The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series

by Craig Halloran

  “So there are lots of companies, different names and doing business as?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “And no real names.”

  “And I guess they all pay their taxes.”

  “Do you want me to find out?”

  “No.” Sidney had done her share of white-collar investigations. Digging through layer after layer of false names and companies was interesting. The top lawyers and accountants dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’ on the good ones. In the most thorough cases it took an act of God to bring them down, and that was only after years were exhausted in the court systems that the enemy knew too well. This is a lot deeper than just one man.

  “Shadow companies like the Drake probably benefit from a few congressmen and senators in their pockets.”

  She thought of Congressman Wilhelm and the last words he had said: “Watch your step.”

  Things were quiet the next ninety minutes of driving, and then she took the Grandview Road exit. A pair of steel-crafted yellow swing gates barred the road that led into the parking lot.

  “Looks like we walk from here.”

  “I’m not leaving my car out here,” Sidney said. She got out and made her way to the gates. A heavy padlock down inside a steel mesh cage held the gates together. She scanned the area. The Mitchell-Bates Hospital sign was in disrepair. No cameras were mounted on the light poles leading to the entrance. Only the sound of highway traffic caught her ears. She drew her weapon, shot the lock off, swung the gate open, and got back in the car.

  “Subtle,” Smoke said.

  She put the car in drive. “Let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t in here,” she said, driving forward. “Perhaps Fat Sam and Guppy are wrong.”

  “They aren’t wrong.”

  “Maybe there’s another way out.”

  Smoke shrugged.

  As they rolled up the road between the tall trees, the rising sun dimmed behind misty clouds. The brisk wind stirred the leaves on the parking lot as they approached. The small brick hospital stood in a woodland of falling leaves and pines. Not a car was in the lot. Patches of tall grass popped up through the blacktop.

  “He’s in here, huh?” she said to Smoke. “It looks pretty abandoned to me.”

  “It’s a lead,” he said. “Besides, looks can be deceiving. There’s another side to the building, you know.” He shook his head. “Man, this is the worst recon ever.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, reaching into the back seat for her gym bag. She took out another shoulder holster. A Kevlar vest. Another Glock was ready, along with two fifteen-round magazines. She slipped off her jacket, put on the Kevlar vest, and put the jacket over it. “I don’t think there’s that much to recon.”

  “Then why are you gearing up like that?”

  “Because I don’t normally get to.” She pulled the car under the canopy that led to the emergency room entrance, opened her door, and dropped a foot outside. “Are you coming or not?”

  “Pop the trunk.”

  She followed him to the back of the car, where he opened his oversized gym bag. He put on his own Kevlar vest and strapped a pair of 9mm Beretta pistols to his hips. He finished by stuffing a single-action army sheriff’s pistol in the back of his pants.

  “A revolver?” she said.

  “It’s sentimental.”

  “All right, cowboy.” As she turned toward the hospital entrance, something caught her eyes. She froze.

  A white-grey wolf stood twenty feet away, teeth bared. Its muscular back was more than waist tall. It was one of the biggest canines she’d ever seen.

  “Uh, Smoke?”

  “Yeah?” he said, turning. “Oh … that’s one big dog.”

  Sidney’s back tightened. Her fingertips tingled. She knew dogs but not wolves. They were wild. Ferocious. She reached for her weapon.

  Before she could even touch it, the wolf had snarled and sprinted away.

  Sidney jumped when Smoke closed the trunk.

  He had a tire iron in his hand. “Let’s go catch that werewolf.”

  “I think it will be a few more hours before any of them come out.” She took the tire iron from his hand and made her way onto the landing. A set of sliding glass doors were closed, and the side entrance steel door was locked. She wedged the tire iron in between the doors and started to pry. The doors cracked open an inch. “A little help,” she grunted.

  Smoke gripped the door’s edge and gave a powerful tug. The doors split apart another foot. Straining, he said, “Think you can fit?”

  “Ha,” she said, squeezing through. Smoke forced himself inside, and the doors sealed shut with the tire iron outside. “Ew,” she said, covering her nose. “It smells like the dead in here.”

  Inside, the lighting was dim other than the natural light from the windows.

  “Do you hear that?” Smoke said, tilting his head. The sound of electricity hummed inside the walls. “Something is going on in here.” He started forward, shuffling by the old waiting room chairs and into the ER. There were several gurneys with rotting curtains hanging around them. “What do you think? Follow the smell?”

  Sidney remained behind Smoke’s shoulder and followed him into the central hall, plugging her nose. This is disgusting. The long hallway was darker because the patient room doors were closed, blocking the sunlight. Smoke stopped at one of them and pushed it open. It groaned on the hinges and swung inward. Is he visiting somebody?

  It was a two-patient room with soiled linens rotting on the beds. The air was musty, rotten, and stale.

  Sidney coughed. “Do you have a thing for bad smells?”

  Smoke glided to the window and stood where the daylight crept in through the blinds. He pulled them aside with two fingers. “We aren’t alone.”

  Sidney took a look. Smoke was right. More cars were parked behind the building: two navy-blue cargo vans and several dark sedans. A box truck was backed into the service drive. All of it was shadowed by the tall trees that snuffed out the bright rising light.

  She glanced up at Smoke. “I can’t say I’m glad that you’re right. Come on.”

  “I’d be disappointed if I was wrong.”

  Heading out of the room, she came to a stop. Footsteps and the shuffle of feet came from the room above. The steps creaked and were moving down the hall. Sidney followed the sound down toward the emergency exits. Smoke was a large shadow behind her. The doors were closed at the stairwell, but she heard the latch of the doors above pop open. She slid to one side of the doors, and Smoke took the other. Her heart thumped in her chest.

  After about thirty seconds, Smoke shrugged. “They either went up or went back.” He popped the door open and peered inside the dark stairwell. “Huh, there’s a basement too. I have a coin. Heads we go up, tails we go—ulp!”

  A hand shot out and pulled Smoke into the stairwell. The door slammed shut behind him.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Smoke!”

  Sidney shoved on the door, but there was no give. Something blocked the other side. She thrust her shoulder into it. It cracked open and slammed shut. She could hear the scuffle of a fight on the other side. A man screamed.

  “Smoke!”

  Wham!

  A heavy body rocked the door. She heard the heavy blows of bone on bone and flesh on flesh. Hard smacks. Kicking. Punching. Wrestling. She found her flashlight and shone it through the rectangular portal. A bloodshot eye blinked in the light. The face was scarred. Subhuman. She tapped the nose of her gun on the glass.

  “Back off!”

  The face ducked away.

  She lowered her shoulder, rammed into the door, and winced. No give. She wanted to shoot. Blast away, but Smoke was over there, fighting for his life.

  Come on! Come on! Think, Sid! Think!

  “Back away, Sid,” Smoke roared from the other side. “Back away!”

  Sidney stepped aside. The door flung inward. Smoke appeared, dra
gging another man in a headlock.

  “Stay away from the door,” Smoke warned. The door clasped shut. Footsteps scurried up the stairwell. “Stay here.” Smoke wrestled the struggling man to the floor and wrenched the man’s arm behind his back. Pop! The shoulder was dislocated, but the man didn’t cry out.

  “What are you doing?” Sidney said.

  Chest heaving, Smoke replied, “I’m immobilizing him.” He wrenched the man’s other arm. Pop. The other shoulder gave.

  Sidney’s stomach turned.

  The man-like thing thrashed with purpose, arms hanging limp as noodles from the sockets. Its face was ghoulish and veiny. It gathered itself on its feet.

  Smoke swept the legs out from under it.

  It crashed back-first to the floor.

  Smoke pinned it and jammed his gun barrel in its chest.

  “Don’t kill him,” Sidney ordered.

  “I hit him with everything I had. He didn’t even grunt.”

  “That’s not a license to kill.”

  “You’re just going to have to trust me on this, Agent Shaw.” He squeezed the trigger.

  Ka-blam!

  The man-like thing lurched up and smacked Smoke in the chin.

  He staggered back.

  It started walking down the hall, arms dangling at its sides with a hole clean through its back and chest.

  Sidney took aim.

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  It tumbled over with its kneecap blasted apart.

  “Good shot.” Smoke wiped his brow and headed after their fallen attacker where it writhed on the floor. “I think it’s a zombie.” He pointed his weapon at its head.

  Blam!

  “Zombies aren’t real,” she said, catching her breath and holstering her gun.

  “I don’t know,” Smoke replied.

  She kneeled down. Whoever or whatever the man was, it didn’t bleed: it oozed. It still moved. Her skin turned clammy. “This is sick.”

  “Good thing we’re in a hospital.”

  Sidney eyed him. “How many were in there?”

  “Just two. One I think was a man. I kicked him solid in the balls.” He cracked his neck. “That’s when I dragged this fiend out of there. Do you think it’s that captain?” he said, referring to the man driving AV’s boat she’d mentioned earlier.

  “No, but his skin is just like what I saw.” She took out her phone. “No signal.”

  “No surprise.” He tipped his head toward the stairwell. “How about I scout it out?”

  “How about we scout it out? But another approach would be better, seeing how they know we’re here.” She made her way into another patient room and peered out through the window. None of the cars had moved. “Doesn’t look like we scared anyone off, either.”

  “Not yet,” Smoke said, leaning on the door frame. “But I say we take it to them.”

  If AV was here, then he certainly knew they were here. It might take hours to clear the building, not to mention the unnatural elements that surrounded them. What kind of man had they just taken down? It had attacked, but it hadn’t tried to eat them.

  It’s not a zombie. There’s no such thing as zombies. She headed back into the hall. The man-like thing on the floor was still moving.

  “Strange,” Smoke said, looking down at it. “I thought the head wound would kill it.”

  “This isn’t a movie. This is reality.”

  Smoke switched weapons. “And this is a forty-five automatic loaded with hollow points.” He pointed at the writhing thing’s heart.

  Blam.

  It stopped moving.

  He blew the smoke rolling from the barrel. “Critical hit.”

  Irritated, she said, “Will you stop shooting?”

  “We needed to know how to take these things out, and now we do.”

  “A bullet in the heart does that to anything.” She made her way back down the hallway, stopping and listening at patient doors from time to time. On the other side of the hall, Smoke did the same. She traversed the hall, passing the elevators. She heard a ding and turned back.

  Smoke stood in front of the elevators. The up button glowed with light. The doors split open and he half-stepped inside. He looked at her and said, “Going up?”

  “I’m not taking the elevator.” She crept in halfway and pressed buttons two and three, grabbed Smoke’s arm, and pushed him out. She ran down the hall with Smoke on her heels. Flashlight ready, she entered the stairwell, jogged up the steps, and stopped on the second floor landing. She peered through the door’s portal. Figures crowded in front of the elevator down the hall. One of them was limping.

  “That’s the guy,” Smoke said, cocking his pistol. “It has to be.”

  Sidney counted four men, but she didn’t see any weapons. It was odd. One of them disappeared into the elevator. Necks craned forward until the man stepped out into view again. Voices mumbled among themselves, and the group spread out, vanishing into patient rooms and behind the nurse’s station.

  “Ambush,” she whispered to Smoke.

  “I say we start at the top and work our way down. Give them something to think about.”

  “Agreed.” She turned her flashlight up the stairwell and took it two steps at a time. She stopped halfway to the first landing. A man stood there in ragged clothes, hollow-eyed and ugly. He held a grenade-sized object in his hands.

  “FBI! Hands up!”

  The man’s thoughtless expression didn’t change as he dropped the grenade down the stairwell. It bounced off the first step.

  Smoke scooped it up. “Stun grenade.” He flung it back at the man.

  Sidney squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears.

  Flash! Boom!

  The sound inside the stairwell rocked her senses. She saw dizzying spots and sagged down the steps. There was ringing, ringing and ringing, and everything faded to black.

  CHAPTER 34

  A splash of cold water snapped Sidney out of her sleep. Wide-eyed and head aching, she tried to spit the gag from her mouth. Something bit into her wrists, which were tied behind her back. Her feet were bound as well.

  “Huh, huh,” a man said, lumbering by with a plastic bucket in his hands. He was thickset and bald. He wore a heavy blue sweater, grey sweatpants, and white tennis shoes. He poured the bucket of water on Smoke, who sat on the floor by her side, bound the same way.

  Smoke coughed and sputtered.

  The man walked away and disappeared through a double doorway.

  Spitting the gag from his mouth, Smoke said, “You all right?”

  Sidney nodded. Other than a piercing headache and stiff limbs, she was fine. They looked to be in the basement cafeteria, judging by the checkered tiles on the floor. They weren’t alone, either. Below the incandescent lights were more people, working at tables. They wore masks, gloves, and dark-grey scrubs. Some sat at the tables and others stood. She didn’t have a clear view of what they were doing. Not a one glanced their way.

  “See that?” Smoke said in a low tone. Two goons in pea coats lorded over a lone table. It had their guns and gear on it. “Be patient.”

  It was easier said than done. Sidney had never been captured before. Never been a captive of any sort. The revolting smells didn’t help, either. She strained against her bonds. Her eyes watered.

  “Save your energy,” Smoke advised.

  Balled up, she let her body go slack. Smoke was right. She focused on what the others were doing. A small figure that looked to be a boy taped up a box the others had loaded and moved it to a stack in the corner. Hmmm. Five people in all were making packages of some sort. It reminded her of the scene at Sting Ray’s bar. Children being exploited. She clenched her teeth.

  A small bell rang. The workers stopped what they were doing, and without a glance among them they departed from the room.

  With great effort, she spat the gag from her mouth and gasped.

  “Feel better?” Smoke said.

  “No. Hey!” she yelled over at the guards. “I’m a f
ederal agent. I demand to know who is in charge.”

  The men remained frozen in place without a glance her way. Each one had a shotgun strapped over his shoulder.

  She heard Smoke’s belly grumble. “I don’t think they’re serving pancakes.”

  “No,” Smoke said just as the set of doors that led into the hallway opened. Two ghoulish men with clammy skin, wearing denim overalls, walked in. “And I don’t think they’re here to take our order.”

  The men came toward them with strong stiff movements. The first one grabbed Smoke by the collar and heaved him up on his shoulder. The second one did the same to Sidney. Draped over the ghastly men’s shoulders, they exited the room into a dark hallway and entered another. Sidney’s goon set her down in a padded office chair. An antique walnut desk in a well-furnished office was in front of her.

  Behind it sat AV in a high-backed leather chair.

  His eerie henchmen moved to either side of him.

  “I have to admit,” AV said, filing his nails, “This is a surprise. I normally fetch my enemies myself. But in this case, you came straight to me.” He wore a dark-purple dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, revealing his hairy arms. The glow of two floor lamps against the back wall brought out the sheen in his waves of jet-black hair. He seemed small between his goons. “Agent Shaw, didn’t I mention that I would kill you?”

  “Yes, I recall you threatening a federal agent.”

  AV laughed. “And yet, here you are.” He waggled his finger at her. “Did you not see the bodies of your friends? Were they not torn to shreds?”

  A coldness overcame her.

  “Ah,” He continued, “you look confused. He eased back in the chair and rocked a little. “Let me fill you in.” He licked his teeth. “I’m a werewolf.”

  Sidney laughed despite the truth behind his words and the tingling that shot up her limbs. “Congratulations,” she said. “That must explain the fleas.”

  “Good one,” Smoke said with a nod. “And I told you so.”

  AV picked up a pistol that lay on the desk. It was Smoke’s Colt .45, black matte and pearl-handled, sheriff’s model. He popped open the chamber and emptied the bullets out of the cylinder. They were silver. “Either you’re a fan of the Lone Ranger, or you are as stupid as most men are.”