CHAPTER 4
Philpot, Alabama, is not a one-horse town, mostly because no one rode horses anymore. Once we got off the highway it was all winding country roads. Here and there was a house, a good bit back from the road, half hidden by trees covered in kudzu. Once, a pickup truck passed us, the echoes of the music it was playing wafting behind like a ghostly presence.
“Wow, there really is nothing much out here, is there?” Albert stifled a yawn.
“I grew up in Cazador. This seems completely normal to me.”
Moments later, on the route to the main street, we passed a—well, for lack of a better word—a “convenience” store. It looked beaten and grey, like no one had bothered to paint the white façade in a long time. There were no gas pumps. There was, however, a sign in the window advertising boiled peanuts. Tempting as that was, we kept going.
The town was really just one main street, but it seemed to have everything you’d need: grocery store, gas station, barber, and doughnut shop. There was even a little Italian restaurant tucked in at the other end.
We followed the GPS past the end of the strip, and after a couple of miles turned off. At the end of that road was a building that might have started life as a barn. Parked around it were a bunch of cars waiting to be worked on or ready for pickup. They certainly weren’t hurting for business.
As I parked, Albert noted, “This is isolated enough for a swamp lurker attack, but normally they like a swampier climate. That’s kind of in their name. He’s in for a good PUFF though.”
“Yeah, about that. We’ll hook him up with whatever bounty he’s owed no matter what, but let me get a feel for whether I want to make him a job offer before you mention how much money he could make. Too many Newbies who show up with dollar signs in their eyes wash out during training.” Money is a fantastic motivator, and this career usually paid really well, but a good Hunter needed other qualities too.
“You’re the boss.”
Albert meant that in the nicest possible way, but it just made me think of Grandpa. He was still the Boss. That was and always would be his title as far as I was concerned. When I opened the car door, I could hear country music coming from inside the shop. Not really loud, just perfectly audible in the surrounding silence.
The barn doors were open. I noted that the inside of the mechanic’s shop was more modern than expected. There was a lift—with a car up on it—and there was computer equipment on a roller cart. The whole place smelled strongly of cleaners and disinfectants. Swamp lurkers stunk, and he’d probably been scrubbing up their oozy, sticky blood for hours.
The guy was standing by the computer doing something. At least I presumed he was our guy because there was no one else around, and he looked a lot like the driver’s license photo Albert had shown me.
He must have heard our car or our footsteps because he yelled toward us without looking. “I’ll be right with you.”
This guy was…standard issue. Blond, looking like he’d once been very athletic and now gone a bit to seed. Not fat, as such, but no longer looking like he played sports anymore. He was handsome, too, the sort of generic handsome that a small town guy might be without pretensions. Square chin, but his most striking feature was nice eyes, so green they were almost emerald. The name tag on his coveralls read CJ. When he finally looked up from whatever he was doing, he immediately realized we were strangers, then gave us a polite smile and said, “What do you need?”
“Mr. Colin Wynne?”
“That’s me.” The smile remained polite, kind of noncommittal, but I could tell he was nervous. He’d just dealt with some really weird shit but wasn’t curled up in the fetal position sucking his thumb, so that was a good sign. I also didn’t know if, or how much, the MCB had yelled at him yet about not talking about his supernatural encounter. “Who are you?”
“I’m Julie Shackleford.” I still used my maiden name for MHI business. I’d built up enough of a professional reputation that switching now would cost us money. My husband was too much of an accountant to be offended. “From up the road in Cazador.” I added that last part, so at least he’d know I wasn’t another carpetbagging MCB goon. “This is my associate, Albert Lee.”
I went to shake his hand, but he made a big show of cleaning his hands on a rag, so that he couldn’t. “Okay.”
“We wanted to talk to you about what happened here.”
Wynne muttered something under his breath as his expression shifted to annoyance. “Who are you?” He looked at me first, then over at Albert. I was wearing slacks and a blouse, and Albert had on a nice button shirt. “Newspaper reporters? I’ve got no comment. Are you going to slander me? Because if you are, I’ll sue. I grew up here. Everyone knows me. I’ve never done drugs, never even smoked pot, but now some government types are saying I got high and hallucinated. And them saying it was the result of prescription meds doesn’t cut it. I don’t take any prescriptions, either. Do I look like I need prescriptions?”
That meant he’d gotten a call from the MCB already. “We’re not newspaper reporters. Besides, prescription drug abuse wouldn’t explain the slime left from the swamp lurkers.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you? Someone from that New Age place over near the doughnut shop? No, ma’am. It was probably just a deformed giant crab. My grandpappy disposed of some weird stuff back there a long time ago, you know, all the refrigerants and stuff. The old barrels must have leaked, made it look like that, like a mutant or something.”
“That’s some potent chemicals if it’s making their blood turn green,” Albert said as he walked to the side and poked his cane at a wet spot on the floor. It had obviously been sprayed off, but there was still some splatter that needed to be scrubbed.
Wynne pushed a button on his computer and the music cut out. “Look, lady, my day was weird enough. I don’t need to be on the front page of some UFO magazine any more than I need rumors of my doing drugs going around town, hurting my business. I’m just a mechanic. I do good business. I don’t need rumors of anything weird around here. People could start driving to the next town over for service.”
My grandpa always liked to say that the single most important thing for a Monster Hunter to possess was a flexible mind. From the way he seemed to be trying really hard to convince himself that nothing too odd had happened here, he might not be a good fit. Oh well. Not every prospect was right for MHI.
“We’re with a company that deals with these sorts of events. From what we’ve gathered, you handled yourself well. I wanted to talk to you about a job.”
“Fixing cars?”
“No.” Though come to think of it, even if he wasn’t mentally suited to making the jump to full-fledged Hunter, it might be handy to have someone else in the region we could bring in to service the fleet vehicles. When your office has got pictures all over the walls of supernatural things that are actually illegal to even talk about with regular people, it makes little things like hiring a plumber really hard.
I handed him a business card, the one with the green smiley face with horns, and a number that would go to Dorcas’ reception desk. “What we’re about to say may sound a little weird, but after your recent experience, you of all people will understand we’re not crazy. Albert and I represent a company called Monster Hunter International. We handle monster-related problems.”
He looked down at the card in his hand as he ran one callused hand through his hair. “So, you deal with things like…those things?”
“Yes, we do.” This part was delicate because even though the MCB knew damned good and well we cherry-picked survivors, if they didn’t join up and they later talked about stuff that I’d told them, it could complicate both our lives. Plus, I didn’t want to scare the hell out of the poor guy and start talking about elder things. “And many more.”
“What kind of more?”
“Vampires, werewolves, zombies,” Albert supplied. “You know, the usual stuff.”
Wynne gave a little laugh, like he thought that was a joke; then his eyes got really big when he saw that Albert was totally serious. “Naw. No way, man. You’re crazy.”
Albert could have been a little more diplomatic on the reveal, but my gut was telling me we hadn’t struck pay dirt here. A good potential Newbie, there was always that little spark of curiosity. I’d done so many of these interviews that my instincts were seldom wrong.
“Look, Mr. Wynne. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m betting that you were contacted by some government agents already.”
“Maybe.” The way he said that meant that he had been, but that they’d made it real clear that talking about them was a bad idea.
“They’ll probably follow up with you again soon. What they probably didn’t tell you is that there’s a bounty system to deal with creatures like the one you killed.”
“What do you mean ‘bounty?’” He sounded even more suspicious about the money than he did the existence of monsters.
“Killing a swamp lurker is worth a significant amount of money to the federal government.” I looked to Albert. I hadn’t checked the latest PUFF table before we’d left.
“About twenty-five grand for a little one,” he said. “I’ve got some paperwork in the car you can fill out, and when those federal agents call you back to make sure you’re being good, tell them you want your bounty payment. They’ll act dumb, but if you give them the forms, they’re legally obligated to process them. Then you’ll get a reward check.”
“Really? That’s a lot of money.”
“You earned it.” Even if this wasn’t going to work out for MHI, the guy had done a good deed and deserved to get paid. In some cases we’d just go ahead and file all the paperwork for them, like we did for Owen. But then again, he’d killed a werewolf with his bare hands and we’d gotten to watch the whole thing on video. That’s the stuff of legend. My future husband had been more like a first-round draft pick, so of course we’d put in the extra effort. “Albert, would you grab those PUFF forms?”
“No problem.” He began limping back toward the car.
Wynne obviously liked the part about reward money but was also really suspicious. I know I’m charming enough to get Eskimos to buy snow, but some folks are just a hard sell. I’d let him percolate on it.
“Well…thanks, Ms. Shackleford.”
“If you have any questions about that paperwork, you’ve got our number. When you get paid, you can see that this isn’t some sort of scam. If you’re interested after that, give us a call. We’re always hiring. It was nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
I turned on my heel to leave. That’s when things got weird.
First there was a sound from the car lift. It jerked up and down several inches, two or three times. There was a loud beeping from the computer. The lights flickered on and off. The beeping and hydraulic humming all stopped at the same time. And suddenly the garage was cold as hell.
It hadn’t been very warm to begin with. The temperature outside was in the fifties or so, and he had the bay doors open. But suddenly it was so cold that I turned toward Albert and could see his breath puffing out of his mouth in a cloud.
Shit.
Don’t even ask me why, but when there’s something powerfully supernatural going on, the temperature often heads down to freezing depths. I’d guess it is the magic, or whatever, sucking all the energy available in the surrounding air. Maybe that’s why it seems to get so quiet too.
You know all those little sounds you don’t even think about in the South—often the sounds of insects? Or the sound of the computer fan running? Or birds? Maybe a dog barking in the distance? It had all gone suddenly and deathly silent.
I turned back toward Colin Wynne. He looked the same except…except his features had gone rigid is the only way I can describe it. And he was aiming a big stainless steel revolver at me.
“Whoa, easy there.”
The gun barked. The flash was right in front of my face. I flinched as the bullet went right past my ear.
I went for the pistol concealed at my side, but Wynne shifted the muzzle over a tiny bit and it was aimed at my nose. His finger was on the trigger. He had me dead to rights.
“It’s not time to kill you yet.” The words came out of Wynne’s mouth, but it sure didn’t sound like him anymore.
Slowly, I moved my hand away from my gun. Over the ringing in my ears I could hear the rasp as Albert’s back slid down the wall. I risked looking in his direction. My friend was sinking to the floor. His teeth were clenched, trying not to cry out. There was a red hole in his shirt.
“You did exactly what I wanted you to do, daughter of Eve,” Wynne said, except it didn’t sound at all like the man we’d just been talking to. This voice had…a buzzing undertone is the best way I can describe it, as though each word was being conducted through a cloud of bees.
One thing I’ve learned in this business is that when someone starts addressing anyone as daughter of Eve or son of Adam they are evil with a capital E and there’s usually all sorts of weird culty demonic crap behind it.
The revolver was trained on me, but it would only take the smallest movement to put it back on Albert. Neither one of us could risk making a move. My friend had pressed his hands to the hole, but from the way there was a streak of blood on the wall behind him, there was an exit wound. The bullet had passed completely through his upper torso. Albert was in big trouble. He needed help fast or he was going to die.
I kept my voice calm. “What do you want?”
“You’ll find out… Oh, you’ll find out.”
I was almost certain that Wynne was, in fact, a regular human being. I’d just been having a conversation with a normal person. His skepticism hadn’t been faked. This wasn’t a psychotic break. With the lights and the cold and the voice change, this was a straight-up possession. Wynne might still be in there, but he wasn’t in charge anymore.
I stared at that gun. We were close enough that tiny black flecks of unburned gunpowder stuck to my glasses. I could see the hollow points in the cylinder. When I was really young, my dad had told me the way to know if someone is about to use the gun they’re pointing at you is to look at their eyes. But he’d never told me what it meant when they started glowing.
“What are you?”
The thing inhabiting Wynne’s body laughed. It wasn’t a horror movie laugh, but just a laugh. This new voice was a few octaves deeper and somehow Wynne had picked up an accent that made him sound like he was from Africa. “My identity is not important. What I can do for you is. I know you’re the Guardian. In your possession is an item of great value, an artifact known as the Kumaresh Yar.”
“What?” My mind froze for just a moment. I hadn’t told anyone I had stashed that thing. Even my husband didn’t know I had it. For good reason too. Last time he’d used it he’d turned back time and nearly blown up the world. That thing was stupidly dangerous. And power-mad idiots kept trying to use it for things like bringing back the dead or opening portals to other dimensions. “Go to hell.”
The now obviously glowing eyes were looking right through me. “I suspected that would be your answer.”
I laughed. I wasn’t aware of laughing, exactly, and I certainly wasn’t amused. Albert was still burbling and gasping for air. The instant Wynne looked away I’d go for my gun and hope that the Guardian’s curse would save me if I got shot in the brain.
“I expected defiance like that from the Guardian. You would not have been chosen if you did not possess the courage of a lioness.”
“I don’t have it. The last time I saw that thing was when Lucinda Hood and my mother were fighting over it. You should take it up with them.”
Wynne smiled, but the expression didn’t fit right on his contorted face. “Guardians do not break. Torture, physical suffering would make no difference. But what would you give in exchange for the life of your child?”
“What?” The word came out of my mouth before I could even fully process the threat.
“I have your baby.”
That didn’t make any sense. How could it threaten Ray’s life? Ray was at the compound, surrounded by orcs who would die to defend him. “You’re lying.”
The thing laughed again, and the already freezing air seemed to get colder. Supernatural creatures lied all the time. Did it actually have my child? But it had possessed Wynne. Could it possess other people? Dorcas?
“If you’ve done anything to my son, you son of a bitch, I’ll eradicate you.”
The shots came out of nowhere. I’d been staring at the creature’s evil green eyes and that unnatural rictus grin in its face, trying to decide if it was telling the truth or not, when the pair of bullets struck him in the center of the chest. Wynne tumbled backwards.
As soon as he was sure the monster wasn’t watching him, Albert had pulled his pistol and put a controlled pair center of mass.
I drew my gun as I moved over. Wynne was on the floor, gasping for breath. I stepped on his fingers, pinning the .357 Magnum to the floor.
“Tell me what you meant! What’ve you done with my son?”
His teeth were bloodstained and little bubbles of blood formed on the edge of his lips. “You’ll find out soon,” said the creature. “We’ll be in touch.”
In that instant, the sounds of the outside world seemed to come rushing back. I’d not realized that the lights had turned dim and weak, but the garage brightened as they returned to normal. The temperature jumped.
And then it was the real Colin Wynne who was staring up at me. The glow was gone, and these were just normal eyes, blue and frightened. His expression was one of total confusion, as if he couldn’t remember what had happened or how he’d wound up on the floor or why I was standing over him or why everything hurt, but then he was dead.
I rushed over to Albert. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
He was pale and shaking, his whole face contorted in pain. I holstered my gun, grabbed a big rag that was hanging from a hook, and pushed it hard against the wound. There was blood everywhere. While I kept pressure against the wound, I got out my phone and dialed 911.
“Get out of the office,” Albert wheezed. “It’ll be fun, you said.”
“You’re going to be fine,” I lied.
The last thing Albert said before passing out from blood loss was, “I didn’t even get barbecue.”