Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] by Nick Pollotta

haircuts, bought new clothes and wrapped ourselves around a reasonably priced meal at a nice restaurant.
    While the team was devouring everything on the menu, I ambled over to a payphone and placed a discreet call to the Bureau. With the relay in our RV gone, our wristwatches probably couldn't reach wherever-the-heck our HQ was located. Which made a public phone was my sole option.
    After being endlessly relayed through exchanges in Alamogordo, New Mexico to Trevose, Pennsylvania, I finally reached somebody in authority I could formally report to. The exchange of information was short and succinct.
    Returning to the table, I gleefully informed the group that since we had been in direct telepathic communication with the Scion, no other Bureau team was going to interfere and chance exposure. We alone had been given the honor of stopping the Scion. Somehow, my friends were able to restrain themselves from doing the dance of joy at this news.
    Appropriating a chair, I called for a group discussion. Katrina cast a small Dome of Silence over the table and everybody gathered in close.
    "Okay, obviously we can't go to Hadleyville without some sort of psionic protection,” George noted, mopping the last vestiges of gravy from his plate with a buttermilk biscuit. “Raul? Katrina? How about some big juju magic?"
    Conferring for a moment, the two wizards were glum.
    " Nyet ,” Katrina sighed so deeply, she almost burst out of her new blouse. “Spells for minds must be cast on each person and only last few minutes. Drain Raul and me in quick time."
    "Raul and I,” Jessica corrected primly.
    She nodded. “ Da , both of us."
    "Horta, old pal?” I asked hopefully.
    Almost knocking over the condiment tray, Raul was madly flipping through his big book of spells, currently disguised as a menu. “Sadly, that seems to be the case,” he announced. “There are some alchemist potions which might work, but the side effects are rather unpleasant."
    "Such as?” I asked curiously. Headaches? Stomach cramps? We could take those if it got the job done.
    Scowling, Raul ran a finger down a page in his book. “Let's see, there is Lungfire, Demonic Cancer, Brain Spiders...."
    "Enough!” Mindy called, holding up a palm. “We get the general idea."
    "And we're eating,” George munched, his mouth stuffed full. There were priorities.
    Her steel wand pulsating with flashes of hot power, Katrina barked a long phrase in Russian. It didn't sound very cheery.
    "This is intolerable!” Father Donaher raged, snapping a bread stick in half easy as a baseball bat. “Just because the Bureau has no operating telepaths, we're supposed to sit on our butts while the Scion of the Silver Dagger does...” He gestured vaguely. “Who knows what! How many civilians have perished already? And how many more will die?"
    It was a good point. Where the Scion went, death followed and lots of it.
    Mindy struck the table a resounding blow with her fist rattling the silver. “God damn it! We discover a coven of sentient werewolves, the biggest threat to the world in recent memory, and we can't even investigate just because the bad guys can read our minds? I say we go back to Hadleyville anyway, and kick some butt!"
    "Yeah!” Raul agreed. “If we move fast enough, or independently, even if they know what we're doing, they may not be able to stop us."
    Katrina brandished her invisible wand. “We shall bury them!"
    "Thank you, Mr. Khrushchev,” George chuckled.
    The Russian glared in return, then smiled.
    "No,” I stated in a tone that brooked no further discussion. “The danger is too great. Lord knows what important secrets those Swiftian yahoos have already learned about the Bureau! Jessica saved our hides before, and we're not going to muck up the mission now by charging in unprepared. We'll find a way to stop the Scion. A trick, a trap!"
    Everybody looked at me expectantly.
    "Something,” I mumbled lamely.
    "We always do,” Jess added, trying to be