Greg Cox - A Touch of Fever

Claudia shrieked and held on to Artie hard enough to crush his ribs.

The fire extinguisher spilled from the cockpit. It fell like a missile toward the deserted park below. Good thing Leena had already cleared everybody out! The plane turned upside down. The landing gear smacked the thunderbird in the side, knocking it away with a thunk that shook the cockpit. The creature fell back into the swirling cloud cover. The landing wheels spun in the air. Take that, Artie thought. Next time, leave our wings alone. The impact jolted the triplane, sending it into an uncontrolled spin. They fell out of clouds, corkscrewing headfirst toward the earth. Downtown Univille came rushing up at them. A cold wind whipped past Artie’s face, drowning out Claudia’s screams. He was screaming too. Pulling out of a spin was a challenge even for an experienced pilot, which he most certainly was not. He had no idea what to do next. Maybe the plane did? He let go of the controls. “Over to you,” he ordered the plane. “Do your thing!” The DR-1 took immediate action to save itself, the controls moving on their own. The throttle shifted into idle, cutting the power. The ailerons flattened into neutral, and the opposite rudder was applied to halt the plane’s rotation. The Fokker waited until the spinning stopped before pulling out of the dive at the last minute. The landing gear clipped the top of a kid’s Moon Bounce. Air hissed as the torn ride deflated. “Mother Fokker!” Claudia blurted. “Not so close next time!” “We’re not done yet.” He took the controls again. “Get ready for another go-round.”

“Again?” Glancing back over his shoulder, he spotted the thunderbird chasing after them. “That’s it,” he encouraged the creature. “Keep on coming.” He needed to think like the Red Baron if he wanted to down the bird. A strategy occurred to him, one that should come naturally to the crimson Fokker. “Hold on,” he warned Claudia. “We’re going up.”

Testing the ancient plane’s limits, he climbed sharply at nearly one thousand feet per minute. The Fokker shot through the gathering storm, dodging thunder and lightning, then broke through the cloud cover into the bright blue sunlight above the tempest. Seconds later the thunderbird flapped out of the clouds as well. “It still on our tail?”

Artie asked urgently. “That’s a big 10-4,” the reluctant spotter reported. “We have a plan?” “Working on one.” The Red Baron had always preferred to stay between the sun and his foe, so that he could strike undetected. Taking a page from his playbook, Artie guided the Fokker into a loop. The world turned upside down again, the sky below them, the earth above, before they rolled out of the top of the loop and came diving out of the sun at the confused thunderbird, which was now right in front of them. Artie held his fire, waiting until he was within range. Scorch marks and burnt paint mottled the bird’s chiseled feathers. Traces of purple goo streaked the wood. The wood had been chipped away and gouged by his previous rounds, but the bird was still flying. Not for much longer. He had figured out what to shoot at. “Got you right where I want you!” The artifact was less than a hundred feet away. Ignoring its tempting head and torso, Artie targeted a wing instead. His finger tightened on the trigger. The machine guns blared.

Four hundred rounds a minute tore into the totem’s wing. Wood chips trailed from the wing, bouncing off the Fokker’s spinning propeller.

Sparks ignited where the neutralizer clashed with the artifact’s energies. High-caliber surgery amputated the thunderbird’s right wing, which went flying off into the sky. Squawking in pain or fury, the mutilated totem went into a death spiral. It plunged out of control into the storm below. “Yes!” Claudia hugged Artie. “You really got it this time!” “Maybe.” He still wasn’t going to count his chickens-or a thunderbird-until it was cooked for sure. “We need to verify the kill.” The Fokker dived through the clouds after its victim. Sizzling lightning bolts threatened to set the triplane ablaze again, but for once luck was with them and they managed to get through the tempest relatively unsinged. The plane emerged from the clouds into the rain and hail. “Where?” he asked anxiously. “Where is it?” “Going down.”

Claudia pointed below. “Next stop: Univille Park!” Sure enough, the crippled thunderbird crashed into the park-right on top of Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbuster. In a perverse twist of fate, the totem smashed the rainmaker to smithereens. A blinding flash of light consumed both artifacts as their arcane energies were discharged in a spectacular display. A pillar of golden fire shot into the sky. “Artie!” “I know!”

This wasn’t the first time he’d seen an artifact or two go pyrotechnic. “You don’t need to shout!” He banked hard to the left, evading the towering fountain of flame. The pillar glittered brightly for a moment, then dissolved into drifting sparks. All at once, the rain stopped and the hail ceased falling. The sun broke through the clouds as the storm came apart. So much for the cloudbuster, Artie thought ruefully. Sorry, Wilhelm. Still, the artifact had served its purpose. Univille was safe. He circled over the park once more to be certain. Nothing but a smoking crater remained where the totem had bombed the so-called sculpture. Charred pieces of wood were impaled on lengths of twisted metal. All the water in the reflecting pool had steamed away. Bits of cracked mosaic tile had been fused together by the heat of the explosion. The bottom of the crater had a glassy sheen, like the aftermath of a nuclear blast. “Talk about a waste of time,” Artie grumped. He mourned the loss of the artifacts. It was a shame they’d had to destroy two-thirds of the totem pole, but at least the bear was still intact. He’d have to make sure it was put back in stasis… eventually. First things first, he thought. They still needed to get Clara Barton’s gloves-and cure Pete before it was too late. “You up for a trip to New York?” Claudia contemplated the snazzy red plane. “How fast can this bird go anyway?” “Funny you should ask.”

He turned the throttle all the way up.

CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK CITY

A taxi dropped them off at Sixty-fifth and Central Park West. The nearest available parking spot had been several blocks away, so they’d been forced to take a cab the rest of the way, since Pete was in no shape to navigate the subways, let alone several hectic city blocks. Heavy uptown traffic crawled past them. Horns honked at every intersection. Myka tried to help Pete out of the cab, but he stubbornly rejected her assistance. “I can manage, okay?” A strained expression belied his words. He thrust a handful of bills at the driver. “You don’t need to baby me.” “Then don’t act like one.” She didn’t take his grumpy attitude personally.

She could only guess how hard this was on him, both physically and mentally. Frankly, she was amazed that he was even standing. He had to be getting by on sheer cussedness, as her dad would have put it. “At least let me take your cane.” “Okay, okay. Whatever.” The walking stick in question was a polished hickory cane topped by a miniature silver elephant. A steel tip shod the bottom of the cane. Claudia had shipped it to the hospital at Pete’s request yesterday, before they found out about the fair. Probably not a bad idea. He looked like he needed it. She held on to the cane while he painfully hauled himself out of the cab. The effort left him breathless and sweating, despite the cool autumn weather. The sun was still high in the sky and the sidewalk was filled with both locals walking at a brisk New York pace and wide-eyed tourists slowing them down. A horse-drawn carriage trotted by, offering a leisurely tour of the park. Myka admired the old-fashioned hansom cab as she handed the cane back to Pete. He leaned heavily on it as he caught his breath. A park bench beckoned several yards away, beneath some shady trees. The leaves were already turning colors. “Maybe you should wait here,” she suggested, “while I scope out the park.” She still wasn’t convinced that bringing Pete along was a good idea. He belonged in a hospital, not traipsing through Central Park in search of two renegade artifacts. Vanessa Calder had objected strenuously to his departure, but had finally relented in the face of his pigheaded refusal to listen to the doctor.