The Grendel Affair: A SPI Files Novel

by Shearin, Lisa

  When I glanced back up, Ian was regarding me solemnly in the visor mirror. “Your gun is for self-defense. You’re the agency seer. Saving Ollie or anyone else isn’t your job.”

  “And it’s not your job to spot ghoul commandos,” I told him. “But if you could, you’d do it, or anything else you needed to do. So maybe saving people should be at least part of my job.”

  Ian started to speak, and I raised my hand. “If necessary,” I stipulated. “Or if needed.”

  Ian’s phone beeped with an incoming call. I couldn’t hear the caller’s voice, and Ian kept his responses short. “That was our wayward backup,” he told me and Yasha. “They were delayed by a frozen fuel line. They’ve gone ahead to the cemetery, and are establishing a perimeter around our subject. He just arrived.”

  Finally, something was going right.

  “Was he carrying anything?” I asked. “Like a monster head?”

  “No head.”

  “That would have been kind of conspicuous. Hopefully he won’t send us to another storage unit.”

  “Pull over here,” Ian told Yasha. “Keep the engine running; I won’t be long.” He gave me a look in the visor mirror.

  I raised both hands. “Staying put.”

  I tried to see where he was going, but I lost him behind a mini mountain of snow, courtesy of the New York department of sanitation, that was piled on the side of Brooklyn’s McDonald Avenue and topped by un-picked-up bags of garbage courtesy of the same city, same department. Between the weather and the holidays, public service was running a little light on the service.

  After about five minutes, Ian got back in the SUV and handed me a respectable-sized bouquet of dark pink roses. “Here, hold this.”

  I met his roses with open-mouthed befuddlement.

  “We need a reason to be in a cemetery,” he told me. “A reason that’ll ensure no one will get too close or ask any questions.” He pulled what looked like a tourist brochure out of the glove box and unfolded it.

  I saw the words “Green-Wood Cemetery” on the cover. I blinked. “A map? Of a cemetery?”

  Yasha pulled out into traffic, such that it was. Though first he had to yield to a woman on cross-country skis who was making better progress than the cars.

  “Green-Wood’s quite the tourist attraction,” Ian said. “They even have concerts.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  He folded the map to show one section and passed it back to me. I laid the bouquet across my arm like a pageant winner so I could take the map.

  “Tarbert is supposed to meet Ollie on the cemetery’s Nut Path off Hemlock Avenue,” Ian told me.

  “So the owner of a monster head wants to meet on a path named Nut,” I said. “That’s appropriate.” I studied the map. Most of the avenues and paths were named after trees, bushes, flowers, and their various pieces and parts. There was a lot of twisty pavement on that map, so the cemetery’s founders had to get creative with the names.

  Yasha drove slowly past a pair of cast-iron gates on Twentieth Street near Prospect Park. The gates were closed, but there was a sign. “Use main entrance,” Yasha read.

  I squinted at the sign. “You can see that?”

  “My eyes, they are very good.” Yasha looked in the rearview mirror and flashed me a tooth-filled grin. “The better to see you with, moja dorogaja.”

  Russian werewolf humor.

  “Reinforcements dead ahead,” Ian said.

  Considering where we were going, I could have done without the “dead” reference, but I was glad to see a big white Suburban parked on the other side of the street, hopefully packed to the spare tire with SPI commando-ninja-badass monster fighters and all their implements of destruction.

  One guy got out.

  Okay, that was disappointing.

  He crossed the street to where we’d pulled over. There wasn’t much by way of traffic, which was good, because he didn’t look. Not that he needed to. He was big enough that cars had more to fear from him, like a month’s stay in the body shop.

  “Able to crush small cars with a single stomp,” I murmured.

  Yasha coughed a single chuckle.

  The guy didn’t glance down to check for icy patches on the street. It looked like his combat-booted feet just crunched right through to the pavement. I recognized him. He’d been on a takedown team for a hydra in a Chelsea apartment building laundry room. Small space, big mess, most of it made by the man coming around to Ian’s window. He was at least a foot taller than me. Biceps the size of my thighs in my fat jeans, bull neck, and bald head. Kind of like Mr. T without the bling.

  I wasn’t disappointed anymore.

  Ian lowered his window. “Calvin.”

  The big guy nodded. Not easy to do without a neck. “Captain sent me to escort you in.”

  “Good. Hop in next to Mac.”

  He did, and me and my bouquet full of disguise ended up scrunched against the far door.

  “Pounded any interesting critters lately?” I asked as Yasha pulled back out into traffic.

  “A redcap tried to pass himself off as Santa Claus out in front of FAO Schwarz last week. Those little bastards can run.” Calvin grinned. “This one ran right out in front of a city bus.”

  “Ouch.”

  “We don’t mind getting help from the MTA.”

  I nodded in approval. “Citizens’ tax dollars at work.”

  Calvin turned to Ian. “Captain Norwood wanted me to tell you we’re on comms.” He tapped his ear once, and I saw the earpiece communications unit. “Usual channel.”

  While Ian was getting his own earpiece in place and testing it with Calvin, Yasha turned left onto Fifth Avenue and another left soon after into Green-Wood Cemetery.

  I stared in goggle-eyed wonder. “This is the entrance to a cemetery?”

  It was a Gothic wonderland extravaganza with two massive arches for entry and exit topped by three towering spires.

  I looked down at the brochure and did a quick scan. Five hundred acres, one of the largest outdoor collections of nineteenth-century statuary and mausoleums, National Historic Landmark, yadda, yadda. Impressive. I glanced up as we passed under the largest Gothic arch. I saw a small sign next to a door.

  I blinked. “Gift shop?”

  “Cool T-shirts,” Calvin rumbled.

  Note to self: come back here when the snow melts.

  Yasha went left on a neatly plowed and salted Battle Avenue.

  The cemetery maintenance workers had done a good job plowing Green-Wood’s roads, though most of the paths to the graves remained untouched. The larger monuments and headstones were easy enough to see even while snow covered, but any ground markers were completely buried and were neck-breakers waiting to happen.

  “Pull over when Battle Avenue intersects with Hemlock,” Ian told Yasha.

  I looked down at the map. “That’s still quite a walk to the meeting place.”

  “It’s as close as I want to get,” Ian said. “Since Ollie’s not with us, I don’t want to spook this guy.”

  Yasha pulled over to the right side of the road and opened his window before turning off the engine.

  He saw my quizzical look.

  “You find trouble, you scream, I hear and obey.”

  We could all only hope that none of the above happened.

  • • •

  I didn’t know how many maintenance workers Green-Wood had on any given weekday between Christmas and New Year’s, but I suspected it wasn’t many; so I was surprised to see at least six men wearing Green-Wood coveralls working to clear paths near our meeting place. Two were working specifically on the Nut Path. Considering that the path was on a hill, I was grateful for their attention to detail.

  “Looks like a skeleton crew,” Yasha quipped.

  I rolled my eyes.

  Th
e big Russian shrugged. “Someone had to say it.”

  “No, someone didn’t.”

  “They’re our men,” Calvin told us.

  “Wearing Green-Wood uniforms?”

  Ian replied. “For some reason, the people we deal with prefer meeting in places like cemeteries instead of the corner Starbucks.”

  I got out and did a quick look around. According to the map, the area was far enough from the main entrance and close enough to the middle of the cemetery for privacy—or to be cut off. With the weather, I didn’t think there’d be any other visitors here today, but I was wrong.

  An elderly man stood next to a headstone, while a younger man, possibly his son or grandson, knelt to clear the snow from the name and dates on the front. An older lady was walking up the side of the hill overlooking Nut Path toward a grouping of headstones, a bouquet of white lilies in one hand, the handle of a black purse in the crook of the opposite elbow. She had on sensible boots, a bright blue coat with matching hat. She kind of looked like the Queen of England. A young couple were walking slowly away from us, the man with his arm tight around the woman’s shoulders, their heads together. There were a few others nearby, but I couldn’t see them well enough to get any details.

  To get to the path, Ian and I would have to cross a section of undisturbed snow with several ominous lumps beneath the surface—ground markers just waiting for me to trip over them.

  Ian saw where I was looking. “Walk exactly where I walk.”

  “What if you fall over something?”

  “Then don’t walk where I walk.” He paused. “Oh, and Mac?”

  I stopped and looked up at him. “Yes?”

  “We’ll work on it.”

  “Work on wha—”

  “The new part of your job.”

  I bit my bottom lip against an incoming smile.

  Ian raised a finger. “The possible new part of your job, and only when you’re ready—and only when necessary.”

  I tried not to look as excited as I felt. “Agreed. And thank you.”

  He held my gaze for a second longer, then turned and started trudging up the hill, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

  • • •

  After a few minutes walking uphill—and a few stumbles, mostly mine—we arrived at the small hillside mausoleum where Ollie’s contact waited.

  According to the brochure, Green-Wood had almost 600,000 permanent residents. Ollie’s contact fit right in.

  He was dead.

  Instead of meeting with Ollie, the head salesman had met his maker. Though on the upside, at least he still had his head.

  Ian swore, then started talking fast and pissed into his comms.

  The dead man was on the ground, lying on his side with a single stab wound to the chest, and the snow under him bore a disturbing resemblance to a cherry Slurpee.

  The small mausoleum was nearly surrounded by a waist-high hedge. Our guys would have seen anyone who had come in, unless they’d been less than three feet tall. I stepped around a marble bench to get a better look at the rest of the body, and saw something more disturbing than Slurpee snow.

  Next to the man’s body was a bouquet of white lilies.

  Dammit.

  I ran around behind the mausoleum, to the backside of the hill. The Queen of England was halfway down the hill, and she wasn’t carrying white lilies anymore—but I saw the handle of a knife vanishing into her purse.

  The sweet, little old lady was a cold-blooded killer.

  That was all the proof I needed. I threw down my pink bouquet and took off running down the hill, quickly discovering there was something I needed very badly, but didn’t have.

  Traction.

  I fell, rolled, and came up sputtering. “Old lady . . . blue coat,” I yelled back to Ian. I scrambled to my feet, slipping and sliding, but making progress. Gravity was both my friend and worst enemy right now.

  The woman may have been little, she may have been old, but there was nothing wrong with her hearing. What had been a quick, but dignified walk, turned into a run, and unlike me, she didn’t fall down. And if she had, with my luck she’d have titanium hips.

  And her big Buick—seemingly the preferred transportation of old people everywhere—was waiting for her at the foot of the hill. All of my backup was also at the foot of the hill—on the other freaking side.

  I couldn’t let her get away.

  Ian was coming down the hill behind me. “Subject is an elderly woman in a blue coat and hat,” he said into his comms.

  “She looks like the Queen of England,” I screamed back at him.

  Ian didn’t add that to his description.

  The Buick roared to life and the old lady floored the gas, sending up a spray of slush and road salt in its wake.

  Then I saw my salvation. A tractor. A big one. With a raised snowplow attached. Also big.

  But first I had to reach it.

  I could wait for Ian and risk having the killer escape, or I could do something that I was qualified to do.

  I could drive the hell out of a tractor.

  There were entirely too many grave markers lurking just below the snow’s surface on that hillside, and my feet were doing a fine job of finding every last one of them. I’d made two face-down snow angels and one outright sprawl. It was nothing short of a miracle that I made it to the bottom of the hill without two broken legs.

  I scrambled up onto the tractor’s seat. Fortunately, the keys were in the ignition. I guess the maintenance worker who left it there figured that if you can’t trust dead people, who can you trust?

  I turned the key, and the engine choked and sputtered. “Come on, come on, come on, come on . . .”

  The ignition caught and the engine turned over. I popped off the brake and slammed it in gear, the engine growling in response. I grinned and growled with it.

  “Don’t mess with country girls,” I snarled at the fleeing Buick.

  My screwup time was officially over.

  The Buick had gotten a head start, but it couldn’t go cross-country.

  I could and I did.

  In a little over twelve hours, I’d been assaulted, arrested, interrogated, nearly fired, and a friend had been kidnapped—all because of some moldy monster parts. And now a man I hadn’t even met yet was sprawled on the ground with a hole in his chest, lilies in his arms, and this blue-haired bitch was responsible.

  I jerked the wheel to the left, sending up a plume of snow as I sped across the cemetery on an intersection collision course with the Buick. I didn’t think the residents of the graves I was driving over would mind. Heck, I kind of got the feeling they approved. I lowered the snowplow to Buick-ramming height.

  I briefly considered that this was likely to hurt, but since I was still a SPI employee, I still had plenty of major medical to use, and the thought that I might need it in the next few seconds didn’t bother me nearly as much as I would’ve thought. Besides, there were plenty of our people around to see to it that I got to a hospital.

  For the record, I had no idea what happened after the initial tractor-met-Buick moment, but I apparently left the tractor seat at some point.

  I landed a goodly distance away from the tangled pile of tractor/car, but fortunately my flight had been stopped by possibly the only snowdrift not to contain a headstone. The tractor’s front half was on top of the Buick’s back half, reminding me of the aftermath of a monster truck rally I’d once been to.

  I could hear shouting as our agents closed in. The old lady climbed out of the car, dazed, and her hat askew, with that purse still crooked over her arm. She made a run for it.

  Oh. Hell. No.

  I got to my feet, found my good friend Traction, and together we tackled Ma Parker.

  The black patent-leather purse went airborne, and with a word no blue-hair would ever
utter, let alone shriek, she scuttled after it. I grabbed the back of her coat in both hands and jerked her back. Messy wrestling ensued. I ended up on top of the woman and raised my fist back to punch, and froze. What was I doing? I couldn’t punch an old lady! I looked down at that sweet little face, and hesitated a split second too long. Sweet turned to savage, and just before her fist hit the side of my head, I saw a glint of metal on top of her dainty kid glove.

  Brass knuckles.

  She caught me with a right cross that made me see the royal jewels. When my brain stopped ricocheting against the insides of my skull, the woman was free and again clawing for her purse.

  This time I got her in a choke hold, but not before she clamped her teeth down on the inside of my arm. My coat had come off at some point during the fight, so all that was between my skin and her teeth was a sweater. The sweater was thick, but damn if it still didn’t hurt. I screamed and started hitting her with her own hat.

  Ian smoothly scooped up the purse, completely ignoring us.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  “You’re doing great,” he said. “Keep it up.”

  Ian opened her purse and looked inside. “What have we here?” He emptied it on a nearby marble bench. “I’ve always wondered what the queen carries in her purse. A knife complete with fresh blood, a pack of tissues, peppermints, and one lipstick.” He picked up what looked like a large key, large and old. Two modern-looking keys shared the ring with it. “What have we here? A key to a Green-Wood mausoleum.” He waved the key and smiled at the now growling old lady. “I think we’re about to find what we came for.” Ian rummaged around inside the purse, checking for anything else. When his hand came out, it wasn’t empty.