The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series

by Craig Halloran

  “Just the ones that are helpful.”

  Holy Smoke: Book 8

  CHAPTER 1

  Fort Carroll sat in the middle of the Patapsco River like a ghost city. Smoke and Sid were at the docks where the FBI had dropped off Titus Tolliver days earlier. Beside the phantom black Dodge Hellcat, Sid squeezed into the sweetheart suit. Her skin tingled. A coppery taste filled her mouth. She fought the urge to spit.

  “You okay?” Smoke’s sweetheart suit only covered him above the waist. The refined sinew coating his muscular frame rippled with every movement. He blew into a small inflatable raft they were going to stow their weapons and gear in. “You look a little nervous.” He gazed at the river. “It’s not the easiest swim.”

  Sid loosened up her arms by doing small windmills. She cracked her neck from side to side. “I was feeling a little tight, but I’m feeling better with the suit on. I bet I can beat you over there.”

  “Hey, I’m hauling all the gear.” Smiling, he shoved a pair of guns into the floating sack. He stood up with a knife and belt in his hand, wrapped it around Sid’s waist, and fastened it with a snap. Backing up, he said with an approving nod, “You’ve got that Bond girl thing going on. I like it.”

  “Bond girls aren’t half the woman I am. They’re scrawny.”

  Smoke put his arms around her waist. “And not half as sexy.”

  “Why don’t I take a picture?” Sam, Smoke’s sister, was dressed in black, grey, and white camouflage. Her hair was pulled back in a long ponytail. Guppy stood beside her, dressed the same, with a grin on his face. His black truck was parked behind them. Sam pulled out her phone. “You two look so adorable together. No one would ever suspect you’re a couple of lunatics.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. This isn’t the best place for a flash,” Sid said.

  “OK, fine.” Sam put her phone away. Looking around, she said, “So what about this Vormus guy? Isn’t he supposed to be here?”

  “He said he’d meet us on the island,” Smoke said.

  “And doesn’t that seem a little suspicious, coming from a guy who tried to kill us all?” Sam replied.

  Smoke shrugged.

  “Are you okay with this, Sid?” Sam asked.

  Adjusting her knife belt, she said, “I have to find out where my niece and sister are.”

  “I don’t like it,” Sam said, “but if you don’t make it back, I promise to take care of the Hellcat. The keys are in it, right?”

  Sid laughed. “You’re more than welcome, Sis.”

  “Aw, come here.” Sam clomped over on her high heels and gave Sid a firm hug. “You’d better make it back. That place is creepy out there. I can just imagine all those monsters spilling outside.”

  “And I can’t imagine you running from them in those high heels.”

  “Oh, I won’t be running. I’ll be driving the Hellcat.” Sam made a cat sound.

  “Boy, you really do want my car, don’t you!” Sid said.

  “I’m sorry, I have to say funny things when I’m nervous.” Sam shouted at Guppy, “You make sure they’ve got everything Mal gave you?”

  “I did,” Guppy replied.

  “Well, double check it.”

  “I did.”

  “Triple—”

  “Done!”

  “You’re a good friend and sister, Sam. We’ll make it back.”

  Sam swatted at a mosquito buzzing near her face. “I hate mosquitos.” Stepping away from Sid, she said, “Guppy, I’ve got a mosquito.”

  Sam’s burly husband sauntered over with an aerosol can. He sprayed mist around Sam. “Don’t get it in my mouth,” she said, adding a little cough.

  Smoke slung the inflatable pack over his shoulder. “I guess it’s time.” He and Sid walked toward the boat ramp at Hawkins Point. There wasn’t anyone else around. He said to Sam, “We’ll be back before dawn.”

  “You’d better be.”

  Sid and Smoke waded into the cold waters of the river, sending shivers up from her bare feet.

  Smoke handed her a pair of flippers. “These will make the swim a lot easier.”

  “You know, I didn’t even think of that. I guess I should have expected this from a former frogman.”

  He snapped his green-lensed goggles over his head. “What can I say. I love the water. So are you ready?”

  As the waters splashed against the rocks from the wake of a barge passing by, she waded in deeper. With a nod, she eyed Fort Carroll. Her heart pounded. Even though the sweetheart suit sent steady energy into her body, there was quavering inside. It was a long swim. Even longer thinking about the unknown that waited for them on the island. She slipped on her goggles. “See if you can keep up.”

  “Hah!” Smoke submerged himself to the neck. With the floating sack tethered to his waist, he swam alongside her. His strokes were long and steady. He cut through the water like a great fish.

  Sidney pushed off on a rock. The sweetheart suit gave a little extra buoyancy, and the flippers helped a lot. It didn’t take long for her freestyle stroke to get into rhythm.

  Boy, I wish I could have swum with these on swim team.

  Smoke edged out in front, glancing back from time to time. Before long, they were halfway to the fort. With her competitive instinct kicking in, she swam faster. Her long fingers chopped and pushed through the water, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t catch Smoke.

  Good Lord, he’s fast.

  A spotlight hit the waters nearby. It came from Fort Carroll.

  CHAPTER 2

  Smoke stopped. They both treaded water. The spotlight brushed over the waves. Its beam came from just over the fort’s fortification wall. The bright lens moved from side to side, just west of them.

  “Get behind me,” Smoke said. “When I say duck, go under.”

  “Okay.”

  The beam cruised right toward them.

  “Duck.”

  After taking a small breath, Sid half swam, half sank into the water. Smoke did the same. The two hovered just below the black water’s surface. The light cruised over their location. The illumination wavered above. The light searching for them was the only hopeful sight in the blackness.

  The beam moved on.

  Smoke took her hand and led them up. Resurfacing, she gasped for air. Smoke’s head panned left and right. Her head was on a swivel. The searchlight was gone.

  “What do you think?” she whispered.

  “I don’t see anything.” Smoke’s stare was fixed on the wall where the light had come from. “Nothing at all. Even with the goggles.”

  Treading water and taking a breath, she said, “We need to keep moving. This water’s choppier than I figured.”

  Smoke’s eyes lit up. “Are you getting tired?”

  She nodded.

  He pushed the sack over to Sid. “Use this. Besides, we need to take our time if eyes are watching.”

  “Fair enough.” She took a breath. “I didn’t think I’d get so winded. At least not with the suit on.”

  “We’re fighting a current. Most of the time, when you fight the water, it wins. Let’s go.”

  They swam at half the speed they had been. Before long, Sid got a second wind. She pushed it again, legs kicking faster just under the water. Ten more minutes’ hard swimming and they both hit the stony base of the old fort’s rim. She climbed up on the ledge and sat. Chest heaving, she caught her breath.

  “It’s not the asthma, is it?” Smoke asked.

  “Maybe a little.” She rolled her shoulder. “Man, that was a swim.”

  “Going back will be easier.” Smoke remained in the water, staring up at the fort’s stone walls. The large cut stones, stacked eight high, made a wall much higher than expected. “We’ll need to ease around the rim and find a spot to squeeze into.”

  Sid remembered the long gaps between the stones. She stared at Hawkins Point, where they had started out. It looked far away. She eased back into the water. “After you, John.”

  Hugging the fo
rt’s base, they moved hand over hand, eyeing the top of the wall. Sid read a marker: PRIVATE. KEEP OFF. GUARD DOG.

  Eyeing the same thing, Smoke said, “And I thought we only had to worry about shifters.”

  “You worry about shifters? I don’t.”

  He kept working his way around the wall. “And that’s why you wear the pants in this family.”

  They came to a stop at a lower section of the outer wall, where there was a big break between the stones. Smoke helped Sid up into it. He climbed up after her. With the water splashing against the walls, he looked around. “Creepy.”

  “Just like the magazine. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the cover.” She slipped through the gap, climbing up the broken wall, and made it to ground level. The eerie island was covered in dry trees and brown bushes run amok. None looked like anything she’d seen before. “Strange place for things to grow.”

  “Life finds a way everywhere.” Smoke found a spot where the bushy ground gave way to a clearing on the old pavement. Still huddled behind the brush, he opened the waterproof sack. He and Sid strapped on their guns. They’d loaded the magazines earlier. Red tips at the top. Blue and green tips in the bottom. Smoke was smiling.

  “Getting a little excited, are you?”

  “Sometimes I feel a little giddy among the uncanny.” He holstered both his weapons. From inside the sack, he pulled out a small bottle. He rattled the pills inside.

  Sid couldn’t hide her surprise. “More supervitamins in stock?”

  “I think Mal likes to pretend he’s low. He thinks we’ll hoard them all.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “No, but I can tell.” Something buzzed inside the sack. Smoke produced a phone. “It’s for you.”

  It was a message from Sam: “Status?” followed by several concerned emojis.

  Sid texted her back. “Doing great.” She tossed the phone in the sack. “Better leave it.”

  Smoke swallowed a vitamin.

  “Isn’t this a little premature?”

  Rolling his finger in front of his face he said, “It’s got a special coating, and I can do my regurgitation thing. I’d love to teach you.”

  Sid’s face crinkled. “I know you’re my husband and I need to accept you as you are, but that doesn’t mean I have to like everything you do.” She opened her hand. “The old-fashioned way will be just fine.”

  He gave her two pills. “It doesn’t bother you too much, does it?”

  “I’ll say this: better hope nothing I ever feed you comes up again at the dinner table.”

  “Ha ha. I’m pretty sure that won’t happen. You’re an excellent cook.” He sniffed. “Do I smell lasagna?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Let’s go.”

  Even though they were wearing the sweetheart suits and armed to the teeth, her belly had still quavered until a minute ago. Smoke had a way of easing the tension. The rugged man was fearless in the eye of anything he faced. She had no doubt there was something special about him.

  They picked their way through the fort, staying hidden in the trees and brush. The center of the compound was cleared off. Someone had used the spotlight, but there weren’t any other signs or sounds of people. A chilling thought came to mind. Perhaps there was a shifter on guard, skulking in the brush, waiting to pounce.

  And then Sid went to step over a heap on the ground and froze. It was a body. Sid squatted down and gasped. The man’s head was twisted past his shoulder, and his dead hands gripped a spotlight.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sid couldn’t fight the shivers that made her hairs stand on end. The man’s head brought back thoughts of Adam Vaughn, the wolf man. He’d killed her supervisor, Jack Dydeck, and many other agents in the same horrific fashion. This time, there wasn’t all that blood.

  She looked back for Smoke. He was gone. She whipped out her weapon. The Glock quelled her earlier fears. Her dark eyes searched the night. A scuffle in the brush caught her ear. She turned and took aim.

  Two men approached.

  “Don’t take another step,” she commanded.

  “Which is it?” said the man in front with his hands up. “He says march and you say halt.” It was Vormus. The vampire shifter’s white hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore large sunglasses and grey slacks, and his lavender sweater stood out against his alabaster skin. “Well?”

  Keeping her gun on him, Sid said, “Did you kill this guy?”

  “No, one of those raccoons did,” Vormus said in his formal and condescending manner.

  Smoke shoved his gun into Vormus’s back. “Answer the lady.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “If you’re going to work with us, you need to stop killing people.” Sid stood up. “We aren’t murderers.”

  “Pfft. If you’re going to take that attitude, then you’ve lost. These guards, they know what side of the fence they are on. They have it coming as much as anyone else. Nobility.” Vormus lifted a brow. “I was raised with nobility. Neither of you have any idea what that is. No one in this heap of a country does. Here, everyone thinks they’re so special.”

  Vormus made a good point. It was something Sid had contemplated more than once. Some of the people they fought were just doing a job. It made it tough when she had to deal with them. Sometimes if you left a man alive, you might lose your own. How do you fight a secret war that is off the books? But they had to know what was going on. They had made a choice.

  “Compared to you, most all of us are special.” Sid holstered her gun. “How’d you get here?”

  “I jumped off the Francis Scott Key Bridge. You should have seen the faces those brats made when I jumped. Oh, how I wish I could still find the joy in that.” He dusted off his hands. “So I floated down here. About an hour later I noticed your little party across the way. That dead man had a watchful eye, too, so I ended him.”

  She tilted her head. “Too? You mean there are more dead?”

  Looking at his nails, Vormus said, “Maybe a couple. What? You should be thanking me. It’s not on your conscience, it’s on mine.” He leaned back and said to Smoke, “But we both know I don’t have one.”

  “You have something,” Smoke said, “Or you wouldn’t be helping us.”

  Taking a glance at the dead man’s body, the shifter replied, “He means as much to me as, what do you special ones call it, ah, as killroad means to you.”

  “It’s roadkill,” she said. “Smoke, do you want to scout around before we take this investigation any deeper?”

  “I’ve cleared the area,” Vormus said.

  “Sit down,” Smoke replied.

  “Here? On the ground?”

  Smoke drove his boot into the back of Vormus’s knee.

  The shifter collapsed, but he popped right up again. Fangs bared, he got in Smoke’s face. “Don’t take my cooperation as softness. I might not feel much, but I still have a temper. Take warning, John Smoke. Don’t treat me like chattel.”

  Staring Vormus in the eye, Smoke said, “You’re worse than chattel. Don’t forget it.”

  Vormus sneered.

  “I’ve got this, John,” Sid said.

  Smoke gave a quick nod and moved out of sight.

  Facing Sid, Vormus said, “It’s only a matter of time before he embraces what he is. The deeper you go down this Lewis Carroll rabbit hole, the more his true nature will reveal itself. It’s the same for the both of you.”

  “It’s not something we can avoid?”

  “No, you can’t. Sidney, I’m grateful you have shown me a degree of trust. After all, we both want the same thing. You need to save your sister. I need to save myself. I’m sincere about that.”

  “I’ll be convinced when my sister and niece are out of harm’s way.” Keeping her eyes on Vormus, she said, “How do I know she’s not a shifter already?”

  “I know there is much to discuss on that, and I don’t have any intent to be vague, but there is a proving ground. It takes time to show commitment.”

  “What
sort of proving ground?”

  “Think of what you know about a gang’s initiation. Multiply by ten.”

  “Are you saying she’ll have to kill somebody?”

  “I’m saying she will kill somebody, and somebody could be anybody. It could be somebody close to her. It was for me.”

  “Who did you kill?”

  “My parents.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “You have every reason to believe I’m a liar, but I’m not, as I have no reason to lie. But you have to kill someone dear to you. I’ve known shifters who even took out their own children.” His stone-cold stare didn’t change. “They didn’t shed a tear.”

  Megan.

  Two thoughts coursed through Sid’s mind. First, Allison wasn’t the best mother to begin with. She was selfish by nature, and she never gave Megan the attention she should. Second, Vormus, if all he said was true, deserved to die. He didn’t deserve redemption of any kind. But she needed him. She didn’t like it.

  Smoke glided back into view. “It’s clear. Everything good here?”

  “Peachy,” she replied. She turned to Vormus. “Where to?”

  “You’re asking me? This is the first time I’ve been here too. I’m not much of what you call an investigator. I just know who to fetch when we get in there, wherever there is.”

  “I’ve got it,” Smoke said. “There’s a boat docked on the bridge side. It’s got to be close to where they go in. Follow me.”

  “After you,” she said, waving her gun at Vormus.

  CHAPTER 4

  The three-and-a-half-acre island fort didn’t prove difficult to navigate. Amid a small crane covered in vines and a Bobcat loader with a busted tread, Smoke found a path beaten down by human traffic. It led down a staircase into a network of tunnels and stone archways. The ground was muddy and wet, filled with silt from the bay. Critters scattered in the darkness.

  Sid’s goggles enhanced her sight enough to make out the faint outlines of the walls. The forms of Vormus and Smoke were clear. Still, it was a little unsettling moving in the pitch-black without a single source of light.