“And you have muscles. Dang. You been lifting weights with tall dark and scrumptious? Or maybe just lifting tall dark and scrumptious himself?”
Liz laughed, a chattering sound that stuck in her throat. “Something like that.” She pulled away and looked up at her twin. “You really did that? Gave me the house?”
“I really did that.”
“Nothing’s ever going to be the same again is it?”
“Nothing’s been the same since Evie died.” Her twin’s mouth turned down in a hard line. “Maybe this is the new normal. New business opportunities. New men. New workings. New lives. But whatever we have now and in the future, it’s all rooted in the past, growing up in the Everhart house.”
“Together,” Liz said.
“Together.”
Eli
Eli hadone pack strapped with a bedroll, medical supplies, MREs, a lighter, and necessities. The other rucksack was for weapons. He and Chewy double checked their gear for balance and duplicates. They had no idea how many creatures they might face and they had arranged the gear accordingly.
Liz seemed to assume there would be only one creature, and also assumed it was a Dwayyo, but civilians tended to not think worst case scenario. Since nothing was known about the thing they were tracking, it could be a pack.
He had talked to Rick LaFleur late last night and had PsyLED backup if needed. If they got in a jam. If they happened to have a cell signal.
On a sling, he’d be carrying an old M4 Benelli tactical shotgun. In double thigh rigs were two Beretta 92FS semi-automatic pistols, one loaded with silver-lead composite rounds, the other loaded with standard lead. In his weapons rucksack were multiple shells and slugs for different paranormal creatures and fully loaded mags, color-coded for quick replacement. On his belt were stun grenades, AKA flashbangs. He had two vamp-killers strapped close, and two fixed blade knives for close in work. Alex had provided him a loitering recon drone and its control system.
Chewy said, “I still think we should take the Switchblade.”
Eli grunted. The Switchblade 600 was a man-portable tactical missile, launched from a tube using compressed gas. The system weighed fifty pounds, which they would have to carry up and down mountains. “The drone can scout ahead. If there’s a pack, we can have backup in two hours, and that time falls easily under thehedge of thornswards Lizzie can set up. If there’s a pack, we just dig in and call for help.”
“With what cell system? Hoss, we’re going in-country.”
Eli stared at the Switchblade in the SUV. “Only use would be if there’s a pack and they’re all in one place: house, vehicle, barn. If they’re scattered, moving through underbrush, in a cave, it’s no use to us.”
Chewy gusted out a breath. “Daddy won’t let me play with the new toys.”
Eli grinned and got in the passenger seat of the vehicle, riding shotgun. Chewy drove while Eli tried out the new earbuds that worked as talkies and noise reduction, automatically gaiting ear protectors, muffling specific wavelengths of sound, increasing others, and instantly closing down at dangerous noise levels to protect ears. The headsets with full ear protectors were better, but these utilized their own signals and were supposed to be better than traditional talkies. He’d see if they lived up to the hype. The old-fashioned talkies were stored in the gear bag. Comms redundancies were vital. He also had a portable cell signal enhancer, but he had no idea if they would be able to make use of it.
He glanced at Chewy’s choice of weapons, calculating firepower. Decided they were good.
Eli
Eli expectedLiz to be late, but her Subaru was already in the Drake’s driveway when he arrived. Lights came on in the house as he turned in.
Lizzie had told him about Drake’s attitude, and when the man came out onto the front porch he was everything she had said. He was wearing a robe and house shoes, real pajamas showing at wrists and legs, shiny material that caught the porch lights, like satin or silk.
Eli didn’t believe in pajamas. There had been too many times when he’d had to wake from a dead sleep and throw on battle gear. Removing clothes would have been wasted seconds.
And shiny sleepwear was for girls.
Liz walked toward the front porch, and if his body language was an indication, Drake instantly started giving her a quiet tongue lashing. Which pissed Eli off.
His first instinct was to go defend her, but Chewy, who wasn’t much for physical demonstrations, put a hand on his shoulder. “Negative, Hoss. She won’t appreciate you jumping in tohelpher. Her job, her client, her responsibility. Chain of command. Besides, she’s a witch. Lizzie can take care of herself. Turn him into a fucking rabbit or something. Park the vehicle.”
Eli cursed softly under his breath and maneuvered his personal SUV in next to her car, both vehicles out of the way and not blocking either the drive or the street. Moving quietly, he and Chewy got out and unloaded, though he watched the scene unfolding at the front of the house.
Chewy was a mountain of a man, and a mountain-man. Bearded, graying early (because he was only in his forties, and that was still young for a civilian), Chewy was wearing camo overalls and carrying a pack, one that had to weigh eighty pounds, as if it weighed ten. Chewy looked like a modern day version of a farmer melded with a boulder and a silverback gorilla. His knees had both been replaced after they were damaged in an accident in Kuwait, and he once again moved with the grace that had resulted in him being named after a Star Wars character.
They closed the hatch and Liz walked to them, Drake watching from the corner of the porch. She was dressed in loose, water-wicking hiking pants, her old hiking boots, and a T-shirt under a pink plaid shirt, her pack and her hiking stick on the ground beside her car. “Hi. Where’s Brute?”
“He’ll be here. He’s excited at the idea of a hunt.”
