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  “I am a scientist,” Stan said, standing up. “It’s what we do.”

  “That is pretty much the same thing Victor Von Frankenstein said,” Janea replied.

  “He was a fictional character,” Stan replied, firmly.

  “Bet you a dollar?” Janea said. “Seriously, we’ve got what we needed. Drop it.”

  “Not on your life,” Stan said.

  “It’s not your life I’m worried about,” Barbara said. “It’s your soul.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Graham,” Barbara said unhappily, looking at the house that was the site of the second attack.

  The two-story house was in a small neighborhood near the town of Goin, Tennessee. Brick front, vinyl siding, two-car garage. It looked enough like Barb’s house to be a twin, right down to the holly hedging.

  At the trailer she had managed to avoid, to the greatest possible degree, thinking of the victims. The horror that they had experienced she now clearly understood, and if she sunk too far into sympathy it was going to take the edge off her deadliness.

  With this set of victims, she suspected empathy was going to be unavoidable.

  Local police were keeping the news media well back, but they were staying nearly as far away. The forensics van was from the FBI, as was everyone on site at the house.

  “Two dead, two missing,” the special agent said without preamble. “Dead, father Wilkerson Boone, age thirty-two, Jason Boone, age nine.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Barb said, taking a deep breath.

  “MO of deaths is slightly different,” Graham said, looking at her oddly. “Both were strangled. The marks are…strange.”

  “I bet,” Janea said. “Sucker marks?”

  “Yes,” Graham said, blinking.

  “We’ve got some updated information,” Randell said. “Keep going.”

  “Missing, Wendi Boone, mother, age thirty-one; Titania Boone, age thirteen.”

  “These things are gathering hosts for the Gar,” Janea said.

  “More hosts,” Barb replied, tightly.

  “The what?” Graham asked.

  “I’ll update you in a second,” Randell said, holding up a hand. “Trail?”

  “Similar trail leading up the hill to a cave,” Graham said. “The cave is known in the area. A local kid got lost in it a couple of years ago and a rescue team had to find him. Attack occurred approximately two AM.”

  Barb looked at the horizon, where the sun was already falling below the mountains.

  “If this thing recognizes that there is more prey here, it might come back,” she said, frowning.

  “That’s what’s got me worried,” Graham said.

  “Okay,” Barb said, nodding. “We need to clear the forensics people by sundown. I’d like to get the FBI to take over holding back the media. Hopefully get rid of the media. Can we get the other houses cleared?”

  “Not without some sort of serious cover story,” Graham said. “Washington is getting really exercised. They want to know what you’re going to do about this.”

  “There’s only two of us,” Janea said, angrily. “There are, or were, at least two of these Old Ones, and now we’re pretty sure there’s a major Old One involved. That means there could be dozens. These caves go all through this region, and that’s the natural environment of the Hunters of the Dark. I’m not sure we can get in there and comb them out one by one. I’m pretty sure that it would be suicidal to try.”

  “We have to do something,” Graham said, waving his hands.

  “We’ll wait for this one tonight,” Barb said. “It may use the same exit, looking for more prey. We need another cave team, but this time, no civilians.”

  “You’re civilians,” Randell pointed out.

  “You know what I mean,” Barb said. “Send out an urgent message. There are bound to be cavers in the military. Get us a team of people who know how to survive and know how to cave. Get them here, and all the gear we’re going to need, fast.”

  “You don’t want much, do you?” Graham said.

  “How many more do you want to die?” Janea asked. “You asked for our answer, that’s it. We need a team of fighters to go into the caves and find these things. On their own turf, which is a bit like fighting a leopard in the brush. But leopards aren’t the size of a water buffalo, stronger than a gorilla, invulnerable to most weapons, and able to drive you insane if you look at them. Hopefully find out where they’re coming from. And, you know, survive.”

  “And we’re going to want military-grade weaponry,” Barb said thoughtfully.

  “Why?” Graham asked. “I thought you said these things weren’t vulnerable to normal weapons.”

  “We don’t know that,” Barb said. “The skru-gnon wasn’t, but the other beasts might be. And when people fought them before, they were using spears and clubs. I would personally like to see what a grenade does to one. And if we fight them aboveground, a rocket launcher would be nice. You have to see these things to understand.”

  “But if I do see them, they’ll drive me insane,” Randell said. “Great.”

  “Hey,” Janea said, “that’s what Thorazine is for.”

  * * *

  “So we’re going to sit here all night?” Janea asked.

  The hillside was covered in secondary growth, mostly poplar and pine with scrubby undergrowth. Barb had carefully pointed out the poison ivy to her less-than-outdoors-oriented partner. She’d found a clear spot above the cave opening with a good view of it and the rest of the hillside, and settled down for a long stalk.

  The cave opening was larger than the one by the trailer, irregularly shaped, again, but nearly the size of a manhole cover.

  “Unless we get a visitor earlier,” Barb said, taking a sip of coffee. She was on short sleep from the night before, she’d had some very vivid and really awful dreams, and it had been a long day. It was working up to be a longer night.

  “I don’t sit still very well,” Janea pointed out.

  Especially with Janea around.

  “Try,” Barb said.

  “Fighting these things in the dark is going to suck,” Janea said about five seconds later.

  “That’s what night-vision systems are for,” Barb said, holding up a set of thermal goggles.

  “Yeah,” Janea said, picking hers up and turning them on. “Cool. You can see the FBI guys standing over in the shadows.”

  “That’s because they pick up on heat sources,” Barb said.

  “Which means they might be next to useless with these things,” Janea said, setting her goggles down.

  “Huh?”

  “We don’t even know if they’re exothermic,” Janea pointed out.

  “Exo…?”

  “Hot-blooded,” Janea said. “They could be, you know, like insects. They don’t give off heat. We don’t really know anything about them.”

  “How’s it going?” Graham said over the radio. Both women were wearing tactical headsets.

  “It would be fine if Janea could understand the basic premise of hunting,” Barb said. “Which is to be quiet. For that matter, if you keep asking me every five minutes, I am going to come down there and take your radio away.”

  “We need regular commo checks,” Graham said.

  “Agreed,” Barb said. “Nominal.”

  “Out.”

  “You really are way too into this,” Janea said. “I’m starting to agree with Stan. We need to study them.”

  “The problem being that anyone who studies them goes insane,” Barb pointed out.

  “Maybe do it like ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Joke,’” Janea said.

  “What?”

  “You never watch Monty Python?” Janea asked, surprised.

  “I tried to watch that…what was it? The Meaning of Life?” Barb said. “I didn’t get it. I don’t get most British comedy.”

  “Aesir shit!” Janea said. “How the Hel did I get you for a partner?”

  “Language.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” J
anea said. “Let me rephrase. Fecal matter of a Great Old One. How in Niflheim did I get a stuck-up, prissy, doesn’t-get-British-comedy person like you as a partner?”

  “Because you know more about this stuff than I do and I’m better at killing things than you are,” Barb said. “Now this is supposed to be a stakeout. Which means we need to be qui-et so that they won’t know we’re here.”

  “Barb.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re two reproductive-age females,” Janea said. “We’re not a stakeout, we’re bait. You probably survived that skru-gnon because it wanted you alive.”

  “You put the most pleasant spin on things,” Barb said.

  “I just thought of it,” Janea said. “I think we should have waited for the rocket launcher to do this.”

  * * *

  “Master Sergeant,” Major Esgar said. “Sorry to get you out at this time of night. Please sit down.”

  Master Sergeant Scott Attie, five foot nine inches, one hundred and ninety-five pounds, brown hair and eyes, was a fifteen-year veteran of the Special Forces. As such, he was used to callouts at any time of night. But this one was different. Just as he was getting to bed, on his first real downtime in five years of constant deployments to Afghanistan, he’d been told to report to an office at Joint Special Operations Command, wear civilian clothes, and be prepared to be TDY—on temporary duty—for an unspecified period.

  His wife, who had been wearing a negligee that left nothing to hide at the time, had been less than amused.

  “Yes, sir,” Attie said, taking a seat and trying not to sigh. He enjoyed his job, but he’d really been looking forward to some downtime. Maybe heading over to the Cape for some fishing.

  “All of the following is Top Secret, Special Compartment Intelligence,” the major said. He looked tired, as if Attie’s brief was just one more item to be checked off in a very long day. “There is a priority need for someone with combat experience and experience working in caves for a rapid-deployment mission. Your bio states that you have extensive civilian caving experience with additional military experience in Afghanistan. The mission will be undercover, civilian clothes, has a high risk of loss of life, and will be in CONUS.”

  “Uh, sir?” Attie said, looking puzzled. “Posse Comitatus?”

  Posse Comitatus was an act passed just after the Civil War that prohibited the military from being used within states of the United States for anything other than disaster relief and suppression of rebellion. It was holy writ in the military that you did not violate Posse Comitatus.

  “There will be a more complete briefing,” the major said. “But to cover that, there is a formal and secret determination by the Supreme Court that in matters of Special Circumstance, Posse Comitatus does not apply.”

  “Special Circumstance, sir?” Attie said, realizing he was getting out of his depth.

  “There was a reason I told you to sit down.”

  * * *

  “Janea. Wake up.”

  Janea, despite Barb’s mostly monosyllabic replies, had chattered fairly constantly for two hours and then fallen asleep on Barb’s shoulder. She was clearly having nightmares at a couple of points, but Barb couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep at all. Given where they were and what they were waiting for, tired as she was, Barb could not imagine sleeping.

  But when she started to hear stirrings from within the cave, it seemed like a good idea to wake up her partner.

  “Freya hjelpe!” Janea muttered then came awake. “Freya aid, that was a horrible dream.”

  “Quiet,” Barb whispered. “I think we have company.”

  “That’s just what you were saying,” Janea said, shaking her head. “I am awake, right?”

  “Just grab your axe,” Barb hissed.

  Barb recognized the major aid that she was receiving from the Lord was simply to be able to look upon these horrors with some degree of calm. But as the tentacles slowly crept into the moonlight, she had to hold hard to her sanity. They were causing flashbacks to the battle in the cavern, the skru-gnon questing for any opening to flow into. There was a special horror to it as a woman. She’d never been raped, but what the skru-gnon did was beyond any rape by mortal being or even demon.

  She slowly drew her katana, as quietly as she could, then slid to her feet. She had borrowed an MP-5 from the FBI, and she’d use it if it turned out to be effective. But she already knew that, with God’s aid, the katana would work.

  “Ready?” she whispered as the monstrosity came fully into view.

  “Wait,” Janea said, holding her arm.

  The reason for the pause was apparent as a second entity wriggled from the ground. The two stopped in the area in front of the cave, their tentacles writhing and twisting together in what might be silent communication.

  Then a third joined them. And a fourth. And a fifth.

  As a sixth started to emerge, one of them turned its attention uphill. And they all began to climb towards the two women.

  “Uh-oh,” Janea muttered.

  * * *

  “Graham!”

  Graham’s head came up at the sound of Barb’s voice. Except for a regular “Nominal” it was the first time she’d communicated all night.

  The FBI team had been augmented by more personnel from area offices. The investigation was beginning to have all the aspects of a war zone. Washington had admitted that, given the level of threat, they were considering calling in the military, at least covert portions thereof. The problem being that every cover story they could come up with was almost as bad as the reality. Clearing four hundred square miles of American territory and having a mini-war with an alien, or possibly metaphysical, army was going to require quite the cover story.

  But at present they had twenty special agents on duty, both to keep the press away from the crime scene and as potential backup.

  He got the feeling from the sound of the normally unflappable Mrs. Everette’s voice that they might be a bit short.

  “Go,” he said, waving to Randell to turn on a speaker in the command van.

  “We are headed down the hill!” Barb said, then cut off. “Sorry, I tripped. This is Old One large force. Say again, large force. At least eight Old Ones are in pursuit! FLIRs seem to reduce the horror aspect. Recommend all agents don night vision gear and prepare for assault.”

  “And please don’t shoot us!” Janea added. “We’re the ones with legs running away!”

  “Shit,” Randell said, grabbing his M-4 and piling out of the truck. “We have incoming hostiles! All agents, form a perimeter behind the house! Friendlies on the way in. Don night vision gear! Do not look at these things with your naked eyes!”

  “We’ve got you covered,” Graham said, calmly. “Come on in.”

  * * *

  “Damn,” Janea said as she tripped and bounced off a sapling.

  “Come on!” Barb shouted, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. “We don’t have time for your horror-movie antics!”

  “I’m figuring all I have to do is stay ahead of you,” Janea said, sprinting down the hill.

  There was a seven-foot wooden privacy fence that separated the lawn of the Boone household from the forest beyond.

  Janea hit the wall and grabbed on, frantically scrambling at the slick wood to try to climb over.

  Barb boosted her over then took a running jump. Grabbing the top, she somersaulted over and landed on both feet.

  “Show-off,” Janea said, running across the lawn to the line of agents.

  “Lazy butt,” Barb panted.

  “Where are they?” Randell asked as the two skidded to a stop.

  “You know those nightmares where something’s right behind you chasing you, and if it catches you, you die?” Janea asked.

  “Don’t have them,” Randell answered.

  “Well, that’s where they are,” Janea answered, pulling around her MP-5.

  “No, they’re not,” Randell said.

  “Listen,” Barb said.

>   * * *

  It was a rustling, nothing more. Randell had hunted deer before joining the Marines, and to him it sounded, at first, like just a big herd of deer.

  But if so, it was a really big herd.

  Then the security fence started to rattle as something pulled at it, pushed at it, thumped along a thirty-foot section. And then planks started coming down.

  What flowed through the openings was hard to see with infrared. The things were the same temperature as the background. Perhaps fortunately, because even what he could see made something in the back of his head start to gibber. Tentacles and eyes and mouths all flickering in movement as the things, in awful silence, glided across the lawn.

  “Oh my God,” one of the agents muttered. “Oh, dear God in heaven.”

  Another screamed and pulled the trigger, and then the whole group opened fire.

  * * *

  Barb fired short, controlled bursts from the MP-5 and watched in fury as they seemed to have no effect.

  There was an effect; even with the FLIRs, she could see ichor flying through the air, but the wave of blackness was barely slowed.

  “These aren’t heavy enough!” Barb said as she ran through the end of her thirty-round magazine. The things were nearly on them, and she flipped the MP-5 over her shoulder and drew her H&K, firing carefully targeted single shots into the creature closest to her. Which shuddered to a halt and began to deliquesce.

  “Larger rounds!” Barb shouted. But by then it was too late as one of the agents was yanked off his feet, screaming.

  Barb holstered the pistol and whipped out her katana, taking a cat stance.

  “Lord,” she muttered. “I think we’re going to need a little help here.”

  * * *

  Randell continued firing burst after burst into the monster that was closing on him, backing up as he realized he was coming in range of its tentacles. But the high-velocity 5.56-millimeter rounds didn’t seem to have any effect.

  As he ran out of his second magazine he, too, drew his sidearm, an issue .40 Sig Sauer, and began pumping rounds into the beast. Finally, it stopped.