The Grendel Affair

I caught Kenji’s attention, and the tech elf stood and pushed his way out of the human and nonhuman crush of his fellow science nerds, and made his way over to us.



“So what’s got the smart kids in a tizzy?” I asked.



Kenji was grinning like it was Christmas morning. “Just the coolest thing ever. The actual working schematics for a device that renders its wearer visually and audibly undetectable.”



“Uh . . . you mean unseen and unheard?”



“That’s what I just said.”



“Not unless you’re in Mensa.”



Kenji’s dark eyes sparkled with geeky joy. “It’s a cloaking device. The thing’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and will conceal anyone wearing it—from sight and sound. Eat your heart out, Romulans.”



“It works like a veil?”



“It takes a veil about fifty giant leaps forward. Veils just project an altered appearance; this thing can conceal you completely.”



“So how does it work?” Calvin asked.



“We understand about eighty percent of the science involved, but it’s got some woo-woo crap going on that we haven’t figured out yet.”



I just looked at him. “Woo-woo crap?”



“Magic.” Kenji scowled. “It’s looking like we’re going to have to call in the Merlin types up on the fourth floor.”



“That’s a problem?”



“It is when the head of the sorcery department’s a pompous asshole. Tries to take over every project he’s called in on. Thinks just because he’s a couple hundred years older than the rest of us that makes him smarter. All it means is he’s had more time to piss off more people.”



I thought back to the grendel we’d seen on the surveillance video. Adam Falke hadn’t seen or heard the monster looming in the corner. Then when Falke started screaming, it was obvious that he had.



“Does the device have a switch of some kind?” I asked.



Kenji nodded. “A button. A simple on and off.”



“Then if the grendel picks up a weapon while he’s invisible, would the weapon be invisible, too? Or would the cloaking device only cover the grendel itself?”



“Like I said, this thing’s made of twenty percent Grade-A woo-woo crap. We have no idea what it can or can’t cover. Yet.”



“Sounds like we will find out hard way,” Yasha muttered.



“Some of the best scientific discoveries happen in the field.”



Calvin snorted. “Unless something in the field eats them first.”



Kenji shrugged and grinned. “Maybe if we can get the grendel to wear a natty dressing gown and sunglasses we’d be able to see him.”



“You lost me,” I said.



Yasha smiled and nodded. “Claude Rains. The Invisible Man.”



“A werewolf that likes classic monster movies,” Kenji noted with approval. “Borderline ironic, yet cool.”



I grimaced. “So . . . you have to be naked for the device to work?”



Kenji gave me a flat look. “I don’t know. I was trying to make a funny, lighten a tense workplace situation. See prior statement regarding mysterious woo-woo crap.”



“Well, do you know if it’s buildable?”



“Buildable, and probably built,” Kenji said. “The files for these plans were dated from four to six months ago, covering conception through revisions, testing, and final product.”



“By chance did the plans have the inventor’s name on them?”



“They sure did. Dr. Jonathan Tarbert.”



“Who was killed three months ago,” I mused. “Maybe. Late brother of the definitely dearly departed James Tarbert. My vampire buddy said Tarbert’s brother got himself killed because of greed. I wonder if he was peddling his late brother’s invention for fun and profit?”



Kenji whistled. “That wouldn’t have made Dr. Tarbert’s employer happy at all.”



I went still. “That wouldn’t be the Department of Defense by any chance?”



He nodded. “Affirmative. Said so right on the plans. And the DOD is so not known for their sense of humor.”



An outraged squeal came from Kenji’s computer. One of the white coats had made himself at home in the elf tech’s chair. “Dude!” Kenji shouted. “Don’t touch her there.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Engineers. Gotta go.”



“The MiBs in the back of that van didn’t look like they appreciated a good joke, either,” I told Yasha and Calvin.



“Sounds like that ex-CIA vampire has been dipping into the DOD toy box,” Calvin noted.



Yasha frowned. “Sounds like crazy person who made grendels not seen or heard already did.”



• • •



My phone rang. It was Ian. He’d found the boss and Moreau in the main lab.



The crates had arrived from the Tarbert mausoleum.



SPI’s lab was normally a busy place. Tonight only two of the senior research staff were there with the boss and Moreau. Every available tabletop was covered with open crates, and the air was thick with smells that didn’t agree with what I’d just eaten—or with the rest of me that didn’t like being around dead things.



That’s what was in every crate I could see from where I was standing.



Dead things. Dead supernaturals to be exact, displayed like hunting trophies.



Human skulls with fangs. Some were just the jaws—lowers and fanged uppers. Vampires.



Massive wolflike skulls and pelts. A few skulls had been taxidermied. Werewolves.



Baby dragons preserved in jars or in cross-sectioned eggs. Skulls of adults, and stuffed younger and smaller specimens.



Plus a whole bunch of other deadly looking creatures that I couldn’t identify.



And grendels. More grendels. One of the long crates contained yet another grendel arm.



With each crate was documentation saying where they’d been killed or collected, and if photography had been available at that time, there was photographic proof of the successful hunt. They ranged from high-resolution, full-color digital prints, all the way back to grainy, turn-of-the-last-century sepia tones.



Photographic and scientific proof of the existence of supernaturals. Predatory and dangerous supernaturals.



All packed in crates stamped “Property of the U.S. Government.”



It was a tabloid editor’s wet dream.



It was SPI’s worst nightmare.



I tried to put it all together in my head. The CIA was knowingly using vampires and possibly doppelgangers. A dead research scientist for the Department of Defense had a collection of supernatural predator hunting trophies hidden under his family mausoleum, and, at the time of his murder, had developed and perfected a device to render anyone—or anything—that wore it invisible and inaudible.



Right now, a pair of grendels were murdering their way through New York, unseen and unheard by their victims. Tomorrow night, the same individual who had sent Vivienne Sagadraco a taunting letter was going to aim them at Times Square and a crowd of nearly one million people.



Oh holy hell.



Ian came up beside me.



“This is about much more than a pair of grendels,” I murmured. I had to force my eyes away from the crates and their gruesome contents. “Kenji told the boss what he found on that flash drive?”



Ian nodded, his mouth tightened in a grim line. “As soon as he had confirmation.”



“You tell Moreau that my evil twin is a bowler?”



“I did.”



“And?”



“He’s about to tear this place apart until he finds that bag or what was in it. The new guy in Research found that you arrived twice at work yesterday—once with the bowling bag, and once without.”



“I was without.”



“That’s what I told him. When you and your doppelganger left yesterday afternoon, neither one of you had a bag.”



“Oh shit.”



“Yeah.”



“We’ve got CIA, DOD . . . so who the hell is doing this?”



Vivienne Sagadraco’s cool voice came from behind me. “At this point, neither, Agent Fraser.” Her gaze swept the tables and their contents, her steely eyes lingering and narrowing in barely contained anger at the sight of the baby dragons. “My source inside the intelligence community was able to tell me that the seed of this evil germinated in the minds of former employees of both organizations—but it was a CIA task force that was formed to investigate the feasibility of using, shall we say, unconventional weapons.”



“Supernaturals?”



“Yes. This task force proposed to exploit the talents of certain qualified creatures—whether voluntarily or through coercion—against the enemies of this nation.”



“That’s crazy.”



“So were many government projects. The Philadelphia Experiment is merely one that comes to mind. But your opinion is similar to that of senior CIA officials charged with finding projects to eliminate due to budget cuts. This particular project was deemed to be highly dangerous with little chance of success, so the project and its funding were discontinued, the task force disbanded, and its members either resigned or were reassigned. As far as the CIA is concerned, that was the end of it.”



“Looks like some of those people ignored the memo,” Ian said.



“I can say with virtual certainty that all of the task force ‘ignored the memo.’ We have closely examined the backgrounds of each of the seventeen individuals involved. All are either supernatural creatures or humans extraordinarily gifted in the dark magical arts. I believe they were assembled with a purpose, and used their positions within these agencies to act openly.”



Ian shook his head in amazement. “All the resources they needed were there for the asking. They operated with the full funding and cooperation of the U.S. government.”



“Was the vampire that’s been following me on this task force?” I asked.



“He was one of those who resigned.” Vivienne Sagadraco pulled a photo from a folder and held it out for me and Ian to see. “This woman was the head of the task force.”