IGMS - Issue 18 Read online

  "They can hurt you," Gruber said. He glanced sideways at her. "Not like class, huh? Not like field trips, even."

  Connie was silent for some time. In this stretch the narrow old road was rough, all pebbles and potholes. They passed a couple of abandoned trailers, and a lean, ugly dog chased along after the Heap for a while, until it got bored. She said finally, "What are they like . . . the big ones? What does it feel like?"

  Gruber shrugged. "Not that different, you been doing it long enough. Sure, you wet your pants, first time it's a quetzal coming at you, first time you look right into the eyes of a China long. But there aren't as many in the county as people think -- I went two years one time, never saw anything bigger than a doubleback -- and as long as you stay cool, long as you treat each and every damn D as though they were twelve feet tall, you're pretty much okay. Usually."

  "Usually," Connie said. "Right."

  "I'm forty-seven years old," Gruber said, smiling at her before he could stop himself. "Forty-eight in three weeks. Believe me, usually is as good as it gets. D's, anything else. I'll settle for usually any time."

  He turned his head away quickly to watch the road; you could break an axle as easily as an ankle in this country. Connie had her back to him, looking out, one elbow braced on the window frame. She said, half to herself, "Looks just like eastern Mendocino."

  "Spent some time there?"

  "Visited my cousins, growing up. They're over in Ukiah."

  "Mendocino's got the same troubles we have. The farms mostly don't pay worth a damn anymore, so a lot of folks either sell out to the pot growers and meth makers or go into the business themselves."

  "Will -- my older cousin -- he told me stories." She shook her head. "But I never saw anything. No D's, for sure, though I heard they were there. Sheltered life, I guess."

  "Pot farms aren't on your typical family outing list."

  She laughed, a bit shakily, and replied, "I liked the trees and the space okay, but I was a city kid. I just wanted a Barbie. A Barbie and a utility belt, like Batman's." Gruber looked at her. "I had to know how he got all that stuff into all those little compartments. And what about the gadgets and things we never saw? I had to know, that's all."

  "Permission to speak revoked," Gruber said. "Forever."

  The rest of the morning went smoothly, standard drill-and-drop-in for every live report like the Watkins' place: drive the neighboring roads, watch for burn marks or D scat, stop every few miles to let the pheromone detectors take a sniff, and knock on whatever doors they could find. In that fashion they checked out half a dozen farms and isolated cabins, the Heap toiling up one barely-visible dirt track to break into briefly-dazzling alpine blue, and then plunging straight down another into a hemlock valley dense with a heavy, motionless dark green. Only one place was harboring a D, a pitiful little half-starved sniggerbit that might actually have been a family pet, like the kids clinging to their silent father's legs claimed. The man himself said nothing. He just looked at Gruber and Connie and the filled-out citation as though they were all different kinds of snake, then led his kids inside so they wouldn't have to see the sniggerbit tranked and taken away.

  In the ordinary manner, Gruber reported back to Manny in Weaverville as soon as he got up high enough on some hill to see a bar or two on his cell. Life would have been easier with a satphone, but the county wouldn't spring for the service plan.

  Manny's voice sounded like he was on the other side of the moon, or maybe trapped in a room full of rabid washing machines.

  ". . . ob's guys say they need . . . back at the Watkins'. . ."

  "Say again, please, Manny. This connection sucks."

  "Who's 'ob'?" asked Connie.

  "Sheriff Trager," he told her. Then back into the cell: "Say again, please. I'm not getting this."

  ". . . burned down. Whole house gone. Big . . . tracks, fire score, maybe some tail marks. Bob wants you there for a walkaround. Meet . . . 299 south of --"

  That was it. Gruber looked at the cell phone in his hand. No bars, just a lot of crackling noise. No point in even trying to call back. Briefly he considered going higher, trying to get back in touch, but to do that he'd have to get out and climb for who knows how long, or else head downhill in the Heap and hope he could find the forest service road that tracked the facing ridge.

  "Was that about the Watkins' place? It's burned down?"

  "You heard what I heard," he said. Then: "County map. Glove compartment." She fumbled for it even as he kept speaking. "Sheriff Trager is not exactly a patient man, so let's see if we can find a shortcut."

  They were still several miles away, by the map, headed downhill on a road that didn't deserve the name, when a yellow light started blinking on the dashboard. Gruber slammed on the brakes. The Heap skidded to a halt, and he and Connie were jolted against their shoulder belts so hard Gruber knew they'd be feeling it the next day.

  Connie shot him a look. "What's wrong?"

  "Stay here. I'll be right back." He threw the Heap into park but left it running. With one hand he unstrapped himself as fast as he could; with the other he pushed the door open wide.

  "Gruber?"

  "Just stay here."

  He shut the door behind him as gently as he could, but the clatch sound still seemed like a gunshot in the quiet under the trees. Gruber held his breath and listened. He heard the Heap's low idling and some distant bird sounds, but nothing else. He looked down the rough road in the direction they were going, then back the way they'd come, and off to either side. All the time he kept his eyes vague and unfocused, paying attention mainly to his peripheral vision, trying to tease some hint of motion out of the tangle of trees and leaves and brush. Nothing that way, either. He did get detailed then, leaving the side of the Heap to explore a little way into the woods, peering low on the tree trunks and high into the branches, looking for firesign or fresh breaks.

  After five minutes he came back to the Heap, opened the driver-side door and stood there without getting in, frowning at the still-blinking yellow light.

  "You are seriously freaking me out," Connie said, not even trying to hide the worry in her voice. "What's going on? Why'd you stop?"

  "That," Gruber said, pointing at the light.

  "What, do we have engine trouble?"

  "No," he said, getting back in the Heap. He pulled the door shut normally and started to belt himself back in. "That's the emergency telltale for the passive pheromone traps. Manny calls it the 'oh shit' light."

  "You mean --"

  "Oh yeah," he nodded. "I can't find any sign of it out there, but we just crossed serious D trail. That or the damn sensor is showing a false positive, which could be, given the jouncing it's gotten today."

  "What do we do?"

  "We check it out. Burnt house in the neighborhood, that might have been Grandma and Grandpa coming back to get rid of evidence. But Manny said Trager spotted fire score . . . so we check it out. Cautiously."

  She shook her head. "My folks are going to call me at the motel tonight and ask me how my first day went, and I'm so going to have to lie to them. They never wanted me doing this."

  "That's not your big problem," Gruber said.

  "It isn't?"

  "Nope." His lips pulled back in a flat grin as he put the Heap back into drive, then eased down on the gas. "Didn't I tell you? Newbies have to write the first drafts of the incident reports. You're going to be up to your eyebrows in paperwork 'til midnight."

  "Thanks."

  When he saw her expression he wanted to laugh, but the light that was still blinking on the dash wouldn't let him.

  Connie spotted them before he did -- a scattering of trees, all firs, all fairly close together, bearing the unmistakable fingerprint of fire: scorch-marks like whip weals, ten or twelve feet off the ground. On the ground next to the trees was what would have looked like an abandoned turnoff, except for the fresh tire tracks vanishing into it. Gruber shifted to four-wheel drive and turned the Heap to follow, doggedly pushi
ng it through clinging, scraping underbrush that grabbed at the tires and fenders, and menacingly low boughs that actually blocked the way. He coaxed and cajoled the truck over logs that had obviously been hauled into position. Finally, around a hundred yards in, things eased off and he found himself driving on a well-tended trail, flat and easy and wide enough for a commercial trailer.

  Without turning his head, Gruber said, "Name the seven major D's that actually breathe fire."

  Connie welcomed the distraction. "Uh . . . Welsh reds, quetzals, China longs -- the North China subgenus, not the southern longs."

  "Keep going."

  "Himalayans, the San Ysidro group, the Yilbegan . . . and the Chuvash. Right?"

  "Right. So what do we have here? Consider the evidence."

  Gruber swung the Heap past a couple of trees burnt charcoal-black, as though they had been through a forest fire. Connie said quickly, "Anything could have done those: they burned from the ground up. But the fire marks back there, those were pretty high. A humungous Welsh red could do it, maybe, but more likely a quetzal or a China long. I'm betting on a long."

  Gruber nodded. "Agreed. But why not a quetzal? Why not any of the others?"

  She swallowed hard. Her voice sounded dry and rough to him, like it hurt to speak. "They've never been reported up here, not even once. And longs outnumber quetzals and reds six to one in the reclamation stats. The longs have been invasive up here since '82, they're a lot easier to get hold of . . . no, it's got to be a long."

  A rambling, ranch-style house was coming into view through the trees, and Gruber braked the Heap to an easy stop at the first sight of it. "Guess we're going to find out."

  He put on his helmet and gloves and opened the driver's-side door. Keeping his voice low, he said, "Rules still apply. You lock up after me, stay right where you are, and if I get into trouble you are solid gone, yelling for help all the way."

  She said, "I thought we were contraband, not perps."

  "All I'm going to do is look around a little bit, size up the operation -- then we're out of here. Just keep your eyes open and the engine running."

  "All right." Her voice was almost inaudible, a child's mumble. She said, "I wish you didn't have to do this."

  Gruber said, "It's not the D I'm worried about, not so much -- it's the people. People are always scarier than D's, that's the first rule of the job. I'll be fine. You sit tight, you got that? You got it, Connie?" It was the first time he had actually called her by her name.

  "I said all right, didn't I?" She frowned at him.

  "Back in a flash." He popped a rack of Winged Monkeys out of the holder in the door and stuffed all six into different pockets of his coverall. The little handball-sized spheres were a cross between an insect fogger and a grenade, only with a payload of burst-release broad-spectrum tranquilizers. Gruber hated them, fully trusting neither their accuracy nor their cargo, but at least this way he could go in without looking aggressively armed, while still carrying something useful at longer range than the standard tapper.

  Walking alone toward the house, he knew from just tasting the air that one of the big D's was nearby, though he couldn't yet make out which breed. They always smell like garbage dump fires, just different kinds. Part of him wanted to bolt back inside the Heap and head straight for Weaverville, but he knew the grief he'd catch from Trager's boys if something like that ever got around. So he turned, with the Heap already barely visible among the dark trees, and gave Connie a jaunty little wave.

  That's when he saw the green minibike parked off to one side, near the bushes. He'd walked right by it, but hadn't noticed because the angle had been wrong.

  Well, he thought. That answers that.

  He turned without letting his face show anything, then walked the rest of the way to the ranch house. When he got there he climbed the three steps to the low veranda, knocked on the front door, and stood quickly to one side, just in case.

  He was not especially surprised when the door was answered fairly promptly, but the wispy, pallid creature who opened it did catch him off-guard. Not quite an albino, having watery blue eyes and watery red hair, the man was still pale as the liquid that pours off yogurt or tofu when the container is first opened. Clearly in his early twenties, he already had the ruined mouth and teeth of a scrofulous old man. But his voice was guilelessly friendly as he inquired, "Yes? What can I do for you?" He stepped over the threshold toward Gruber, pulling the door almost shut behind him.

  "D Control, sir," Gruber said. "Not here for you, just trying to trace a couple of elderly persons, last seen heading in this direction on a motorbike." He gestured vaguely behind him. "Kind of like that one out there, actually. We have some reason to believe that they were running a breeding operation out of their farm. Belgian wyverns, to be precise. Would they be here with you presently, by any chance?"

  "Elderly persons." The young man wrinkled his genuine alabaster brow and uttered a light, soft chuckle. "Well, I suppose that could be Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Watkins, my grandparents -- I'm Larry Watkins -- but breeding D's? Please -- those two couldn't cross the street on a red light. Can't help you, I'm afraid. That's my minibike, and I haven't seen the grandsters for at least a month, not a close family, sorry." He turned back toward the house, saying apologetically, "I'd invite you in, but I've got company just now. Old friends getting together, you know how it is. Please do say hello to my supposedly felonious grandparents for me, should you ever find 'em." He vanished through the door, still chuckling.

  Gruber knew he'd already pushed his luck as far as it was going to stretch. The sane thing to do was leave, consult with Trager, and not return until he had proper support. But the snotty little shit had put his back up, so instead of hightailing it straight for the Heap he found himself moving around the side of the house as carefully and quietly as he could.

  Just a quick little look-see . . .

  There were two buildings up the overgrown rise to the rear: Quonset-type huts, like man-sized culverts closed at both ends. One sniff told him what they were making there, and how they were making it. Nobody was ever going to confuse the rotting fish smell of phosphine gas with anything else.

  He had just enough time to feel really stupid before the first shot rang out. It didn't come anywhere close to him -- tweakers didn't tend to be Olympic marksmen -- but it was definitely large-caliber, and the next one whanged off a rock and ricocheted by his left ear. He bellowed, "D Control! Not after you!" but he might as well have yelled, "Hey, who ordered the Extra-Large with sausage and mushrooms?" for all the good it did him. People were spilling out of the nearest Quonset now: a couple of large guys with muscle shirts and walrus mustaches, followed by a slighter Latino. Gruber counted two automatic rifles and a shotgun between them, before he spun and ran, praying not to turn an ankle on the tangly, pebbly slope.

  He skidded around the house and came face to face with a nightmare.

  As many years as Gruber had been with D Control, he had never seen anything like it, not in real life -- just in YouTube videos, which definitely didn't do the beast justice. It was deep, deep ebony all the way, even the wings, at least nine feet tall at its breastbone, easily thirty feet long from head to tail-tip, and spiked everywhere, with a flattened viperine head that looked too big for its body, and yellow-orange eyes that blazed in the twilight like amber stars. The fire dancing in its open mouth seemed redder than any other flame in the world, and different as well, as though it was the D's real tongue, ready to lick and caress and savor.

  Gruber froze. How in hell had they gotten a full-grown San Ysidro black up here without anyone knowing? And how in hell had they trained it? He'd only ever heard of three San Ysidros getting past Homeland Security, all eggs, for heaven's sake, all in Florida, and every one of the animals was recovered when the hatchlings ripped up the fools who'd bought them.

  It wasn't possible. But here it was, planted firmly between him and the Heap -- dammit, couldn't Connie see the thing? Why wasn't she gone already?
-- while assorted bad people with large guns converged on his aging tail. Gruber was suddenly less concerned about them, at the moment. They'd most likely just watch while the San Ysidro did its job, and gave Connie her very first experience of watching a partner vanish in fire.

  But he couldn't worry about Connie just now. Or the meth lab commandos. Not if he wanted to live more than a few seconds.

  "Hey, Big D," Gruber said casually, stepping backwards, slipping both hands into his pockets. The San Ysidro ran out its blazing red tongue and seemed to grin at him.

  He threw the first Flying Monkey at it left-handed, then turned without waiting to see what happened and fired the second one straight at the front window of the house. It shattered the glass, and as it did he beat feet for the door. Fore and aft he heard two loud whumps -- the internal CO2 cartridges going off -- and the hissing spray of the tranquilizer release. He saw thick white tendrils of it coming through the broken window, and for a moment he thought his crazy improvisation might actually work. He didn't expect one half-assed throw to take down the San Ysidro, and the drug mist wouldn't knock out people, just make them cough a lot and tear up badly. But they had to have guns in the house, and obviously the beast was trained to leave the occupants alone. If he could just get inside while the Watkins clan was distracted, grab himself a real weapon --

  As a rule, firebreathers weren't big on accuracy; they didn't have to be, not when they could burn down a whole forest to get at the one thing they were after. The San Ysidro's first blast missed Gruber, but took out a sizable chunk of the veranda, and he had to duck away to keep splashes of the clinging, fiery fluid from lighting him up, too. His straight path to the door vanished behind a wall of heat and smoke.

  "Crap!" he shouted, then ran uphill in the only clear direction left to him. He could feel the D turn slowly to follow. The guys with guns didn't. In the quick glimpse he allowed himself, he saw them shouting at Larry Watkins, who was out on the veranda with a halon fire extinquisher, spinning like a dervish as he tried to quench the flames.