“Do I?”
He didn't say anything, but disappointment dulled his eyes. Wesley's death sucked, but it didn't have anything to do with me. Worse, funerals made me want to drink.
“I can't go to funerals anymore,” I said. “Not if you want me to stay sober.”
Thus ended the conversation.
We collected Colt M4 assault rifles, gathered a shit-ton of ammo, and loaded into two black vans: Sarakas, Keats, and I into one and Yvonne and Rosco into the other. The driver was a meat-head rookie, the type who believed if his muscles were big enough, he could never, ever die.
Wished him luck with that.
I sat with my rifle pointed at God. Sarakas gave me the silent treatment. Keats hummed the Old Rugged Cross under his breath. I really wanted him to shut up, but hymns were part of his pregame. I ignored everyone and set my earpiece.
Yvonne positioned herself in the housing on the east side, and Rosco posted on the west. Keats and I waited. I held the M4 and rested my head on the van.
Hopefully, this would be a routine tag and monitor. I squirmed, feeling the constraint of the vest on my tender ribs. My body couldn't take too many hits right now. Santi shouldn't have cleared me, but most agents had a bad habit of fighting injured. Desperate times.
Kim owned a large single floor house in a quiet neighborhood. Old, a little run-down, yet picturesque.
Yvonne said, “I'm set, roosting on the awning about fifty meters from the residence. Good visual of the lot.”
“Got you covered, guys,” Rosco said. “I can see Yvonne from here, too.”
“Time to go,” Sarakas said.
I inhaled a slow, precise breath as my team stacked against the house. Sarakas used a digital skeleton key to bypass the electronic locks. He button-hooked left, I broke right, and Keats brought up the rear.
An intense smell of marijuana met us at the door. Discarded junk and broken furniture leaned against the walls. The floors were filthy. Buds, wrapping papers, fast food cartons, whiskey glasses, and empty bottles of sleeping aids cluttered the dining area. Basically, all the tools of improvised mutt suppression.
Dried blood clotted on the refrigerator handle.
Sarakas sidled up to the living room and froze with an oh-shit look on his face. He hit the panic button on his tag, calling for backup.
I peeked around the doorway.
A pile of males slept on the bare floor, naked or nearly. Lean, starving limbs tangled together. At first glance, it resembled a mass grave. Either we had walked into a gay anorexic sleepover, or Kim had started a kennel.
They began to wake, snorting and squirming in piles. We didn't have the option of backing out and waiting for reinforcements.
Sarakas gestured, Keats began.
“Federal agents! Stay down! Everyone, remain on the floor. Don't move. Federal agents, everyone down.”
Sarakas shouted in Spanish.
Alarm made the sleepy mutts disoriented and stupid. Naked bodies scrambled. Some men pressed their bellies obediently against the wall. Some judged their chances of running. Others rallied behind Kim to analyze the threat.
The mutts faced armed feds who were authorized to turn their brains into grits. The situation was designed to terrify them and reveal latent lycanthropy. The potentials could submit to the tagging process and wait to be bagged when the disease naturally revealed itself, or they could take their chances and fight.
A flush touched Kim's cheeks and his lips stretched above his teeth. He telegraphed his anxiety loud and clear, and his kennel picked up the signals. His feral eyes promised a fast shed.
“On the floor!” Keats shouted.
Kim crouched, not like a man about to submit, but like a mutt poised to pounce. He sprung and shed mid-air. Bones inflated like monstrous balloons. The awkward strain lasted only an instant before supernatural muscle filled the gaps. Fur burst over him, rolling like summer wheat down his torn flesh.
I squeezed the trigger. Silver penetrated fresh peach fur. Three-round blasts made a sieve of his chest.
The room went to hell.
Kim's fur receded as he collapsed on the ground. Dead, he was no longer their leader; he was meat. Two men instantly shed and began to eat on Kim, growling and fighting over the best morsels, tearing him apart.
The rest of the men roared and shed in an eruption of flesh and fur. Monsters were born of man's clay. Once the chaos started, it couldn't be stopped. Mutts of every color filled the house like a herd of rabid rhinoceros. They clamored over each other to get their teeth in us.
Dark eyes. Wet jaws. Snapping teeth.
The tremendous roar.
We opened fire.
A tamarind brown mutt pounced and caught a stream of silver bullets, but his momentum carried through the blast. Sarakas dove aside but the huge mutt clipped him. Before I could shout, get up, his magazine ran dry. Other mutts saw him down, thought easy prey, and swarmed. My heart thrashed and a hiss escaped my lips. I pumped bullets into a white mutt with mahogany patchwork, driving the beasts away from my fallen partner. Sarakas retrieved his sidearm and jammed it under a mutt muzzle. Brains showered the air like fireworks.
Alive, heaving, Andreas regained his footing. Reloaded.
After that, it wasn't so much aiming as spraying bullets, deafening gunfire, and the forceful gallop of my heart.
The throng of mutts backed us through the doorway to the kitchen, where we hoped to bottleneck them. They had other ideas. The headstrong beasts charged through the walls, cracking plaster and splintering wood. Sounded like the whole house was coming down. Heard rumbling and creaking noises below our feet. Dust rose from the hardwood, wispy plumes in the air.
Basement.
Massive teeth broke through drywall beside my head. I ducked, half rolled, and hit the wall. A monster burst through, overshot, and smashed headfirst into the wall beside me. Burrowed halfway to his ass before he figured he had gone too far. I fired into his underside. Filled his guts with silver.
Whining and scrambling, he backed out and collapsed in the hallway.
Effectively blocking our retreat.
Shot him in the forehead. Felt Keats to my left. Turned right to see a mass of incoming mutts surging up the stairs. Gargantuan shoulders burst through the walls, crowded the hall. Two by two they came, like a children's song. I ejected the spent mag and smacked a new one home.
“We got this,” Keats promised. I vowed to make it so.
Fire until empty, change mag, repeat. The enemy died. We were winning.
A black and gray pair of mutts broke from the group. They crashed through the exterior wall, landing in the sun and grass.
“Runners,” Sarakas said. “Two mutts heading south.”
“Got them,” Yvonne said, buzzing in my ear. Her distant gun cracked like popcorn, but I was more concerned with the blond mutt circling Keats’ left side. I swung the M4 around. Advanced. Mowed the mutt down before his hind feet left the floor.
Yvonne's scream shattered my ear.
“Oh, God,” Rosco said. “We've got mutts in the neighboring house. One just broke through a window and grabbed Yvonne.”
Shit, shit, shit.
We couldn't run to her rescue without killing the last three mutts in the house. One leaped and parried off the wall, efficiently taking our rear. I pivoted and fired as it lunged. Bullets didn't stop the mutt's charge. Crashed my ribs, burst lights in my head, and squashed my breath. It bore me down, sent me rolling. I crashed into the wall. Dazed. Thinking about fireflies and fishing lures.
Heat fogged my vision.
He was close. Fang-first in my face.
I scooted along the baseboard, firing as I went. The beast roared. Spit splattered on my visor. Blood. A chunk of mutt skull fell in my lap.
“Durant!” Sarakas said.
“Good!” Panting, trying not to panic. I swept monster debris off my pants and shook out my gloves. Couldn't feel my fingers. Checked on my boys. Keats and Sarakas were upright, filthy bu
t breathing.
A mutt dragged himself around by the forelegs. Keats blasted Ag rounds into the creature's skull. Then it was a matter of double-checking the dead.
“Get Yvonne,” Sarakas ordered.
“Going,” I exited through a mutt-made hole in the wall.
Outside in the yard, my heart sank. She wasn't firing. Utter quiet weighed over the neighboring house. I ran as fast as I could. Ready to faint. Ribs scraping at my lungs. Fifty meters felt like ten kilometers.
Yvonne was silent.
No, no, no.
“Jesus, Jesus,” Rosco said. He huffed and puffed and left his post. Goddamn rookies.
“Yard isn't being watched,” I said. I kicked the neighbor's door open and sprinted up the stairs.
Toward the munching noises.
Four mutts crowded the second floor bedroom, knocking aside furniture in a fight for Yvonne's meat. A fifth creature ate on a dead mutt Yvonne had killed. The biggest mutt hunkered over her shoulder and chewed.
Yvonne wasn't screaming. Her eyes stared up from the remains of her face.
A gray-blue mutt crunched uselessly on her flak jacket. Another tore through her pelvic girdle to get at her intestines. The others munched on her thighs, snarling at each other, shaking their heads, tearing deeper. A bone cracked, a leg began to separate from the corpse.
I posted by the doorway, hoisted the muzzle, and fired into the room. The gray mutt roared and dropped, thrashing, kicking the body across the room and alerting the other monsters. Hungry carnivores lifted their bloody heads, pinned me with their gaze, and began to snarl. One charged. I backed deeper into the hall and fired continually.
Furry black thing, gigantic shoulders. He barely fit through the doorway, taking slabs of frame with him. Slimy red coated his fangs. Yvonne's red. I clenched my teeth and squeezed the trigger, backing left to draw him down the hall. Rosco's boots thundered up the stairs. He opened his mouth with a yell so hoarse it could only accompany machine gun fire. The black mutt yelped, chest bursting with aggressive silver. He backed into the room, tried to hide. We followed.
The job was done before my mag ran dry. Rosco kicked mutt limbs away from Yvonne, ejaculating a mixture of curses and prayers. He grabbed her sopping vest and heaved her remains away from the mutt carcasses. I didn't watch.
I put extra silver in the mutts' foreheads, partially for protocol, mostly to occupy myself.
Rosco wouldn't let Yvonne be. He fussed like he might do CPR.
“She's not getting up,” I snapped.
My voice was dry and cruel. His face hardened. His glare battered my eyes, but he couldn't hold it. He gently set Yvonne down. Her body made an ugly, wet thunk. Her leg rocked loosely on a strand of meat. EMTs wouldn't help her.
Rosco panted. The Devoted insignia, an ankh-cross-hybrid, winked at his throat. I couldn't bear the goddamn sight of him.
“We have to clear the house.”
He rallied himself and took my back. The residence was empty so we returned to Yvonne's side. The rookie stared at the corpse with the usual horror and regret. Maybe thinking he was next.
The rest of my team arrived. Keats dropped to a knee and crossed himself. His eyes screwed shut and lips worked quietly. Sarakas knelt to see if anything in her was pulsing or alive, but the truth was in her vacant eyes.
Sarakas radioed in.
Keats prayed. I wanted to push his face in the mess like a poorly-trained puppy. God clearly wasn't helping.
This is what God permits, I’d say. If He exists, He definitely sucks balls.
“Bastard popped out and got her, like a fucking jack in the box,” Rosco said. “She couldn't have seen it. Had her back to it. God, I should have seen them.”
We had no clue there were mutts in this house. Quality intel like that could have killed us all.
She shouldn't have planted herself near to a window with two entrances at her back, assuming mutts couldn't sneak up on her. She constantly miscalculated them. How could someone underestimate something they were so terrified of? Fear existed for a reason. Christ. Now I stared at her bones and wondered why I hadn’t prevented the mess.
I was still alive. Giddiness struck, my knees threatened to give way, and my vest felt like it would crush me.
An ambulance arrived to retrieve Yvonne's body. With the adrenaline hype, no one displayed real sorrow. They'd cry when the shock wore off. I left and went back to Kim's house to investigate the wreckage. The mutts reverted to skin, piles of bloodied, naked boys with silver-torn faces. Kim laid at the bottom of the heap, mostly eaten.
He tried to start a kennel. Now he knew how such a venture always ended.
I left when Winters arrived, mostly because kicking him in the teeth without provocation felt perfectly acceptable. Needing a time out, I went to the van. The new guy prayed quietly and wiped snot on his sleeve.
I sneered. “You didn't even know her.”
I sat with the door open, feeling the breeze on my cheeks. Ejected the perfectly full mag and reloaded. Fingers had a mind of their own and decided to reload again. I put the weapon across my knees as medics rolled Yvonne's body from the house. What was left of her appeared tragically small under the sheet.
I sighed, cracking my knuckles.
I didn't have to go to Wesley's funeral, but I sure as hell wasn't getting out of this one.
Chapter 17
When a teammate falls, three things happen: a funeral, time off, and an evaluation.
Funeral: tolerated. People cried. Sarakas brought Vanessa, who looked lovely in black. They held hands in the front row. Rosco slept with one or two of Yvonne's cousins. We all process grief in different ways. Me, I managed to not get drunk or punch anyone. Good funeral.
Psyche evaluation: settled. Passing an eval required a bag of jelly beans and a box of import snuff. I sat in the office with Dr. Bailey, gave him the 'presents' (because bribes were unseemly) and listened to him talk. Shrinks love to talk, but rarely get a chance to babble about themselves. He yapped about a wife who behaved like Hagar the Horrible and a son who couldn't catch a football to save his life.
I popped Gorgonblood like candy and researched what bothered me. Firstly, an apparent serial killer in Phoenix who may be targeting mutts and taking their skins. I delved deep into the victims' history, hoping to find a connection, a kennel, something. The victims lived in separate sectors, visited different churches, and had no overlapping employment or friends. Didn't even watch the same programs on television. No apparent link. It felt like a dead end. I forwarded a lot of information to Contrell hoping he was smarter than me.
Secondly, the stalker. Someone had been in my home and bank accounts, pranced in and out, and I still had no clue who. He warned me about the guy under my truck, which indicated he didn’t want me dead. Or was saving me for something. Shit like that didn't simply go away, but I didn’t learn a single thing about the situation.
I spent more time on the treadmill than I'd have thought humanly possible. I read all the new books in my collection, added home security to keep the stalker at bay, had the place swept for bugs and cameras (four of which were found, though the bugs looked government issue), and moved some of my treacherous treasures to more secure locations.
Andreas invited me to double date with him and Vanessa, probably fishing to see if I had a romantic interest so he could tease me. I declined, claiming I had to get my nails done. Naturally, he saw right through that.
Night-demons came for my dreams. Yvonne. Ms. Crowley. Juan offered spectacular nightmares. Guilt, that's all. I didn't believe in ghosts.
Without AA, I needed something else to absorb my negative energy.
Despite rumors, my testosterone level wasn't at par with a rabid linebacker on steroids. I worked harder for my muscle than my male counterpart. I didn't need the bulk of traditional weight lifting, but I wanted strength, endurance, and speed. I also preferred my guns nearby at all times which didn't soar at public gyms. At Crueger's, they let me keep my gun, a
lbeit trigger-locked, by my side. A favorite of LEOs, feds, firefighters, and the like, the gym serviced clientele as paranoid and determined to keep their firearms as me. A tough, competitive crowd.
I waved at the desk. No need to flash a badge because the TagTaker logged me at the door. I came dressed for a heavy workout: clothed from wrists to neckline and down, plus training gloves. I threw myself into an intense routine.
Three sets in, I felt a man staring at me. Sweaty and breathless, I was in no mood to give a damn. He sidled closer. I swear on doughnuts, if he interrupted my set with some stupid comment, I'd unman him with a club bell.
He fell into the cycle behind me.
Once I didn't think he'd bother me, I admired the view. Hypocrisy, for sure.
Extremely short hair. Great shoulders, a whip of a waist, average legs. Burn marks on the backs of his wrists. Firefighter? He caught me looking. I turned, walked across the gym, and focused on isometrics. The combination of heavy, rapid lifting and fine motor movement left me utterly exhausted. After, I skipped the shower because I had a thing against nudity in fully-lit public places. I waved to a couple of policemen I recognized and moseyed toward the door.
Stopped by the snack shop to grab a couple of protein bars (one for now, one for dinner) and decided to get a fruit smoothie. The leathery gal behind the counter, clearly addicted to spray tanners, smiled pleasantly and dumped mounds of fresh fruit into the blender.
Frowning, I glanced out the window. It was almost dark and I had nothing to do. Nothing on television. I hated theaters. Bars were out. Maybe I could rattle through reports at the office. God, how dull! Paperwork on a day off, and a Saturday night, too. Sarakas was undoubtedly taking Vanessa out to some classy venue, so I couldn't call him. Hang out with Zelda? Maybe finally learn to cook something?
Kaidlyn, I schooled myself, you need a life.
I massaged the tight skin on the back of my sore neck. While I was doing so, the great-shoulders guy approached. He smelled like his workout. Virile, musky. Didn't look like a guy who had problems finding something to do on a Saturday night. Yet there he was, smiling, and I couldn't pretend I didn't see him. He wore a decent smile. Not too eager. Cute dimples.
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