Read Online Night & Demons by David Drake - Free Book Online

that was a bad idea, then he hoped he wouldn’t have long to regret his decision.
    It might be a very bad idea.
    “There,” said Wally. “There’s nothing more I can do until we actually begin building the charge. Then I may have to—”
    Robert Strange entered through a pedestrian door set in one of the six vehicle doors along the outside wall. The black sheep he led looked puzzled, a feeling which Howard himself echoed.
    “You’re ready, Master Popple?” he asked.
    “Ey-eh-he-e ,” said the sheep. Strange jerked the leash viciously. The cord looked like silver, but it was functional enough to choke the sheep to silence when Strange lifted his arm.
    “Yes, Mr. Strange,” Wally said. “I’m a little worried about Howard’s mass, though. Eighty-seven kilos may be too much.”
    “Too much?” snapped Strange. “If you needed more transformers, you should have said so!”
    “Too much for the fabric of the universe, Mr. Strange,” said Wally, as mild as ever but completely undaunted at the anger of a man who scared the living crap out of Howard Jones. “I really don’t want to go to more than thirty kilowatts.”
    Strange sniffed. “The subject’s ready?” he said. “You, Jones; you’re ready?”
    “ Ey-eh-he? ” the sheep repeated, rolling its eyes. Her eyes, Howard assumed, since Strange said he was fetching an ewe. The tycoon’s dagger hilt winked in the bright laboratory lighting.
    “Yes, sir!” Howard said.
    Strange grimaced, then bent and tied the leash around a ring set in the drain. He turned his head to Howard and said, “You know what you’re going to do?”
    “Sir, I’m going to enter the other land,” Howard said. “I’ll take the scepter from the king of that land and return here to you with it.”
    As a statement of intent it was concise and accurate. As a plan of action it lacked detail, but there wasn’t enough information on this side of the portal to form a real plan. Howard was uneasily aware that his foray, even if he wound up in a dragon’s gullet, would provide information so that the next agent could do better.
    “All right,” Strange said. “Give me a moment and then proceed.”
    There were drapes bunched among the wall hangings. As Strange spoke, he drew them along a track in the ceiling to separate his corner of the room from Howard and Wally. The ewe bleated again.
    “You may begin, Master Popple,” Strange called, his voice muffled by the thick fabric. He broke into a musical chant. The sounds from his throat weren’t words, or at least words in English.
    “You’re ready, Howard?” Wally said.
    Howard nodded. His throat was dry and he didn’t want to embarrass himself by having his voice crack in the middle of a simple word like, “Yes.”
    Wally rotated a switch, cutting the ceiling lights to red beads among the dimming ghosts of the fluorescent fixtures. The sheet of mica, bright with the daylight of another world, shone like a lantern beside the little man as he typed commands.
    There was a reptilian viciousness to Strange’s voice, and the sheep was managing to whimper like a frightened baby. The hair on Howard’s arms and the back of his neck began to rise. For a moment he thought that was his reaction to the sounds coming from beyond the drapes, but as the fluorescents cooled to absolute black Howard saw a faint violet aura clinging to three racks of equipment.
    Wally was generating very high frequency current at a considerable voltage. Howard decided he didn’t want to think about how high the voltage was.
    Wally muttered as he worked. Though Howard could see his lips move, the words weren’t audible over the hum of five transformers along the outside wall. The opening between Genie’s door and the jamb was faintly visible.
    The air spluttered. Howard felt a directionless pull, unpleasant without being really painful. Violet light flickered through the mica, a momentary pulse from the world across the barrier.
    Strange shouted a final word.