Silver Bullet

by SM Reine

  “We’ll think of something,” Suzy said. Awfully Zen for a woman who had almost gotten eaten by a spider. Of course, Zen was easy when you didn’t know your superiors were contemplating killing you.

  I raked both hands through my hair, like if I built up enough friction I might be able to force my stupid brain to generate a plan. “Couldn’t you have picked something physically possible to taunt Cain with? Something other than his dead friend Yvette?”

  Suzy’s tone went icy. “I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it before he popped your head off like a cork.”

  Well, shit. I hadn’t meant to sound ungrateful. I sat on the end of her couch. “Maybe we’ll get those nukes in and we can just drop them on the werewolf.”

  “It’ll have to be a silver nuke.”

  I had to contemplate that possibility for a minute. I’d been reading about werewolves on the OPA database on Fritz’s phone, and it verified what I’d already understood about werewolves: they could only be killed by silver. Didn’t matter the delivery method. Silver bullets, silver knives, silver ear piercings. It poisoned them from the inside out.

  The database hadn’t said whether blasting them apart would work as well. The image of a splattered wolf body slithering together into one big puddle, Terminator 2-style, flashed through my mind. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to test that.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked glumly, dropping my forehead into my hands. “Yvette. It’s impossible.”

  “We could string her up like a marionette and walk her down the beach,” Suzy suggested.

  I didn’t think it was funny. Not this time.

  But it did get the cogs in my brain turning.

  “Isobel,” I said suddenly.

  Suzy’s eyebrows knitted. “You’re not in the right bedroom for that, Hawke.”

  “No, Isobel can raise Yvette. Or at least, she can raise her ghost. Maybe seeing Yvette’s apparition at a distance would be enough to convince Cain that we’ve got her. All we need is enough time to save Fritz, right?”

  “I saw your necrocog’s ghosts. That’s not going to convince anyone.”

  “Great. I can’t wait to hear your better plan. I’ll wait.”

  Suzy sighed. “We can try it. Why not? We’ll have to get Yvette’s body out of the mine, though.”

  “The Union’s working on it now.”

  Her cheeks paled a little. “Good.”

  “Yep,” I said. Her ice pack had slipped again, revealing her mincemeat face. If she’d looked like the Cryptkeeper the day before, then today she was—heck, what was worse than the Cryptkeeper? Suzy. Suzy was worse than the Cryptkeeper. “Look, I don’t know if you want to talk, but—”

  “I tried to sleep last night,” she interrupted, like she could read my mind.

  “Didn’t go well, I take it.”

  “No,” she said. “It didn’t.”

  “You know what I’m doing as soon as we save Fritz? Sleeping potions. A gallon of sleeping potions. Whatever it takes to black out and pass out.” I grunted. “Might have to wait until we’re back in LA, though. Cain fucked up my bed on his rampage.” I’d had to sleep on a pile of blankets on the floor the night before.

  “You could sleep in here with me tonight,” Suzy said.

  So much for not being in “let’s fuck with Cèsar’s tiny brain” mode.

  My ability to speak short-circuited. I stared at her.

  “I can enchant a second bedroom,” she added.

  “Oh. Yeah.” Maybe I was reading too much into that. Shit. “That would be great, Suze. Thanks.”

  She just nodded.

  My cell phone rang, saving me from thinking of something else to say.

  I pulled out the BlackBerry with dread lodged in my heart, but that wasn’t where I was getting the call. It was my other phone. The one I’d been using before making the mistake of calling Lucrezia. “Cèsar!” Malcolm greeted when I answered. “How are you doing, mate?”

  “Since I’m pretty sure your call means that the nest of daimarachnids is dead, I’m going to say I’m doing pretty well.” As good as humanly possible, given the circumstances.

  “Great. See you soon?”

  “Not sure there’s an alternative, is there?”

  He gave a warm chuckle. “I left the keys to the SUV on the island. Don’t scratch the paint.” He hung up. I stood.

  “Time to work again?” Suzy asked.

  “Always. You ready?”

  Her smile was thin. “Born ready.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WHEN THE OPA DECIDED to get something done, it didn’t mess around.

  Our organization’s ruthless efficiency was one of my favorite things about it. You wanted to investigate the scene of a crime in an hour before the mundane police showed up? No problem. We could be in and out in forty-five minutes. Want to arrest someone before they have enough time to leave the country? We’ll meet them at the airport.

  And if you wanted to excavate a mine, the OPA would rip the earth apart.

  It was strangely satisfying to see the crater that used to be Silverton Mine. No more tiny cramped holes. No more aging mine cart tracks. No more crumbling walls. Just a few Caterpillars and a giant pit.

  Tents had been erected around the mine, forming a small city occupied by engineers in coveralls and a handful of black-suited witches. We had about two dozen personnel on-site—impressive, considering that my team had been the only personnel locally available until the night before.

  We even had a construction crew at work. Until that moment, I hadn’t known that the OPA employed construction workers, but all of the large machinery was painted matte black with white government seals on the side, so I was completely sure that the equipment belonged specifically to our agency. Because, you know, the OPA and the Union couldn’t have a single piece of equipment that was a normal color. Or any non-black color at all, really.

  “This is pretty cool,” I admitted to Suzy.

  It didn’t look like she agreed. She frowned as she watched the proceedings. I wondered if she was thinking about the Union detention facility again.

  A pair of familiar figures climbed out of the hole wearing combat gear and splattered in shiny demon blood. Malcolm pulled off his helmet as he ambled over. His hair was a sweaty mess.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” he said to Suzy, giving me a conspiratorial wink. At least, I think it was meant to be a wink. With his eye patch, it could have just as easily been an unusually lascivious blink. “You are a sight for my sore eye. Even if you have, you know, sore eyes. But the bruises are a fetching look on you, trust me!”

  It was hard to tell if Suzy was smiling or scowling through the puffy face.

  “What is this?” I asked, gesturing at the dig site.

  “An excavation!” Malcolm said. “What else do you think it could be?”

  “Looks like we got those nuclear bombs we ordered,” I said. “I take it the daimarachnid nest has been emptied.”

  “Thoroughly squashed. Make sure to let me know if you want any souvenirs before we send everything to the incinerator!”

  Souvenirs? Yikes. “I think I’m good. I do need access to the human bodies that were in the nest, though.”

  “We haven’t pulled those out yet. Go down, help yourself. Look for a husky lad named Gary Zettel. He’s commander of the unit handling the more delicate digging down there.”

  As soon as Malcolm headed for the tents, Suzy rounded on me. “Are you planning to just stand by and allow him to talk to me like that?”

  “Who’s talking to you like what?”

  “Malcolm. He’s sexually harassing me. I could get him fired.”

  I’d never heard Suzy complain about harassment before. Most of the time, our coworkers regarded her like one of the guys, but it wasn’t weird to catch a new hire trying to hit on her. Suzy deflected it all with aplomb.

  “But he’s harmless,” I protested.

  “It’s not harmless to treat female coworkers like sex
objects.”

  “So why am I supposed to be calling him out on it?” I asked. “If you don’t like it, tell him to stop.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  I wondered if I needed to check her temperature. She wasn’t acting like herself. “You’ve never taken it personally before.”

  “Just because I behave in a certain way to navigate a hostile professional atmosphere doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Do you think I like being constantly objectified by my peers? Do you think I enjoy pretending to have fun when everyone’s being a giant dick?”

  I had a feeling that this was a trick question. “Yes?”

  Suzy snorted. “Forget about it.”

  “Happily. Now let’s go grab Yvette.” It would have been much easier to take Isobel down into the mine to talk with the bodies, but Malcolm and Bellamy were the only ones who knew she was there. We’d had to leave Isobel in the SUV parked on the hill a half-mile away.

  I headed for a ladder down into the mine and Suzy followed.

  “How are we going to get a body out of the mine without raising suspicion?” she asked.

  “It won’t be a problem,” I lied.

  I’d figure it out once we got down there.

  I found the Union unit digging near the place that Yvette’s cocoon had been discovered. There were five people working there, all of them stripped down to black tank tops and slacks. Four had shovels and pickaxes. The remaining woman—a stocky redhead with a square, frowning face—was working a jackhammer.

  My eyes skimmed past them in search of Yvette. Both cocoons had been moved onto tarpaulins and covered in sheets. I was glad to not have to see the mangled body again. I’d gotten more up close and person with a daimarachnid’s mouth parts than I wanted to, and it was way too easy to imagine having that kind of damage inflicted on me.

  “Well?” Suzy asked. “What now?”

  I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t have any brilliant ideas.

  Hell, maybe I’d just walk out with it. As far as anyone knew, I had orders to recover the body. The OPA and the Union didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on procedure, and we definitely didn’t share our methods across the departments. So long as I looked like I knew what I was doing, nobody would stop me.

  Probably.

  Not much of a plan, but I wasn’t working under ideal conditions.

  “Wait here,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel.

  I walked toward Yvette’s body.

  One of the Union guys stepped in my way. He was one of the stockiest men I’d ever seen. He barely came up to my chest, but was twice as broad as I was. His neck and chin formed a solid block on top of his shoulders. His tank showed off arms that bulged with veins. “Gary Zettel,” he said, offering a gloved hand to me.

  I shook it. He had a crushingly strong grip. The break-your-knuckles kind that some men like to use, as if they’re crushing everyone they meet into submission.

  “Kopis?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’m the commander of this Union unit.” Zettel gave me an appraising look. “Witch? Magical Violations?”

  “Yep,” I said. More or less.

  “You’re the one that found this site. You did good work eliminating the initial assault of daimarachnids.”

  That was probably meant to be a compliment, and a rare one at that. Zettel didn’t look like the kind of guy that did the friendly thing very easily. “I can’t lay claim to most of that, unfortunately. Malcolm Gallagher destroyed most of the nest.”

  Zettel’s expression went cold at the mention of the other kopis. “I see. What do you need?”

  “Yvette.” Wait, was I supposed to know her name? That probably hadn’t made its way through official channels yet. I coughed into my fist. “I need to transport the bodies to the helicopter so that they can be examined at the Los Angeles field office.”

  The commander extended his hand toward me palm-up, as if waiting for me to give him something.

  I stared at him.

  After a moment, he prompted me. “Orders?”

  “For transporting victims?”

  “Yes,” Zettel said in a barely-patient voice. “Let me see your orders.”

  “The OPA doesn’t issue ‘orders’ when clearing a scene,” I said, which was true. At least that was one thing I didn’t have to lie about.

  “The Union does, and this falls under Union jurisdiction.”

  “I found the nest,” I said. “It’s the OPA’s.”

  “We cleared it, so this is ours,” Zettel said firmly. I was starting to get why the local cops always got pissed off when I came through one of their scenes flashing a federal badge. “I’ve already requested help from a Union forensics team. They should be here in an hour. If the OPA wants access to the bodies, you’ll have to submit a request.” His eyes narrowed at me. “Or you can bring me orders issued through Union channels before forensics arrive.”

  Yeah, because that was going to happen.

  Fuckity fuck.

  Gary kept that withering gaze locked onto me, and I started to back away despite myself. I’d never done well at the dick-measuring contests. “I’ll get back to you.”

  He turned back to digging at the webbing, lifting his pickaxe over his shoulder and bringing it down on the rock with a sharp clink. He totally ignored me. It was like I’d never been there at all.

  Suzy was still standing at the entrance of the tunnel with a bemused expression. “You don’t have the body.”

  No shit. “I think Gary doesn’t like me.”

  “Then what’s the plan?”

  Why did everyone expect me to have a plan all of a sudden? I wasn’t a planning guy.

  But I thought back to what Malcolm had told me about teams. How you only ever needed two people to accomplish a mission, and they didn’t need to be kopis and aspis. It was all about positioning. “Distract Gary Zettel,” I said. “The chunky guy with the pickaxe. Get his attention. Actually, get the attention of the entire unit.”

  Suzy looked skeptical. “And you’ll just walk out with Yvette? I’m not that distracting.”

  “You’re good at making people like you,” I said. “Work your magic, Agent Takeuchi.”

  The corner of her lips quirked at the formal name. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Her whole posture changed. She sauntered over to the unit with a disarming grin glowing from her features. It was the look of the woman who used to toss back shots with Union kopides at our (former) favorite bar, The Olive Pit. A woman that could hold her own against any man that worked for the OPA.

  Not gonna lie. The fact that she could change gears that easily kinda freaked me out. What was the pretense—the serious, professional look, or the casual affectation?

  Didn’t matter. When Suzy talked, everyone listened. One by one, they turned to look at her—Gary Zettel and his crazy salami-arms and the redheaded woman with the jackhammer, even the skinnier woman in back with a cell phone that reminded me of a female Fritz.

  Man, I missed Fritz. Or at least, I missed his brain.

  And the fact that his presence would have meant I wasn’t in danger of getting shot by the vice president of the OPA.

  Moving on.

  I didn’t stop to listen to Suzy. I sidled over to the bodies against the crumbling wall, eyes on the Union unit, making sure that they were all fixated on Suzy.

  Guessing by her hand gestures, she was pantomiming shooting up the daimarachnids.

  Slipping my arms under Yvette, I lifted her tarp-wrapped body from the floor. I tossed her over my shoulder. Then I took her to Isobel.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I WAS SWEATING BY the time I dumped Yvette’s body at Isobel’s feet. It wasn’t real hot—even the desert became cool during winter—but I’d like to see you run with a hundred pounds of floppy dead weight over your shoulders for half a mile without feeling it.

  The fact that I reached Isobel before Gary Zettel realized that one of the cocoons had gone missing was a small miracle. I ar
rived on top of the hill ready to collapse from a mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion.

  “Took you long enough,” Isobel said, pacing alongside the SUV.

  There was literally nothing in the entire world that she could have said to annoy me more than that. “Well, I’m real sorry, princess. Next time? You’re welcome to sneak into the Union dig site and drag the corpses around.”

  Isobel didn’t even glance at me. “So here we are,” she said softly, nose wrinkled. The tarpaulin had fallen open. Yvette was grayer than I remembered and the bite wounds had shriveled.

  “Is there something wrong with the body? Aside from the obvious.”

  “No,” Isobel said. “It’s a normal body.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Okay. Guess I can do this. I just…usually, I don’t do anything during daylight. You know?”

  I didn’t know.

  I glanced up at the sky. It was morning, a few hours from midday, and still a safe distance from the midnight deadline. But not safe enough. “Does death magic take darkness?”

  “It helps.”

  We couldn’t wait until darkness. “Give it a try now.” She didn’t immediately move. Instead, she rubbed her palms on the thighs of her jeans. “What, you need animal skins and drums again?” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice, and I didn’t bother trying.

  Hurt flashed over Isobel’s features. “You know that they get in my head, don’t you? It’s not that they just speak to me. We share a mind for a few brief minutes, and it is…” She grimaced. “It’s agonizing, Cèsar. So forgive me if I’m not eager to jump in.”

  That made me feel like a huge asshole. “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t know.” She shrugged stiffly. “All magic has a cost, one way or another. That cost usually comes in the form of a ritual or sacrifice or something. I think one day…this is going to cost me my sanity.”

  I touched her elbow. She turned a heavy-lidded gaze up at me, and I realized her cheeks were damp again, streaked with mascara. She had been crying.

  “Wish I could tell you that you don’t have to do this,” I said softly.