place but at the worst time. Shooting targets was one thing. It was another thing entirely to shoot something with two legs—even if it was a ghoul.
When I glanced back up, Ian was regarding me solemnly in the visor mirror. “Your gun is for self-defense. You’re the agency seer. Saving Ollie or anyone else isn’t your job.”
“And it’s not your job to spot ghoul commandos,” I told him. “But if you could, you’d do it, or anything else you needed to do. So maybe saving people should be at least part of my job.”
Ian started to speak, and I raised my hand. “ If necessary,” I stipulated. “Or if needed.”
Ian’s phone beeped with an incoming call. I couldn’t hear the caller’s voice, and Ian kept his responses short. “That was our wayward backup,” he told me and Yasha. “They were delayed by a frozen fuel line. They’ve gone ahead to the cemetery, and are establishing a perimeter around our subject. He just arrived.”
Finally, something was going right.
“Was he carrying anything?” I asked. “Like a monster head?”
“No head.”
“That would have been kind of conspicuous. Hopefully he won’t send us to another storage unit.”
“Pull over here,” Ian told Yasha. “Keep the engine running; I won’t be long.” He gave me a look in the visor mirror.
I raised both hands. “Staying put.”
I tried to see where he was going, but I lost him behind a mini mountain of snow, courtesy of the New York department of sanitation, that was piled on the side of Brooklyn’s McDonald Avenue and topped by un-picked-up bags of garbage courtesy of the same city, same department. Between the weather and the holidays, public service was running a little light on the service.
After about five minutes, Ian got back in the SUV and handed me a respectable-sized bouquet of dark pink roses. “Here, hold this.”
I met his roses with open-mouthed befuddlement.
“We need a reason to be in a cemetery,” he told me. “A reason that’ll ensure no one will get too close or ask any questions.” He pulled what looked like a tourist brochure out of the glove box and unfolded it.
I saw the words “Green-Wood Cemetery” on the cover. I blinked. “A map? Of a cemetery?”
Yasha pulled out into traffic, such that it was. Though first he had to yield to a woman on cross-country skis who was making better progress than the cars.
“Green-Wood’s quite the tourist attraction,” Ian said. “They even have concerts.”
“You’re kidding?”
He folded the map to show one section and passed it back to me. I laid the bouquet across my arm like a pageant winner so I could take the map.
“Tarbert is supposed to meet Ollie on the cemetery’s Nut Path off Hemlock Avenue,” Ian told me.
“So the owner of a monster head wants to meet on a path named Nut,” I said. “That’s appropriate.” I studied the map. Most of the avenues and paths were named after trees, bushes, flowers, and their various pieces and parts. There was a lot of twisty pavement on that map, so the cemetery’s founders had to get creative with the names.
Yasha drove slowly past a pair of cast-iron gates on Twentieth Street near Prospect Park. The gates were closed, but there was a sign. “Use main entrance,” Yasha read.
I squinted at the sign. “You can see that?”
“My eyes, they are very good.” Yasha looked in the rearview mirror and flashed me a tooth-filled grin. “The better to see you with, moja dorogaja .”
Russian werewolf humor.
“Reinforcements dead ahead,” Ian said.
Considering where we were going, I could have done without the “dead” reference, but I was glad to see a big white Suburban parked on the other side of the street, hopefully packed to the spare tire with SPI commando-ninja-badass monster fighters and all their implements of destruction.
One guy got out.
Okay, that was disappointing.
He crossed the street to where we’d pulled over. There wasn’t much by way of traffic, which was
When I glanced back up, Ian was regarding me solemnly in the visor mirror. “Your gun is for self-defense. You’re the agency seer. Saving Ollie or anyone else isn’t your job.”
“And it’s not your job to spot ghoul commandos,” I told him. “But if you could, you’d do it, or anything else you needed to do. So maybe saving people should be at least part of my job.”
Ian started to speak, and I raised my hand. “ If necessary,” I stipulated. “Or if needed.”
Ian’s phone beeped with an incoming call. I couldn’t hear the caller’s voice, and Ian kept his responses short. “That was our wayward backup,” he told me and Yasha. “They were delayed by a frozen fuel line. They’ve gone ahead to the cemetery, and are establishing a perimeter around our subject. He just arrived.”
Finally, something was going right.
“Was he carrying anything?” I asked. “Like a monster head?”
“No head.”
“That would have been kind of conspicuous. Hopefully he won’t send us to another storage unit.”
“Pull over here,” Ian told Yasha. “Keep the engine running; I won’t be long.” He gave me a look in the visor mirror.
I raised both hands. “Staying put.”
I tried to see where he was going, but I lost him behind a mini mountain of snow, courtesy of the New York department of sanitation, that was piled on the side of Brooklyn’s McDonald Avenue and topped by un-picked-up bags of garbage courtesy of the same city, same department. Between the weather and the holidays, public service was running a little light on the service.
After about five minutes, Ian got back in the SUV and handed me a respectable-sized bouquet of dark pink roses. “Here, hold this.”
I met his roses with open-mouthed befuddlement.
“We need a reason to be in a cemetery,” he told me. “A reason that’ll ensure no one will get too close or ask any questions.” He pulled what looked like a tourist brochure out of the glove box and unfolded it.
I saw the words “Green-Wood Cemetery” on the cover. I blinked. “A map? Of a cemetery?”
Yasha pulled out into traffic, such that it was. Though first he had to yield to a woman on cross-country skis who was making better progress than the cars.
“Green-Wood’s quite the tourist attraction,” Ian said. “They even have concerts.”
“You’re kidding?”
He folded the map to show one section and passed it back to me. I laid the bouquet across my arm like a pageant winner so I could take the map.
“Tarbert is supposed to meet Ollie on the cemetery’s Nut Path off Hemlock Avenue,” Ian told me.
“So the owner of a monster head wants to meet on a path named Nut,” I said. “That’s appropriate.” I studied the map. Most of the avenues and paths were named after trees, bushes, flowers, and their various pieces and parts. There was a lot of twisty pavement on that map, so the cemetery’s founders had to get creative with the names.
Yasha drove slowly past a pair of cast-iron gates on Twentieth Street near Prospect Park. The gates were closed, but there was a sign. “Use main entrance,” Yasha read.
I squinted at the sign. “You can see that?”
“My eyes, they are very good.” Yasha looked in the rearview mirror and flashed me a tooth-filled grin. “The better to see you with, moja dorogaja .”
Russian werewolf humor.
“Reinforcements dead ahead,” Ian said.
Considering where we were going, I could have done without the “dead” reference, but I was glad to see a big white Suburban parked on the other side of the street, hopefully packed to the spare tire with SPI commando-ninja-badass monster fighters and all their implements of destruction.
One guy got out.
Okay, that was disappointing.
He crossed the street to where we’d pulled over. There wasn’t much by way of traffic, which was
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