Grunge (ARC)

by Larry Correia

  “If they had disagreed with your sentiment on the matter, it would have been my head not my finger,” Oshiro said. “As it turns out, they were slightly less pleased about his use of the supernatural than you were. Instead of losing a finger or my head, I got a promotion.”

  “I guess that means you owe me a favor.”

  “You did put me in jeopardy of losing my head,” Oshiro said. “And I made the case we shouldn’t put fugu in your wasabi. I think we’re even.”

  “Then we’re even,” I said. “But.”

  “But?” Oshiro said. “I was just here to say ‘We’re even. Never cross my path again.’”

  “The thing about spheres of influence holds. The Old Fathers in Japan use various hunter groups to handle supernatural issues for them. Who do you use?”

  “We don’t, really,” Michael said, frowning. “It doesn’t usually come up. Except with gnomes.”

  “Put it this way. You’ve got ears all over the Japanese society here. You’ve even got contacts into the Tongs. Not snitches, but information transfers.”

  “Agreed.”

  “We pay for information related to PUFF applicable entities. And we’re all about ignoring ethnic origin. Five percent of the PUFF when its cleared. If you’d clued me in on the Jorogumo, that would have been twenty-five hundred bucks. Probably more than you make out of this place in a week.”

  “Month,” Michael corrected.

  “I’m not looking for where the Mongols have a stash or the Tongs are running a numbers operation,” I said. “But we’ve both got a vested interest in keeping the supernatural under control.”

  “It’s a reasonable thought,” Oshiro said. “Information transfer?”

  I gestured around.

  “I come here to eat frequently. Going to that club every Friday was Arata’s one flaw. This one is mine. I really like their udon.”

  “Payment?”

  “When the PUFF comes through, I’ll add the tip as a tip. Put it on the Amex Gold. For us, it’s a perfectly legitimate business expense.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, thoughtfully. “I can see the attraction. Let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot,” I said. “Not literally.”

  “Heh,” Oshiro said. “Why would someone buy virgins, other than the obvious to my businesses, reasons?”

  “Male or female or both?”

  “Female virgins post-pubescent or pubescent.”

  “Gah,” I said. “Dozens of rites use those. Most necromantic. Serious hoodoo if you know what I mean. Raising major old one entities. Raising strong undead. Messages and sacrifices to the Old Ones. Using their skin for thaumaturgic writings. Nothing good. Why?”

  “We recently were made aware of a business opportunity in that area,” Oshiro said. “Selling them for prostitution? Certainly. Pornography? Of course. But selling them where bodies might turn up? Or for supernatural purposes? If authorities become aware of that, the heat goes on very quickly. Assuming they are for, as you put it, necromantic purposes, is that your area of expertise?”

  “Arata was legally terminated under a classified federal code. Ignorance of the law is no excuse even if the law is classified. The same code covers human sacrifice for supernatural purposes as well. Same penalty I might add. Gladly apply it in a case like this. Got a name and address?”

  “Stop by the next few days,” Oshiro said. “Something might come up. And don’t worry about the wasabi.” He slid the ginger sauce out of reach. “Wasabi would be obvious.”

  * * *

  I was eating at Saury, carefully mind you, minding my own damned business, when Naoki-sama handed me an origami bird.

  “A gift for you, Assei-sama,” Naoki said, bowing deeply. “In thanks. For Kiyoshi.”

  “Wakarimasse,” I replied. I didn’t bother to open it.

  I finished my meal, paid the bill, and walked out. I waited to get home to open up the origami. No name but an address. If I recalled the address correctly, it was in the Sodo warehouse district.

  Worth checking out.

  * * *

  “We owe Oshiro five percent of the PUFF if it’s legit,” I said.

  “But we don’t know what ‘it’ is,” Doctor Lucius said.

  For a change both he and Joan were in town at the same time. The meeting included the entire team. Even Timmy had decided to show up.

  “Just that they’re in the market for virgins,” I said. “If it was from his perspective legitimate, selling them to perverts to be broken in, using them in abusive porn films, he’d never have given me the tip. He’d have just rounded up some Thai girls and sold them on. Since he’s tossing it to us, he must be pretty sure it’s supernatural.”

  “I never like going into a situation without a clue what the possible entity might be,” Doctor Joan said. “The constant disturbances at Microtel and other software companies is quite enough danger. This sounds like something much more ominous. We need to investigate before we act.”

  “We’ll put in surveillance,” Doctor Lucius said. “Very cautious, very long range, surveillance. See what activity we can spot and try to determine what the threat might be.”

  “I’ve developed a few contacts,” I said. “I’ll see if any of them have anything on this facility.”

  “Phil, Jesse, up for a little recon?” Doctor Joan asked.

  “I’ll break out the surveillance gear,” Phil said.

  “I’ll break out the rain-gear,” Jesse added. “Thanks, Chad. While we’re lying on a roof in a puddle, you have fun making time with your contacts.”

  Becca-Anne was a switch hitter. She had a close personal friend, Cary, who worked at the King County Courthouse and had access to confidential police and files. Fortunately, both of them considered boys to be fun but not something serious. Bi’s leaning lesbo were some of my favorite people.

  According to Cary, the warehouse was already suspected of being involved in transportation for immoral purposes, what’s starting to be called “human trafficking.” But it was only some rumors from fairly low-level confidential informants.

  The warehouse was owned by South Seas Imports and Exports, which led to a PO Box and as a fairly obvious shell company. The organization, to the extent there was one, was very small and very close. It apparently paid money to the Mongols for “protection” and even the CIs in the Mongols weren’t sure what was going on there. If girls went in, they never seemed to come out. Which was not a good sign.

  Mongols didn’t sell girls to them, but they’d been asked about it. The CIs said they’d be up for doing the deal but they had a real lack of virgins available. The people picking up the protection money were never invited beyond the offices in front. The one CI who had had contact with the people in the front office reported that they had a “really creepy vibe, man. Like fucking weird.”

  Trucks with containers occasionally arrived, went in, dropped the containers and left. They didn’t unload at a loading dock. Where the trucks came from was a mystery. Large delivery vans went in and out from time to time. Material transported: Unknown.

  Jesse and Phil’s surveillance turned up pretty much the same thing. There were no windows worth bouncing a laser off of and no way to see into the building. They didn’t even see trucks arriving although one delivery van had come and gone. Most of the activity seemed to take place at night except the arrivals and departures. Those were in the day.

  The one thing they did come up with was shots and grainy video of some of the employees.

  “How the cops checking this place out missed it I have no idea,” Jesse said, pointing at the video. The person in the video had a very odd gait. As if they were having to think about each movement of their legs and arms. Color close-up shots of the individual from a thousand-millimeter lens showed that their eyes were extremely bloodshot and they had exactly no expression.

  “Revenant,” Doctor Lucius said. “That tears it. But from Chad’s reports, we’re looking at at least ten ‘employees.’ And the ‘manager’ h
as never been seen by anyone.”

  “This is an organized group of undead,” Doctor Joan said. “That spells necromancer in big, bold, letters.”

  “That spells powerful necromancer,” Brad said. “I really think we need to call in some big guns on this one.”

  “We’ve got LAWs and a Ma Deuce,” I said. “How much bigger do we need?”

  “Happy Face,” Brad said.

  * * *

  Earl Harbinger came back from his drive by of the warehouse with his jaw set and an expression I never wanted to see directed at me.

  He wasn’t the only one who was a bit perturbed. Papa Shackleford had decided he had time to come along on the jaunt and had read me the riot act over nearly getting MHI in a war with the Japanese mob. The only reason he didn’t fire me was because Earl had a sore spot for the Yakuza, and I’d asked his permission first. When Earl came back, though, that was set aside.

  “The place stinks of undead,” Earl said, pacing back and forth in the conference room. He was smoking like a chimney, much to the discomfort of Joan and Lucius. They didn’t say anything but I knew they hated cigarette smoke. “About a dozen human females in bad condition, any of you should be able to smell the crap bucket from the street, and lots of blood. At least six revenants, a bunch of wights and what smells a lot like a lich.”

  “And you got that, how, sir?” Timmy asked.

  I knew better than to open my mouth. If Earl said it was a lich, then it was a lich.

  “None of your concern, young man,” Papa Shackleford snapped.

  It wasn’t just Papa Shackleford and Earl. They’d brought a good part of the clan. My old buddy Milo was along as well as Ray IV and Dwayne Myers. Susan was nesting in Cazador, much to my chagrin.

  “It’s some sort of necromantic factory,” Earl continued, chain-lighting another cigarette. “I don’t know enough about that stuff to figure out a factory for what, but they must have been producing something with all those virgins they’ve been getting.”

  “It’s said to summon a shoggoth, in the most traditional way, requires the souls of five innocents sold to the Old Ones.” Ray said. “There’s supposed to be rites where shedding innocent blood is how they make wights. We got a rumor that someone was offering wights for sale in California. This is possibly where they are being produced.”

  “Whether it is or not, it’s done, now,” Papa Shackleford said, definitely. “Among other things, depending on how old that lich is that’s upwards of a million dollars in PUFF. That warehouse is going down.”

  “Permission to speak, sir?” I asked.

  “You’re not in the Marines anymore, Chad,” Earl said, snorting.

  “But my bosses are all in a really foul mood. The small item I’d like to bring up is the hostages. I know MCB could care less about hostages but I rather do. And if we bring as much firepower as this sounds like it needs, they’re going to be caught in a major cross-fire.”

  “Chad’s got a point,” Milo said, uncomfortably.

  “I couldn’t tell where they were located,” Earl said. “Just that they’re there.”

  “We’ll do our best to keep the girls safe, but I’m not going to talk about omelets and eggs,” Papa Shackleford said. “If we lose these hostages, we’re still going to be saving the lives of all the other poor young women who aren’t being used as sacrifices.”

  “If it’s a factory, we probably have to move fast if we’re going to have any chance of saving them,” Doctor Lucius pointed out.

  “In terms of the threat,” Ray IV said. “The first task has to be to take out the lich. They’re damned tough to kill.”

  “Their powers vary greatly. Touch could be instant death,” Doctor Joan said. “The sky is the limit with them. Whatever magic it practices, it’ll probably be fearsome. Only way to kill it is to utterly destroy the device that has replaced its heart. Phil, we’ll probably need those thermite satchels.”

  “On it,” Phil said.

  “I’ve got something that might help,” Milo suggested.

  “Contact range is suicide with a lich,” Doctor Joan said.

  “Not if it doesn’t have any hands,” I said. “Or arms. As for spell casting, I suspect most people go for the neck and cut the head off. Undead like liches can continue to speak that way. If you cut the head off at the mouth…Little harder.”

  * * *

  We hit the warehouse with a full-court press. Most of team Happy Face was hitting the main roll-up doors while Flaming Warthogs were hitting the offices. Milo had been attached to our team since we had the job of lich suppression.

  We’d gotten blueprints of the warehouse but according to them there wasn’t much to it. The offices were tacked on the front. The warehouse was a large, open rectangle. Some I beam posts to hold up the roof. No construction internally had, officially, been done. What was inside was anyone’s guess at this point. Doing an approach to slide in an optical probe or get up to the few small, high, windows had been ruled out. Wights had pretty good senses and would smell or hear any such approach. We’d try to find and secure the hostages before we burned the whole place down. Hard, fast and make it up as you went along when we get in was pretty much the plan.

  “Revenant. Cut off the head. Fire,” Timmy muttered, nervously, checking his FN again. He’d been avoiding about half the call-outs lately. I was starting to think he really wasn’t as into monster hunting as he’d thought. His girlfriend excuse had turned out to be a little white lie. “Ghouls…”

  “Cut off the head, fire,” I said. “Wights, paralytic touch. Cut off the head, fire. Lich. Death touch. Burn the heart.”

  “With fire!” Milo cackled, tapping the sawed-off shotgun holstered over his shoulder.

  We’d damn near killed ourselves before the op even started making those damned magnesium slugs. Magnesium catches on fire if you look at it wrong. And it will just keep burning. They wouldn’t penetrate much, but with the chemicals Milo had sealed into the hollow cavity of the slug, they were supposed to ignite on impact and burn at about three thousand degrees. Milling it is a special art neither of us had ever attempted. We’d gotten the fire put out, eventually, but I was going to need a new lathe. And possibly new eyeballs.

  Every one of us was loaded down with every sort of incendiary device we had in the warehouse or Phil, Milo and I could gin up. We had thermite grenades, white phosphorus grenades, thermite satchel charges, flame throwers and for the pièce de résistance a five gallon bucket of napalm with ten second fuse and small Comp B blasting charge.

  It was gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight.

  The van slowed and Louis opened the door. Showtime.

  Phil exited, ran to the office door and slapped on a breaching charge. We lined up behind him along the wall and crunched.

  The breacher charge went off with a loud CRACK! and Phil led the way in with his pump up and aiming. There were two blasts and a sort of Worragh! sound. There’d been a revenant in the offices.

  The rest of us followed him in and started laying down fire. The revenant, sort of a fast, smart, zombie, was dancing to the Tombstone Shuffle as rounds bounced him all over the room. But it wasn’t killing him, just slowing him down.

  Milo called “Check fire!” stepped forward with his shotgun, placed it on the stumbling revenant’s chest and fired. It penetrated the revenant’s black heart and burst into bright, white, flames.

  The revenant let out another Wooragh! as it desperately batted the flames pouring from its chest then stumbled to its knees and down.

  “Clear,” Doc Lucius called. “Reload! Keep moving!”

  I cut off its head as I passed.

  There was a thunderous explosion as the main doors were breached by the much larger charge Happy Face was using. Just as it went off the main door between the offices and the warehouse opened and a wight charged in.

  Again, the entire team opened fire at once, blasting the undead with silver. It barely slowed it down but it did slow. This one people were
keeping their distance from. The wight’s paralyzing touch was renowned among hunters. In a bad way.

  As everyone ran down their magazines I called “Check fire!”

  Sword of Mourning swept out as the wight recovered its balance and charged. This time I came from low, outside, sweeping up to take off the right hand then down to take out the leg. The sword went through the undead’s thigh like air. One more sweep and the head hit the floor and rolled over to Timmy.

  “Keep moving!” Doctor Joan called.

  We could hear a continuous rattle of fire from the warehouse proper and we needed to get in there to support Happy Face. As we hit the door there was a dull thump and a blast of heat.

  What greeted our eyes when we got into the warehouse was a maelstrom. There was an orange shipping container on the far side of the large warehouse. Near the center of the warehouse was a dais that was clearly some sort of altar. Happy Face was attacking from the main roll-up doors on the right. Most of the attention of the occupants was focused in that direction.

  There were more undead than I thought I’d ever see in my life. Earl Harbinger was cranking out .45 ammo like it was past due date. Both the Rays were at the doors, blazing away with, respectively an FN FAL and a Garand. Ray III rolled Old School and I got a new appreciation for the power of .30-06. Dwayne Myers was working back and forth with a flame-thrower.

  What they faced was about twenty mixed undead and a lich which was in the midst of performing a sacrifice. The lich looked about like any other desiccated dead guy. The girl bound to the table looked to be about sixteen, Caucasian and obviously scared to death.

  I wasn’t sure what he was planning on summoning, but it wouldn’t be good.

  “Spread out,” Doctor Joan said. “Phil, right, flame-thrower. Try to miss the sacrifice! Timmy, cover fire from here. Milo, Chad, you’re up.”

  Pulling my shotgun around, I sprang up the stairs and moved about ten meters left. Milo stopped about five meters out.

  The pair of magnesium slugs caught the lich as it was beginning to strike downward with the sacrificial blade. They made a terrible flash as they ignited. The blast snapped the hostage’s head to the side, hard. Hopefully she would be okay but I’d give an even bet she just developed permanent hearing loss in her right ear.