* * *
“I don’t know what Aksel was goin’ on about. I can read the first part, it’s about being in the war, but this…” Aino gestured at the section about the amulet. “This is mostly gibberish. The words seem made up. Maybe it’s a secret army code or something, eh?”
A gunshot rang out. Heather looked up from her grandfather’s journal. The noise had come from inside the Alpha’s house.
“You hear something?” Aino asked.
“Clear as day,” she answered. It was hard to believe that he hadn’t heard that, but Heather had to remind herself: she wasn’t normal anymore. “I’ll be back.”
Heather took her shotgun, got out of the truck, and slammed the door too hard behind her. The biting wind felt refreshing after the artificial warmth of the laboring heater. Quickly, she went up the icy steps three at a time, not even realizing that she did so. The others had to lumber along, lifting each leg high to clear enough snow to walk. Heather forced herself to slow down so as to not look suspicious.
She found Harbinger standing in the living room, the giant skeleton looming behind him. Nikolai Petrov was still on the couch, only slouched forward, and for just a moment she thought that nothing had changed since she’d left. But the smell of exposed brains and blood told her a different story.
How do I even know what brains smell like? Go figure. “What’re you doing?”
Harbinger walked over to the body and picked up one of his big snub-nosed revolvers from where it had fallen on the couch. “Looking for something to write with. I told you to wait outside.”
Blood was leaking out the side of Nikolai’s cracked skull, dripping down his face, and pooling on the carpet. She should have felt something—revulsion, maybe? But she didn’t. It was more habit than any real feeling that made her speak. “You’re a monster.”
“Correction. Monster Hunter.” Harbinger reloaded his revolver and stuck it back under his coat. “I’m only a monster when I have to be. You got a pen?”
* * *
The Alpha opened his eyes. He was standing in the center of the bottom level of the Shaft Six building. The walls were covered in blood. Confused, he studied his hands. They were red up to the elbow. He looked up to see Lucinda Hood standing at the top of the catwalk, her mouth agape. It must have been bad, because it took quite a bit to shock a necromancer. “What have you done?”
He looked down. Two of his pack were at his feet, so brutally mangled, more bone than flesh, that they were barely recognizable. The amulet burned even hotter against his chest. It had been fed. He had been fed. “It is time to free the vulkodlak,” he explained.
The witch raised her artificial hand and covered her mouth. Her eyes were wide with fear as she nodded.
Chapter 22
I quit playing Nikolai’s game. We just fulfilled our missions with precision and got back out. His notes kept coming, but I ignored them. Sharon had helped me put the animal back in its place. I would not let him draw it out. We continued fighting, and we accomplished much, all without a single casualty.
A few weeks passed with no communications left by Nikolai. Conover said intelligence from his chain of command suggested that the Russian had been called home. We were told to stand down and await further instructions.
A week later, it was confirmed. Nikolai had returned to Moscow. President Nixon had agreed to draw down any supernatural assets in country. Apparently we weren’t alone, though we’d never met any of the other special task forces in operation. Preparations would be made. First squad would be returned to their regular units; second was going to be flown home with thanks that could never be talked about and a renewed exemption from PUFF. We celebrated.
Nikolai hit us the next evening. Werewolves are sneaky like that. They get you when you least expect it.
* * *
Stark paced down the line of stacked bodies. There were far more at the hospital now than when they’d left to go for help. The senior MCB agent muttered and swore under his breath as he stepped between the heads.
“We started it, but the other survivors have been dropping bodies off here, too,” Agent Mosher explained. “The guards posted downstairs said that the town has fortified the school and then formed patrols to fight the monsters and gather people.…Kind of like I suggested hours ago.”
Mosher was still bitter. Stark knew that it was because he was too stupid to realize just how much trouble they were going to be in once headquarters found out just what a clusterfuck of a containment this was going to be. Stark was too old to recover from this. This line of bodies and the number of people that knew about them was a career-ending event.
“Don’t get lippy with me, kid.” Stark stopped his pacing at the last corpse in the line. It was the body of that first infected deputy, Joe Buckley. It was uneven from the rest. Stark knelt and pulled back the sheet. Burning to death was always unpleasant. The skin was all crispy and black, except for where it had split open to expose red muscle. This one was even worse, since he was all twisted up, mostly shaped like a werewolf but not quite all the way there. The unevenness was caused by one hand sticking up, like it was reaching for him, claws all curled up from the heat.
It bothered Stark quite a bit, like the stupid monster was still being defiant despite the fact that it was dead. Why wouldn’t monsters just fall into line, like everybody else? Stark stood, put his boot on the forearm and pushed down. It wouldn’t budge. Stark grunted and put more weight on it. Ash flaked off and the bones made a sick cracking noise, but the arm finally went down like it was supposed to. Stark nodded and covered the body back up. “That’s more like it,” he whispered.
Mosher sounded worried. “Are you feeling all right, sir?”
Stark walked away without responding. He wandered down the hallway, still muttering, bubbling with impotent rage. There was a strange noise, for just a split second. It was barely audible, kind of a hum, but then it was gone. It left his ears ringing and added to his growing headache.
“You hear that?” Mosher asked nervously.
“Probably nothing.” Stark ignored his partner. He found a break room with a soda machine in it. At least the generators were running here. He pulled his wallet out from under his armor and thumbed through it.
Mosher had followed him in like a lost puppy. “Sir? What are we going to do now?”
“I’m going to get a Dr. Pepper.…You got any dollars? All I’ve got is a twenty.”
This was just like the Pacific Star. One helicopter load of SEALs against an ocean liner full of Deep Ones. There had been so damned many of them. They came out of the walls, through the floor, through the ceiling. They climbed up the sides to slide their slimy heads through the portholes. Every time they’d turned around there were more fish men. All but two of them had been wiped out during the first contact. The fish men had numerical superiority and fucking Dagon on their side. Magic, claws, and ancient mutants against two SEALs? What had Chief Haven expected? Of course Stark had hid.…That was the smart thing to do. Hide, and wait for reinforcements.
But no. Not Sam Haven. Mr. Big Shot Hero. He had to go all balls out and kill ten dozen fish men all by himself and then poke an ancient deity in the eye. Well, who’s dead now, asshole? Yeah. You, Sam. You’re dead, and I’m management.
“No…I…I mean…” Mosher was so confused that he was beginning to stutter. It was unbecoming in an MCB agent. “What are we going to do about the situation?”
Stark was getting a headache. He was sick of Mosher’s whining. He was starting to stick up like that crispy werewolf’s arm. “I’ll think of something.…But right now I’ve got other problems.” He put his big hands on the soda machine and shook it. Stark had managed to fix other people’s problems and always kept from getting into anything over his head. He was an ideal government employee. It wasn’t his fault werewolves had taken over a whole town. He kicked the hell out of the soda machine, but it still wouldn’t cooperate.
The door closed behind Mosher. “Sir, look at yourself. We’ve got more important things to worry about. People are dying out there!”
This was not an insurmountable problem. Special Agent Douglas Stark of the Monster Control Bureau was a professional. He would get his Dr. Pepper. Failure was not an option. Stark leaned his SCAR rifle in the corner. Studying the machine, he formulated a plan of attack. Drawing his thick SOG knife, he jammed the point in by the lock and began forcing it in, using it as a pry-bar. They’d just blame the property damage on the werewolves. Stark chuckled at his cleverness.
“Agent Stark? Stark! Are you kidding me?” Exasperated, Mosher slammed his fists down on a table. The noise barely distracted Stark from his important task. “What are we going to do?” A gloved hand landed on Stark’s broad shoulder and spun him around. “Look at me, damn it—”
Stark lost it. He slammed his armored forearm into Mosher’s chest and drove him back across the break room. Mosher crashed haphazardly into the wall. Stark pressed his elbow against Mosher’s throat and the combat knife against his cheek. Mosher’s face turned red as he struggled for air.
There are two distinctly different reports at the end of the mission. In the first, a group of SEALs is ambushed in a rescue attempt, until only two remain, a chief and a new officer on his very first assignment. The officer spends the night hiding in a laundry hamper while the chief goes on a one-man suicide mission to save as many hostages as possible from the amphibian servants of an elder god. Except, that lone warrior didn’t like it when the responding MCB cleanup team unnecessarily torched the uninfected survivors. He caused quite a fuss. That makes the first narrative difficult for official channels to swallow.
“You listen to me, dipshit. I’m not going out there. I’m not getting eggs laid in me.” Stark pushed the knife just enough to break the skin. “And you’re not going out there, either. We stick together. Those are the orders. You hear me, Haven. No eggs!”
On the other hand, story two says that the SEAL team defeated the Deep Ones, but lost most of their men in the process. Afterward, an MCB cleanup team responded in a professional capacity, following regulations to the letter. One of the surviving SEALs acted in a very irrational manner and made unsubstantiated allegations that the MCB killed some uninfected survivors, probably due to post-traumatic stress.
Forcibly retire one. Recruit the other to the MCB. “I won.” Stark smiled broadly. “And I’ll win again, because only the survivors get to file the reports.”
It took Stark a second to realize that it wasn’t Sam Haven he was holding against the wall, they weren’t on a cruise ship, and he couldn’t smell fish. He was strangling Monster Control Bureau Special Agent Gaige Mosher, in a crap town filled with werewolves, and the cold thing pressed against his ear was Mosher’s 10mm Glock 20. Mosher managed to hiss. “Let. Me. Go. Asshole.”
Stark removed his elbow, withdrew the knife, and stepped back. Mosher lifted his pistol in one hand and kept it on Stark. “Easy, Gaige. That’s insubordination.” Stark carefully lowered the knife to his side. “Come on now—”
“Stay back,” Mosher ordered. He put one hand on the doorknob. “You’ve gone insane. I can’t believe this. You’ve cracked under stress.”
Stark laughed. “That’s absurd. I was just messing with you. We’ll work through this together.”