“I can take the shot,” Dalma whispered in my ear.
“No,” I said, turning to face Lou. “Lou, he’s an ass, but he’s on our side.”
“I’ve had enough of people touching me today,” Garrett replied, squeezing not-so-gently.
“I…I did not know that,” Sola gasped, voice rising.
“Damnit, elf, next time ask before you go grabbing people,” Cathe finally managed to say.
Sometimes you get to pull a movie moment in this business. Without even looking at him, I knew the scientist was going to try to escape.
“Don’t,” I said to him, drawing my pistol and pointing it at him.
He froze in place.
“Sola, apologize to Lou for assuming he was one of your grad students,” I said.
“I most deeply regret that I might have caused you any emotional discomfort,” Sola said.
Lou squeezed again, and Sola squeaked like a dog toy.
“Lou, let go of Sola’s balls. I’d like to get back to Austin without having to fill out paperwork on why I let a known werewolf turn our top researcher into a eunuch,” I said, continuing to aim at the German werewolf.
“Fine,” Lou said with a final tweak before letting go of Sola.
I turned to the German. He had managed to piss himself again.
“For a werewolf, you’re not all that brave, are you?” I asked.
“Ich, I mean I am as brave as the situation requires. It is also hard to be brave with someone pointing a pistol at one’s groin,” he said.
“Lost the damn movie German accent, have you?” Lou asked, walking over.
“As old as I am, it is easy to lose an accent,” the German said, crouching before Lou.
“Son of a bitch,” Fred said, watching the interaction. “I’d always wondered if werewolves acted like more like humans or like wolves. Now I know.”
“While this would make an interesting case study,” Sola said from a safe distance away, “there’s still the little matter of closing the rift.”
“What do we need to do?” I asked, as the dwarves moseyed out of the courthouse and tossed Fred a couple of spikes.
“Cover my back while I perform the ritual,” Sola replied.
“Right,” I said, rubbing my forehead with my thumb and finger. “Lou, why don’t you and Mina take Doc Feelbad here to the Gas N’ Go?”
“I should stay to make sure you don’t break anything else,” Mina said.
“No need,” I said. “No more bad guys, no more break things.”
“Are you sure?”
“I promise,” I said, watching her turn and follow Lou down the street.
I looked at the others standing there, who were all making various gestures to ward off evil. Sighing, I crossed myself, and muttered a quick prayer that Murphy wouldn’t bite me in the ass today.
Crack!
“Dalma, what was that?” I asked.
“Nothing. Well, just a whale crushing a building,” she said. “Since the whale was already there, I don’t think that invalidates your promise.”
Some days I hate open mikes.
Sola led us around the courthouse to where the rift gaped. A few imps scampered over the giant buffalo’s head that was still blocking the rift.
“What I want to know is why there’s a giant water buffalo head sticking out of the rift,” Hovis asked as we watched Cathe set up a box of components for Sola.
“Akkadian mythos,” she said, shaking out a robe embroidered with mystic symbols and guitars. “The Bison-Beast was one of the things killed by Ninurta, god of agriculture.”
“You know this random bit of Akkadian mythology because?” Diindiisi asked.
Cathe shrugged, helping Sola don the robe.
“I know it because Sola made me study Akkadian myths when we were trying to rescue you guys back in July,” she said, looking at the dwarves. “You guys didn’t hear that, ok?”
“If we are done discussing things that should not be discussed outside of safe locations, I need to close the rift,” Sola said.
We all took a step back, and he started chanting and gesturing. I’ll give him this, he’d worked the Elvis shtick into his spell casting—at one point, Cathe handed him a guitar, and he danced like Elvis. Finally, with a slurping noise, the rift closed, leaving a giant buffalo head in place of the sculpture that had stood in Piccadilly for the last sixty-odd years. Sola walked over to the head and said a few words over it.
“That,” he said, turning to me and dusting his hands, “should keep it from rotting for a few days. If you will give me a minute, I will do the same for the whale. Not having to smell tons of rotting meat should make things a bit easier on whoever does the cleanup, no?”
I shrugged, shocked that Sola was thinking ahead. He walked over to where the whale was sinking into the surrounding buildings. Cathe came over and watched as her boss floated into the air and waved his hands over the whale corpse as well.
“He’s not thinking ahead,” she said. “I told him he might make a few points up with Garrett and the other locals if he kept their town from smelling like a rendering plant and a fish packing plant had really bad sex and left the after effects lying around.”
“Yeah, it might help,” I admitted. “Although I don’t think a dead whale smells like a fish packing plant. I read somewhere it’s more like rotten bacon grease that won’t go away.”
“Whatever,” Cathe said. “Point being, I’m hoping by expending a little magic, he can make up for the faux pas and get us a non-gooified implant.”
“Something like these?” I asked, taking the implants I’d grabbed from the table in Not Iraq out of a pouch.
The implants came sealed in plastic, marked ‘Sterile until opened.’
“Where did you get those?” Cathe asked, eyes lit with avarice.
“I must advise you that greed is a sin, my child,” I said in a light, mocking tone. “But to answer your question, I grabbed them before we left the pocket universe we found them in. I thought they might be useful.”
She ran over to the pile of magical paraphernalia and dug through it, returning with a bag marked with runes.
“Put them in here. It’s a null bag, so it should keep anything from degrading them before we can tear them apart at the lab,” she said.
I dropped them in the bag.
“Now, if we can get…what did you call him? The guy Garrett was threatening.”
“Doc Feelbad. He was sticking one of those into Garrett when Garrett gutted him like a fish.”
“That had to hurt. He’s a Special, I take it?”
“Garrett says he’s the werewolf who turned him,” I replied, watching Sola float majestically to the ground.
“Anyway, if we can get Doc Feelbad to tell us about the implants, we should be able to get an idea of who or what is behind them,” she said.
“Something tells me it’s Abzu,” I said, gesturing to the various dead bits of Akkadian myth dotting the landscape around the courthouse.
“Well, duh. But why?”
“Probably the usual reasons obscure, ancient gods do things. The chicks dig it.”
She punched me in the shoulder.
“Like I told your boss the other day, I pull triggers. I don’t do deep thought on why the things I’m shooting do the things they do.”
* * * * *
Chapter Twelve
It took three days of Cathe arguing to convince Garrett to turn Doc Feelbad over to us. It took another two to fly in an Irish hedge witch to modify the geas around Piccadilly so we could move Garrett to Austin to remove the implant. Jed and the rest of the Brute Squad returned to Austin and ‘normal’ operations. Since I was the subject matter expert on Ancient Akkadian Chaos Gods, I was voluntold to stay and baby-sit the clusterfuck cleanup in Piccadilly. At least I had paperwork to keep me busy while we waited. We found a couple of surprises in the rubble, including half of Monocle, complete with GoPro and about ten grand in camera equipment, under the dead whale. Mono
cle’s face had the strangest look on it—half-serene, and half-terrified. The cleaning team stuffed his body and all the camera gear into a body bag, ensorcelled the whole package, and shipped it to Austin most ricky-tick. I think someone hoped a necromancer could wake Monocle and ask him what had happened.
Monocle would probably enjoy being undead.
The joys of explaining the plan to remove a dead whale and ammunition expenditure aside, I was stuck at the Gas N’ Go, since it was now our ‘on site HQ.’ Which meant Other Dave and a pair of Mack Granite command vehicles. When I finished the first pass at the enormous stack of paperwork, I went over and knocked on the back door of the Granite Twenty-Seven. The cloud of coconut-smelling nicotine vapor surrounding it was a dead giveaway that Other Dave was onboard. If I hadn’t known they were vaping in there, I’d have sworn Other Dave was running a strip club inside the box, based on the smell.
“Yeah?” one of Other Dave’s minions said, opening the door. “Oh, yeah, Father Salazar. Come on in.”
I watched the nicotine fog boil out of the Granite.
“You know, I talked to an old bubblehead one time,” I said, climbing into the box.
“What’s a bubblehead?” Other Dave asked.
“Submariner. Anyway, I was talking to one, and he swore that when they’d been down too long and came up to exchange the air in the boat, a cloud of water vapor would rise from the hatches. I figure it looked like that,” I said, pointing to the cloud that was still rising into the sky.
“What can we do for you?” Other Dave asked, ignoring my commentary on his air quality.
“I was wondering if you’d found anything?” I said.
“No. Although the camera they found yesterday should help some,” he said. “Once it’s been checked for traps, spells, and other joyous bits of magic by the wizards, of course.”
I raised an eyebrow at the crew in the Granite.
“No worries,” Other Dave said. “I vetted these guys myself.”
“I’ll bite; how’s the camera going to help?”
“I can pull the metadata from it and use that to track their uploads. With that, I can track the hardware they’re using to upload.”
“Long as one of us knows what he’s doing, we’re good,” I said.
“Who’s getting the giant cow head by the courthouse?” one of the minions asked.
“William Thomas claimed it as recompense for me blowing the hell out of his bar,” I said with a chuckle. “Why?”
The minion shrugged. “Thought it’d look cool as a desk for Other Dave here.”
“What about the whale?” I counteroffered.
“R&D claimed it,” Other Dave said. “Cathe said it’s the biggest thing they’ve ever seen arrive via Fortean Phenomenon, so they needed to run some tests on it, for ‘reasons.’”
He made air quotes around reasons.
“Reasons? Such as?” I asked.
“Probably such as Sola told her to claim everything that wasn’t nailed down so he could study it,” one of the minions quipped.
“That’s probably the right answer,” I said, opening the door. “Besides, who knows what uses Sola and R&D can get from a pinch of whale liver.”
Fred was waiting for me when I stepped down. The dwarves had stuck around Piccadilly for some reason.
“Got a minute?”
“Sure. You want to sit, or…?” I asked raising a palm.
“We can walk. Preferably somewhere I can light a cigar to kill the stink of coconut you’re wearing.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said. I took the cigar he offered me, though.
We walked away from the pumps and upwind of the fuel storage tanks, to a little picnic spot surrounded by an acre or so of raw concrete.
I waited while he fiddled with lighting his cigar.
“You’re probably wondering why we’re still here,” he said finally.
“The thought had crossed my mind a couple of times, yeah,” I replied.
“Herself ordered us to stay close to you,” he replied.
“Who’s Herself?”
“The head of the mine. She’s got a couple of fortune tellers,” he spat and made the hammer sign to ward off evil, “and apparently they both had fits and said the same thing—stick close to the priests.”
“Which could be any priests,” I replied.
“That’s what I said, until Herself sent me a video clip showing both fortune tellers picking out your picture,” he replied, drawing on his cigar.
“You said ‘priests,’ plural,” I replied.
“Yeah, she sent a picture along with the film clip, so I’d know the other guy when he showed up,” he replied, taking a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handing it to me.
I unfolded it—and stared into the face of Father Robert Miller, Society of Jesus, seconded to the Knights of St. Quintus.
“You know, I really hate foreshadowing,” I said, folding the paper and handing it back to Fred.
“I’m not a big fan of it myself,” he replied, grinning through his beard.
Things only got worse. Later that day, a van pulled up and disgorged a team of Catholic combat exorcists, and Father Miller himself. About the same time, my phone started blowing up with messages for me—warning me that Father Miller was coming to Piccadilly, and telling me there was going to be a heap big meeting on Skype the next morning.
“Robert,” I said, approaching the van. “Good to see you, man, but what the fuck are you doing at my intrusion site?”
“Language, Father!” He laughed, then embraced me. “My boss called your boss, and the next thing I knew, I’m on a plane to Austin. I’m supposed to brief you on what’s been happening in the Shadow Lands since you left. You’re supposed to tell me everything you know about therianthropes and implants.”
I shrugged. “Figures. Give me a minute to get my computer.”
“We’re going to hold the meeting in a gas station?” he asked, looking around.
“Nope. Under it. You’re about to be admitted to the secret lair of the Van Helsing family,” I said, gesturing for him to follow me.
One of the exorcists tried to stop Fred when he followed Miller. Fred stiff-armed the priest, knocking him on his ass. Guns were drawn.
“Gentlemen,” I said when I saw what was happening reflected in the glass in front of me, “you might want to take a look at the roof before you decide to finish this messily.”
Ozzy, Alfie, and Dalma were on the roof, holding the monstrous Solothurn S-18 anti-tank rifle that they’d put to good use against the creatures coming through the rift. And most of my team had taken up positions inside the Gas N’ Go, where they could support Fred.
“Father Jones, stand your team down,” Miller said. “These people are our allies in this fight.”
“Ah, the Catholic Church,” Diindiisi said, coming over and hugging Miller. “Still trying to be the only ones in charge of all the magic, I see.”
“Father Jones’ team was instructed to insure my safety,” Robert said. “They take that job seriously.”
“I can see that,” Diindiisi replied. “All elements, stand down.”
“So, he’s got you running things for him now?” Robert asked her as we went through the door.
“Oh, just little things like this,” she replied. “By the way, Jesse, the governor agreed to the emergency proclamation, and approved burning all the bodies, not just the daemons and imps.”
“Good,” I said. “That should cut down on the outbreaks of zombies around here. Where’s William and the Van Helsings?”
“They’re downstairs,” she said, walking to one of the coolers.
“I thought you said we were going to the secret lair of the Van Helsings?” Robert said, a puzzled look on his face.
“We are,” I answered as Diindiisi tripped the latch.
The entire cooler lifted out of the way, revealing a passage down.
“You’re lucky,” I said. “They tried to pull the ‘initiation ritu
al’ on me and Fred here the other day.”
“Yeah, they weren’t happy when I threatened to blast our way through the traps, were they? That opened the ‘easy’ way right quick, didn’t it? As if I wouldn’t be able to tell dwarven stone work when I smelled it,” Fred scoffed.
The limestone below the Gas N’ Go had been carved and polished to a professional finish. According to Bubba, the tunnels were a pet project of their grandfathers in the 30s—and were the source of the limestone used to build the courthouse. The place was freaking huge, whatever had happened to the stone.
The Van Helsings called the room their ‘Formal Conference Room.’ Even redneck vampire hunters gave clients the occasional PowerPoint presentation, apparently. William, Bubba, Cletus, and Mina sat on one side of the table. Fred, Diindiisi, and I took the other side, leaving Father Miller the end with all the electronic hook ups.
“Selling gas must be good business,” Miller joked, hooking his laptop into the projector.
“Great-Grandad made a couple of good investments,” Cletus said. “William helped Bubba invest most of what he made playing football, so the gas station is nothing but profit.”
“And what the city, county, and MU pay us to deal with the occasional zombie outbreak or overzealous student don’t hurt, either,” Bubba added. Bubba was not happy to see Miller in his sanctum sanctorum, and was flexing his biceps.
“Father Miller, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” William asked.
“I’m here to discuss exactly what happened, and how we prevent it from happening again, William,” Miller replied, cuing up the first slide. “Picking your brains on therianthropes is a side benefit.”
I groaned. Death by fucking PowerPoint.
“It’s a short presentation,” Miller said, flipping to the second slide. It was a picture of the emblem of Oeillet.
“What the fuck, over?” I asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Miller said. “Remember I said there had been ten bits of Oeillet found and destroyed by the Church over the last few centuries? I was wrong. They found another bit while we were in the Shadow Lands.”
“Where was it found?” Diindiisi asked.
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