"Your agent?!" Grimm exclaimed in confusion. "What do you--?"
"Just trust me, mate," Grissom replied. "Have I ever let you down before?"
*************
Footprints in the snow.
Were it not for the blizzard of snow and biting cold winds covering up the footprints in the snow almost as quickly as they were made, one would have cause to wonder what made them, for there was no one to be seen anywhere around.
The footprints were moving in a certain direction, however, towards the fortress of ice built into the Antarctic mountain. And as they approached near the mountain, they just as suddenly ceased.
A sentry-bot which had been scanning the infrared channels as it guarded the entrances blasted a powerful laser in the place where the footsteps had been made, yet it was momentarily confused as the heat-signature it had registered just as suddenly vanished. Whatever it was had been invisible to the visible spectrum of light, but had radiated heat like a living creature. Yet it seemed to cease existing a moment later. The sentry-bot filed the occurrence away into its inactive memory as a possible glitch or ghost-image and continued scanning for anyone approaching the area.
The cause of the footprints had shifted out of reality and into a realm existing alongside it yet invisible to all but those specially attuned to the spirit realm. From his perspective the solid walls of thick ice and rock beneath that now looked as insubstantial as a wispy cloud, as did the sentry-bots crawling around everywhere, but some very powerful sources of light could be seen from further within. One glowed a fiery red and as a result of his brightness obscured the less-visible lights around him. Looking back from where he had come, several very-dim lights could be seen, a couple of them brighter than others. While in this form, he could literally see people's souls.
It was dangerous, however. Since he could be seen by the sentry-bots while merely invisible due to his heat signature, he had shifted into his insubstantial phantom form thanks to the eldil-stone embedded in his skin. Yet he was now visible to anyone who could see spirits with eyes of the soul. The Prince of Hell was one such being, and he had no desire to attract attention from a hellspawn such as he, the most malevolent of the bright ones. The only thing he could do at this point was move beyond the outer perimeter where the sentry-bots stood guard and hope that he would not be seen by the enemy while he searched for an inner chamber unguarded by robots. Montag had assured him that there was such a place in which only a few humans had been placed.
The sentry-bots were behind him now, as he moved towards a locked chamber. He had no need to use his feet, but movement in this phantom form was difficult as it required an intense concentration of will. Should he stay in this form for too long, he would lose his sense of self and drift in the gentle phantom wind like a lost soul. He moved himself with great difficulty towards the huge chamber door and passed through it effortlessly into an inner chamber.
Within, a small number of scientists could be seen moving about with a determination not their own. The phantom shifted into physical invisibility and landed soundlessly on the floor, able now to make a full investigation. He moved to a subsection of the chamber in which none of the scientists could hear him, and he tapped a wrist-communicator as invisible as he was.
"Montag. I'm inside as agreed," said a nasally-sounding voice in an English accent.
"Fantastic!" came the voice from the wrist-communicator in a similar accent. "Will there be any trouble installing the cameras as planned?"
"None whatsoever. There's nothing but civilians here, and they're all a bunch of bloody zombies."
"And the second part of your mission?"
"I haven't forgotten, you old bastard. This is payback for that incident in Mecca, innit?"
"How would you have liked being left stranded in the middle of 2000 angry Muslims in a temple utterly forbidden to westerners after having been involved with the theft of a priceless holy relic? You're damned right this is payback, old chap!"
"Heh-hehheh... Well, you can be sure I'll complete the contractual mission. I am a professional, after all, eh, mate?"
"Never doubted it for a moment. Have to go now, though. Got a lass on the other line."
"As always, thinking with your 'mutton dagger' again? A-heh. I'll be off now, too -- places to go, people to kill -- you know, the usual. Griffin out."
The invisible man began wandering around the inner chamber he found himself in and set up several tiny cameras which would rely information back to La Perdita. They were invisible while in his cloaking field, but even though they became necessarily visible away from him, they would not be seen by human eyes.
This was the easy bit, though. It would be more difficult to find the chamber in which Naecken intended to open up very gates of Hell like the maws of a wolf. Griffin wondered if he was in over his head...
