ADAM

 

Tuesday January 14 - 1947 CST

One day until Turbocharger activates

 

One of the strangest sights I'd ever seen wasn't some supernatural monster or exo-magic phenomenon. It was watching Doctor Johnson jam a magazine into his rifle and rack a round into the chamber like he'd done it thousands of times before. I mean he was a librarian and looked like he should be teaching science at a high school, not going to war.

"Why are you staring at me, Adam?"

I blinked at the sound of Johnson's deep baritone. "Sorry, I just didn't realize you knew how to use that gun."

He grinned at me like a father amused by his son's childishness. "Adam, I was in the army before you were born. I might know a thing or two about war."

Like me he had raided Gunny Lively's truck for gear. He'd found an M14 rifle that the Gunny had refurbished with the latest composite stock and Picatinny rails for accessories I couldn't even name. Doctor Johnson had brought his own chest rig though. It wasn't made of rip-stop nylon with loops for accessory pouches and pockets to hold armor plates like mine. His was a little more…antiquated is probably the best word for it. It looked like a set of leather suspenders holding up a belt fitted out with rawhide pouches that were a perfect fit for the boxy M14 magazines he was shoving into them. The whole rig was held together with brass buckles that had lost their shine decades ago. It certainly looked like something that had been dragged through the trenches before I'd even been born.

I'd found my own treasure buried in Gunny Lively's gear stash too. He'd brought along Dominus just for me and I couldn't be happier. If we were going to war against demons I wanted that beast of a rifle at my side.

We would need all the help we could get too. The rest of our leads were all busts and we knew the cult's ritual was coming. Since it needed warm bodies to power the summoning we ended up at the only place in Port Moreau that would be host to a large pool of people tonight—right in the middle of the town where the Deliverance Day parade would be coming by. Everyone in the town and surrounding parish would be present. All one hundred of them by the looks of the growing crowd of spectators. It wasn't exactly a metropolis. But still way too many if a dark, demon-summoning ritual was going to happen nearby.

So we set up shop in a narrow alley between the town's bowling alley and appliance store. It had a good view of the town center and kept us out of sight of most of the spectators, which was a good thing. I'm not sure how we would explain the fact that we were heavily armed and looking for trouble.

"Put this on, Adam." Doctor Johnson handed me a kevlar vest from our Go-Kit box. It had "FBI" stenciled front and back in bold yellow letters. "This will help keep people calm if they notice."

I suppose that would help explain why a heavily armed giant was wandering around their festival looking for trouble. Johnson had his own blue windbreaker with FBI in bold yellow on the back. Now we looked official and not suspicious in the least bit.

The vest slipped over the OD flight suit I'd changed into. If we were going to get our hands dirty with some cultists I wanted to be in something more functional and less scratchy than a suit and tie. And I would feel pretty bad tearing up the one and only suit the Colonel had custom tailored for me.

Speaking of the Colonel, it was right about then that he came walking around the corner with the Sheriff. In an uncharacteristic show of emotion Sterling glared hot fire at the Sheriff. "…and you didn't think it was important to let me know that he was linked to every last suspect we have in this case?"

Dubois held up both hands defensively. "Look, Theodore Balladur is one of the most respected men in the community. He's about as close as we have to a celebrity in the entire parish. I wasn't about to let loose a federal investigation into his personal business. Not without hard facts first. And so far you boys have been real short on those. Just what exactly are you here for? It ain't just about missing persons. That's for sure."

The emotion faded from Sterling's face and the statue was back in control. "We have reason to believe that Mister Balladur may be involved in a group whose goal is to smuggle in dangerous individuals into the United States."

Dubois blinked. "So like terrorists? Illegals?"

Sterling was walking the line between keeping things purposely vague and having to outright lie to the guy. So helpfully or not, I thought I'd add my own two cents. "You could say it's a little bit of both."

Dubois stared at me for a second then at Dominus. "That doesn't answer my question. And why does your man have a cannon?"

Sterling held up a halting hand. "Sheriff, all I can say is Balladur has gotten himself involved in things that are well beyond him. We need to stop him before things get out of control and the people of this town get hurt. Can you tell us where he is?"

Dubois sagged. "Look, Agent Sterling, I'd like to help. But right now I don't know where he's at. He'll probably be here somewhere tonight. Everyone will be."

And the crowds had already gathered. Balladur could be anywhere in them, but I didn't even know what he looked like. He could be right in front of me and I wouldn't even recognize him.

Then the parade's floats started rolling out of a warehouse and onto Port Moreau's main drag and I forgot all about Theodore Balladur. The first one in the line was covered in torches on long poles that cast everything around them in an orange gloom. Dancers dressed in Aztec costumes complete with animal masks pranced around a black pillar built up at the center of float wildly gyrating to the obscure rhythms of folk music piped through unseen speakers. The scene on the float fit in with the lore of Port Moreau's past, but that wasn't what caught my attention. It was the float behind it. That one belonged to some local radio station and for the most part looked like what you'd expect a float in a small town parade to look like, all paper, glitter, and glue precariously balanced on top of a diesel farm vehicle.

All except for the black shelled spider-crab.

I clutched the Colonel's shoulder and gently but forcefully turned him to face the thing. "Uh, Agent Sterling you need to see this."

Sterling was at a loss for words, and so was I. The thing looked just like the one from the warehouse and straight out of the dark corners of human imagination, and it was staring right at me.

People cheered and snapped pictures of the monster. For the life of me, I couldn't explain why it didn't leap off the platform and tear every one of them to shreds.