Monster Hunter Guardian Read online

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  I drove while Albert read the files Melvin kept emailing him. After a while I got tired of the silence and said, “It’s good to be out, isn’t it?”

  “Sure.” Albert didn’t sound sure. He sounded like he wanted to be sullenly hiding in his library, trying to feel useful.

  “Come on. It’s a nice day. Though…I do feel a little guilty.”

  He looked up from his phone long enough to give me a sickly smile. “Because the women, children, old folks, and cripples who got left behind haven’t heard anything from our friends who are busy risking their lives?”

  “Don’t remind me, but I was actually talking about Ray. This is the longest I’ve ditched him since he’s been born.”

  “Oh.” Albert looked a little sheepish at that. He’d volunteered to go on the siege and was assigned to Cody’s big brain squad, but Earl had changed his mind and shot him down at the last minute. It had been gentle by Earl’s standards, with him saying that Albert and his skills would be more valuable here, while his messed-up leg would be a liability on Severny Island. So not particularly gentle, but this was Earl we were talking about. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Maybe it was just a Hunter thing. Even though there had originally been over a thousand men on that mission, each of us was big-headed enough to think that we alone could have made all the difference by being there. Albert Lee had to wear a brace and walk with a cane, and he’d still fought for a spot. To be fair, he probably would have been way more effective than a really pregnant sniper.

  “It’s cool, Albert. I’m with you. You can vent.”

  “Okay. This friggin’ sucks. I could’ve spent the last six months manning a gun turret on that boat or on one of the supply convoys just as well as anybody. But no, I’m sitting at a desk all day waiting for a call, just in case they need help figuring something out. How dorky is that?”

  “Not dorky at all, considering how many times something you looked up saved someone’s ass in the field.”

  “I’m going to remind you that you said that when it comes time for annual bonuses.”

  “You do that.” But considering that I knew he’d moved back into the company barracks like a Newbie, just so he could be close to the archives 24/7 in case someone on Severny Island had a question, Albert was getting a good bonus this year. “In the meantime, I feel like a teenager sneaking out of school.”

  He grinned at me. “I guess it does. I did need to get out of that basement. I’ve been down there so long that Melvin is starting to make sense.”

  “That can’t be good for your mental health.”

  “Probably not. And just so you know, I’m still looking into that other thing for you, but I’ve got nothing.”

  I nodded. He meant the Guardian curse. What the marks meant, and what they’d eventually do to me were still a mystery. I’d put out feelers to all our scholarly types and asked Ben Rigby to have his people check with Oxford. Yet, even with centuries of collected monster hunting wisdom, it was like nobody knew a damned thing about the Guardians.

  “It’s all good, Albert. I wasn’t getting my hopes up.”

  It was a nice day for a drive. Philpot wasn’t quite as hidden in the middle of nowhere as Cazador was, but I remembered how to get there. They were Cazador’s Pee-Wee Football’s rivals. Both my brothers had played.

  I changed the subject. “Anything of use on our potential recruit yet?” I asked. “Anything that I should know, at least?”

  “Melvin’s last email was titled I bored and had this guy’s tax records attached. It’s like central casting called for a small-town white guy from Alabama.”

  “Hey, you just described most of my relatives.”

  “Except for the werewolf…” Albert muttered as he scrolled through. “High school quarterback, married his high school sweetheart who was a cheerleader. Worked as a mechanic. Took over his dad’s auto shop and been there ever since. Never been arrested, never even had a speeding ticket. The most interesting thing about him is that he shoots guns on a friend’s farm after work, and Melvin only knew about that because they posted pictures on Facebook.”

  “He seems pretty normal.”

  Albert looked up from his phone and scowled. “Julie, serious question: how many monster-encounter survivors have you interviewed would you describe as normal?”

  “It’s about half and half. For every guy from a stereotypical overachieving Asian immigrant home whose uptight parents expected him to be an engineer, but who rebelled and joined the Marine Corps instead…”

  “I like this guy. He sounds like a badass.”

  “Let me finish. Who then got a job as a librarian, until he nuked the county library because of a giant spider infestation, and got interviewed by me right after the MCB was threatening him into silence with felony arson and bomb-making charges…for every one of those interesting types, I interview a Johnny Football Hero who took over his daddy’s auto body shop.”

  “Brakes and mufflers mostly it looks like from their webpage,” Albert corrected me. “But fair enough. I don’t usually do interviews. I just figured most of us would be weirder.”

  “Oh, they’re weird too. They just hide it better.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Philpot, Alabama, is not a one-horse town, mostly because no one rode horses anymore. Once we got off the highway it was all winding country roads. Here and there was a house, a good bit back from the road, half hidden by trees covered in kudzu. Once, a pickup truck passed us, the echoes of the music it was playing wafting behind like a ghostly presence.

  “Wow, there really is nothing much out here, is there?” Albert stifled a yawn.

  “I grew up in Cazador. This seems completely normal to me.”

  Moments later, on the route to the main street, we passed a—well, for lack of a better word—a “convenience” store. It looked beaten and grey, like no one had bothered to paint the white façade in a long time. There were no gas pumps. There was, however, a sign in the window advertising boiled peanuts. Tempting as that was, we kept going.

  The town was really just one main street, but it seemed to have everything you’d need: grocery store, gas station, barber, and doughnut shop. There was even a little Italian restaurant tucked in at the other end.

  We followed the GPS past the end of the strip, and after a couple of miles turned off. At the end of that road was a building that might have started life as a barn. Parked around it were a bunch of cars waiting to be worked on or ready for pickup. They certainly weren’t hurting for business.

  As I parked, Albert noted, “This is isolated enough for a swamp lurker attack, but normally they like a swampier climate. That’s kind of in their name. He’s in for a good PUFF though.”

  “Yeah, about that. We’ll hook him up with whatever bounty he’s owed no matter what, but let me get a feel for whether I want to make him a job offer before you mention how much money he could make. Too many Newbies who show up with dollar signs in their eyes wash out during training.” Money is a fantastic motivator, and this career usually paid really well, but a good Hunter needed other qualities too.

  “You’re the boss.”

  Albert meant that in the nicest possible way, but it just made me think of Grandpa. He was still the Boss. That was and always would be his title as far as I was concerned. When I opened the car door, I could hear country music coming from inside the shop. Not really loud, just perfectly audible in the surrounding silence.

  The barn doors were open. I noted that the inside of the mechanic’s shop was more modern than expected. There was a lift—with a car up on it—and there was computer equipment on a roller cart. The whole place smelled strongly of cleaners and disinfectants. Swamp lurkers stunk, and he’d probably been scrubbing up their oozy, sticky blood for hours.

  The guy was standing by the computer doing something. At least I presumed he was our guy because there was no one else around, and he looked a lot like the driver’s license photo Albert had s
hown me.

  He must have heard our car or our footsteps because he yelled toward us without looking. “I’ll be right with you.”

  This guy was…standard issue. Blond, looking like he’d once been very athletic and now gone a bit to seed. Not fat, as such, but no longer looking like he played sports anymore. He was handsome, too, the sort of generic handsome that a small town guy might be without pretensions. Square chin, but his most striking feature was nice eyes, so green they were almost emerald. The name tag on his coveralls read CJ. When he finally looked up from whatever he was doing, he immediately realized we were strangers, then gave us a polite smile and said, “What do you need?”

  “Mr. Colin Wynne?”

  “That’s me.” The smile remained polite, kind of noncommittal, but I could tell he was nervous. He’d just dealt with some really weird shit but wasn’t curled up in the fetal position sucking his thumb, so that was a good sign. I also didn’t know if, or how much, the MCB had yelled at him yet about not talking about his supernatural encounter. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Julie Shackleford.” I still used my maiden name for MHI business. I’d built up enough of a professional reputation that switching now would cost us money. My husband was too much of an accountant to be offended. “From up the road in Cazador.” I added that last part, so at least he’d know I wasn’t another carpetbagging MCB goon. “This is my associate, Albert Lee.”

  I went to shake his hand, but he made a big show of cleaning his hands on a rag, so that he couldn’t. “Okay.”

  “We wanted to talk to you about what happened here.”

  Wynne muttered something under his breath as his expression shifted to annoyance. “Who are you?” He looked at me first, then over at Albert. I was wearing slacks and a blouse, and Albert had on a nice button shirt. “Newspaper reporters? I’ve got no comment. Are you going to slander me? Because if you are, I’ll sue. I grew up here. Everyone knows me. I’ve never done drugs, never even smoked pot, but now some government types are saying I got high and hallucinated. And them saying it was the result of prescription meds doesn’t cut it. I don’t take any prescriptions, either. Do I look like I need prescriptions?”

  That meant he’d gotten a call from the MCB already. “We’re not newspaper reporters. Besides, prescription drug abuse wouldn’t explain the slime left from the swamp lurkers.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you? Someone from that New Age place over near the doughnut shop? No, ma’am. It was probably just a deformed giant crab. My grandpappy disposed of some weird stuff back there a long time ago, you know, all the refrigerants and stuff. The old barrels must have leaked, made it look like that, like a mutant or something.”

  “That’s some potent chemicals if it’s making their blood turn green,” Albert said as he walked to the side and poked his cane at a wet spot on the floor. It had obviously been sprayed off, but there was still some splatter that needed to be scrubbed.

  Wynne pushed a button on his computer and the music cut out. “Look, lady, my day was weird enough. I don’t need to be on the front page of some UFO magazine any more than I need rumors of my doing drugs going around town, hurting my business. I’m just a mechanic. I do good business. I don’t need rumors of anything weird around here. People could start driving to the next town over for service.”

  My grandpa always liked to say that the single most important thing for a Monster Hunter to possess was a flexible mind. From the way he seemed to be trying really hard to convince himself that nothing too odd had happened here, he might not be a good fit. Oh well. Not every prospect was right for MHI.

  “We’re with a company that deals with these sorts of events. From what we’ve gathered, you handled yourself well. I wanted to talk to you about a job.”

  “Fixing cars?”

  “No.” Though come to think of it, even if he wasn’t mentally suited to making the jump to full-fledged Hunter, it might be handy to have someone else in the region we could bring in to service the fleet vehicles. When your office has got pictures all over the walls of supernatural things that are actually illegal to even talk about with regular people, it makes little things like hiring a plumber really hard.

  I handed him a business card, the one with the green smiley face with horns, and a number that would go to Dorcas’ reception desk. “What we’re about to say may sound a little weird, but after your recent experience, you of all people will understand we’re not crazy. Albert and I represent a company called Monster Hunter International. We handle monster-related problems.”

  He looked down at the card in his hand as he ran one callused hand through his hair. “So, you deal with things like…those things?”

  “Yes, we do.” This part was delicate because even though the MCB knew damned good and well we cherry-picked survivors, if they didn’t join up and they later talked about stuff that I’d told them, it could complicate both our lives. Plus, I didn’t want to scare the hell out of the poor guy and start talking about elder things. “And many more.”

  “What kind of more?”

  “Vampires, werewolves, zombies,” Albert supplied. “You know, the usual stuff.”

  Wynne gave a little laugh, like he thought that was a joke; then his eyes got really big when he saw that Albert was totally serious. “Naw. No way, man. You’re crazy.”

  Albert could have been a little more diplomatic on the reveal, but my gut was telling me we hadn’t struck pay dirt here. A good potential Newbie, there was always that little spark of curiosity. I’d done so many of these interviews that my instincts were seldom wrong.

  “Look, Mr. Wynne. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m betting that you were contacted by some government agents already.”

  “Maybe.” The way he said that meant that he had been, but that they’d made it real clear that talking about them was a bad idea.

  “They’ll probably follow up with you again soon. What they probably didn’t tell you is that there’s a bounty system to deal with creatures like the one you killed.”

  “What do you mean ‘bounty?’” He sounded even more suspicious about the money than he did the existence of monsters.

  “Killing a swamp lurker is worth a significant amount of money to the federal government.” I looked to Albert. I hadn’t checked the latest PUFF table before we’d left.

  “About twenty-five grand for a little one,” he said. “I’ve got some paperwork in the car you can fill out, and when those federal agents call you back to make sure you’re being good, tell them you want your bounty payment. They’ll act dumb, but if you give them the forms, they’re legally obligated to process them. Then you’ll get a reward check.”

  “Really? That’s a lot of money.”

  “You earned it.” Even if this wasn’t going to work out for MHI, the guy had done a good deed and deserved to get paid. In some cases we’d just go ahead and file all the paperwork for them, like we did for Owen. But then again, he’d killed a werewolf with his bare hands and we’d gotten to watch the whole thing on video. That’s the stuff of legend. My future husband had been more like a first-round draft pick, so of course we’d put in the extra effort. “Albert, would you grab those PUFF forms?”

  “No problem.” He began limping back toward the car.

  Wynne obviously liked the part about reward money but was also really suspicious. I know I’m charming enough to get Eskimos to buy snow, but some folks are just a hard sell. I’d let him percolate on it.

  “Well…thanks, Ms. Shackleford.”

  “If you have any questions about that paperwork, you’ve got our number. When you get paid, you can see that this isn’t some sort of scam. If you’re interested after that, give us a call. We’re always hiring. It was nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too.”

  I turned on my heel to leave. That’s when things got weird.

  First there was a sound from the car lift. It jerked up and down several inches, two or three times. There was a loud beeping
from the computer. The lights flickered on and off. The beeping and hydraulic humming all stopped at the same time. And suddenly the garage was cold as hell.

  It hadn’t been very warm to begin with. The temperature outside was in the fifties or so, and he had the bay doors open. But suddenly it was so cold that I turned toward Albert and could see his breath puffing out of his mouth in a cloud.

  Shit.

  Don’t even ask me why, but when there’s something powerfully supernatural going on, the temperature often heads down to freezing depths. I’d guess it is the magic, or whatever, sucking all the energy available in the surrounding air. Maybe that’s why it seems to get so quiet too.

  You know all those little sounds you don’t even think about in the South—often the sounds of insects? Or the sound of the computer fan running? Or birds? Maybe a dog barking in the distance? It had all gone suddenly and deathly silent.

  I turned back toward Colin Wynne. He looked the same except…except his features had gone rigid is the only way I can describe it. And he was aiming a big stainless steel revolver at me.

  “Whoa, easy there.”

  The gun barked. The flash was right in front of my face. I flinched as the bullet went right past my ear.

  I went for the pistol concealed at my side, but Wynne shifted the muzzle over a tiny bit and it was aimed at my nose. His finger was on the trigger. He had me dead to rights.

  “It’s not time to kill you yet.” The words came out of Wynne’s mouth, but it sure didn’t sound like him anymore.

  Slowly, I moved my hand away from my gun. Over the ringing in my ears I could hear the rasp as Albert’s back slid down the wall. I risked looking in his direction. My friend was sinking to the floor. His teeth were clenched, trying not to cry out. There was a red hole in his shirt.

  “You did exactly what I wanted you to do, daughter of Eve,” Wynne said, except it didn’t sound at all like the man we’d just been talking to. This voice had…a buzzing undertone is the best way I can describe it, as though each word was being conducted through a cloud of bees.