The Monster Hunters

  I was certain that I’d never seen or smelled him before. I’d come here trailing a werewolf. I had been the predator. I had been the one running the night through the streets of the old city. If anyone had been following me, I would have seen them for sure. “Really? And what would that be?”

  “Someone who bears a curse.” The priest dusted off a spot on the stone next to me and took a seat. “Someone who bears the mark of Cain.” He stopped, as if waiting for me to argue. “I’m sure you are aware that what you are contemplating is a terrible sin.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Add it to the list. I’m going to hell. You got a point?”

  “My impression is that you are a decent man who has had an unfortunate turn of events. I do believe that if I were to throw my life away, I would do it in a manner more useful to my fellow man. There is great nobility in sacrifice.”

  I was drunk, but not that drunk. “I’m not really fit to become a man of the cloth. I’ve killed a whole mess of people. . . . Ate a few of them.”

  “Oh no, oh my, no.” The priest laughed until he started to choke. I’d never seen a vulture laugh before. “That is not what I had in mind.” It took him a moment to catch his breath. Apparently the idea of me finding that much religion was downright hilarious. He watched the sunrise with me for a while before making his pitch. “I know of a village in need of help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “The kind that will almost certainly get you killed in the process.”

  * * *

  Heather was just getting ready to go to work when she was startled by a knock at the front door. She had just finished securing the Velcro straps of her much-hated bulletproof vest. Hated may have been a strong word for something designed to save her life, but the vest was uncomfortable, annoying, and made her look dumpy. It was also mandatory. At least it was a princess-cut vest, which was a nice way of saying that it didn’t squish her breasts like the one she’d been issued in Minneapolis. Heather threw on her green uniform shirt and started buttoning.

  Even though the old Kerkonen family home was right in the middle of town, she didn’t get very many visitors, and on the rare occasions that she did, Otto usually warned her a long time before they got up the driveway. Normally her old, three-legged, retired police German shepherd would be bouncing around the living room, shedding everywhere, eager at the prospect of company, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Some guard dog you are,” Heather muttered.

  There was a fearful answering whine from under the kitchen table. She spotted her dog backed into the farthest corner, his head down, ears flat, obviously afraid. His black eyes were fixed on the front door.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Otto hadn’t been a particularly well-trained K9 even before he’d been retired. Copper County never had much of a budget, so when the chief decided they needed a dog, they’d bought Full Otto the Über Hund from a second-rate trainer. He’d been relatively useless to the department, except the kids loved him at the DARE events. She’d kept him ever since he’d chased a tennis ball in front of a snow plow and ended up as Otto the Amazing Tripod Dog.

  There was another knock, and Otto whined a little louder, almost as if he was begging her not to answer it. He was a little goofy, utterly loyal, too friendly for his own good, but Heather had never seen him scared before. He may have had only three legs, but he was still eighty pounds of righteous Teutonic muscle. It was so unlike him that she found it a bit unnerving. “Chill out, dog, jeez,” she admonished as she looked out the peephole.

  The bulbs on the porch didn’t cast much light, but enough that she knew she’d never seen the man before. Otto let out a low, out-of-character growl. The security chain was still in place, but she’d worked enough break-ins to know how useless those things were. Heather put one hand on her issue Beretta as she opened the door a crack, just enough that the visitor could see her uniform. The “No Soliciting” sign was more effective against annoying people when there was somebody with a badge in the doorway.

  “Good evening,” the stranger said politely.

  “Can I help you?” Heather had a lot of practice scanning people and recording the pertinent facts. Caucasian male, a pretty good-looking guy, remarkably handsome, actually, probably around her age, dark hair cut short, neatly trimmed goatee, six foot, hundred and seventy, athletic, dressed nicely, with a white button shirt and a wool overcoat, hands in his pockets. The car parked on the street was a newer model BMW M3, silver. The Beamer stood out on the street full of pickup trucks and older cars. Her initial thought was that he was probably either going to try to sell her something or he had the wrong place.

  His smile was rather disarming, or would have been to most women. Heather was too jaded to be swayed that easily. “Why, I hope so. My name is Nicholas Peterson. I’m sorry to bother you so late, officer.”

  He looked nice enough, but Heather had inherited her family’s Finnish heritage of being sullenly suspicious of anything new. “And?”

  “I was given directions at the library. I’m looking for someone.” He had just a little bit of an accent. Heather couldn’t place it, but he certainly wasn’t from around here. New Yorker? “And I can see from your name tag that I’ve found the right place. Do you know an Aksel Kerkonen?”

  Great. Somebody else Grandpa owed money. She had thought that she was past dealing with this kind of thing. The first year had brought a long line of creditors out of the woodwork, but it had tapered off eventually. “That was my grandfather, but he’s passed away.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” he said. “My condolences.”

  “It’s been a few years. What do you want?” She got ready for the invoice to come out, because if there was one skill that Grandpa had been good at, besides drinking, fighting, gambling, and mining, it had been absolutely driving the Kerkonens into poverty.

  “Perhaps you may still be able to help me. You see, I’m a historian by trade. I’m doing some research for a book that I am writing. Your grandfather immigrated here from Finland in 1947, correct?”

  “Something like that,” she replied suspiciously. There really wasn’t anything about her grandfather that a historian would be interested in, unless it was the history of random drunken knife fights of the Great Lakes region. “Lots of Finns around here, though. You’re probably looking for someone else.” Heather was Irish on her mother’s side and didn’t really know much family history either way.

  “Did he fight in the Winter War?”

  Grandpa had. He’d been some sort of sniper, in fact, but he hadn’t spoken of it much. Up until the year he died, he’d been a crack shot with his old Nagant rifle and could still move like a ghost on cross-country skis. It was only when he got to drinking that he’d started referring to Russians as “game animals with no bag limit.”

  When she nodded, Peterson pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. Instead of the expected bill, it was a photocopied drawing. “Did he have a medal like this?” He held the picture up. “About an inch across, relatively flat. It may have been on a simple chain. As you can see, the workmanship is very rough. It would be silver in color.”

  Her first instinct was to wonder if it was supposed to be valuable, as there were a few scams that started that way, but most hustlers were smart enough to prey on widows and the stupid, not suspicious cops. She gave the picture a brief look. It was shaped like an animal track, only comically distorted with three long claws. A facsimile of a human hand was carved into the center. “Sorry. I’ve never seen that before. I can’t help you. Look, Mr. Peterson, I need to get to work.”

  “I’d be willing to pay a large sum of money for it.” The stranger was insistent. “Perhaps he would have left it to your father?”

  Heather really wasn’t in the mood. “He’s dead, too. So is everyone else, and if my grandpa ever had anything that might have been worth something, it would have ended up at a pawnshop a long time ago. Good night.” She started to shut the door, but he quickly jammed his foot in the way before sh
e could close it.

  Heather looked incredulously at the leather dress shoe blocking her doorframe. The nerve. “Are you kidding me? Listen—” But when she looked back up, the stranger’s manner had subtly shifted. His head was tilted a bit too far to one side, and he was studying her intently through the crack. There was something not quite right about the way his eyes reflected the porch light, and suddenly Heather realized that Otto was right behind her legs, growling and shaking. A shiver ran up Heather’s spine as her hand automatically tightened around the butt of her gun.

  The man studied her for a moment. Even his voice was different, deeper. “She is telling the truth. . . .”

  There was a noise from the street. A group of teenagers was walking down the sidewalk, laughing and screwing around. Peterson’s eyes flicked away for just a split second toward them, and Heather could have sworn that she actually saw the pulse in his neck. He turned back to her, just the slightest smile visible at the corner of his mouth.

  Heather shouldn’t have been frightened. She was armed. She’d stood her ground physically against men far scarier than the historian—back in Minneapolis, she’d had a gun stuck in her face by a lunatic sex offender and had stayed cool until the situation was under control—but for some awful reason that slight bit of smile scared the hell out of her. She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Get your foot out of my door, or—”

  And just as quickly as his manner had changed to threatening, it returned to normal, almost meek. His posture changed, the strange gold reflection gone from his eyes so quickly that Heather wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. The foot retreated. “I apologize,” he said, dipping his head. “This is just very important to me. If you happen to remember anything about the amulet, I will be staying at the Boddington Inn for a few days. I’m sorry to have troubled you, officer.”

  Without another word the stranger turned and walked down the steps. He crossed the sidewalk, got into his car, and drove away without looking back. Heather watched until the taillights of the Beamer disappeared around the corner. She closed the door and realized that she’d unconsciously opened the retention hood on her duty holster. Her hands were shaking.

  What the hell? She’d been in life-or-death fights, and those hadn’t affected her like the dude who had just stood on her porch. Heather took a seat on the couch. He’d stuck his foot in the door and smiled; he’d been rude. That was it. No one would have ever accused her of being a wimp, and she wasn’t the type to freak out. Maybe it was the stress from Buckley’s attack. Maybe it was the insomnia. She was just on edge. She was seeing things that weren’t there.

  But even as she thought it over, she knew that there was something wrong about the mysterious Mr. Peterson. When he’d tilted his head, there had been a feeling, something primal, something terrifying. He had unnerved her.

  Otto whimpered. There was a fresh puddle on the carpet. Apparently her dog was in agreement.

  We should have killed her.

  “Shut up,” Nikolai said. He turned the blinker on and turned right onto Copper Lake’s Main Street. Nikolai was always careful to obey all the traffic laws of whatever country he was operating in.

  Took her. Hurt her. Murdered her. Ate her. I like redheads.

  “She did not have the amulet. I will not jeopardize the mission for your good time.” There was only one stoplight in the whole town, and unfortunately Nikolai had caught it. The BMW pulled to a stop behind a truck. “Violence will only attract attention, especially against one of the authorities.”

  Too late for that.

  Indeed it was. He had heard about the attack on the other deputy. There would be others as well that these people did not yet know about. The vulkodlak were being gathered. It was already starting. A single fat snowflake landed on the windshield. He watched it for a moment as it sat there, not even bothering to melt, taunting him. More flakes joined their brother. Within seconds his view was peppered white. Time was running out.

  It would have served her right, spawn of that treacherous, thieving Finn.

  Nikolai shook his head. It had become far more demanding lately. It made it difficult for Nikolai to think clearly. “Focus.” There was still much work to do, people who had known Aksel to interview, places to investigate. These were problems that could not be solved with tooth and claw, nor with the rifle in the trunk, for that matter. “We must be discreet.”

  Do you smell that?

  He did. “Wolfsbane . . .” The scent coming through the heater vent was distinct, barely detectable, and only recognized because Nikolai was used to its effects. Its presence served as a general warning, though the herb would cloud his normally acute senses and mask the precise location of the most important thing of all, other werewolves, specifically the one that was wearing it.

  Harbinger.

  The light turned green. Nikolai activated the wipers and knocked away the collecting snow.

  The Quinn Mine had been closed for years. Operations had already been winding down from the glory days when it had been the region’s largest employer, so that by the time the tragedy had occurred the Quinn Mining Company had been but a shadow of its formerly great self. Only two of the company’s dozen shafts had still been in operation, pulling copper from the bowels of the Earth on the day when a rock burst had trapped twenty miners at the base of Shaft Number Six. Over the next seven days, the rescue attempt proved fruitless and was finally called off when two rescuers were killed on the surface by a malfunctioning piece of equipment. It had been the final nail in the coffin of the financially struggling Quinn Mine.

  Surrounded by forest and isolated by hills, most of the buildings still stood. Equipment that had been caught up in the ensuing lawsuits had been abandoned to rust. Volunteers from the Copper County Historical Society conducted a tour a few times a year, and some of the faculty from MTU would do the occasional field trip, but otherwise the warren of offices, rock house, hoist building, and warehouses remained empty and decaying.

  Ethan Pedde had been a miner there when the Quinn had finally shut down and had been working as the night watchman ever since. Usually the most interesting thing he got to do was chase off teenagers looking for somewhere to screw around or to scare themselves silly in a place that everyone in town said was haunted by the ghosts of trapped miners. Last year he had even let in a group from a cable TV show that had come in hunting for ghosts with a bunch of cameras and recorders. They hadn’t found anything, but Ethan still knew that the place was haunted.

  For example, the building he was currently strolling through, that stood on top of Shaft Six, always gave him an eerie feeling. It was several narrow stories of splintering wood and hanging tin, home to rats and pigeons. The wind always made the whole place creak and cry. There was a hole under his feet that went down five thousand feet, farther than God ever intended man to go, an inclined nine thousand feet of tunnels, all coated in red iron dust, and somewhere in a pile of rocks under all that wet red hell were the skeletons of twenty of his best friends who’d asphyxiated in the pitch black. Oh, yeah, if anyplace was truly haunted, it was the old Number Six.

  He’d taken a few days off for Thanksgiving, then took a sick day because of a nasty cold. The broken chain lying in the snow at the gate had told him that somebody had snuck into Number Six while he was away. Damn kids. They were probably long gone by now, but if they weren’t, braining one of them with his nightstick was mighty tempting.

  Ethan saw the gleam of a flashlight bouncing ahead of him before it disappeared down the stairs, and it ticked him off. Because it was the source of the legends, Number Six was where the morons liked to break in to impress their girlfriends, so Ethan always made sure he walked through it at least twice a night, even when it was piercing cold, like tonight. Though he wasn’t a religious man, Ethan thought of Number Six as a tomb, and therefore sacred, and not to be broken into by idiot teenagers.

  Kids looking for a scare . . . They didn’t know what scared was. Scared was going b
ack down that hole, even while the rock was screaming around you, ready to break again, and trying to cut your way to men who any sane person knew were probably already dead while choking on clouds of dust. Ethan had gone down twice, working twenty straight desperate hours. The really brave one had been that madman Aksel Kerkonen, the supervisor of Number Six, who’d gone down by himself one last time, even once they’d called the rescue off. That stubborn old bastard hadn’t known when to quit.

  The footprints were visible in the dust. These kids were braver than most. They were going right down to the shaft entrance, following the crumbling railroad ties. The steel tracks had been pulled up and sold for scrap years ago. Ethan lost the prints on the metal catwalk.

  Ahead and below were the twin giant spools of cable that raised and lowered the cars. It would take a particularly stupid teenager to go down there. It was pitch black, and there were lots of sharp bits of rusty metal to bang into. The holes had been covered with heavy grates for safety. Although the shafts themselves had crumbled during the cave-in, leaving them choked with broken ledges that you could barely crawl between, even the shortest drop was still a couple hundred feet.

  Ethan had stopped to pull the cobwebs from his hair when he heard the crunching. At first he thought it was boots on the gravel around the top of the shaft, but this was different. It was too loud, and it was more of a snapping that was echoing down the brick walls. Ethan wasn’t sure what he was hearing. It would be dangerous for someone to actually try to climb down the shaft. Even if they squeezed past the ledges, most of the bottom levels had flooded with seeping water as soon as the pumps had quit running. It would be easy for someone to get trapped down there and drown.

  Once he was back on solid floor, Ethan played his light around, looking for more prints. There were prints with boot tread, others from athletic shoes, but then there was something else: drag marks. Now he was really curious. He kept watching the floor as he approached the noise. The dust was really disturbed in this area. Maybe some vagrant had moved into Number Six. . . . Maybe a crazy vagrant . . . Ethan suddenly realized how dark it was outside of his flashlight beam, and since company policy forbid security guards to have guns, all he had was a nightstick. Maybe he needed to just back out of here and call the sheriff’s department and let them deal with it.