Marc Zicree - Ghostlands

Cal Griffin walked over to where Rafe Dahlquist labored on the final adjustments with his crew. “How we coming?”

“Just about ready to crank the body up to the roof, see if lightning hits it.” Dahlquist was speaking facetiously, but it might as well have been literal, considering what they were about to try.

“Let me just make sure I’ve got this straight,” Colleen Brooks said, striding up to them (she found it was becoming her theme song, of late). “We push the big red button, that thing hopefully opens up onto South Dakota, the Source Project, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Dahlquist said, not looking at her, his eyes on the elaborate series of connections he was running from the damping devices to the large blue crystal. “And if this does what it’s supposed to, we keep the field contained, so there’s no surprises.”

“There are always surprises,” Colleen said.

At which moment, Herman Goldman appeared literally out of nowhere and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Judas Priest, Goldman,” Colleen yelped, spinning on him, “don’t do that.”

“Why not? It’s one of the best perks.” He tipped his straw cowboy hat with the five aces, which struck Colleen not as a courtesy but rather as the impertinence it was clearly intended to be.

“Where the hell’d you spring from anyway?” she asked.

“ Where is not the pertinent question,” Goldie replied, stifling a grin. “But rather, with whom. ”

He stepped aside, to reveal the hyper little grunter known as Howard Russo…and the serene ebony presence of Enid Blindman.

“Last stop on the way,” Goldie said to Cal. “Man, you sure kept me hopping.”

Despite her ire at Goldman, Colleen found herself smiling broadly.

“Hey, Mr. Bluesman.” She clapped Enid on the shoulder. “How’s life down on the Preserve?”

“Plenty quiet, compared to where I hear we gonna be goin’.”

Colleen had last seen the remarkable young blues player at Magritte’s funeral pyre in Chicago, just after the ordeal of their battle with Primal; in act, Enid had been the whole reason for that battle.

Colleen and her companions had first met Enid along the banks of a peaceful river valley as they’d traveled out of West Virginia, had discovered that the siren call of his music could both draw people to him and protect them from the Source (while the flare Magritte in turn protected him )-until such time as Enid could lead them to a portal that opened onto the Neverland of Mary McCrae’s Preserve.

Cal had hoped to employ Enid’s talent to shield his group as they journeyed to the heart of the Source; had hoped it might give them a chance to save Tina and perhaps change the world back to the way it had been.

But they soon learned there was a terrible cost to Enid’s gift. Due to the terms of a demonically transformed contract Primal held the rights to, whenever Enid utilized his music to good purpose, it also twisted and distorted other souls, rendered them into tortured beings of smoke and flame, and sharded the landscape into bizarre crystalline shapes.

So with the assistance of Enid’s former manager-turned-grunter Howard Russo, they had plunged into Primal’s black fortress, had ultimately destroyed that insane dark being (whom they only later learned was once Clayton Devine, security chief of the Source Project). They had brought Primal’s tower crashing down, liberating the countless flares Devine held captive there and removing Enid’s curse in the process…but at the cost of Magritte’s life.

Enid had taken it upon himself to conduct the surviving flares to the Preserve, to safeguard those who were not beyond aid, to honor what Magritte had sacrificed her life for.

But now he was back, his engine fine-tuned and humming.

Enid looked considerably healthier than the last time Colleen had seen him. His skin was darkly vibrant, no longer the sickly gray that marked how his Pied Piper gift had drained him prior to their extricating his contract from Primal. She noted, too, that he’d brought along his guitar and harmonica-the weapons he used, along with that remarkable velvet-gravel voice of his, to shield those near and dear to him from the loving attentions of the Source Consciousness.

Which damn well better include our little scouting party very shortly, or it’s gonna be a mighty short trip….

Howard Russo bulled up to her, and she saw he was outfitted in a screamingly loud yellow checked suit and matching fedora that had been tailored to fit his dwarfish frame. He grinned from beneath mirrored Ray-Bans. “Not bad, huh? I’d say I got my look pretty well nailed.”

“You put Goldman to shame, Howie.” Colleen didn’t add, And if someone ran you down, it wouldn’t be by accident.

“Here’s the rest of the boodle.” Goldie handed Cal a battered leather portfolio, tied with a string. “Better be worth it, my head’s spinning from all the time zones.”

Cal opened the portfolio and studied its contents. It didn’t look like much of anything, as far as Colleen could see. Some scribbled notes in Goldman’s chicken scratch, a handful of dog-eared snapshots.

“What’s all that?” she asked Cal.

“Maybe nothing,” he murmured, sliding the papers back into the portfolio and stashing it inside his jacket.

Rafe Dahlquist looked up from his position by a bank of computer screens, where he was monitoring the power. “We’re optimal. Just give me the high sign when you’re ready.”

Cal nodded. A low hum of electricity, of turbines whirring along with increasing power, vibrated through the room and through all of them, like the steady pulse of a giant.

Cal glanced at his watch, then at the big steel front door. Colleen could detect his impatience, the pregame tension in him, which they all felt one way or another. But she knew that he wouldn’t set things rolling until he had this one last piece in place.

He didn’t have long to wait, as a moment later the door swung open and Doc entered, rolling in a dolly with a big cardboard box strapped to it. He set it upright and released the strap, easing the box to the floor. Crouching, he opened the flaps.

Everyone gathered around, acutely curious, because even though Doc had prepped them on exactly what he was doing, hearing about it was one thing and seeing quite another.

“You will have to excuse the workmanship,” Doc said by way of apology. “My needlework is usually confined to stitching up incisions.”

He withdrew the bulky pieces, and a number of the onlookers gasped. Their surface was blackly iridescent, roughly pebbled and ridged, bespeaking power, even put to this new purpose.

Colleen found the padded shapes oddly familiar, and in a rush it came to her. “Don’t tell me, you raided the athletic department.”

Doc nodded. “I utilized shoulder pads and other protective pieces for the framework. As for the rest…”

He didn’t need to finish; they all knew.

The thick leather garments were from the skin of a dragon-the dragon that Cal had killed, Arcott had brought here at their request, and Doc had autopsied-fashioned now into body armor and visored helmets.

“Sadly enough, there was only sufficient, um”-Doc searched for a delicately appropriate euphemism-“raw material to provide three full ensembles.” He glanced inquiringly at Cal, who drew near the box.

Cal lifted out a helmet, tunic and pants. “Mr. Shango?”

Shango approached and took them, eased his big frame into them.

“Goldie?” Cal said, proffering the next set.

“Thanks, but I’m uncomfortable enough in my own skin.”

Cal nodded acceptance, then glanced inquiringly at Enid Blindman, who sat cross-legged on the floor nearby, tuning up his jumbo maple guitar, limbering up his harmonica.