by M. D. Massey
He tsked. “I can respect that, although I’ll say that after hunting… them for a few decades, I’ve learned that having intel on your enemy often makes the difference between living and dying. Especially where the supernatural is concerned.”
I considered his point as I poured us more vodka. “Can’t argue with that, I suppose. Truth is, up until recently I rarely ran across any creatures that were more intelligent than wild animals. Oh, I’d occasionally get the odd nosferatu who could speak, but you don’t get much deep conversation from a nos’. Mostly I dealt with revs, ghouls, and the like. Not much intel to be had there, other than ‘head shots work’ and ‘beheading works better.’”
He pursed his lips and took a sip from his cup. “So, you don’t think there’s something behind everything that’s happened?”
“I didn’t say that. Back at the nuclear lab, I saw something through that… hole in reality that Piotr made. If I had to describe it, it was a look into hell. There were things over there that wanted to get over here. And they were hungry.”
Colin nodded. “What would you say if I told you that was just one of many alternate dimensions inhabited by evil entities? There are things beyond imagining, Scratch, and they want nothing more than to rip through the fabric of time and space to get here, so they can destroy everything.”
“Seems to me like some of them already did exactly that,” I quipped.
“Well, sort of. Supernatural beings were here already, though, long before the apocalypse happened. But creatures like Piotr’s maker, and that giant wolf we killed, Vánagandr? They’re what we call primaries. They can’t really be killed, per se. And although you can destroy their physical form, they’ll eventually come back, perhaps decades or centuries later.”
I took a slug of vodka. “Seems a bit farfetched to me, brother.”
Colin chuckled. “But vampires, zombies, and werewolves aren’t. Right.”
I tilted my head and rubbed the stubble on my chin. “I suppose you make a good point.”
He tapped the table with his index finger for emphasis as he continued. “All I’m saying is, there are powerful things out there, and often they’re trying to bring more of their kind over here, from wherever they came from. Why? Mostly because they’re evil, or power hungry, or just plain hungry. And they want what we have, because compared to their worlds, ours is a paradise.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how is it you came to believe all this stuff?”
“Like I told you back at the castle house, I’ve been fighting them for years, long before the shit hit the fan. I know it because I’ve seen it—hell, I’ve seen shit you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares.”
I decided to withhold comment. As far as I was concerned, the less I knew about the crazy world Colin and the Doc played in, the better. Plus, I still wasn’t ready to buy into what he was selling. Oh, I believed that he believed it, but personally I could care less about all that mystical bullshit. Since the dead had risen, my only curiosity about the supernatural was limited to, “Does it want to kill me?” and “Then how the hell do I kill it?”
Keeping things simple had kept me sane for eight long years, and I wasn’t about to change my outlook at this juncture. The whole conversation was getting just a little too weird for me, so I decided to get us back on task. I leaned back in my chair, kicking my feet up on the table as I interlaced my fingers behind my head.
“So, what’s this got to do with our undead dog problem?”
“Magic caused it. Whoever this witch is that’s raising these familiars, she’s using necromancy to create them.”
“You mean like raising the dead and stuff? Look around, Colin. That’s nothing new.”
“You don’t understand. People who deal in necromancy are bad news. When we run into her—and believe me, we will, eventually—I have a feeling she’s going to be a pain in the ass to put down.”
“Okeydokey, noted.” I took a moment, to make sure I wanted to ask the next question. “Colin, are you a witch of some sort?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you see me wearing a pointy hat?”
“I’m serious, man. Let’s just say for a minute that all this magic stuff is real—not that I completely accept that, but let’s just say it is.”
“I assure you, it’s real.”
“Sure, whatever. If you can do magic”—I wiggled my fingers in the air—“and we’re going to be facing something that can use magic… well, seems like it’d be helpful to know someone on our team can fight fire with fire.”
He cracked his neck and stretched, arching his back with a yawn. “I’m beat. Think I’m going to turn in.”
“Fine, ignore the question then.”
He stood and regarded me with hooded eyes, then looked around the room to make sure no one was within earshot. Colin placed both hands on the table and leaned in.
“Look, Scratch, I’ve found that most people have gotten used to the idea of zombies, ’thropes, vamps, and the like. But they also like their humans nice and normal, so they can maintain a neat and tidy ‘us and them’ worldview. There’s just no middle ground for most folks these days. Either you’re one of them, or one of us.”
He paused as he clenched his hands into fists. “But consider this. I kept a group of kids alive and safe for years, living right next door to a pack of bloodthirsty ’thropes.” He stood and pushed his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. “So yeah, I’ve got a few tricks up these sleeves. And when the time comes, if it means keeping my people alive, I’ll damned sure use them.”
He walked off without another word. After he’d gone, I grabbed the vodka bottle and poured some on the floor.
“To the fallen,” I muttered.
BEGIN
Once Colin left, I mulled over things over until I decided our next steps. After seeing how hard those deader dogs were to kill, I knew the safety of everyone at the Facility would be compromised by their presence. And the fact that whoever was making them could just make more? That had me really worried.
Colin was pretty adamant that there was a magic user involved—whatever the hell that meant. Why couldn’t things have stayed nice and simple? Why couldn’t this just be a normal zombie apocalypse, with nice, slow-moving deaders, and a mall full of food, guns, and ammo to hole up in?
It seemed like the whole world had gone batshit crazy. Not like it hadn’t been before, but ever since that nos’ had tipped me off about the coming incursion, things had really gone off the deep end. Witches were raising possessed hounds from the dead—or possessing them to raise them from the dead… I still hadn’t figured that one out. We had a spider demon in the basement, and who knew what else the Doc hadn’t revealed. Hell was trying to tear a hole in the fabric of reality, so they could bring more of Them over here.
And the icing on the cake? Finding out my girlfriend’s a vampire, and I’m a government lab rat. Yeah, good times.
But this was no time to wallow in self-pity and hopelessness. After three combat tours and eight years fighting Them, I knew things could get even more FUBAR in a heartbeat. All it’d take was one slip, one breach in security, and we’d be dog meat.
Which meant it was time to go on the offensive. And I figured that if I was going to deal with the current mess, I’d better take the knuckleheads with me… if only to keep them out of worse trouble than I was about to get into.
I found Bobby and Gabby listening to some pre-war music in one of the offices. I vaguely recognized the tune, if you could call it that, since it was mostly just screams and power chords. Not exactly my thing, but I could understand the appeal.
As I walked in the room, Gabby was banging her head and beating a rhythm on the side of a metal trash can in time with the music. Bobby had his fingers in his ears, while Ghost had his ears covered with his paws nearby.
“Do you think you could play that a little louder?” I asked. The sarcasm in my voice was lost on the kid.
“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Gabby shouted. �
�It’s the Sex Pistols! Colin loaned it to me.”
Bobby looked a lot less impressed. “I prefer my sitar music,” he said with a shrug.
Gabby was still banging her head when I shut off the music. “Hey, why’d you have to do that? ‘God Save the Queen’ was up next. I like that song!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose as I replied. “It was giving me a headache. Anyway, we need to talk.”
She flipped the trash can over and set it down, then took a seat on the edge of the desk. “Sure thing, Scratch. What’s up?”
“We need to do something about the deader dogs. So long as they’re a local presence, the Facility is compromised. Not only do they pose an immediate threat, but they could also lead other things right to us… things that are far worse.”
Gabby scratched deep lines in the desk with her Kabar as she spoke. “Don Paco said there’d be a bruja or brujo controlling them. So, we find and kill the person responsible, and take care of the problem at the source. Seems pretty straightforward to me.” She stabbed her knife into the table and punched her palm.
“Bobby, what’s your take on the situation?”
While Gabby was all for taking the bull by the horns, for once Bobby’s face showed concern. “I think we oughta lead them away—you know, draw them off and then take them out if we can.”
Colin’s voice echoed from the hall. “Not a bad idea, but you’ll still have to deal with the witch. Whatever her familiars see, she sees. Which means that eventually, you’ll have to go after her, too.” I looked over my shoulder to find Colin leaning in the doorway. “Sorry, I was passing by and couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. Anyway, the real question is, what does she want?”
Gabby frowned at the big swordsman. “How do you know it’s a she?”
He shrugged. “Powerful witches are almost always female. Sure, it could be a warlock or magician, but my hunch says it’s a she.”
Bobby scratched his head. “And what makes you an expert on witches and stuff?”
“Colin was a hunter before the War,” I said. “You spent years with the Coastal Pack, Bobby. Didn’t they ever mention that supernatural creatures existed before the shit hit the fan?”
Bobby nodded. “Sure they did—but it’s not like they held history classes or anything. Every once in a while, you might hear an old-timer talk about life before the War, but mostly we were just focused on the Pack’s survival. Samson taught me how to control my lycanthropy, but as far as other creatures were concerned, he only told me how to avoid them or kill them.”
Colin nodded. “That sounds like Samson. He never was much of a conversationalist.”
Bobby did a double-take. “Wait a minute—you know Samson?”
Colin chuckled. “I did, before the War. Glad to hear he’s still around. I take it he’s the alpha of the Coastal Pack?”
Bobby nodded. “Yep, despite more than a few challengers over the years. He kind of took me in and raised me after my parents died.”
“Was it his idea to turn you, or yours?” Colin asked.
“That’s Pack business,” Bobby stated. “Can’t discuss it.”
Gabby had begun carving up the desk again as she listened. “This is all very educational, but we were talking about how to deal with the demon dogs…”
“I vote we call them deader dogs,” Bobby interjected.
“Ay, lobo chiflado… who cares what they’re called? I just want to know how we’re going to get rid of them.”
“I’ll answer that question,” I said. “We’re going to lead them away from here, just like Bobby said. Then, we’re going to lose them. And when they give up on catching us, we’ll follow them back to their maker.”
Colin tracked me down later, while I was prepping for our little excursion. “I noticed you avoided the question about what this witch might want.”
I kept loading magazines while I considered how to answer. I’d snagged an M4 from the armory—which thankfully was still locked up—and every spare mag I could get my hands on. I’d also spent time making a shit-ton of silver-tipped hollow points for my sidearm. If we had to tangle with a pack of those things, I wanted to be ready.
I slapped a full mag on the desk and grabbed another. “I didn’t necessarily avoid it. I just didn’t want to get into it in front of the kids.”
“They’re hardly kids, Scratch. Not after what they’ve been through.”
I thumbed a few more rounds of 5.56 in the magazine I was loading. The repetitive motion seemed to help me think, and made me wish I had more reloading supplies here at the Facility. Nothing was better for keeping your hands busy while your mind wandered than reloading a few thousand rounds over several hours.
“They’ve seen a lot, sure. But they’re still kids.”
Colin tsked. “If you say so. But I wasn’t much older than Gabby by the time I was hunting things way worse than this witch’s familiars. You’re not helping them by withholding info.”
“I am if it keeps them from getting killed by disobeying an order.” I put another full mag on the stack, counting the total in my head. Three hundred rounds. Not enough. I paused for a moment, then stuck my head out the door and looked up and down the hall before I shut the door to the armory. “Look, I’ve already given a lot of thought to the motive behind these dog attacks. When the time comes to face whoever’s behind it, I don’t want the kids tagging along and getting killed… or worse.”
“You think the Dallas Coven is to blame?” I nodded. “What do you think their motive is?”
I reached into my breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes that wasn’t there. I’d run out since we’d arrived, which meant I was going to suffer until I could scrounge up more. With nothing else to do with my hands, I opened another box of rounds and dumped a few in my palm, then started loading an empty magazine.
“Revenge, maybe… or keeping us occupied while they continue what Piotr was working on. Hell, I don’t know exactly. It’s just a little too convenient how these things showed up, right after we took out Piotr and the Corridor Pack.”
Colin leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “You think this witch was sent by the Dallas coven? That maybe she’s looking for you?”
I loaded another round. Click. “Actually, I figured you’d know better than me whether that was the case. I’ve never had to deal with the vamps up in Dallas, and if I had my way I’d keep avoiding them like the plague. You’re the expert on all things supernatural, so you tell me.”
He cradled his face and rubbed his chin stubble with one hand. “Honestly? It’s not just possible; it’s highly probable. Whatever Piotr was attempting to accomplish in Austin, I suspect it was important to the coven. Since you screwed it up for them, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think they’d want revenge. Vamps are assholes that way. But the thing that worries me most? Most vamps are bloodthirsty as all hell, sure… but I’ve never known one who wanted to see the earth burn.”
I set a half-full mag down on the desk. “Hell, I just figured they wanted to feed on us—you know, use us as cattle and what-not.”
Colin shook his head. “If that were the case, they’d have wanted to keep more humans alive. Unleashing an undead apocalypse didn’t exactly leave a lot of humans alive to feed on. Decimating the population just doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re sure the vamps were behind the outbreak?”
He cleared his throat. “Almost positive. Scratch, do you know how zombies and ghouls are made?”
I started loading again. “Beyond someone getting bit? If you’re asking if I know how the first one was created, I never much thought about it. Figured it happened in a lab or something.”
Colin gave a grim smile. “If only. There are only three ways to make a zombie or a ghoul. The first and most obvious is for a human to get bitten, just like you said. They get infected, and then they turn.”
“Old news. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Alright then, here goes. The second way to cr
eate a zombie is with magic—necromancy. Raising the dead by animating their corpses, much as I suspect this witch has done to create these familiars.”
“And the third way?”
“Getting drained by a vampire, but not turned completely.”
I stopped loading and looked at him. “No shit?”
“No shit. It’s actually damned hard for a vampire to make another vampire. They have to feed on each other, then the master vamp has to time everything just right so the perfect amount of vyrus gets in the subject’s body…”
“Virus? Vampirism is caused by a virus too?”
Colin wavered his hand back and forth. “Sort of—and it’s ‘vyrus’ with a ‘y.’ Yes, it’s a contagion, but of the magical kind.”
“Aw shit, here we go again.”
The big swordsman looked at me with one eyebrow arched. “Hey, believe me or don’t. All I’m saying is that, for this outbreak to happen all at once all over the world, either multiple vamps or multiple necromancers had to be behind it.”
I finished loading the last magazine and placed it on the stack. Lucky thirteen. Three hundred and ninety rounds. It’d have to do. Damn, but carrying it all was going to be a bitch. I’d have to get Bobby to help me pack horse the other gear, because I really preferred to keep the extra rounds on me.
“Well, that’s kind of jacked up,” I said matter-of-factly.
Colin shrugged. “It might be worse.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“We could be dealing with a vampire who’s also a witch.”
“Is that bad?” I asked, wondering what could be worse than a creature like Piotr.
Colin chuckled humorlessly. “Damned straight. Take the most powerful undead creature in existence, and give them the power to raise and control the dead at will… shit, I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Have you ever tangled with one before?”
He kicked off the wall and shook his head slowly. “Witches? Sure. But a vamp who could raise the dead? Hell no. And if you and I are lucky, we’ll never have to.”