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Part 1

“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,” the Mage 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.”

The Mage 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 country’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 that 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,” Lorenzo 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. Lorenzo frowned and Delores 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?”

Part 2

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Now, let me be clear in this: I am not a picky eater. Never was. When i was in the Amazon leading an expedition to investigate reports of Squeebles – terrible things; pointy teeth – our food was stolen. We survived for ten days eating local foods. Foods which mostly consisted of fruits, bark and insects. It is with this in mind that you must understand my dismay at the state of the Jell-O in the cafeteria.

Jell-O, in it’s perfect form, when made properly, is wiggly and rather on the cusp of liquid. Cool and refreshing. What I had the day of the briefing was more along the experience of old theatre gummy treats. While I considered my options, which bin i should throw the culinary fare into, Michelle sat across from me.

Around us men and women similarly dressed in black suits conversed. There were even a few young children who, to Aiden’s obvious displeasure, were gravitated to his video gaming device. No one else in the cafeteria had taken the Jell-O, not even the children, which led me to believe that perhaps they knew something that I did not.

“They make that stuff everyday,” Michelle said, nodding at the small paper plate that held green grisly cubes. “No one ever takes it, mind. I haven’t gotten the courage to try it.”

“I can see why.” I set my spoon down, disappointed. “When do we leave?”

“In a few hours.” Michelle watched me carefully as if trying to peer through me to find answers. “You know why I called you here.”

“I certainly do. You want my expertise. I know what it is you’re doing here and it’s admirable, but it won’t work. Worse, it’s dangerous.” I paused. You see, it’s always a balancing act when dealing with people and information. Give them too much and they won’t trust it — none of us like explanations simply dropped on our laps. Give people too little and they won’t come to the correct conclusion. Significantly more terrible is that they might come to the incorrect conclusion. But I knew Michelle, or at least as much as I needed to make the determination of how much to share with her.

“The Inquisition, The Illuminati, The Free Masons, The Heavenly Dictate, The Spider Children, The Flying God. All of these organizations, and more, met with disaster after organizing against extra dimensional threats. None of them understood the nature of the threats and so were unprepared when they were countered. Now your government, and others around the world have the technology to begin combating incursions.” I sighed. It was something that I thought about every night. “But you are like… Children playing with flamethrowers.”

“And that’s why I asked you here. Did any of those other organizations ask your guidance?”

“Once or twice, when they needed help. Tell me, why are they called freedom fries here? What’s so free about them?”

She waved the question away and I knew she would have none of it, as before. We could have done the dance all day, circling around the heart of the matter without tackling it, but that, evidently, wasn’t her style. “I want you here at the beginning. Tell us what we’re doing right and wrong.”

“Why?” I asked. Hundreds, no, thousands of men and women in humanity’s secret war against things they could not understand, lost. Killed or some just vanished without a trace. And each time… Each time I had to pick up the pieces, stop wars. I remembered… Atlantis.

“Because you understand it. How it all works, how the creatures behave-”

“Any behavioral biologist could tell what I have, already.”

“And the science behind it all?”

“Theoretical physicist. They know these sorts of things.”

“Valentine. I’m asking you to help us help you. The reports that everyone’s always studying down here – the trends indicate an increase in extra-dimensional activity in the past twenty years.”

“Better record keeping.” She fixed me with a stern expression. I relented of course. I noticed the same thing. Perhaps there was something to aiding the people in their own protection. It would keep me from having to step in and save them all the time anyhow.

“We have this incident to deal with in Truth or Consequences that we need your help on. Afterward, I’d like to have you on as a consultant. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

She was good. They did seem to have the right space and resources, even if their offices were far too small… And they didn’t have enough financing to spring for a proper projector and a license of PowerPoint.

“That sounds like something that can be arranged.”

She seemed relieved then began to work into her lunch, which consisted of vegetables and a cup of yogurt. I am not a picky eater, yes, but i must tell you that I will not, under any circumstances eat yogurt. The whole idea of it seems fundamentally wrong – the mind boggles at how, in several thousand years, the human race has come up with some of the most disgusting foods imaginable.

I wonder at whom, all those hundreds of years ago thought it would be a brilliant idea to make yogurt.

But I digress.

Truly, Michelle’s idea was strong. It would give me an opportunity to prevent all those things that previous men and women did not have the wisdom and knowledge to avoid. A start from the beginning — to help the world help itself. “What sort of funding are we looking at?”

“Given your involvement with United States history and the filing cabinet full of reports on you, I’d say a little more than what we’re working with now.” Michelle sliced her fruit and dipped it into the yogurt.

Forgive me, remembering it still makes me queasy.

“And how much is that?”

“A little under a million a year all told.”

“Michelle, your country, the wealthiest and arguably the most pre-emptive defensive state in the first world has only given you a million to work with?” She nodded, but seemed to have already come to peace with the fact. “So even with that shoestring budget you couldn’t purchase a projector and laptop.”

“Again with the PowerPoint,” Michelle sighed.

“I’m sorry, but last time I saw a presentation given with a slide projector, it was Ferris Beuller’s day off.”

Michelle shook her head, but smiled. “Funny. Is there anything that you need before we leave?”

“My driver is currently in the parking lot with what I need. I’ve already made arrangements to have the larger items shipped.”

“Shipped. Do you think it will be that serious?”

“Michelle, you saw the accursed slides yourself. Whatever is happening is happening all over the town. Big, giant bites taken out of the sides of buildings. I’m not sure what it is, but that coupled with the tomb that has no earthly right being where it is leads me to believe that something a bit more than a simple mated pair of bats has woken in Truth or Consequences. I need to be prepared.”

Michelle nodded, pensive.

“That, and I had him buy a pair of cowboy boots. I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy.”