Kevin Wade Johnson
…one, accursed, in man’s guise trod the misery-track of exile, though huger than human bulk. -Gummere, 1351-1354 "This heat is horrid," Butch muttered. I eyed her. We were crouched under camo cloths between a couple of half-dead acacia bushes in an arid, sandy plain, half a mile from a dusty ranch house, the sun beating down on us all. Half an hour ago, my phone had put the West Texas heat at well over 100 degrees. Nothing moved but a loose shutter on the house ahead. No breath of wind stirred anything, no sound could be heard except distance. Butch cursed under her breath. I said nothing. I kept watching the house, sweat trickling beneath my neular body armor. Butch was watching our one-eighty, make sure no one snuck up behind. "Is it always like this?" she asked. "If we don't see signs of life soon, you and I get to go in," I said. She cursed again. Silently, so did I. I didn't blame her. She was six-five and muscular, and probably never met a man she couldn't hammer down till she got into SOC. Maybe not even then, not till she was assigned to the department. Department G is the US government agency in charge of Grendels—supernatural serial killers, more or less. Supernatural meaning somehow, some way, superhuman. In some sense. And "in charge of" meaning hunts down and kills. Butch and I were crouching under a murderous sun. She muttered, "One helluva place. A lonely place for living." "Just hope not for dying." "Yeah." We waited. We crouched in sight of two buildings, the front and east side of the long, one-story house, and the detached four-vehicle garage. Alec and Guns lay in an arroyo a mile from us, watching the back and west, including the bunk house for the hands. The three buildings formed a U, with the ranch house being the bottom. Christmas sat a half mile away, pulled fifty yards off the road and the car camo'd, his sniper rifle sighted in, and where he could just see the other four of us. Five total. "Should've been six," I muttered. Anyway, we were
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