by Karen Greco
"Nina, check it out." Darcy's voice pulled me away from my thoughts of my ghostly friend. I followed her gaze down the beach. A familiar-looking man in an Army uniform was goose-stepping through the sand towards us. His expression was set to hard, like most military lifers.
"Crap," I muttered. Generally, the Department of Defense left us alone. Once in a while they would show up on our military base and demand a tour or a fight demonstration. I think it was more out of a "look-at-the-freaks" curiosity than making sure we were tax money well spent. But since only a handful of humans knew that we existed, the visits were seldom. For him to show up at a beach in Rhode Island in the middle of December meant he was serious. And that he had to show up on a beach in Rhode Island in the middle of December to find us pissed him off more.
By then, Dr. O was so far down the shoreline that he and Babe looked like two moving dots along the horizon. Frankie was in the surf. That left me and Darcy to deal with whatever the U.S. government wanted to throw at us. Yay.
"Nina Martinez?" the guy barked from about 15 feet away. I seriously hoped he did not expect me to salute. We might have been under the umbrella of the DOD, but I wasn't military and I wasn't about to salute Major Hardass.
"Yes," I nodded, closing the distance between us.
"Ms. Martinez, you have a difficult team to find," he growled.
"And you are?" I stared at his uniform. His stripes said Major and his nameplate said "Smith." I wasn't convinced I was dealing with the real thing. I stretched my right arm behind me and felt my tiny Beretta tucked into the small of my back.
He stopped a few feet away. "Major Adam Smith."
"Major Smith, are you aware of the chain of command in our unit?" I kept my hand near the gun.
"We have been trying to reach Dr. O'Malley for several days now." He looked toward me warily. "He is not returning calls."
"Perhaps he is on holiday," I offered with a small smile, professional but cold.
Smith snorted. "We have reason to believe there is an unregistered Berserker in the area."
"I'm sorry, did you say Berserker?" I feigned surprise and spared a glance at Darcy. While her face was a complete blank, all the color drained from it, leaving her almost glowing white.
The DOD liked the creatures to be "registered" but for obvious reasons not every creature complied. The government believed that registering meant that you were friend, not foe. But even the friendlies avoided that list. There was serious mistrust. A list made it way too easy for the government to round us all up and take us out if it ever became necessary. And since we technically did not exist, there was no way to pursue a civil rights violation if our rights weren’t respected.
"With all due respect, sir," I continued cautiously. "A Berserker hasn't been seen for thousands of years. Our research shows they disappeared with the Norsemen around the 11th Century. We're talking no sightings since before the middle ages."
I smiled nervously as Major Hardass evaluated the two of us. Who could have outed Max? I was sure we were the only ones that knew.
"Tell O'Malley that we want to talk to him," Major Smith barked at me.
My smile turned to a sneer. I wasn't true military so he could take his orders and shove them up his ass.
Smith turned on his heel and goose-stepped away.
"Dr. O's avoiding the Department of Defense?" Darcy whispered incredulously. I shook off the thought. I could think of a thousand reasons why anyone would want to avoid the DOD. But while Dr. O wasn't exactly a by-the-book guy, he would never just blow them off. Not without a good reason, anyway.
We needed to figure out the "good reason" -- and soon. I suspected it had to do with Max becoming a supernatural creature that was, for all purposes, extinct.
I looked at Frankie and Max still bobbing around in the icy surf. If Max couldn't learn to control the Berserker in him, we'd all be screwed.
Acknowledgements
Novel writing is solitary work, until the end, when the process relies very much on the kindness of others.
I owe a huge debt to my editor Rakia Clark, who turned me into a much better writer. And a big thank you to my copy-editor Andy Lefkowitz, who cleaned up my messes! I don't know what I would have done without their knowledge and professionalism. And thank you to Jeff Brennan, my awesome cover artist.
I could never have gotten through 75,000 words without the help of my friend and writing buddy Jaene Leonard.
And to my early readers--thank you for sticking through the early versions, and for several of you, for reading it more than once. Ingrid Vincent, Lia Resin, Doug Strassler, David Johnston, Tiffany Douglas, Andrea Freund, Jean Teresi. You were all instrumental in driving my madness to the bitter end, and I am grateful. Best team of beta readers on the planet!
And a huge thank you to my family. My Dad, my husband Anthony and my brilliant daughter Sydney. There is no way I could have done this without your support.
About the author
An award-winning playwright, Karen Greco has spent close to twenty years in New York City, working in publicity and marketing for the entertainment industry. A life-long obsession with exorcists and Dracula drew her to urban fantasy, where she can decapitate characters with impunity. HELL'S BELLE is her first novel.