Page 28 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

“How’d he find us?” asked one of the other trainees, a girl with two long brown braids. Roger decided he wasn’t going to ask their names. Probably they’d be dead in a couple of years once they came off the Dixon training leash, if not before. That question just hadn’t been that bright.

“He’s a hunter,” one of the Dixons laughed. “What do you think?” He had crooked teeth that glinted in the dim light.

“Voodoo,” the other, taller Dixon suggested in a mock-spooky voice, but he just sounded like a brainless moron and not like he was making a threat Roger would have to challenge him on.

Lucas was playing Good Leader and keeping his mouth shut—usually a smart-ass, Roger remembered—but he was smiling.

“There’s a lot of cars in the lot for this time of day,” Roger pointed out. “And hunters tend to meet at bars and not, say, beauty parlors.”

“Not me, Harper,” Lucas said. “I was all for Chic Cuts but got outvoted.”

Roger ignored him. “This is an awful lot of people for one rougarou.”

Crooked-Teeth grinned again. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the squirts, old man.”

Lucas shrugged. “Don’t worry, Harper, you’ll get your share of the bounty.

” Roger started to say that wasn’t what he’d been concerned about, but Lucas went on.

“I called you in because we think it has help. No reported deaths yet, which is weird given how this freak’s bloodwork came back from the lab.

Bastard thought he had some kind of stomach infection, got it checked out, and we got the intel.

But since then, there’s been nothing. We don’t know if this freak’s been eating homeless guys or if he’s still looking human, and we don’t know why there isn’t more info coming in. ”

“I’ve never heard of a rougarou running in packs or communities,” Roger said.

“Yeah, but doesn’t hearing start to go around your age?

” Lucas asked with mock concern. Roger gave him an I can still kick your ass look, and he raised his hands jokingly.

“So if you’re up for it, Gramps, we could use the backup.

Serious, professional backup.” He grinned.

“After all, you may not be family, Harper, but you’re damn good. ”

Roger rolled his eyes. “I was throwing trolls down mountains when you needed your diapers changed. Now tell me what you got.”

Lucas laid out the information and the plan with typical Dixon efficiency and professionalism. Four hunters in through the back, three through the front, spreading out as they went until they got the monster.

“We think the wife may be involved,” Lucas added. “Helping the freak.”

“Like a Renfield, just for a rougarou and not a vamp,” said Crooked-Teeth. “Christ, what a thought.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to believe it either, but there’s freak lovers out there.

” Lucas’s lip curled. “Remember, if something attacks, you shoot it on sight. If it keeps coming, torch it. I want the freak alive for the bounty, preferably—rougarous are rare, and we could use any new info—but I don’t want anybody doing something stupid to get a live capture.

It’s just money, info, and glory, folks. Not worth losing hunters.”

Everyone nodded—the Dixons with boredom, the newbies with eagerness. If one of them didn’t do something stupid to get the bounty, Roger would buy himself a drink.

At first the attack went down without a hitch. The kids followed the Dixons’ lead quietly, efficiently, and the all-too-human-looking rougarou barely had a chance to take one swing at its attackers—Lucas, who dodged the blow easily—before the other hunters filled it with tranquilizer darts.

Rougarou research was minimal, so Lucas had them use a combination of twine, iron, silk, copper, silver, catgut and little plastic zip ties. They were just tying the last knots when the wife came home with groceries.

She stepped through her front door, saw what they were doing to her husband, and dropped the bag full of neat packages of freshly butchered meat.

Roger was in the kitchen, discovering stacks of raw steaks wrapped in the refrigerator and freezer, when he heard the screaming and two shotgun blasts.

He ran, expecting to hear the flamethrower at any second, but in the living room, the monster was still safely down with the tranquilizers.

Instead one of the newbie hunters was splayed across the couch, gasping in agony at a hole in his chest big enough to fit a cantaloupe.

The wife, wispy brown hair flying around her enraged face, had a smoking shotgun.

“What are you doing to him?” she cried. “Get your hands off my husband! Let him go!” She swung the shotgun around.

Lucas, who had been securing the second floor, was suddenly there , snatching the gun out of her hands, breaking the arm she swung at him and kicking in one of her knees.

She went down, keening with pain and rage, but still tried to go for Lucas’s eyes with her good hand.

Crooked-Teeth Dixon emptied his clip of tranquilizers into her back.

Lucas stood, pushing back his hair with his free hand. “Fucking freak lover. They’re worse than freaks.” He spat on the floor.

The taller Dixon—who had been examining the young, dead hunter—looked up.

“So, what do we do with the bitch?” He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the woman lying motionless on the floor.

“I suppose we can’t just shoot her and drop her body at the dump?

Let her feed all the other nasties, since she wanted to so bad.

” He smirked at Crooked-Teeth, who chuckled.

Roger, not for the first time, had the urge to slug a Dixon in the face.

Lucas shot his cousins a look and turned to the two young hunter trainees, horrified and shell-shocked, staring from the monster to the unconscious woman to the lifeless body of their comrade-in-arms, whose blood was now soaking into the couch.

Roger wished he could say something comforting to them, but he didn’t know what he could say that wouldn’t be either a lie or useless.

This was part of hunting life. Even if you were lucky, people you knew died.

If you were unlucky, it was the people who mattered the most.

“Two stretchers,” Lucas told them.

The kids, grateful for a direction, ran for the door.

When they were out of earshot, Lucas turned back to his cousin. “We’ll dump her in with the roogy. If the tranqs don’t kill her and he doesn’t kill her, we’ll let Freak Camp deal with her.”

Sweat chilled on Roger’s skin. He knew what happened at Freak Camp. Usually he tried not to think about it. “She’s human,” he said. “We know she’s human.”

Lucas shrugged. “Can’t be sure ’til we get her inside, can we?” He didn’t say it like he expected Roger to believe it. He was just sharing the line they used for civilians so that everyone could keep their stories straight.

“You son of a bitch,” Roger said. Lucas raised an eyebrow, and the other two Dixons paused in their cleanup activities, turning to keep their eyes on him, ready for trouble. Roger would have been an idiot to ignore the way their hands drifted to their guns. “She’s human .”

Lucas threw up his hands. “What do you want me to do, Harper? You want me to just dump her with local police, have her tell them some bullshit story about how armed strangers came in, beat her, and stole her husband? Legislation against freak lovers ain’t what it should be.

They might take the bitch’s word, and then ASC’s gonna have to get into it with local law enforcement, and somewhere along the way we’re gonna have to drag her through the legal system for shooting that kid over a freak.

I mean, she’s guilty as hell of sheltering a freak, killing an officer of the law, and pissing off the Dixons.

Faster, easier, less of a hassle for everyone just to dump her in with the freaks she loves.

See if she still loves them when she finds out what they really are. ”

Roger took a breath, ignoring the ringing in his ears. “You do this a lot, Lucas?”

Lucas shrugged. “They’re all monsters, Harper. Don’t care if they’re freaks or fucking them. World’s a safer place with less of this shit on the street. You gonna be a problem?”

Roger didn’t answer. He knew the fight was already lost. Dixons got their way, whether it was on a public stage or in private scenes like this.

No witnesses, just silent and complicit accomplices and assholes like Roger himself, who told themselves that kicking up a fuss would do no one any good. Even if it also felt like the truth.

Hunting had never used to make him this kind of ill before the Liberty Wolf Massacre.

Back then a hunter could hold to his own code that let him sleep the best he could at night.

Now it was the Dixons’ way or getting arrested for interference with ASC operations.

Roger didn’t kid himself that if you were already on their bad side, you’d end up in a black van headed to Nevada.

“Don’t call me again, Lucas,” Roger said finally. “Not when you’re storming a civilian’s home.”

“Freak lover,” Lucas corrected, “not civilian. But I’ll pass the word along. Thanks for the time. Considering your moral objections, I’m guessing you don’t want your share of the cash, huh? And you probably won’t help load the bitch in the van, either.” He grinned.

There was the sense of humor that Roger remembered wanting to smack out of the snot-nosed kid. “Fuck yourself, Dixon.”

The Dixons laughed, just as the two surviving kids came back in, each one pulling a stretcher awkwardly through the door. They looked confused but didn’t ask about the joke.

“Not today, Roger,” Lucas said. “There’s folks that do that for me. Enjoy your sanctimonious life!” He waved as Roger walked out the door, feeling sick. He didn’t look at the Dixons, the rougarou, the woman, the kids, or the darkening stain where one of their team had bled out his life.

Maybe the tranqs will stop her heart before she gets to FREACS , he thought. That would be a mercy.