Death Takes a Holiday

Midnight Ink

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Death Takes a Holiday: A F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation
© 2013 by Jennifer Harlow

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First e-book edition © 2013

E-book ISBN: 9780738730547

Book format by Bob Gaul

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Cover illustration by Carlos Lara Lopez

Editing by Nicole Nugent

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Midnight Ink

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.midnightink.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Ryan, Liam, and Trevor:

Thanks for helping to make me
the tough broad I am today.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger
than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered …

—Charles Dickens

He’s obviously had Nana’s baked ziti.

—Beatrice Alexander

ONE

IN LOVE AND WAR

I
SO HATE RUNNING.
Especially when I have to do it or die.

People who run for fun are mental. There are very few times humans should run, like when they’re being chased through the Everglades by a basilisk. Only reason I am right now. And the longer I run, the more I begin to think death is preferable.

Panting harder than a geek at the Playboy mansion, my legs pump through the wooded area surrounding the swamp. The thick, wet mud covering my jeans and sneakers adds unneeded resistance, and I am no Flo-Jo to begin with. That huge snake is gaining. I probably shouldn’t have shot at it. It might have ignored me while it feasted on that alligator, but what was I supposed to do when I happened across a forty-foot snake with horned fangs and it flicked its tongue at me? Fire and run. Exactly.

I race through a thicket of ferns before jumping across a small ravine. I land in more mud, my hands and feet enveloped. Without missing a beat, I leap up and continue my sprint. The thick trees I just passed rumble and shake as the basilisk charges through. She’s gaining. And mad. I hope she doesn’t know I was the one who smashed her eggs yesterday. I see an orange marker, the first one I put up. Almost there. Legs and lungs, don’t fail me now.

My legs don’t listen. My foot catches on a stray root, and I tumble to the ground. A shooting pain vibrates through my left arm as I brace my fall. My knees hit at the same time, and hard fabric rips against my skin, stinging worse than a dozen bees. Acknowledging the pain wastes a second I don’t have. As I stand and turn, I see the basilisk clear the ravine about fifty yards away, gliding. Jesus, she’s like an anaconda on steroids. She moves upright, locomotion provided by her hindquarters. If a person meets a basilisk’s eyes, their brain hemorrhages within seconds and they drop dead—that is, if the venomous bite doesn’t get them first. This one has a white marking on its head but is otherwise brown. It’s one of those mythical creatures that are sadly not a myth. Like vampires. And werewolves. And people like me.

I fill my mind with the image of the skinny, dying tree the snake is about to pass, yanking on it with all my might. It’s heavy. Heavier than I’d normally attempt. My temples throb as the trunk cracks louder than lightning, falling right on the snake.
Timber
. The snake hisses in pain but recovers within a second, bucking side to side to unpin herself. Her tail smacks the nearby trees, splitting one in half. Fascinating to watch, but it’s time to recommence the running. I vault over other fallen trees and smack branches out of my way, really wishing I had my machete, Bette, with me. The rumbling and quaking start again far too soon, but I don’t dare look back.

“Bea?” Carl says over my earpiece. “Give me your status.”

“Running. For. Life,” I pant. “Almost there.”

I finally see the grassy clearing through the trees. I pump my legs for all they’re worth, trying to ignore not only my throbbing head but the hissing behind me. The trees part. I keep running. I don’t stop until I’m behind the two FBI agents toting flamethrowers. Agents Rushmore and Chandler, both in their thirties with brown and black crew cuts, respectively, don’t even acknowledge me as I pass. Their eyes, along with those of the other two men strategically waiting around the meadow, stay on the tree line. Carl, all five-six of him, holds a tranquilizer gun as big as he is off to the right. On the other side Agent Wolfe, another FBI agent, holds the same gun. No sign of Will.

No sooner than I take my second much needed lungful of air does the basilisk slither out of the trees, fangs as tall as a man exposed. Cue the fireworks. Carl and Agent Wolfe shoot the darts into the belly of the beast. The snake whips toward Carl as his dart hits, then changes direction as Agent Wolfe’s makes contact. As those gunners reload, the fire brigade pulls their triggers. Two jets of fire blast from the guns, engulfing the snake. It shrieks in pain so loud that I have to cover my ears, its brown scales popping with blisters while other parts char black. Carl and Agent Wolfe shoot again as the fountain of fire continues. The basilisk hisses, turning to retreat.

“Alexander!” Agent Chandler shouts.

I know. I grip the snake’s head with my mind and keep hold. The throbbing intensifies as the ton of snake attempts to wrestle out of my invisible grasp. Psychokinesis, mind over matter, I’m told ya gotta love it. I only have to grasp her for a few seconds as two more darts finally knock the behemoth out. Her body slumps half in, half out of the forest and the ground shakes as I allow her head to fall with the rest of her. I wipe the blood streaming from my nose.

The four men, guns still at the ready, slowly approach the slumbering giant. Smoke from the burns rises in patches. Strangely the smell isn’t too bad; not pleasant but not nauseating. Carl lightly kicks it.

“Don’t kick the poisonous snake!” I admonish.

“Sorry,” he says with a shrug.

I walk—well, more like limp—toward the group. “I think it’s out.”

“Are you okay?” Agent Wolfe asks as he scans me up and down. I must look like a mud monster, but these guys have seen me a lot worse. The mosquito bites don’t help. I seem to attract bloodsuckers by the droves.

“Peachy,” I say.

“What do we do with it now?” Agent Chandler asks me.

“How should I know?”

“This was your plan,” he responds a little harsher than I care for. Not that I don’t expect it from him. We haven’t exactly seen eye to eye on anything in months.

The men stare at me, waiting for me to speak. My head hurts. I’m covered in Florida swampland. I’ve run close to a mile. And half my co-workers hate me. Now I have to dispose of a giant snake.
How is this my life?

But it is.

Rolling my eyes, I move toward the van parked near the dirt access road. My girl is right where I left her, between the shotguns and Kevlar vests. She’s covered in silver with yellow flowers and her name, Bette, painted on her long blade. My machete shines in the sun like Excalibur. The team just stands there as I stalk back toward them. They part as I raise my girl over my head, bringing her down like an executioner’s axe, blood spewing as Bette slices. Red drops rain over me as I continue chopping through the five feet of flesh. For some reason the guttural shouting that accompanies each swipe makes me feel much better. It’s weird how much this doesn’t bother me. Four lops and the head severs. The river of blood almost reaches my ankles. These shoes are toast. The men leap away. I take a few deep breaths, quelling the anger and fear coursing through me before I look at them. “Burn it.”

Agents Chandler and Rushmore nod. The rest of us step away as the flames begin, Carl and Agent Wolfe smartly moving the opposite direction from me. I make it a few feet before a not so friendly face springs out of the tree line holding a machine gun. His green eyes glance at the snake, then my blood-soaked form. A scowl forms on his face, a smirk on mine.