Conover was a far better leader than expected. He actually cared about everyone under his command. He was one of those rare leaders with real integrity, and after having been recruited for a few of these black operations over the decades, I was thankful we’d ended up with somebody like him. If he hadn’t stayed with the government after the war, I would have loved to have recruited him to MHI. He would have made a superb team lead.
As for me…I led the actual missions in the field. Nobody had more experience than me. First squad thought of me as just another human, only one extraordinarily good at stealth and jungle fighting, though I think Destroyer suspected I was something more akin to the blanket-wearing giant and the nearly glowing goddess that forced them to wear earplugs. Three nights a month I was lowered into a pit, and then Travis covered the top with something heavy. Even in a war, there are certain things that shouldn’t be done, not if you want to be able to tell yourself that you’re the good guy.
That would soon change.
* * *
Heather stopped at her front door to remove her heavy gloves in order to manipulate the keys. A lot of the older folks in Copper Lake didn’t even bother to lock their doors, but she knew what the actual stats were. Even their small town had enough tweakers to really run up the property-crime numbers. Like every other rural part of the country, there were meth labs out there, and when there was meth, there was thievery. If she was lucky maybe the werewolves would eat some of those scumbags and OD from the chemical cocktail in their blood. It would be like killing two birds with one stone.
There was a series of pops. She froze, listening. “You hear that?”
Harbinger looked around. “Nope. I feel like I’m deaf.” Despite having thrown an old leather coat over his weird armor suit, his teeth were chattering.
“Gunshots…” There was the slamming of a car door, the roar of an engine, the spinning of tires. “That SUV is turning around.” A sudden fear hit. It must be the two government men. They’d murdered Chase earlier, and now they were coming back to finish her.
“Get inside,” Harbinger ordered.
Heather found her house key and got the door open just as the returning headlights illuminated the front yard. Harbinger followed her inside and closed the door behind them.
Startled, Otto began barking in the kitchen. To his credit, the German shepherd was ready to repel intruders. Her dog was just a shadow as he moved through the living room, shoulders hunched, head low. “Easy, boy,” Heather said. “It’s just me.” The barking ceased. Otto stopped, tilting his head, confused. It was like he didn’t recognize her in the dark. He barred his teeth and growled. “Calm down, big dummy.” The German shepherd got closer, snarling. Then Heather realized she could smell Otto’s fear. He was scared of her.
Peeking through the blinds, Harbinger studied the road. “Hmm…I don’t know who this is. You know ’em?”
Otto was her pet, her loyal companion, but right then he was prepared to go for her throat. Otto may have only had three legs, but he was still an intimidating eighty pounds of Purina-fed muscle. “Harbinger, my dog doesn’t recognize me.”
He didn’t turn from the window. “I should’ve told you. Animals fear us. Dogs especially hate our guts. I hope you’re not into horseback riding.”
Not Otto. He’d been a loyal friend forever. She loved Otto. There was no way. She reached out one hand, but Otto’s brave growl turned into a whimper, and he scrambled for the kitchen, tail between his legs. It broke her heart. “Otto?”
“What’re these assholes doing? Wait. One fella is getting out. Guns. Get down!” Harbinger grabbed her by the sleeve and jerked her to the floor just as the window shattered. Heather hit the carpet hard. There was a crackling noise as a machine gun raked bullets through the walls. Splinters and drywall rained down on them as the gun thundered.
Harbinger rolled on top of her protectively, a purely instinctive move, but asinine since he was only human and therefore not much better than a meat sandbag. “Crawl! Get to cover!” he shouted in her ear before rolling off, raising his Thompson and firing back through the window. He was answered with even more fire, but Heather was already scrambling for the kitchen. She’d just reached the linoleum when the bullet struck. The impact hit like a baseball bat and took her leg right out from under her. Heather shouted in surprise and fell on her face.
It took a second to realize that she’d been hit. She’d never been shot before. It burned. Rolling over, she grabbed her calf and felt the blood pouring between her fingers. The kitchen cupboards were flying apart, so she tried to become one with the floor.
Harbinger had heard her cry. Rising, still shooting, he backpedaled until he reached the kitchen and took cover in the doorway. “You hit?”
“I’m okay” she responded, but as she spoke, the burning sensation mutated into the worst pain ever. “Oh shit! No, I’m not. My leg!”
Bullets still flying, Harbinger came to her, and Heather almost passed out when he touched her leg, grabbing it roughly in the dark. His hands were firm as he probed the wound. Heather shrieked as her severed nerve endings fired. The pain flipped a switch deep inside. Something deep within Heather awoke. She gasped, but it wasn’t because of the gunshot wound.
“Artery ain’t hit. Keep pressure on it,” he ordered. “And stay down.”
“No kidding!” Heather shouted as the microwave exploded.
Then Harbinger was just gone. He may have only been human, but he was fast.
* * *
Earl used his minotaur-hide coat to protect his face as he went through the side window. It was an old, solidly constructed house, and in the excitement, Earl had forgotten that he was no longer a werewolf. That fact was driven home as he slammed his shoulder through the wooden slats and tumbled into the snow in a cascade of broken glass.
“Damn,” Earl croaked as he got up and concealed himself in the deep shadows of the wall. That had actually hurt. The gunfire stopped. Earl was up and moving instantly. Running through the deep snow was far harder than it should have been. His legs were too weak. Reaching the front corner of Kerkonen’s house, Earl crouched and shuffled into the narrow space between the wall and a snow-covered bush. It was dark except for the headlights, which their attackers hadn’t had the forethought to actually point at their target. The light reflected off the snow of the road, illuminating the yard but leaving everything else in deep shadows.
Earl peeked over the edge of the porch. There were two of them. A short white guy with a buzzed head was wrestling with the feed tray on a SAW, obviously not familiar with the weapon. An older man with a mane of gray hair and an M-4 carbine was going up the steps, heading for the blasted front door. The SUV’s windows had been tinted, so he didn’t know how many other targets he had, so he’d start with these two assholes.
It would have been easy to just mow both of the knuckleheads down, but Earl kind of wanted to know why they were shooting at him first. He’d long ago rigged all his Thompsons with single-point slings that clipped to his armor so he could just drop his gun to use his hands, and Earl had always been a hands-on kind of guy. He let the Thompson fall as the first shooter huffed his way to the front door.
“Come on, Ryan! Back me up.”
“The damn gun’s jammed,” the one with the SAW responded, obviously frustrated. “Hang on, Larry. Wait for me.”
The names meant nothing to him. Earl smiled. These two idiots had tunnel vision. They were so fixated on what was inside the house that they couldn’t see the danger right under their noses. Focusing on a perceived threat while losing your peripheral vision was a common effect of an adrenaline rush. That’s why Earl always told his Newbies to keep on scanning.
“Hell with it,” Larry shouted as he raised one boot to straight kick the door in. Earl reached under the porch railing, grabbed him by the other ankle, and yanked. He yelped in surprise as his grounded foot came out from under him, and then he was tumbling down the icy steps. Earl came around the porch in a flash.
He kicked the M-4 carbine off into the snow, then brutally slammed his fist square into Larry’s face, and Earl knew how to knock someone the hell out. Earl grimaced as the shock traveled up the bones of his hand, but Larry was down.
The one named Ryan looked up from trying to clear the malfunction and saw Earl coming right at him, wearing a look of predatory confidence. “Oh shit!” Ryan tossed the SAW, reached across his body, and stuck one hand into his coat. Shoulder holsters amused Earl. They were comfy, but they sucked when your target was right up in your face, which Earl promptly demonstrated by reaching over and easily trapping Ryan’s hand inside his coat. “Shit!” Ryan shouted again, eyes widening, as he realized he couldn’t get his pistol out. Earl smiled, then brutally head-butted the shorter man.
The sound of their skulls connecting made a terrible thud noise. Ryan hit the snow flat on his back. Dizzy, Earl staggered away, holding his forehead. That was another move that worked great as a werewolf, but not so much as a human. “Son of a bitch, that stings.” Everyone loses with a head butt.
But like they say, if an idea’s stupid, but it works, then it ain’t stupid, and Ryan was neutralized, moaning and dazed. Earl crouched there, waiting to see if there were other would-be assassins. Cursing his lack of awareness and the general dullness of human senses, Earl decided that apparently it was just this pair of jackasses.
With headache rapidly forming, Earl removed the pistol from his fallen opponent’s coat. It was one of those oversized Belgian plastic guns that carried half a box of those little tiny armor-piercing bullets. He threw it in the bushes. Larry was still out, but Earl patted him down just in case. This time he found a .50 Desert Eagle, which was probably the single most unwieldy pistol ever manufactured, and to make matters worse, this one was actually gold plated. Grimacing, Earl tossed the gaudy thing onto Kerkonen’s roof, where it would be hidden until the snow melted. He dragged Larry by the leg back to his buddy and dropped him there. Ryan was stirring, so Earl helped wake him up with a swift kick to the ribs.
“Ohhh…My head…” Ryan came to, saw the Thompson pointed casually at his face, realized what was happening, and immediately began to whine. “Please don’t kill me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Harbinger. Please don’t hurt me.”
“You’ve got the advantage, then. You know who I am. So, who’re you and why are you shooting at me?” It took Earl a moment to realize that Ryan looked familiar. “Hold on.” Earl reached down, grabbed Ryan by the collar, and dragged him up. Sure enough, it was one of his old Newbies. “Horst? Ryan Horst?”
“Yeah. You remembered,” Horst said, raising his hands defensively. It was obvious he hadn’t been mentally prepared for Earl being the one with the upper hand. “Come on, man, careful where you point that thing.”
“This?” Earl jiggled the Thompson under Horst’s nose. “You’re lucky I don’t ram it up your ass. What’re you doing here?”
“Hunting monsters, just like you taught me.” His voice quaked.
“Taught you? Hell, boy, I fired you.” Earl remembered that Horst had been a low-life hood, but that hadn’t precluded him from being picked for a Newbie class. A couple of Earl’s best Hunters were ex-cons. The important thing was that they were survivors. The problem with Horst wasn’t that he’d survived, it was the how, and when MHI had found out the whole story, they’d immediately booted him. “And I can see I made the right choice, because no decent Hunter would’ve got snookered so easy. Why’d you shoot at me?”
Horst was nervous, his eyes kept flicking down to the .45 caliber hole at the end of the Thompson. Earl remembered that Horst was the kind of sleazeball, know-it-all bastard who thought he could talk his way out of anything. Blood was running pathetically from his nose, but he tried to stand straight and look Earl square in the eye. “I promise I won’t tell anybody your secret if you let me go.”
“How—what’re you talking about?” That took him completely by surprise. He was always careful to make sure the Newbies didn’t know about his condition. Larry groaned, dizzy, bleary-eyed, and tried to sit up, So Earl removed the Thompson from Horst’s face long enough to whack the barrel over Larry’s head. Larry cried out and covered his head protectively.
“You stay down there.” The Thompson’s muzzle returned to Horst’s neck. “You talk.”
He was an excellent liar. “I won’t tell anybody you’re a werewolf. Look, I can give you money. Lots of money. I’ve got a rich uncle. He’ll—” He cringed when Earl slapped him upside the head.
It made Earl’s hand sting in the cold. “Do I look stupid? Who told you I was a werewolf?”
“Agent Stark!” Horst exclaimed, hoping to turn Earl’s wrath against someone else. “Stark told us about how big the PUFF was. He told us you were evil, and that all the killing tonight was your fault.”
Stark. Earl scowled. If the MCB had turned loose on him, he had even bigger problems on his hands than Nikolai, the mystery Alpha, Old Ones, and a pack of werewolves to deal with. The MCB were an obnoxious but dedicated bunch. Ending up on their shit list meant that he was going to have to find a rock to hide under for the rest of his life. “Where’s Stark?”
Horst seemed glad to give that up. It gave Earl somebody else to be mad at. “The hospital, last I saw.”
Earl had an idea. “Stark lied to you. I don’t know why. The guy’s crazy. Watch this.” He lowered the Thompson and pulled a folding knife from his pocket. Earl flicked it open. Horst flinched, surely imagining that Earl was going to carve him up, but instead Earl made a small cut on the back of his own hand. He held it right in Horst’s face as it bled. “See that? It ain’t healing. I’m no werewolf. I’m just a man.” The blood kept on flowing. “You kill me, all you’re getting is a murder charge, not a dime of PUFF.”
“It’s totally Stark’s fault.” Horst nodded his head at the blood. “I was just trying to help. You know, all that saving people, protecting the public, just like MHI. We’re on the same side. It was all a big misunderstanding. I was just doing my job.”
“Job?” Even if they were from a rival company, other Hunters could make a huge difference. MHI was the best, but some of the other companies were pretty damn good, too, and Copper Lake needed all the help it could get. “Who the hell hired the likes of you?”
“Briarwood Eradication Services,” Horst answered quickly.
“Never heard of them.”
“BES? Based out of Chicago?”
“Ain’t ringing any bells,” Earl said. Horst seemed somehow deflated. Larry started to get up again, so Earl kicked him on the shoulder. That time he seemed to get the hint and just stayed still. These had to be the other Hunters he’d saved at the grocery store, where he’d been promptly rewarded by getting an ax to the back. “Where’s your team leader?”
Horst was hesitant as he answered. “I’m the team lead—”
Earl snorted. It figured. Sure, some of the other companies were professionals, but for every one of them, there were five little fly-by-night outfits just trying to cash in on the PUFF. He wasn’t going to get any help from these amateurs. If their attempt on him consisted of hosing half a neighborhood with a belt-fed, then they’d probably be even more of a danger to the locals than the werewolves. Earl leaned in close and gave Horst an order. His tone left no doubt that it was not a suggestion. “Get your team. Get out of town. If you make it, spread the word and get help.”
Horst was wide-eyed and seemed glad to just get out of there with his life. Earl let go of his collar and gestured with the knife at Larry. Horst helped lift his dazed friend, and the two stumbled for their car. “Horst,” Earl shouted after them. His former employee stopped. “As a professional courtesy, one hunter to another, you get one free pass. Cross me again, and I put you in the ground.”
Horst gave him a nod of acknowledgment, but Earl could see the hate in his eyes. This one could be trouble. Earl briefly entertained the thought of just gunning them down and being done with it, but a terrible wail came from the house at his back.
It was audible even over the wind. The Briarwood men scrambled for the perceived safety of their car. Earl turned and lifted his subgun. “Damn it, Heather, not now.” He started up the icy steps as the Cadillac fled. He didn’t want to execute Kerkonen, but it didn’t sound like he was going to have much choice.
* * *
Where am I?
It took a moment. It was dark, but she could see okay. She was on the kitchen floor, which just raised other questions, like how she’d gotten there. Then she saw the damage. The fridge was open, and the power had to be out because no light was coming from it. The digital clock must be out on the microwave, too, since it was blank. Then, as the clarity of her vision improved, she saw that the microwave was broken open and the fridge door was puckered with holes. Cabinets doors were hanging from broken hinges. The window over the sink was shattered and snow was blowing in. The flimsy curtains around the window were billowing in the wind.
Why am I sticky? Ewww. What is this mess?
Something warm and wet was on her hands, on her face. It soaked her clothes, making them cling to her body. She felt nauseous and feverish.
I must have gotten really drunk.
Slowly the events of the night came trickling back. Buckley, the monsters, getting bitten, running, striking back…Then the trickle turned into a flood, and as the dam burst, Heather realized exactly how she’d ended up on her kitchen floor. Lifting one tattered pant leg, she checked, but her calf muscle was whole and smooth. She lay there, breathing hard, thankful to be alive and wishing that it was in fact all a bad dream but already knowing that it wasn’t.
Her senses were too acute. There were voices in the front yard, two engines running. The kitchen smelled of broken containers, freshly disturbed dust, and…death? In a panic, she realized that she couldn’t remember what had happened after she’d gotten shot. It had hurt. She’d been scared, but after that…What? What had she done? She remembered the inwardly directed fear turning into outwardly directed anger, and then nothing.
Chairs had been turned over. One was broken. There was a darker shape in the shadows under the kitchen table. These memories seemed alien, out of place, but she knew that it had just been hurled there. The blood on her clothing, on her face and hands, had come from it. Hurt, she had lashed out. She remembered instinctively eating so she could recover, and then a sudden shock and revulsion. The other set of memories had tapered off then, leaving her alone.