Elite: A Hunter novel

by Mercedes Lackey

  “That’ll be me for a while, anyway,” I replied with a little shrug. “The worst part was being caught off guard. That won’t happen again. And my pack knows what to do about them now.”

  None of us talked about the buffalo in the room—how the wretched things had gotten down there in the first place. This wasn’t a herd of Knockers, who individually are small and have a chance of getting in through some hole in the defenses one at a time, nor Vamps, which sneak in at night. The Nagas had been about six feet tall head-to-floor, with another four-to-six feet of additional snake tail.

  Then again…these people must already have been sworn to secrecy just to be allowed to work down there. This might not be the first time they’d seen something new. Kelly took off his blue safety helmet and scratched his head. He had a baby face, but his hair was going thin on top. “I don’t suppose that you’ve still got the energy to pose for some pictures with us?” he said hopefully.

  I am never going to understand this, I thought. Because an hour ago we’d narrowly escaped being turned into cold cuts by snake people. And now they wanted selfies with me.

  I reminded myself again that this was part of the job. And I smiled and posed with everyone, and only after their pod had come and taken them off did I call for mine.

  Once in that pod, though, I called HQ. I cut straight to the heart of things. “HQ, you got the feed from the tunnel cams, so is there any record of anything called a Naga in the files, or anything that looked like those snake-men?”

  “Negative, Hunter,” came the reply. “Did your Hound give any other clues as to origin?”

  “Negative,” I replied. “I think you need a folklorist.”

  Because of course I was going to get Bya as soon as I had the chance and grill him about it. But I wasn’t going to let HQ know that. So far as I am aware, most Hounds, even if they do speak with their Hunters, are just not what you’d call chatty, and very few ever volunteer information.

  “Report to debrief as soon as you arrive, Hunter.” That was a new voice, and completely expected. I sighed. So much for going back on rotation or hitting another part of that sewer today. Unless a full-team callout came in, I was going to be toasted over a grill for the rest of the day.

  This wasn’t disciplinary, of course; it was informational, because there’s so much that the camera can’t pick up, like scent. But once I got back, I was in a little room with three skilled debriefers going over and over every second of the encounter, and pummeling my brain to try and think of something I hadn’t remembered the first time. Having a headache the whole time didn’t help. I kept drinking water, and eventually the pain faded, but it took a while. Somehow, having a headache that bad is worse than being mauled by a Wyvern.

  These were three earnest, focused, and hyperorganized people (two men and a woman who looked so alike they could have been siblings) in a new sort of uniform—like a modified police uniform in dark, dark green instead of black. They sat across the table from me. They had done their level best to make the debriefing room as comfortable as possible: the walls were a nice, soothing pale green, the acoustics were perfect, quiet without being maddeningly so, and my chair was…well, as a kid I used to daydream about sitting in clouds, and that was pretty much what it felt like, and it even reclined. They got me headache pills, anything I wanted to drink, and they’d have fed me if I hadn’t been nauseous. I couldn’t have been annoyed with them if I’d wanted to be; I knew just how important this was. A new Othersider…the implications weren’t good, and it was vital we get on top of this.

  Finally, they indicated they were as satisfied as they were going to get, and let me go. By this time, having skipped lunch, I was more than ready for dinner.

  But tonight’s meal was going to be different for all of us.

  The mess was full of tired people who were not in the least talkative. Hunters and Elite alike had been patrolling or on callouts all damn day. It had been the (expected) “storm” after the storm, as Othersiders who’d been rained into whatever shelter they’d been able to find had been out in force and hungry. It looked to have been a long, hard day for everyone, even those who had patrolled “easy” territories. People were crammed into any seat they could find; I was with two brand-new probationary Hunters who had just come into their packs and Powers and were so exhausted they didn’t even notice when I sat down across from them.

  Retro passed by, looking for a seat, and heaved an exaggerated sigh when he realized there was no room for him. “You’re torturing me, here, Joy!” he said. “I might even start thinking you’re deliberately avoiding hanging out with me if this keeps up!”

  I’d have taken pity on him, except there really was no room. Then he happened to look over at the exhausted newbs, and smiled and shrugged when they looked up at him and half started to get up.

  “Naw, guys, stay put, you look way too beat to move. I’ll go drag my wounded ego over to Dazzle.” And he winked at me and did just that.

  When Kent strode into the place, at first no one took any notice of him, but then he spoke into the near silence, and heads came up all over the room.

  “Listen up, Hunters. We have a new Othersider out there.”

  The four vid-screens up near the ceiling lit up with footage from our encounter with the Nagas, about thirty seconds’ worth, before it froze on a particularly clear shot of one of the wretched things.

  “Swords?” howled Tober, a burly, black-haired guy wearing Hunter colors of orange, brown, and black who had once been in Ace’s clique. “They use swords?”

  He was right to be astonished. We were used to Othersiders combating us with natural powers, or magic, but the Redcaps and Knockers were the only ones I’d ever seen using weapons. The Knockers used crude clubs and flint knives. The Redcaps used slightly more sophisticated bronze knives. I wasn’t sure what these swords were made of even though I had brought some in as samples—they certainly weren’t bronze or steel. They were exquisitely crafted—even beautiful—blades, slightly curved, and with a wicked single edge.

  “These new Othersiders have been identified as Nagas, and as you can see, their primary offense is physical. Extreme speed, using the tail as a weapon, and quadridextrous with swords.”

  Now that I wasn’t pummeling my brain, I had time to examine the freeze-frame of the Naga. Four arms, all right; the jointing was really strange, as you’d figure from something with four arms. Since there wasn’t an obvious set of hips, I wondered if the second set of arms was actually a modified set of legs on a shortened spine and a deformed pelvis. Human-ish torso blending into a snake body and tail. This one had jewelry, a kind of vest made of gold chains, and an engraved gold band binding his long black hair into a topknot. The jewelry hadn’t persisted past their deaths, so it was either an illusion or a magical construct. There seemed to be scales on the backs of his arms, and his human skin was a muddy color between brown and green, while the snake part of him was more green. He had his mouth open in a snarl, and he definitely had the pointed teeth I remembered, although I wouldn’t call them “fangs”; more as if he had filed all his human teeth to a point.

  Kent continued describing everything I’d told the debriefers; I didn’t exactly tune him out, but I was studying the freeze-frame more carefully than I was listening to him. The closer I looked, the more it seemed as if what appeared to be a human torso with a very defined set of pectoral muscles wasn’t any such thing; it was a human-shaped torso covered in thin, flexible plates, perhaps serving the function of light armor. That would account for why the shot didn’t do as much damage as it might have otherwise.

  Kent started the vid up again; it cut to a freeze-frame of the light damage that had been done by our shot loads as he described what weapons had been used on the Nagas at that point.

  The vid restarted, this time from when my Hounds unleashed their fire on the things. “As you can see, fire is extremely effective on them,” Kent continued. Then the vid panned back to show all of us covering our ears and b
ending over double in pain. “However, a secondary and perhaps unintentional weapon is their voices. Until we have a better idea of how common these creatures are going to be, or where they are likely to appear, we are going to recommend that if you or your Hounds do not have any form of fire-powers, and that you are not in an area where you can freely use incendiary or armor-piercing munitions, that you retreat and call it in. And we also recommend that you carry hearing protection with you from now on.”

  The poor new Hunters were staring at the screen in utter horror. I didn’t blame them. Here they were, already feeling cowed by the fact that now they were expected to face down monsters…only to discover there were monsters out there no one had ever even seen before. Monsters that had come as a surprise to seasoned Hunters. “Hey,” I said in a soft voice, causing both of them to turn suddenly and look at me with eyes the size of my cup. “Don’t worry. They won’t put you out there without a mentor for a good long time. We need Hunters; the last thing they’ll do is stick you guys in training up against things you aren’t ready for, know what I mean?”

  The one licked his lips; the other swallowed. But they looked as if they had actually heard me, and started to get a little less scared.

  “Besides,” I continued, “I can guarantee that while you aren’t used to fighting monsters, your Hounds are. You can rely on them to keep you safe.”

  They smiled weakly at that; obviously, being shiny new Hunters so green they still hadn’t gotten the tattoos over their Mandalas, they’d already discovered that for themselves.

  I might have said something else encouraging to them, but now Kent was venturing into information I didn’t know, and I riveted my attention back on him.

  “We’ve had the folklorists researching this, and one of them came through for us. It appears that these ‘Nagas’ are part of Indo-Asian religious lore.” He nodded as that elicited a sharp reaction from the more experienced Hunters. “Exactly. This is the first time we’ve seen anything that wasn’t native to this continent, or Grecian, Roman, or European.”

  There was absolute silence at that point, as the rest of us contemplated that. If we were going to have to start preparing to face monsters from every single culture on the planet…well, that was going to be a long, long list.

  “I guess the folklorists are going to start looking for a pay-grade increase now,” said someone on the other side of the room, earning a scattering of laughs.

  “Just remember,” Kent said, replacing the feed of the Naga fight with the weather feed. “Every Othersider was new to Hunters at some point. Don’t let this rattle you. Just stay alert, and if you’re in a position to back out if you encounter something you don’t recognize, do so and call it in. And as for those of you who are rankers, remember that novelty is going to make you stand out. If these things pop up in your territory and on your watch…” He left the rest unsaid because he didn’t have to say it. The competitive among us were already probably working out how to cache a flamethrower somewhere they could get to it easily (those things are infernally heavy, pun intended) or planning incendiary traps they could lure the things into. I will say this much for the Hunters who are focused on the fame and glory and not so much on the “protecting the Cits” part—they are inventive. And they kill just as many monsters as any other Hunter does. The longer I was in Apex City, the more inclined I was to weigh results heavier than motivation.

  The new guys—my brain finally connected them with their names, Fox and Levy—were still looking a bit green as Kent left the room, so I did my best to soothe their fears. I don’t know how well I did, but at least by the time I left, they had gotten some appetite back. I wondered who their mentors were. I hoped it was someone like Knight or Dazzle, or even Bree. Someone that would take the time to make sure they were okay, and not just breeze through everything and assume they’d be fine.

  My vid-screen was blinking with messages when I got back to my room. One was from Kent, with a text rundown of what the folklorist had discovered and an attachment of several pages that I intended to study later. Not that I was sloughing these things off, but I already knew how to make them dead; knowing the folklore about them wouldn’t help me to make them dead any faster.

  The other message was from Josh. Sky Lounge, Administration building? If yes, meet me there at eight. That was all it said, but my heart skipped. A date, and this time, given that I was off rotation, unless we got a full-team callout, it was one I wasn’t going to have to cut short. There wouldn’t be any cameras following us around, just the security ones in the lounge itself. I messaged back Yes, thank you! made arrangements for a pod, and began ransacking my wardrobe. I put together a casual outfit that was a little bit dressy, following Kei’s recommendations; sadly, the only things in my wardrobe other than what I had brought from home were all in my signature colors, but that couldn’t be helped. Instead of putting my hair in a side-tail or putting it up, I let it loose. With any luck, anyone who saw me would think I was just another “Hunter Joy fan.”

  No cameras were waiting for me outside HQ. The pod that turned up had an older civilian driver, distinctly uninterested in who I was, and un-chatty. Polite, but didn’t even play music, unless he was listening to something on earbuds I couldn’t see, which was possible. I didn’t mind; after all that being talked at this afternoon, the silence was nice. I leaned back in the seat and watched out the window. It was dusk, and with my Psi-shield on, I was pretty sure no one was going to know who was in the pod. When I had time to actually think about it, after so many years of walking or riding a horse and only rarely driving in one of the semi-armored trucks down to the train station, this method of transportation was still more than a little magical. So quiet, so smooth…and so much faster than walking.

  The driver delivered me to the same entrance that the military drivers had when I came to visit Uncle: down a ramp under the building, ending in closed glass doors, with blast-doors open on either side of the glass ones. I was momentarily unsure what to do as we pulled up to the guarded entrance. Was I supposed to pay him? I assumed I was, but how?

  But he turned in his seat and asked me politely for my Perscom. I held out my wrist, and he scanned mine with his. And finally he cracked a smile. “Always a pleasure to pick up you Hunter folk, miss,” and popped the door for me.

  He drove off as I got out and faced the four uniformed guards at the door. “Hunter Joyeaux to see Psimon Josh, Prefect Charmand’s aide, in the Sky Lounge,” I said, formally.

  “Very good, Hunter,” said the one nearest me after he checked his Perscom. “You’re expected. Go straight to the elevators.”

  He held the door open for me, and although I wasn’t escorted in this time, I got the distinct sensation of being carefully monitored all the way to the elevators. Which was hardly a surprise, really, after what Ace had done. Even I wasn’t above suspicion. It was going to take a long, long time before the reputation of the Hunters recovered from his meltdown in certain quarters—although given the fickle attentions of the public, most people had already dismissed him to the back of their minds, if they even thought of him at all.

  The elevator didn’t move until after I held my Perscom up to it. Then it shot straight to the top floor without stopping. The elevator door opened right into the Sky Lounge, and Josh was standing there waiting with a big smile on his face. The lights had been dimmed down to almost nothing, making the view of Apex out the windows absolutely spectacular.

  The Sky Lounge was practically empty; there were just two people, both guys, sitting at the autobar, but Josh took me over to the west side of the lounge, a section that was divided into private little booths with transparent partitions, each with a fine view of Apex City below us. Once we were seated, the partition around us opaqued, leaving us as private as if we were completely alone up here. “Whew,” Josh said, punching in something on a screen built into the table. “I think this might be the first time you and I haven’t had eyes all over us when we’ve been together. Even as an
Elite, they still seem to have a cam following you.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder, just for a split second, why this should bother someone who routinely scanned through other peoples’ thoughts without bothering to tell them. And I wondered if he’d been making tries at mine without my realizing it—I guess Retro, Hammer, and Steel’s jabs at PsiCorps had gotten to me a little. Then I shook it off; I told myself, This is Josh, this isn’t some random PsiCorps snoop, and that I was just letting the other Hunters’ distrust of Psimons get to me.

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed, and felt tension just ease out of me. “This…is really nice.”

  A moment later, a platform with iced drinks on it rose up in the center of the table. Josh handed me one. As I raised an eyebrow at him, he laughed. “Mine’s alcoholic; yours, however, is not. You do not have tomorrow off, I am well aware that your Perscom could go off at any second, and I would be flayed alive if I was the reason you were even slightly impaired.”

  I gave him a wry smile and took a sip. Then another, with pleasure. Like so many things, this drink was new to me. Unlike so many things here, it had a very distinct and nuanced taste. This was herbal but not herbal, a sort of green taste with just enough hint of bitter that a touch of sweetness in it made a brilliant contrast. There was a little lemon, but only enough to enhance the nuanced herbal flavor. “Is this—” I began, not knowing what it could be.

  “Real green tea, from the authentic tea plant,” he told me. “The genuine article. This is from the first commercial harvest. Rare still, but they tell me it will get more common now that we’ve got places where it can grow and the bushes are maturing.”

  That’s going to make the Masters very happy! I thought as I scooted closer to Josh so that he could put his arm around me. Something in that tea was making the last vestiges of my killer headache fade away. I could not have been happier about that.

  “So, you had one heck of a day,” Josh said with sympathy. I was surprised for a moment because he hadn’t given me any hint that he knew about my special assignment. But I guessed that maybe Uncle had given him access to the restricted feeds from the storm sewers.