing to do while grownups—particularly parents—have so much to do and so little energy. Seems like an inequitable distribution of resources to me."

"If you like, I'll ask for you when I go back."

I turned and looked at him. "You've met God?"

"Not exactly, no. But I've met some who say they're on a first-name basis with Him."

"Oh. Well. It's pretty much the same here." I raised a foot to the first step and stopped. As difficult as climbing the stairs was in a noncorporeal body, I had the distinct feeling it was going to be harder wearing flesh other than my own. And Will?

"Can we take the elevator?"

"Okay," I said, turning back to the glassed-in cage at the big room's center, "but just this once for you."

"And lets make a pit stop at the nearest restroom."

"Why? You gotta go already?"

"No." He reached out and touched my bleeding cheek. "You need to wash your Hans."

"I'm beginning to understand why some animals eat their young."

"Plenty of time to give me pre-childhood complexes later, Pop. We still don't have a plan," he pointed out as we waited for the lift to descend. "Are we going to raid the weapons lockers and go all berzerko, running around like the Dirty Dozen?"

"If you're going to use movie analogies you'd more likely end up with Butch and Sundance, mise-en-scène freeze-frame and fade to black. And what kind of movie subscriptions are you getting on the Other Side? You're a bloodthirsty little tyke for a heavenly personage."

"Who said I was heavenly? There are more places between Heaven and Earth, Horatio, and you can't make assumptions about everyone's zip code."

"Boy," I sighed, "when this is all over we gotta have ourselves a long talk." The elevator arrived and we got on board. "In the meantime, we've got two bodies to liberate and a mad doctor—or doctors—to put out of business. I figure if we can find some kind of communications center, we can call for help."

"Who you gonna call?"

I gave him The Look. "I was thinking," I said slowly, "of calling for backup from my own demesne. Or from Seattle. And that the Simon Wiesenthal foundation might be interested in learning that the Death Angel of Auschwitz didn't actually die in 1979 after all."

"That might work," he agreed. "If you can convince them that you don't sleep with tin foil over your noggin and you're willing to wait a few days. Your people are hours away. How long would it take them to prepare a strike team? Assuming that they were willing to go to the extra effort and risk instead of cutting their losses and electing a new, purer-blooded Doman? And assuming they were able to find this place once they got here? I mean, it's not exactly on the maps and you're only going to be able to land one helicopter at a time if they do find the needle in a mountain range of haystacks. Face it, Dad, we're it as far as you and your girlfriend's bodies are concerned."

"Deirdre is not my girlfriend."

"That's not the way Mom sees it."

"Your mother is going through some difficulties right now and has made some mistaken assumptions."

"And I should butt out of the grownups' business, right?"

I leaned in as the elevator slowed to a stop. "We will discuss all of this later, at a more appropriate time. Right now we have a job to do."

"You got it, Pops," he said as the doors slid open. "Just tell me what I'm supposed to do."

"You are supposed to meet the copter and assist them in transporting the cargo to the operating theater," Gretchen answered, standing just beyond the doorway. "Fools! What are you doing back here?" Her tone was as cold, now, as it had been warm in the lab scarcely an hour earlier.

Will held up his hand where, as a wolf, he had nipped "himself" before swapping bodies through the blood bridge. "We were attacked by a rabid wolf!"

"Mein Gott!" she exclaimed.

"What is it, Ilsa?" Another Mengele-the-Next-Generation appeared behind her.

I suddenly realized that this "Gretchen" was very solid and no ghost at all.

"These idiots are not at their posts und now Franz, here, says something about a rabid wolf!"

Mengele Junior frowned. "Perhaps I should roust an additional security team from their bunks. We can't risk the cargo—"

"The wolf is dead," I said. "We killed it."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Her face contorted into something ancient and feral. "Get back out there and pray that nothing goes wrong with the cargo or hydrophobia will be the least of your worries!"

I nodded hurriedly and stabbed at the button that would take us back down to the main level. The doors started to close but she caught the edge of one with her hand and leaned in. Hissing just inches from my face she said: "Do you know why they called me the Red Bitch of Buchenwald?"

I swallowed convulsively but my mouth was suddenly dry. "Yes."

"I am remodeling my apartment very soon, now, und I am thinking of replacing my lampshades . . ." She gave us both long, searching looks and then released the door.

As the elevator finally began to descend, Will turned to me. "What was that all about?"

I shivered. I didn't feel so invulnerable ensconced, once again, in the frail nest of flesh and sinew and blood. "Ilse Koch," I said. "She was the wife of Karl Koch, the original commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp during the early years of World War Two. I don't know if they had children but the Antichrist couldn't ask for a better pedigree."

"War criminals?"

"Oh yes! What makes them somewhat unique is that Ilse and Karl were tried by the SS back in 1943 on a whole list of charges ranging from embezzlement to incitement to murder. Seems Karl got a little too wanton on his own human game reserve, even for the Nazis. The judge found him guilty and ordered his execution. Mrs. Koch, however, was acquitted." The doors opened and we exited. I resisted the impulse to look back up over my shoulder to see if she was watching us from an upper-level balcony.

"Pretty serious, though, if the Nazis were trying their own for war crimes," Will said out of the corner of his mouth.

I nodded. "There was a lot of stuff going on at Buchenwald at the time. Medical staff gave friends and relatives souvenirs . . ."

"Souvenirs?"

"Human remains. Shrunken heads. The story was Ilse made lampshades by tanning the skin of some of the inmates. Supposedly she favored the epidermal areas that sported tattoos."

"I can see that might add a festive touch."

I looked at him. "You really aren't a higher being, are you?"

He shrugged. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"The problem is, Ilse Koch was tried twice after the war and eventually sentenced to life in prison."

"Looks like she got out."

"Yeah, the hard way. She committed suicide in 1967."

"This is very disturbing."

"What? That a woman who is supposed to be dead is still alive? Or that she's too young to have merely faked her death? Or that she doesn't look anything like the surviving photos of the Red Bitch?"

"That my father knows enough about the Nazis to put out his own special edition of Trivial Pursuit."

I didn't have a comeback. I was working out the logistics of blonde, blue-eyed "Gretchen" being the DNA donor for the Ilse Koch revival. It made a certain kind of sense as the photos I'd seen of the original "Red Bitch" were nothing to cross the street for. Perhaps Mengele had petri-dished Gretchen for her physical attributes while utilizing Koch's memory engrams for a more compatible soul mate.

And since this Koch was addressed as Ilsa while the one in my hospital room was called Ilse, there was apparently more than one.

Another thought suddenly occurred. If Mengele had perfected memory transfer across differing genetic hosts, then he could reincarnate himself in a different body with a different identity in the future. He could effectively disappear into humanity's gene pool with scarcely a ripple! The clock was ticking and it was more and more apparent that time was running out on a number of fronts.

We came to the double doors leading to the temperature lock and the outside entrance. "Well, so much for Plan A," I muttered as I opened the door to my left and stepped through.

Will followed and started to giggle as the door closed behind us.

"What?"

"I just realized something."

"What's that?"

"Our names."

"What about our names?" I zipped up my parka as I approached the outer doors.

"She called me 'Franz'."

"Yeah?"

"You're Hans!"

"Uh-huh."

"Hans and Franz!"

"So?"

"So, like," his voice took on a heavy and not too convincing Austrian accent, "ve are Hans und Franz, and ve are here to blow—" He clapped his hands together once and pointed. "—you up!" He began cackling like a demented magpie.

Kids.

I pushed the outer door open and went back outside to wait for my body to be delivered.

* * *

The wind was bitter and we both had to stomp our feet to keep some semblance of feeling inside of our boots.

"Okay, one more time, let's go over our options."

"Or lack thereof."

"That's my boy. Never too early to learn that pessimism runs in our family."

"Runs? It practically gallops!"

"Two of us, lots of them. Quasi-military structure. Stone fortress, resistant to fire . . ."

"I don't suppose they have a nuclear reactor we could SCRAM to go critical?"

I shook my head. "The only evidence my pipe crawling yielded in the basement was an older, steam-heat system, supplemented by a more modern, forced air flow furnace and duct system. Probably upgraded the facilities a couple of decades back."

"Fuel?"

"I don't know. Probably oil, originally. Maybe natural gas, now. Or even electricity. But if you're thinking about setting charges and using the reserves to multiply the force of the blast, we'd have to find the explosives, find the fuel storage area, bring the two together, and I get the feeling that Madam Lampshade is going to have us on a very short leash as soon as we set foot back inside."

He nodded. "I could still try to go for reinforcements but physical troops—assuming your people would come—would take too long to physically get here."

"And what about noncorporeal troops?"

He looked at me. "What? An army of ghosts? I don't know any. I'm unborn, not deceased, remember? Besides, a bunch of ghosts are practically worthless when it comes to influencing the realm of the living." He kicked a stone so that it skittered across the stony ground and disappeared over the edge of a drop-off some thirty yards away.

"First of all, the vast majority of them don't care," he elaborated. "They've moved on. They don't want to risk screwing up their karma by sticking their nonexistent noses in where they don't have a personal stake.

"The ones who are scary and violent enough to do you any good are so dangerous that you don't want to have anything to do with even one of them, much less a whole army.

"As for the rest? What good is a bunch of spooks whose bag of tricks is pretty much confined to slamming doors, moving ashtrays, and leaving cryptic stains and marks on the floors, walls, and ceilings?"

"That is why I have gathered an army," answered a harsh, guttural voice above us.

We looked up. Towering over us was a giant crone, an ancient hag of rotted flesh and scabrous skin. I was suddenly aware of the gathering silhouettes just beyond the reach of the helipad lights. Wendigo leaned down, her death-mask face close to ours, and spoke again. "I have called together The People of The Land and told them of the Evil that poisons the earth and the waters."

As I turned aside from the charnel downdraft of her slaughterhouse breath, Will leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Problem solved, Dad. Wendy's siccing the Indian EPA on our nest of Nazis."

"Long have the white-eyes despoiled the sacred places," Wendigo continued in a voice like a funeral wind, "and each tribe has resisted in their own time and place. But The Mangler threatens all of The Land and in ways that the European invaders could never imagine. I have told the Ancestors that we must unite to destroy him before his numbers grow beyond containment."

"So what have we got?" I asked her. "Better be more than a few dozen bows and arrows because the arsenal inside could hold off the Colorado National Guard for weeks."

Then I noticed that the few "Indians" that I could actually make out at the edge of the light had small horns and antlers sprouting from their foreheads.

"The Manitou do not fight with weapons, traditional or otherwise," the Wendigo said, gesturing in their direction. "Their powers are greater than flint points and wooden shafts."

A platoon of tiny, ugly people crowded to the front of the pack, some of them sprouting hair from their faces like were-midgets turning into unkempt Pomeranians. "The Nagumwasuck and Mekumwasuck are normally peaceful," she continued, "but can be fierce in defense of their territory. It was no simple matter, however, convincing them that their territory extended as far west as the Rockies. Likewise the Squonk, the Kewahqu, the May-may-gway-shi, and the Albatwitches but not so the Chenoo . . ." Giant, stony forms reared up behind them. " . . . they like to fight!"

Fireflies darted in and out of the shadowy forms. "The Elves of Light come from the Algonquin territories for they know what great losses may ensue if the land is not defended from the Defilers. They have come in their twilight time to make a stand with us.

"From the North are come Watchmen, the Hodag, the Pu'gwis, the Inua Yuas, the undead Angiaks, and Kushtaka!" I caught a glimpse of the latter which appeared to be very like human-sized otters.

"From the Northwest and the West I have gathered the Sasquatch, the Bokwus, and the Numuzo'ho. From the South and Southwest: the Kachina, the Cucui, the Chindi, the Surems, the Huacas, the Jimaniños, and Dzoonokwa. The Yunwi Amai'yine'hi, the Nanehi, and the Yunwi Tsundsi from the Southeast.

"From the East: Mothmen and the ancient entity known in latter days as the Jersey Devil."

Enormous forms arrived, dwarfing even the rocklike Chenoo. "For the first time in the living memory of the Ancients, the Giants have come together on the field of battle. Heng of the Huron. Manabozho. Achiyalatopa of the Zuni with his feathers of flint knives. The Pawnee wind-spawn, Hoturu. Tcolawitze, Hopi fire-giant. Ga-oh, wind-giant of the Iroquois. The twins, Enumclaw and Kapoonis. Aktunowihio of the Cheyenne. Hastsezini of the Navajo. Wakinyan of the Dakota. Even the ogress Utlunta Spearfinger of the Cherokee.

"The mountains are the ancestral home of the Gans so they will fight fiercely in their defense. Likewise the Ohdow who dwell underground and have suffered the poisons of the Mangler these past decades. The Tunghat and the Canotili have climbed up from the plains to join them lest The Mangler some day come down from these mountains and unleash his own, dark Anisgina across the plains."

I was suddenly aware of great wing beats above our heads. Dark silhouettes blotted out portions of the stars and fantastic shapes and visages were briefly revealed by flashes of heatlike lightning. "What are those?"

"Oshadagea, giant dew-eagle of the Iroquois. And the Wakinyan, also called Hohoq and Kw-Uhnx-Wa. Your people know them in legend as Thunderbirds."

"All right, then!" I said, rubbing my hands together. "What are we waiting for?" Somewhere down deep in the dwindling recesses of my conscience a tiny voice was asking about the fates of the women and children inside Brut Adler. What wasn't immediately shouted down by the growing cold-blooded nature of the vampiric transformation was outlogicked by the greater potential evil of any part of Mengele's project surviving to reproduce itself in another generation or two. "When do we attack?" I asked.

The Wendigo's mouth opened inhumanly, impossibly wide and she began to howl. A thousand other voices, inhuman as well, joined in sounding like a funeral wind from the heart of the glacial North.

I was nearly deafened by the time the noise ceased so I barely heard her say: "We cannot! It is, as I said before, geased and warded by sigils of power!"

I looked back at the bas-relief over the entrance to the citadel. "What? The swastika? Isn't there a back door?"

"We have traversed the stronghold round and round," she said, shrinking back down to human size. Unfortunately, she retained her ancient corpselike visage instead of reverting to the attractive Indian maid getup. "All points of entry are warded with the backwards Ttsilolni. So, I fear, would many of the passages within. All we can do is wait without . . ."

The faint sound of an aircraft engine intruded upon the night wind. I looked up and spotted the distant lights of an approaching helicopter. Theresa and Co., no doubt, delivering their precious cargo to Mengele's operating theaters.

"And," Wendigo cried, starting another growth spurt, "destroy any and all who seek to come here as The Mangler's allies!" The giants and the Chenoo roared, the creatures closer to our own height howled and stomped their feet. Heat lightning flared along the wings of the Wakinyan.

It terms of body counts, it looked like Deirdre and I would be among the first casualties of the siege of Brut Adler.

 

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