“Why can’t we just go in and roast the things?”
Henry Gillant glanced at his oldest son, and placed his palm over the fidgeting hands, a warning to be quiet…and still. You know why, he hoped his look conveyed. They got one shot at this. They had to wait until dark when all the diurnal gremlins returned to the cave. It'd taken him days to find the cavern, backtracking to it from a fresh set of prints. But he needed the boys. They had to get all the little beasties together, not just the few that were already in there, because once the little nasties’s cave was compromised, any survivors would scatter and it’d be hell tracking them all again.
Henry smiled. He'd never have imagined that walking into that other cave twenty years ago with his platoon would lead him to the kind of life that would haunt most civilians, tracking the kinds of creatures even the military didn't know existed. The Rangers had gone in after terrorist weapon smugglers and found monsters of smoke and teeth and an exotic velvet-haired woman already combating them. His men won that battle. He won the girl. The mission report filed was a little short on details, but the tapes and picture evidence he'd shown to his commanding officers was not. Henry immediately found himself in command of a newly formed special operations force, affectionately referred to by those in the platoon as Squad 666. His men traveled all over the world, tracking monsters and things that go bump in the night. Mostly solo jobs, occasionally together.
Henry had gained more than a new command and a woman he was crazy over—still was when he was honest with himself—he gained two sons he was monumentally proud of. Though the circumstances hadn't been ideal, in fact damn well frightening for a father, the night Celalundria placed the boys in his care was a gift. Already trained by the Anointed, Henry and his pals armed the boys with a few tricks of their own—Special Forces style. Since they were hell-bent on tracking monsters, Henry Gillant gave his kids the skills to keep them alive.
He glanced at his oldest beside him. Jake could remain scarily motionless when he had his prey sighted, but waiting for the monsters to show up, especially hunkered down without benefit of music or conversation, would never be one of the kid’s hunting strengths.
Unlike Cael who had the rare ability to remain still and silent for hours. Henry let his gaze slide past Jake's dark head to the rocks and trees his youngest wedged himself between a little higher up on the gentle slope. In the waning light, Cael looked like a statue. Henry hadn’t seen his sixteen-year-old move for hours, though he knew that he had shifted, because the angle of his body was different from the last time he’d checked. A swell of pride rose up into Henry’s chest. Even he couldn’t reposition himself so smoothly that other trackers wouldn’t notice. He’d been shifting clumsily himself, keeping circulation in stiff limbs that were eager for action. Of course knowing Cael, even though his body was completely relaxed, his brain was running a marathon, going over every tactic, each scenario, everything they knew about gremlins, listening to every sound.
Cael’s head turned, a slow unhurried movement that alerted both Henry and Jake to something coming. Then his eyes shifted back to Henry’s and Cael dipped his head to the side. Over there.
Beside him in the dense scrub, Henry felt Jake coil, anticipation to finally get this hunt going vibrated off him in pulses. Henry followed Cael’s line of direction to the trees a few yards beyond the boy. He waited, trusting Cael’s instincts.
There.
A shape emerged from the brush, moving down the hill toward the cave. It had a huge elongated head, seemingly too large for the child-sized body. It skittered down the slope, moving on all fours like a hairless monkey, spindly arms longer than the stocky legs.
Another movement gained his eye. Cael lifted his hand near his head. Knowing he’d only make a large move like that to purposely gain their attention, Henry yanked his gaze back to the kid. Cael flicked his chin in their direction. Both Henry and Jake swiveled their focus behind them.
Close. Another gremlin moved just on the other side of the tree Henry had been resting against for the last couple of hours. A wide leathery hand, again disproportionally large for the small body, paused a mere three feet from the tip of Henry’s rifle barrel he had stretched out to the side. His hand eased over the hilt of his knife.
Scratchy inhalations ruffled the static air as the creature sniffed. All three trackers went completely still, not so much as a breath. Henry had insisted the boys use his specialized soap and shampoo he'd brought from the base before heading out from the motel they met up at, the scent-eliminating kind wildlife hunters used because it lacked any perfumes. They’d also made a fire before they started out on the trail this morning and each stood in the smoke. So they should be good, their scents camouflaged. Except gremlins weren’t most animals.
And though they’d eat just about anything, this particular colony of gremlins had grown especially good at sniffing out humans. It started as sheep, pigs, and cattle going missing from the rural farmsteads, but the gremlins had moved on to several daytime hikers, and were now being bold enough to snatch people right off the streets of the rustic town. Eighteen people had been reported missing in the last two months, leaving the local authorities baffled. As far as Henry Gillant was concerned, that was eighteen people too many and he’d be damned before there’d be a nineteenth.
The gremlin shuffled sideways, still sniffing the air, but in the opposite direction. Its large hand scraped around in the dry pine needles and Henry’s eyes narrowed at the glimpse he got of the palm. He’d never seen anything like it, wet and rubber-like in ridged puckers. He made a mental note to document that in his report later. Could be important. Could be nothing.
Finally the little beastie moved on and the Gillants simultaneously breathed. For the next forty minutes, they watched as gremlin after gremlin loped past them and entered the sideways slash in the bottom of the opposite slope. If they hadn’t followed the tracks up to it, they’d never had known it was an opening to a cave. A rough knot was forming in the pit of Henry’s stomach. He estimated a group of at least five to ten gremlins, but as the count got up to twenty-one, knowing there had already been more inside before they’d even arrived, his worry intensified. He’d never heard of a colony this large.
Well after dark and long after they’d seen their last gremlin scamper past and disappear within the hole, Jake stood up out of hiding. “Can we please go kill them now?”