Chapter 34: Lawman has put an End to my Runnin'

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***

The interrogation room was a surprisingly pleasant place. A small dome situated somewhere in the countryside, it had a gorgeous view of pristine farmland under the setting sun. Gwen sat at the far end of a rectangular table, Quentin on her left hand side and Joshua on her right. Alice was next to Joshua, her scarred arms bound in sleeves and folded across her chest. The room was cool, almost cold, from the high-running air conditioning unit at the far end. The walls were wooden with a healthy brown finish, the floor covered with an andalusian rug.

Gwen shivered. They’d been taken to a holding facility an hour outside of Peoria, interrogated individually, and then brought here all together.

The door opened behind them, and an FBI agent entered. He was African American, short and stocky with a youthful, almost pretty face and a clean-shaven pate. He wore an immaculate suit, and under his arms he carried an old radio. He sat down at the opposite end of the table as Gwen, and placed his radio before him.

“Sir,” Gwen started, “I-”

The FBI agent raised a hand to cut her off, but said nothing. Instead, he simply placed a tape into the radio, and hit play. Beethoven’s Ninth symphony began playing.

“Look, Mister FBI Agent,” Alice said. “We-”

“Hush!” the agent snapped. He closed his eyes and began humming along with the music.

“Sir!” Quentin said. “I really must-”

“I said hush!” the agent said once again.

Gwen and Quentin made eye contact, both with their mouths open but no words coming out. The agent raised his hands and moved them in time with the music, as if he were conducting the orchestra himself. Joshua simply nodded along to all this.

Finally, Symphony Number Nine concluded, and the agent ejected the tape from the player. “Sublime, isn’t it?” he asked.

It took a moment before Gwen realized he expected an answer. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“Glad you agree,” the agent said. “My name is Special Agent Hannibal DeRosier. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It's a pleasure to meet you all.”

“Likewise,” Gwen said.

“Indubitably!” Quentin said.

Joshua nodded sagely.

“Yeah, sure,” Alice said.

“Your names are Alice Katherine Carmichael, Joshua Binyamin DaSilva, Quentin Brandon Jeong, and Guinevere Priscilla Albrecht. And you’re all, hold on,” he said, reaching into his suit pocket and retrieving a notepad. “Monster hunters. With the Damocles Guild. Is that correct?”

“What’s left of it,” Alice sighed. Gwen put a hand on her shoulder, and Alice gave it a squeeze. She’d softened a bit in the past week- it was jarring, but not unwelcome. And besides, her life had been torpedoed arguably worst of all.

“Brandon?” Joshua said, as if considering the word.

“Had I not mentioned that, chum?” Quentin asked.

“I may have forgotten.”

“Gentlemen, ladies, please,” Agent DeRosier said, “You’re not gonna wanna talk out of turn too much here. If it helps at all, you’re not being charged with anything. Yet.”

“Yet?” Gwen asked.

“It’s tentative. We reserve the right to revoke it later.”

“And what do we have to do to make that not happen?”

“Cooperate,” Agent DeRosier said, “Tell me what I’d like to know, what my superiors need to know, before we can decide on what to do next.”

“We already gave you our individual statements,” Alice said.

“Yes. But I wanted to see all of you together before I made any decisions. And so does my boss.”

Gwen looked to the side, at the massive mirror substituting for a wall. “Your boss is watching us right now?”

“Ding ding ding,” DeRosier said. “Perceptive. So. Carmichael, you’re the leader of the Guild now, are you not?”

“Yes,” Alice said in a harsh whisper. Her mother was missing in action, along with the rest of the leadership- they’d all gone up in flames in Chicago the same night as the attack on Peoria. The media had labeled it a mass shooting, though nobody was sure what the general public believed right now. With the Master Hunters all gone, Alice was one of the highest ranking members left. She hadn’t said anything about it yet, but the look on her face was of someone coming to terms with her family getting smaller.

“Can you tell me about the incident in Leafton, New York, five years ago?”

Alice drew a deep breath through her nose. “Five years ago, my hometown was under attack by a serial killer. People kept going missing, without even a single trace. It turned out to be a ghoul- a powerful, well-fed one. My mom was in South America at the time, dealing with a Sovereignty skirmish down there, so she left it to me to save Leafton.”

“A federal agent was dispatched to investigate that as well, if you’ll recall.”

“Yes. Agent Dunne. She was reckless, and it got her killed. By the time I caught up to her, the ghoul was halfway through eating her intestines.”

“And you neglected to share this information with Agent Dunne, about the ghoul, about the true nature of the investigation, when it could have saved her life?”

Alice said nothing, simply sat on her hands.

“Well?” DeRosier said.

“Yes, that’s correct. It’s against Guild policy to share that information, especially with any kind of governing body.”

“I see,” DeRosier said. “Mr. DaSilva, when you were in Mexico three years ago, fighting a… Chupacabra?”

“A chupacabra.”

“Yes, a chupacabra, did you bother to alert the police?”

“No.”

“And consequently, four cops died responding to a call you couldn’t get to in time.”

Joshua nodded, then shed a single stoic tear.

“And Mr. Jeong-”

“It’s true, all of it,” Quentin said, hanging his head, his long black hair falling in front of his face. “I’ve failed to live up to my own honor trying to live up to the honor of the Guild, to maintain its byzantine policies-”

“Byzantine?” Alice sneered.

“Byzantine seems an apt word,” DeRosier said, “Keep going.”

“At least one member of the Los Angeles Police Department should have been made aware of what I was doing before I raided that Striga’s nest in Torrance.”

“I thought you said nobody died in that one?” Gwen said.

“Nobody did. Except the Striga. But the raid was in a crowded area, and half the neighborhood was detained, interrogated, or in a few cases arrested for my illegal actions. I saw the consequences of my behavior and I left before I could be held accountable.”

“You saved lives,” DeRosier said. “All of you did. But there was a cost. And you know all about that, don’t you, Ms. Albrecht?”

Gwen placed her palms flat on the table, stared directly ahead, and breathed out through her nose.

“Now, Ms. Albrecht, there’s a record of you taking a stay at a rehab facility in Wyoming about five years ago. You checked yourself in, stayed for a full year, and then broke out in the middle of the night rather than transition to the sober living outpatient facility normally recommended. There are no records of you… Anywhere, really, prior to that, and you vanished right back into the aether afterwards. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Gwen said, shame leaking out her mouth.

“Are you aware of what happened at that rehab facility two years ago?”

Gwen shut her eyes, gathered her fingers into fists. Her head grew heavy and her breath laborious. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not, but I’m gonna tell you anyway,” DeRosier said with a shrug of his shoulders. “It was attacked by what you people call ghouls. The place was reduced to ash and dust. All the patients’ and staffers’ bodies were never found.”

“They ate them,” Gwen said. “I knew them, and they… Ate them.”

“My condolences,” DeRosier said. “Truly. But I need to ask you about one more incident: the one in Alaska, fifteen years ago.”

Gwen’s fingers uncurled. Quentin and Joshua looked at her with concern, and Alice with confusion.

DeRosier began rewinding his tape. “Okay, here’s the deal: we’re willing to drop a lot of charges against you fine folk if you help us out here. This threat from the Sovereignty is bigger than any screw-ups you’ve committed in the past: we’re willing to clean your proverbial slates. But you need to come clean, all of you, about your activities with the Damocles Guild, or you’re all under arrest. And that starts with telling us about the Alaska incident, because a whole lot of it seems to lead back to that. So, Ms. Albrecht, why don’t you start?”

Gwen exhaled, a vortex of anxiety and guilt spiraling inside her. “Why don’t you just call me Gwen. We’re gonna be working together, after all.”