....and now, back to PENGUIN$

**************************************

Standing helplessly beside the case, Christi whirled on Forrester and
grabbed the collar of his shirt with both hands. "We have to do
something!"

Forrester put his hands on either side of her face to still her. "It's
too late, darlin'," he shouted over the noise. "It's over. We tried."

"Like hell it is, Winston!" Christi yelled, tears of frustration
streaming down her cheeks. "We can't just give up at the first sign
that it's over! That's the cowards way out!"

Forrester started as if she'd just struck him. His face went suddenly
solemn. He turned his head away from her to squint up at the crystal. A
woman's automated voice could barely be heard over the noise.

"All personnel must now move away from the control area," it said. "You
have thirty seconds to reach minimum safe distance."

Winston looked back at Christi. He ran his thumb over her lower lip as
he gently bit his own. "You're right, darlin'," he said and then leaned
forward to place a quick, hard kiss on her mouth. "You're damn right."
Then he turned and began to run in the direction of the stage.

"Winston?" Christi said incredulously.

"Fifteen seconds," the automated voice intoned.

"Winston!" Christi shouted now, her voice barely registering over the
noise. She had no idea what he was about to do. Following him was
almost certain death. She was frozen by fear and indecision. Then her
own words suddenly came back to haunt her.

"The coward's way out," she repeated in a whisper.

Thoughts ran through her mind at the speed of light. One way or the
other she couldn't hide like a scared rabbit and watch the beam do its
horrible work.

Before she knew it she was running in the direction Forrester had taken.

On the stage, Crowley moved to stand between Anita and Valeria. The
clamps over their wrists and ankles were solid steel and there was not
even the slightest hope of removing them without the keys to the heavy
locks that held them in place. He silently placed his hands on their
shoulders.

"If either of you comes out of this with your mind intact and I don't,
I want you to kill me," Anita said grimly.

"Funny," Valeria said. "I was thinking the same thing."

The voice began it's count down.

"Ten, nine, eight..."

Crowley looked down at them both, his face a mask of tragedy. "I
haven't treated womankind as a whole with very much respect in my
lifetime," he said, "but please allow me to say that it's been an honor
and a privilege to have known you both."

"Thank you, Sebastian," Valeria whispered, her eyes glistening.

"Too late. Screw you, Crowley," Anita said, and braced herself.

"...three, two, one."

For Valeria, the next few moments happened in slow motion.

A beam of bright white light shot from the crystal in the direction of
the stage. At that same moment Winston Forrester appeared as if from
out of nowhere and threw himself into the path of the beam. His wiry
body hung suspended above the floor as it absorbed the ray which then
slowly engulfed him in its bright light.

"No!" Pisces yelled. He began shouting orders into the microphone.
"Shut it down! SHUT IT DOWN!!"

In the case, the remaining penguins were shrieking as their power was
being sucked from their bodies and pumped out through the cables
attached to their helmets.

Anita began to scream, her mind connected to her Penguins. She could
feel her own power being dragged out of her and into a raging, hungry
vortex. Tears squeezed out of the corners of her tightly shut eyes.

Then a miracle happened. As quickly as it had started, the beam simply
stopped.

Forrester's body dropped to the floor with a loud thud. He lay there
with smoke rising from his skin and clothes, his eyes staring
sightlessly into space. Christi fell to her knees and skidded the last
few feet to where he lay. Unsure of what to do, her hands hovered above
him hesitantly.

A loud pinging snap echoed across the penthouse, and sparks exploded
like fireworks from some undetermined part of the machine. The high
pitched whine died. A second later, a large puff of gray smoke signaled
it's complete shut down.

In the silence that followed Anita gasped and let her head fall back
onto the headrest of the metal chair, breathing heavily.

Valeria released the breath she'd been holding.

"No! No! No!" Pisces yelled into a cellular phone. "What do you mean I
used too many flawed people in the control area and not enough purple
penguins?! Run the diagnostic and power it up again!" He frowned and
listened. "I agree, there was a risk in powering up that quickly but
the real problem was caused by an external factor that wasn't
anticipated. Just fix the damn problem and power it up again!" He
reconnected the microphone and continued to shout orders. "Don't just
stand there," he yelled at the troops, "kill someone!"

Then he froze.

"Not enough purple penguins?" He muttered to himself and with a quick
glance in Anita's direction he ran towards the case. When he got there
he found it half filled with disgruntled yet very much alive purple
penguins who all began to squawk complaints at once.

Slowly he backed away from the case, staring around him.

Most of the troops had not moved from their orderly rows. Some were
staring at the screen. Others were staring at the young necromancer on
the stage. A few lumbered towards the spot where Christi kneeled. She
had pulled Forrester into her arms and was rocking back and forth
slowly, singing softly, oblivious to the approaching penguins.

The cellular phone inside Pisces' jacket trilled.

"Speak," he said after bringing it to his ear.  After listening for a
short time he asked, "are you certain? Only once more and then it will
be useless?" His face clouded, but he continued to speak. "With the
external factor removed and even with only half the penguin resources,
should we be able to proceed as originally planned?"

He listened a moment longer, then nodded. "Excellent. Proceed when you
are ready. Don't wait for my word." He returned the phone to his jacket
and stood lost in thought. Up on the stage, Anita watched him closely
with her dark necromancer's eyes.

"He's up to something," Anita murmured to Valeria.

Valeria nodded absently, her eyes on Christi and Forrester. Ignoring
the penguin guards around her, Christi put her hand on the big pulse of
Forrester's neck for the second time. Pulling her hand away, she looked
in Valeria's direction and her face crumpled. Her head sunk until she
was cheek to cheek with the dead man in her arms.

"It's really over," Valeria whispered. "We lost."

Anita looked at her with surprise. "It's never over, Orbus," she said,
"or at least not until I'm dead. Then it's over. This is my universe."

The machine had begun to hum again, and the crystal was slowly being
raised. It disappeared through the hole in the ceiling a moment later.

"This doesn't look good. I thought Forrester broke it," Anita said.

"Ladies," Crowley said softly. "I think a radical approach may be
required at this point."

"If you've got an idea, I'm listening, Crowley," Anita replied.

"Have you been watching the penguin troops ever since Pisces made his
speech?"

"They're afraid of Anita," Valeria said. "But it doesn't mean that they
wouldn't shoot her at the drop of a hat."

"You may be wrong there, my dear," Crowley said, his eyes on their
guards. "We have an ace up our sleeves."

"My zombie?" Anita said. "He's standing by, waiting for my signal."

"Indeed." Crowley smiled. "I think all we need is a little
grandstanding on our part. A little showmanship. Do you think you might
be capable of that, Juanita, Penguin Goddess of the Underworld?"

"No prob," Anita smirked. "I learned from the vampire master of
grandstanding."

"Mr. Crowley," Pisces' voice floated from the speakers. "Would you like
to share with the rest of the class what you three are whispering
about?"

Sebastian Crowley cleared his throat. He then projected his voice with
the power of a Shakespearean actor who had never in his life needed a
microphone to be heard by the patrons in the back row of a theatre.
"Dr. Pisces," he said. "The Goddess has asked me to inform you that she
is no longer amused by your antics."

"What fresh hell is this, Crowley?" Pisces replied glaring at Anita. "I
don't see a goddess. All I see is an annoying little girl who likes
playing with dead things."

The annoying little girl in question sat regally in her metal chair,
looking relaxed yet slightly annoyed. She acted unconcerned by her
heavy restraints, as if she was humoring the person who had put them on
her.

Crowley smiled slightly. He couldn't have gotten a better response from
Pisces if he'd had asked him for one. "I wouldn't anger her further,"
he boomed. "In fact I think you should show her the sort of respect
befitting a Goddess of the Underworld." He shouted the last few words.

Realization struck Pisces like a sledge hammer. "Don't be fools!" He
yelled at the troops. "Don't be taken in by this fraud! There is no
such thing as a Penguin Goddess of the Underworld! She's a myth! Does
she look like a Goddess?"

One enterprising young penguin grunt came as close as he dared to Anita
and aimed his camera at her face. Realizing this, Anita stared directly
into the lens. On the big screen appeared the image of a sultry, raven
haired woman with skin as white as fresh snow and smoldering eyes that
were dark with the mysteries of the underworld.

The troops all began to squawk at once.

"Explain why she's not a penguin," Valeria hissed at Crowley.

"The Goddess Juanita can take whatever form she pleases!" Crowley
shouted. "Currently she holds the humans in her favor and has appeared
to them as one of their own. She is saddened and angered by the many
deaths caused by the Penguins. If her anger is not appeased soon, she
will simply destroy all of penguin kind."

Pisces laughed hysterically.  "You see?!" He gestured wildly at the
stage. "They are all mad! Insanity is a flaw that can be remedied by
the machine! If she truly was your damn Goddess, she wouldn't be
flawed, would she?"

The penguin troops turned to him in shock at his sacrilege. His attempt
at logic had done a low fly-by right over their slick little heads.

"Now you've done it!" Crowley shouted with glee. "The Goddess will now
send forth for her dead. Behold!"

"HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!" Pisces thundered. "ANY PENGUIN THAT MOVES WILL
LOSE HIS HEAD BY THE EMPRESS' OWN HAND!"

The troops were the very picture of unrest. They fidgeted with their
weapons and shuffled their webbed feet where they stood. The noise
level in the penthouse had risen steadily since the charade had begun.

"This is it, Anita," Valeria said. "Now or never. Do whatever it is you
need to do to get Horton in here."

"Here goes," Anita said, her face a mask of determination.

On screen, the image of the Goddess shut her eyes and slowly let her
head fall back.

Finding herself still weak, Anita was forced to reach further into
herself than she ever had before. This would not be a wild unleashing
of power, but something gentle yet fear inspiring. Using the skills
that the Tennessee Vargamour had taught her, she regulated her
breathing, stilled her thoughts, found her center and then froze, as a
familiar voice suddenly resounded through her mind.

"Anita." She felt the name brush against her like a gentle breeze.
"Open your minds eye... Anita...."

"What is this?" Anita found herself unable to push herself back to
reality.

"Open your eye, your minds eye...," the ghostly voice became louder and
more insistent. "Feel your power. Open... open... open ..."

The sound rang painfully in her ears but at that moment, complying with
the gentle yet demanding voice was the most important thing in the
world to Anita.

Without breaking the trance she'd placed herself in to summon and
control her power, she let herself fall deeper into the abyss and then
forced her eyes open, her breath catching in her throat at what she saw.

Instead of the ravaged penthouse, she found herself standing on the
edge of a vast churning sea of darkness. Confused, she stared around
her. This had never happened before. Despite the crackling, oppositely
charged particles of life and death that saturated the space around
her, she felt an underlying sense of peace. In the starlit sky above
the sea, she could see bright constellations and somehow knew that one
of them represented the marks that had been placed on her by
Jean-Claude. Another represented the place where the Munin huddled in
fear of the penguins. The others represented the infinite possibilities
of her own power.

"Call them, Niña," the voice said gently. "Call your dead."

Inside her mind, Anita instinctively reached her hands out to the stars
and shouted. "Come to me!"

"Anita!" The sound of Valeria's anxious voice shot through her like
lightening. "Jesus, you're not breathing. Anita!"

Anita's eyes snapped open. She turned her head smoothly in Valeria's
direction, a look of dreamy wonder on her face. "They're heeeerrrree,"
she said.

"They?" Valeria asked.

A gentle breeze suddenly stirred in the penthouse carrying with it the
distant scent of flowers and decayed flesh.

Crowley sniffed the breeze. "Lotus," he murmured softly. "The ancients
called it the scent of the departed soul."

"Sebastian, what's going on?" Valeria turned to him, unsettled by his
words.

Crowley winked at her.

"No! No!" Pisces ran to the nearest Emperor Penguin and slapped it
across its beak. It stood frozen, its eyes locked onto the sight that
every other penguin in the room was watching.

Standing not far from the big screen was a large group of dead things,
both human and penguin. They had positioned themselves around Gerrard
Horton, who still carried the bomb, his finger on the red button.

They were a hideous sight, their bodies bloated with gasses and their
skin the color of ripe eggplant. Most had gaping exits wounds in their
heads and bodies, and were covered in dried blood, brains and other
unidentifiable body fluids. They began to shuffle across the floor of
the penthouse towards the spot where Pisces stood.

Pisces grabbed the gun from the penguin he had just assaulted and began
firing wildly as the dead approached.

"Pisces no!" Crowley shouted.

"If he hits Horton we're all screwed," Anita said. "We have to get out
of these chairs."

One of the ex-human slaves turned and leaned on the edge of the stage.
The penguin guards made no move to stop her. "Tell the guards to unlock
you now or you'll be angry," she yelled at Anita. "What are you waiting
for? Christmas? Order them to! I have a husband and kids who are
probably worried sick about me! I want to get out of here NOW!"

Assent rippled through the others.

"It's worth a shot," Valeria said.

"Okay," Anita said and took a deep breath. "Guards!" She yelled.
"Unlock our bonds now or SUFFER MY ETERNAL WRATH!"

Crowley was forced to throw himself out of the way of the guards who
rushed the stage to unlock the bonds.

"Now GO! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!" Anita yelled.

Pisces had not managed to make a dent in the fortress of decaying flesh
that surrounded Horton. Bullets sunk into bodies, sending them flying
to the ground, but they rose again and again to rejoin the group.

Suddenly finding himself out of ammunition, Pisces threw the gun away
from him and held his ground defiantly.

"Stop!" Anita yelled at the dead when they were only feet from where
Pisces stood. She hopped off the stage with Valeria and Crowley behind
her and didn't speak again until she was standing directly in front of
Pisces. The penguin guards were long gone.

"I have no idea what you hope to achieve with this, Anita," Pisces
said, looking down at her from his height. "But whatever it is, you're
too late. The machine has been repaired while you've been playing your
little games. Any moment now it will begin to recharge. It has been
re-targeted for the originally intended control area. The city. I
turned back the clock. Nothing can stop it."

"I don't think so, Pisces," Anita said. "This ends here." She waved a
hand and the zombies parted to reveal Horton and the bomb. "My zombie
is carrying a powerful explosive. His finger is the on the detonator
button. When he releases his finger, everything goes boom. You dig?"

"You're bluffing," Pisces sneered, leaning as close as he dared to
inspect the device.

"Try me," Anita replied with deadly seriousness.

Behind them the troops had started to squawk. Several of them had
thrown down their weapons, broken rank and had begun to waddle with
surprising swiftness towards the nearest exit.

"Cowards!" Pisces roared.

He was totally ignored. The sound of the stampeding penguins became
deafening. More and more rushed towards every exit until massive jams
began to form around them. Many of the smaller penguins were trampled
underfoot.  In a very short time the penthouse emptied out.

"How do they get down the stairs with those little legs?" Valeria
wanted to know.

"They hop," said one of the ex-human slaves. "It's gonna take them a
while to get down all one hundred and twenty five flights to the
street."

"Speaking of," Anita said, turning to them. "I think it's time all of
you got out of here. Take my penguins with you. I don't think the bad
guy here is in any position to do anything about it. You got a problem
with that, Pisces?"

"This changes nothing," Pisces said. "By the time you reach the ground
floor the city will be mine. Even if you take your stupid purple
penguins with you, the machine has stored enough of their power to work
without them."

"Thought so," Anita replied and smiled at the woman who had spoken to
her earlier. "Take my penguins and get lost."

There was some hesitation among the humans. Their release seemed almost
anti-climactic, but they got used to it quickly. Working fast, they
rushed to the case and roughly tore the straps from the frightened
birds. When all were out of the case, the humans herded them towards
the nearest exit.

A large shot of steam burst from the machine just as the door shushed
shut behind the last person. The humming sound increased until it
became the beginnings of the familiar high pitched whine.

The crystal was beginning to charge.

"Go now," Horton said to Anita. "You're running out of time."

"It doesn't have to happen this way," Anita said. "Shut the damn thing
off Pisces."

Pisces reached into his pocket and withdrew a small remote control.

"I suppose you might be wondering what this is," he said, smiling. He
aimed the remote in the direction of the machine.

"Go!" Horton yelled.

"No!" Valeria shouted. "Anita! Look! He's got a remote. The idea isn't
to destroy a building this size in the middle of a busy city so that a
zombie can die the way he wants to! I wanted the penguins out of my
city, but I also wanted the city and its citizens to stay in one piece
as well!" She looked at Pisces, her eyes pleading. "Dr. Pisces, the
bomb is real, and the zombie will release the detonator button if you
don't shut down the machine. I know you're proud of what you've
accomplished, but you don't have to die for it. Shut it down and we can
all walk away."

"Ms. Orbus," Pisces said with a slight smile. "Do you really think that
I'm the kind of villain who's stupid enough to go down with his
diabolical device? I was planning to build thousands of these; One for
every major city on the earth. Your little firecracker won't set the
plans for Penguin Domination back by more than a few minutes on the
grand scale of things. I am indeed proud of this device, because it was
the first, but I can always build others."

"Not from prison you won't," Anita sneered.

"Exactly," Pisces said. "And so, even if I could shut the machine down,
I wouldn't. I'll leave the detonation of the bomb up to you. But I'll
give you a little word of advice."

"And what, pray tell, is that?" Crowley asked, his voice cold and hard.

"Get the hell out of here while you can," Pisces said with a roguish
grin. "This thing's about to go off." With that said he took two steps
in the direction of the machine and disappeared leaving a series of
rippling blue distortions in the air as the only evidence of his
passing.

"My God!" Valeria said incredulously. "He just killed himself! He just
jumped into the same force field that killed Norman!"

"No way," Anita said. "NO way! I'm not gonna let you off that easy
Pisces!" She pushed herself off the ground and dove into the air at the
point that Pisces had disappeared from. In the blink of an eye she was
gone.

"Anita!" Valeria shrieked and began to follow, but Crowley's hand
clamped down on her shoulder like an iron vice.

"No," he said simply and pointed to the floor.

Valeria looked down and saw the remote that Pisces had been holding. It
was slowly self destructing. An arc of blue lightening snapped in the
air where the force field had been. Then it disappeared.

Crowley reached into his pocket, fished out a quarter and threw it in
the direction of the force field. Flashing silver, it landed on a spot
on the floor that should have been the other side of the force field.

"Gone," Crowley said.

"They're both dead?" Valeria felt bitter bile crawl up her throat.

"I'm not so sure of that, my dear," Crowley said. "Regardless we should
go now."

"Good plan," the zombie said sarcastically.

Crowley studied the zombie who hadn't changed at all since the
necromancer had disappeared.

"No," he repeated. "I have a feeling that Anita Blake isn't dead at
all."

"You'll have to help me with Winston," Christi said. "I'm not leaving
his body here." She looked numb with shock.

The high pitched whine of the machine had reached painful levels now.
The other zombies gathered around Horton.

"See you in the great hereafter, Horton. But don't wait up," Crowley
said. He grabbed one of Forrester's arms and slung it over his
shoulder. Together he and Christi began to drag the body towards the
exit.

Valeria started to run, but stopped to turn and look back at Horton.

"SHOO!" Horton yelled.

She sighed and nodded, then turned and broke into a full out run
towards the exit.

"The living can be so annoying," Horton said to the other zombies. They
replied by muttering their agreement and then were silent for a moment.

"So what do we do now?" One of them finally asked. "Do we say a prayer
or something?"

The automated voice echoed across the now empty penthouse. "All
personnel must move away from the control area. You have twenty seconds
to reach minimum safe distance."

"A prayer?" Horton chuckled. "I was thinking of something a little more
appropriate."

The count down began again: "Ten, nine, eight..."

Horton continued. "In the immortal words of Dilbert: There are very few
personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application
of high explosives."

"Amen," said one of the zombies. The others shrugged and nodded in
Horton's direction.

"Four, three, two..."

Horton smiled and then took his finger off the button.

***********************

...Continued in  Issue 17  of PENGUIN$

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