Bureau 13 : Judgment Night

Suddenly, Chubby moved in front of me, his machine gun spraying hot lead protection. At least that was no hallucination. I felt the stinging blast of the blow-back gas, and a red-hot shell casing bounced off my hand burning the flesh.

The short lady jumped up on the coffin and, reaching behind her, pulled out a long curved sword so highly polished that the blade seemed to ripple with rainbows. Flipping it over, she knelt and buried the sword to the hilt into the rectangular box.

Big deal, I thought. But Batguy didn't care for the idea a bit. Rearing backwards, he opened his jaw and vomited a lance of fire at the swordswoman. She ducked, but it wasn't necessary. A river of ice launched from the cupped hands of Skinny and the two streams hit in midair with a deafening thunderclap worse than an overload at a rock concert.

As I shook the ringing from my ears, I suddenly noticed that Batgirl was gone. I couldn't see her anyplace, but a weird patch of fog was drifting towards Mandrake over by where the door used to be. Impulsively I shouted a warning.

However, the coffin was in the line of fire for Rambo and Ninja Girl was dancing with Igor the human hang glider, so Mr. Wizard was alone on this one.

Muttering something, in Latin I guess, he threw a fistful of sparkle dust at the cloud with no effect. What a surprise there. The cloud advanced. Quickly he pulled out a cross and a water pistol, and started chasing the cloud around, shooting streams of water at it. This is where I lost my tenuous hold on reality and started laughing. Chubby gave me a quizzical glance over his shoulder as he yanked a fresh belt of ammunition out of his shoulder bag and shoved it into the breech of his weapon.

"You okay?" he asked in a husky voice.

"Shit, no," I replied. "Must have hit my head on an overhang somewhere and I'm having one hell of a dream."

He seemed to accept that and dashed off. I kept laughing.

The two men managed to corner the cloud and let her have it. There was fire and water and lightning and screaming and explosions and gunshots. In the middle of all this, the cloud turned into a wolf, a giant rat, a bear, a beautiful nude blonde, a nightmarish thing with tentacles and finally a lump of oozing flesh. Then they set the mess on fire by sprinkling it with communion wafers.

It may have been nothing but a drug-induced illusion, but I rattled my chains at the victory and shouted wa-hoo, even though I don't like fantasy. If I had caught this show on cable, I would have turned to another channel. I prefer a good mystery, with plenty of conflicting clues and a hot seduction or two, that kind of stuff. But magic? I believe in hard facts, science, human dignity, cold beer and the Chicago Bears. Not mumbo-jumbo voodoo gumbo. That's crazy. Or at least it seemed crazy until tonight.

Meanwhile, Shorty had gotten into a bad way. She was flat against the wall with the Count moving in for the kill. A flurry of sword thrusts to his head missed, but instead of attacking, the nut just stood there and stared at her. His eyes started to glow a bright red. Hesitantly she began to lower her sword when an arrow took the ugly thing right in the ass. Where the arrow came from I have no idea.