Hammer of the Gods Read online

  “HAMMER OF THE GODS”

  A Basil and Moebius Story

  by

  Timothy Zahn

  Based on characters and situations

  Created by Ryan Schifrin

  It was late Saturday night—early Sunday morning, if you wanted to get all Oxford and Cambridge snooty about it—and up to now things had been going great. Basil Fox, late of Her Majesty’s bloody prestigious SAS, more recently of Her Majesty’s bloody aggravating Coldstream Guard Buckingham detail, most recently on a three-day pass from the Guard and glad of it, had arrived at nine o’clock at Ye Olde Cock N’ Bull Tavern. In the four hours since then, he’d wrapped himself around five pints of bitters and a meat pie, and won three games of darts, including one against a git from Chelsea whose mouth was as big as a Coldstream bearskin. Now, as the clock over the bar hit one o’clock he was settled cozily back into his corner table with the smashing bird who the dart-playing git had been hitting on and who was very grateful to Basil for his gallant rescue.

  Her gratitude was starting to edge into promises of a cracking nightcap to the evening when the familiar burning pain suddenly flared from his left shoulder.

  The Collector was calling.

  Basil spent the next two minutes explaining to the bird that he had to go. He spent the five minutes after that assuring her that, no, it was nothing she’d said or done, that he’d love to pick up later where they’d left off, but that he really, really had to go.

  It was raining when he finally stomped out into the street, the kind of cold October rain that feels like Nature’s mocking reminder that summer is over and that a bloke should start bracing for the even colder weather on the way. Basil turned his collar up, glowering as a few of the cold drops bounced off the collar onto his cheeks, wondering acidly if the Collector was doing this deliberately to mock him after snatching him away from the warm pub and warmer bird. He had no idea if the Collector could affect the weather, but he wouldn’t put it past the squid-tentacled alien pillock.

  More to the immediate point was how in bloody hell he was going to get to the Collector’s mansion. The busses were few and far between at this hour, and he didn’t fancy a ten-mile hike in the rain. But he fancied even less the prospect of spending the kind of lolly a cab would charge.

  The only other option would be to nip back into the pub and call his partner Alaric Moebius for a ride. Often the two of them were together, either on a job or a pub crawl, when these summonses came. But tonight Moebius had had something else on, and God only knew where he was.

  Except it now looked like God had decided to share that information. From half a block away came the soft but familiar rumble of a D-type Jaguar engine being revved.

  Basil didn’t need to find Moebius. Moebius had found him.

  “About time,” Moebius said cheerfully as Basil climbed into the Jag beside him. “I hope the delay was you having a last-minute snog.”

  Basil frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Maggie,” Moebius said as he pulled away from the curb. “The damsel in distress. You two seemed to be hitting it off nicely.”

  “What the hell?” Basil growled. “You were in there?”

  “Easy, old chap,” Moebius soothed. “I wasn’t spying on you or anything. A bit of recon, that’s all, and we happened to end up in the same place. Though I never would have figured on her falling for a bloke like you.”

  “Why not?” Basil demanded. “What’s wrong with a bloke like me?”

  “Nothing at all, and I’m sure you’re wonderful to your mother,” Moebius said hastily. “You’re just a bit out of her class, that’s all. It just so happens Maggie is secretary to a pleasant Kensington dowager, whose nephew made his fortune in real estate, commodities, and stolen artwork. I thought it might be fitting for us to find a way to relieve him of some of the burden of those latter assets.”

  “And you thought Maggie would be the way to get in?” Basil asked, feeling slightly mollified. He still wasn’t crazy about the fact that Moebius had been mooching around like that behind his back, but at least he was on the job and not simply trying to move in and nick one of Basil’s birds. He did that sort of thing way too often.

  “I’m not sure I’d have put it quite that way,” Moebius said with an airy slyness. “But you’ve got the gist.”

  “Right—wouldn’t want to miss out on any gists,” Basil muttered. The Jag’s vents were warming up, and the heat was starting to drive away the chill he’s picked up on his slog from the pub to the car. “Any idea what’s twisting his knickers this time?”

  “The Collector?” Moebius shrugged. “No idea. But wouldn’t it be great if it had something to do with Maggie and the stolen artwork?”

  “Maybe.” Basil peered out at the rain flowing across the windscreen. “I’d rather the job be someplace else. Someplace where it’s not raining.”

  “There’s that,” Moebius said. “We’re agreed, then. Somewhere it’s not raining. I’ll tell the Collector you insist.”

  “Yeah,” Basil said. “Thanks.”

  *

  “Ah,” the Collector said as they were ushered into his private office. “There you are.”

  From the tone of his voice, Moebius thought sourly, he might as well have added finally to his greeting. But he didn’t. The Collector was always polite to them, though with a razor-thin courtesy that wrapped around a much thicker mass of dark and lurking evil. Much the same way his human appearance was wrapped around the tentacled nightmare that was his true form.

  Some days, the Collector began these sessions with a bit of small talk, as if he actually cared about his slaves’ lives and activities. Today wasn’t one of them. “What do you know about Professor Robert Crenshaw?” he asked as they were still making their way across the expanse of carpet to his desk.

  Moebius made a quick search of his memory. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard the name.”

  “I’m not surprised.” the Collector said. His eyes flicked to Basil. “But I wasn’t asking you.”

  Moebius looked sideways at Basil. His partner’s face had gone stiff, the same expression he adopted during his stints on-duty outside Buckingham Palace. “Never met the man,” Basil said, his voice carefully neutral.

  “But you knew his nephew Albert.”

  “Yes.” The word came out surprisingly sharp-edged, more like a challenge than a statement. “Far as I know, I still do. Unless you know something I don’t.”

  “I know many things you don’t,” the Collector said evenly. “Professor Crenshaw is a scholar who for the past few years has been searching for an artifact known as The Hammer of the Gods. I have reason to believe he’s now located its hiding place.”

  There was a faint flicker of light through the curtains that covered the window behind the Collector’s desk, a flash that was followed almost immediately by an equally muted rumble. Apparently, the rain had found some lightning and thunder to keep it company. “I take it we’re to relieve the professor of this information?” Moebius asked.

  “I’m sure that would make it easier for you to find the Hammer,” the Collector said, his politeness overlaid with a thick slathering of sarcasm. “And since that is your actual mission, I’d recommend you start there.”

  “What a cracking idea,” Moebius said with a little sarcasm of his own. “There might be a slight problem, though. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but Basil has to be back on duty in three days.”

  “Then you’d best not waste time, had you?” the Collector countered. He pushed a piece of paper across the desk toward them. “Here’s a photo of the Professor and his address. Good hunting, gentlemen.”

  Basil didn’t say a word as they left the office and mansion. He didn’t say any
thing as they got into the car and drove off into the rain.

  Halfway to the address the Collector had given them, Moebius decided that enough was enough. “So who exactly is this Albert friend of yours?” he asked.

  “He’s a bloke I knew in the SAS a few years back,” Basil said. His tone said that if Moebius had any sense he would drop the subject.

  That kind of sense had never been Moebius’s strong suit. “Yes, that was the obvious assumption,” he agreed. “The other option being that he used to beat you up in second grade. So was he a friend? Enemy?”

  “He’s a bloke I knew in the SAS a few years back.”

  Moebius pursed his lips. There was a time for flippancy and a time to be serious, and like basic common sense, that was a line he’d never learned. Nor had he ever felt a strong urge to do so.

  But he’d worked on enough jobs with Basil that he knew about the line between Bad Idea and Really Bad Idea. Somewhere between them in the Jag, he could see that that line had been drawn.

  And really, he could hear Albert Crenshaw’s story anytime.

  The thunder and lightning had gone into full New Year’s Eve display by the time they arrived at Professor Crenshaw’s house. Despite the late hour, the place was nicely lit up, with only the upstairs curtains showing no sign of any glow behind them. “Let’s see if there’s a back door,” Moebius said as he brought the Jag to a stop at the curb.

  “Better idea,” Basil growled. “Let’s try the front first and just ask. You think we can do that?”

  “You mean just ring the bell and ask nicely for the Hammer’s location?”

  “Why not?” Basil countered. “We can always go to the fancy stuff later if we have to.”

  Moebius huffed out a breath. Usually Basil was the first to dust off the knucks and wade right into any barney that had the bad luck to wander in front of them. Whoever this Albert was, he was already having an effect on his partner. “Fine,” Moebius said, getting out of the car. “We can always use a chance to practice our diplomacy.”

  They were halfway up the short flight of steps when a particularly bright flash of lightning revealed that the wood around the front door’s deadbolt had been splintered, and that the door itself was a couple of inches ajar.

  They reached the top of the stairs with weapons in hand: Moebius with his Sig 210, Basil with his kukhri knife. Basil took point, easing an eye to the cracked door and then easing it gently open. A quick look through the opening, and he had slipped through into the foyer beyond.

  Moebius was right behind him.

  The foyer opened into a living room with a pair of doors opening off each side and a stairway leading upward at the far end. One of the doors to their left was halfway open, with a soft light spilling out. Keeping his eyes moving, Basil glided across the carpet and eased his head around the jamb.

  He didn’t speak, or suddenly turn around, or do that sudden stiffening thing people always did in cinema thrillers. But there was a subtle change in his stance that warned Moebius that there was something bad waiting on the other side of the door. A final quick look behind them, and Basil was gone. Moebius gave the doors and stairs a last look of his own and joined him.

  Professor Crenshaw was stretched out on an overstuffed sofa in front of a flickering fireplace. His eyes were closed and his arms were folded more or less neatly across his stomach. He looked quite peaceful.

  He was also quite dead.

  Basil had paused a couple of steps inside the room, giving the place a quick check before heading over to the body. Moebius followed more slowly, his non-SAS-trained eyes taking a bit longer to ensure that there were no threats lurking in the dancing shadows.

  Basil was kneeling beside the couch when Moebius joined him. “How’s it look?” he murmured.

  “Single shot straight up the pie hole,” Basil murmured back. Even his whisper sounded grim. “Large caliber. No sign of a struggle.”

  “Not even any defensive wounds,” Moebius said, glancing at the limp, unmarked hands. “Is the carpet wet there?”

  Basil nodded, getting back to his feet. “Whoever broke the front door was here.”

  “Obviously didn’t bother to wipe his feet or leave his brolly outside, either,” Moebius said, shaking his head. “What’s the world coming to?”

  “Nothing good, that’s for bloody sure,” Basil said. “What now?”

  Moebius looked around, opened his mouth, paused as yet another peal of thunder rolled across Greater London. “There’s no desk or filing cabinet in evidence,” he said as the sky quieted down again. “Unless he’s got a hidden wall safe, whatever he’s got on the Hammer must be in another room.”

  “Yeah.” Basil gazed down at Crenshaw another moment, then turned toward the door. “Let’s go find it.”

  The thunder rumbled twice more as they left the living room and crossed the hallway. The door directly opposite was slightly ajar; crossing silently to it, Basil once again eased an eye around the jamb and looked in.

  This time, there was a noticeable stiffening of his shoulders. Still peering around the jamb, he furtively beckoned Moebius over. Glancing back and forth between the front door and the stairs at the far end, Moebius crossed the hall.

  The room behind the door was amazingly cluttered, looking like a combination study and trophy room. In the center was a scarred, time-worn desk made of dark wood, covered with stacks of papers, some curious art objects, and—looking oddly out of place—a laptop computer. The back wall was covered in floor-to-ceiling shelving crammed with books, binders, and more art objects. The side walls were mostly hidden by paintings and larger items, including a magnificent pair of heavy-looking metal Medieval shields hanging at eye level on opposite sides and a complete set of fifteenth-century Italian plate armor behind the desk. In some ways, Moebius decided, it was like a smaller and decidedly less expensive version of the Collector’s own artifact-strewn office.

  There were two men in the room, as dead in their own way as Crenshaw was on the couch across the hall. Except that these two were standing at the desk, busily going through the Professor’s papers.

  The Ghoul Brothers.

  Moebius wrinkled his nose in disgust. He should have guessed they’d show up sooner or later. Ever since the Collector had cursed his erstwhile operatives into their current undead forms, they’d been trying to get back into his good graces. However it was they’d tumbled to Crenshaw’s discovery, they’d clearly decided they would get to the Hammer first.

  They should live so long. Or, rather, not.

  The question was, had they found what all of them were all looking for?

  It certainly looked like it. One of the Brothers was still sorting through papers, but the other had stopped at the front corner of the desk and was leafing slowly through a leather-bound journal.

  His face, or what was left of it, was impossible to read through the rotting bandages wrapped haphazardly around it. But he was definitely interested in whatever it was he’d found to read.

  Enough reason all in itself, Moebius decided, to take it away from him.

  He looked at Basil. The other lifted his knife slightly, a lopsided grin of anticipation on his face. Journal, Moebius mouthed silently, pointing in the journal’s direction.

  Basil nodded. Resettling his grip on his Sig, running a quick visualization of the scene and plan through his mind, Moebius eased the door open.

  Whatever the Ghoul Brothers had become, back in the day they’d been very good at their jobs. The one holding the journal spotted the breach before the door was even halfway open, his eyes turning to the intruders, his right hand letting go of the journal and darting beneath his coat. Still gripping the journal with his left hand, he swung it around to put it between him and the gun pointed his direction.

  Moebius smiled to himself. On the other hand, sometimes those finely-honed fighting reflexes could trip you up in unexpected ways. The Ghoul Brothers, undead as they were, had no need to worry about guns; but the impulse to hold some
thing valuable as a guard against a potential assailant still lingered. If he was warning Moebius not to open fire lest the shot damage the journal, it pretty much confirmed that said journal was something Moebius very much wanted to get hold of.

  Shifting his aim slightly, Moebius fired.

  Not at the ghoul hiding behind the journal, but just behind him at the plate armor behind the desk. The round ricocheted off the chest plate and blew neatly through the back of the ghoul’s head, spitting pieces of undead brain in front of it and knocking his hat askew.

  The ghoul staggered with the impact, but was otherwise unaffected. No surprise there—he was already dead, after all. But once again, as Moebius had anticipated, ingrained reflexes betrayed him. The ghoul’s right hand came out of his coat gripping a knife; but instead of throwing the weapon at his attacker, he lifted his hand quickly to grab his hat and keep it from flying away.

  And with his hand and weapon temporarily out of position, Basil charged forward, grabbed the journal with his left hand, and slashed his own knife across the ghoul’s wrist. The razor-honed kukhri sliced clean through the bone and sinew and whatever else was in there, and Basil had the journal.

  But if the first ghoul had been taken by surprise, the other was rapidly coming up to speed. With his search of Crenshaw’s papers abruptly abandoned, he was clawing beneath his long coat for the Thompson submachinegun that was the Ghoul Brothers’ weapon of choice. Even in a room this small, there was no way Basil could stop from his forward run, turn around, and get back through the door before the ghoul could get the weapon clear and start shooting.

  Fortunately for Basil, he knew better than to try to outrun high-speed .45 caliber rounds. Instead of trying to reverse course, he stiff-armed the first ghoul with his knife hand, using the force of the impact to bounce off him and angle toward the side window. Putting on an extra burst of speed, he charged past the second ghoul, waving the kukhri at his face as a distraction, then gave a leap with a mid-air half turn.

  And with a crash of shattered glass and sash bars that rivaled the noise of the thunder outside, he flew backwards through the window and disappeared out into the night.