Derek Ward

Chapter 7

Sometimes Weird Stuff Happens Even To Me

I woke up in the infirmary of the Guild. The fluorescent lights glared harshly into my eyes. My shoulder was bandaged and I could smell the herbal mixture used to treat archanal wounds. Moaning from the other stretchers in the room brought me around. The infirmary held twenty stretchers plus an operating room for five. About fifteen of the stretchers were filled, most of the occupants injured badly. I saw some clothing on the green floor next to my stretcher, a black t-shirt, a pair of jeans, socks, and boots. Putting them on, I walked out of the infirmary. As I moved my shoulder, I could feel the tightening and loosening of stitches. As I stepped out of the door, a hand grasped my good shoulder. Wheeling on the heel of my foot, I turned to face the Guild’s doctor, a short stubby lycanthrope we called Burn. I gave him a great deal of respect, and not just because he had patched up some of my more serious wounds. Burn had been attending medical school when he was asked to join the Guild. How he had managed to graduate both medical school and our training camp at the same time amazed me.

“What the bloody fuck do you think you’re doing Ranger?” he asked in his normally quiet voice. Normally, I would have stopped. Burn was one of the few hunters that I actually respected enough to obey their instructions.

“Going back to work,” I answered, tugging my arm free, “In case no one told you, there is a war on.”

“You are still wounded,” he started, drawing his face into a mask of professionalism, “And I am not going to let you go back to getting yourself killed before you have had at least some real improvement since your last attempt. That was not just a simple shoulder hit. The bullet nicked one of your main arteries. I don’t know why you didn’t bleed out, but I’m guessing the bullet they hit wasn’t all silver. I’ve cleaned it up a bit and sewn you up, but I can’t just let you walk out half-fixed.”

“Unfortunately,” a new voice behind me began, “Ranger is needed by the Guildmaster.” It was then I recognized the voice. It was Kurt Sneller, head of packs. My head was really fogged over if I didn’t recognize his voice at first. I turned to face him, about to ask what was going on. Then I saw him.

Kurt was in true form, but his normal eight foot frame sagged about a foot. His normally alert eyes betrayed the fatigue he must have been feeling. I wondered exactly how long I had been out. I guess I had asked aloud, because Kurt answered. “You’ve had a nice five hour nap, now there’s work to be done. Here’s your sidearm.” He handed my USP in a small-of-the-back holster. In his other hand was a magazine holder with a couple of spare magazines. I put the magazines on my belt as I followed Kurt out of the infirmary to the elevator. As we got in I ejected the magazine out of the pistol and made sure it was fully loaded. Satisfied, I replaced the magazine, racked the slide, decocked and replaced the pistol into its holster.

“Exactly where are we going, Sneller?” I asked as he hit the button for the second floor. The Guild was a massive facility. Above it was a block of suburban houses, each inhabited by kin. Shaman dug out the five floors about thirty years ago. Florida is one of the few places where the ground, namely the aquifers, would not support a normally-created basement, but it would support a magic- created underground facility. First floor held administrative, communications, and the infirmary. It also included an entire bank of power generators that helped to run the place. Second floor was where the offices for the Guild’s hierarchy, intelligence, and a small armory were located. Third floor was a giant training facility, including an indoor range. Fourth and fifth floors were designed for barracks for Guild members during emergencies, like now.

“Deadeye has got something he wants us, including you, to see. The Guildmaster, Ronin, Gunny, and Deadeye are waiting for us.” He seemed slightly distracted. However, there was something I had to know.

“How the fuck did you get my gun?” I asked him hotly. He looked at me questioningly for a moment. He almost looked startled by the question, or maybe by my tone. Sneller was not a lycanthrope that brooked insolence or insubordination. While that worked well with the structured society of the packs, lone wolves, like myself, were a bit more informal and irreverent.

“Nicholas and Hangman went to your house and got your things. They are down in your quarters, room 405. Deadeye and I thought you might like your gun.” I nodded my thanks and waited a moment for my next question. I had a feeling this one might elicit an unwanted response from Kurt.

“How did last night’s jobs go?” I asked cautiously.

“Your hit disrupted the Bleeders, but they still fought hard when the other hunters came after them. I have three packs down thanks to the Bleeders. I think Deadeye said that he has seven loners down, including Skiff. That said, we achieved all but two objectives, and rumors are that the shaman picked them up. As of right now, the Bleeders are effectively out of the war. The shaman hit the leeches’ alchemy group, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. The leeches and their ghouls lost more though. The warriors of the packs are now attacking the leech strongholds. The humans must be going nuts trying to understand what is going on.” I understood Kurt a little better now. As tough and unemotional as he professed to be, he truly cared about the lives of the lycanthropes under him. It was one of the main reasons that the Guildmaster put him into the position he was now. He put his hunters’ lives above everything. The downing of three full packs, about twelve or so hunters, must have been almost unbearable for him. Hell, it sounded like a fifth of the Guild had been killed or wounded on the first night of the war. His stalwart demeanor didn’t show exactly how much he had lost. I remembered why I respected this lycanthrope, even when he and I disagreed.

The elevator toned, and the two of us silently got off. He began to walk to a conference room on the far end of the floor, and I followed. The intelligence section of the hunters included two full-time specialists and five part-time helpers. All of them looked as if they were going ape shit over all sorts of information pouring in from the communications center from the hunters in the field and from the reports coming in from the rest of the lycanthropes. I continued to follow Sneller until we reached our destination.

Inside the conference room were the principle members of the Guild’s hierarchy, sitting around a large table. At the head of the table was a television set. The picture showed a house in what looked like Forest Hills. Surrounding the house was Tampa Police’s SWAT group. I could see the officers’ tense attitude and wondered what was going down.

“Ah Ranger, good. How’s the arm?” asked Deadeye as Kurt and I strode into the room. I shrugged in response and sat down at the far end of the table.

“What’s up boss?” I asked after I had settled. The Guildmaster looked as bad as he did after the death of Stephen Vollen. I don’t think he expected this many casualties so quickly. Neither had I, but by the same token, the Guild had almost wiped out our nemesis organization. The Bleeders may not have been as professional or as skilled as the Hunters Guild, but they weren’t run-of-the-mill leeches either. By all rights, we probably should have taken more casualties. Fortunately we had surprise and good intelligence on our side. The Guildmaster’s eyes told me he was aware of this, but it still bothered him to lose his hunters. He motioned for Deadeye to talk.

“I got a call from one of my contacts in the TCV. He told me to watch this video feed, apparently one of the police’s cameras. They have a pair of ghouls on the TPD’s SWAT. He said that it was important, but got cut off by their security sweep before he could tell me why. What we do know is that the house is not a leech’s and it is not a hunter’s. We’ve been trying to see if another lycanthrope lives there, but since all the packs are mobile and busy fighting, we haven’t been able to get any answers.” As Deadeye finished, we turned our attention to the television. The TPD had surrounded the house according to procedure and seemed to be waiting. The leader of the SWAT team on the television motioned for his group to move in. Then the front of the house erupted in gunfire. The lead element of the SWAT was cut down mercilessly by a hail of automatic weapons fire. The survivors fell to the ground and began to return fire. They were quickly joined by the rest of SWAT. Their effort was in vain, as the officers were pinned down by the volumes of fire from inside the house. One by one, the police officers were killed by sniper fire from inside the house. The whole episode lasted less than three minutes. The quiet of the television matched the silence around the table.

“What the hell happened?” asked Ronin, with surprisingly clarity.

“I’d say that TPD just lost its SWAT team,” I answered dryly. The others shot me looks to inform me that my comments were not appreciated.

“That much, Marcus, is obvious,” the Guildmaster replied with a stern tone. “What is not obvious is why a member of the TCV thought this was important enough to alert James.”

“If it was one of the packs?” asked Kurt.

“And risk the involvement of the pathwalkers?” asked the Guildmaster, “No, I don’t think it was just some pack. Someone important was there, maybe from another county or the state. At any rate, it is something to investigate. Especially if the pathwalkers decide to intervene. The last thing this county needs is an invasion by the walking gods. Ronin, get a team together and find out what happened. If you can take action, do so, but make sure that I have some evidence. I want to be able to prove to the pathwalkers that we are taking action if one of their representatives appear. Matric will try to help the aristocracy somehow lessen this in the human media, or at least keep it off of us.” Ronin nodded, stood, and left to do his job. The Guildmaster faced the rest of us.”Kurt, where are those leech alchemists? The ones that got away from the Order.”

“The reports I have from my packs and the kin say that a ragged band of leeches holed in one of their holdings in Ybor. However, we have no assets in place in Ybor. The pack that was holding Ybor is busy fighting the leeches in the area. There have been a couple of firefights, but it has been mostly brawling up and down the streets. I can get a team there in about three hours, but it leaves some of our other targets exposed.”

“No,” answered the Guildmaster, “We can’t remove any of the hit packs from their targets. The lord needs those areas neutralized. Ranger, feeling up to a job?” There was little questioning in his tone. I was his personal hitter, and it was why I got all the fun jobs. There was only one acceptable answer.

“Yeah, why not? It’s not like I’m doing anything else at the moment,” I answered, with my normal irreverent tone, “What do you want me to do?”

“Eliminate the alchemists,” the Guildmaster answered, his voice full of lethal solemnity. I recognized that tone. This was something he wanted done badly, and done correctly, “I do not want leech mystics showing up anywhere they might endanger other hunters. Get all the hard intelligence from Kurt and take them down. Try to stay alive also.” The Guildmaster then dismissed Kurt and myself. We walked over to where the hunters who ran intelligence were busy trying to get all pertinent data to the lone wolves and hit packs. One of them was a hunter I had met a couple of times called Baser. The name was an off-hand reference to a remark that the previous Guildmaster had made that Baser’s mind was like a giant database that ran at light speed. He was able to retain gigantic amounts of data and collate them into a useful form. He complained that he never got to do jobs anymore, but none of the hunters were willing to risk his mind in a petty job. He was needed at the intelligence station.

Baser told us that a kin in the Tampa Police saw what he thought were the alchemists enter one of the many clubs in the party district of Tampa. However, the kin could not make certain, because he was forced to break up a bar brawl in another club. Baser was about to send a pack warrior to go check it out. I decided against it, because the alchemists, if they were there, would see the warrior before he or she could report anything useful. Even the city wolves tended to be a bit sloppier than I was comfortable with, especially when it was my pelt on the line. I hated missions on the fly, but if the alchemists were holed up in that club, they more than likely prepared to repel attackers. Although we had a pack inside the old cigar section of Tampa, the leeches had controlled most of Ybor for years and had built defenses into many of the clubs that had been constructed since the cigar industry almost died out.

I decided that I would do my recon alone, and then try to figure out how to take them all out. Since I was going to have to be insignificant, heavy weapons wouldn’t be available. Fortunately, Sneller helped me camouflage myself in the casual clothes favored by many of the upscale party people. Slacks and a shirt that almost felt like a blouse, both in bright colors, were covered by a light jacket that coordinated with them. At least, that’s what Sneller said, but I wasn’t sure if I believed him. However, the jacket was roomy enough for me to holster a B+T MP 9. The MP 9 was an updated version of Steyr’s TMP sub-machine gun. The TMP was slightly larger than a normal pistol and was scarily easy to control in full-automatic. The Swiss company B+T picked up production after Steyr discontinued the line and improved on the weapon by thoughtfully adding a small folding stock, a Picatinny rail along the top, and an improved foregrip that could accommodate an entry light. Normally, when it came to using sub-machine guns, I would take an HK MP5. This job was one of the times when even the smallest MP5 was still too big. With a conformal fifteen-round magazine, the MP 9 was just slightly larger than my USP. The MP 9 was in a shoulder holster with four thirty-round magazines. In the small of my back was my USP with three spare magazines for the pistol. Concealed on my right hip, I was wearing an ASP telescoping baton. Rather than a huge nightstick, ASP developed a steel rod that extended as it was swung. The one I had went from a nine inch baton into a twenty-seven inch steel rod. I was carrying it in case I found trouble that I didn’t want to waste a bullet on. Wielding it correctly, the ASP could crush a skull. In true form, I could decapitate someone with it. A pair of small silver knives and a Leatherman multi-tool completed my arsenal.

Sneller dropped me off in Ybor, three blocks away from the club that the alchemists were supposedly holed up in. The streets were full of humans celebrating the weekend. Most of them were annoyingly intoxicated, but I managed to avoid any incidents with them. I found a police officer, and he directed me to the kin that had done the initial report. He was stationed across the street from the club. When I walked up to him, he was dealing with a pair of juvenile humans that were stoned out of their minds. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked, angrily.

“The Guildmaster sent me,” I answered calmly, “Can you talk?” He gave me the once over and then hand-cuffed the two kids to a light pole.

“You two stay here for a minute,” he said to them. Turning to me, he said, “We better make this quick before someone notices. Okay, I saw a group of about six vampires walk into the club over there. I noticed them because they were stumbling, and they were bleeding from about a dozen wounds on each of them. Black blood. They had a couple of others with them, but I don’t know if they are ghouls or maybe some of the Goth kids that have been running around here. My family’s pack told me that they noticed the local leeches using the Goths for errand boys and girls.” I kept the surprise off my face. Tampa was known for its goth community, but both the leeches and the lycanthropes avoided the misguided children. That was, until now. If they were using the kids, it meant that the warriors and hunters had knocked off a lot more of the leeches’ normal support structure than we had thought. This job had just paid its first dividend of good intelligence.

“Thanks,” I said, “I’d suggest that you move away. This is probably going to get violent.” The kin nodded and quickly collected his juvenile offenders. As the kin retreated from the area, I sent a quick text message to the Guild about the leeches using Goths, and then looked at the target club. The club was a two-story building with a large balcony filled with human party-goers. They were shouting down to the people on the street. I ignored them and walked up onto the porch. I avoided the drunks lurching on the porch and got into the line that was leading into the club. I could hear and feel the rhythmic beat pulses from the music inside. I kept my face neutral until I reached the door. Two bouncers in “Security” shirts were standing in front of the doors, checking the ID’s of the people trying to get in. As my turn came, I handed them the money for the cover charge pulled out my wallet to show them my driver’s license. The first one, a dark-skinned bruiser, checked it, and then brought a clipboard out from behind him. The other one, a slightly smaller Caucasian, looked down at me suspiciously. The first one pulled the other over and they looked down at the clipboard in almost shock. I saw recognition in their eyes. Damn, the list was of known lycanthropes, and probably included my name from whatever Bradon had on me. With his death, all of his secret files would be at the hands whoever was running the remains of the Bleeders. That could mean very bad things for me. My mind began calculating what I would have to do to remove these two and enter the club. I really didn’t want to resort to violence that early in the job. It would force the intervention of human authorities, which would make things extremely problematic. The door bouncers seemed shocked to find my name on their list, and I wondered what was actually on the list. Still, they hadn’t barred me or called for help, so I decided to force the issue.

“Guys,” I said with a deadly calm, “Is there a problem?” I flashed them predatory looks, and my hand dropped down to the ASP baton concealed at my hip, just in case. The first one came to his senses, shook his head, and then let me in. The music blasted me into almost deafness, and the odd lighting made my recon more frustrating. Clubs were not an environment I spent a lot of time in, and I was paying for my failure. It was hard to acclimate to the darkness punctuated with strobing lights and blaring, thumping music. I managed to find a small alcove where I could survey most of the dance floor and the bar. I looked around the crowded floor of the club, but I didn’t see any supernatural faces. They were probably in a back room or office. I walked over to the bar and ordered a Jack and Coke. I needed to blend as I tried to find any sign of the alchemists.

As I sipped on the drink, I noticed a pair of young women watching me with an odd intensity. I wouldn’t have noticed them, but they stood out from the rest of the humans in the club. They were wearing tight leather with dyed black hair. Thick black eyeliner and matching lipstick graced abnormally pale faces. They were Goths, and probably leech helpers. From the way the two girls were watching me, they had been sent down to observe me. The door guards must have finally called the alchemists for instructions. Normally, using normal humans as spotters would be considered a smart move. Lycanthropes, even hunters tend to think of humans in terms of a herd. When was the last time you noticed a specific cow in the midst of a herd. These two, however, were being sloppy. They were staring too intently and not moving around enough. They were also the quickest way to get information on the alchemists. I quickly downed my drink, left a tip for the bartender, and walked right towards them.

There were very good reasons that the lycanthropes and the vampires didn’t use normal humans in our affairs, and these girls were demonstrating exactly why. They stood there like a deer caught in the headlights as I stormed towards them. When I was less than a yard from them, one of the two managed to gain back some courage and bolted through the crowd. The other looked around in terrified confusion and, then tried to run. However, I had gotten close enough to grab her. I jerked her close to me, almost yanking her off her feet.

“Don’t try anything,” I whispered into her ear as she struggled against my grip, “I will kill you and anyone else that tries to help you if you don’t do exactly what I tell you.” She looked up at my face and there was that unique terror in her eyes. She knew I wasn’t boasting or making idle threats. I half-pushed, half-pulled her through the throng of bar patrons and dancers. She whimpered for a little bit, but stopped when she realized it wasn’t having any effect on me. I pushed her up against a wall, and looked her in the eyes with as much malice as I could.

“I want to know where your new masters are hiding. Where are the alchemists?” I asked with a cold malice. She stood there trembling, and I could almost her hear her asking herself how she got herself into this mess. I repeated the question, slightly shaking her for effect.

“They’re in the back of the club. They know that you’re here. Now, let me go please.” The last part came out a whining plea. It wasn’t surprising; humans romanticized both lycanthropes and leeches so much that our true brutal natures often shocked them beyond comprehension. I would have bet that this girl never contemplated that her death would come from an angry lycanthrope instead of a vampire’s “loving” bite.

“Where exactly?” I asked.

“In one of the back rooms behind the bar, upstairs, I swear.” She then looked behind me and her face changed from terror into hope. Someone was behind me, probably a bouncer. This was trouble I didn’t need, but I was going to make the best of it.

“Buddy, how about letting the girl go?” came a voice from behind in a tone that made it a command, “She’s a friend of mine, and I don’t know you.” I let the girl out of my grasp. The girl wasted no time and bolted through the club. I watched her as she ran into a “Private” door that was next to the bar. The bouncer was waiting for me to return my attention back to him. “Buddy, I think you had better get out of here.”

“I would, but I have got something to do first. Would you excuse me?” I began to walk off, but he grabbed me by the arm. I turned to look at him with a look of annoyance.

“I don’t think you understood me,” he answered, “I meant for you to leave, now.” He tugged at my jacket to emphasize his point.

“Remove your hand,” I said, a dangerous edge leaking into my voice. His grip just tightened. This was going to get ugly. My free hand shot down and whipped out the baton. Rather than extending it, I used it as a kubaton, keeping the baton inside my fist and then striking his nose with it. Blood spurted from his nose and he staggered back. Another two of the bouncers saw what had happened and began striding through the crowd towards me. I stood still as they approached. When the first got close enough, the baton whipped up, extending in flight, and caught him in the stomach. Not waiting for him to fall, I cracked him on the head as he doubled over. The other bouncer backed off, but I closed the distance and cracked his kneecap with the ball tip of the baton. He fell to the floor, screaming in pain and grasping at his knee. The other bar patrons had noticed what was going on, and a circle had opened around me. I began walking towards the door that I had seen the Goth kid flee into. Two more bouncers appeared out of the bubble that was forming around me, but they moved back into the crowd when I turned to face them. Their self-preservation instincts were working overtime.

The door was locked, but a couple of quick raps with the baton remedied the situation. I looked over at the bartender, who was grasping a cut-off pool cue tipped with a metal ball. I smiled at him and dropped the baton. As it clattered to the floor, he slightly relaxed his stance. Then I pulled out the MP 9 from under my jacket. I didn’t even point it at him before he dropped the cue and fled. I just shook my head and kicked the door in – and was nearly sliced in half by a large metal blade. In front of me was a large ghoul holding some form of broadsword.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I told him as I side-stepped another lunge into the corridor. I shed into true form. The already small MP 9 shrunk in my hand, but it easily put a three-round burst into the ghoul’s chest. He staggered back, but then charged me, wildly slicing with the sword. I slid under the whistling blade and brought up the MP 9 in a single-hand grip. Another three round burst exploded the ghoul’s head. As the body fell back to the floor, I looked around me for the first time. I was in a short hallway that ended in a staircase. A wooden door was to my right, which would have led to right behind the bar. More than likely, it was an office or storage room. There were no other doors in the hallway.

I opened the door and found a revolver pointed at me. Behind the revolver was a human, quivering into catatonia. I reached over and plucked the gun from the human and emptied the rounds out of it. I put a single round from the TMP into the human’s head which stopped the quivering instantly. I wasn’t about to let a witch-hunter rise on top of all the trouble this job had had so far. I shut the door and walked down the hallway. The stairs went up about halfway to a small landing with the remaining stairs going directly above me. It was a common enough structure in a building, but it did make assaults a fucking pain. Conventional wisdom demanded a team of at least four to properly assault a staircase. I had me. I’d make do, like I always did. That was part of the fun of being the Guildmaster’s personal hitter. As I reached the staircase, I tried to look up beyond the landing. I couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t make me feel any better. The alchemists were smart enough to know that their swordsman wouldn’t stop me, so where was their sentry on the staircase? They couldn’t be foolish enough not to see that the staircase was a damned good ambush point. I leapt from the floor onto the landing between the floors, twisting in mid-air to land facing the second floor.

The bullets rained down onto me. A few connected, but all they managed to do was throw me to the floor. The impacts flashed pain, but the pain quickly faded. The rounds weren’t silver. That was one stupid motherfucker on the second floor. His burst did one thing – it let me know where the bastard was firing from. I made out his shape just beyond the top of the staircase. He had an assault rifle pointed skyward as he was desperately trying to change the magazine, and bumbling it because he was moving too fast with fearful energy. I brought the MP 9 up and placed a burst into the form’s center mass. Okay, bringing the sub-gun I could fire one-handed was a smart. Unlike the target on the receiving end of the three nine millimeter rounds. Lesson Five of Gun-fighting according to the Hunters Guild – never empty your entire magazine into one target. The form crumpled against the banister and dropped the assault rifle. I moved quickly. I got up and jumped the remainder steps, coming very close to hitting myself on the ceiling.

A somewhat large group of Goth kids were waiting for me. Some of them were armed with firearms, but mostly the group just looked scared. They hadn’t expected me to survive having thirty rounds being fired at me. There were too many to cut down with accurate bursts, so I decided to take full advantage of human herd mentality. I emptied the MP 9 into the group of Goth kids. As the weapon began to stutter, the group ran itself down trying to escape. Two tried to make a stand and fight with their pistols, but I dropped the empty sub-gun and moved in close to use my claws. The first was cut wide open by a claw swipe across his middle. I grabbed him by the neck and whirled his body in front of his friend, who had begun firing his pistol. Bullets tore through the body, a couple burying themselves into my body for a moment. The rounds were expelled as my body healed itself. As soon as the Goth kid ran out of ammunition, I reached around the bullet-ridden corpse and sliced out the kid’s throat. Hand to hand combat wasn’t always that effective, but the terror of the lycanthrope’s true form, and the carnage it could wreak, was very useful in encouraging large groups of the uninitiated to flee. .

As I stood in the middle of the carnage I had just created, I saw them. Six very battered vampires were standing in front of me. None of them were armed, but all had the familiar brands of alchemists on their foreheads. It was a symbol in an ancient tongue that supposedly bound them to their magics. Bradon had never been a big fan of them, mostly because leech alchemists never stood a chance against even a moderately powerful shaman. The shaman were more in touch with the spirits they commanded. They looked at me, most of them with fear in their eyes. I drew my USP.

“You have guys have caused me enough trouble,” I told them, raising the pistol at them, “I’m glad I don’t have to search all over for you.” They said nothing. The strongest one began to wave his hands in intricate motions. Suddenly, it seemed as if someone had put night-vision goggles over my eyes. I began to see what looked like green energy pulses surrounding the lead one’s hands. I could see it being fed by the rest of the leeches. I brought the pistol up to my stance and double-tapped the leader. The energy pulses moved to form a circle in front of him. I saw my bullets enter the circle of energy – and then stop in midair. It was like out of the movies that the humans made. As the circle moved back to the leader’s hands, the bullets dropped to the ground with an odd clinking sound. I was about to fire again, but the energy pulse suddenly shot out at me.

The beam of green energy struck me before I could even think of dodging out of the way, and I could feel intense pain as it enveloped my body. It was a stronger pain than any I had felt before. Suddenly, the pain was gone. It was as if someone had hit a switch. My gun fell from my hands and a strange calm came over me. I didn’t know what was happening, but I felt like something was surrounding me. It was warm and soothing, and I could almost a distinct kindness in the sensation, like someone was nurturing me. The next thing I knew, a giant blast of brilliant white energy, almost nine feet in diameter, ripped through the hallway. As the beam struck the vampires, the lead one disintegrated. The others were picked up and tossed through the walls as if the walls were made of paper. As the white light subsided, I fell to the ground, feeling exhausted.

“GET UP!” I heard clearly in my mind. “GET UP AND GET OUT!” It sounded like every instructor I had in training had amplified their voices, and my brain was the speaker. Staggering, I got to my feet and picked up my pistol. I rummaged through the bodies at my feet and found the MP 9. The voice guided me through the building and up onto the roof, yelling all the way. From the roof, I jumped across one of the streets to the roof of another club. I don’t know how I accomplished the jump. It was easily a fifty foot jump, not a small feat even for a lycanthrope in true form. Deciding I could figure it all later, I ran across the roof while reloading the MP 9.

I could have holed up somewhere in the area and waited for daylight, but Ybor was leech territory, and I had just taken out the leeches’ mystical cadre. I had a nasty feeling that I did not want to be caught south of I-4. I needed to get out of Ybor and out to Silver Springs. Silver Springs and its trademark white turret-topped water tower was a lycanthrope stronghold within Tampa city limits. Two packs roamed that neighborhood, although I didn’t know how they had fared since the war erupted. Still, the area should have been safe enough, and it was the closest to me. It was pondering on my escape routes that made me almost miss the fight.

I had almost made my way by rooftop to Centro Ybor, the giant entertainment complex that dominated the downtown district. The rooftops ended roughly two blocks from the complex. I would have to get down and walk through the busy complex, which was a good thing. I wanted to use the crowds for cover long enough to find a means of extraction. Getting down would be easy enough, because next to the roof I was looking out from was a city parking garage.

I jumped to the roof of the garage. As I landed, I noticed shapes moving between the cars. My first thought was I had run into some human thieves. That assumption was shattered as a young lycanthrope in human form darted out from between a pair of sedans. I got a quick glance of bleeding wounds and a long knife that had black blood on it. I had a pretty good idea of what was happening and what I needed to do. With my MP 9 firmly in hand, I ran to where the lycanthrope had dashed out. As I had expected, a pair of leeches were chasing him. Both were in human form, although one was noticeably bleeding through his dark shirt. The wounded one clutched a pistol, but the other one didn’t seem to be armed. I wished I hadn’t dropped my baton back at the club. I didn’t want to use the unsuppressed sub-machine gun here because it would guarantee human intervention. That was a complication I didn’t need. I resolved to make sure to always bring the suppressors for the guns I carried. I needed to be able to quickly deal with problems like this one without having to worry about the pesky human law enforcement agencies.

I placed the sub-gun on the concrete floor and drew my two knives. Both of them were four inch long tantos that I mainly kept on me for Murphy situations – gun jams, bad ammo, etc. They were to open up a space for me to either get my hands on working weapons or to get the hell out of wherever I was. They were not primary fighting weapons or even decent throwers. Still, they were decent knives, and I had the greatest advantage of all – surprise.

I waited silently as the two vampires approached. Their fashionable shoes made audible clicks on the concrete of the parking garage. The two leeches were moving too fast to be professionals or even experienced fighters. They knew they had their opponent on the run and were too busy chasing him to think that there might be more lycanthropes. Their mistake.

The uninjured one walked to where I was crouched. His dark eyes went wide as he saw me. His momentary hesitation was all the opening that I needed. Knife in each hand, I pounced on the hapless vamp. His tall form crashed to the floor under the momentum of my leaping attack. Slashes to the vamp’s neck and stomach released a torrent of black blood. I didn’t take the time to ensure he was down for good and leapt at the wounded vampire. This one had recovered from the shock of my appearance, but he had no idea how to counter the attack that was launched at him. The tackle easily put him on the floor, and I heard his pistol clatter out of his hand. A quick stab to his heart with the silver blade and his movements ceased in an instant. I looked back to his partner. The other vampire was thrashing about on the ground, feebly attempting to staunch the waves of black blood flowing out of his body. A savage kick to his head stunned him long enough for me to stab him through his heart.

With the immediate fight over, I looked around cautiously to see if these two had friends following them. The roof of parking garage was quiet with only the faint background sounds drifting up from the streets of Ybor. The bodies of the two vampires had already changed into their true forms with wide pools of black blood surrounding them. Normally I would have left the bodies for the leeches to clean up, but with what had just happened with the alchemists, I didn’t think that the leeches would be able to clean up this mess before the humans became involved. If they found dead vampires, there were a damned good chance that a few witch-hunters would be born. That was something I was not going to allow to happen.

“Come out warrior,” I called out. I needed help to quietly dispose of the bodies, and the wounded lycanthrope was the only one around. He peeked up cautiously from behind a pair of sports cars. He looked young, maybe late teens. I was willing to bet he was only a year or two out of tysach. His brown hair was cut fashionably short with large brown eyes. His face expressed both a hesistancy against revealing himself and a relief that I was another lycanthrope. He had a lean, wiry build and was dressed in loose-fitting black leather pants and a bright blue silk shirt. His shirt had several slashes that revealed bright red cuts along the lycanthrope’s torso. He still had the long knife in his hand, but he was holding it loosely and without any trace of technique.

“Come here wolf,” I repeated, keeping my voice warm and comforting, “Don’t worry. The leeches have been taken care of, but I need your help with the bodies.” He began to stagger over with pain. As I watched him, I saw that a couple of the wounds looked deep. The others were mainly quick slashes – a bit of pain and some blood, but not life-threatening. The leeches must have had a silver blade since none of the wounds had healed themselves. The two deep slashes, however, needed some attention.

I began to walk to him and pulled out a small plastic square out of my pocket. Inside the plastic was a cloth that was soaked in wolfsbane. For most of the wounds hunters receive and can’t heal on our own, those little squares are our emergency aid kit. I opened the square and immediately recoiled at the stench of the wolfsbane. It may have been our most effective medicine, but it hurt so badly to use it that I had an instinctive fear of that unique smell. Apparently so did the young lycanthrope because he had the same reaction as the smell wafted to where he was slowly staggering towards me. I gave him a knowing smile, which he returned weakly.

To his credit, the young lycanthrope never screamed or yelled when the wolfsbane-soaked cloth touched his bloody wound. His eyes went wide with pain and he bared his teeth in a twisted, clenched smile, but low grunts of pain were all he uttered as I worked hard to remove the silver’s taint. That was one of the nasty problems with wolfsbane, it had to be rubbed into the sides of the wound. It was a painful, nasty, and generally unpleasant treatment, but when properly done, it allowed our bodies natural healing to kick in. I finished as fast as I could and watched with satisfaction as the slashes began sealing themselves. This kid wouldn’t even have any scars from them. Maybe from his other cuts, but not those two.

“What’s your name?” I asked as he rested for a moment. His adrenaline had just left him and he had gone from nervous to exhausted in the space of seconds. I, on the other hand, was still being buoyed by whatever energy I had channeled fighting with the alchemists. I wondered if it was similar to the feeling humans got from taking crystal meth.

“Will, Will Leafdancer,” he said with an obvious effort, “I belong to the Livingston pack.” I looked at him with a critical eye. The Livingston pack roamed between the University of South Florida and New Tampa at the northeastern part of the county. There was no good reason Will to be in the city at all, much less deep in the heart of Tampa.

“Well, you’re one lucky wolf. I’m a hunter who just happened onto the scene. You can call me Ranger,” I told him, “We’re going to have to dispose of the bodies before the humans stumble on us.” Thankfully, Will had his car in this parking garage and it had a big enough trunk to stow the corpses. His pack leader would know where to burn them. Will and I climbed into the car and began driving out towards I-4 and out of Ybor. Once we crossed back into lycanthrope-held territory, all of my energy dissipated. Will panicked a bit when I just slumped over. I heard him trying to rouse me, but I just couldn’t make my body move at all. It was like I was trapped in a full body cast – fully alert, but unable to move. Will floored the gas and sped the remaining distance to his pack’s meeting place, an apartment just north of the university. Will’s pack had a momentary shock over what had happened, but they quickly recovered.

They loaded my limp body into another car and I was driven back to a Guild drop. Most of the lycanthropes don’t know exactly where the Guild is located, so the hunters have a number of drops, where the packs can leave a package or documentation that the Guild might find useful. It was also used as a place for the packs to bring wounded hunters. The drop they brought me to was the armory. By the time the car arrived at the armory, I had recovered from the temporary paralysis enough that I was able to stand and walk on my own. The two pack members that had driven me wanted to stay until one of the Guild arrived to collect me, but I told them that it wasn’t necessary. They didn’t seem convinced, but they got back into their car. As they left me there, I was met by a young hunter. I couldn’t remember who he was, but I did know he was one of the hunters that had just joined our Guild Chapter. He reacted quickly to my condition, and called the Guild for an immediate pick-up. I walked into the back and found a place to lie down. I don’t remember actually lying down.

I was awakened by Nick. The sharp punch to my side startled me awake. It took a moment for me to recognize the smiling face. “So, this is where you hid yourself. What the fuck did you do last night?”

“Why?” I asked, still a little groggy. I stood up and Nick carefully led me outside. The sun was incredibly bright as I climbed into the sedan that Nick had gotten to take me back to the Guild.

“According to the reports, that club you raided looked like a bazooka hit it. The top floor was almost carved out. Eyewitnesses say that they saw a bright white light, then the top floor exploded. The building was standing, but its insides were torn apart. Now I find you looking like you got hit by a Mack truck. What the bloody hell happened?” I looked at him.

“I don’t know, Nick. I really don’t know.” I just really wanted to know.

I rested for a day, using the time to help out in the armory in the Guild. I was busy repairing one of the Barrett “Lite 50s” when Deadeye appeared. Unlike the majority of hunters, he was dressed in a business suit instead of a jumpsuit or “working clothes,” such as jeans and t-shirts.

“Subbing for Matric?” I asked slightly joking. Deadeye gave me a disapproving look. He wasn’t happy with what he was doing, which meant that he wasn’t doing jobs or planning jobs. It was one of the reasons that I didn’t really want his or the Guildmaster’s position. I didn’t want to have to deal with the administrative bullshit.

“Fortunately no,” Deadeye answered, “The Guildmaster is sending me to meet with representatives from the surrounding counties.”

“Odd,” I commented, “Nothing from the state?” Deadeye shook his head. For the prince to do nothing was surprising. The harshest criticism of his reign had been when he sealed the borders of the disputed territories instead of forming a war party and taking Dade and Broward counties back. Allowing Hillsborough to go to war without any action would bring on even more outrage from the county aristocracies. It could even force the forming of a war council that would be able to force the prince out and offer a new prince nomination for the King of the United States to confirm. Since the prince had no offspring to be his heir-apparent, the forming of the war council would be the end of his line ruling the state. From everything I had seen of the aristocracy, this was one of their cardinal sins, like a hunter being unarmed.

“Beyond making earth-shattering revelations,” I said, keeping my voice neutral, “What do you need?”

“The Guildmaster said that he wanted you to mentor Hangman,” Deadeye stated. I nodded in response. “I’ve had him doing some simple jobs providing back up to some of the more experienced packs. I’ve got a job that would be good for him, but I think he needs some supervision.”

“All right,” I told Deadeye, “Hangman have the job already?” Deadeye nodded. “I’ll finish up here and go see the pup.” The Barrett wasn’t a particularly difficult rifle to work on, but it took some time to finish up. It was time enough for me to ponder a couple of things. From what Deadeye told me, Hangman just needed a more experienced hunter to make sure he didn’t make any stupid mistakes. A few months ago, we would have let him make some mistakes, just so that he could learn from them. Now, the chance was too great a mistake would cost his life and others’ lives. So, the rookie hunters would have closer supervision than normal. That said, I had every intention of being as hands-off as possible. The Guildmaster saw something in the pup he wanted to foster, so my job was to guide Hangman and maybe show him some dirty tricks to make his life easier.

I left the armory and walked to Hangman’s quarters. A gruff voice beckoned me in when I knocked on his door. Hangman was sitting at his desk staring intently at an intelligence report on his computer. Gear, weapons, and maps were strewn on every flat surface of his room. His desk had a manila folder open with a small group of papers and pictures. It looked like the job folder.

“Are we planning on invading the TCV Hall?” I asked lightly as I walked into Hangman’s room. I pushed some of his stuff out of the way so that I could sit down.

“Ranger, I’d love to chat, but Deadeye gave me this job and I need to get it done,” Hangman said with barely contained impatience. His body was vibrating with barely contained energy – all of which I was willing to bet was nervous energy.

“Yeah, I know. Deadeye asked me to keep an eye on you,” I replied calmly.

“What?” Hangman asked, startled, “Does he think I need a babysitter?” Hangman was agitated and a little ashamed that Deadeye didn’t fully trust him on a fully solo operation. Too bad.

“You do,” I answered back firmly, “Look at the mess you have here. You are trying too hard and its wound you all up. Now, this is your job, and it’s going to be your responsibility. I’m just here to help you out a bit and to make sure you don’t make a fatal mistake.” He gave me a suspicious look, which I understood completely. I had a similar experience when I had first joined the Guild. The difference was my mentor could allow me to make the stupid mistakes.

“Calm down,” I told him, “Tell me the job and what you think.” He took a deep breath and picked up the job folder.

“Okay, a pack leader named Ringston asked for our assistance in shutting down an infiltration route out of the city and into Carrollwood,” Hangman read, “Apparently there were some problems before and he’s worried that the leeches have some sort of backdoor directly into his territory.”

“Okay, tell me what you think,” I said calmly.

“I think Ringston is being paranoid,” Hangman answered, “It’s not like there’s a set number of ways out of Tampa and into Carrollwood. Especially for a race that can fly. If he’s having trouble, then it more has to do with some sort of weakness in the area.”

“Ringston isn’t paranoid,” I replied, “It was one of his pups that the Bleeders attacked. Plus, he noticed that there were more leeches active in his territory than there should have been before Lord Vollen struck down the Peace.”

“How do you know all of that?” Hangman countered, “The intel reports flatly contradict that conclusion.” Okay, the pup had the smarts to get the relevant intel from the Guild archives. The problem with Guild intel was that it relied far too much on what came out of the transcripts of hunter reports to Sneller, Deadeye, or – in my case – the Guildmaster. That left some gaps, mostly because the Guild expects hunters to talk to each other. Lycanthropes have an orally based tradition of teaching, which spills out to the Guild. Hunters learn to trust what one of their own tells them over a written report.

“Nick and I were the ones that did that job,” I answered, “I’ve met Ringston. I think you’re right about the infiltration route, but if there’s an influx of leeches, it’s not because of a weakness.” I waited for Hangman to come up with the proper conclusion.

“There’s a coven hidden in Carrollwood,” he said, “The leeches have been waiting to seize Carrollwood, and they already laid down the groundwork.”

“More than likely,” I replied, feeling pleased. The Guildmaster was right. Hangman had some pretty shrewd instincts. He had discerned not only the probable cause of the leeches, but their ultimate goal. Carrollwood wasn’t one of the spectacularly wealthy neighborhoods, but it was definitely well-off, and well-established. Control of the area would give the leeches access to many areas in the county that the lycanthropes held.

“Okay, so where the hell is the coven?” Hangman asked, bringing up a satellite map of the Carrollwood area. Damn the humans made such wonderful tools.

“That’s going to be the fun part,” I told him, “You’re going to need a list of known leech holdings and then go meet with Ringston and get the on-site data. This part is purely investigative and analysis.”

“Guild intel?” Hangman asked, hopefully.

“Maybe,” I answered, “But I think the pack will have better data for you. Grab your gear and we’ll head down there.”

Every pack had a war site. The tradition was as old as our war with the vampire. A war site was a place for a pack’s warriors to plan and conduct operations. It protected our kin by keeping them out of the crossfire and allowed a pack leader better communications with his warriors. It also allowed the lord to talk with his pack leaders without bringing them to the Manor or the cravex. Ringston had set up his war site in one of the few remaining orange groves in northwestern Hillsborough County.

As Hangman and I pulled into the orange grove, we were confronted by a pair of lycanthropes wielding shotguns. Of all firearms, shotguns were the most common amongst the warriors. Shotguns didn’t require the precise skill of a pistol or a rifle and it was a hell of a lot easier to make silver ammunition for shotguns. The two lycanthropes were holding them in tactical ready positions, butt of the weapon to the shoulder and muzzle pointed down. Ringston had gotten some training for his lycanthropes. Not hunter, but definitely some sort of combat training.

“Who are you two?” the shorter one asked, trying to be menacing. His partner looked at me for a moment longer, and then stood up ramrod straight.

“Show some respect Joe,” the taller one said to his partner, “Sorry Ranger, I didn’t recognize you at first.” The shorter one, Joe, also stood up.

“Hangman, here, has been given the job for your pack,” I said, “Would you mind taking him over to Ringston?” The two gave Hangman a look over.

“How come you’re not taking it?” Joe asked.

“Guildmaster assigns the jobs. Best hunter for the job,” I said, “I’m here because I have history with this pack.” It wasn’t the full truth, but the pack didn’t need to know that. The pack needed to have confidence in the Guild and our operations.

“Okay, come with us,” the unnamed taller one. Hangman and I followed the two into the war site. The pack warriors were grouped around three long tables placed in the middle of the trailers. A map of the county was hung on the outside of one of the trailers, with the pack’s territory outlined in red grease pencil. I just shook my head. The pack had seen too many war movies. A couple of decent laptops with commercially provided satellite photos would have been better and more accurate. The tables were laid out with shotguns, rifles, and ammunition.

Ringston came out of one of the trailers. He was wearing jeans, a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with a tactical vest over it. A pistol was holstered at his side. He was smiling as he approached Hangman and me.

“Ranger, it’s good to see you,” Ringston said, stepping over to clasp my shoulder, “I see you’ve brought your protégé. Good, I think you’ll need him for this job.” Hangman looked a little perturbed, and I couldn’t really blame him. Establishing yourself as a hunter can be difficult, especially when your mentor is high-profile.

“I’m not your hunter,” I told Ringston.

“His assignment?” Ringston asked. When I nodded, Ringson turned to Hangman without missing a beat. “Have you reviewed the information we sent the Guild?”

“Yes, I did,” Hangman said, with a bit more confidence, “I understand your concerns, sir, but I don’t think you’re dealing with an infiltration route.”

“Oh?” Ringston asked, his voice suspicious, “We’ve seen an increase in vampire attacks, even before Lord Vollen declared war. Our pack has more killed than any other, two more since the war started. Don’t tell me that the TCV isn’t targeting my territory.” Ringston was visibly angry. “I had to hire human combat specialists just to give my warriors a chance.” He gave Hangman a very frustrated look. Ringston was probably right to be frustrated, but it wasn’t helping things right now.

“If you’re done with your tirade, sir,” Hangman replied with an even and neutral tone, “I am fully aware of what has happened to your pack. I think that the TCV put a coven in your territory.” Ringston stopped in shock. Apparently the possibility hadn’t occurred to him, but the truth of it suddenly dawned on him. “I’ll need to go over some things with you and your warriors so that we can start winnowing down the possible locations.”

“Of course,” Ringston answered, quickly regaining his composure, “We’ll give you whatever assistance you need.”

The leech was stumbling and panicked. Hangman was getting impatient, but he was keeping it in control. The plan had been simple, and I had only needed to prod Hangman a couple of times to avoid foolish mistakes. We knew that the majority of attacks had been centered around the Four Oaks area of Carrollwood. Bordered by South Village Drive to the north and Gunn Highway, the area was a microcosm of Hillsborough as the older mobile homes were overshadowed by the more expensive housing developments and growing commercial developments to cater to the newer, more affluent residents. Ringston had put out a couple of bait warriors near the park under the watchful eyes of other warriors in the pack as well as Hangman and me. As we expected, a group of four vampires attacked the seemingly alone lycanthropes. The leeches weren’t Bleeders, but they obviously felt four to two were good odds. That was, until the rest of us appeared out of the shadows. Then the guns came out. Four pistols to a bunch of shotguns and a couple of sub-machine guns wouldn’t normally be much of a firefight, but we were just trying to wound them, which was a far trickier proposition. The first three were torn apart from just the volume of silver buckshot being fired by the pack. The fourth, fortunately, only took a few hits and tried to slip away. The pack warriors wanted to pursue and kill the leech, but Hangman sent them back to their war site. The hunters would track the leech back to the coven. At this point, the warriors would just get in the way.

The leech had staggered along the street talking on a cell phone, bleeding from a half-dozen grazing hits from the shotguns. Hangman and I patiently stalked him as he made his way to Gunn Highway. At the intersection, the leech climbed into the rear of a waiting van. I smiled because I had been right about the direction the leech would flee, and I had parked my motorcycle in the parking lot of a small shopping complex not more than fifty feet from where we were standing. Both of us sprinted towards the motorcycle as we watched the van head east towards Dale Mabry.

The two of us followed the van for a quarter-mile as it turned into Plantation. Plantation was a housing development between Gunn Highway and Linebaugh Avenue that had a mix of subdivisions that cater every tier of the middle class. The main street of Plantation was a giant loop that had subdivisions branching off it. We followed the van almost around to the Linebaugh exit when it turned right into one of the subdivisions. I pulled into the subdivision as Hangman gripped his MP5 in case we were riding into an ambush. I stopped at the entrance of the subdivision as the two of us watched the van pull into a driveway. The house was a small two-story about five houses down from the entrance. Hangman and I crouched behind my motorcycle. We watched as two leeches helped their injured friend out of the van and into the house.

“Well, that’s probably the coven,” I stated, “What’s your idea for taking it down?” Hangman continued to look at the house for a few moments.

“We need more information,” Hangman said as he crouched back down behind the motorcycle, “We have no idea how many leeches are in the house, how they’re armed, or if they have ghouls. Better to wait for daylight.” It was a solid idea. Ghouls would be awake and fighting, but ghouls weren’t nearly the problem that leeches were. There was one other thing that Hangman needed to address. I watched him for a moment as he continued to watch the house. Ancestors, he was trying to do it himself.

“Hangman, why are we still here?” I asked patiently. The pup had good instincts, but there were still a few things that he needed to learn.

“We’re waiting for daylight,” he answered, looking at me in surprise.

“Two people with automatic weapons crouching next to a motorcycle?” I asked in reply. My tone wasn’t harsh, but I wanted him to see the folly of his ways.

“We need to go back and get my car,” he said, shaking his head at his own mistake. This was one of the simple mistakes that could get a hunter into a lot of trouble. “How do we get back to my car and still keep the house under observation?”

“What resources do we have?” I asked, hoping he got to the answer quickly. We had already loitered at the front of the subdivision longer than we should have. Pretty soon we would be attracting the wrong attention, either from the leeches in the coven or from nosy neighbors in the subdivision.

“Let me call Ringston and see if he can get a couple of his warriors up here to keep an eye on the house,” Hangman said, pulling out his phone. I pulled the motorcycle back out onto the main loop. While Hangman talked to Ringston, I was watching for either some sign the leeches in the coven knew we were there, or for the yellow lights of the private security firm that patrolled Plantation. The last thing we needed was for the fucking humans to screw things up. Hangman ended his conversation and looked over to me. “We’ll have two kin here in ten minutes to watch the house.”

We had instructed the kin to keep a low profile and just to watch the house that held the coven. Hangman was right in that we didn’t have enough hard intelligence to attack the house at night. A daytime raid, on the other hand, was both easier and more difficult. It was easier because we wouldn’t have to worry about the vampires in the house, only whatever ghouls they had guarding them while they slumbered. The difficulty arose in keeping the raid quiet enough from the humans and dealing with the zealous ghouls. The bastards just didn’t quit until they were dead, and they could take a lot of damage before they went down. The vampire blood they ingested gave them the same kind of immunity to pain that humans received from drugs like PCP. One of the ghouls duties was to be bullet catchers, and they were damned good at their job.

“So what do you think?” I asked after Hangman got the last report from the kin. It was dawn, and we were west of Plantation in the parking lot of one of the many shopping complexes that were scattered among the area. We were actually waiting for the Publix to open so we could go get some decent breakfast stuff from the supermarket’s fantastic bakery. If you lived in Florida, you shopped at Publix whenever possible.

“I’ve been text messaging with a couple of the warriors,” he said, looking intently at his phone. I had noticed that he had been typing away at the keypad through most of our mission prep time. “They’ve put me in contact with other kin that live in Plantation. According to the kin, the subdivision should be mostly clear by nine or so.” That made a certain amount of sense. The majority of families in the area were two-income families. With the parents at work and the children off in daycare, most of the homes should be unoccupied for the majority of the day.

“So, what do you think would be the best plan of attack?” I asked. I wanted to see what was going through Hangman’s mind. So far he had been doing pretty damn well. I could see why the Guildmaster thought this pup had potential. Now I had to see if he could get down and dirty.

“Infiltrate the house,” Hangman mused, “Kill everything and get out. The pack can clean up.” In terms of a basic plan, it wasn’t bad. In terms of what needed to be done, it was lacking. Most of that was simply Hangman’s lack of real-world experience. He must have picked up my disagreement. “What’s the problem?”

“How did they get that coven in here?” I asked, “More to the point, how do we make sure that they don’t try to establish another coven out here?” Hangman began mulling over what I had said. I had to remind myself to be patient. We had time before it would be “safe” to launch an assault against the house, and I needed to see exactly how nasty Hangman thought.

“Well, to your first question, we’ll need to toss the coven for intel,” he said, obviously unhappy with the prospect. I think he had been expecting a quick in-and-out assault. Very few raids are like that, because if we have to hit a place, then there’s probably a lot of hard data there that our intel people are going to want. “As to your second question, I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be anything that would deter the vampires from coming right back. They already perceive Ringston’s pack as weak.”

“Granted, and that’s the key,” I replied, “With leeches, everything is about perception. To make sure that the bastards don’t come out this way again, we need to make Ringston and his pack look strong and ruthless.” Hangman digested that bit of information. One of the problems with the newer hunters were that they were perhaps more technically proficient, but they weren’t taught a lot of leech psychology. Good hunters understood how vampires thought and acted. It was one of the reasons the Guild promoted the use of leech contacts. I had learned a lot from Bradon about the internal politics of the TCV, as well as the how and why of vampire politics as a whole. One of the things I needed to teach Hangman was how to use that basic understanding of vampire politics and perceptions against our enemies.

“So, how do we make the leeches think this place impenetrable?” he asked.

“Not so much impenetrable as extremely dangerous to operate,” I corrected, “And for that, we are going to sow the fields with salt.”

Ringston’s warriors had slowly infiltrated the subdivision. Their main task was to keep the humans out of the firefight. We would also need them to cart away anything that Hangman and I found in the house. As we approached the house, I was glad that Deadeye had asked me to come along on this job. Nothing against Hangman – the pup had operational instincts that bordered on the frightening – but he would have had to go against the coven alone or with the warriors supporting him. I had a bad feeling that either way would have ended with Hangman dead. I liked the pup too much to let that happen if I could reasonably prevent it.

Both of us were wearing jeans, t-shirts, and leather jackets. It was normal clothes in this area for late October when Florida started to go into its dry season. Kevlar vests were under our shirts and MP5’s were under our jackets. I looked at the pictures of the target on my phone’s display. There hadn’t been any movement in the target that was readily seen. I resisted thinking that everything was going well. I knew Murphy and his fucking law too damn well.

We parked the car in front of the house on the opposite side of the street. I could see several of the warriors trying to be inconspicuous. Hangman and I put on our headsets and clipped our phones to our belts. We exited the car and approached the house. It was a two-story house, but on the small side. There was a large picture window looking down at us, but we couldn’t see anyone peeping out of it. Our entry point would be to go through the gate of the surrounding fence and go through the sliding glass door in the back of the house. For entrance, Hangman and I both had ASP telescoping batons.

The gate was secure, but not against a concerted, violent opening. The two of us walked into the back yard. It was a well manicured yard with a large square of loose gravel in the center. It looked like a fighting ring of some type, which wouldn’t surprise me. The Bleeders were big into hand to hand combat, and we knew that the Bleeders had used this coven before. Standing outside the sliding glass door on a small concrete patio was a ghoul. He was smoking a cigarette with his hand on a holstered pistol. His eyes went wide as he saw the two of us come around the corner, but he didn’t react nearly fast enough. Hangman charged the ghoul with his baton out and extended. The short distance between the two evaporated, and Hangman delivered a vicious blow to the ghoul’s head. Even without the added strength of true form, the blow was enough to destroy the ghoul’s jaw and send him down to the concrete. Hangman didn’t waste time and quickly drew his MP5, letting the baton clatter to the ground. As he covered the sliding glass door, I came up behind him and finished the ghoul with a knife.

There wasn’t anyone beyond the glass door. Directly across from where we were standing, we could see a short foyer that led to the front door of the house. To our left was a grouping of bargain leather sofas around what was probably an entertainment center, which was against the left wall. The right side of the room was a dining room set and I could make out the raised bar that divided the great room from the kitchen. In the right corner from where we could see was the staircase that led up to the second floor. No one responded to the death of the sentry, so I wasn’t sure if the others in the house were unaware or laying in ambush. Hangman must have been thinking the same thing because he began hand-signing.

Use furniture for cover, he signed to me, keeping his weapon trained at the staircase and kitchen area. I nodded in response and drew my own MP5. Under Hangman’s watchful eye, I slid open the glass door. As I suspected, it wasn’t locked. What sentry is going to lock himself out of his own house? Keeping the MP5 aimed at the right side of the house, I took up a cover position behind one of the couches. Behind me was an entertainment center with some very expensive electronic toys. The vampires had been in this house for a while, and they expected to use this as a hub for operations in this part of the county. Even the vampires didn’t put in over ten thousand dollars of electronics unless they expected to get their money’s use out of them, and that meant that they expected to use this coven for a while.

The kitchen was a small affair and had two doors. The one off to my right led into the garage, while the one directly in front of me opened up into a side patio. I didn’t see a sentry on that patio, but I kept an eye out anyway. The staircase led up to a second floor hallway, but I couldn’t see anything up that way. I waited for a moment, listening for any sound that would betray an ambush. Hearing nothing, I motioned for Hangman to enter the house.

Hangman entered the house, keeping his weapon trained on the second floor. He placed his back up against the wall at the foot of the staircase, giving him a nice field of fire if anything appeared out of the hallway. I moved up behind him, clapping him gently on the shoulder just before I crouched down and to keep the kitchen in view. My instincts were telling me something was wrong. A coven this deep in our territory should have had more ghouls guarding it. Bleeders had staged out of this house, and Bradon would have demanded the extra security to protect his shooters while they slept.

“Clear the first floor,” Hangman whispered to me, “Take the point to the kitchen. I’ll cover you.” I nodded silently. This was his job, and Hangman had tactical control of it. Truth to be, I would have sent him to the kitchen, but only because I know my shooting skills, and I am pretty sure that I would be faster and more accurate than Hangman, which was a must in the covering position.

As I slid out from behind Hangman, a ghoul came into view from the kitchen patio. He was armed and aware that there was something deadly in the house. He hadn’t had any training, because he didn’t use any of the cover available to him, or he was just panicking at the sight of his dead comrade. Either way, I placed a suppressed burst into him before he could bring his pistol up. The sound of the shattering glass masked the small report of the MP5 and the tinkling of the brass against the wall. The bad part was that any of the ghouls still in the house would have heard the glass, but they would have no idea exactly what they were facing.

Since our sneaky covert action had been blown, Hangman and I both rushed into the kitchen. I took a quick peek outside and saw no other ghouls. Hangman then opened the garage as I covered him. The garage was clear of ghouls. That just left the second floor. Upstairs would be tight and very bad cover. Ancestors, this was going to be fun. Why the hell did I leave my flash-bangs at home?

“Well, do you want to go first?” I asked Hangman as the two of us looked up the staircase.

“Yeah, but I’m thinking you might be better for it, Ranger,” Hangman responded. “Let’s go.” I moved up the stairs cautiously. Hangman followed with his back against the stairwell wall so that he could engage anything that came from above or below us. Clearing houses was usually a hit pack job for this reason. You needed the extra bodies to secure the house. Lone wolves just did simple raid and destroy jobs.

The top of the stairs was connected to a hallway that had three doors toward the front of the house and one door towards the rear. I motioned for Hangman to come up, hoping like hell we didn’t get attacked from both sides. As Hangman passed me at the top of the stairway, he moved to the room at the rear. It was probably the master bedroom and would be where the majority of the leeches were slumbering. Taking it out was a smart move, because that was the most likely place for any remaining ghouls to be hiding. I walked slowly backward to cover him.

I heard him slam the door open and walk in. I moved to the side of the door, keeping my weapon trained on the hallway. If I heard his MP5, then I would move into the bedroom to assist. If I heard any other weapon, I would enter the room in full assault mode. Hangman emerged a few moments later. Clear, vampires sleeping, his hands flashed quickly. I nodded as the two of us crept down the hall. There were two doors to our left and a single door to the right. One of these days, I was going to force Wizard to hack into county records so that we had instant access to all building floorplans. My guess from the door spacing was that the closest door on the left was a bathroom. I was worried that it was connected to the other room on the left, which brought on a whole bunch of bad possibilities.

“Let’s do this methodically,” Hangman said, “First door on the left, then the next, then the right.” I nodded as we approached the door. I would make sure I explained things to him before we entered. I wasn’t sure if he had figured it out by himself yet.

As we neared the door, I flashed to him, Be careful, next door. Hangman gave me a quizzical look and bent towards me. I whispered into his ear, “The two rooms may be connected.”

“Okay, I’ll go forward,” he said, “You cover the flank.” I nodded in response. The door opened and an overpowering wave of incense rolled out into the hall. The smell was enough to make me blink away sudden tears. Hangman made the same instinctual conclusion as me and charged into the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet was the leech we wounded in the firefight the previous night. The vampire was hooked up to a device I had never seen before that was feeding him black blood through at least four IV’s. The leech was conscious, but completely powerless. Once the sun rose, the poor bastard lost almost all of his strength. That combined with his wounds meant he barely had enough strength to lift his head at our entrance. Hangman moved in cautiously and inspected the leech and the machine.

“Ranger, I think we hurt this bastard worse than we thought,” Hangman said, “I’ve never seen this thing before.” He walked around the machine. It was about three feet tall and maybe a couple feet around. It was smooth white plastic except for a touchscreen readout and hookups for eight lines. Four of these were going to the leech. The others were leading to the bathtub, which had the shower curtain drawn. Behind the curtain were two emaciated human bodies. The humans were alive, but just barely. They didn’t even register our presence as Hangman checked them for pulses.

“Best guess,” Hangman said, “This little machine converts human blood into that nasty stuff that runs through them so that they can replace lost blood.” I didn’t disagree, but why would they have such a machine? From just a cursory inspection, the device seemed to have required more work than lower vampires were worth in the eyes of the TCV. That sounded a lot like a question for the intelligence section.

“Other rooms?” I asked quietly, trying to curb Hangman’s fascination with the device. He stared at the machine for a moment longer and then turned back to me. He nodded his head.

“Let’s finish this job,” he said with a slightly tired tone to his voice. The bathroom was connected to the other room, but the door swung into the bathroom. That made entering from that side difficult. Instead, we moved the machine in front of the door. If anyone in that room tried to flee this way, he would be in for a surprise.

The two doors were all that were left. Hangman and I decided to do simultaneous assaults on both doors. It would be a bit more dangerous if we both ran into opposition, but it also prevented bad guys from sneaking from one room to the next. Hangman took the left while I prepped the right. My MP5 ready, I slowly unlatched the door, gave a little force to open it just a bit, and then slammed through. The room was a plain bedroom with two coffins were the bed was supposed to be. There was no movement. I made my way through the room, making sure that no ghouls were hiding around the room. I walked back into the hallway to find Hangman with a similarly disturbed look on his face.

“What the fuck?” he asked, “There can’t be just two fucking ghouls guarding this place.” I silently agreed with Hangman. Even if the vampires in the coffins were just regular TCV members, two ghouls as guards were woefully pathetic. We found a total of eight sleeping vampires and a ninth undergoing a bizarre healing. By normal standards, there should have been at least four ghouls. For this kind of coven, I would have expected six ghouls. Part of me being on this job was to help train Hangman how to think, so instead of telling him what I thought, I decided to force his thoughts on the possible reasons.

“Okay, so why aren’t there more ghouls?” I asked.

“TCV thought this place was secure,” Hangman said, “We know that they need all of the ghouls they have. We don’t have to limit ourselves to nighttime jobs.” That was true, which was why the vampires had always maintained far more ghouls than was probably necessary. It was also why they were using more human assistants to do the normal gofer work that was normally reserved for the ghouls since Lord Vollen declared war.

“Could the other ghouls be gone on an errand?” I asked, trying to point out a simple reason for the absence of the vampires.

“Maybe, but why would they leave their vampires with only two guards,” Hangman countered, “Ghouls are so zealous in their protection of the vampires – it doesn’t make sense. If we found a couple more ghouls, then I would think that a couple more had gone off to do errands while leaving enough to protect the leeches from pack warriors. This coven is too far within lycanthrope territory for them not to leave enough protection unless they had none to give and were counting on the secrecy of the coven for additional protection.” Hangman was getting scary. I had come to the same conclusions, but I wouldn’t have at his age. He was thinking far more strategically than I had when I was a brand-new hunter. Now I saw why the Guildmaster wanted me to work with the pup. Few hunters could integrate the tactical and the strategic as easily as Hangman.

“Okay, so what now?” I prompted.

“Fire the house,” he said, confidently, “We salt the fucking earth.” It was a good answer, and it was the last step that we had planned for the coven. There was just something else that needed to be done first.

“What about intel?” I asked without reproach. I noticed that most of the young hunters simply forgot to toss a place for intel. It just wasn’t taught to the point it became an almost instinctual thing to do. Interrogations maybe, but looking for written and electronic reports sometimes slipped the mind. Again, it was a curse of our oral tradition.

“Oh yeah,” he said, somewhat sheepishly, “Where?” That was a good question. It meant that he understood where some of his weaknesses may lay, and he was looking for help in fixing the problem. It had taken a serious mistake for me to start asking help without feeling ashamed.

“Let’s toss the bedrooms first,” I said, “Make sure to grab cell phones or PDA’s. We’ll worry about the desktops later. Any paper, we need to check.” Hangman looked at me with an almost pained look, and I could tell what he was thinking. “Yes, this is going to take awhile, but your next time will go faster as you learn what could or could not be intel. Generally, we don’t need the junk mail. Utility bills are only needed to see when service started. Credit card bills are essential. Anything that looks like correspondence or even basic notes we take. Anything that looks like operations planning gets bagged. Once we’ve got everything, then we can burn the house down.”

We found a few phones, no PDA’s, and a pair of laptops. We used the cameras on our phones to send pictures of the wounded leech and the machine to the Guild. The desktops were locked, and we didn’t have the time to crack them. The few papers were mostly worthless, but there were a few that looked promising. Hangman found a couple of carrying cases for the laptops and we loaded everything into them. We were ready to set the house to burn. Then the gunfire erupted as we came down the staircase.

I felt several hits in my vest and the laptop case was jerked out of my arm. I scrambled back up the stairs as a round hit me in the forearm and another slammed into my knee. As Hangman and I collapsed into the hallway, I could see he was bleeding from a hit in his leg and had several holes in his chest. Both of his arms were working properly, so he pulled out his aid kit and began working on me as I pulled out my pistol and covered the entrance to the hallway. Anything bad rounding that corner would be getting a .45 ACP Silver Shok to the head. Okay, I fucked up and got complacent. We should have extracted with more care.

I heard myself grunt in pain as Hangman probed the two wounds to remove the silver. Nice thing about most silver rounds is that they don’t fragment. They still hurt like all hell when they’re pulled out. I heard the two bullets hit the carpet, and then came the intense pain as Hangman applied the wolfsbane. I had to shake off the dizziness from the pain, but I could feel the warm, happy feeling as my wounds – now cleaned of the silver – began to seal up. A moment later, I was healed.

As Hangman covered the hallway with his MP5, I yanked out the bullet in his leg and similarly cleaned the wound with the wolfsbane. As I reholstered my pistol and picked up my MP5, I wondered why our assailants hadn’t come up after us. Then Hangman put a short burst into a ghoul’s head as it popped out of the stairwell. We had made our mistake, and they had made theirs in giving us too long to recuperate.

I hit the speed dial on my phone out to one of the warriors who should be sitting outside. I was pissed they hadn’t called Hangman or me to let us know that ghouls were entering the house, but I needed to know what they saw. I would figure out what went through their heads later.

“Who’s this?” asked the voice on the other side with a confused and excited voice.

“This Ranger,” I said, “What the fuck is going on out there?”

“Shit man, we’ve been trying to call you,” the voice said, “About six ghouls just drove up and went into the house.”

“Yeah, and now they’re shooting at us,” I replied. Hangman looked over quickly at me. Ghouls – five, I hand-signed to him. He nodded and turned back down. “We need a diversion. Quickly. And don’t get yourselves killed.”

“Two minutes,” came the welcome voice of Chris Ringston, “Can you hold?” Damn I was glad that he had shown up. I looked over at Hangman who was fishing around in his pocket.

“Oh yeah,” I replied, “As long as the bastards don’t start chucking grenades at us.” I didn’t really expect the ghouls to have that kind of high-end firepower, but this job had already had far too many nasty surprises. Granted, some of those were simple fuck-ups and some were oversights by me. It was what we would call a “learning experience” for Hangman. I made my own mental note to make sure I asked Gunny to get me some more flash-bangs. They were quickly becoming part of my AMEX kit – things you don’t leave home without. Hangman managed to pull out a plastic periscope. It looked like something out of a cereal box, but at least he had brought it along. I had an FBI version, but that was back at my townhouse. It was too heavy to bring along normally, but I would make sure it was in the saddle bags of my motorcycle. I motioned to him before he looked down the staircase. Warriors – two minutes, I hand-signed to him. He nodded in reply.

Hangman let his MP5 rest on its sling as he drew his big Kimber .45. He held the pistol in his left hand as he looked through the periscope down the staircase. Pistol shots rang out and I heard the bullets slap into the wall at the top of the staircase. Hangman put away his periscope and holstered his pistol as he moved back towards me. “Four ghouls are at the bottom of the staircase. Couldn’t see the other one.”

“Okay, we’ll have to deal with that one as soon as we see him,” I said, “Go as soon as Ringston sets off the distraction.”

“Leave the intel?” Hangman asked like he was trying to confirm what he was thinking.

“Yeah,” I answered, “We should we be able to come back for it after we finish clearing the ghouls out. Weapon check.” Hangman and I both checked our MP5s to make sure both sub-machine guns had full magazines, suppressors tightly attached, rounds in the chambers, and selector switches set to three round burst. It was very unlikely that we would need to provide suppressive fire, so the three round burst would be all we needed to take down the ghouls. We nodded to each other as we completed our checks.

I heard the front door slam open followed by pistol fire being exchanged. Hangman slid into the top of the staircase and let loose a pair of bursts. I was close behind him and fired my own bursts at the two remaining visible ghouls. The four seemed to fall almost simultaneously. Both of us scanned the house below as for the remaining ghoul. I could see two warriors with pistols in hand at the front door, but not the last bad guy. The warriors were facing towards the kitchen, but they didn’t seem to be seeing anything.

“There’s one more guys,” Hangman called down, “Can you see him?” Neither Hangman nor I wanted to traipse down the stairs until we had a good idea of where the last bastard was hiding. At least enough to make sure he couldn’t ambush on the stairs again.

“I can’t see him, but I think he’s either outside or in that door just inside the kitchen,” answered one of the warriors. “What do you want us to do?” I wanted to answer, but I waited for Hangman. It was his job, and I had enough confidence that he would make the right decision, or ask me if he was unsure.

“Move to the base of the stairs,” Hangman said. He sounded confident, but he looked like he was a little unsure. “When I give the signal, move towards the kitchen and fire at anything that moves.” It was a simple plan of using the warriors as blockers to cover our descent. I didn’t agree. I hadn’t seen enough to prove to me that Ringston’s warriors could handle themselves in a gun fight, and these ghouls had. I would have gone back outside through one of the bedroom windows and came in either through the front door or the back door. It would be another thing to discuss with Hangman when this job was finished.

The two warriors made an almost humorous attempt at stealthily moving towards the front of the stairs. I think they were trying to mimic stuff they saw on television. Hangman looked at me, and I gave him a nod. I was ready.

“Go,” Hangman called down to the warriors. They ran the ten feet into the kitchen as Hangman and I scampered down the stairs. As we hit the base, the ghoul appeared in the glass door and began shooting at Hangman and me. Damn, the ghoul was good. I felt the hammer thuds as four rounds slammed into my chest. Hangman collapsed to the floor beside me. I raised my weapon with one hand and placed a burst into the ghoul. It was quick, dirty, and missed, but it drove him back, and it gave me time to regroup. With the MP5 gripped, I slipped into the kitchen.

“Go help Hangman,” I whispered to the warriors, “Cover him from that bastard.” They looked scared, but they scurried over to where Hangman lay on the floor. I had to finish this fast. I had no idea how badly Hangman had been hit, and I didn’t have any more wolfsbane. It was time to go outside.

I slinked out of the kitchen door, keeping my back to wall and my weapon pointed towards the backyard. I waited for a moment, and then crept down the wall. I lowered down as I came to the corner. I wanted to be as low to the ground as possible if I had to peek around the corner. Which was when the ghoul jumped out from the back.

Bullets cracked over me as the ghoul fired at where he had thought I would be. I reflexively brought up my weapon and placed a three-round burst into his head. It exploded like an overripe melon from the three nine millimeter rounds, and the body toppled to the ground. I took a deep breath and thanked the Ancestors. I stood up and dialed the Guild. As the phone rang, I walked into the house and headed to where the warriors were standing guard on Hangman, The pup was still on the floor and wasn’t moving. I could see him breathing, which was a great relief.

“Who is calling?” asked the voice on the phone. I didn’t recognize it immediately, and I didn’t waste time trying to recollect whom the voice belonged to. I had more immediate concerns.

“Ranger,” I answered, “Hangman is down and needs immediate medical. We are in the Plantation area near Linebaugh.” There was a pause on the line as original voice was replaced by the Guild doctor.

“Ranger, I can’t get out there, but there I’m sending someone from the Lutz pack,” he told me, “She’s a pretty good doctor for our lycanthropes. What are his injuries?” I sat down next to me. Hangman looked dazed. A lot of his blood was on the floor.

“Gunshot at the shoulder, gunshot in the knee, grazing wounds on neck and across face,” I reported, “Looks like all wounds went clean through. The wounds are all archanal. He’s lost a bit of blood. I am out of wolfsbane.” I looked up at the warriors. The senior one shook his head gravely. “The pack doesn’t have any on scene.”

“Start trying to control the bleeding and keeping him from going into shock,” Doc answered, as I heard screams in the background. He must have been advising me while working on someone in much worse shape. Thank the Ancestors that Doc was a born multi-tasker. “Penelope should be there in less than fifteen minutes. Try not to let the pup die before she gets there.” As Doc went back to his task, I heard the unique sound of the Guild’s computer system getting a GPS fix on me. All of our phones had the capability, but we only used it in emergencies. I waited for ten seconds, and then the phone disconnected.

“You two, go get me bandages and blankets,” I ordered, as I looked down at Hangman, “You’ve been quiet.”

“Didn’t want to disturb you,” he grunted out between spasms of pain, “Taking all of my concentration not to scream. Pain is different.” Hangman was diagnosing himself, which I was surprised he had the presence of mind to do. Hunters are trained to keep going, even when badly injured, and the vest had protected him from immediately fatal hits. His wound at the shoulder, however, looked bad, and his knee was much worse. Both joints were probably shattered. The face wound didn’t look serious, and head wounds always tended to be bloody. The grazing wound on his neck was my primary concern, because it was too close to major arteries. Any heavy moving could tear the wound further. One of warriors came in with what looked like a first-aid kit.

“Get me gauze and tape,” I told the warrior and turned back to Hangman, “How is the pain different?” As he tried to think, I began probing the shoulder wound. It looked like the bullet had just passed through, but I was worried that the rounds had fragmented and there were pieces of silver still stuck in Hangman. The pup yelled out in pain as my fingers desperately searched for the unique feel of metal in his shoulder. No fragments, just the silver residue that prevented the wound from healing like it should. The warrior shakily handed me a towel to wipe my bloody hands. As soon as my hands were clean, I bandaged up the neck and face wounds and began trying to plug up both the shoulder and the knee wounds. “You still with me, Hangman?”

“Fuck you very much,” Hangman replied weakly, “Quit trying to kill me. Pain’s different because so much broken. Felt bullets go through.” He was trying to maintain his consciousness. He knew as well as I did that he couldn’t go unconscious until the doctor arrived with her medicines. The pain would stop, but so would he. “Would you do something useful?”

“What’s the first rule?” I asked calmly, looking at Hangman. It was an old trick to focus a hunter’s mind, particularly when he was hurting.

“Never fail a job,” Hangman answered, “Let me guess, what’s the second rule?”

“Come on shithead,” I replied, “You know the drill, odd numbers.”

“Fucker,” was the reply, “Third rule – never be unarmed.” Hangman grunted in pain as he began thinking about the fifth cardinal rule of the hunters. I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye, and looked up. The lycanthrope was in human form, a shapely female figure with long black hair and dark eyes. She was dressed in jeans with a cotton blue blouse. She had a large black satchel at her side with a stethoscope peeking out of the flap. Her stance was that of an impatient professional. She had to be the doctor that Doc had sent. Thank the Ancestors she had arrived quickly.

“Back up,” came the cool soprano as she not-so-gently pushed me away from Hangman. She knelt down beside him, pulling out a glass bottle and a cloth from her satchel without looking. Definitely a professional. The doctor looked over Hangman as she opened the bottle. The pungent smell of wolfsbane screamed out of the bottle and quickly filled the room. The warriors and I took a step back out of learned fear of the medicine. Lycanthropes may have cognitively understood that wolfsbane would heal us by neutralizing the poisonous touch of silver. Instinctively, we remember the pain of wolfsbane’s touch the moment we smelled its unique odor. Hangman grunted as the odor wafted over him.

“Easy, hunter,” she said soothingly, “This is going to hurt.” She began wiping the wolfsbane-laden cloth across Hangman’s wounds on his neck and face. I heard a strong intake of breath from Hangman as he stifled a scream of pain. The pup was strong, and he was tough. The doctor moved to Hangman’s shoulder. As she wiped the wound with the wolfsbane, Hangman let out a stifled yelp. The wound began to seal itself as soon as the wolfsbane began to take effect. I could see the bones move under the skin as they began to reset and heal themselves. Satisfied that Hangman was under the proper care, I moved to the warriors.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked, hotly, “We didn’t get any intel that the ghouls had left or that they had arrived back at the house?” Normally, I would’ve just let Hangman handle this part also, since he had to learn to deal with the warriors that made up most of the packs. With Hangman still down, I wanted to ensure that it was either carelessness or just fucking Murphy instead of something far more sinister.

“Fuck you asshole,” the younger warrior retorted, with an aggressive posture, “We fucking called you when they were coming in. It’s not our fucking fault that you didn’t answer your phone.” I walked over and punched him hard enough to drive him the to the floor. As he lay on the floor, I loomed over him with murder in my eyes. I wanted him to think that I was on the verge of removing his vital organs. I watched as the anger that had lit his eyes faded into cold fear.

“Let me explain something to you,” I said with a chill tone, “I am not in the habit of dealing with idiots. So, let’s try this again, why weren’t we notified?”

“Ranger, stand down,” Ringston said from the door, “Unless you have evidence that one of my pack conspired against you, I will not allow you to attack one of my pack. Is that clear?” My first reaction was to tell Ringston to fuck himself, but that was quickly suppressed. Ringston was just about the only pack leader that had been openly friendly to the hunters since the Vollen assassination. He was also someone who seemed to trust me personally, and that was rare enough for me to give Ringston a lot of slack. He backed his pack, like any good leader, but he also wasn’t foolish enough to immediately discount the fact that there might be a real problem.

“They said they called me, my lord,” I answered, backing away from the warrior on the floor, “Neither Hangman nor myself ever received a phone call. Both of us had our phones set to immediately pick up if your warriors called us. No way it should have gone to voicemail.” It wasn’t damning evidence, but the Guild needed to know what had gone wrong. If it was something simple, then we needed to put in procedures to make sure it didn’t happen again. If it was something evil, then someone was going to be dead very quickly. I had a feeling that if it was the latter, the Guild might have had to wait in line behind Ringston himself.

“Get me the phone that you called the hunters,” Ringston demanded to one of his warriors, “We’ll solve this little enigma now.” Ringston motioned to another lycanthrope and whispered into his ear. “All of you, evacuate immediately. As soon as Hangman is fixed up, we will burn this house to the ground.” His warriors began moving.

“Excuse me, milord, we have a laptop, some cell phones and other stuff. We need to get those things to the Guild before we burn the house down,” I told Ringston, “There may be important intelligence on those items. Also, there is an odd device upstairs. I don’t think we can move it, but we need to get as much information on it as possible.”

“What kind of device?” Ringston asked.

“Looks like some kind of emergency medical device for the leeches,” I told him, “It looks like it replaces the black fluid that the leeches use as blood. For a badly wounded leech, it could keep him alive long enough for medical treatment or to purge silver poisoning.” Ringston pondered what I told him for a moment. I noticed that the doctor looking at me in horror. Ringston looked over at the doctor.

“Penelope, I need you to go with Ranger to inspect the device,” Ringston ordered, “All of the items that Ranger told us about will go to Dietrich.” He noticed my hand drop down to the grip of the MP5 slung at my side. “Relax Ranger, we have someone that can crack the laptop and the phones for us.”

“With all due respect sir, those need to go to the Guild’s intel section,” I protested, “We have the resources—“ Ringston held up his hand.

“Ranger, I know that the Guild’s intelligence group is the best in the county, but they are going to be overloaded with all sorts of data,” Ringston said, “Dietrich is a computer specialist that several of the packs use for background searches and such. He’s kin.” I wasn’t fully convinced, but what he said made some sense. Enough for me to bring in my boss. The Guildmaster and Ringston talked for a few minutes as I went with the doctor to look at the device. The poor doctor had no idea what she was walking into. I heard the retching quickly followed by the unique sound of vomit hitting the linoleum floor. She composed herself and began inspecting the device. The professional face that I had seen on her was firmly in place as she began poking and prodding the wounded leech and the device. As she did her thing, I began to get the upstairs set up for when we burned the house down. The idea was for the house to burn extremely quickly so that the humans had no chance to put the fire out before it burned to the ground and immolated anything that could point to the supernatural. Remember our terror of the Pathwalkers?

“Ranger, did your phone just ring?” Ringston called out from the first floor. I walked over to the stairwell. I looked at my phone to see if it indicated a missed call, but the screen was blank.

“No milord,” I answered, “Did you just try to call me?”

“Yes,” he said, “I think we have a case of the wrong phone number being used.” That made a lot of sense. Murphy had decided to truly fuck with us this time around. “Your Guildmaster has released the laptop and the phones to my care. Hangman’s up and ambulatory. We’re ready to finish this.”

“Very good milord,” I said, “Let’s get things moving.” It was a damned fine bonfire.

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