Blood

6. In The Woods

I'd only gone about twenty trees into the forest when I stopped short. Uncle Asshole was standing there. He must've been spying on me while I was dealing with the van. And, limp on the ground beside him, was the backyard agent, with dirt and old leaves on his fancy suit.

"You dragged him all the way here?" I said. He nodded.
"Is he...dead?"

"Unconscious. He knocked himself out with his own stun grenade. I don't think you're supposed to drop them at your feet, but somebody smashed a flower pot behind him." He smiled.

"Who are they?" I demanded. "Assassins?"

"Actually, yes. Government sponsored assassins." He frowned.

"Why?"

"Let's start with who." He displayed a wallet he must've taken from the guy's pocket. It had a very official looking shield inside it.

The siren stopped as the ambulance pulled up, but I could hear another in the distance. Probably the police chief following up on the ambulance call. It's a small town. Soon the volunteer fire department would be there too. We don't get many 9-1-1 calls.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked.

"Let's drag him into the road around the corner," he said. "I'd kill and bury him but it won't do any good. Obviously they know about you already."

"Me?" That seemed strange. After all he was the one who'd just showed up. I figured they must be following him.

He was already dragging the unconscious agent by one arm, so I grabbed the other. By the time we got to the edge of the trees a police car was racing past and I

could see Burt, the police chief, behind the wheel. He went around the corner and squealed to a stop, and we dragged the agent into the road. His eyelids were beginning to flutter so we hurried back into the trees, where we stopped to listen.

The radio operator guy was talking a mile a minute and the EMTs were telling him to move so they could get the agent with the cuts onto a stretcher.

Uncle Assassin-Magnet was going through the wallet he'd taken. "He's got a federal ID," he said, holding it out to me. "It says he's with VIEU (which he pronounced like 'view')."

"And that is...?" I asked, trying to read the ID, which had very small type and didn't seem to say VIEU on it that I could see.

He slapped the wallet closed and put it in his own pocket. "VIEU stands for Vampire Identification and Elimination Unit," he said. "Which means big trouble. I'm surprised they're active in such a remote location."

I glared at him. "They weren't! Not until you showed up. Obviously they followed you!"

"Shhh! Don't raise your voice or they'll hear you." He turned and strode off through the trees.

"They'll probably go back to the house," I said.

"I'm going to tell your mother she has to pack a bag and go to a hotel," he said. "And rent a suite of rooms for us. It's important to be comfortable in emergency situations."

I watched him disappear, then I jogged off toward Hedges' house. I still had the other agent's wallet and cell phone in my back pocket plus his folder under my arm, and I wanted to see what Hedges thought. Obviously my asshole uncle wasn't going to be much help.