May 16, 1973 - Washington D.C., United States

96

The archives… well… let’s say that disappointment was a continuing trend for the trip.

Jacob drove me to another building in a different part of town. At first it looked like a promising place; the building was much larger than the shed Jacob’s group was crammed in, and there were a lot of serious looking government men doing serious looking government things. But we didn’t park by that building. Instead, we drove behind it and parked by the dumpster.

Jacob pointed at a group of boxes stacked next to the dumpster. “There. Those are our archives.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Afraid not. When we got transferred out of this building, we had to leave most of our stuff. And the new owners got rid of anything they didn’t want to keep.”

“Yeah, but… just throwing away classified material REALLY doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do.”

“Really? Maybe try looking inside one of the boxes.”

I did. And I stared at what was inside for a long time. And then I screamed very loudly and kicked that box as hard as I could, causing little strips of paper to fly out.

All the documents inside the box had been shredded.  There was no way I’d be able to make sense of any of the fragments.

“Guess they didn’t consider our anything we had there important enough to keep.”

That was it. I was going to start hitting people. Starting with Jacob because he was closest.

“What is it you were hoping to find, anyway?” He asked.

I had to suppress my violent impulses to answer. “Not entirely sure. Anything I could about a man named Grendel and the cult he leads.”

“And what on earth made you think we’d have anything like that?”

Um… judgment call time. Would “I’m from the future, where your group is massive and has a helluva lot of information on them,” work, or should I try thinking of a more believable lie?

That call turned out to be one I didn’t have to make. A black car screeched up alongside us, and one of Jacob’s men got out.

“Mr. Marchetti, we’ve got a problem. Some kind of terrorist group cult has taken over a hotel, and we’re being called up to deal with it.”

“Us? We never got this kind of job. What’s going on?”

“Everyone who went in before us has been wiped out. All the alphabet agencies have been sending their paranormal teams, but no one’s coming back. We’re the only ones left. Well, we’re the only CIA group left. The FBI’s still got the SMSC; they’re on the scene already, but aren’t making any moves right now.”

“Damn. Just us two groups? They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. What’s going on inside that hotel?”

“No one’s sure. I’ve heard rumors about giant dogs made of smoke or a man who’s immune to bullets, but haven’t heard any official word.”

Wait. That… sounded familiar. “Were those dogs bat-zombie like? Did they seem to come out of nowhere, then vanish again?”

“What? Um… I don’t know-”

“That guy who was immune to bullets? Were there any more details about him? Like eye color? Did they say if he had red eyes? When he was shot, did shadows come out instead of blood?”

“Um…” My barrage of questions appeared to have silenced the agent. Jacob, however, seemed curious.

“Those are specific sounding questions.” He said. “You think you know what’s going on?”

“Maybe. Drive me to the hotel, and we’ll find out.”

Perhaps, after all this searching to find the slightest scraps of info on Grendel, I had accidentally stumbled upon him. Jacob drove us to the hotel, which already had several black vans surrounding it. Jacob’s agents were already there, plus a man I hadn’t seen before. He nodded to us as we approached, and greeted Jacob with a “Agent Marchetti.”

“Agent Eight-Line Poem,” Jacob responded.

“Wait, Eight-Line Poem?” Surprise made me speak out loud. And people think my name sounds silly….

Eight-Line Poem blushed at my surprise. “I’m from the SMSC. Our boss, well, has a bit of an obsession with that David Bowie guy. All our code names are picked from his songs. I don’t see the appeal, but those are the boss’s orders.”

Jacob got back into the conversation. “So they’re finally letting you guys out again after your last screw up?”

Eight-Line bristled. “We had every reason to believe that we were dealing with a demonic summoning back then!”

“It was a college Halloween party.”

“Yes, but it could have been a demonic summoning!”

“Could have been. But it was still a college Halloween party.”

This was going nowhere. “Hey, I’m fascinated to hear what you two have to say to each other,” I said, “but there’s this other thing here that’s kinda important and which I’d really like to start taking care of. Now what’s the situation inside the hotel?”

Surprisingly, for once being rude and blunt failed to calm people down. Eight-Line just got angrier, and said to me, “And who are you, acting like you’re in charge?”

“She’s under direct orders from Mr. Schlesinger.” Jacob said. “Which basically means that she is in charge here.”

Eight-Line grumbled something like, “God damn CIA,” but went on to answer my question. “The cult’s a group calling themselves the Esoteric Order of Dagon. They’ve barricaded themselves on the tenth floor; we think they have hostages with them, but we’re not sure. They haven’t made any demands or tried contacting us.

There’s been a lot of casualties trying to storm the building and clear them out. Damn idiots always think that their elite squad will succeed where every other elite squad failed. We’ve already had the FBIS, CPI, ADAE, SPC, STAB, and PAM all go in and get themselves killed, so now they’ve just got us SMSC and your PABDA to deal with it.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Jacob said. “Now let me consult with my superior for a moment.”

He pulled me to the side, out of Eight-Line’s hearing. “So now you’re actually calling me your superior?” I asked.

“You’re the only one who seems to have any idea what’s going on here, and it will be a lot easier to get stuff done if everyone thinks you’re official. Now what are we running up against in that hotel?”

“The dogs are most likely the Hounds of Tindalos. They can appear and disappear from anything that makes a sharp angle. The man’s name is Grendel. None of our guns are going to have any effect on him. Or any other weapon we’ve got.”

“And how do we deal with them?”

“We don’t. Grendel’s my problem. I’ll take care of him on my own.”

“That’s not happening. Dealing with this stuff is our job, and we’re finally being allowed to do it. We’re going in as well.”

Well… fine, yeah, you guys were kinda stuck in a shack, I can understand your eagerness to do something. “Alright, but it’s your heads on the line”

“We’re going to head in.” I said to Eight-Line. “You SMSC people… try to come up with a believable cover story or something. And get a wrecking crew; if this doesn’t work it might be safer to just smash the building.”

The barricade of vans moved aside to let us through, and we entered the hotel lobby. There were bodies of agents who had gone before us across the floor, their corpses shredded to pieces.

“Keep your eyes on the angles.” I said. “If you see smoke, start shooting. It means one of the Hounds is appearing.”

That advice couldn’t have come soon enough; the moment I finished the sentence, smoke poured out of the walls. Three Hounds leapt out, and were met with a volley of pistol fire. And it doesn’t matter what kind of angled time they come from, pump enough lead into them and they die like anything else.

With those three dead, we reloaded and moved forward. Had to get all the way up to the tenth floor. First snaking through the too-narrow hallways while under constant attack, and then up the stairwell. The god damn motherfucking bloody stairwell. Jacob and I took point, while the other four watched the sides, everyone keeping their back to each other. It was slow, but the only way to keep eyes on every angle at once. The bodies we passed were all the incentive we needed to stay in that formation.

Things got bad on the stairs. In the halls we could watch the walls and ceiling easily. But every step made an angle, and we didn’t have enough eyes to keep track of our feet as well. As we climbed the stairs, smoke started to appear beneath us. Heard an agent behind me scream, and turned to see him being dragged into the smoke. Only one thing to do then.

“Run!”

Up the stairs, fast as we could. Hounds were leaping at us from every direction, appearing as fast as we could shoot them. We were forced to make a stand on a landing, keeping our backs to the wall as we held off a seemingly unending attack. An agent’s gun jammed, and a Hound pounced, tearing out his throat with its rotting teeth. More Hounds leaped on the body, tearing it apart with claws and teeth. We used that as a chance to make a break for it, continuing our sprint.

“Out of ammo!” Someone yelled, and I reflexively checked inside my coat. Shit, no more ammo in their; this was my last clip.

Fired my last few shots and then tossed the gun aside, focusing just on running. A Hound appeared in front of me, and in a panic, I swung at it. Somehow lucked out and hit it in the face, knocking it down the stairs.

“Nicely done,” Jacob said.

Threw on a smirk. “Of course it was. Who do you think I am?” Oh god that was terrifying how the hell did I survive that.

Suddenly the Hound’s attacks stopped. Something changed in the air: a pressure seemed to press down on our heads, and a loud buzzing echoed in our ears. Didn’t know the cause, but I was assuming it was a bad sign. Went up the last few floors as fast as my legs could go. Reached the tenth floor, kicked open the door, and nearly fell into an empty void. There was nothing beyond that door. Nothing but a five pointed star burning in the abyss, and by that star, Grendel.

“Hello Darling!” Grendel’s voice boomed with an unnatural roar, his black hair and clothes seemed as if they were made of living darkness, and his eyes glowed red with the fire of dying suns. “Once again, you come to witness another triumph! The battle call has been sent out. The gods are being summoned from the depths which they were driven to, at last waking from their long slumber. On the day of Revolution, they will be prepared to strike, taking vengeance upon-”

A bullet ripped through Grendel’s head, stopping the monologue. Jacob lowered his gun and muttered, “God damn he likes to talk.”

When Grendel’s face reformed, his voice and appearance were back to being more human. He scowled fiercely at Jacob. “I’m reminded why I had you replaced with Lupine. Have fun playing with your new toys, Darling; I’ve done what I came here for.” Grendel and the nothingness disappeared, replaced with the hotel hallway. Several cultists were unconscious on the ground, as well as the bodies of those who had been staying at the hotel.

Some of the cultists started to wake up as we searched. They didn’t resist when the Scoobies handcuffed them. Can’t say if that was because we had guns, or because they knew Grendel had already succeeded. No one talked about it, but there was a feeling amongst us that we’d arrived too late.

Not that anyone else knew that. Far as they were concerned, we walked out of a place no other team had returned from, leading a group of captured cultists. Of course there was a cover up, so we didn’t get any medals or anything. But word would reach the right people that the Scoobies had succeeded where everyone else had failed. Which is going to open up a bunch of options in the power vacuum left by all the casualties everyone else had. And dammit, I’m going to make the Scoobies hunt Grendel for me if I have to force them into becoming a competent agency.

And I’m totally going to make them accept that their name will be the Scoobies. No matter what it takes.

I-330