The Monster Hunters

  The place was covered in fish cops, and the sheriff himself had taken command of the scene by the time Heather returned. Kai Hintze had been sheriff since Heather had come back to Copper Lake from Minneapolis. He was fifty years old, fifty pounds overweight, and a hardcore sci-fi nerd, so Heather hadn’t expected much from her new boss, but Sheriff Hintze had turned out to be a good leader who watched out for his men and his county. He kept getting reelected because he honestly cared about the people, and compared to his incompetent predecessor, the county loved him.

  The sheriff was talking to one of the DNR men. The game wardens weren’t very popular amongst the independently minded types that lived in places like Copper Lake. She’d had a few run-ins with game wardens back in her teens, when she hunted game regardless of season—the squishy environmentalist types were the worst. But this particular one conducted himself like an old pro and seemed to know what he was talking about. Heather approached from behind and didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.

  “I’m telling you, Sheriff. There is something seriously wrong here. Colleague of mine out of Washington State, Terril Erion, he had a case like this a while back. Animal attack that didn’t seem to fit, just like this. . . . A particular government agency got involved. Do you know the agency I’m talking about?”

  Sheriff Hintze was nodding his head. “Every sheriff in the country gets a vague briefing and a number to call in case of something weird. You really think there really are . . . Naw. That’s ridiculous.” He realized Heather was standing there and abruptly stopped. The DNR man looked away, sheepish, like they’d been caught talking about something naughty. The sheriff coughed. “Deputy Kerkonen. Any luck?”

  “Nothing, sir. Any word on Buckley?”

  “Not yet.” He took in her soaked and muddy appearance. “How long have you been out here?”

  “Since we got the call.”

  “You look beat, and your shift was over hours ago. There’s really nothing else you can do here.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “I understand. Joe is my friend, too, Heather. Why don’t you go see him?” Before it is too late.

  She waited until she was a mile down the road before she screamed in frustration, swore her head off, and punched the steering wheel until her hand hurt. Her department had lost people before, but to things that made sense, like a meth head or a car wreck. . . . Who got killed in the line of duty by a damned bear? This wasn’t Alaska. This was Michigan.

  It didn’t make sense. Winter was coming. She was no zoologist, but shouldn’t the stupid thing have been hibernating? The attack had occurred during a freezing rain: why was it even out and about, and why would it attack a car? Heather had no idea, and now her hand was sore, and she chided herself for the tantrum. She had always struggled with her temper.

  Why couldn’t she have been the one to take the call? Maybe if it had been her instead of Buckley, he wouldn’t be dying right now. Maybe she could have done something different. . . . She knew it was stupid to blame herself, but Heather had always been protective of anyone she deemed to be her people. That attitude had always made her popular amongst her coworkers, but had gotten her into trouble a few times with her superiors in her last department. Copper County was different. This was her town, her people, and this department was family. Only now one of them was dying, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, and it was really pissing her off.

  It had been several hours after the Buckley call that she had finally made it back into Copper Lake. Half the staff of their tiny department and several family members had gathered in the hospital waiting room. Buckley was a popular and beloved man. By some miracle he was alive, which had absolutely amazed the doctors, but they said that it was too early to tell what would happen and too risky to airlift him someplace better. Heather didn’t like hanging out, nervous and emotional, in hospitals. She had done far too much of that in her life already, and though her shift was over she had volunteered to head into the office to see if she couldn’t help out for a bit. She was still too fired up to go to sleep anyway, and it wasn’t like there was anyone waiting for her at home except for her dog.

  Back at the station, hungry and cranky, Heather had not been surprised to find that nobody had bothered to put on more coffee. She bought a Diet Coke and a package of expired chocolate doughnuts from the office vending machine instead. She didn’t think that doughnuts were supposed to be crunchy, but they had sugar, and that was the important thing. She knew that despite religiously hitting the treadmill every day, if she kept up her junk-food addiction she ran the risk of turning into another Upper Peninsula “snow cow,” but that was a risk she was willing to take.

  “Did you see Joe, Kerkonen?” asked Chase Temple, one of the new road deputies from days. Heather didn’t know him that well yet, just that he had recently gotten out of the Navy and was taking correspondence courses from Northern Michigan University toward a political science degree. His youthful enthusiasm made her feel ancient. She had just turned thirty-six. “I’d heard he was bad off.”

  She had to pause to not talk with a mouth full of doughnut. She didn’t really know what to say anyway; it wasn’t like she knew any more than anyone else. “I didn’t see him myself, but yeah, the doctors said it was bad. Broken skull, massive lacerations to the abdomen, a lot of blood loss, missing a few feet of intestines . . .” Even if Buckley lived, he would be crippled and miserable the rest of his short life, and that left her feeling even more depressed. She changed the subject and pointed in the direction of the holding cells. “How’s our favorite guest?”

  The Copper Lake station was a small building, so Temple knew whom she was talking about right away. “Bill was ticked after that nut bit him,” he said, referring to the deputy that had been manning the station last night. “He needed five stitches. But I heard you really walloped the guy for it. Pow! Right in the face! That how you guys did it in the big city?” Heather didn’t respond to his idiotic grin, so he quit smiling and tried to be professional. “Didn’t mean anything by it. I’ve just heard you’ve got a reputation is all . . . Keeping it together when the shit gets real.”

  Heather shrugged noncommittally. “I just did what I was trained to do.”

  “Whatever. I heard about—”

  “Kid needed protecting. I was the only one around to do it. No big deal.” One crazy case involving a sex-slavery ring could get you quite a rep. One sloppy gunfight later, she’d been publically cited for bravery, privately reprimanded for stupidity, and been on the fast track to a promotion to detective until her family’s health issues had brought her back to her hometown. It didn’t matter now. Copper Lake was a much quieter place than Minneapolis. She made sure to change the subject so obviously that Temple would know better than to bring it up again. “We got an ID on our biter yet?”

  “Every time we ask for a name, he just stares off into space and mumbles about something humming. Still no idea who he is yet, but we’re still checking.”

  One of her friends had just been eviscerated. She wasn’t in the mood for dealing with random stinky lunatics, but the U.P. was virtually the edge of the world. Lots of crazy people ended up here for some reason. It’s like they wandered out of Chicago or Minneapolis and walked through the woods until they hit Lake Superior, where they became her problem. “Anything else going on?”

  “Those hikers down in Baraga are still lost.”

  “Probably eaten by the same bear,” she muttered. Lost hikers weren’t any sort of surprise. Except for a few clusters of small townships and farms, northern Michigan was thickly forested hills. It was easy to get turned around if you got off the trails. The locals loved the tourists’ dollars, but finding lost suburbanites got old quick.

  “Other than that, well, some federal agent called from Washington, wanting to know about the bear attack.”

  “Who?” Heather asked. That was fast. The Department of Natural Resources guy must have passed it up the chain to whoever it was he’d been talk
ing to the sheriff about.

  “I don’t know. The guy was named something Jefferson, real snooty type, but I kicked it over to the sheriff. They were asking if there had been any other animal attacks or any unexplained disappearances, that kind of thing. They said they wanted to send some people to interview Buckley if”—he corrected himself—“when he wakes up. I told him he better hurry if the weather reports are accurate. Huge storm coming in tonight. He was real adamant that we call if anything else unusual happens.”

  Unusual? The little black bears that were native to the area normally stuck to knocking over trash cans, not smashing their way through car windows to eat healthy, armed men. Unusual was an understatement.

  Agent Doug Stark of the Monster Control Bureau of the US Department of Homeland Security answered the ringing phone on his desk. He had already had a busy day, seizing a camera and video files from some teenagers who’d blundered into a Type 2 Unnatural devouring a homeless guy at the bottom of a drainage culvert. Stark didn’t necessarily enjoy the part of his job where he intimidated witnesses and survivors into keeping their stupid mouths shut, but he was extremely good at it. “Agent Stark,” he answered sharply.

  “Hello, Doug,” said the voice at the other end, and he recognized it immediately. Washington was calling. Damn it. Washington only called when something was wrong, and he had been hoping to get off early so he could catch his daughter’s trumpet recital. “This is Grant Jefferson.”

  Stark didn’t like the new guy—he was too smooth—but Director Myers thought Jefferson walked on water, had taken him under-wing, and had delegated all sorts of responsibilities to the former MHI man. Grooming him for leadership, probably because Myers had come up from the private sector, too. . . . Just like those contractor bozos to get all the money, glory, and then come into his bureau to take all the promotions. “Mornin’, Grant. What can I do for you today?” he asked with zero sincerity.

  “There’s been a potential attack in your region. The profile fits a lycanthrope, but that’s currently unknown. One survivor.”

  So much for getting off early. Regulations said they had to check it out as soon as possible. “Bitten?” Stark reached for a pad of paper and took a pen from the pink clay mug labeled “#1 Dad.”

  “Probable, but unknown. You should assume the worst. Take a test kit. You may need to eliminate.”

  Stark grunted in acknowledgment. Who was this upstart punk to tell him something so obvious? As a rookie MCB agent recruited straight out of the SEALs, Stark had learned how to take care of witnesses from the holy terror himself, Agent Franks. Stark was old-school MCB. Back when he’d run the Phoenix office, he’d once had a family of four get torn apart by reptoids, and he had managed to blame the entire incident on coyotes. Stark was still bitter he’d been given the Chicago SAC job instead of the interim director position that Dwayne Myers had scored. Myers had been Dallas SAC before the promotion, so they’d been equals, the jerk. “Location?”

  “Copper Lake, Michigan,” Jefferson said.

  “Where the hell is Copper Lake?” He leaned back and studied the laminated US map on the wall. The office chair creaked under his weight. Though no longer in his prime, Stark still loved pumping iron and had biceps as big around as most men’s legs. He took pride in the fact that he could still keep up with agents half his age.

  “Up by Lake Superior . . . I think,” Jefferson said. “Hang on, I’m pulling up Google Earth.” It figured. Not only was he going to have to work today, he was going to have to drive to the damn U.P. and probably freeze his ass off in Yooper country. “Wait a second, Agent Archer is here with me.” There was a pause. “He says that he grew up right down the road in Calumet. . . . He says to pack a coat.” Grant laughed.

  Just like those headquarters assholes to have a laugh at his expense, Stark thought. He’d been doing this for nearly twenty-five years. He knew more about this business than Director Myers did. Who were they to laugh at him? Stark idly wrote down the details as Grant kept on talking, but Stark’s mind was somewhere else. He glanced at the PUFF table tacked to the wall beside the map. Government employees didn’t get to collect PUFF, but those contractors got paid damn good money per lycanthrope . . . and by the time he said his good-byes, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  Like most things that depended on secrecy, the MCB was a relatively small agency. Even the ICE and FBI staff they shared the building with had no clue what the ultra-secretive MCB did for a living. As Special Agent in Charge, he had six agents working under him in the north-central region, and more that he could pull out of Minneapolis, but he’d keep this one close to the vest. He called for Agent Mosher, gave him the lowdown, and told him to get an SUV ready. Requisitioning a chopper was out of the question. The weather was turning nasty, and besides, the key to keeping a monster attack low profile was keeping a low profile. Land a black helicopter at some rural airfield and the locals got to talking, and since the locals were already calling it a bear, why go and mess that up with a Blackhawk?

  “Should I put together a team?” Mosher asked. “If it turns out to be a werewolf, that could be dangerous.” Gaige Mosher was the newest agent in his office. He was a tough kid recruited out of Force Recon, but even tough guys didn’t screw around when it came to shapeshifters.

  “Naw,” Stark said. “I need to get out of the office. Just the two of us to talk to the witness. My intuition is telling me that it was probably just an animal,” he lied. “And if it does turn out to be the real deal, we’ve got a few days before the full moon. Myers can send out his strike team, and they can use up their budget.” In truth, he just wanted to do the minimum amount of work needed and then get a little kickback on the side. Extra agents could make that a hassle, and Mosher was so eager to prove himself to the experienced Stark that he could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

  Once Mosher was gone, Stark excused himself from the office, supposedly to pick up some snacks for the road trip. He stopped at a pay phone on the way. He didn’t like Briarwood much, certainly didn’t trust them, but a man had to provide for his retirement somehow. His pride wouldn’t let him deal with their competitors. He couldn’t stand those MHI punks, ever since he’d lost a drunken fistfight to that asshole Sam Haven all those years ago at a BUD/S reunion, but MHI wasn’t the only game in town. These new guys were local, hungry, morally flexible, and not above passing him a little cut of the PUFF action under the table.

  “Briarwood.” That’s all the receptionist said whenever she picked up. They liked that cool mysterious vibe, like if you didn’t know what they did, then you shouldn’t be calling them.

  No names. “It’s me. I’ve got a scoop for you.” Stark glanced around the busy street. This was the kind of thing that could get him fired or worse if somebody like Agent Franks got wind of it. Traditional forms of reprimands kind of went out the window when that guy got involved.

  “Your information is always greatly appreciated,” she purred. The Briarwood receptionist had a sultry European accent. Stark had never met her, but he liked to imagine her as a sexy blonde who liked to dress in tight black leather. Stark had always had a thing for European chicks since way back when the Navy had stationed him in Italy.

  “My standard finder’s fee applies.”

  “But of course,” she said. It was only money, and these private hunters were rolling in the dough. He imagined the hot receptionist working out of some secret posh office on top of some downtown high-rise, all black glass and marble. Twenty percent of the PUFF bounty was nothing to those people, but to a GS-13, it was a few extra mortgage payments. “What and where?”

  “Possible lycanthrope. Copper Lake, Michigan. I’ll know tonight for sure. Your boys don’t do shit until I give the word, got it?” Stark hung up before she could respond. It was always good to let those contractor goons know exactly who was calling the shots. Agent Stark then used his cell phone to warn his wife that he would be pulling an overnighter, and he apologized in advance for missing his da
ughter’s recital.

  The offices of Briarwood Eradication Services were on the second floor of a crumbling brick building in a not-quite-terrible-but-getting-there section of Chicago. The first floor was a pool hall, the third was rented by a company that stuffed coupon mailers, and the fourth was untenanted except for the pigeons.

  Ryan Horst stopped cleaning his carbine long enough to listen to Jo Ann take the call. She was still doing that Euro-trash voice, which told him that it was probably a potential job. Jo Ann Schneider was from Wisconsin originally and had the accent to prove it but had been working for a phone-sex line when he’d met her. The woman could sound like just about anyone over the phone, which did manage to add a little mystique to their tiny company. Horst knew that success was all about the marketing.

  “Ryan! It was that asshole, Stark,” Jo Ann shouted across the large open space. She yanked off her headset and tossed it on the desk. “We’ve got us a big one!”

  “About damn time,” he muttered as he finished tugging the boresnake through the barrel of his FAL. He’d assembled a tough crew, but the boys were getting restless. He’d promised that there was lucrative money in this business, far better than what they were used to making for their particular set of skills. Men that good at hurting people weren’t the kind that he wanted to string along. “What’ve we got?” he asked as he pointed the barrel at the overhead lights and squinted at the rifling. The chrome was perfectly clean and shiny as expected. Horst took meticulous care of his weapons.

  “A lycanthrope up in Michigan. I think that means werewolf! You know what one of those is worth?” She was practically squealing.