Flecks of stuffing floated in the air. The body fell silently, almost gently. The fog parted around it and the pile of rag-wrapped bones and metal implements landed in a disorganized heap. The blue fire winked out of existence. The back of its hood was split open and rather than brains, ragged chunks of bloody fabric fluff rolled across the floor. A fluid that glowed under the black lights came spilling out from every seam, soaked into the rags, and formed a puddle.
I stood over it, waiting, bleeding but breathing, keeping it covered, but it didn’t so much as twitch. But just to be sure I pulled out my lighter and set the rags on fire. The flames spread greedily. The glowing goo was extremely flammable. I reloaded my guns as the fire consumed the body. “Whatever you were, you’re dead now…Asshole.”
The music stopped abruptly. “Up here!” Trip shouted. He was behind the DJ station on the second floor. He messed with something else and the normal lights came on with a blinding pop.
“Dude, that was an amazing shot. I can’t believe you hit that chain all the way from over there!”
“I could barely see anything. I just hosed him and got lucky.” Further proof that Trip must be living right. He was far too honest. I wouldn’t have said anything and just let him think that I was that awesome.
The cuts on my forearm and calf burned, but they weren’t bleeding too badly. Addressing them could wait a minute. Thank goodness for Kevlar. I limped up the stairs and made my way down the walkway. Trip had dragged Green onto one of the lounge couches and put a tourniquet around his leg. All Hunters keep a few of those in our kits. When you run into as many different things that can remove limbs as we do, you’d be stupid not to.
The blood loss had slowed to the rate of a mildly drippy faucet. The half of Green’s face that wasn’t covered in blood was deathly pale. Trip opened his med pouch and pulled out a pressure bandage. He gently lifted the shredded remains of Green’s armor and revealed the terrible injury beneath.
Green moaned when the bandages touched him. “He sawed my foot off.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“We know.” Trip knelt next to him. “It’s okay, man. We got it. You’re going to be fine.”
“Where’s your partner?” I didn’t even know who Green had been patrolling with.
“Gone…Dead…Ragman got him.”
“Ragman?”
“Listen…” Green reached out and touched Trip’s arm. “He was my first monster. In San Diego. Serial killer. Sold his soul…Turned into that. I killed him years ago…” Green coughed hard. “Guess he wasn’t done with me yet.” He coughed again, wheezed, then passed out. I checked his pulse. It wasn’t good.
Another horror dredged from the back of someone’s mind and set free. Hugo’s last word had been Nachtmar. It was looking like nightmare was a good name for what we were up against.
When we got back to the conference center, we learned that the Nachtmar had struck in two places simultaneously this time. In addition to crippling Green and killing a Hunter from the Mexican company, by the name of Salazar, it had struck nearly simultaneously in another area. Pressfield, from Sticks of Fire out of Tampa, and Verne, one of the British liaisons from BSS, had responded to cries for help from one of the rooms. When they’d kicked in the door, Pressfield had been ripped to pieces by the demonic things that the anti-Hunting activists inside that room had mutated into.
The surviving Hunter fragged the room, then head-shot everything. He’d been so shell shocked that when he’d walked back into the main lobby where most of the trapped tourists had congregated, his wide-eyed and blood-soaked appearance had nearly caused a panic. That had only been three minutes before I’d run in, carrying Green and shouting for a medic.
Now the trapped tourists were ready to listen to us. Too bad we didn’t really know what to do yet.
Afterwards, Pressfield’s boss, Allen, was able to identify the creatures from the description as something similar to an oddity that Sticks of Fire had encountered and wiped out a year earlier.
“Pull the patrols back in. I want everybody in one area.” Earl was pacing at the front of the conference room. He was chain-smoking again, but it wasn’t like anyone present was going to give him grief about it. Representatives from every team were here, Hunters foreign and domestic, whether we got along or not, as well as some of the casino’s night managers. I was sitting on a table with my pants leg rolled up while Trip sewed stitches in my ankle. “This thing is screwing with us.”
“You think it’s intelligent?” VanZant asked.
“Yeah…It strikes one way, creating a beachhead. So we spread out to keep an eye out for that kind of attack, so it changes tactics and starts picking us off one by one.” Earl angrily lit his next cigarette. “Tell me that don’t sound smart? We need to fortify here, where we can keep an eye on each other.”
“What if it picks an isolated spot and pulls a stunt like it did in Hugo’s room?” I asked. “By the time we knew, there could be an army of monsters coming at us. Then we’re back to where we were this morning.”
“Pitt is correct,” Pierre Darne agreed. “Turtles have shells, but make for tasty soup.”
“Is that like some old French proverb?”
“I made it up.” Darne shrugged. “I thought it was a fine analogy.”
“Okay, Pierre, put together a full team and send them down to the security room. I want that place locked down tight. Protect it at all costs. What’s your new buddy’s name there, Z?”
I didn’t know if I would go as far as buddy. “Mitch.”
“Tell Mitch that we’re counting on him to be our eyes. Nachtmar makes a big move, he calls us and we vector in on it.”
“Consider it done.” Darne signaled two of his employees that were present and they left.
Earl was talking quickly now. The gears were turning. “VanZant, you’re good with people. Take Tyler Nelson, he’s a shrink, and whoever else you need. I want every single person that’s locked themselves in their rooms brought down to this floor, and I want them here now.”
“Some aren’t going to like that,” the diminutive man told him.
“Persuade them, but don’t waste time on anybody who wants to do their own thing. If they want to hole up alone, leave them.”
He didn’t care for that. “We’ve seen how this thing works. It’s just going to pick something nasty out of their heads, make it real, then kill them with it. If I leave them—”
“Their deaths aren’t on our hands. I respect stubbornness and I respect folks who take personal responsibility, but we can’t be everywhere. They don’t want to come, write them off.”
From what I knew of our California team leader, he was the last person who wanted to leave anyone behind, but our hands were tied. “You want persuasive? I’ll give you persuasive.” He gave Earl a sharp nod and then left the room. I heard him shout from the hall. “Jason Lacoco! You, large Polish man! Follow me.”
The big fellow laughed with his hearty pirate laugh. “My name is Byreika, my small friend. Tadeusz Byreika! Let us go and scare all the people.”
No way. If we lived long enough I was going to have to sit down with that guy and ask him about his genealogy.
Earl turned next to the night supervisor of the casino. She was a sharp-featured woman in her fifties, and was the senior employee stuck under quarantine. The name tag on her tidy black pants suit said Beth. “Are all your employees accounted for?”
“They are. In one way it’s fortunate this happened when it did. This is our smallest shift. Just my shitty luck that it happens to be my shift…All of them are in this area except for the people in the security room and our guards at the vault.”
“I’d suggest leaving the vault and getting their asses up here. It’s only money.”
“There are millions of dollars in cash in that vault. I’m not even authorized to know how much.”
“Can’t spend it if you’re dead.”
Beth shook her head. “I’m not authorized to do that. The last message I received from Management specified to turn all operating decisions over to you, Mr. Harbinger, but we were to keep staff in control of the vault, regardless of what you said. Management’s orders.”
If no one could call in or out…“How did you hear—”
Earl held up one hand to silence me. “Leave it, Z…Okay, Beth. This is what you do, pull those men out of there, because otherwise, when they die, it goes on your conscience. If we live long enough for Management to get mad at you, tell him that I forced you to do it. He knows that I’m pushy like that. If this is all a very elaborate scam to rob your vault, he knows where I live.”
Beth looked really nervous. “They say he’s—”
“He’s not here,” Earl specified. “I am. Get those men up here now. Then you’re going to go with the red-bearded gentleman,” Earl pointed at Milo. “And you’re going to send some of your people to raid your stores and bring things here. Food, water, medical supplies, and anything else Milo can think of that might be useful, and trust me, he will surprise you with what he thinks is useful. Move.”
“Yes, sir,” Beth said, having been completely bulldozed.
“You get used to him,” Milo told her on the way out.
Earl continued handing out assignments. I knew I’d get my turn soon enough, and soon enough we were the only ones left in this part of the lobby. There was a sudden twinge in my ankle. “Dude, watch it.”
“Sorry,” Trip said. “All done. Five stitches. No biggie.”
I inspected his work. The cut from the chain had almost been shallow enough for super glue. All things considered, I was really lucky. “They’re way prettier when Holly does them.”
“So sue me.”