CHAPTER 4
“God-dammit!” Agent Robinson swore. “Get these people out of here!”
It was just another case of New Orleans street theater. Shamblers had gotten out of Mount Olivet, because a gate had been left open, and trickled up Warrington Drive. As soon as Hoodoo Squad cleared the last of them, people started to flood out of their houses to see what was the matter. Normal primate curiosity.
Which was, apparently, illegal. At least according to MCB.
Agent Robinson was going nuts. He struck me as being the high-strung and emotional type anyway, and it didn’t help there were some citizens out on their yards, or walking up and down the road, checking out the freshly rekilled zombies.
“Good shooting, sir,” I said, examining the head shots.
One gentleman was Mr. Conrad Burrows of 310 Warrington Drive. Fifties, balding, he was carrying a Marlin lever action rifle, probably .30-30 by the looks of it, and wearing a bathrobe. He’d popped a couple shamblers before we had gotten here. The houses on Warrington were mostly solidly built ranch style from the 1960s. All of them had barred windows. It was apparent there’d been no additional casualties in this neighborhood.
“Thank you, son. High compliment coming from Hoodoo Squad,” Mr. Burrows said.
“Will you turn off that stupid light!” Agent Robinson stormed over to me.
“Who’s that asshole?” Mr. Burrows whispered.
“The government man,” I warned.
“Damn it, Gardenier. What were you told about doing this in front of God and everybody?”
“You gotta go where the zombies are, Agent. When’s coroner get here?”
“You’ll be doing this the right way from now on! None of this getting receipts from the Coroner. Just collect tissue samples.”
“One bag of ears, coming up,” I said, pulling out a mesh bag.
“You should just collect brain samples,” Robinson ordered.
“Not my first rodeo. Either one works as you can determine if they are all separate entities. And handing you a bag full of smelly zombie ears, which is perfectly legal and within PUFF requirements, is so much more fun. Care to give me the FINGr now?”
FINGr referred to the Federal Incident Number, General. We had to have that along with the Federal Unearthly Creature Code Number and Confirmation of Kill number to file for the Perpetual Unearthly Forces Funds bounty. You had to have the COK, the FINGr and the FUCCN to get PUFF’d. Look, I didn’t make up these acronyms, I just had to use them on a daily basis.
“Just get the tissue samples,” Robinson said, “and get your gear off. Incident is over. We don’t want any questions.”
“It’s the full moon. I’ve already got another call,” I said. “And you won’t have any questions here. Maybe one or two new transplants in this neighborhood are unaware of the existence of hoodoo. The long-time locals won’t say a word. Nice thing about New Orleans, most of the residents can answer your questions before you ask them and read their own riot act. Ask Mr. Burrows here if there are any new residents who have to get informed this isn’t something you talk about. You’re done.”
“Do your job and let me do mine,” Robinson growled. “If I had my way, you’d already be in one of those graves.”
That sounded like he was personally offended…Robinson probably knew about the investigation. I took a shot in the dark. “Your scrying was misinterpreted.”
That shot in the dark hit home.
“Who the hell have you been talking to?”
“Everyone,” I said. “Including FBI. And the casting was a misinterpretation, bub.”
“It’s pretty hard to misinterpret that you started the ring, bub!” Robinson shouted. “If we had more than a reading on it, you’d be in the ground where you belong!”
“Whoa, whoa,” Mr. Burrows said, holding up his unarmed hand. “What’s this about?”
“Classified,” Robinson snapped.
“I’m suspected of being seriously involved in a hoodoo ring,” I said. “Other than that, classified. Problem being, I know I’m innocent. These guys clearly want to hang me. And they’re basing my involvement on a bad spell casting.”
“We don’t have bad spellcasters,” Robinson ground out.
“The FBI uses hoodoo?” Mr. Burrows said.
“Your wizards are for shit,” I said, closing the trunk of my car. “There’s twenty hoodoo men and women in this town would turn your wizards’ hair white! Drawing a tarot card or casting the bones isn’t the hard part.” Now I knew what the investigation was based upon. The next thing would be finding out exactly what they’d done. “Anyone can cast dem bones, Agent. The hard part is interpretation. Which is very subject to influence. So if the person asking the questions wants a certain answer, like that I’m involved, they’ll get that answer if it is even vaguely possible. I could be involved because I’ve had contact with the people involved. As in, brushed elbows with them at the mall. That’s all the contact necessary. Which is why castings are never allowed for kill orders. Smart people in your chain of command know that. Even if you don’t. Or as Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘My distinguished colleague has his facts in order but his conclusions are in error.’”
Mr. Burrows let out a bray of laughter at that that had Robinson looking confused.
“Sir, you need to go back into your house,” Robinson snapped, falling back on the MCB’s default tactic of intimidation.
“Make me,” Robinson said. “I got rights, son.”
“They’ll take them away,” I warned. “Generally for good reason. Not in this case, but he’ll spend taxpayer time ruining your life for petty revenge because he can.”
“No,” Robinson ground out. “No, I won’t. Because that is not how I do this. But Mr.…”
“Burrows.”
“You’re not contributing to this conversation,” Robinson said.
“At least he recognized the joke. Look, Agent, I’m not the bad guy. The interpretation of the casting was wrong. If I’m involved it’s because I took out a lich and one of their necromancers in Washington.”
“Alpha and omega is pretty hard to misinterpret, asshole,” Robinson said. “Beginner and ender. You’ve probably already packed it up when you found out we were onto you.”
Alpha and omega? I was going to have to look into that.
“Robinson, how many more girls are going to have to get kidnapped, and how many more families are going to have to die before you quit looking in the wrong direction?”
“That’s terrible,” Burrows said.
“We’re in a terrible business,” I said.
“Gathered that,” Mr. Burrows said. “This a sex thing?”
“Virgin sacrifices,” I said.
“Okay, that’s about enough!” Robinson snapped. “Sir, go back in your house or I’m going to arrest you as a material witness and hold you indefinitely, yes, just to be petty. And, yes, I can do it and get away with it. Gardenier, go collect your tissue samples and keep your damned mouth shut! I don’t know who has been spilling their guts but I’m going to damned well find out!”
Look in a mirror, asshole, I thought.
* * *
The full moon had not been so bad. With the two loup-garou that had been turning unsuspecting people during the off-moon time gone, we’d only had about ten calls a day. Usual mess of little demons, homunculi, undead, what have you. The problem being, MCB thought this was normal and had been their usual dicks. With special emphasis in my case.
A few days later I’d sat down with Earl and Ray III and read them in. Earl was looking wasted as he usually did after the full moon. A few steaks would fix that right up.
“MCB has been asking everyone and their brother about my involvement in the virgin sacrifice ring. Part of that is they’ve got a casting that I’m involved. The ‘alpha and omega.’ I don’t know why or exactly what the casting was, but that puts me squarely in their sights as a suspect. So all my usual political contacts are running for cover.”
“Just like politicians to be useless when you need them,” Earl said.
“Gary’s doing his best but because we’re closely connected he’s in the crosshairs, too. The rest are, yeah, playing CYA. Problem being, MCB’s going to be all over my ass until I prove my innocence. And probably even then ’cause you can’t really disprove a negative. Part I don’t get is my brother’s name is involved as well. I haven’t been able to get anything on why, there. But right now it’s a whisper campaign and I’m losing. Any thoughts?”
“Pick a country without extradition.”
“Not helping, Earl. Do you know what sort of casting it is based upon, Chad?” Ray asked.
“No. I tossed out a couple of possibles and nobody bit. I think if MCB was sure of my involvement, I’d be in the ground. I know Robinson wants to put me there.”
“We can try to reverse engineer it,” Ray said. “Figure out what they were casting for. Possibly use the ‘alpha and omega’ prophecy and see where it leads. We’d need a good caster.”
“Magic always comes back to bite you in the ass,” Earl replied.
“Sometimes you’ve got to fight fire with fire, Earl,” Ray said, not sharing his superior’s biases. “We’d need a good caster, somebody with legit skills.”
“We’re in New Orleans. Throw a rock. I know some good White casters,” I said. “White as in faction, not race.”
“You find someone strong enough, they’ll be able to figure out how the MCB came to their conclusions, and then we can get ahead of them.” Ray seemed to love the idea.
“I’m telling you, kids. Magic is a crutch. Hunters should only use it when there’s no other choice. Trinkets and simple enchantments are bad enough, and even those let you down when you start to count on them. You’ve got it in your head that magic is an easy way out, but it’s always got a cost,” Earl said.
“Magic is just a terrible description for fundamental forces we simply don’t understand well,” Ray insisted. “It should just be another tool in our tool box. We use dangerous tools all the time—bombs, guns, no problem. The key is understanding how to use them safely. Magic is no different.”
“Bullshit. Guns and bombs don’t corrupt your soul and drive you insane.”
“Earl, you’re hung up on this superstitious, old-fashioned prejudice—” Ray said.
“Which I earned the hard way. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
It felt like they’d had this argument a few times already.
“Okay. Table that idea for now. Second point,” I said. “Oxford and Rigby turned up a possible for our basement boogie.”
“Which is?” Ray asked.
I brought out the papers Dr. Rigby had faxed to my house and laid them out. “There was an ethnologist in what is now Ghana who stumbled upon a powerful houdoun priest. The priest, whose primary power was over the undead, would sacrifice slaves to a large wormlike entity.”
Ray was quickly scanning over the materials as Earl sort of leafed through them. “Sounds like a minion creation of the Old Ones.”
“Shoggoth maybe?” Earl asked.
“White, gray, green,” I said. “So, no. And appeared to continue underground. Wormlike.”
“This is a new one to me,” Ray said, frowning. “And I’ve never seen the symbol.”
The symbol felt pretty blasphemous in itself. One of those things that even in a fax oozed evil. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the worm.
“They didn’t write that either. Supposedly fungus grew in that shape. What isn’t clear is how to get it to come out,” I said. “There are no details on that.”
“Holy water,” Earl said.
“Why holy water?” Ray asked.
“Just a hunch based on that symbol,” Earl said. “Assholes like to summon things like this: ‘Please come forth, O Great Worm!’ Then it comes out and eats the sacrifice and gives power. Pour some holy water on this and it’ll come out ready to kill whatever just burned the hell out of its sign.”
“I thought you’d never seen this,” I said.
“Never seen this in particular. Worms and such coming out of the ground. But I’ve seen things like it. And if that don’t work, try something else. The important thing is you offend it somehow.”
“Gotta find the symbol first,” Ray said.
“Got a dozen places to look,” I replied.
* * *
4030 Eagle Street was the first place I’d run into the basement boogie. The house was a single-story ranch in Holly Grove near the New Orleans country club. Decent neighborhood but had the standard New Orleans locked-down-tight-with-bars thing going. Barred windows and doors in New Orleans were for more than keeping out burglars.
The friendly next-door neighbor I’d met on my first visit, with the late and very much missed Shelbye, didn’t appear to be home. Which was a pity. His wife made great sweet tea.
Ray and I entered cautiously. Except for a buildup of mold in the corners, not much had changed. The place was still more or less identical. Given that the door was busted open, I’d expected New Orleans various “neighborhood association” members to have thoroughly looted it. But nothing had been touched.
Even the burglars in New Orleans didn’t touch hoodoo houses.
“There’s the hole,” I said, pointing to the remnants of the exit point. The concrete slab had been busted wide open in a shower of concrete about a meter and a half wide. Dirt was piled up around it.
“Looks like the place has been ransacked,” Ray said.
“I was thinking it hadn’t changed. This is what it looked like when Shelbye and I checked it out nearly a year ago.”
“And it’s still closed?”
“Nobody would live here after that. Except maybe an idiot Yankee transplant.”
“Well, let’s see if we can find that symbol,” Ray said, casting around.
“If it’s under the slab, we’ll have our work cut out for us. But if it’s under the carpet…”
It was under the carpet. The hole was in the middle of the living room. In one corner we found the symbol under the carpet. Right next to a doll.
“Couple who lived here were older,” I said, looking at the doll. “Their grandkids were visiting. Six people, four of them children, vanished without a trace.”
“Eaten by this amorphous worm,” Ray said, looking at the symbol. Sure enough, it was a slimy collection of spores. It was hard to tell if it had been drawn in something and then bloomed, or if it had just spontaneously grown that way. He glanced suspiciously at the hole. “I guess let’s try the holy water thing and see what happens.”
“Let me get the sprayer. That way we can shoot it from the door and run like hell.”
We had filled a plastic weed sprayer with holy water on the way here. Most of the local churches knew Hoodoo Squad. I stood in the doorway and pumped the sprayer until it was pressurized.
“Ready when you are.” Ray had taken up a position by one of the barred windows looking into the living room and drew his pistol. We weren’t really sure what, if anything, was going to come out of the hole, but he was ready to put a bullet in it.
I squirted the holy water into the corner. I emptied the whole container. We had to wait a few minutes while the water ran down the cracks.
The floor began to rumble.
“Oh, it’s a-comin’,” I said, bounding away from the open door and over to where Ray was standing.
Bad move.
It was massive. All eyes and gray-green leprous skin and grinding teeth. “Amorphous Worm” is the only reasonable description for that loathsome monstrosity that suddenly filled the living room with its foul bulk. Semitransparent, you could see alien and vile organs bulging and writhing beneath its pustulant membrane. Maggots crawling in eye sockets were reasonable and decent compared to that gelatinous unholy thing that erupted from the ground.
“Ugly,” Ray said, trying for an Academy Award for Master of Understatement.
The blasphemous monster, denied any prey, seemed to sense us by the window. Or perhaps one of the thousands of mad, red winking eyes spotted us there. A bulging pseudopod squirted toward us.
“Run!”
The glass shattered out in a blast as we got out of the house fast. Ray hadn’t even bothered to pull the trigger. It wouldn’t have done any good. As we reached the dead front lawn its bulk pressed between the bars. They began to give way under its mass. The bars finally succumbed and burst forth along with its bloated flesh.
But as the wretched thing touched sunlight it quailed, roiling back and steaming under the direct light of God’s sun. It could not withstand the light.
It shrunk back then with a disgusting liquescent sound and disappeared back into the tainted ground.
The street was quiet.
“Keep moving,” Ray said. “It might not like sun but I don’t want it coming up under us.”
“I’m for that,” I said, trying to stay calm. I’d seen some shit but that was fucking vile.
* * *
“Okay,” Earl said after we’d finished our verbal report. “Sure sounds like some minion of the Old Ones.”
I called Dr. Rigby and thank him for the tip. I was also able to give him some more details of the investigation and why I was a suspect. He was guarded in his reply but agreed to look into it. I said we’d contact him again when we had more information on this amorphous worm.
“But how do we kill it?” Ray asked.
“Them,” I said. “We’ve had fourteen incidents of eruptions. So, how do we kill them.”
“Assuming there’s a different one at each hole, and not one big gummy worm blob thingy tunneling around town,” Ray mused. He was handling this better than I was.
“Either way, my answer is Kill It With Fire!”
“Might work,” Earl said, nodding. “But it would take a hell of a lot of fire. MCB will shit bricks if we burn down a neighborhood.”
“Timer.” Ray suggested. “We put something in there with a fuse on it, leave the offering, then get the hell out of the way.”
“Pig,” I said. “Put a gutted pig in the house. You can put a lot of thermite into the cavity of a pig, and I intend to pack the shit out of that sucker. Hook up a ten- or twenty-second delay on it. Hook the fuse igniter to a wire. Thing comes up, all angry again, sees the offering, swallows it. Goes back down. Fuse pulls.”
“One problem,” Ray said. “Assuming we kill it, we’re going to need to file on it. The only previous reference to this thing is a single story from Ghana in the 1700s that might not even be the same thing. If this is a totally new entity, Treasury will have to make a ruling.”
“Shit,” Earl said. “We’re gonna have to call the PUFF adjuster.”
* * *
The PUFF adjuster’s name was Harold P. Coslow, Junior. He had appeared out of nowhere when we were setting our worm trap.
We’d chosen a different house in case the first worm had gotten wise. It was another ranch house, 1506 Andry Street, in the Lower Ninth Ward. The street was definitely ghetto but had the usual New Orleans crowd hanging around. Franklin had notified MCB, and they had insisted on a perimeter that held back the crowds this time.
The adjuster was shorter than me, so maybe five foot three. Hunched back. Bald head covered by an old-fashioned fedora. Shabby black wool overcoat, carefully cared for but ancient and used, which had to be stifling since it was about a hundred freaking degrees. If it bothered him it wasn’t evident. Black eyes with a hound dog’s expression. Worn, equally well-cared-for brown leather shoes I suspected had been rebuilt over and over again. You just knew he had a change purse in his shabby but well-cared-for pocket. He was carrying a brown briefcase that was as worn as the rest of his ensemble.
“Mr. Coslow,” Earl said, nodding his head deferentially.
Earl wasn’t deferential to anybody. I mean anybody! Who the hell was this guy?
Mr. Coslow looked at him for a moment and pulled a leather-bound journal from his overcoat pocket. He read it for a moment.
“Is it still Harbinger?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“It is difficult to keep up, you know,” Mr. Coslow said, putting the book away. “Shackleford, Wolf, Harbinger—I do wish you would pick a name and stick to it. It complicates my paperwork.”
“I apologize. I have to live out here. People ask questions.”
“You suspect a kifo minyoo,” Mr. Coslow said.
“Excuse me, sir?” I said carefully. If Earl was treating this guy with kid gloves, I was going to practically grovel. “You know what this is?”
“No. If it is a kifo minyoo, I will have to observe it with my own eyes. The secretions are similar enough to other entities they are hard to sort out. I rather doubt kifo minyoo, however. There has never been a recorded mava paṇauvaā in North America. They have only been found in West Africa, interior Indonesia and northwest Mongolia. Then there is the problem of finding the mava paṇauvaā. While individual pseudopods are PUFF-applicable, without removal of the mava paṇauvaā, destroying them is quite pointless.”
“It attacked us with a worm,” I said.
“The worm as you call it is the pseudopod, young man,” Coslow snapped. “A kifo minyoo is a feasting entity of a mava paṇauvaā. It is estimated they can have up to sixty such protuberances, and the body could be one hundred and twenty meters in length. Previously recorded supernatural generation fields for an Old One servant entity of that size were approximately seventeen kilometers in radius as a red zone with a yellow zone out to fifty-six kilometers. Which would, admittedly, explain the high level of undead activity in this region. I still strongly doubt a kifo minyoo. Rare does not begin to describe them. Similar fungoid symbols can also be found with mara ugaulaka, dauoa gildru, lefu leraba and kurth vedekje, all of which have been found in North America. But we shall see.”
I wanted to ask questions. Follow up. Was he saying there was some sort of massive entity under New Orleans and the giant shoggoth worms were just sprouts off of it? But I could tell that asking more questions was a way to really piss this guy off. I could only think of one thing useful to say.
“Fuuuuck,” Earl said, taking the words right out of my mouth. “This is like a yemek daire. Shit.”
“Yes. Related, or at least originating in the same reality. Assuming mava paṇauvaā, this could be significantly larger and more powerful,” Coslow said, nodding at Earl as if he were a student who had managed to just miss putting on a dunce cap. “My time is valuable, Mr.…Harbinger.”
“We’re about ready,” Earl said.
Ray and Decay were setting the trap. We’d gotten a pig from a slaughter house, complete except for being gutted, then packed it with thermite and an igniter.
“Done,” Ray said, coming out of the house. “You do realize this is enough thermite to melt the turret of the USS Iowa?”
“This had better not cause a big incident,” Special Agent Campbell said, striding over. “We’ve got enough questions about what’s—” When he saw the PUFF adjuster, he stopped. “Oh…Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize you were here.”
Everybody was scared of Mr. Coslow. I was starting to like him.
“My time is, as I previously noted, valuable,” Coslow said as he gave the agent a stern nod. “I don’t have the patience for another First Reason argument now. May we begin? I should note that there may be a good bit of quite unwholesome smoke. Mortals should don breathing filters.”
Mortals?
Earl just crossed his arms and sighed.
“Put on y’all’s gas masks,” he said.
We donned respirators as Ray started the pump.
We were well back from the house this time. There was the awful shaking of the ground then the eruption. As the house rattled, Coslow casually strolled up to the window and looked through. I could tell from the set of his shoulders it was professional curiosity. And he hadn’t donned a gas mask. Neither had Earl.
The thing didn’t try to get out of the house. Apparently, the pig was sufficient offering. There, with another blasphemous liquid sound, it was gone. I started to reach for my gas mask and Earl put his hand on my arm and shook his head.
Then there was another rumble, harder this time. It was like being in about a magnitude five earthquake based on my time in Seattle. Then gray-green smoke started pouring out the front door of the house.
Even with the gas mask it felt unclean. I wished I’d put on MOPP gear or a silver suit. I backed up as it poured out of the house in a wave of fumes and horror.
Eventually the smoke stopped gushing forth and Mr. Coslow walked over to the group. If the smoke had bothered the PUFF adjuster, it was not apparent. He brushed some dust from the arm of his old overcoat.
“I stand corrected. Kifo minyoo. Large. FUCCN 11189-3. A well developed mava paṇauvaā is now positively identified in North America. Mava paṇauvaā is FUCCN 11189-1. That is my official ruling. I will send the paperwork to the MCB. You gentlemen have quite a problem on your hands.” He walked away without another word.
Then the arguments started.
* * *
“Sheeeit,” Earl said, rubbing his fingers through his hair. I’d never seen him so upset. “Do we know anything about a…”
“Mava paṇauvaā,” Ray and I both chimed in.
Campbell, with no PUFF adjuster to fear, had taken out his anger on us. We were bad boys for causing an incident, even though we’d done as instructed and given them plenty of advance warning. I suppose he’d prefer we just let the damned thing live and eat more people.
He wasn’t interested in the fact that there appeared to be a massive entity hiding under New Orleans. Seemed to think that was none of our concern. We were ordered to leave the area while he “handled the incident we’d caused.”
I was starting to get really tired of his crap. And even though we’d figured out how to kill the kifo minyoo, which was apparently just one of what was probably sixty-something giant blob snakes growing out of the giant mava paṇauvaā, which had probably been under this spot since before the dinosaurs.
“I’m saying it sounds Hindi,” I said.
“Swahili,” Ray suggested.
“Could be Minangkabau. He mentioned they’re found in interior Indonesia.”
“What the hell is…?” Earl said, then stopped and snarled. “I hate this kind of shit! Shit you don’t know about and don’t understand is the worst kind of shit in this business! PUFF adjusters never tell you shit either. They just pronounce and go. They’re so top-secret tight-lipped you never know if they’ve got actual intel, or they’re just pulling guesses out of their ass.”
“Earl,” Ray chimed. “Let me and Chad research it. We’ll find something. We’ve got the names, now, at least. That’s a start. I don’t give a shit what this new MCB fella says, there’s a PUFF on this thing which means we kill as many as we can find. Starting with all the incidents.”
“We still don’t know how much the PUFF is,” Milo said.
“Susan’s looking into it now that we have the FUCCN,” Ray said. “Doesn’t really matter. These things need to be dealt with.”
“If we start killing them, will more erupt?” Milo asked, frowning. “These are part of one big thing, right? They’re like its tongue. Tongues? Tentacle tongues? Whatever. We burn one, will it start making others? That weird Coslow guy said there could be a bunch more. That could be bad.”
“How often do they erupt?” Earl asked.
“Random,” I said. “But seems to be increasing.”
“If they’re increasing, we need to just kill them and hope for the best,” Ray said. “And find out what we can about the mava paṇauvaā and how to kill it.”
“Fire,” Milo said. “Lots of fire.”
“Action beats reaction, but if reaction is all we got, we take it,” Earl said. “Until we know how to kill the body, we’ll bait every previous attack spot, and when there’s a new eruption, we’ll hit that one too. Once we know how to kill the body, we’ll take it out.”
“We’ve got to find it first,” I said. “A hundred meters sounds big. But we don’t know how deep it is or where it is located, exactly. So we can’t just drill down to it. Until we can find the central body, we’re going to be killing these things forever.”
“Then we keep killing them forever,” Earl said. “Shake the trees. Ray…”
“I’ll head back to Cazador and see what’s in the archives,” Ray said.
“Iron Hand, they like you at Oxford. Assuming the MCB hasn’t blocked your passport…”
“I’ll book a trip.”
“Probably best to keep you out of MCB’s eyesight for a while anyway. And we still need to get to the bottom of you being under investigation. I don’t like it when they slander my people. I’ll spread the word to be on the lookout for your idiot brother.”
“Thank you.” It was nice to have people at your back.
“Milo…”
“I’ll handle the teams killing these things.” He rubbed his hands together with glee. “Kill it with fire!” he added with a mad cackle.
“Coordinate with Franklin. Hoodoo Squad’s busy enough as it is, so we’ll work the bait traps in when it’s best for them.” Earl cleared his throat. “Now, I know everybody is excited, but you need to realize what we’re up against here. I’ve fought creations of the Old Ones before. They’re rare, and that’s a blessing. I can’t accentuate enough how serious this is. What the adjustor said about the radius? The more powerful servants of the Old Ones twist reality just by existing. The veil gets thin when they’re around.”
I had briefed everyone else on my encounter with the powerful—maybe even master—vampire during Mardi Gras. “This must be the outsider Jack warned me about.”
“Yeah. This thing beneath us, it’s why New Orleans is so fucked up, why every little wannabe chickenshit witch doctor can suddenly raise the dead and create giant monsters,” Earl growled. “You’ve got your assignments. We’re going to take our time, do this right, get our shit together, and kill this motherfucker dead. Get to work.”
* * *
I had to stick around for at least one kifo kill. It was my idea, after all. And it turned out the PUFF was pretty damned decent. Milo and the teams were about to make a pretty penny off of giant slug monster barbeque.
We carried the pig over in the team van. It was two hundred pounds dressed weight. Serious porker. This time we were going back to Eagle Street. MCB had reluctantly accepted our argument that if it had a PUFF, we were allowed to kill it. But they’d insisted on evacuating the neighborhood and coming up with some bullshit cover story. I think it had to do with methane gas or something.
The reason it was bullshit was New Orleans. Most here knew hoodoo was real and serious. All you had to do was walk along the street banging on doors and saying “Gonna be some serious hoodoo. Bars won’t help. Best get out.”
Of course, then there were the people who wanted to know what the gubmint going to do foh them? Where’s we gonna stay? You gotta put us up a hotel! An’ buy us a hot meal!
Despite the diction, these were not entirely or even primarily one race. Just as every politician and city worker in New Orleans had a hand out, every resident had one pointed straight at the government. Or so it generally seemed. Nobody seemed to want to take action for themselves. Mow a lawn? Somebody else’s problem. Hoodoo crap on your driveway? What the gubmint gonna do ’bout that? I ain’t cleanin’ it up!
Hoodoo? Ain’t my problem!
I’d met decent, hard-working, law-abiding people in New Orleans. I’d met people who were willing to stand up and fight the good fight. I knew they existed. But Diogenes would have his work cut out for him in this place. I was fairly certain one of these days God would get so fed up with the hellhole He’d go all Old Testament and bring down full-on Biblical Wrath.
Back to killing things.
We’d waited to pack and rig the pig until we had it in the building. Why? Two hundred pounds dressed weight and another hundred pounds of thermite—that’s why.
And since we were all “boots and suspenders” types when it came to explosions and arson, we didn’t stop with just thermite and a fuse igniter. In the pig, along with all the thermite, were three detonation sequences, one electrical, two mechanical.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I want to bring the worm up! I’m on a flight to England tonight! These things are super rare! This might be the only chance I’ll get!”
“Fine, fine.” Milo handed over the sprayer. “You can tickle its funny bone or whatever.”
“More like whatever.” I put on my respirator. “Fire in the hole!”
This time I was going to watch what happened through a window. Milo waited outside with me.
Up came the blasphemous kifo minyoo. It was still hard to look at but I hung in there. It raged a bit until an edge of its loathsome body touched the pig. Then in an instant the porker was gone. It was hard to even see what happened but it seemed to have just slid over it and engulfed the massive hog. The thing lumped around for a bit, looking for more snacks, then slid down into the hole apparently satisfied with its offering. I could see one of the wires tighten then slack, indicating it had pulled the appropriate pin. The wire with the electrical detonation sequence was spooling out like we’d caught a world-class marlin.
Then the ground started to shake and smoke began gushing out of the hole.
“Oh, yeah!” I pumped my fist up and down. “Crispy kifo!”
And then the worm, mortally wounded, came gushing back out of the hole.
I thought it was ugly before. Now it was ugly and on fire. And very very pissed.
“Time to leave,” I said, skipping away. “Tell me we have fire trucks standing by!”
* * *
“Look, it’s dead,” I said to Agent Robinson, standing by the smoldering and thoroughly destroyed house. “That’s our job. Cleanup is yours.”
I was getting really tired of handcuffs…