“Got it,” I said. “Still have to say ‘Thanks.’”
And she was gone.
* * *
“…if you think you can get away with causing a Class Five event and allying with the Fey, you are wrong!” Director Wagner himself had turned up.
“Well, my boys briefed you in on this, asshole, and you did diddly squat!” Boss Shackleford wasn’t about to back down to no MCB borocrat asshole.
The MCB had shown up too late to participate in anything other than cleanup and cover-up. Franks was looking more pissed than usual. Probably because there wasn’t anything left to kill. And he hated politics.
“Director Wagner,” I said, nodding. “I take it you’re planning on rounding us all up and putting us in docket for…alliance with the Fey was it?”
“You just butt out of this, Gardenier,” Wagner said. He was normally considered very diplomatic and capable of lying right to your face with ease. Not at the moment.
“You might want to talk to the President about that first, unless you want the arrest warrant you serve on Camp David to be a surprise.”
“What?” Wagner said.
Now that I’d said that, I sure hoped the Queen hadn’t been yanking my chain.
“You had your chance to end a threat, Wagner, and you chickened out.” The Boss shook his hook hand at the MCB director disapprovingly. “See that giant pile of body parts over yonder? That’s all PUFF-applicable. Those big old chunks of translucent blubber floating by? PUFF-applicable. The slug god we’re still dredging up? PUFF-applicable. And when New Orleans’ outbreak rate drops like a stone next quarter? Stats don’t lie, and the Select Committee loves it some stats. You cross my company right now you’re cutting your own throat, and you know it!”
“Especially when it comes out there were MCB just sitting at the Marine base nearby waiting to see how it shook out, so they could swoop in at the last minute to blame us if it all went wrong.” It was just a wild guess on my part, but from his reaction, I was right.
“How dare you!” Wagner said, grinding his teeth. “I’ll have you—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” I said, raising a finger and speaking very fast. “A hundred million dollars out of MCB’s budget if you or Franks so much as lift a finger without probable cause.”
Old Man Shackleford snorted at that one.
“And as for your assertion that we were allied with the Fey,” I continued. “Where is your probable cause? I don’t see any Fey here. If any just showed up on their own, what were we supposed to do about it? We were kind of busy. I’m sure that the good holy men present here will be hard pressed to say that they saw any Fey. How could you suggest any such thing, Director? All I see is an alliance of many different faiths—proof that America’s constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion is working—allied to destroy an unholy and ancient evil your organization has been unable to find, much less battle, for what was it?”
“A really long time,” the Boss answered. “And one of those witnesses you’ll need to testify is the geologist who tried to warn you about the existence of this monster twenty years ago. Too bad y’all ignored him. That will make your bureau look brilliant.”
“You do not want to go there with me,” Wagner ground out.
“Going to have me beaten half to death?” I asked.
“Or possibly try to pull our charter?” the Boss said. “Look, Director, after this little debacle, I’ll be amazed if you have a job. You might not have realized just how bad this was going to get, but you deliberately left it to the local authorities, and they used us. And it turned into, well, this. I’ve had about enough of your empty threats, and I’m too damned old to take a beating, so either start to arresting or get the hell out of my way.”
For once, Wagner was speechless.
“That’s right. It has dawned upon you just how badly you have done. You’d better cover your ass, boy, because it is about to start raining fire. Today, we’re the heroes, and you’re just the cleanup crew. So hop to it.”
* * *
In case you’re wondering: backhoes. Lots of backhoes. It was like moving a massive earth mound. Upside was in New Orleans you could easily find some grading contractors who were on MCB’s list of people who were “read in.”
The scariest thing about the whole cleanup was that we found out MCB has portable incinerators. I want to think that that’s just because some bureaucrat was forward thinking and foresaw that there might be a huge undead outbreak someday. But the fact that the United States government has massive portable incinerators for bodies scares the shit out of me to this day.
The surviving drillers didn’t have any problems with mava juice. There was a holy man or woman standing behind every one of them, praying over them and keeping the power of the mava back.
I hadn’t wanted to get stuck with clean-up duty. I would have rather done like most of MHI which was still in town, and been hunting straggler undead, who’d gotten animated by the mava but who hadn’t made it here in time to get destroyed. But sadly, the Boss had taken a liking to me, and I had been drafted as his gopher. When Raymond Shackleford the Third declares you his assistant, you say “Thank You Sir May I Fetch You Another Coffee.” I spent days working and sleeping in the mostly destroyed warehouse.
Third day after the battle, Special Agent Showalter showed up. Make that newly minted “Acting Director Showalter.” He had been the first MCB agent I ever met and just as dickish as they tended to be. On the other hand, he took a slightly different tack than Wagner. Or at least played the game that way.
“It’s New Orleans,” Showalter said after shaking the old man’s remaining hand. “No issues. People know something happened. From what I’ve gotten, you could hear the gunfire and explosions at the Marine base across the river. Then there were all the people who saw the undead making their way through the town. And the undead that are still roaming around in cemeteries shows something major happened. We’ll put the truth in the Truth Teller and be done with it.”
“We truly did everything we could to avoid witnesses or civilian casualties, Director.” It was remarkable how much more diplomatic and polite the Boss was when he was dealing with an agent who was not yet proven to be a coward or an idiot.
“The safest thing would have been to not pick the fight at all, but I’ve already been informed by the committee such hypothetical might-have-beens are off the table. So, for all the efforts you took to keep this from public view, thank you. The timing, the warehouse, arranging the evacuation—that is all appreciated. Such consideration makes our job so much easier.”
“You have no idea how rare those words are comin’ from a man in your position.”
We’d already gotten the word that Special Agent Campbell had had to be committed. The stress had finally gotten to him and he’d had a complete nervous breakdown. I had Remi send flowers.
“So no problems with our charter?” Ray III asked dubiously.
“The biggest problem is going to be the PUFF paperwork,” Showalter said. “Who gets what credit? We’ve got streaks of terminated undead that seem to have occurred from air-drop napalm strikes. Assuming that was you,” he added drily.
“Might have had some help.” He wasn’t about to admit to having our temporary allies lobbing magical faerie fire. “I won’t go so far as to say heavenly help like all these fine religious folks.”
“‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ only goes so far,” Showalter said. “But in this case, if you happened to have had some help from entities which are normally PUFF-applicable, no harm no foul. Again, it got the job done and we didn’t. A point that several very senior people made to me when I was appointed interim director. As to the friendly enemies? Everybody in this business has odd contacts.” He looked at me as he said that.
“I know people,” I said, trying to look innocent.
“In this case, I’d say that was a good thing,” Showalter said. “In this case.”
“I said I know people. Nothing about
them liking me. There’s some people, for values of people, I hope I never see again. Because they’ve explained to me what they’re going to do to me and it isn’t pretty.”
“On the PUFF,” Showalter said. “We’re going to give MHI eighty percent of what’s in the immediate area. The remaining twenty percent goes to a series of Swiss bank accounts I was handed by the President. I’m sure that’s another Iran Contra thing and going to shadowy black ops and not to beings we normally shoot on sight. You okay with that?”
“Sounds fair,” Ray III said. “I’ll just assume it’s going to the guys flying the planes that dropped all that there napalm.”
* * *
By that time MCB had pretty much taken over. They’d relieved the drillers and firemen along with an admonition not to talk. We gave all of them a huge bonus. Military guys who knew their way around a drill rig and fire pumps took over. Gordon and his surviving people left happily.
We’d been told that even with the mava dead all the “goop” would have to be pumped out and “rendered,” that is mixed with holy water to remove the evil before it got dumped. That was left up to the local priests, because Father Madruga and his entourage had disappeared without even saying goodbye.
Madam Courtney and her people performed a big ceremony after the MCB bulldozed the warehouse. It was supposed to remove any curses and drive off any lingering evil spirits. Plus, she promised that it would increase the property’s resale value.
She told me that the loas said now the circle was complete. Alpha and omega. What one brother had caused, the other had fixed. A curse had been broken.
I stuck around long enough to watch the last of the kifo worm mush get scraped up and dumped in an incinerator, then gratefully packed up and went home. I was looking forward to the hot tub.
* * *
“Is sir in?” Remi asked.
Sir was definitely in lately. In the six weeks since the mava bit the dust, there had been no more than the occasional supernatural event. Outbreaks were down across the whole region. If we hadn’t just made the biggest bank in PUFF history on the mava and the rest of the battle, MHI would be looking at a very bad quarter and so would I.
As it was, I was actually in the hot tub, alone for the first time in days, perusing tropical islands. I was thinking of buying one. The real cost wasn’t the island, it was the upkeep. I had that covered as well.
The PUFF on a larval Old One was so record-setting, that Treasury was having to pay us in installments. The PUFF was so high that even though we had spent millions of dollars on construction, armament (Ray IV alone had fired over fifty LAWs and RPGs during the battle), and subcontractors (Al Gordon’s team could all retire as millionaires and I think Neil Frandsen used his “consulting fee” to buy most of Yellowknife) there was still a huge profit left over.
I was given primary status since I was the one who’d tracked down the mava and gotten most of the plan into place.
I could afford an island.
It appeared my political problems were a thing of the past. Committee members were returning my calls again. The new interim MCB director wasn’t being an asshole. I was so popular with the committee I could probably have sex with a Fey on the Capitol steps and get away with it. Not that I’d ever stick my dick in one of those. There were tentacles and stuff.
“Is it work?” I asked.
“It is,” Remi said. “They vouchsafe that there is…”
* * *
“You’d think with this town settled down that we’d be done with sobek,” I said, looking through the scope at the fifty-foot bipedal crocodilian. I had him square in my sights but I hesitated. “Mr. Johnston?”
“What are you waiting for?” the Army engineer asked, furious.
“Any way you can think of to let it over the pumping station that won’t damage things?”
“You nuts?” Sam Haven said. “You saw what that thing did the last time! I like Honeybear and all but I really don’t want to have another low-speed, super-alligator chase across the city again.”
“Crocodile,” I corrected Sam, as I got up from out of the prone. “Look, these things magically appear every so often. I’m tired of them. I thought it must have something to do with the mava and they’d just go away, but obviously not. They always follow the same path. We’ll get a helo and track it. If it gets out of the canal and threatens anything, I’ll pop it. But I want to know where the damned thing is going. Maybe then we can get them to stop.”
* * *
We had to get a crane while the thing continued to do damage to the levee. But Mr. Johnston agreed with the basic logic and we got it done.
Once down in the canal it stayed there. We’d arranged a Corps Huey instead of borrowing Mr. Aristide Lambert’s Jet Ranger, and we trailed it down the canal.
It passed the Metairie Bridge without incident then just continued down the canal.
We’d arranged for SIU to block roads but people were coming out to watch the fifty-foot crocodile walk down the canal. And it just kept going. It wasn’t bothering anyone if it wasn’t bothered. People were taking pictures. It was New Orleans. MCB would just do a story in the Truth Teller and some badly retouched photos in the Weekly World News, and it would just be another “impossible” story out of New Orleans. Like the flying saucer that caused a zombie outbreak until it was destroyed by a meteor that was probably thrown by another alien race it was fighting. Possible alien fugitives were possibly on the loose in the New Orleans area, and people should be careful around cemeteries until they were all tracked down.
Aliens were the MCB’s answer to everything now.
Then again: Fey.
The sobek wandered down past the New Orleans Country Club where golfers were gathering at the fence to watch it pass. Palmetto Street started parallelling the canal around there and you could tell the locals from the out-of-towners. The not-locals were taking one look and then driving away as fast as they could. The locals were getting out and watching. I saw one guy who must have been out grocery shopping toss a big chunk of meat to it. The sobek caught it in midair and seemed to nod as if to say “Thanks for the snack.”
New Orleans. New York had Broadway. New Orleans had street theater and there wasn’t much better street theater than a fifty-foot crocodile. I was waiting for the second line to start.
It continued south, crawling under bridges and under Airline Highway. I think some not locals spotted it off the highway. But it wasn’t bothering anyone. MCB’s problem.
There were news choppers up by that time following it. They’d never be able to release the tape but they were, by God, going to get that shot. There was an FBI chopper up in New Orleans Parish. All of them were staying well back from us. MHI had this. They had to be wondering when we were going to take the shot—but would wonders never cease—they weren’t interfering.
Just past Airline Highway it started looking like it was trying to find a way out. It kept scrabbling at the sides to the northeast. There was a small building and an open area that looked like a ball field. The building looked like a school or a daycare or something. Fortunately, there weren’t any kids on the playground.
“Call SIU,” I said over the intercom. “Tell them to get a car down there and make damned sure all those kids are inside. If it threatens the school, I’ll take it, but I want to see where the damned thing is going.”
“If it gets out, it could get up to the highway,” Sam pointed out.
“I’ll stop it if it does. Open up the doors.”
The Huey had sliding doors. I mounted the Barrett and leaned in, following the croc in my scope. This would be easier than shooting frogs off the Superdome.
“Pilot, I need to be about a hundred feet lower for the right angle,” I said over the intercom.
“We really need to be that close?” the pilot asked. He clearly wasn’t happy being in the same state.
“You can back up from it, but I need a twenty-seven-degree entry angle on its head.”
“Got it,” the pilot said. “Can somebody check port to see if I’m running into anything?”
“Got it,” Sam called. “Clear port and back on port.”
“Clear starboard back,” I said, looking over. I didn’t want to hit a power line.
I tuned out the calls as the sobek, convinced it couldn’t get out by the highway, headed further down the canal. SIU and State Troopers had closed Palmetto for a couple of blocks down and were holding back traffic in the area. No innocents were in sight of the croc.
It finally managed to scramble out at the corner of the field where Monroe Street terminated at Palmetto. It made its way across Palmetto, which was elevated, down onto Monroe. Monroe was closed for a couple of blocks back but I wasn’t going to let it get far. There was a major highway in threat, the school or whatever, houses. I wasn’t going to let this one go on a rampage like the other.
The croc instead headed into the field, stopped, dropped onto its belly and started digging.
It dug for about fifteen minutes as we watched, pulling up the dirt with its stubby forelimbs and tossing it back with its back limbs.
It finally got to whatever it was it was looking for and stood up. It had what looked exactly like a pirate chest clutched in its claws.
Then it vanished.
One second there was a fifty-foot-tall bipedal crocodilian standing by a hole in the ground. The next moment there was a hole in the ground and some big-ass paw prints.
We never did figure out what the hell was in the chest. I’ve searched every record I could find. The closest I ever came to it was a vague reference to Jean Lafitte’s treasure and something he found that he’d hidden because of the hoodoo.
But that was the last time a sobek was ever seen in New Orleans.
I missed another big PUFF bounty but it’s not about the PUFF. It’s about keeping people safe. New Orleans was never threatened by another sobek, and I call that a win.
EPILOGUE
About a month later Sam Haven and I got called to Cazador. I was ready to go. New Orleans is a great town when you’re hunting monsters. Even if not. The aura of Hoodoo Squad was still on, probably more since we’d apparently ended the true danger of hoodoo. We were treated like kings. Plenty of fish in the New Orleans sea and they practically jumped in your boat. The food was good.
Monster Hunter Memoir: Saints Page 28