As I have said before, Harbinger was not a man that I would want to play poker with. He did not normally display his emotions, but right now they were as easy to read as the name on the side of this cursed ship. His jaw dropped open, and his eyes widened. That had shocked him.
"How in the hell-"
He was interrupted midsentence as Julie came back on the radio.
"Earl. I take back what I said. Looks like they had a motor launch or something. There is a pulley system rigged near the end of the ship. Looks like it was used to lower or haul something out of the water. It's empty and the cables are dragging in the water, I repeat it is empty and the cables are in the water. There was a boat of some kind, but it is gone."
"Thanks, Julie. Keep your eyes peeled," he responded, took his hand away, thought better of it, and then keyed his mike again. "Boone, get over here. We need to have a little meeting."
Sam clutched his.45-70 warily. "No way, Earl. Seven Masters? That don't sound right. They don't work together. At least they never have."
"Are you guys crazy? The Newbie is full of it. He needs-"
"Grant. Get back on the perimeter," Harbinger stated flatly.
"But I-"
"Go," the Director snapped. Grant angrily complied.
Boone joined us with a worried look. Harbinger gave him a quick rundown. Julie had told me that Harbinger was much older than he looked, but right now he appeared to have aged a decade right in front of us. Boone looked at all of us as if we were crazy.
"So are you supposed to be like a psychic or something?"
"Not that I know of. I'm an accountant."
"We've seen weirder things, Boone," stated Harbinger. "Remember, flexible minds."
"No shit. But this is weird even for us," Boone replied. Then turning towards me, he asked, "All right, big guy, how did you know they were Masters?"
"I don't know. I could just tell. But they worked together, like a military unit."
"Come on, Earl. That's impossible. If vamps worked together, they could have taken over the world by now. It's been twenty years since there was a confirmed report of a Master."
"Closer to thirty. I know. I'm the one that killed it," Harbinger answered. "But Pitt is right on one thing. Something surprised me last night. I couldn't see anything, but there was something in the conference room with us. How else could he have known that?"
The four of us jumped when the radio sprang to life.
"This is Priest. You lot aren't going to believe this, but I've got signs of life. Somebody must have heard us arrive."
"What?" Boone responded.
"Listen, I'm going to put my mike on it. I'm getting this through a duct."
Every Hunter on the ship strained to hear. It was a series of seemingly random clicks, repeated over and over. I did not immediately recognize it. Sam picked it up first.
"Morse code," he translated. "SOS… T R A P P E D space E N G I N E R O O M space D A R N E space SOS."
"Priest, send a message back," Harbinger ordered.
"No can do, chief. Don't know Morse code."
"On it, Earl," Sam responded and hurried off in that direction.
Harbinger got back on the radio. "Okay, folks. Mission parameters have changed. This is now a rescue." He released the mike. "Boone, gather your men. Let's clear this ship!"
"Won't be the first time Americans have saved the French," the Special Forces vet shouted over his shoulder as he ran to rejoin his team.
I waited for my boss to address me. I could not tell what he was thinking.
"Pitt."
"Yes, sir?"
"Cut the 'sir' crap. Can you think of anything else from that dream of yours that might help?"
"Not really. If the dream is right, then the really bad dudes have disembarked. So do you believe me then?"
He did not answer my question directly. Instead he got back on the radio.
"Holly, send up every stake we have. We need to kill us some vampires."
"So is that a yes?" I asked again.
"Come on… We're burning daylight. Nobody's ever killed a Master in the dark."
Chapter 8
Vampires are one of the most dangerous forms of undead-brutal, swift, and smart. No Hunter in the world takes one on lightly. They vary greatly in ability, with the weakest being only super dangerous, while Masters are virtually unstoppable, perfect killing machines. Unluckily for us, anyone who is killed while being fed upon by a vampire could rise as one the next few nights, so we were potentially looking at fifty enraged bloodsuckers on the freighter. Luckily for us, newly created vampires tend to be confused and disoriented. The longer the creature exists, and the more blood that it has fed on, the greater its power would become.
Once again, literature and the movies got the story partially correct. Vampires are creatures of the night. Indirect sunlight can burn them. Direct sunlight will kill them. Their cells can regenerate almost instantly, but a stake through the heart will paralyze their advanced circulatory systems, and shut them down long enough to take their heads off. Even in our line of work there are not too many things that could survive getting their brain housings severed. Holy symbols like crosses and blessed water occasionally have an effect, but are dependent upon the personal faith of the user. Most Hunters opt for violence over faith; we're kind of like soccer fans that way.
I took small comfort from that fact as I hauled a case of fragmentation grenades up from the Brilliant Mistake. They could be destroyed, and we had the means to do it. I grunted as I set the heavy case down on the deck, unclamped the cable, and threw it back over the side. Holly waited below for our next request. Trip and Lee stood nearby, scanning for any threats. We were the security detail. Julie was in the Hind, still on over watch, and the ten other Hunters had broken into two raid teams and were making their way gradually toward the engine room.
"This is Harbinger. Still haven't seen anything."
"Boone's team. All clear. Stay frosty."
We had sent a coded message down the duct. The French Hunter tapped back that most of his team had been taken out by vampires, and they had sealed themselves in a compartment, were out of ammo, and were hiding.
"Newbie team. All clear on top." I cradled my Remington and watched the deck. Nothing was moving except for the French flag flapping in the breeze. Since we were standing in broad daylight, and worried about creatures that burst into flame when they got too much sun, there was not a lot for the Newbie team to do other than keep a sharp eye on nothing. The Hind circled lazily above.
"How come Chuck got to go inside, and we're stuck out here?" Albert Lee complained. He was a small-statured man of Asian descent. He had been a librarian once upon a time, before a colony of giant mutant spiders had taken up residence in his archives and started sucking the fluids out of his clientele. Unlike your average librarian, however, he had put himself through college on the GI Bill, and had been a demolitions specialist in the Marine Corps. His giant spider problem had met a fiery end, thanks to diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Sadly, the library had burned down as well. He was sharp, and unlike many of the Newbies had already known which end of the gun was the dangerous one. I was glad that Harbinger had picked him to come along.
"Chuck has more CQB training," I answered. CQB stood for close quarters battle, and Mead had a lot more experience in it from his Ranger days than the rest of the Newbies. Lee just shook his head and we went back to waiting. Time passed slowly except for the occasional radio check-ins. The two assault teams were converging on the engine room from separate corridors.