Hunters in the Night (9 page)

“And
what do you plan to do with him if you get him?”

“We
convince him,” Dominique said.

“Convince
like . . . persuade? Or convince like torture the hell out of? Because I don’t
think you’re going to have much luck either way. Why in the world would he
destroy the thing that has given him so much power?”

“You
just find him,” Dominique said. “Leave the convincing to me.”

I
sighed and rubbed my forehead. I felt a headache coming on. “You know, Kellar
isn’t the only powerful nightcrafter out there. There are thousands of others
who would still be around to fight us even if we could get Kellar”

“They’re
not a concern,” Dominique said. “All I care about is getting Kellar to help us
close the Rift. Without the Rift, the nightcrafters have no power. They will no
longer be a problem. We won’t need to know who they are, or where they are. It
won’t matter. Without their magic, they won’t be a threat anymore.”

She
had a point. I mulled it over silently for a few seconds, and made a decision.
“Okay then. We’ll try it your way. We need to start small though. I suggest we
work our way up to Kellar by taking out some junior nightcrafters first. Maybe
we can get some info out of them. If we can harass or capture enough
nightcrafters maybe we’ll even get Kellar’s attention and he’ll seek us out.
That might end up being something we’ll regret, but it’ll certainly get things
moving one way or another.”

“Agreed,”
Dominique said.

“I
need resources if you expect me to pull this off. Weapons, vehicles, manpower.
We’ll have to go on raids to catch our first nightcrafters by surprise.”

Dominique
nodded. “Tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you.”

“This
won’t be easy,” I said.

“I
never expected it to be.”

I
took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Give me a few days to think of a
plan. I’ll send you a shopping list.”

Dominique
fulfilled her promise and gave me everything I asked for — security clearances,
a mission budget, and a few Men with Guns.

Regardless,
the first raid didn’t go well.

The
Men with Guns were an eager, young bunch. The oldest guy was my age. Dominique
explained that these were the boys NATO needed to train up a bit more, and they
were the best she could recruit without divulging more information on the
mission to the Powers That Be. I was fine with that, as exuberance was more
important than experience for this task. No one in NATO had the experience
required for this kind of work anyway.

So
it worked out for both Dominique and I. I had the muscle I needed, and her raw
recruits would get valuable field training . . . assuming they survived, of
course. The most senior guy on the squad, Darius Allen, was a boulder-sized man
with a Texas drawl and a baby face. Although he had the appearance of an
overgrown teenager, he had hard eyes that looked like they had been
transplanted from a Vietnam War vet who had seen some things you wouldn’t
believe. The moment I introduced myself as team leader, he just looked at me
with what I can best describe as a mix of disdain and disappointment, and after
that he wore that sour face every time I saw him.

With
Allen were Trent Brody, Garland Carr, and Duke Jackson. Carr and Jackson seemed
to look up to Allen and they eagerly agreed with whatever he said. Brody,
however, was a different sort. As the smallest of the four, he didn’t have much
of a physical presence. But he was focused and sharp, and he listened
attentively to every word I said during our quick briefing sessions. Allen and
his buddies subtly berated me for my lack of knowledge of the finer points of
military operations, but Brody was supportive and he filled in the gaps for me.
He wasn’t exactly a warm person, but he was at least helpful.

My
conscience nagged me during every stage of planning for the first raid. I
wasn’t allowed to tell my new team all the info they would need to be truly
effective. Only about a hundred government officials in the whole world had
been given clearance to know about nightcrafters and the Rift. These boys would
be going into the mission with only the most rudimentary instructions and my
nightcrafting skills to guide them. To say it was a stressful situation would
be an extreme understatement.

On
top of all that, it was clear my Men with Guns didn’t quite respect my
leadership position. They knew I wasn’t one of them. They were all country
boys, raised in rural areas and taught how to shoot guns before they even hit
puberty. I was a city kid, through and through. They were trained killers. I
don’t even kill spiders.

But,
despite their disappointment in me, they were still psyched for this
super-secret, seemingly important mission. Too bad they didn’t know what they
were in for.

* * *

The
first raid — the one that didn’t go well — happened in a place called Long
Branch. It’s a beachside area in New Jersey that is
technically
a city since it has about forty thousand people living
there. But it feels like a town to me. New York is a city. This place didn’t
compare in my book.

Long
Branch is right on the Atlantic shore, and well within the border of the Rift’s
spread zone. The reports of odd night activity here were consistent, and
gradually becoming more common. The residents had been calling the local police
and news crews about strange shadowy figures in the evenings, odd sounds, and
missing pets. Telltale signs of visits from Rift-kind.

Generally
speaking, the things that live on the other side of the Rift stay there.
They’re happy to stay in the infinite blackness of their own world. But
nightcrafting pulls energy and matter directly from that mysterious place
beyond the Rift, and sometimes some unwanted things get dragged along. That’s
when people start hearing bumps in the night and whispers in the dark.

My
team arrived early in the day and set up base in an empty warehouse near the
beach. Along with my Men with Guns, Dominique sent a small crew of NATO doctors
and nurses with Top Secret Clearance. They had also been trained to deal with
unusual field injuries. Their orders were to stay in radio contact, wait at the
base in case anything happened, and keep it all hush-hush. I chatted with them
and they all seemed very knowledgeable and extremely professional, but I hoped
I wouldn’t have to see their skills in action.

Once
we had a field base set up, my Men with Guns were ready to go. We were set up
with a custom blue van as our mission vehicle. It was armored and had plenty of
specialized fittings for tactical operations. In our ears were specialized
miniature radios that we could use to keep in contact at a distance. We were
also dressed in utility worker gear. If any suspicious resident might have
problems with strange men walking around the neighborhood with flashlights, we’d
just say we were from the gas company and investigating a leak. Allen was
elected to drive, and we set out just before nightfall.

“Can
we finally know what it is we’re looking for?” Allen asked a few minutes after
we left base.

“The
details are still classified,” I told him. “Just stay on this road and I’ll let
you know when to stop.”

I
pulled out my mission laptop and looked through my notes. As prep for this
raid, I’d spent some hours sifting through the records from the Long Branch
police. The reports of strange activity that had attracted me here all followed
a pattern that created a circle around a spot in the middle of a residential
area. A quick GPS lookup gave me a list of addresses around that spot.

I
gave Allen directions to the target location, and in a few minutes we were
slowly rolling past a quaint colonial home with a white picket fence and an
American flag waving from a pole on the porch. This house seemed to be as good
a starting point as any.

“The
local police reports mentioned something about a prowler that showed up last
night,” I told the team. “The family dog was outside at the time. He barked at
the intruder, then abruptly stopped. They never found the prowler, or the dog.”

“So
are we looking for the thug, or the dog?” Carr asked.

“Neither,”
I said. “There’s something else going on here.”

Allen
parked about three blocks from the place. We all got out of the vehicle and
checked our gear. The Men with Guns were equipped with fully automatic pistols.
They were powerful weapons, but easy to conceal under the reflective utility
worker jackets we wore. Each gun had an attachment with a small, removable
flashlight under the barrel. But these weren’t ordinary lights. Newton had
designed them to emit powerful beams that would rip a Rift-kind apart with
ease.

I
signaled the team to gather around me. “Everything you’re going to see during
this mission is classified,” I said. “You will not mention it to anyone outside
this team unless directly ordered to do so. If you find anything, or anyone,
that looks suspicious you will flash your lights on it. Let me repeat that. Use
your
lights
. You do
not
fire unless you’re attacked first. Got that?”

“Yes,
sir,” they said in unison. Their voices were solid. Their faces were serious.
Despite their doubts about me, when the time came to do work they were all
business.

“Search
the perimeter of that house I pointed out,” I said, looking to Jackson, Brody,
and Carr. “Allen, check under the deck in the backyard.”

“The
deck?” Allen asked.

“Yes,”
I said. “Don’t crawl under there or anything. Just use your light to scan
anyplace someone might be hiding.”

Allen
gave me that narrow-eyed glare of his, but he did as he was told like a good
soldier. Rift-kind don’t usually hide around houses, so I felt he’d be okay.
Still, I dipped into the Rift for a second to make sure he wouldn’t find
anything that would try to eat his face off. The area was clear . . . for now.

Fifteen
minutes later, we regrouped back at the mission vehicle. Carr, Brody, and
Jackson seemed thoroughly bored, but Allen had a sour look on his face.

“Found
the dog,” he said. “It’s dead. Pretty messy.”

“Think
an animal did it?” I asked.

“Doubt
it,” Allen said. “Rover was ripped to pieces, and that was a big dog. There
ain’t no kind of animal around here that could do that.”

“Don’t
be so sure,” I said. I was sorry for the poor pup, but its death had provided
proof we were in the right spot. Now all I had to do was keep the civilians out
of our way while we dug deeper.

The
team stayed behind while I walked up to the front door of the house and rang
the doorbell. I’d read the police report thoroughly so I knew what to expect.
Anna Leeds lived here with her two teenage sons. She recently separated from
her husband and they were going through a nasty divorce, which led her to
initially believe that her ex may have stolen the family dog. The reality was
much worse: her family was now caught in the wake of a nightcrafter.

A
small, bushy-haired woman opened the door. She had dark circles forming under
her eyes and creases in her forehead. Just one look at her left no doubt that
her life was sad and stressful these days. “Hello, Mrs. Leeds,” I said. “You
called in a report about some suspicious sounds?”

She
nodded and eyed my uniform. “Our dog Bandit is missing too. Are you . . . from
the gas company?”

“Uh
. . . yes, actually. We were in the area looking for some possible leaks and
the police let us know about your report so we could keep an eye out.”

“Okay,”
Mrs. Leeds said. “So . . . ?”

“I’m
afraid we’ve found your dog,” I said. “I’m sorry to say he’s . . . uh . . .
passed away.”

She
covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes watered. “Oh my god. How?”

“Uhm.
A mountain lion got him.”

“A
mountain lion?” Mrs. Leeds said in a low voice. “There are mountain lions in
New Jersey?”

“Well
. . . no, ma’am. We believe it might be a . . . an escaped pet or something
like that. Some rich guy probably illegally ordered one to impress his
friends.”

“Oh,”
Mrs. Leeds said.

“Mrs.
Leeds, I’m going to have to ask you and your family to stay in your home while
we try to track the mountain lion down until animal control arrives. It’s very
important that you stay inside tonight. Also, lock all your doors and keep all
the lights
on.
That should
keep the animal away from the house.”

Mrs.
Leeds looked terrified. I was sure I’d just given her reason for even more
sleepless nights. But her fear would keep her wary, and hopefully help keep her
family safe.

Once
Mrs. Leeds had shut and locked the door, I walked back to my Men with Guns.
Brody looked at me with a smirk. “So, we’re hunting a cougar now?”

“No,”
I said.

“Then
what
are
we hunting?” Carr said.

“A
different kind of creature,” I said.

“Huh?”
Allen said. “A description would be helpful.”

“You’ll
know it when you see it,” I said.

The
last bit of sun sank below the horizon, and dusk turned into night. I muttered
a simple spell to myself to prep for what was to come. The words themselves
didn’t have any power, but the repetition brought a change in my mental state
that allowed me to access the Rift more easily. The odd little mantra was one
of Kellar’s creations, and every time I repeated it I couldn’t help but recall
bittersweet memories. Those memories quickly faded as the spell focused my mind
on the dark. The Rift was strong here. We were close to the Atlantic Ocean,
where the Rift had spread the most over the past few centuries, and the power
of the darkness enveloped me.

Dominique
and Newton have asked me what the Rift feels like. It’s always hard to explain,
but the best I’ve been able to come up with is that it’s like swimming in a
lake of ink. The matter that oozes out of the Rift surrounds you, clings to
your skin, and blots out your features. You feel like you’re floating. You can
also feel ripples and waves from others playing in this ebony pond. As I
slipped into nightcrafting mode, I felt some of those waves washing over me in
rapid succession. Someone was drawing a lot of power from the Rift, and they
were close.