Deader Still by Anton Strout Page A

seen several dogs at the site. Animal familiars of the creature or shape-shifting into wolf form, perhaps?”
    “Well,” the Inspectre said, “your last point seems a bit of a stretch, but I think we can count the blood loss and puncture wounds as two separate things, so you still have three points.”
    I took a brief minute to tell him what Davidson, Connor, and I had discovered on the boat while the rest of the agents and higher-ups gathered closer. I felt like I was sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories, only this was a lot more intimidating.
    When I finished, there was a moment of office-wide silence.
    “So,” I said, trying to hide the nervousness in my voice, “do we gear up? Is there some roomful of vampire-slaying equipment that we get to break out?”
    Connor came over and clapped me on the shoulder. “Easy, kid.”
    The Inspectre said, “The Department of Extraordinary Affairs takes an alert like this very seriously, but there’s a lot of red tape and paperwork to put in downtown. We haven’t mobilized something like this in well over two years.”
    “Paperwork?” I spluttered. “With all due respect, sir, people are going to die if we don’t move on this quickly.”
    “The kid’s right, Inspectre,” Connor added.
    The Inspectre looked at Connor for a second, then turned back to me, staring straight at me and speaking in a deliberate tone.
    “Perhaps the two of us should take this off the office floor,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but an order barely veiled in politeness. Before I had a chance to respond, he turned away from me and headed back toward the stairs leading up to his office. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea. He stopped for a moment without turning and said, “I believe you all have assignments you were working on … ?”
    The spell of silence broke and everyone scattered to the four corners of the office—everyone except Director Wesker, who took the time to shake his head at me in disappointment before heading off to Greater & Lesser Arcana. No one stopped to ask me questions. A few of the White Stripes—the agents whose exposure to paranormal activity had left them with skunklike stripes in their hair—stopped to whisper with Connor for a second, but then they left and the two of us were alone at the base of the ladder.
    “Well, that was anticlimactic,” I said. “I guess we should be getting upstairs.”
    Connor shook his head. “Not me, kid. The Inspectre’s invitation, in case you didn’t notice, was very pointedly for one.”
    My heart leapt into my throat. “But we’re both on this case. You’ve got more experience with these things …”
    “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said with bitterness. I watched his face close off from me, and I wished I had something to say that might help, but I was at a loss. “Somehow I think this has something to do with your special little club …”
    The Fraternal Order of Goodness. I should have thought of that myself. No wonder Connor seemed upset. He was far less bitter than Thaddeus Wesker about being passed over for F.O.G., but it was a minor point of contention between us.
    “Whatever,” I said, and headed upstairs to find the Inspectre. He stood behind his dark oak monster of a desk, his hands resting lightly on top of two stacks of paperwork.
    “Close the door behind you, please?” he said, his voice concentrated yet quiet.
    As I shut the door, I couldn’t help but get that whole summoned-to-the-principal’s-office vibe. By the time Inspectre Quimbley gestured for me to have a seat in one of the big leather chairs opposite him, I felt like a third-grader.
    “I suppose you’re feeling like I dressed you down a little there,” the Inspectre said. He sat down himself and shifted one of the piles of paper crowding his desk out of the way so I could see him better.
    “A little, sir, yes.”
    “Perhaps you think I acted a little less enthused than you would have liked?” he