“Absolutely.”
“Are you saved?” Keith asked.
“I am,” Smoke replied.
Keith nodded. “That’s a good thing for many reasons, and it will help me sleep better, considering the kind of work you two are in. I’d like to see the both of you out of it. She’s too much like me and wants to fight that good fight, and I can sense that about you, too.” His hand trembled. “I miss the fight, but it takes a toll on you.”
Smoke rubbed the stitched-up scar on his arm and said, “I know. It can be a real pain.”
“Wait until you’re my age. Everything is stiff and moves a lot slower.” Keith laughed. “So, what about your family, John? You seem like a loner. Will they be at the wedding?”
“I have family. They’re just hard to get ahold of. I promise to have some representation though. Samantha is my half sister, and I’m pretty sure she’ll be helping Sid and Sally make all the arrangements. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who shows up at the rehearsal dinner. They love caviar.”
Keith’s eyes widened. “Caviar! I can’t afford caviar. Not on my retirement.”
Laughing, Smoke said, “I’ll let Samantha know, but there aren’t any guarantees.”
“You’re a real funny guy, John. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get my shotgun.” He went into the garage and came back with a newspaper in his hand. He dropped it in Smoke’s lap.
“A little odd for a shotgun. Is there a sale on them or something?” Smoke unfolded the paper. It was a copy of Nightfall DC.
CHAPTER 4
Smoke opened up the paper and leafed through the pages. “That’s some pretty interesting reading. Do you have a subscription to this?”
“It’s no surprise you’re making light of it, but yes, I do, and I have a collection. There’s been some pretty interesting stories over the past year.” Head up and elbows on his knees, Keith leaned toward Smoke. “I’ve had run-ins with this stuff, and it scared the hell out of me.”
Eyeing the pages, Smoke scanned the headline of one of the articles. “You mean you saw a rat man in the sewers, like the Ninja Turtles?”
Keith’s voice lowered to a rumble. “Twenty years ago, I saw a man the size of three standing on the highway. It was raining, and he was turning some fella into hamburger meat with his fists. I shot him with my forty-five. Six times. He ripped off a car door and slung it at me like a Frisbee.” Keith pushed his hair up at the scalp line, revealing a nasty scar. “I woke up with this, happy to be alive, but almost got laughed out of the station. Hell, no one would believe me, so I blamed it on a concussion. Not long after that, I was at a law enforcement convention in DC when I came across that paper. It opened my eyes.”
Smoke could see Sally through the kitchen window. “Does she know about your incident?”
“She’s my wife,” Keith said. “I tell her just about everything, even that. She looked really worried when I told her, so I kinda backed off of it. Sally’s sweet and tough, but certain things she can’t handle. The supernatural creeps her out, and I have to hide these magazines from her. I have a boy in town that fetches them for me. I hide them in the garage among my tools.” The rugged lawman’s forehead crinkled. There was a lost look in his light eyes.
Smoke could feel the man’s concern and worry. At the same time, he knew there wasn’t much point in trying to fool his father-in-law-to-be. Sure, the less they knew the better, but they might as well be prepared for the unexpected. “Keith, I’ve seen giants. And rat men that live in the sewers. A bunch of other rotten filth too. So has Sid. Do you want to hear more?”
“I just need to know enough so that I can protect my family. Of course, last time, the bullets didn’t do much good.” He cocked his head at Smoke. “Can you kill them?”
Smoke smiled. “You can kill anything with the right weapon.”
Sally brought a pitcher of iced tea out on a tray and set it down on the bench. “How are you men doing? You look so serious. You should be happy.” She handed Smoke a glass. “This will make you happy.”
He took a sip. “That’s delicious. I’m happier already.”
Keith took off his Docksiders and rubbed his feet in the grass. “Ah, that feels good.”
Sally handed her husband a fresh glass of tea. “For your feet maybe, but not for the grass.” She fanned her face. “Shew! For John’s sake I hope a breeze starts up. That’s awful.”
The phone rang inside the kitchen.
Sally perked up some more. “Oh, I bet that’s Sid. We’re going shopping for wedding dresses!” She scuttled toward the house.
Keith stretched out his glass of iced tea for a toast. “To exciting times and my future son-in-law.” He clinked his glass into Smoke’s, took a long drink, and then looked over sideways to where Sally had just closed the slider. “Now tell me everything I can stand to hear.”
Over the next three hours, Smoke filled Keith’s ears with plenty of what had happened. He told him about the Black Slate and what he and Sid had been hired for. He talked about Adam Vaughn the werewolf, the deaders, the shifters, and Mason Crow the minotaur.
Keith’s mouth dropped open until his jaw almost hit the ground more than a few times. A breeze came, but the older man started to sweat a lot. He had the expression of a man who had seen a ghost.
Finally, Keith waved his hands and said, “That’s enough. I’ve heard plenty.” He slumped back in his chair and let out a long sigh. “I don’t want to believe it, but I do believe it. And my daughter is out in the thick of it. My little baby.”
Smoke nodded. He’d left out some items. He hadn’t told about Sid being abducted by Kane Lancaster, and he hadn’t mentioned Allison or Megan. “I’ll always protect her,” he said.
“I know you will. Damn. I want to join the fight with you.”
“You’re better off in Florida.”
“Hah, there are deaders there, too.” He slapped his knee. “They just call them senior citizens. You ought to see them down there. I’m talking about my father and mother of course. They still get around pretty good. It’s a nice community, but dead quiet after seven p.m.” He rubbed his knee. “Oh, getting old sucks. So, tell me more about the weapons you use. We aren’t going anywhere until you two are settled, and who knows, we might need some protection. I still get the willies thinking about that man that was here from the Drake months ago. He was dead, wasn’t he?”
“Edwin Lee,” Smoke said softly. “Yeah, I saw his tombstone. There’s no telling how many of those kinds of people are out there running around.” He felt at little flutter in his stomach. “There are children too, Keith.”
“Children? You mean like Megan, but they’re dead?”
“Clones is more like it. Honestly, I can’t tell if they’re real or not. Maybe they’re something else entirely.” Smoke’s broad shoulders sagged. “It isn’t easy.”
The older man fanned himself and refilled his tea and offered some. “More?”
Smoke held out his glass and said, “Sure.”
“You know, it really breaks my heart that we haven’t seen or heard from Allison or Megan for quite some time. Sally grieves about it every day. I catch her looking at photo albums and crying sometimes. I can’t help but wonder where we went wrong with Allison.” Keith pinched his tear ducts. “It hurts, and even worse, my gut tells me they’re in the thick of all this. Aren’t they, John.”
Smoke had hoped the topic wouldn’t come up, but there wasn’t any point in trying to hide anything from Keith now. One never knew how hard life would hit you. One day you were here and the next day you were gone. Keith needed to know everything he could about his daughter and have some peace with it. “Senator Wilhelm was in league with the Drake, and Allison—as you know—was in league with him. She’s still with them. It’s the choice she made, Keith, but you can’t blame yourself.” He looked around at the wonderful ranch home and all of its pleasant surroundings. “I don’t have any children,
but I’ve known plenty of prodigal sons. Some were in the military and others were in prison. It leaves you shaking your head. Most times it reminds me of Cain and Abel. One just had faith and the other didn’t. It’s hard to understand why.”
“Yeah, I’ve thought along those lines before. It offers little comfort and it hurts like hell. I just hope for Sally’s sake that Allison will come around before it’s too late. I think Sally’s getting her hopes up that this wedding will bring us all together, but I fear she’ll be disappointed.”
“It’s going to be a great day for all of us,” Smoke said. He gulped down his drink and rattled the ice in the glass. “With tea like this, how can it not be?” He tapped the back of his hand on Keith’s knee. “Come over to my car and we’ll talk more about those weapons you’re so interested in.”
With a groan, Keith got up. “Good. I hope I can get a few shots in on those bastards that have screwed with my daughters.”
CHAPTER 5
Smoke spent the rest of the day with Keith and Sally. They all spent a lot of time in the living room after they finished a wonderful home-cooked dinner. Sally showed him volumes of family photos while Keith watched Gunsmoke on TV. It was one of the better days Smoke had had in a long time, being around real people that lived a simple life and cared about one another so much. He’d had days like that when he was young, and the familiarity of the family atmosphere left him nostalgic more than a few times.
He left them with smiles on their faces. Keith thanked him for the blue-tipped bullets that he’d left and one of his pistols to shoot them with. Sally was all tears. The sweet woman gave him a big hug and pecked his face with a kiss. Smoke found a tissue in the Camaro, checked the red smudge in the rearview mirror, and wiped it off. He turned up the radio and tapped on the wheel. “Never enough good days like today.”
The Camaro rolled down two miles of gravel road that led away from the Shaw house before hitting the T-intersection of a one-lane highway. Happy to get off the long drive that was better suited for trucks than low-riding sports machines, Smoke laid into the gas and zoomed down the blacktop. He was feeling giddy. Even though his discussions with Keith had been on the darker side, it felt right. A perfect day.
Perhaps it won’t be long before Sid and I settle down and start our own family.
Family. That was a sore issue for him. He’d had one when he was growing up, but not with his real parents. He’d been adopted as a baby, and he didn’t have any idea who his parents were. There were days, not many, but enough, when he’d wonder who his parents really were. But he had Samantha, his half sister, and her parents—his adopted parents—were just as much his parents as hers. They’d been nothing short of good to him. His life had been normal, but unlike the other kids where he grew up, he was different. Special. In his gut, he felt that everything going on right now might have something bigger to do with him. It bothered him.
I wonder how Sid’s doing.
He picked up the phone lying on the passenger seat and didn’t see any messages on it. It had been a full day without a word from his bride-to-be. It was as if he expected to be chatting with her all the time like two teenage kids on a sitcom, but he did like the excited purr in her voice. At the same time, there was a nagging in the back of his head that something might be wrong. The Drake was out to get them. Possibly she could’ve been abducted again. If he had it his way, he’d be with her most of every day.
Maybe I should check in with Sam. She’ll know something. Ah, Guppy. He’ll know what’s going on. Sam tells him everything.
Eyes on and off the road, he started thumbing a quick text to Guppy. The radio station fizzled out and squeaked and became static. He pushed the button for another station. It was static as well. Through the windshield, he looked up at the full bright moon hanging in the sky. He passed by a white big rig that was pulled over on the side of the road. He hadn’t seen a car pass by in the last few miles. It was just him and a vacant road. The lights on his dashboard blinked. A chill went up his spine. He gripped the wheel.
Feels like an X-Files moment.
He drove another mile with nothing but static in the speakers. He turned the volume down. The lights on the dashboard flickered from time to time. The engine’s throttle skipped more than once. Smoke was taking the same route back to DC as the way he’d come. The vehicle had been freshly in tune then, but now it seemed off. He passed another big rig pulled over to the side. Its lights turned on just after he passed, and smoke rolled up and out of its stacks as it pulled onto the road.
Something’s going on.
Smoke wasn’t one to be paranoid. If anything, he expected things to suddenly happen. That’s what he was trained for. He always had a plan of action. An escape plan. He reached into the backseat and grabbed a semi-automatic pistol. The safety was off and it was ready to fire. He laid it in his lap.
He caught his first glimpse of another vehicle coming his way. Its high beams were bright, almost blinding. He glanced to the right side of the road until the whoosh of the other car that was over the centerline whizzed by his. A huge man with stone-cut features was crammed behind the wheel, looking right at him.
This is getting weird.
Pressing on the accelerator, he sped the Camaro up to eighty miles per hour. Ahead, a big rig started to switch lanes in an attempt to pass another one. Smoke let off the gas. Both lanes were blocked. He checked the rearview mirror. The big rig that had pulled out onto the road behind him was coming, and it wasn’t alone. Another filled the oncoming traffic lane.
I’m blocked in like it’s a smash-up derby. I get the feeling the Malachy Crunch is coming on.
The trucks in front of him slowed, taking their speed down to about sixty. Between the trucks, Smoke had both lanes to himself. He guided the wheel over to the right and accelerated up the berm. The truck swerved to the right, blocking his passage and kicking up road debris. He pumped the gas and swerved back behind the trucks.
“So are you trying to stop me or to kill me?”
The trucks behind him accelerated toward his back bumper. The space between the four trucks was closing fast.
He patted his dash. “It’s moments like this I wish you were a Volvo or that you had about twenty air bags.”
Behind him, the big rigs’ diesel motors roared with new life and closed in. There was only a car length between his car and the trucks. The doors in the back of the trailers rose. Inside, men wearing goggles were pointing machine guns right at him.
Great Dane. Those goggles look ridiculous. And I’m all out of L.A.W. rockets.
They charged their weapons and opened fire.
CHAPTER 6
Smoke cut the wheel hard to the left. The eighteen-wheeler behind him clipped his rear bumper and spun him off the road into the berm. He stomped on the gas and shot down the berm the opposite way. The huge truck swerved at him, but the speed of the Camaro rocketed Smoke to safety. It was just him and the open road in front of him.
“What was that all about?”
His thoughts went immediately to Sid and her parents. He checked his phone, but there still wasn’t any signal. Whatever was going on stank. The men with the guns didn’t have any peacoats on, and he hadn’t noticed any Drake symbols or black suns on them. His mind was racing through the details. White freight trucks with no markings. Men with goggles and machine guns. They were trying to kill him or stop him from getting back to DC, which meant that somewhere, something was going on.
“Heh, they can’t catch me now.”
The red taillights of the trucks flared in his rearview mirror. Their tires skipped and skidded on the road.
Smoke brought the Camaro to a stop. The trucks were now at a stop half a mile away. Their cargo doors rolled open, and automatic ramps were let out over the road. Men burst out two by two. On motorcycles.
“Now this is getting silly,” Smoke said, tapping on the steering wheel. His car was fast, but the speed bikes were faster. There wasn’t much point in a race, and tw
o more sets of headlights filled the roadway in the distance. More big trucks were coming. He dropped the car into reverse, stomped the gas, and said, “Screw it!”
The tires smoked, and he made a beeline straight for the racing bikes. The bikers veered out of the way.
Smoke whipped the wheel around, screeching the tires into a one-eighty turn. He was facing the back end of the trucks again. Laying into the gas, he zoomed over the right side of the berm and sped right by the trucks that were stopped dead on the road.
He left all four eighteen wheelers in his rearview mirror, but the motorcycles were coming. The pursuers closed fast, goggled men with Uzis in their hands.
Smoke rolled down his windows, held the wheel steady, and reached under his seat. He had two small boxes that filled his hand.
With the wind beating into his face, he said, “I never thought I’d see the day when I got to use this. It looks like today’s the day.”
Checking his rear and side mirrors, he watched the cycles close in. As soon as they got within a car length, he dropped one box out of each window. Two loud pops followed. Hundreds of tiny caltrops covered the road and dug into the motorcycle tires. Both riders went down in a speeding skid of flesh and metal.
Smoke pumped his fist. “Woooooohooooooo!”
He didn’t know what was going on, but it was getting interesting. Getting fun. Behind him, the danger began to fade. He turned up the radio, but the static was still there. He hit the play button on the cassette player, saying, “You can’t stop rock and roll.” He turned up the volume. Electric guitars were playing. “No matter how hard the bad guys try, I can still rock in America!”
Smoke contemplated his next step. Whoever was after him had gone to an awful lot of trouble to get him. They must know where he lived, so going home was out. In the meantime he’d need to check on Sid, Sam, and Guppy. His phone still didn’t have a signal. He’d have to go into hiding until he could figure something out. That wouldn’t be hard to do once he got back into the city. He’d vanish.
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files: Special Edition Fantasy Bundle, Books 6 thru 10 (Smoke Special Edition Book 2) Page 15
