Wanted: Undead or Alive

It's Not Like The Movies

Six of us piled into two vehicles. Scoob, Rider, and I rode in an agency Suburban. Scoob drove. Somehow it seemed logical since it was her friend we were helping. The quadruplets had a Chrysler Pacifica minivan. The three of them that rode together looked like members of a weirdly oversized kid's hockey team piling in through the sliding doors. Moose and the guy whose name I couldn't remember drove a cargo truck.

Nick and Mx. Landry stayed behind. It hadn't occurred to me before that Mx. Landry avoided hunts the same way Nick did. Or maybe I'd just assumed they were too old or lacking strength. It would make more sense, though, that they were forbidden for the same reasons their grandchild was. Great grandchild. Something like that.

I sat in the backseat behind Rider, staring at the back of his shaggy head and trying to imagine Mx. Landry tearing some hapless creature limb from limb with their bare hands. Seemed to me they'd be too worried about screwing up their manicure, but I'd learned in the past six months it never paid to underestimate a supe's abilities. I knew they could manipulate fire. What else? Presumably they, like Nick, were part celestial, part slaugh, and part djinn among other things. How many generations of forbidden creatures preceded them? How many separated them?

My stomach growled loudly enough for everyone to hear. I opened the window a crack. It was the fried chicken smell getting to me. I was dreadfully curious about the cause of Scoob's unusual scent but couldn't think of a polite way to ask.

"You need us to stop for drive thru Nowicki?" Scoob asked.

"I'm fine." I realized I sounded as petty and annoyed as I felt.

Scoob had the good sense to look a little bashful. "I'm grateful for your help."

I folded my arms over my chest. "Yeah, well. Dude needs to be stopped, right?"

Silence settled over the group again. My thoughts drifted toward the dude in question and how very important it was that we stop him, indeed. It was easier to get into the proper fugitive-catching mindset by thinking about that than by thinking about what nearly happened with Nick. It would happen when the time was right. Probably. I hoped. I think I hoped. Or maybe it was best if it didn't happen. Nick found a way for us to know for sure our feelings were real but that didn't really and truly solve the issue of a supe-human relationship being insanely complicated. But it would be fine. Probably. I hoped. Assuming it ever happened. Which it might not. But I hoped it would happen. I think.

"Nowicki!"

I jumped at Scoob's shout and let out a little squeak.

We'd come to a stop and Rider had his door open. Moose stood there. All three of my coworkers were staring at me.

"You with us?" Scoob asked.

"Yeah, of course."

"You can't lose focus in there."

"I'm focused."

Moose made a noise like a sleepy manatee and walked away following the raggedy remains of the driveway that wound around the old warehouse.

In the gloom of night, keeping in the shadows was easy enough. I took comfort in knowing Rider had impeccable night vision and the constitution of a small rodent. If anything of the supernatural or even the mundanely terrestrial variety were lurking in the weedy undergrowth, he'd know and send up an immediate alarm. We all fixed our attention on the building. As predicted, a truck was parked near the loading bay. Two SUVs, a moving van, and a Volkswagen minibus clustered near the truck, engines off, lights out, back doors open.

We figured it would be best to mix our groups —Scoob and Moose would go with Ricky and Atlas through the window. The rest of us would take the door with Rider at point since he was least likely to get killed from bullets. Mx. Landry had outfitted us all with as many carbon steel knives as we could strap to our bodies. Now, Rowan opened the back of his minivan, lifted the cover of the floor compartment, and withdrew half a dozen spears with obsidian tips. The only way to kill a rakshasa was to stab it through the head, which required blades that were strong and exceedingly sharp.