Page 59 of Hunters and Prey

Chapter 2

Colonel Matteo Rossi worked for a particular branch of the military that didn’t officially exist to the public. During his twenty-five years of service to the United States, he’d seen everything from evidence of aliens contacting humans to fire spirits in the vast deserts of the Middle East. What he hadn’t personally encountered before was a member of a society dwelling on the ocean floor. That was about to change. Reading about the mysterious Atlantians in a dry, classified military document wasn’t the same as meeting a living being from their civilization.

He stared at the video interface of his computer, his superior’s sun-weathered face displayed in the small box.“They want to work with my team? You’re shitting me.”

The sixty-eight-year-old veteran on the other side only grinned, deepening the crow’s feet and stress lines in his craggy face. General Cartwright had once been in Matteo’s position, a squad leader of the military’s top-secret paranormal investigation division, until an injury took him out of commission in his late forties. Now he worked from a government office in a suit and tie, tasking younger men to investigate the magical occurrences typical humans would hopefully never know about. The Magical Investigation and Research Agency—otherwise known as MIRAGE—had fallen into Cartwright’s lap almost twenty years ago. It bugged Matt that three of the letters in the acronym came from Agency.

The U.S. government loved its fucking acronyms.

“Not at all. I know you boys have no working experience with Atlantis, as they’re a relatively peaceful culture and they keep to themselves, but your expertise is needed on this one.”

“Military expertise required for a meeting with a peaceful culture?” That was worthy of an eyebrow raise. “What’s the mission objective?”

Cartwright lit a cigar and leaned back in his seat. “This is a protective detail, son; not a seek and destroy mission. I know you’re due to take leave tomorrow and this ought to fall into your relief’s lap, but I want your squad on this. Your GHOSTs will accompany a team of scientists from MIRAGE to meet with an agent from Atlantis.”

“Understood, sir. Threat level?” SEALs dealt with mortal threats. GHOSTs crushed paranormal menaces, and Matt had led them for seven years.

“Moderate. Nothing you boys can’t handle.Their agent is considered a decorated military officer in their society. The best of the best. Top brass figured it would be beneficial to deploy one of our teams to rein in the brains and keep them on task. You’re someone relatable who won’t look at her like a science experiment.”Most scientists had a habit of going batshit over paranormal beings, sometimes asking intrusive questions, or in the case of a few, swearing their undying loyalty and devotion if they were enchanted by some beautiful, unearthly creature. That tended to happen with elven royalty the most.

“With all due respect, sir, you look a little too smug right now. What haven’t you told me yet?”

That’s when the wide grin spread across Cartwright’s face. Matteo knew the man too well, his superior more of a father figure than a rigid and unrelenting department figurehead. “Retrieve a few frozen corpses from a lab in Baltimore and meet with their expert out on the ocean. She’ll identify whether it’s anything our government needs to worry about. Everything that you need to know about your contact and this mission is on the way to your console.”

“Wait, meet with her on the ocean?”

Cartwright chuckled. “Yes. Happy sailing.As I mentioned before, it isa sensitive topic, so try not to create an interspecies incident. Atlantians are known for holding grudges. I need you to keep that smart-ass mouth of yours under control while she’s around.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. These fishpeople are distrustful by nature and aren’t inclined to share their data with humans. Unfortunately, if shit has hit the fan and come to our world, we need everything we can get from them. Stay on her good side and gain any pertinent intel from her that will help us unravel this shit.”

“Kiss her ass, you mean?”

“Tail, ass, doesn’t matter to me what you fucking do, son. Put on some damn ’80s soul music if you have to. I’ll loan you my Barry Manilow records. Just make sure our relations with Atlantis are undamaged and that you bring me back more information than I’m sending you in with. We’ve got a highly contagious disease on our hands, and it originated in the ocean. If it’s what her people suspect, we’ll need them on our side.”

“Understood, sir.”

When the secure communication ended, Matteo opened the mission brief and scrolled through the data. Two weeks ago, a government research facility near Antarctica went dark after a frantic call for help from the central laboratory. There hadn’t been a single survivor, only corpses left behind.

Matteosipped his coffee and read the autopsy report while paging through the gory photographs on another screen. The medical examiner spoke in a dispassionate voice, detached from the situation, as most in her profession had to be. He imagined if he had her job, he’d be equally desensitized.

Each victim had been disabled with a single shot to the leg and pierced through the heartby an unidentified weapon of approximately two feet in length or greater. Muculent substance had been found on the wound site and identified as cephalopod secretion.

It all sounded routine until the end.

“Approximately thirty-two hours after the discovery, two unfrozen corpses underwent rapid mutation, growing additional appendages prior to reanimating.”

What the fuck?

Zombies. He was looking at pictures of what could only be expected in a B-grade horror movie, only the photographs were all on an encrypted government databaseand verified as authentic. Atlantis called it the Gloom, a highly infectious magical infection proliferated by the dark gods of the sea. He suppressed the shudder creeping up his spine, set his mug down, and paged into the next file.

The most dazzling eyes to exist in any world gazed back at him from the screen. Her fair face was framed by golden hair that darkened to scarlet beyond the first few inches, fashioned into dozens of war braids decorated by shells and mother of pearl hair clips.

DoctorElpis Starwater, Commander of the Atlantian Combat Medic Corps. He read everything he needed to know about her and her people, then he slid out of the chair and left his office.

Their squads of special operatives put in four-week shifts at the base, on-duty at all times, home for fourteen days, then out into the field again. Apparently, there was no shortage of supernatural incidents to quell, and he’d gotten pretty good at putting down troublesome creatures normal humans weren’t meant to see.

The moment he stepped into the rec room, silence fell over the three men clustered in front of the video gaming console. He knew from the tension in their shoulders that they weren’t happy. Matteo never hit the rec room before supper unless they had been called into action.

“Damn,” Jenkins muttered. “Knew it was too good to be true.”

Malcolm groaned from where he stood in front of a retro arcade system, still pounding away in a desperate bid to beat Matteo’s Donkey Kong top score. He’d never do it. “Lemme guess. We got a job to do.”

“Yep. Cartwright called it in. Get everybody into the operations room for a debriefing. We got one hour togear up and prepare to ship out.”

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