Salvage: A Shadow Files Novel

by A. J. Scudiere

  Walter breathed in slowly through her nose, then out through her mouth. She did it as she waited, carefully counting her breath a fifth time, a sixth, a seventh…And, on the eighth, it happened.

  Movement started in a wave outside. They came down from the trees into the yard, moving as a unit. They stayed low, almost like trained troops, weapons against their shoulders, aimed and ready. Though they still didn't open fire, they came in with force. Walter was waiting for flashbangs, for noise, OC or CS gas. She could handle any of those, but that wasn't what happened. This was not a crowd trained tactically like she'd expected, and it threw her a little off-guard.

  They moved with a lightning speed. Not inhuman, not like the wolves, but coming through the yard with steady determination. As they got closer, she saw their formation was odd and unsteady. But they were together enough, ready to fight if they had to, ready to have each other's backs.

  Walter slowly shifted her aim from one intruder to the other, ready to pull the trigger if anyone out there did it first. But they didn't. They just came closer and closer.

  "What do we do, Christina? Do we fire?" GJ’s voice came through the phone, and—though Walter would have expected it just five months ago—there was no waver in the sound.

  "No, they haven't fired on us. We don't yet know what they want."

  "They want the men and women and children who change!" GJ hollered back.

  No longer were they trying to be quiet on the phones. No longer was there any thought that they might remain hidden. They didn't.

  As Walter watched the shadows get closer and closer, she counted them. The numbers were even higher than the latest estimate. She whispered it into the phone. Unfortunately, she got confirmation back from both Christina and GJ of the same thing.

  The shapes in the dark outside began to take fully human forms as they blocked out some of the moonlight. Some of the shapes hovered between the house and the trees. Some came right up to the pretty flower boxes on the windows, stood in the shrubs along the front. One stood on the front porch. Then, their guns came through the windows, smashing out the panes. The knobs rattled, and what sounded like battering rams or very heavy shoulders, started knocking against the heavy wood.

  Through the shattered window panes, long bore barrels of rifles swept back and forth, searching for aim at the people inside. As she heard the first growl behind her, Walter wondered how she had missed several people changing while she stood right here in front. She now led an army of armed humans and angry wolves.

  "Hold your fire," Christina ordered.

  "The rifles are through the windows here," Walter ground out through her teeth.

  These people were much too close now. Even though she was backing away, they might be able to hear what she said into the phone. It was a massive tactical mistake on her own part, but they had no other communication between the houses.

  There was no single building on the land that was big enough to put the family all in one place. They didn't want to do it either. They hadn’t wanted to hunker down for a war they didn’t believe could happen. They also hadn't wanted to create a single target. Though Walter agreed wholeheartedly and tactically with that decision at the time, having three fortresses spread the agents thin. She regretted it now.

  "Hold your fire," Christina whispered back, steel behind the soft command.

  Was Christina going to do something? Walter wanted to ask as she retreated. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, she never crossed her feet, shuffling so she didn't trip or fall or run into anything. All of it unconscious training from what felt like many years ago. She watched the rifle sweep back and forth, as though looking for something. She couldn’t see the person on the other end of it, just some hands on the weapon because the raised foundation of the house made the height awkward. But she knew as well as anyone that you didn’t have to see your killer to die.

  The bullhorn came again, "Send out the dogs!"

  This time, Walter yelled back, "No!" as loud and long as possible.

  Even as she hollered it at the top of her lungs, she heard another bullhorn. This time, the voice was higher pitched; it wasn't as sharp or heavy, but it was angry. The mechanical twist of the system obscured the speaker for only a moment. It was GJ's voice coming from the house maybe fifty meters away.

  "You are on private property,” her partner’s voice boomed through the device. “You are trespassing. You have put barrels of rifles through the windows of our homes. Arkansas law states that we can fight anyone who comes into our home, and you have done so now. You are battering down our doors. We have the right to fire upon you at will. You need to leave now! You will all be arrested on multiple counts of assault!"

  The first voice, the man's voice, boomed again. "Send out the dogs!"

  This time, it followed with a brief explanation, as though someone was having a conversation with GJ, and Walter wondered what this meant. If they could keep him talking—if GJ could employ the hostage negotiation skills she’d excelled at in Quantico—they might be able to get the hunters to go away.

  Walter took the moment to turn and make eye contact with the woman behind her. "Alicia, go. Tell me what's happening on the other side. How many are back there, or are they all on this side of us? I think they might be. You might be able to get out the back and go out into the woods."

  Alicia turned, disappearing quickly, staying low and stealthy. Walter liked the woman's style. She had five kids, and Walter never would have picked her out for the soldier type, but by God, Alicia was good.

  The voice on the bullhorn began explaining again. "They're an ancient evil. You've heard of them in the myths. Humankind has never been able to eradicate them, and they kill us. We have to eradicate them. It's time for a species extinction if humanity wants to continue."

  Through the phone, Walter heard GJ's muttered swearing. "Oh my God, this man is mentally deficient." Next she heard the same voice come through the bullhorn, venting her scientific frustration. "It's a genetic mutation, you fuckhead!"

  Walter couldn't help but laugh. Though she was about to die, God bless GJ Janson—she’d made Walter smile.

  "It's not a genetic mutation. I understand you want to defend it that way, but that's not what it is."

  "Bullshit!" GJ yelled back, and Walter laughed again as the eyes in the room looked at her sideways, wondering how she could find such humor at a time like this, and all she could think was, how could she not? Though GJ had completely lost her “hostage negotiation class” cool.

  "Hand over the dogs." The bullhorn came again, and once again Walter—at the top of her own lungs, having no bullhorn of her own—yelled back, "No!"

  Though Walter's voice roared in her own head, she caught the sound of GJ's voice as she talked through the bullhorn again, "I am a Federal Agent!" God, that sounded good to Walter's ears. "There are Federal agents here. Three of us are coming out. One from each home."

  Well, shit. She was getting put on the spot. It was Walter's cue, and Christina's too. She only hoped Christina was in a place to follow GJ's instructions. It would look bad if they didn't act as a unit.

  Turning, she nodded to Art. "You're in charge here.” She passed him control of their small unit as she started following GJ’s instructions right out the front door of this little house.

  Alicia popped back in then. "They aren't on the other side. If they are, we're not seeing them."

  Walter stopped with her hand on the knob. "Wait until you know it's clear. Take flashlights," Walter told her, "Be ready to shine them in their eyes if you encounter any of them. Blind them. Kill them if you have to."

  "I'm staying here," Alicia said.

  "No." Walter responded immediately, ignoring the request and overriding it with a clear order. "If someone has to take the non-fighters, and someone has to take the kids, they need fighters to protect them. I want you in charge of it. Take five other fighters from this house. Clear the other houses if you can get in around the back."


  "Yes, ma'am," Alicia replied. This time her resolve firm with the instructions she'd been given.

  GJ was talking up a storm. "We are wearing tracking devices. These devices send our heart rate and vital signs back to our home office. If anything happens to us, the wrath of the entire FBI will come down upon you. We have two of your members in custody already. You’d be foolish to think they won’t sing like canaries when charged with murder of federal agents. We're coming out now."

  To her side, Walter saw and heard as GJ opened the door to the other small house. Walter stepped out onto the porch where the hunters had been battering the door just moments ago. She believed there were at least three of them just beyond where she could see, maybe down in the bushes now. But she was following the orders, because clearly GJ had a plan, and Walter didn't.

  As of yet, no bullets had been fired, an outcome she had to admit was better than expected at this stage of the game. Besides, those inside had guns and knew how to fire them. She came out with her weapon in her hands directed low at the ground in front of her. Ready to fire, but not immediately aiming at anyone. GJ emerged and motioned Walter to her side. Up the hill Walter saw movement and could only assume it was Christina.

  She was sweeping the landscape, trying to get another good head count of the attackers around her when she heard a shocked yell from GJ. "Shray?"

  31

  GJ stared at the man she'd known almost all her life.

  "GJ?" he asked, but given that she'd already spouted his name, he knew who she was. "What are you doing here?" His whisper was low and harsh.

  It suddenly occurred to her, he didn't know. She hadn't announced that she was the FBI. To her, it had been obvious, but clearly not to him. No, she searched her memory and recalled she had said only that he would kill a federal agent. Maybe he hadn't put it together that the federal agent was her. He sure seemed confused.

  GJ played on it, putting one hand behind her back and signaling to Walter to stay silent. She could only hope Christina would catch the same sign and understand.

  "Shray, what's going on? Can you explain?" Then, she rephrased it. She didn't really want him explaining. She didn't want to have to tell him why she was here. "Is this your group? Is my grandfather here?"

  She tried to sound like her old self. Like GJ before she’d been to Quantico. The GJ who was merely an academic.

  He looked at her, still frowning. "No, he's elsewhere. He went back.”

  To the lab? She wondered, but then dismissed it. She didn’t care where he’d gone. If he wasn’t here, Donovan and Eleri should be able to find him. In fact, they’d probably already located him if he'd gone back home. She pushed her weapon back into the holster. Shray had to have seen it. He had to be close to figuring it out, but maybe he simply wasn't putting the pieces together yet. It was a common psychological flaw of adversity and trauma, to see things as you expected them to be rather than how they actually were. Now, she was banking on it.

  "Shray," she said again, "I don't understand.”

  "I don't either." He grabbed her by the wrist and began to pull. She could see now that he and these people were dressed like swat team members. The only difference was they wore no official insignia, just the black of night with Kevlar and helmets protecting them as they went and committed their bad deeds.

  He tugged her further away and she walked with him, only resisting the slightest amount. Again acting like old GJ, she faced him as she worked to signal Walter from behind her back.

  "Why are you here?" she asked.

  He spoke over her. demanding, "Do you know who lives in that house?"

  "Well, yeah. I was visiting a friend, and then all these people came out of the woodwork."

  "Those aren't your friends," he said, looking at her with a stern fatherly reprimand. GJ took it and his scolding. "Do you know what they can do?"

  "What are you talking about? What can they do? I mean, they're kind of like preppers: they live off the land.” She let her speech slip from the command she’d learned at the academy. “But they’re not stockpiling water and being all Branch Davidian. So, what do you mean?"

  She stared at him as though she truly didn’t comprehend his issue. She wasn't going to be the one to say what these people could do. She wouldn't say that she had seen it, or that she knew he was responsible for killing Randall Standish. She wasn't going to utter the word werewolf first.

  "Do you really not know where you are?" He looked at her.

  His eyes were dark in the night and it was difficult to discern his expression, but she shook her head, looking up at him. She worked to recall the girl she'd once been on her grandfather’s knee on an archeological dig. Shray Menon had often run information back and forth to the campsite.

  It occurred to her she’d been stupid. She’d texted him earlier in the day to find out where her grandfather was. She thought she’d given nothing away at the time. But now, as she put pieces together, she realized her grandfather could never have done this without Shray. Shray was in it up to his eyeballs.

  He handed the bullhorn to another man as he passed. "Take over. I’m getting her out of here. You—kill them all," he commanded, and GJ felt herself stiffen at the words, but forcibly relaxed her muscles.

  "Wait!" she cried. “You're going to kill my friends?"

  "They're not your friends,” he repeated. "You don't know what they can do. They're dangerous".

  "They can't be dangerous. They grow vegetables!" GJ protested, yanking her hand back, and purposefully bumping into him. With her voice, she aimed for a petulant tone. With her hand, she aimed to drop a very small GPS tracker into his pocket.

  He turned then and stared at her. "They're werewolves, GJ. Haven't you been down in your grandfather's lab? We were pretty sure you've been throwing the power out and going down there"

  Well, shit, she wasn’t as sneaky as she thought she was. "Of course, I went down and looked. He has the best bone collection this side of Johns Hopkins. The skeletons down there, they all have a genetic anomaly," she threw it all out there, wondering how he would reply to that.

  He would know; he knew she was smart. He'd helped train her. He had to have already figured out that she’d seen it.

  "Yes," he uttered again, the word harsh though his lips. "The anomaly is that they're werewolves. They're tainted by an ancient evil, GJ. We have to get you out of here."

  Good old Shray, saving her. Babysitting her. Giving her lessons when her grandfather was busy, and now pulling her away from the very work she'd come to do.

  Tough choices, she thought. She'd known it would come to this even when Westerfield first assigned them this case. As she got further and further from the de Gottardi-Little compound, she thought about what her options were. Luckily, she still didn't hear any shots, but as she moved into the trees she realized the tough choices were here. Right now.

  She could no longer ignore the people she was passing as she walked with Shray. Though they were hard to see—which was the point—she could make out their uniforms of Kevlar vests, tactical pants, and helmets with chin straps. It was going to take a carefully placed shot to take one of them out, and GJ desperately wanted to warn Walter. They couldn’t waste bullets shooting at tactical vests. At least Walter would already be aiming that way—for the head, the neck, the thigh. Exposed places. GJ needed to let everyone else know, too. If it came to gunfire, this fight would be up close and personal. Shotgun to the face where possible. She fought the shudder and found she was able to repress it, think about the options in cold terms.

  She was thinking it through like an FBI agent in a deadly situation. She was also thinking of bone fragments, and D-MORT—the team that came out and cleaned up after mass casualties. Quickly on the heels of the first thought was the one that D-MORT wouldn’t come here. It was too much risk to the secrets these families kept. Still, a forensic scientist would need to examine the bodies, and return them to their next of kin. Perhaps Westerfield would come up with an individual story f
or each of them and how they died, so that nothing would be officially investigated here. GJ didn't know; she also hoped they could avoid the shootout she saw coming. What she did know was that if she needed a shot, she needed a clean shot, and that she didn't want to shoot Shray Menon. She was well aware she might just have to.

  Stopping suddenly, GJ realized they’d moved beyond the loosely formed wall of his people. She was now a traitor behind enemy lines and she could only hope he didn’t know that. She was banking on it. Shray had at least gotten her out of the line of gunfire.

  "Shray," she said, hearing her own voice sharpen with the words. "You can't do this. You can't come in here and you can't kill these people."

  "They're not people," he argued back, quickly and fiercely.

  "They are people and you will get arrested when you do this."

  "No, I won't.” Though his expression was stern, it was also confident. “Who even knows these people are here? They don’t have Social Security numbers and some of the kids don’t attend public school. They don't go on census, because they know what they are."

  "No," she replied, just as confident as he’d been. "They don't go on census, because they know people like you are going to do head counts and try to come kill them." There she was again, offering up a little bit of education, instead of the aggression the situation so clearly required. She’d also subtly played the hand that she did know what they were and what they could do. Though she hadn’t revealed how. "You cannot kill them. I am warning you now."

  "You said there were FBI agents in there, but it was a bluff, right?” Though he asked it like a legitimate question, he talked himself out of it before she could answer. “It has to be. There's no way the FBI got involved in this, and word would get out if the Feds know what these people can do."

  "The FBI already knows," GJ said. "Some of them even work for the FBI!"

  Shit, she should not have said it. She was trying to talk Shray down, and now this gambit only worked if she made it work.