Silver Bullet

by SM Reine

  Hadn’t I been trying to talk to her about something else? Something important?

  “Ann,” I said suddenly, remembering.

  She smiled. “Apparently I didn’t scramble your brain enough. I’ll kiss you harder next time.”

  I wasn’t going to let the witchy-woman distract me, not this time. “I’m going to do something to help Ann. Mark my words.”

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” she said.

  Too late for that. “Drive safe, Isobel.”

  “I like it when you call me Izzy,” she said.

  She slammed the door. The engine growled. I took a step back to keep my toes from getting run over.

  When the car was gone, I could see the condo’s back door on the other side. Suzy stood on the top of the stairs, watching me. “The zombie’s ready to head out,” she said as the engine noises faded. “You need to escort the necromancer to the beach.”

  “Wait, what?” And when blood resumed flowing to my thinking head, I quickly changed it to, “Yes. Right. Gotcha. Time to save Director Friederling. I’m ready.”

  Suzy shook her head, sighed, and headed back inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I’D NEVER BEEN TO Lake Tahoe before, although I’d heard a lot of nice things about it from folks who vacationed up this way. The water was supposed to be so clear that it was like a mirror. The snow was, apparently, absolutely perfect for skiing. They said the hiking was good, too.

  Who had the time for that many outdoor sports? Not me. I worked for a living, thanks. And seeing the lake for the first time in the middle of the night wasn’t real impressive anyway. It mostly looked like a big black smudge surrounded by the big black spikes of pine trees.

  The sky, though—the sky looked nice. I didn’t often get a good look at the sky in Los Angeles. Too much light pollution. Here in the mountains, with a thin atmosphere and not much civilization, the stars looked close enough that I could have knocked them out of the sky if I tossed a baseball hard enough.

  Ann stepped out of the SUV, took one look at the forest, and groaned. “It stinks here.”

  I sniffed. It smelled like pine, fresh air, wet soil. You know, the outdoors. Something that kids in this internet-addicted generation didn’t seem all that hung up on experiencing. “We’ll make this as fast as possible,” I said. “Let’s get your zombie.”

  I opened the rear of the SUV. Ann fidgeted beside me with excitement as one door swung open, and then the next.

  “Come on,” Ann cooed, opening her arms as if for a hug.

  Yvette lurched out.

  Suzy was the only one on the team who knew how to wield makeup brushes once Isobel left, so she’d been forced to handle making the zombie look alive, and Yvette looked pretty good, all things considered. Suzy was an artist with eye shadow.

  She’d drawn the line at dressing the zombie, though, so I’d been forced to do my best using clothes purchased from casino gift shops. Turned out I was a terrible judge of women’s sizes. Yvette’s borrowed skirt was loose around her hips, the shoes flopped on her feet, and the sweater I’d used to cover her bite wound said, “The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword” with “pen” and “is” mushed together so that it looked like it said something dirty.

  Our zombie looked like she had terrible taste in clothes, but between that and the hair, she looked passably alive.

  The way she moved, however…

  Yvette’s head drooped to the side, arms limp at her sides. She was drooling, and I was pretty sure that fluid wasn’t saliva.

  “Can you do something about…?” I gestured to Yvette’s head in general.

  Ann licked her thumb and scrubbed at the dribble on the zombie’s chin. Kind of like a mom with her toddler. I tried not to feel completely horrified and failed. “Stand up straight,” Ann said. “Shoulders back.”

  Yvette lifted her head. She still didn’t quite focus.

  Maybe Cain would think she was drunk. Or on drugs. Or sleepwalking. He was definitely going to realize that something was wrong, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what. There was no way that he could guess she was dead—right? It wasn’t like zombies were common.

  “Great,” I said, looking over Yvette. It was the only nice word I could think to say, even if it was sarcastic.

  “Great,” Ann sighed. Not sarcastic.

  I couldn’t make the trade fast enough.

  As I slipped and slid my way down the sandy beach, I realized that Ann had been right. Sapphire Beach did smell strange.

  The problem wasn’t what the lake smelled like. It was all the scents that were missing. I was used to visiting Long Beach, where the muggy air was heavy with the scent of fish and the salty sea. Here, it was cold and icy and reeked of frozen pine.

  I was probably imagining it, but I also thought I could smell wet dog.

  The tension ratcheted up with every step I took toward the water. My skin was crawling. At any moment, Cain could jump out and attack me. I had loaded my gun with the silver bullets that Malcolm had given me, but the werewolf moved fast; I wasn’t confident that I could hit him, even if I had enough time to react.

  This was it—my chance to save Fritz from a murderous werewolf cult thing and save myself from Lucrezia. Everything hinged on this meeting.

  No pressure.

  Yvette shambled alongside me, cradling a fragment of fake ethereal gateway in her arms. It was a nice replica. I sure as heck couldn’t tell the difference between that and the real thing. Pretty cool trick, considering how little time the team’d had to replicate the artifact before the meeting.

  We stopped on the beach at the edge of the frothing waters. I tried not to look around for the other people that were meant to be watching me make the trade off.

  I knew Ann was a few feet behind me, lurking in the shadows so she could continue controlling Yvette. I also knew that there should have been kopides in the trees, including Malcolm and Gary Zettel. But wherever they were hiding, I couldn’t see them. Not Suzy or the snipers or anyone else.

  I had to trust that they had my back.

  Trust. Right. Trust the organization that’s run by a vice president who threatened to kill me.

  The traitorous thought rose sudden and unbidden. I tamped it down just as quickly.

  I could freak out about that later, after I’d saved myself.

  Glancing at my watch, I saw the moment that the second hand dragged the other hands to midnight.

  Yvette drooled quietly beside me.

  Cain did not emerge.

  I waited, alone on the beach with the crashing nighttime waves. Clouds crept over the full moon. The wind was warmer than I expected, considering I was in the mountains in March—probably heralding more snow.

  Ten minutes passed, then fifteen.

  Still no Cain.

  I was just starting to worry when I saw a man in black step out of the trees. I tensed, but it wasn’t Cain or a cultist—he was wearing tactical gear and, I think, carrying a sniper rifle. Hard to tell in the dark. The man was pointing to his ear. Or, more specifically, his Bluetooth headset.

  Crap. I was meant to be wearing one of those, too. I’d completely forgotten.

  I jammed it in place in time to hear the screaming.

  “—here, it’s here, oh Lord in Heaven, it’s here, and it’s got him, it’s going to—” Those few coherent words were cut off by another strangled shout. I thought that he was trying to pray, but it was impossible to tell.

  My blood turned to icy sludge as others began shouting over the comm. There were wet squirts and splats, meaty tearing noises. The microphones caught way too much information and conveyed it to my headset.

  I didn’t have to see anything to imagine the carnage happening on the other end.

  “Where are you?” I asked, pressing my fingers to the button to activate the speaker. “What’s happening?”

  Malcolm replied over the line. His voice was clear and unsettlingly calm in comparison to the screaming. “You’re he
aring Silverton Mine, Agent Hawke.”

  And then I wasn’t hearing Silverton Mine at all.

  Communication cut out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SUZY APPEARED FROM THE trees and hurtled toward me, sliding on the sand in her practical shoes. She wasn’t trying to hide anymore. Nobody was—members of our team were emerging from everywhere all at once, like freakin’ springtime daisies.

  “Where’s Cain? What just happened?” I asked.

  “Cain attacked the mine,” she said. “This was a diversion.”

  The helicopter took off from the trees, buzzing into the night. It headed east toward Fallon. Car engines roared. Headlights blazed to life. Just as quickly as everyone appeared, they were leaving again. Heading to Silverton Mine too late.

  I moved for the nearest vehicle, but a Union kopis caught my arm.

  “We’ve received orders to remain and search the beach,” he said, gesturing to indicate me and another kopis at his side. “Just in case Cain’s hideout really is nearby.”

  “Orders from who?” I asked.

  The kopides exchanged looks. “Zettel,” said the second guy.

  Zettel probably just wanted me out of the way. But what if he was right? What if there was a chance that Fritz was nearby, and I was trying to head in the opposite direction?

  I checked the time on the BlackBerry. We were well past midnight now. I didn’t have time to go on a wild goose chase across northern Nevada anyway. “Wait,” I said, catching Suzy’s sleeve when she moved to get into the SUV. “Take this with you.” I handed her my gun. She was going to need the silver bullets more than I did. “Go save lives, Suzy.”

  “But the mine—”

  “Seriously, get out of here,” I said. We couldn’t stand around debating. The clock was winding down.

  Suzy seemed to understand. She took the Desert Eagle, checked the safety, shoved it in the glove box. “Ann?” she called over my shoulder at the necromancer, who was fidgeting with Yvette’s clothes, tugging them into place to hide the bite wound again.

  “I’ll stay and help Agent Hawke search,” she said. Goody for me.

  Suzy slammed the door, but didn’t immediately pull out. She rolled down the window. It looked like she wanted to say something to me. Her mouth opened, and then closed. She shook her head. “I’ll see you back at the penthouse,” Suzy said.

  She pulled out, following the line of departing SUVs and leaving me alone with Ann and the kopides.

  Within minutes, it was like the Union had never been there at all. The roads were dark and empty. The beach was silent except for the slop of water over the sand. I stepped up to the edge to watch the last light recede—the search boat on the opposite shore was leaving, too.

  Wait. Why would the Union boat be leaving us? It couldn’t reach the mine. It should have been coming to the beach to help conduct the search for Fritz.

  Unless…the Union hadn’t ordered anyone to stay and search for Fritz.

  Something was wrong. I felt it deep in my bones, sudden and certain.

  I heard a shifting sound behind me.

  In the water’s reflection, shining in the moonlight, I saw a rippling image of the two Union kopides. I realized belatedly that I didn’t know either of their names, and couldn’t remember having seen them at the mine. They weren’t part of Zettel’s unit.

  I flashed back to my almost-execution in the desert outside Los Angeles, back during my last case. How the kopides had forced me to my knees and been about to shoot me in the back of the head. It had only happened a week earlier and the memory was still painfully fresh.

  It was probably paranoia, not intuition, that said that these kopides had just aimed their guns at my skull.

  But paranoia had been treating me pretty nicely lately.

  I threw myself to the sand.

  My belly hadn’t even hit the ground before I heard twin gunshots, one right on top of the other.

  The man to the left shouted above me. “Motherfucker!”

  The other kopis hit the ground next to me, gushing blood and brains from his shattered forehead. He wasn’t dead yet but I’d be surprised if he lasted longer than a few more heartbeats. He couldn’t even lift his gun again, though he tried.

  Not my problem anymore.

  I didn’t take time to think. I just reacted. I kicked out both feet and slammed them into the standing kopis’s shins, knocking him to the ground.

  He tried to bring the gun to bear on me. I kicked again, snapping it out of his hands, sending it skittering into the water.

  The kopis lunged. He rode me down, slamming his fists into my head and shoulders. He was as strong as every other demon hunter that had ever pummeled me, unfortunately—it was like taking Allyson’s jackhammer to the face.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked between blows, trying to shield my face with my forearms. “Who sent you?”

  His answer was to shove me a few inches back, press a hand to my cheek, and force my head into the water.

  The cold lake rushed over me to the chin. Ice water slopped into my mouth and into my sinuses.

  It numbed immediately. I tried to inhale on instinct and got a lungful of it. My chest hitched and I gurgled, struggling to expel the water, struggling to breathe.

  The kopis’s hand was a ten-ton lead weight. He drove my head back into the sand.

  The wave receded, giving me a moment of oxygen. Then it crashed over me again even harder than before. Water soaked my shirt. Sand and grit scraped at my tongue. There was a faint taste of blood—the waves were lapping at the dead kopis, too, and now I was drinking his blood. Gross.

  Black lights danced in my vision.

  Can’t breathe. Have to get up.

  Through the veil of rippling water, I could see that the attacking kopis wasn’t smiling or glaring or…anything. There was no emotion in his face as he forced me down deeper and deeper into the cold black lake.

  This was business. Not personal.

  Either motivation could kill me just as easily.

  I had tossed back a couple of strength potions before heading down with Ann and Yvette, but my strength was still insignificant next to the kopis’s, and waning fast as oxygen left me. Every time the water sloshed into my nose, I couldn’t help but expel air trying not to swallow it down.

  I beat at his arms, weaker and weaker. My vision blurred. I squeezed my eyes shut so hard that I saw stars.

  Then his weight was suddenly gone.

  I sat up with a deep gasp that roared through my chest, sucking down air hard. It hurt to breathe in. I gagged and barfed half of Lake Tahoe all over the sand.

  What had happened? Who had saved me?

  Through tearful, blurry eyes, I saw a slouchy teenage girl raise a stone scepter and bring it crashing down on the back of the kopis’s head again. The Yvette zombie was holding him down with supernatural strength so that Ann could beat the shit out of him. The necromancer pummeled him again and again, eyes gleaming in the moonlight as she pulverized his skull.

  He screamed as she beat him. It wasn’t a quick death, like the kopis that had been shot by accident. It was agonizingly slow. Horrible to watch. I couldn’t have done it to him.

  But Ann did.

  The first sight of his gray matter only seemed to spur her to hit harder.

  I finally got to my feet. “Ann—stop!”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. She kept beating. She kept grinning. I seized the girl by the shoulders, and she kicked at me as I dragged her away. Blood gloved her forearm.

  She was laughing.

  “Jesus,” I groaned, shoving her away from the attacker, away from me. I was going to throw up again.

  It was too late for her victim. He was dead now. Beyond dead. And Yvette still held him down, waiting for her next order.

  Ann had always given me the willies, but I hadn’t thought of her as dangerous. She was smaller and weaker than me. Guess I’d expected to be able to fight her off easily if she attacked. I never
would have given thought to what her zombies could do to me.

  Tears streaked Ann’s cheeks as she kept laughing, clutching the scepter to her breast. She didn’t care that it was caked in gore.

  “Are you okay?” I asked when I regained enough composure to speak. Ann kept laughing. I grabbed her shoulders again. “Listen to me! Are you okay?” I probably shouldn’t have bothered asking. I already knew the answer was a resounding “absolutely not.”

  Her laughter suddenly cut off. She stood straight and tall. The tears quivered on her jaw, but she didn’t shed another.

  “I’m fine, Agent Cèsar Hawke,” Ann said. “How are you?”

  Jesus almighty.

  “I’m alive because of you,” I said, feeling sick all over. “You saved me. I don’t…” I swallowed hard. I could still taste the water of Lake Tahoe mingling with the first dead kopis’s blood. When I spoke again, my voice was raspy. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  She had saved my life. Did I have any right to get angry about how she had done it? Wasn’t it selfish to be so fucking freaked out by the brutality of it?

  I was alive because of her.

  My thoughts kept circling back to that, and I couldn’t manage to feel grateful for it.

  I think I’m going to be sick again.

  Sinking to a crouch, I braced my hands on my knees and struggled against the urge to vomit.

  Ann had protected me. Who would protect me from Ann if she ordered Yvette to kill me next?

  Focus, Cèsar.

  I turned to look at the bodies. The gunshot that had killed the first kopis wasn’t clean. The shooter had been going for my head and missed when I dodged. Ann’s insanity aside, two Union kopides had just tried to kill me. Again. The question was, why? Were these Lucrezia’s men, or was this something else entirely?

  I approached the bodies, pulled open their shirts, searching the bare skin under all the blood.

  “What are you doing?” Ann asked.

  “Trying to figure out why they want me dead,” I said.