Bureau 13 : Judgment Night

He grabbed his butt and howled in pain. Coming awake, she charged forward, her sword slashing off a wing. Snarling, the bat raked her chest with his claws, the front of her uniform ripping away to expose molded body armor. Nice. These guys were definitely government. From the sidelines, Chubby angled the M60 so he wouldn't shoot the woman. The big machine gun stuttered away, Lardo riding the weapon like a professional, spent shells forming a glittering golden arc in the air.

A net materialized above the one-armed bat and dropped onto him. But the Count ripped it apart without even trying. Across the room, Skinny cursed and started digging about in his shoulder pouch. I realized he was the source of the magic stunts.

In yammering fury, the machine gun finally blew away chunks of the Count's skull. The rainbow sword flashed and a clawed leg fell to the floor. That should have killed anybody, but the Count shimmered like bad TV reception and was a man again. Whole and undamaged. Instantly the three closed in as if this was what they had been waiting for. Now I was cheering them on wholeheartedly. Hallucination or not, the sonofabitch had killed my partner and I wanted him dead.

Laughing confidently, the Count unexpectedly doubled in size. His clothes too. A neat trick that. But the woman leapt into the air and thrust her rainbow sword straight through the guy's chest, as Skinny threw what resembled a wooden dagger into his throat and Chubby shoved a grenade down his pants. Then everybody but me took cover as the big guy fell face forward onto the stone floor and thunderously exploded.

In the enclosed space, the blast was so loud I couldn't hear it at first. Then sound painfully returned and the shock wave smacked me flat. Acrid smoke tore at my lungs. The ground quaked. The building shook. A rush of heat cooked me to the bone. The ceiling cracked, chunks of stone falling everywhere. I abruptly understood that this was no illusion and braced myself for death.

A short eternity later the rumbling world finally settled back into place. There was no sign of the Count except for a few smoking bones, and a melted cell phone. For the first time in three months I allowed myself to relax and said goodbye to my partner. We got him, buddy. We got him.

Rising from the rubble, Shorty, Chubby and Skinny dusted themselves off and came over carefully picking their way through the charred wreckage.

"I'm glad you survived, Mr. Alvarez," the skinny fellow said, offering me a canteen. "We have been following you since O'Hare Airport, Chicago."

I gagged on the water. "Huh?" I asked brilliantly.

"As you seemed to be tracking the vampires much better than we ever had, I saw no reason to interfere with your progress until some intervention was needed. Actually a most impressive job, considering your lack of formal training."

My thanks consisted mostly of four-letter words.

Unperturbed, he opened a leather wallet, showing me a badge and ID card. "FBI," he announced. "Special Agent Richard Anderson, on permanent assignment to Bureau 13. This is George Renault and Mindy Jennings."

They were feds. "Bureau 13?" I asked.

Wearily George rested the stock of his machine gun on the floor. "We're a covert division of the Justice Department."

Covert my ass. But not entirely stupid, I was getting the general idea. "And you handle criminals like these guys." I jerked a thumb at the smoking corpses.

"Yep," Mindy said, wiping her sword off with a bit of cloth before sheathing the rainbow blade. "But believe it or not, our biggest problem is personnel. Just can't find enough trained people who won't faint when facing vampire bank robbers, werewolf motorcycle gangs or toxic waste mutant assassins."

They waited. The next move was mine. What the hell. A short life, but a merry one.

"Okay, deal me in," I sighed.

Smiling, Richard flipped open another commission booklet. The ID card inside this had my driver's license picture and read: "Special Agent Edwardo Alvarez, FBI". It was dated two months ago. Smooth. I was going to like these guys. However, there was still one very important question that had to be answered immediately.

"Can I get down now?" I asked, rattling my chains.