Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] by Nick Pollotta Read Free Book Online

to reveal the huge ungainly M60 machine rifle in his trained grip. The shiny belt of linked ammunition dangling from the breech mechanism of the huge weapon shrank with alarming speed, as the heavy duty .30 combat rounds chewed a path of destruction through the attacking foliage.
    A prismatic blur, Mindy's sword was out, the long blade flashing with rainbow eagerness. A tree branch thrust close to her and withdrew as kindling. Jessica's camera sprayed pneumatic death at the Spanish Moss. Father Donaher's shotgun boomed a hellstorm of hot lead; blowing away bushes, destroying daisies and pulverizing pansies.
    "...!” Raul shouted in the secret language of mages, and a howling blizzard of ice and snow began blasting from the business end of his wizard's staff.
    "...!” Katrina added as volcanic flames poured from her own wand.
    In deadly harmony, the two mages went back-to-back, and turning round each other, overlapped the area-effect zone of their spells. Soon, the nearby greenery was reduced to charred ice statues and dirty snow, with only a muddy band of steaming bare ground encircling our group..
    As the rest of the forest rustled its leaves in unbridled anger, we caught our breaths. Whew. I'd heard about planting a trap, but ... trapping the plants?
    "Thank you, Lawn Doctor Mengele,” I said saluting.
    Flushed with excitement, Raul smiled. “No prob, chief-a-roo."
    "My pleasure, comrade,” Katrina said, firing a miniature Lightning Bolt at a suspicious hunk of honeysuckle. The plant fried and dropped the rusty nail it had been hiding behind its stalk.
    While reloading my Magnums, I noted that my Bureau sunglasses gave no Kirlian aura reading off these ambulatory plants. There was no white for good, black for evil, green for magic. Nothing! Maybe botanical life was too primitive to register.
    "This was a trap,” Father Donaher stated, ramming fresh shells into his shotgun. “If the plants had been simply trying to get food, they would have attacked the instant Mindy was among them."
    "Instead, they waited for the lot of us,” I shivered. Swell.
    After cleaning some sap off my sunglasses, I adjusted the focus and gave the combat zone a fast once over. While the brunt of the dense forest separated us from the van, there was only scattered bushes between here to Hadleyville. No details of the place were clearly visible at this range. Just buildings and houses. Interestingly, not a person was running this way to find out what the firefight had been about. Not very surprising. We had already surmised that nobody was alive, or at least conscious, in the village. Could the plants have attacked the cars on the highway?
    "Should we go back for the RV?” Jessica asked, screwing a telephoto lens onto her camera.
    Scornfully,, Mindy curled lip. “Retreat? Never!"
    A tiny meteor shooting across his starry chest, Raul proffered his wristwatch. “I can call Amigo, and have him bring the van to us."
    "The way that lizard drives?” George scoffed, working the bolt on his banjo to clear a jammed round. “No thanks. We're safer with the plants."
    "Besides,” Jessica added, “his license is expired."
    "Priority one is getting to Hadleyville,” I reminded, stomping on a dandelion trying to get up my pants leg. “If there are any survivors trapped, they may need immediate evac and medical help."
    "Hey, Kathi, can you conjure some military defoliant?” George asked, removing the tape from the handle of a thermite grenade clipped to his belt. I approved. The time for subtly was over.
    Lovingly, Katrina caressed the short soldier's grim face, making his expression noticeable soften. Ah, young lust. Messy, but romantic.
    " Da, babushka ,” she purred. “But maybe can do better than that. How far is to town?"
    "Hadleyville? About half a mile."
    Katrina and Raul started mumbling to themselves in that secret wizard way that only lawyers in a courtroom could duplicate.
    "You've never done it before,” Raul warned.
    She shrugged. “