Chapter 6
We didn’t know if this was the same shapeshifter we were looking for, but if so, her real name was Sonya. Her dad had been a Hunter. Her mom wasn’t human, but rather convincingly lived as one. She was actually a creature known as a kodama.
Since Earl was the sort of leader who felt eternally responsible for the families of those who got killed under his command, he kept track of all of them as best as he could, helping out whenever possible, sometimes anonymously when MHI’s help wasn’t wanted. This included the girlfriend and daughter of the man who had given his life so Earl could close the gate at the Christmas Party.
Earl said that even with their shared background of having been in Special Task Force Unicorn, they weren’t exactly tight, because it had been Earl who had ordered Chad Gardenier to his death. Something which the mother claimed she understood had been necessary, but I got the impression it weighed on Earl. He had checked in on the two of them periodically to see how they were doing while Sonya was growing up. From the way Earl talked about the daughter, I could tell he was rather fond of her. He had even talked about offering Sonya a job as a Hunter when she grew up, but her mom had absolutely forbidden that, declaring it too dangerous for her little girl. Earl had respected her wishes and never mentioned it again.
His visits had become more infrequent while Sonya was a teenager, and nonexistent in the years since she’d been an adult. In his defense, we had been really busy, but he was kicking himself for it now, because it looked like she might have turned to a life of crime.
Melvin had called Earl. Our obnoxious—yet surprisingly useful at times—internet troll had set up a secure line and gotten all of Sonya’s info from her mother. It turned out she had a bunch of different accounts under fake names on all the social media sites, each one filled with pictures of a different girl, none of which looked similar, but for whatever reason I could sort of see how they could all be the same person. It was hard to get a handle on what Sonya was actually like because each profile was into wildly different things. There was a pretty version, a goth version, a jock, a nerd, and even a cowgirl, but the only thing they had in common was a love of selfies. It was as if she had a different name and face to wear for whatever mood struck her that day. My gut told me none of these public ones were real, and she kept her real personality secret.
Though they all looked extremely different, at least all of her identities appeared to be about the same age, size, and sex. That would narrow our search a bit, but Earl didn’t know if that was an actual limit on her shape-changing powers or not. Looking like a twenty-year-old girl could just be her normal comfort zone, and right now she was escaping the country disguised as a morbidly obese eighty-year-old man named Morton Leibowitz or, hell, maybe even Morton’s seeing eye dog. Earl didn’t know all the details about what that type of yokais’ powers were, her mother kept the family secrets close to the vest, and he knew even less about which of those powers had gotten passed onto her half-human offspring.
Working backwards through her pages, Melvin had broken into Sonya’s private messages and then email. Trolls are scary. You’d think trolls were scary because they were huge, nearly unkillable carnivores, but oh no, their ability to get into your private info was the real terror. A troll was way more likely to steal your credit card or social security number than they were to eat you. Identity theft was a multibillion dollar busines in this country, and not all of that was done by humans. Melvin had run a trace on Sonya’s regular cell phone, but it was still sitting in her dorm room. Hoping that he had the wrong shapeshifter, Earl had called that number, but it had gone right to voice mail, which wasn’t a good sign.
Melvin skimmed through the recent emails and texts, and it turned out there were a few messages from an untraceable source that seemed to be in some sort of code. It wasn’t slang either, because trolls are really good at keeping up on that sort of thing. Our troll said he’d try to crack it because, I quote, “Melvin love puzzles!”
By the time we got all that from our internet troll, it was nearing sundown. If Sonya had fled the city with the Ward as soon as we’d lost her, she could be hundreds of miles away by now. So this might be a wild goose chase, but we decided to hit everyone she had ever associated within the Atlanta area, going in order of how recently she’d had dealings with them. The rest of the Hunters were already busy chasing down other leads, and we didn’t even know if Sonya was our actual target, so Earl and I split up to start checking her contacts out.
The first few places I stopped by were total duds. One apartment was empty and for rent. The other was a normal-looking house in the suburbs, but nobody was home, and there was three days’ worth of junk in the mailbox.
It was dark when I arrived at a bar on the outskirts of the city. A few of her identities had liked this place, and she had posts about meeting up and partying here. It was not at all what I expected. When Sonya’s mom had said that her daughter had some friends here who were into the same music scene, none of her profiles had prepared me for this.
The establishment was named Perdition’s Abyss; I kid you not. The sign announcing that name was spray-painted on a rusty old car hood that had been stuck in the ground. There was a chain link fence around the property. There were bars on the windows, and razor wire on the tar paper roof. The parking lot was gravel and holes. There were more jacked-up trucks than cars, but motorcycles outnumbered them both. There was even a big-ass Rottweiler on a chain run to dissuade anyone from trying to sneak in the back door.
I parked the company truck and headed for the entrance. Even out here it smelled like stale beer, puke, and weed. I could already hear the music blaring from a hundred yards away. It was heavy metal, and was a cover of one of my brother’s songs, which was kind of nifty if you think about it. It gave me a feeling of connection.
Inside, it was dim, crowded, smelly, and deafening. One look around told me this was a rough bunch. The clientele appeared to be a mix of bikers, rednecks, roughnecks, and that type of youthful belligerent who’d managed to get kicked out of everywhere else respectable. It wasn’t a strip club, per se, so I assumed the drunk women dancing on tables were volunteers. This was the kind of place where if somebody got stabbed, they’d just throw some sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood and keep on trucking. If the health inspector ever came for a visit, they’d just murder him and bury his body in the woods out back. I felt right at home. Working in this kind of place was how I’d put myself through college and where I’d discovered the lucrative world of illegal underground fighting. Knocking men unconscious with your bare hands is a great way to pay tuition.
The bouncer at the door was one big fella, like several inches and a hundred pounds bigger than me, far right side of the bell curve, chonky boy. He had cauliflower ears, scars all over his knuckles, and a beard that had probably won more fights than most people would ever see. Tough guys tend to automatically size up other tough guys, and he looked me over, decided I wasn’t obviously high or looking for trouble, and nodded. I nodded respectfully back. Professional courtesy.
The band was doing a decent job of recreating Cabbage Point Killing Machine’s music, but the sound system in here was painfully distorted. All the regulars had to have permanent hearing damage by now. I gave the room a quick once-over, looking for anyone who might be Sonya. There were a bunch of girls close enough in size and age to be her, though none of Sonya’s online profiles had been in the persona of sleazy bar skank. Places like this always attracted a disproportionate number of suburban girls who wanted to live dangerously. I scanned for anybody else interesting. I’d worked in places like this long enough that I easily picked out the resident drug dealer, and also the guy I would talk to if I really wanted to buy a cheap handgun with the serial numbers ground off. So, the usual.
Trying to figure out how to play this cool, I went up to the crowded bar. They were so busy it took a minute before I caught someone to ask for a beer. The bartender was female, had a mohawk, and asked me what brand. I told her whatever was cheap. I didn’t intend to drink it anyway. Working in places like this and dealing with alcoholic morons had really soured me on the whole drinking thing, and I’d just never picked the habit back up, but I figured having a bottle in hand would make me look more natural.
I was suspicious enough that I checked out the bartender as she fetched my drink, but she was too tall, too busty, and probably ten years too old to be our shapeshifter. Unfortunately, she caught me staring. Fortunately, she seemed to take that as a compliment and gave me an obviously flirty grin in return. Considering I’m a rather ugly individual, that should tell you how comparatively unattractive most of the other meatheads in here were. I reflexively got embarrassed at her smile and knew that Julie would laugh at my discomfort. Thankfully, they were so busy the bartender had to go right back to work.
As I watched the crowd, I tried to figure out how to proceed. I couldn’t just whip out my phone and start asking random strangers “Have you seen this girl?” because, first off, I figured that only worked in cop movies, and second, though I had a bunch of pictures of her, I didn’t know which face, if any, Sonya would be currently using. But what the hell, the bartender seemed kind of into me, so it couldn’t hurt to ask her first.
I was spared that awkward exchange because that was when I noticed somebody who looked vaguely familiar sitting at a little table in the corner. It was poorly lit and smokey enough that I’d not noticed him during my initial survey of the room. He was average size, maybe a little older than me, dark hair, vaguely Asian, wearing bland clothing, and being otherwise completely forgettable. He was so unremarkable that it was no wonder I hadn’t noticed him. He was the living embodiment of the grey man concept. Except something had pinged my radar. It took me a second to remember where I’d briefly seen him before. It was the Vatican Hunter who had found Agent Franks when we had been putting him back together at the MHI compound.
The Blessed Order of Saint Hubert the Protector was the Catholic Church’s secret monster hunting organization, though I didn’t know if they actually answered to the Pope, or if they were just loosely affiliated—it was really hard to tell with them. It wasn’t like a tiny organization colloquially known as the Secret Guard was an open book. They were supposedly the oldest group of Hunters in the world and didn’t really associate with the rest of us. They rarely collected PUFF bounties and didn’t compete for contracts, so they weren’t really competitors either. Their rep was that of a bunch of mystical warrior monks who went around killing monsters because it was a good deed or God willed it. Which sounded cool and all, though I preferred getting paid obscene sums of money while doing the same thing.
On the Harbinger scale—which consisted of ranking all rival Hunting organizations from Asshole to Alright—he had declared them alright. Only I knew that Earl had a soft spot for the Catholics because it had been a former member of the Secret Guard who had helped him learn how to deal with his lycanthropy, so he was probably a little biased.
The real question was, what was one of the Secret Guard doing here? Surely it couldn’t be coincidence. You don’t accidentally run into other Hunters in random scum holes in a big city neither of you live in. Hunters just aren’t that common. I didn’t think he had noticed me yet, so I tried to slouch down on my stool to look smaller. There was a mirror behind the bar, so I used that to keep an eye on him, rather than directly staring like a moron.
I got out my phone and texted Earl about who was here, then watched and waited. The Hunter’s expression remained neutral. He really didn’t seem that into the music either, despite them being pretty talented for a cover band. He idly checked his watch. A minute later he checked it again. He was waiting for someone and they were late. I got the feeling he was annoyed but trying not to show it. Could he be waiting for Sonya? There was a racing jacket over the back of his chair and a long canvas pack at his feet. I really wanted to know what was in the bag. If it was a stack of money, then maybe the Catholics had hired her to steal the Ward for them? If it was weapons or explosives, maybe he was here hunting her too? Either way meant I’d be getting involved.
I should have brought backup. And that thought made me realize that he might have backup too . . . but I had no idea what any of their other Hunters looked like. For all I knew half these rednecks might actually be able to speak Latin . . . wait . . . did the Catholic Church still speak Latin? Italian. Whatever.
The band took a break, and the Hunter appeared relieved that the replacement filler music over the sound system was a little quieter. Apparently, he wasn’t into metal. His playlist was probably all Gregorian chanting or something.
I thought about trying to take the Hunter’s picture, but he seemed way too alert for me to pull that off without getting spotted. Only it turned out it didn’t matter, because Earl knew who I was talking about. His reply text told me to hold on, he was on his way. And also, no matter what, for me to not pick a fight with Gutterres—so that was his name—and Earl put three exclamation points after that order. Which I took to mean that Gutterres was probably a badass. Which reminded me that even though the Blessed Order of Saint Hubert were alright, they also had a reputation for being a bunch of trigger-happy holy warriors who always thought God was on their side . . . We really needed to change the Harbinger Scale from a thumbs-up or -down to a system with more range to allow for some nuance. Catholic Hunters, usually pretty chill, but will cap you without hesitation if you get in their way. Three stars!
Ten minutes later the band came back from their smoke break. For the band’s protection, there was a chain link fence between them and the dance floor, because crowds like this often consider throwing bottles a form of constructive criticism. After a brief setup, they launched into another song, one I didn’t recognize, but the soft opening was catchy. When the singing began, I realized that they had added a new member. They hadn’t had a female vocalist before.
I looked toward the stage. Despite the nose ring, the singer was pretty, in a grungy tank top and sleeve tats sort of way . . . and, wow, she had a great voice. It was so songbird clean that it seemed glaringly out of place in a crap-sack establishment like this. Her voice was so good it transcended the awful speakers. It was like rose petals and a beautiful sunset in soundwave form. All the assembled scumbags and tough guys stopped to stare. She had them downright hypnotized. From the looks on their faces, half of them fell in love with her right there. The women were either jealous, or kind of into her too.
Then out of nowhere the band started to shred, and the singer dropped into a snarling growl that was deeper than I could have achieved on my best day. She shifted gears so fast it came out of nowhere. Beauty died and this was all diesel fumes and primal anger. It was pure distilled rage and the discontent of a generation. A hundred people automatically started banging their heads. That voice would have been more appropriate coming out of the bearded mammoth working the door than the tiny girl who had started furiously jumping up and down with the microphone.
Then she flipped back effortlessly to smooth and melodic, and instantly had the crowd swaying along to a tragic love story. She was dragging the audience with her, whether they wanted to or not.
Except for Gutterres. Because when I looked back over at him, he’d lost the neutral expression, and was openly annoyed. When the singer looked toward his back corner, he lifted his arm and tapped his wristwatch, as if saying we had an appointment.
Only the singer grinned at him, did a sassy little twirl, threw the horns, and went back to the gravel roar chorus that was so low it made Skippy sound high-pitched. The lyrics were about burning churches and looting villages.
I had never heard a human being with that much range before . . . which made sense, because she was only half human. Even though I knew what I was looking for, she had temporarily clouded my judgment and sucked me along in her musical maelstrom. The singer was the right size, age, attitude, and the secret Vatican dude was obviously ticked off that she was screwing around and showing off rather than talking to him.
I got out my phone and sent Earl another text. Sonya is here.
The bartender came up to me. “From the way you’re gawking, I guess you haven’t heard Debbie sing before.”
Debbie? “Yeah. First time. She rocks. Does she play here often?”
“Not really. She comes and goes as the mood strikes her. The regulars love when she shows up though.”
“Yeah, I can see why.”
The song was done. The crowd went nuts. Sonya soaked up the cheers for a moment, then yelled into the mic. “Thank you, Perdition’s Abyss! I love you too! Now this next one is an all-new composition I like to call ‘Contract Renegotiation’!”
Sonya’s little garage band immediately launched into another song. I recognized the tune, because they had stolen this one from Cabbage Point Killing Machine too, but she’d replaced Mosh’s lyrics.
I did what you asked
I took up the task.
But there’s a bounty on my head,
Vengeful lizards want me dead!
“Time to pay up, bible thumpers!” she screamed. “Pass that collection plate one more time!” Then she switched to the super rumble beast voice for the chorus while looking directly at Gutterres.
You know the deal,
You gotta pay me to steal.
I didn’t want this much trouble,
It’s gonna cost you double!
She could certainly sing, but her songwriting abilities were unimaginative crap. I remember Mosh scribbling better lyrics on the back of homework assignments when he was fifteen and going through his emo phase. Yet Sonya repeated the chorus and the audience was so enamored with her, they started singing along, informing the hapless Secret Guardsman that she wanted more money.
Gutterres folded his arms and scoffed. I’d not noticed he was wearing an earpiece before, but he began talking to someone, probably to ask for more money. Being MHI’s accountant, I’d been at the other end of the line in a few conversations like that over the years. Whoever he was talking to must have balked because Gutterres began arguing with them. I really hoped the Church’s accountant stuck to their guns and told her no deal, because whatever they wanted the Ward for, MHI needed it more.
One last warning,
Or you’ll be mourning,
You fuck around with me,
I’ll toss it in the sea!
Gutterres passed that message on, and his handlers must have decided negotiating with terrorists would be okay this time. As Sonya wrapped up her song, Gutterres gave her the OK sign. The deal was approved. Sonya would get her money and the Secret Guard would get the Ward Stone.
Except that’s when the monster arrived.