Monster Hunter Nemesis (16 page)

They would have been seen on camera together. He spotted the security camera and made sure it wasn’t at an angle that could read his lips. “Place your hands on your firearms, but do not draw. Act like you want to take me into custody.” They did as they were told. There probably wasn’t a microphone in the elevator. “Act scared.”

“I’m not acting!” Archer exclaimed.

“I’m innocent,” Franks stated as the elevator started down. Innocent was a relative term.

“We suspected that,” Jefferson said. “There are some discrepancies in the evidence.”

“I need you to prove it,” Franks ordered.

“Working on it,” Archer said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Strayhorn is missing. He disappeared out of ICU,” Jefferson explained. “Nobody was seen coming in, but he wasn’t in any shape to walk out.”

Franks scowled. The rookie had been there. He could clear him. “Unicorn . . .”

“They probably picked him up. We can assume he’s dead. Look, sir, I don’t really want to be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive here. We still need to take you in,” Jefferson said.

The agent appeared ready to pull. Good. He’d trained them well. “Do you really think you could?”

“Not really.” Jefferson swallowed hard. “The whole MCB is looking for you. If you come in you’ll be under guard while we figure this out.”

Franks shook his head. Stricken would have plans for that. If he was captured, he’d be neutralized. Franks wasn’t a hundred percent certain he could trust these agents, but they were his best bet to contact the one man he knew he could trust. “Get a message to Myers. Tell him to slip his tail and meet me at the place we captured Juan.” That was vague enough that even if they talked, only Myers would know what it meant. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Archer answered. “When?”

“He’ll know. Now the hard part.”

“What?”

“My escape must look convincing.”

“Aw man . . .” Archer whined. He glanced at the security camera, then back at Franks. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“Just not in the face,” Jefferson pleaded.

They were almost at the parking garage level. Franks nodded.

Both agents drew their guns. They were quick, but even if they’d been trying their best it wouldn’t have mattered in the least. He lunged forward, slamming a hand into Jefferson’s chest and shoulder-checking Archer. They crashed into the wall and the whole elevator shook violently. Archer sank to the floor gasping for breath in a very realistic manner. Jefferson tried to bring up his gun but Franks swatted it from his hand. Jefferson immediately came back with a quick overhand right. He had to hand it to the youngster, either he was putting on an excellent show or he was really fighting for his life, not that there was any possibility of it changing the outcome either way. Franks simply caught his fist, wrenched it to the side, put Jefferson into an arm bar, and drove him into the floor.

Jefferson tried to move so Franks twisted a bit and the agent gasped in pain. Archer was trying to say something, but it turned out that Franks had actually knocked the wind out of him, and it came out as a pathetic wheeze. Franks let go of Jefferson’s arm and picked up both of their pistols. He’d drop them outside. He had plenty of weapons in the stash, and besides, time spent requisitioning new sidearms was time they could better spend clearing his name.

He kept his head down so the camera wouldn’t see. “Speak with Myers ASAP. Don’t get caught.” The elevator opened. There were two men standing there, waiting for the car up. Franks didn’t recognize either of them, but they had the look of Feds, and when they saw Archer and Jefferson on the floor, their startled reactions and frantic reaching indicated that they were armed as well. Franks never had the chance to find out for sure, as he instantly kicked one in the groin, and slammed a pistol upside the other one’s head, dropping them both. Franks stepped over the unknown Feds, tossed the pistols under a minivan, and walked away.

That went well.

Compared to most of Franks’ operations, his visit to the hospital had been rather discreet.

* * *

After two days of fruitless searching, Heather Kerkonen was frustrated, but compared to most of the crazy things she’d been doing since being coerced into working for STFU, this assignment felt almost like normal police work. There were no portals to other dimensions, no terrorists playing with necromancy, no shape-shifting Chinese spies stealing military secrets; they were just looking for a fugitive. Sure, he was a three-hundred-year-old killer flesh golem, but he was still a fugitive. All things considered, that was relatively normal.

Since their quarry was smart, he’d blocked most of their supernatural efforts. Franks had to be wearing wolfsbayne. She’d tried following his trail, but she’d lost it in a really rundown neighborhood. A little bit of wolfsbayne worn on a person was enough to mask their scent from a werewolf. The stuff really messed with her senses and made it hard to get a fix. She’d spent a lot of time driving around the city with the window down and she’d found plenty of places where Franks had been—since this was his home base—but she couldn’t pin down where he was now.

She wasn’t the only supernatural asset he’d thwarted. Stricken had brought in a magical tracker, some elf from the Ozarks, but he hadn’t had any luck either. A Haitian diviner thought that
maybe
Franks was still in the city, but wherever he was hiding had been somehow warded against magic. None of this came as a surprise. Franks had been taking care of supernatural problems for the government since it had been founded. He’d been the MCB’s first field agent. He knew every trick in the book when it came to finding monsters, which meant he also knew every single countermeasure.

Despite those setbacks, Heather didn’t mind too much. Finding a fugitive by using the supernatural seemed like cheating. Where was the fun in that? They’d find this guy the old-fashioned way. She just hoped they’d do it before he killed anybody else. He’d just been spotted, so now they were going to catch him, just like they would any other criminal.

The street around the hospital was swarming with Feds. Mr. Flierl parked Franks’ MCB Suburban on the street half a block away so they could watch the commotion. “You guys getting anything?” The three members of the team who could pass for human were in the Suburban. Beth had their heavy artillery and some human shooters in an unmarked panel van a few blocks away. “He was here only fifteen minutes ago, so he’s got to be close.”

Heather rolled her window down. There it was again, that annoying wolfsbayne smell confusing everything. “I’ve got nothing, Mr. Flierl.” Heather might have called his wife by her first name, but the husband got the “mister” treatment. He may have been a lot more polite than her last STFU handler, but the male half of the Flierl team was a career military man and all business on the job.

“Putlack?”

“Me either.” Michael Putlack was riding shotgun. All she knew about Putlack was that he was like her, an unlucky human with a monstrous curse just here long enough to earn a PUFF exemption. She didn’t know what his deal was, only that he’d picked up something nasty while teaching English in Korea, and every time she’d seen him he was wearing sunglasses to hide his eyes. “Why didn’t the MCB put a tracking chip in Franks like they did with me?”

“He’s not like you. He’s already PUFF exempt. He was there willingly. I heard they tried to sneak one in once though. He dug it out with a knife. Then he force-fed it to the doctor who put it in him. How about you, Hawxhurst?”

Hawxhurst was sitting behind the driver. All Heather knew about James Hawxhurst was that Beth called him a
lifer
, which was ironic, since Heather wasn’t sure he was completely alive. He was one of the few at STFU who had already earned his PUFF exemption a long time ago, and he carried the coin to prove it, but he had no desire to go back to the normal world, so he remained working for STFU. Heather didn’t know what he was, only that he smelled neither alive, nor dead, more . . .
in between
. Hawxhurst shrugged.

Mr. Flierl had been watching him in the rearview mirror. “So ghosts can’t see Franks?”

“The dead avoid Franks. He frightens them.”

Heather was incredulous. “You can talk to actual ghosts?”

“Only the bitter ones with unfinished business. Happy people tend to move along.” Hawxhurst was an overweight, short, mild-looking individual who reminded her a little bit of her high school driver’s ed instructor, but he possessed a very unnerving grin and he seemed to look right through you. “Your grandfather was a harsh man. He thought your father was a quitter. It was disappointing the way he committed suicide like that. Koschei the Deathless’s burden was too much for your dad. He couldn’t handle the weight of the family curse, but old Aksel likes you. You’re tougher than your father ever was.”

An involuntary shiver went up her spine. “Not another word about my family.”

Hawxhurst shrugged again. “Suit yourself.”

Three hundred and seventy days
, Heather told herself. She could handle weird shit for three hundred and seventy more days.

“What’s the plan?” Putlack asked.

“We wait here for orders,” Mr. Flierl said. “It’s hard to be an official part of the investigation when you don’t exist.”

“I can go in and look around,” Heather offered. One of the fake IDs she’d been issued was on file with the MCB as a consultant. It had already enabled her to do a walk-through of the original crime scene. “I’d like to talk to the MCB guys he beat up.”

“Why?” Mr. Flierl asked.

“Clues. Evidence. The usual.”
Because something about this case isn’t right.
She’d overheard MCB at the first scene talking about a few things pieces of evidence not making sense, and her nose had picked up the strange scent of an unfamiliar creature that smelled like bubblegum and spider webs, and it had bled green.

“We’re not building a court case. We’re just supposed to catch him,” Hawxhurst said.

Their handler wasn’t convinced. “What do you expect to find, specifically?”

She didn’t know these people that well. Voicing her opinion of Stricken might just get her into more trouble. Stricken had been warning the MCB about Franks’ nature for years. All golems degraded over time, so Franks had been a ticking bomb. That was supposedly why he was taking this so personally and had devoted so many Task Force resources to the manhunt. Mr. Flierl had adjusted the mirror and she could see his unreadable eyes in it, watching her.

“I’ll know when I find it.”

He made his decision. “We stick together. You going in there will just put more attention on us.”

“I can be low-key.”

“Good-looking redheads can’t be
low-key
,” Putlack said.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

Mr. Flierl took out his phone. “It’s Stricken . . .” He answered it. “Yes, sir. I’m putting you on speaker.” He put the phone on the dash.

“A security camera just caught someone who we think is Franks in the subway. We’re sending you directions now. It looks like there are some old tunnels sealed off down there. That’s how he’s moving around. I’ve got someone who can move his consciousness through power lines—”

“Seriously?” Heather asked.

Mr. Flierl turned around and whispered the words,
“Will-o’-the-wisp.”

“The things you don’t know about this operation could fill a book, Red. Some people might find your backwoods Yooper ignorance endearing, but I’m trying to give a briefing here, so zip it.”

“Yes, Mr. Stricken.” Heather kept her voice pleasant, but stuck her hand over the seat and gave her middle finger to the phone. Putlack had to stifle a laugh. He might have been infected with some sort of murderous curse, but even he didn’t want Stricken mad at him.

“Does the MCB know this yet?” Mr. Flierl asked.

“No. We get first shot. I’ll notify them, but you’d better be done by then. Do not take him prisoner. I want the target eliminated. Don’t talk to him, don’t try to reason with him, don’t try to bring him in. Terminate him on sight. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Flierl picked up his phone. There was a map of the subway system on the screen. “Could you find an access point for Beth? She’s got Biggest and he needs a loading dock or a big doorway to not attract attention.”

“My people will find one. Don’t screw this up, Colonel.”

Mr. Flierl hit
End Call
. “Some days I really miss Kirk Conover,” he muttered, but Heather’s werewolf hearing still picked it up. “Let’s move, team.” He sounded rather apologetic as he got out of the Suburban. “There’s nothing as fun as searching for a killer underground.”

They met at the back of the vehicle and Mr. Flierl distributed equipment. They needed to look inconspicuous on the street, so everything fit into backpacks. Their handler was six-foot-two and despite his age still had a muscular build, so he managed to hide a collapsible-stock, short-barreled AR-10 on a sling under a big coat. Hawxhurst was wearing sweat pants but he had a P90 stuck into a messenger bag. Heather thought that she liked to keep the gear relatively simple, with a boring old pump shotgun like she’d grown up using, but then she saw that Putlack’s armament consisted of nothing more than a heavy duty framing hammer.

He stuck the handle down his jeans and covered the hammer’s head with his shirt, then saw her studying him. “I like to go hands on.”

Putlack was a completely average-looking man, of average build, and average height. By all rational ways of looking at it, Franks would tear him apart. Heather got close and whispered. “You got the message about who we’re going after, right?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve made it through twenty-two months of this crappy gig.”

“Since we might be getting into a fight together, what are you anyway?”

Putlack seemed embarrassed. “It’s rare in America. You probably haven’t heard of it. I’m possessed by a
Go Dokkaebi.
Think of it as a Korean rage ghost. You?”

“Werewolf. I’ve got claws, but that gets messy.” She patted the backpack with the folding stock, Mossberg 12-gauge in it. She had excellent self-control for a werewolf, but there was no reason to risk a transformation with people around. “This is easier.”