The Grendel Affair: A SPI Files Novel

by Shearin, Lisa

  Ian spat a curse. “The dead bolt’s been broken off.”

  I desperately looked around for something to block the door with. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in that hall that would do us any good.

  The door handle began to rotate downward.

  On the other side of the door came the scrabbling of claws on concrete—a lot of claws.

  Ian and I stared.

  Then we ran like hell.

  The male and female grendels had been busy since they’d arrived in town, and they hadn’t been seeing the sights. My doppelganger had brought grendel eggs in that bowling bag.

  “Kenji, we’ve got grendels,” Ian was shouting into his headset. “Repeat, grendels. Little ones, spawn. Unknown number. Eggs were in the HVAC vents, and the sons of bitches are fast. We’re in the hall coming away from—”

  Ian skidded to a halt and I plowed into him from behind. Then I saw why he’d stopped.

  Countless glowing yellow eyes, and the baby monsters they belonged to, were completely blocking our only way out.

  Ian raised his gun, his voice low and steady. “Mac, get your gun, pick your targets, and go for head shots.”

  I swallowed, and drew my gun. My hand was shaking so badly I almost dropped it. I gripped it tighter. Ian saw.

  “Relax your grip and your shoulders. Pull the trigger on the exhale. You can do this.”

  Agent Ian Byrne. Poster child for calm.

  Me. Poster child for panic.

  I heard clicking behind us. I spun, going back-to-back with Ian, gun leveled.

  Four grendels had stopped about twenty feet away, watching us, chittering amongst themselves.

  “Four behind us,” I managed.

  “Okay. I’ll take these. Those are yours.”

  As if by unspoken signal, the grendels rushed us.

  I only got off one shot before the first grendel reached me.

  A clawed hand clutched my ankle, latching onto my boot, trying to pull itself up. I stomped on the hand, and fired at another grendel skittering across the floor at me. It squealed as a spray of pink erupted from its side, but kept coming, its eyes brightly glowing like sunstruck flame, eyes shining with a single-minded hunger.

  Squealing, hissing, eyes gleaming with a yellow light. I fired at every last one of them. I could’ve sworn my shots were on target, but the spawn were fast. Too fast.

  A grendel latched onto my leg, above my boot, its claws raking their way up my leg through my jeans, hooking into my skin. I wanted to scream, but the only sounds I could make were choked gasps, as if the thing was clutching my throat, not my thigh. It was that high now, and coming faster toward my face. It got a grip on my belt and launched itself onto my shoulder, the throbbing pulse in my neck within reach of its jagged, razor-sharp teeth, teeth that were clicking together in eager anticipation.

  My right hand was slick with blood and my gun slipped out of my grip and landed on the floor. I grabbed the grendel with both hands, trying to keep it away from my face, its squirming body cold and slick in my hands. I held it out away from me as it twisted and wriggled to get at me. I gripped it tighter. It squealed. So did I.

  It took both of my hands and all of my strength just to hold on to the thing. I wanted to kill it. I needed to kill it, but if I let go, just with one hand, even for an instant, the grendel would be at my throat, claws and the barbed spurs that curved from its bony heels slicing me to ribbons.

  If I was lucky, I’d bleed to death before the whole pack started to eat me.

  I didn’t dare turn to check on Ian, but gunfire and squealing grendels told me he was at least holding his own.

  Which was better than I was doing.

  I threw the grendel, slamming it into the wall. Not even dazed, it clung there, defying gravity and then physics as it scampered up the wall and across the ceiling like a freaking gecko, launching itself again at my face with chittering glee.

  It exploded in a single bullet-induced spray of pink mere inches from my face.

  Ian.

  Ian had looked away from the grendels attacking him to help me. It was the opening the things had been waiting for.

  They swarmed him.

  Then I saw it. Recessed in the wall was one of those fire hose boxes—with an ax.

  I scrabbled and stumbled toward it, clawing desperately to get the glass door open, my hands fumbling at the handle. I got it open and pulled at the ax.

  It was latched to the back wall of the case.

  I screamed in terror and frustration.

  A grendel dropped from the ceiling onto my shoulders, and I fell forward into the coiled fire hose. The whole thing came loose, wrapping me in hose. The nozzle came free last, hitting me in the head. I grabbed at the nozzle and the grendel that was holding on to both it and me.

  And somehow I turned on the water.

  Instantly a blast as big as my arm shot from the end of that nozzle, the water pressure slamming the grendel that’d been holding on to it into the far wall. The hose whipped around me like I was wrestling the world’s biggest snake, knocking me to the floor, sending the spray to the ceiling, walls, and floor. I held on to the nozzle for dear life, and aimed it directly at the grendels swarming Ian.

  The water blasted the grendels and sent them rolling down the hall, end over end. Then as quick as they’d come, they vanished.

  I loosened my grip on the nozzle, releasing the lever that I’d been holding down, and the hose slowly deflated. I was sprawled in the middle of the hall, soaked to the skin, teeth chattering, and gasping for what air I could find. I still clutched the nozzle in a double-fisted, white-knuckled grip. Ian climbed to his feet and staggered over to me, dripping blood from multiple wounds, and dropped into the puddle by my side.

  “Nice shootin’, Annie Oakley.”

  I tried to suck in enough air to make words. I finally just gave up and nodded.

  Sandra Niles and her team came charging down the hall, guns held at the ready.

  Ian stood. I staggered to my feet.

  Sandra’s sharp, dark eyes were taking in everything at once. “Where are they?”

  For all that, there were only two dead grendels on the wet floor. That meant there were at least nine others in the complex. Though if my doppelganger had Tarbert’s device, there was no telling how many eggs she’d brought in.

  SPI headquarters had been turned into a monster nursery.

  17

  “HOW many?” Sandra asked.

  “A dozen,” Ian said, wincing as her team medic cleaned yet another slash on his back. “Probably more.”

  We’d moved to a more easily defendable—and drier—part of the bottom level of the complex. It’d been only minutes since the grendel hatchlings had vanished, though I knew they couldn’t be gone. Since we knew nothing about what grendel bites and scratches did to humans, Sandra had ordered her people to stand guard while the team medic quickly saw to the worst of our injuries and at least cleaned the others.

  Ian had stripped off his soaked shirt and sat on the floor next to me in his jeans and boots. Dry clothes would have to wait. Most of Ian’s injuries had been from the waist up. Mine had been pretty much everywhere, though the worst was a gash on my right thigh. The medic had cut off the right leg of my jeans near my upper thigh so he could stop the bleeding. I felt like a lopsided Daisy Duke.

  “This needs stitches,” he told me, “but butterfly bandages will hold it for now.” He was putting a bandage over the butterflies. “Try not to tear them loose in the meantime.”

  “I don’t plan to; but I’m pretty sure the hatchlings have other ideas.”

  “I can’t believe those things had just hatched,” Sandra said.

  “Considering when the doppelganger brought them in,” Ian said, “they probably hatched in the last twelve to twenty-four hours. Their armor’s still so
ft, which is the only reason bullets can still hurt them. I don’t know how long it takes for it to harden.”

  I couldn’t get the image of the dead grendel out of my head. Its mouth gaped open in death, revealing not three, but four rows of triangular, sharklike teeth. The arms and legs were spindly and hadn’t developed the heavy musculature of an adult, but that didn’t mean they were weak. Far from it. I hurt all over from numerous bites and scratches, a hurt that had escalated to a three-alarm blaze after the medic had swabbed what felt like alcohol on all of them.

  Sandra Niles was listening intently on her headset. She scowled. “Let me put you on speaker.”

  Kenji’s voice came over a tiny speaker set somewhere near the shoulder of Sandra’s body armor. “Mac, you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “According to the security scanner, you just came in through the north tunnel entrance.” He paused. “Holy shit. You brought a friend.”

  Suddenly sirens went off and red flashing lights strobed all around us. An automated voice came over the wall speakers. “Intruder alert at the north tunnel access. All security personnel immediately report to the north tunnel access.”

  Ian got to his feet and had to help me to mine. It isn’t easy to stand when you’re trying not to move one of your legs.

  We were at the south tunnel entrance. Going north would take us away from the baby monsters and toward another, larger one. Though right now, I’d take one monster on the other side of the complex over an unknown number of smaller ones that were right here with us. We passed several wall-mounted air vents. They all still had their screws, but if those things started unscrewing and dropping to the floor, I was running, butterfly bandages be damned.

  Sandra had sprinted to the nearest corridor intersection—and its wall monitor. They were placed throughout the complex for things like announcements and briefings. At the moment, it showed a rotating 3D SPI logo.

  “Kenji, I’m at monitor A-5,” Sandra told him. “Give me a visual on the north tunnel.”

  The live video feed came on almost immediately. Static cut in and out for a few seconds, then cleared to give us a good view.

  The camera looked down on my doppelganger. She was wearing a sweater identical to mine. Again. A massive shadow moved directly in front of the camera, blocking the lens.

  “How high up is that camera?” I whispered to Ian.

  “It’s in the corner, back section of the loading dock, it’s ten feet.”

  And the thing my doppelganger had let in blocked the camera completely. As it moved away, the camera pivoted to follow, and refocused.

  Those of us who’d been in the conference room briefing knew what it had to be, but when it moved into view, we all watched in stunned silence.

  It was a grendel. An adult. The conference room hologram brought to terrifying life. And everyone could see it.

  It was gigantic, with small armored plates completely covering its body. They were steel gray edged in black, which was what had given it a tattooed appearance. The grendel was corded with muscle, but wasn’t bulky with it. This was lean and powerful muscle, the kind made for speed and strength. It was a predator, a skilled and lethal hunter of its preferred prey—humans. The grendel’s arms were as big around as my waist, maybe more. One hand could easily engulf my entire head and flip it off my shoulders with its thumb like popping the top off a bottle of beer.

  The video feed flickered and then came back.

  I gasped and froze.

  Sandra bit off a curse. “They’re gone. Both of them. Where the hell did they go?”

  I looked at her in disbelief. “They’re right there.”

  “What?”

  “Right there.” I spread my hands wide in front of my face. “The thing’s head fills up the entire screen.” That wasn’t all it was doing. The grendel’s glowing eyes felt like they were staring straight at me, then its lips pulled back, exposing teeth like triangular razors. A knot formed and twisted in my stomach. It wasn’t just showing me its teeth.

  My eyes locked on the scene before me. “It’s smiling at us.”

  “Kenji, pull up the loading dock camera,” Sandra ordered. “Aim it on that hallway.”

  “It’s empty,” Kenji reported. “Nothing there.”

  “We can’t see them,” Ian said quietly. “But Mac can.”

  He believed me. I was beyond grateful. “It’s wearing a collar or necklace with a round, thick disk. Here.” I reached up and touched the hollow of my throat. “And it knows we’re watching. I got a glimpse of the doppelganger, but now the grendel is blocking the entire lens.”

  As if the thing could hear me, the grendel put its hand in front of the camera lens, flexing its hooked claws into a fist and then extending them, like a boxer before a fight, giving me a good up-close look at what it would be using as it slaughtered its way through the complex. A wet coughing sound came from deep beyond the rows of teeth, then another, and another. I recognized his voice. I’d heard it before, in Ollie’s office after it had gutted Adam Falke.

  The grendel was laughing.

  “Can you hear it?”

  Ian shook his head.

  Damn. So much for whether my seer abilities extended to mechanical/woo-woo devices. I knew I should be grateful they did, but watching a monster invade SPI headquarters was the last thing I wanted to see.

  The grendel reached out, wrapped its massive hand around the camera, and plucked it right off the wall.

  “Great,” Kenji spat over the speaker. “The camera picks now to futz out on me.”

  I found my voice. “The camera didn’t go out, Kenji. The grendel ripped it off the wall.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The grendel ripped the camera off the wall. I can see it. I wish it wasn’t there, but it is. Kenji, is Tarbert’s device about the size of a hockey puck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The grendel’s wearing it on some kind of collar. Metal. My doppelganger is probably wearing one, too.”

  As far as I could tell, the grendel was naked, but my doppelganger had been wearing clothes. My clothes. So that shot down the possibility that you had to be naked for the cloaking device to work. What a relief. If my doppelganger had to be naked to be invisible, and turned off her device in front of anyone at SPI, since she was an exact copy of me, my coworkers would know what I looked like starkers. If that happened, I’d have to resign out of sheer mortification.

  “Kenji, for God’s sake, shut down those sirens,” Sandra said. “We know we have a shit storm on our hands; we don’t need sirens telling us. And get rid of those flashing red lights. The damned things are going to give somebody a seizure.”

  That was when the lights went out.

  All of them.

  A few seconds later, the battery-powered emergency lights came on. They were spaced down the hall, leaving some awfully big patches of dark.

  Sandra keyed her mike. “Dammit, Kenji, not all the lights. Just the red ones.”

  Silence.

  Silence so complete that I could hear the buzzing in my ears. I remembered Kenji saying that we were ten stories underground. We were now three stories below that.

  Thirteen stories below Lower Manhattan.

  In the dark.

  With monster toddlers who wanted to eat us. And one massive monster who’d probably eat any and every SPI agent it came across.

  “My comms are out, too,” Ian said. “And the air system just went.”

  My mind raced for answers. One grendel. One doppelganger that looked like me. Why had they been sent here? Inflicting violence and gruesome death was a given, but against who? The doppelganger now knew SPI like the back of its shapeshifting hand. Was it a guide for the grendel? If so, where was it taking it? The instant that question popped into my head, I knew, or at the very least I had a damned likely theory.

/>   “Tia sent her sister a present,” Ian murmured next to my ear, nearly reading my mind.

  “And the spawn are just a distraction,” I said.

  “Sandra, we have to get up to the bull pen,” Ian told her. “The grendel’s going after the boss.”

  “How do you—”

  “I can’t explain. Just trust me. The eggs and spawn are a diversion to get your people and Roy’s away from Vivienne Sagadraco. It’s no coincidence we’re on the far end of the complex from where that grendel came in. It was sent after her. She can fight it as a dragon, but not if she can’t see it. That grendel will tear her to shreds. We’ve got to get Mac up there; she can see it.”

  My throat caught in midswallow, so I just nodded.

  Everyone at SPI knew that the boss was a dragon, but she probably didn’t want it known that her sister was trying to kill thousands of New Yorkers and tourists, and light a fuse that could start the next world war, this time between humans and supernaturals.

  I finished my swallow with an audible gulp.

  “Not much we can do to help her with what we have,” Sandra said. “Let’s get up to the armory. I don’t know if grendels can see in the dark, but we’ll assume they can—at least better than us—until they prove otherwise. Since we’re some of the only people left in this place, those spawn’ll follow us. To them, we’re food.” She smiled in a flash of white teeth. “So as of right now, we’re fast food. Move out.”

  • • •

  We entered the black hole that was the stairwell.

  With the power out, the only way up was the stairs, and what passed for emergency lights were entirely too dim. Ian had brought extra ammo, but I only had what my gun had, which thanks to the spawn was now empty.

  That and our injuries had relegated us to the center of Sandra’s team. Though I knew the real reason. I was the only one who could see the cloaked adult grendel. All the extra ammo in the armory wouldn’t do much good without me to tell them where to shoot. I’d never had to do that before, and I had absolutely no clue how to direct the fire of a commando team to hit something they couldn’t see and that would possibly be attacking a dragon they couldn’t risk hitting.