by John Ringo
“Only in some parts of this city, the locals all know the supernatural exists and you aren’t going to convince them otherwise,” explained Agent Marine. “Half of them are terrified of hoodoun, the rest are practitioners.”
“I was promoted to SAC of this office recently. The way I see it, this is already the most superstitious city in America. My men aren’t going to convince the locals everything they’ve believed for generations is a delusion. So containment in New Orleans isn’t about success or failure, it’s more about holding the line and trying to keep the lid from coming completely off.”
“The important thing is that we get things shut down before too many tourists get involved,” Ben explained. “So Bill here grants certain allowances for us to do our job, that would probably be frowned on in other jurisdictions.”
“That’s a polite way of saying that I’m a lot more lenient to you hunters than you’re used to. You want to keep it that way, don’t fuck this up,” Agent Boss, whose name was apparently Bill explained. “Most agents see you guys as a pain in our ass, but I see you as an allied resource. Incidents have been on the rise for a while, which is why my predecessor got transferred. DC wants results, an unorthodox city requires unorthodox methods. That means if hunters need to make some noise in public, as long as you get it locked down fast, I’m willing to look the other way.”
“What do mean incidents have been on the rise?”
“The graph for New Orleans’ quarterly monster attack numbers looks like a motherfucking rocket ship taking off.” He downed his drink. “And no. We’ve got no idea what’s behind the recent spike. When we find out, you guys will be the first to know.”
That was oddly forthcoming from the MCB. I would find out later that Bill, or Special Agent in Charge William Castro, was considered a cowboy by MCB standards. I would also eventually learn that he was former DEA, had a cocaine habit, a few mistresses, took bribes, made a lot of bad decisions, and was still probably one of the most dedicated MCB agents I ever met.
“Welcome to hell, Marine. Drink up,” Agent Three said. “Now, ask us why we all have shaved heads.”
“I don’t have to. You don’t want anybody getting a lock of your hair to curse you. Been there.”
“Cursed?” Agent Marine asked.
“Moved here to avoid it,” I said.
“Cut your own hair,” Agent Boss said. “Cueball.”
“Boot style,” Agent Marine said, rubbing his head.
“Keep your toenail and finger nail clippings, too,” Agent Boss said. “Burn them with your hair. Can’t keep from leaving some blood behind but it usually gets contaminated.”
The phone rang and the barmaid answered then held her hand over the receiver.
“Ben, you here?” she asked.
“Shit,” Ben said then waved for the phone. Agent Boss’ beeper went off about the same time.
“Shit,” Agent Boss said, looking at it. “Tell them we’re rolling, will you?”
“MCB says they’re rolling,” Ben said into the phone. “Yeah. Maurice’s. What? Okay. I’ll roll…” He thought about it and rotated his arm in a sling. “Somebody. The new guy. Yeah. Bye.”
“I’ve got it,” I said. “What do I got?”
“Zombies at a school,” Ben said.
“Again?” Agent Three said.
“Bullies around here are at least learning to leave nerds alone,” Agent Marine said.
“I’ll take it but I have no clue where anything is,” I said. “And my gear is back at the team house.”
“I’ll give the new guy a ride over and show him where it’s at,” Agent Marine told Ben. “I’m out front.”
“Roger,” I said, standing up and pulling out a hundred. Say what you will about us mercenary hunters, most of us tip really well.
“I’ve got it,” Ben said.
“Money’s already down,” I said as Agent Marine started out the door. “Hey, honey, when do you get off?”
“I don’t date hunters,” she said, smiling. “I like to have some idea if a guy’s going to be around next week.”
“Your loss,” I said, grinning. I liked a challenge.
CHAPTER 3
Lunatic Fringe
“I sort of missed the introductions,” I said. “Chad Gardenier.”
“Special Agent Robert Higgins,” Bob said, holding out his hand. He had lights and sirens on and was blazing through traffic, weaving in and out and into oncoming lanes. Naturally, nobody was getting out of the way.
“What’s the deal with the drug gangs?” I asked.
“Not my area,” Bob said. “But what deal?”
“The ones across the corner from the house apparently handle security? I was sort of afraid to just leave my car there but Ben slapped a team sticker on it and said it would be all good.”
“Oh,” he said. “That. Everybody in this town thinks the supernatural exists. Some are into it, the rest are scared of all the weird shit that’s in this town. Even the practitioners are afraid. Just because you’re a necromancer doesn’t mean you can stop a demon. Having hoodoo squad right there is sort of like their own personal luck charm. And generally people think the hoodoo squad cars are hexed.”
“Hexed?” I said. Keep in mind, I was talking to an MCB agent about people using black magic, and he wasn’t shooting anyone for it.
“Minor stuff,” Higgins said. “Temporary impotence, that sort of thing. But I don’t think they’d mess with your cars, anyway. Every criminal in town is terrified of anything supernatural. They’re the prime targets of all the stuff we deal with. Loup garou running wild? Good people are in their homes at night, drug dealers and burglars are out on the streets. Vampires? Same deal. So they’re terrified of what goes bump in the night because they have to be out in the night. That includes hunters, SIU and us. Just the fact that we deal with it puts us in the practitioners field. They think we’re the lunatic fringe. When you get a place, put up some shrunken heads and chicken feet in the windows. You want people to know you’re hoodoo squad. If they break in and find out later, they’re liable to freak out. And if you do get a break-in, put the word out and your shit will probably be returned pretty quick. And a body will end up in the river face down.”
We pulled up next to my car in a cloud of blue tire smoke.
“That is you, right?” Higgins said.
“Yes,” I said, climbing out.
“Think you can keep up?” It wasn’t a challenge, it was a question.
“Probably,” I said. “Some of the turns might get me.”
“Just try to keep up,” he said.
“I have to check one thing,” I said.
I checked the trunk. Everything was there.
“We keepin’ a good eye on it, Mister Hoodoo!” one of the thugs yelled.
New Orleans.
* * *
Keeping up had been difficult. Other people thought following a car running lights and sirens was a good way to slip through traffic. I had to practically side-swipe one guy. He flipped me the bird. I pointed at my trunk. In the rearview I saw him go white and pull over.
We needed our own color lights. Like purple or something. I was starting to get the feeling that the locals might not get out of the way for the FBI, but they would for us. Agent Boss said he was unorthodox, so it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
We pulled up in front of a brick school. Two NOPD cars were parked outside, lights on. The officers were in them, buttoned up. Ben Carter’s car was already there. The other members of MHI were either occupied or too far way to wait for.
“You get anything on the radio about numbers?” I asked as I got out.
“Report is initially three,” Higgins said. “They announced it and had the classrooms lock down. Active zombies on premises. They don’t know if all the classrooms locked down in time or how many victims there might be.”
“Shamblers?” I asked, opening my trunk.
“Yeah, a couple. Sounds like they’re contained though. Carter already
went in the back.”
“I’ve got this side,” I said, pulling out the Uzi and the designated vest. I had a load bearing vest for whatever weapon was my primary. The Uzi was my preferred weapon for shamblers, slow zombies in other words. They shambled. Could get into a nice fast run on a flat, which school hallways would be, but they weren’t really dangerous if you could dodge at all and had enough firepower.
“No armor?”
“If it’s a horde, then, yeah, armor. But a few shamblers?” I hefted the Uzi. “Ask me sometime how I got into this.” I slammed the trunk lid. “And time is the enemy with shamblers. More people that get bit or killed, more that rise.”
“Right answer,” Higgins said. “Go. MCB has the perimeter.”
There were big, glass, double doors on the front of the three story school. I entered and assessed. The AC felt good was my first assessment. There was a wide entry way, tiled. On the right was an office marked “Nurse.” On the right was another marked “Office.”
I went to that one.
“Hoodoo Squad,” I said, banging on the door. “MHI, Team Hoodoo,” I added. I added shave and a haircut to the hammering so they’d know I was human. Sentient. Whatever.
There were three locks on the door. They slowly clicked one by one. The door cracked a bit to reveal an elderly black woman.
“MHI, ma’am,” I said, politely. “Any more word on numbers or location?”
“They was up on the second floor,” she said, glancing nervously through the door to make sure there weren’t any zombies around. “Couple of ’em.”
“Wouldn’t happen to have a map, would you?”
She shoved a mimeographed map that read New Students Orientation into my hands.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, tipping my nonexistent hat. “Go ahead and lock back up.”
They hadn’t just been on the second floor. There was a body sprawled in the corridor that, according to the map, led to the stairs. Older black gentleman. He’d been pretty badly torn apart but in short order he’d be up and tearing others.
As I passed I put a .45 round in his medula. I kept walking.
“Hoodoo squad in the building,” a voice announced over the loudspeaker. “Stay in you classrooms ’til we tells you.”
There was a faint cheer from pretty much every direction. That sort of made me straighten up. It’s always nice to be liked.
The difference was bizarre. MCB had not only given me a ride, they’d shown me the way to the site. Lights and sirens no less. Nobody asked what the hell I was doing creeping through the halls of a school with a gun. I was hoodoo squad there to get rid of the hoodoo. Like you’d call a pest control company to come take care of a raccoon in your basement.
Difference being raccoons don’t, by and large, eat people then cause them to rise from the dead. Except, you know, zombie raccoons. And let me tell you, brother, those things are a bitch and a half.
At the top of the stairs there was a corridor running directly away from the stairs then a corridor heading left. The one to the left had windows on the stair sides, the other had no doors, and a plain wall littered with posters and photographs. There appeared to be a small shrine with pictures and cards around it. Someone had died who attended or worked at the school recently.
At the end of that corridor there was another, turning right. The shamblers had to be down that hall. I could hear them battering at something, probably a door. They sure as hell weren’t down the one I was looking at.
I kept to the left, by the windows, and heel-toed forward until I was looking down the corridor. There were two shamblers, battering at a door to one of the classrooms. The doors were sturdy. They weren’t making much headway at the moment but they’d eventually batter through.
There was another body on the floor between myself and them. Female student. Very torn up.
I silently heel-toed up til the not-yet-risen corpse was on my right, lowered the Uzi and put a bullet in her head.
A suppressed .45 isn’t that loud. Unless it’s fired in a tile lined corridor where most of the building was being as quiet as church-mice to avoid attracting the hoodoo.
The shot attracted their attention away from the door. Which was the point.
I took an off-hand stance, left foot slightly forward, leaned in and began targeting. I fired. One round hit a zombie in the eye and it dropped like a rock. Another shot. Another penetration. It went right through the forehead. You can’t just do minor damage to a zombie brain and kill it. Isn’t how it works. You’ve got to pulp a lot of brain. So after everybody got one, I went back and served up seconds. Just to be sure.
I automatically did a 360 as soon as the threat was eliminated and double checked the girl at my feet. Still dead dead. Nothing on my six.
Ben was clearing the other side of the school. I wasn’t used to working solo. I was used to a brother at my back. “Cold is back without brother to warm it. I tried to remember which culture had that as a quote. Spartans? Solo hunting was a good way to get killed. No matter how tough you are, you can only look in one direction at a time.
I continued heel-toe down the corridor, around to the cross corridor and back. Another body. Adult female. Bullet in the head. Pop. Heel-toe.
I cleared the second floor corridors then up to third, quick walk around second in case of infiltration, down to first. All clear.
I walked back to the office and did shave and a haircut again.
“Are there any other areas than on this map?” I asked the black lady. “A basement, maybe?”
“There ain’t no basements in New Orleans, son,” she said. “It all done?”
“Yes, but the police would probably prefer you stay locked down til they clear the corridors,” I said. “There’s bodies. Especially on the second floor.”
“You get ’em all?” the lady asked, querily. “You gotta put bullets in the haid all them as is bit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I put bullets in all their heads.”
“That bitty gun gonna do it?” she asked. Now that the threat was gone she was back to school office manager mode and I had always been a bit baby-faced. She probably thought I was right out of Monster Training School or something.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Not my first rodeo. I’ve got to go get the police, now. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Thank you, young man,” she said as I walked away.
* * *
I’d marked the map and pointed out the location of bodies.
“Two shamblers, one victim. I cleared the victim. One victim here. And here. Both cleared.”
“Cleared?” The guy asking the question was slightly chubby with a flabby face and hands, wire rimmed spectacles held on with a piece of string to keep them from slipping and wearing a blue coverall marked “Coroner.”
“I shot them in the head to keep them from rising,” I said. “They were all bitten.”
“Chad Gardenier,” Agent Higgins said. “Dave Boswick, Coroner’s Special Incident Shift Lead. Dave, Chad. Chad is MHI’s new guy.”
“Pleased,” Dave said. He didn’t seem to be. “You’re sure you shot them all?”
“Sure,” I said. “I don’t make mistakes about putting down undead, sir.”
“Your contract specifies staying on-scene until we’re clear,” Boswick said.
“Okay,” I said. Ben was talking to some of the cops, but that sounded legit. “Quick question. We usually take samples on site. What’s the procedure here? For the PUFF.”
“Dave gives you a receipt for each of them,” Bob said. “That’s mostly how it goes. Keep the receipts, turn them in to MHI. You’ll need an incident number, you can get that from the on-scene cop or Dave or other shift leads. MHI submits the receipt number and incident. We verify. You get paid.”
“That’s…almost efficient,” I said.
“We’ve suggested it nationwide,” Bob said. “Hunters don’t trust it because it depends on us and coroners verifying. And most places the coroners
aren’t as experienced so that causes problems. Here, it works.”
“You ready?” Dave asked.
“Sure,” I said.
In Seattle I’d dealt with coroner teams a few times. They generally turned up with a stretcher. The New Orleans coroners had a lift on the back of their truck and a large, wheeled cargo flat piled with body bags was duly lowered.
I followed them in. Dave stood by making notes and filling out paperwork as his two assistants, both burly black men probably in their forties, loaded the bodies into body bags and stacked them on the flat.
They had to just carry the body bags upstairs and get the corpses that way. They were duly bagged and carried down to the flat.
Finally, all the bodies were cleared and Dave handed me a slip of paper stamped with the Parish stamp and his squiggle.
“That’s it?” I asked. The paper was full of codes. I recognized the one for Undead, Zombie, Human, Slow.
“That’s it,” Dave said. “Five shamblers.”
“There were only two vertical.”
“Five shamblers,” Dave said. “Just take the receipt.”
I took the receipt and carefully put it in my wallet so I wouldn’t lose it.
* * *
“I guess we’re done,” I said, walking out to the FBI car.
“You got another call,” Bob said, grinning maliciously. He’d reparked his car under a live oak and was looking cool as a cucumber. “Some sort of little fire imp or something over in Lafayette Cemetery.”
“You’re joking,” I said. I’d been checked in for about four hours, gotten a bit buzzed for early lunch, was still burping bourbon chicken, cleared a high school of zombies, and I had another call?
“Nope,” Bob said. “Call came in on the radio.”
“Somebody has to stay with the coroner.” Carter said. “I’m not even supposed to be out of the hospital yet. You want this one? I can catch up.”
