Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) (15 page)

He dropped the folder on the coffee table. “Take a look at that,” he said as he sat on the other couch. “I know right where they are. Hell, I know who they are. Names and everything. Keep telling the sheriff, but she won’t do anything about it. The last sheriff wouldn’t either.” Shaking his head, he unzipped the case and pulled out a digital camera. “Name’s Chester, by the way. And you are?”

“Uh, Gideon. This is Taeral.”

“Huh.” He said the word like he was expecting different names from the ones I gave. “So, you’ve really seen them?” He glanced around, and then lowered his voice. “In the…er, animal state?”

I flashed a sardonic smile. “Yeah. Up close and personal.”

His eyes widened. “Were you bitten?” he said, leaning forward. “Do you have any unnatural cravings? Any urges to—”

“We are not werewolves.” Taeral sounded extremely insulted.

“All right.” Chester frowned and fiddled with the camera. “You know, you guys seem pretty calm for having a run-in with them. This isn’t your first time, is it?”

“Not even close,” I said. “We just don’t know our way around here. That’s why we need your help.”

“Where you from?”

“New York.”

“The city?”

I nodded.

“Makes sense, you’d find some there.” He stared off into the distance. “No one believes me, you know. Everyone around here—they know what’s happening. Dead cows. People gone missing. They see the signs, hear the howling. No one goes out when the moon’s full. But they still pretend not to notice.”

“Yeah,” I said. “They take the easy way out.”

He brightened. “Exactly! But…” His gaze fell on the folder. “I hate to say this. But if they took your friend, you might not get him back.”

“Her. And we will get her back.”

“Well, you look in there,” he said, nodding at the coffee table. “It might help.”

“Right. Thank you.”

I opened the folder. The first thing in it was a topographical map, roughly circular and completely unlabeled except for the latitude and longitude grid, and a small red X near the lower left of the shape.

“That’s the location of the den.” Chester nodded at the map. “I’ve got photos, too. I’ll hook up the camera so you can see the place.”

I nodded absently, turning the map over to the other side of the folder as Chester got up and headed for the television. The next item was a printed photo looking down into the canyon at the face of the bunker—an image eerily similar to the one Milus Dei had.

Trying not to show that I’d already seen the place, I flipped the image over to the other side of the folder. Beneath it was a short, handwritten list on lined paper:
silver, mercury, wolfsbane (monkshood), belladonna, blue vervain (??).
The last item,
blessed crucifix
, was crossed out twice—and scribbled beside it was
just pisses them off.

Which suggested that Chester had actually tried using this stuff on werewolves. And somehow survived.

Maybe he wasn’t as crazy as the sheriff thought.

“Surveillance is a little easier now, with the drones.” Chester untangled a cord from the snarl of wires connecting the various devices and plugged it into the camera. “They don’t move much during the day. If you’re going up there, that’s when you should go.”

He pushed a button, and an image of the bunker appeared on the TV screen—the same one as the printout. “Mapped out most of the canyon,” he said, tapping the camera to cycle through shots of the bunker at various angles. Some of them showed a set of steps carved into the stone wall of the canyon, leading down. “There’s a back way in, too. Let me find it.”

As the pictures flashed on the screen, I looked at the next thing in the folder. It was a photo of a man, maybe 50 or so, dressed in what I thought of with lingering disgust as “hunter casual”—worn jeans, flannel shirt, filthy work boots. The camera had caught him glaring at something in the near distance. His hazel eyes were the same color as Sadie’s.

Scribbled at the bottom of the printout was
Silas Balfour, leader/alpha.

It wasn’t a stretch to assume this was Sadie’s father.

I turned the photo over, and found a yellowed newspaper article cut out and mounted on a piece of thin cardboard. The headline was
Family of Four Dies in Mysterious Blaze; Elk Heights Mourns.

The family name had been Nelson. Among its members was one eighteen-year-old Michael.

Sadie’s fiancé.

“I told them.” Chester was staring at the article, the camera forgotten in his hand. “One look at those bodies, those poor kids, and I knew the werewolves killed them. But Jeff Parsons, he was the sheriff then—well, the Nelsons were family. His cousins. He didn’t want to hear it, so he fired me.”

My brow went up. “You were a cop?”

“Deputy. I’d been in the Army a few years, until…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Anyway, I came back home and joined the sheriff’s department. But they didn’t listen any more than the Army.”

I kind of felt bad for him. He was right, about the Nelsons at least.

Chester turned back to the television. “Where’s that back entrance?” he said, clicking through more images of the canyon. “I swear it was on this camera.”

Suddenly the picture on the screen changed from the bunker, to something completely different. An aerial shot of a compound with two large, flat buildings, four smaller ones that looked like houses, and a circular structure like an arena or amphitheater. Dark blobs that were most likely people dotted the compound.

The image flashed off to another shot of the canyon.

“Wait. Go back,” I said. “What was that?”

Chester pushed a button, and the sprawling compound reappeared. “This?”

“Yes. Is that on the mountain too?”

He nodded. “It’s the alien base,” he said. “Those big buildings are part of their ship. The rest is underground.”

“Aliens?” I glanced at Taeral, who was clearly thinking the same thing—maybe Chester was crazy after all. But I really didn’t like the look of that place, even if there was no way I’d believe they were aliens.

“Hold on. I’ll show you,” Chester said.

Before I could say anything, he put the camera down and went to the back of the camper. He was back fast with more folders—three of them, stuffed thick with papers and photos. “I’ve been monitoring these guys for years,” he said, dropping the stack on the coffee table with a heavy thump. “That’s their symbol.”

On the front of the top folder was the Milus Dei ankh and sword.

C
HAPTER 22

T
ens of thousands
. It wasn’t a myth. There was a lot more to this cult than the group we’d already faced down.

I decided not to say ‘I told you so’ to Taeral.

Ignoring the stuff about aliens, most of Chester’s information seemed accurate. And terrifying. He had plenty of images of the compound, aerial and ground level, and photos of people with visible Milus Dei tattoos and scrawled notes identifying them as ‘aliens.’ A few of them, labeled
training exercises
, showed people wearing body armor and grouped in tight, military-style formations—led by Not-Agent Reese.

That was why he hadn’t recognized us. Reese wasn’t from New York.

Some of the documents touched on the history of the cult. There was a printout of an online article I’d seen before, in the links Viv had found for me when she researched Milus Dei. It talked about the Scrolls of Gideon—how they may or may not exist, were supposedly made of human skin and written in blood, and various theories about what they contained. Chester had circled the part about human skin and scribbled
alien preservation techniques
and
create the perfect man.

There was also an old sepia-toned photo of the railroad car machine that Chief Foley had almost killed us with.

Chester had decided that we needed sustenance before we went up against the werewolves. He was currently in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled like rancid entrails with a dash of stale gym locker, while Taeral and I went through the folders.

I turned over a block-printed list of coordinates with no labels or notes, to find a photo of the Pentagon.

“Uh, Chester?” I said slowly. “Do you really think these guys are involved in the government?”

He glanced back from the steaming stove. “They have landing sites all over the world,” he said. “I’m pretty sure one of them’s in D.C. Who else but an alien would design a pentagon-shaped building?”

I frowned. “They’re not aliens. Really.”

“Of course they are. Didn’t you see their symbol? It’s Egyptian.”

“And that proves…what?”

He snorted. “Everyone knows aliens built the pyramids,” he said.

“Right. I forgot, everyone knows that,” I said with a sigh. Obviously, there was no talking Chester out of the alien theory. “But the Pentagon?”

“Look, I know they’ve infiltrated Washington.” Chester lifted a pot lid and stirred something, keeping his back turned. “My CO was one of them,” he said. “He had the mark. I tried to report him to the defense department. Brought them all the evidence. They seized it and court-martialed me. Discharged me for being ‘mentally unfit’.” He shook his head and stared at the ceiling. “I’m not crazy,” he added softly. “This is real. But people either don’t believe it, or they’re covering it up.”

The idea that Milus Dei was involved in the military chilled me. And now I really felt bad for Chester, too. Take away the fifty shades of alien, and he had most of it right—but to the average person, he just sounded like a raving lunatic. “Well, we believe you,” I said. “Right, Taeral?”

“Oh, yes. Certainly, aliens are taking over the world.”

“Taeral.”

He let out a frustrated breath. “Aye. We believe you.”

“Good, because I’ve got plenty more to tell you. But right now you need to eat.” Chester produced a tray and a stack of bowls from an upper cabinet. He ladled the stuff from the pot into the bowls, tossed a few plastic sleeves of saltine crackers on the tray, and brought it out to the coffee table.

The bowls were filled with a lumpy, grayish substance, swimming with chunks of possible meat and a bunch of squiggly white strings. And it still smelled like gym socks and spoiled guts. “Er,” I said. “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but…what is that?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s safe,” Chester said. “I never use anything with preservatives. That’s where they slip the drugs in, dull your mind and fatten you up like cattle. The ramen noodles are okay for filler, but I don’t use the seasoning. It’s loaded with MSG. And the squirrel meat’s pretty fresh.”

“Squirrel meat,” I echoed weakly, grabbing a package of crackers. “Think I’ll stick with these.”

Taeral reached out and picked up a bowl. “Don’t be rude, Gideon,” he said. “Our host has prepared us a meal. It is surely safe to eat, as he’s mentioned.”

I glared at him. Couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, but I suspected. Strongly.

“Go on, dig in,” Chester said, helping himself to a bowl. “You’ll need your strength, if we’re going up against the werewolves.”

I frowned. “We?”

“I’m going with you.” Chester slurped down a spoonful of squirrel stew and failed to gag or drop dead. “You need a guide. I know the King, and I’ve got plenty of anti-werewolf weapons. Without me, you’re as good as dead up there.”

“I hardly think we need help from a—”

“Hold on,” I said before Taeral could say something brilliant like
human.
“He does know the area. And we’re definitely short on firepower.”

“I’ll not be responsible for him,” Taeral said. “I’ve enough trouble keeping you alive.”

Chester leaned forward, balancing his bowl in one hand, and stared at him. “Listen, son. Do you have any idea what these aliens are doing?” he said. “They’re making super soldiers out of everything they can get their hands on, and it’s not just werewolves. I’ve seen more shit than you’ll ever be able to understand. I can handle a bunch of overgrown dogs, you got that?”

I couldn’t help laughing at Taeral’s stunned expression. “Okay. You’re coming with us.”

“Damn straight I am,” Chester said. “We’ll head up at dawn.”

“No.” Taeral’s features sobered quickly. “We leave at moonrise,” he said. “If Milus Dei is this close, and in such numbers…we may already be too late. We must find her.”

Chester’s eyes widened. “I thought I was the crazy one. You know they’re stronger in the moonlight, right?”

“Aye, they are.” Taeral flashed a grim smile. “But so are we.”

C
HAPTER 23