"Remember, excess alcohol consumption causes cirrhosis of the liver," Astro-Man reminded him. "It can be very detrimental to your long-term health."
    A short side trip was made to the hotel to pick up the PAA team's weaponry, including Adam's custom-built gun, using Argus's truck; she retained her bike.
    "Shotgun?" Kane offered Astro-Man as they finished loading.
    "No, thank you," was his somewhat nonplussed reply; then he reconsidered. "Yes, actually that would be a good idea." He accepted the weapon awkwardly and confessed, "Only fired one of these maybe three time in my entire life, and two of those were at a county fair."
    They gave him a crash course on the way, highly aware of time's accelerated pace. The sun was rising when they passed the mill; the wood was gone by then, of course, on its way to the place of sacrifice. The mill itself was empty, machines still running.
    "I've got to find where they're getting that stuff from, and kill everybody who knows how to get there," Kane mused. "Have the Army Corps of Engineers cart the top of the mountain away, or something...." Ambajejus was also deserted, although for a different reason. "Somebody remind me on the way back down, when we're not under accelerated time, to light this town on fire." They could always say the residents were alien collaborators.
    "Okay," a chorus replied.
    Astro-Man made brief scouting runs in his high-speed aspect as they traveled up logging roads toward the lights. Once underneath them, the world felt... different. They also ran out of road, and there was snow on the ground. Argus exchanged her motorcycle for the snowmobile in the truck, and they pressed on.
    On his next trip ahead, Astro-Man was surprised to see appear directly in front of him... a gorilla! Or the ugliest man he had ever seen. It sprang immediately, missed him, and disappeared into the snow once more; he ran back to the others and reported, "We have a problem." Listening carefully, he heard heavy breathing--more than that of his companions. "We're being surrounded by some large, gorilla-like creatures--not gorillas," he was quick to add, "but I think they're dangerous."
    "Oh. Those possibly extra-terrestrial yeti." Kane as usual was unflappable.
    "Let's go forward, but be in full defensive mode." He erected his forcefield around the group, keenly aware of the risk he was running in this zone of accelerated time. He did not want to end up with a Venusian's chitinous exoskeleton. The sun was setting again already.
    The only warning of the attack was a sort of shuffling noise, and then four loud thuds, which were four yeti bouncing off Astro-Man's forcefield. The fifth one made it through.
    "Well, this is disturbingly unprecedented," he remarked in a higher than normal voice as the yeti vanished right in their midst.
    Kane sniffed the air, pin-pointed the creature; it was leaping for Astro-Man. He jumped it first. The vampiric fighting style doesn't admit to a lot of fancy maneuvering; he landed on the now-visible yeti and ripped into its throat; it struggled for a couple of seconds but was unconscious in moments. The other four, still circling futilely, exchanged grunts of consternation. This was not in his dossier, thought Argus, startled.
    "I'll try to keep the forcefield up as long as I can," Astro-Man told them. He could already feel a certain tell-tale itchiness. The worst bit was the emergent mandibles. A few minutes later he switched to his Saturn form, footsteps suddenly sinking much more deeply. "Force-field's gone."
    "All-righty, then." Argus had already ungrappled a telescoping pole from her bike, which she could use as a probe if need be should more invisible opponents arrive, and now she drove the silent snowmobile with one hand, the other on her gun.
    There was a scrabbling sound in the underbrush. Didn't sound like wolves, or like yeti. Kane probed outward; no sort of natural animal. Soon they were in sight, small but numerous, jet-black, with huge front claws and nightmarish heads, and there were many dozens of them flooding toward the four heroes. He couldn't control them. The creatures swarmed over Adam, ripping his suit to shreds, while others broke their teeth on Astro-Man's superdense form, or on Argus's armor. Their numbers were the main problem; individually their teeth and claws while sharp were unlikely to be deadly.
    A booming voice spoke from the sky. "Of course you can't control them. They are daemons summoned from the pits, and they will crush you all!"
    "I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation for all of this," Astro-Man muttered, half-hidden under a wave of daemons.
    Kane killed a couple of them, a sort of light snack after the yeti. Argus opened fire with the Tommy gun; the critters ducked around, evading her aim.
    The voice chuckled. "Artifacts of technology against creatures from the past? You fools!"
    "I'm sorry, but shut the fuck up," the vampire suggested, relatively mildly.
    "Your threats mean nothing. With the sorcerous strength of a thousand souls from that town, we have the power to crush you all!"
    Astro-Man swung his arms together, pulping a few of those clinging to him.
    There was one on Adam's head; he grabbed it and threw it into a clump of other creatures, splattering several. Another one gnawed determinedly at the back of his leg, inflicting a few scratches. Argus holstered the gun and whirled her staff in a wicked arc with far better result. The four continued to lay about them until the swarm finally got the idea and retreated, leaving them to tend their scratches and continue the journey, toward an enemy who knew they were coming.
    The booming voice had stopped by then, oddly enough. Astro-Man switched forms again, catching a ride on the back of the snowmobile and listening to the general vicinity for more threats, then extending his clairaudient awareness to the mountain's top. He heard a crackling noise, akin to a large electrical generator, the sound of many people, and of course chanting, as well as a fragment of conversation.
    "They're getting closer."
    "The daemons should have dealt with them."
    "The daemons didn't deal with them!"
    "Those were two hundred summoned daemons!"
    "You didn't summon large ones, did you?"
    "Well, I didn't think--"
    "It's obvious you didn't think."
    In this form, Astro-Man could also cast voices. He did so. "They're coming up the north side of the mountain!"
    "What! My brethren will deal with this now!"
    A stampede of wolves headed down the north face, while the four heroes continued the laborious approach from the south.
    "Those fools," he heard next. "Don't worry, my familiar will find out where they actually are." The sound of flapping wings reached him.
    "We're going to be tracked soon," he informed the others.
    "Bye?" Kane inquired.
    "A familiar of some kind." A black cloud raced down the mountain towards them. "That."
    "Look at all the damn ravens...." Fortunately, they weren't attacking, merely scouting and circling over their position. Being magic ravens, he couldn't control them.
    "What--summon them back!" Astro-Man heard from the cult site. "They're coming up the south side, not the north side. Find whoever issued that warning and shoot them!"
    Astro-Man tried a sonic shout, which scaled up into sounds that only Adam could hear and briefly scattered the birds, but had no other effect. "Also, we're probably going to be attacked by werewolves. Very shortly."
    That was not news to anyone.
    "That's what we forgot, we need a silver-plated ram prow for this thing," Kane remarked glancing at Argus' snowmobile.
    "You mean this?" Click. The front of the vehicle reconfigured itself. "Onward and upward!"
    Astro-Man's distraction had bought them some time; they could make out a giant circle of light now, with specks in it--the townspeople, floating limply in the grip of the spell. They were still about a quarter of a mile away, which was mostly up. Then the werewolves attacked.
    There were only four, and none of them were as large as the master wolf they had fought last time; Adam motioned for the others to go on; there was too much at stake for any delay. Astro-Man could fly, and Kane leaped onto the back of the snowmobile for the final sprint to Katahdin's peak. Adam let loose with a burst from his massive Tommy gun that tore apart a couple of trees; the wolves sensed the presence of silver and stood back a bit, giving the others an opening.
    
    

| Top |